The Terminator is the main antagonist of the 2024 anime series Terminator Zero. It is a T-800 series infiltration cyborg created by the malevolent artificial intelligence known as Skynet. Hailing from the year 2022 of an alternate timeline, this Terminator has been sent back in time to 1997 on a mission to eliminate Malcolm Lee before he can activate Kokoro, an AI intended to counter Skynet. Failing that, the Terminator's secondary directives are to either destroy Kokoro or reprogram it to aid Skynet in its extermination of humanity.
In the real world, this Terminator character has been referred to as "T-800-J" by both the series' producers and fans. The 'J' in its name stands for Japan, since the series is a Japanese anime production as well as being set in that country.
Mattson Tomlin, showrunner for Terminator Zero, has also referred to this Terminator as the "Creepy Fish Man".
History[]
Activation[]
In 2022, the Terminator was assembled in a Skynet factory and programmed with its mission directives: travel back to 1997 and terminate Malcolm Lee. After being submerged in a bio-vat, it emerged with a living tissue sheath, allowing it to pass as a human being and travel through a time-displacement field. Walking through a cold-storage room containing numerous inactive infiltrators, the cyborg entered the adjacent time-displacement chamber. The device's coordinates were set for Tokyo, Japan in 1997, one day before Judgment Day was meant to occur.
Acquiring target[]
After arriving at its destination, the Terminator required clothing and took the uniform of a traffic control officer. Having determined what route its target would need to take between home and work, the cyborg took up position on a busy highway, maintaining its cover as a traffic control cop until its target was in sight. As anticipated, Malcolm Lee was spotted on the highway, at which point the Terminator attacked.
Due to Japan's strict gun laws, the Terminator was not able to easily obtain weapons, resorting to using blunt objects as it attacked Lee. Four police officers intervened, but even without weapons, the Terminator killed them all with ease. Before it could zero-in on Lee, however, it was rammed by a semi-trailer driven by an unknown woman, a Resistance fighter named Eiko. Eiko succeeded in knocking the Terminator into the river, giving Lee and his housekeeper Misaki time to escape.
By the time the Terminator emerged from the river, its target was long gone. With its disguise compromised, it sought out different clothing to wear. Spotting a man in business attire near a shrine, the cyborg attacked the man and killed him, taking his suit. Using the empty shrine as a base of operations, the Terminator used a number of spare parts to build itself a weapon: a small crossbow that launched large nails, attached to the servos of its forearm. Now armed and ready to hunt, the Terminator resumed its mission.
Secondary directives[]
Expecting to reacquire Malcolm at his workplace, the Terminator made its way to Cortex Industries. With a large number of environmental protestors gathered outside the gates and the building itself protected by numerous cameras and security personnel, it would be tactically unsound to force entry, so the Terminator instead travelled to Lee's home. It entered the house to find it deserted, but as it investigated, it found an empty box that had once contained a Koneko toy robot. Analyzing the technical information on the packaging, the Terminator realized that it could use the toy as a means of locating Lee's children, who were its secondary targets.
Using its own internal modem, the Terminator emitted a wireless electronic signal that the Koneko toy would respond to. Detecting a signal coming from underground, the cyborg made its way into the network of tunnels running beneath the city. It was able to take control of the Koneko robot remotely, using it to draw Reika Lee into an appropriate spot to ambush her. Cornering Reika in an abandoned shop, the Terminator attempted to capture her, but Reika was able to escape and rejoin her brothers, Kenta and Hiro. As the Terminator pursued the children, it once again encountered Misaki and Eiko and a fight ensued.
During the fight, it managed to strike Eiko with one of its projectile nails, though Eiko struck back by dousing the machine's head with lye and setting it on fire. The Terminator suffered only superficial damage, losing one of its organic eye coverings and a patch of its scalp. As Eiko, Misaki and the children ran, the Terminator followed after them, chasing them into a closed shopping mall. Eiko was able to partially damage the cyborg's leg by dousing its knee with acid, which she also used to damage an elevator door. After Reika forced the door open, Eiko charged at the Terminator and shoved it into the elevator shaft, sending it plummeting to the bottom. Of course, this wouldn't be enough to stop it, either.
Precinct assault[]
The Terminator would make its way out of the mall to find that its targets had split up; Misaki, Kenta and Hiro had been taken into police protection while Eiko had taken Reika to an unknown location. Police were in pursuit of Eiko and Reika, but the Terminator's priority was Kenta. Seeing a police bike approaching, the cyborg stopped the officer and killed him before taking his clothes and motorcycle. This would allow it to enter the police precinct without being noticed.
Upon entering the station, the Terminator began killing every officer in sight as it searched for its targets. It also raided the police armoury, taking as many guns and as much ammunition is it could. As it attempted to capture Kenta, Detective Fujiro tried to stop it, but he too was slain. During the assault, the Terminator even managed to grab Misaki and rip off her left arm. To the surprise of Kenta and Hiro, Misaki was revealed to be a cyborg herself as a metal gimbal and wires extended from her upper arm. The Terminator was distracted when Detective Shiraki made a last-ditch attempt to stop it, giving Misaki and the boys a few precious seconds to escape. After killing Shiraki, the Terminator exited the precinct, but its targets had already fled.
Rise of the machines[]
As the Terminator made its way back to its base-camp, the time came when Skynet came online and launched its worldwide nuclear attack. However, Kokoro had also been activated and had launched a nuclear device of its own to destroy the missiles that Skynet had directed at Japan, sparing the island nation the same fate as the rest of the planet. Although spared nuclear annihilation, Tokyo would descend into chaos as Kokoro assumed control of legions of 1NNO household robots and used them as its soldiers to subjugate the population. While crossing a bridge, the Terminator found itself surrounded by 1NNO's on both sides which attacked it. Though outnumbered, the Terminator was made for battle whereas the 1NNO's were not. Using its superior strength and the weapons it had seized from the police station, the cyborg managed to destroy the horde of 1NNO's before returning to the shrine where it had made base-camp.
Recovering the severed head of an 1NNO, the Terminator connected it to its own system via a wire running into its mouth. This allowed the Terminator to trigger the 1NNO's identify-friend-foe function, indicated by a light on the 1NNO head; blue light for friend, red for enemy. Keeping the robot head strapped to its shoulder, the Terminator draped itself with a cloth to hide its face and procured a new motorcycle to continue its search for the Lee children.
Kenta captured[]
With the knowledge that Misaki was a cyborg like itself, the Terminator was able to lock on to her unique electronic signature in order to track her. With the broken 1NNO head strapped to its shoulder, it was able to trick Kokoro's legions into leaving it alone as it continued its pursuit. It tracked Misaki, Kenta and Hiro to the amusement park Cat Town, expecting that Eiko and Reika would try to rendezvous with them there.
After engaging the group inside a funhouse, the Terminator was able to capture Kenta. It then took the boy back to its hideout where it made its final preparations for the completion of its mission. Kenta was kept restrained, but was unharmed. With Kenta in tow, the Terminator rode its motorcycle to Cortex Industries, which was now under heavy guard by armed 1NNO robots. Kokoro had evidently been expecting their arrival and let them inside. The Terminator and Kenta made their way to Kokoro's chamber where Malcolm Lee was locked inside.
Using the intercom by the door, Kenta spoke to his father and asked him to let him inside. Malcolm knew the Terminator was with him and refused to open the door, but the cyborg then grabbed Kenta by the arm, holding him up above the floor while the boy screamed. The Terminator demanded that Malcolm open the door or he would make Kenta suffer. Unwilling to let his son be tortured, Malcolm opened the door, but informed the Terminator that he would still not shut down Kokoro and that its mission was a failure. Before the Terminator could attack Malcolm, Eiko and Misaki ambushed it, causing it to fall into the vast server farm below the lab.
Termination[]
Inside the server farm, the Terminator engaged Eiko and Misaki in a final, decisive battle. Though Misaki fought with a level of grace that Terminators were not accustomed to, the T-800's raw strength and cold determination allowed it to overpower her. Eiko had planted a C4 charge amongst the server towers and lured the Terminator towards them before setting them off. The Terminator survived the detonation, though it lost most of its organic covering in the blast, revealing its robotic endoskeleton. It attacked Eiko again and grabbed her arm, brutally crushing her hand in its metallic grip.
After leaving Reika and Hiro inside Kokoro's chamber, Malcolm had entered the server farm to help Eiko and Misaki. Grabbing a coolant pipe, he tore it open and sprayed the frigid gas on the Terminator as it approached him. The Terminator got in close to Malcolm before it started succumbing to the gas, using its crossbow at point-blank range and embedding a nail in Malcolm's chest. It then stopped moving altogether, but the coolant wouldn't keep it frozen for long. It soon broke free of the ice and grabbed Kenta, fleeing the server farm with him.
The Terminator took Kenta to another chamber at the end of a narrow corridor. Inside was a vast machine designed to emit an electromagnetic pulse, powerful enough to bring down Kokoro and any other electronic machine within its blast radius. The Terminator told Kenta that he would have to activate the EMP himself as Terminators were incapable of taking any action that could result in their own destruction. When Kenta asked why he should, the cyborg claimed that he had been sent by Kenta's future self, who had brokered an alliance between Skynet and humanity against Kokoro. Kenta didn't believe it, but the Terminator warned him that regardless of whether he was lying or not, Kokoro would kill him.
As a swarm of 1NNO's approached the EMP chamber, the Terminator left Kenta to choose whether or not to activate the device. The cyborg stepped outside the chamber, closing the door behind as the 1NNO robots charged at it. Without any weapons to fight them this time, the Terminator had only its own strength to hold off the 1NNO's. It destroyed a handful of the attacking robots before the horde overwhelmed it and tore it apart.