Series Review: Chaos;Head
Nishijou Takumi is a loser. He is a useless hikkikomori and otaku, who lives in a big metal shed and has no interest in real women. Outside his box, Shibuya is being plagued by violent murders lovingly called “New Gen” events. One evening, a user calling himself ‘Shogun’ messages Takumi with links to gruesome images, supposedly of the next New Gen murder. The next day, he witnesses the same murder from the images being perpetrated by a young high school girl. After fleeing the scene and running back to his box, he heads to school the next day to find said girl is suddenly a student in his class, and apparently always has been.
The first few episodes of Chaos;Head were awesome. The story had enough to keep me gripped and opened enough questions, mysteries, paranoia and blood to keep any drama/horror fan happy. But then it kind of starts to suck hard. (for the record, I have yet to play the game)
While it’s supposed to be an “lol creepy harem” anime, all of the girls were painfully one dimensional and boring. Everyone’s backgrounds were predictable. You have Aoi Sena, the girl who swears revenge against her backstabbing father; Kusunoki Yua, an amateur detective whos sister was involved in the first New Gen event; Orihara Kozue, a transfer student who only talks via telepathy; Kishimoto Ayase, a singer in a goth rock band who is even crazier than Takumi; and finally Sakihata Rimi, the heroine of the anime. She is apparently trying to assist ‘Shogun’ by keeping an eye on Takumi, to make sure Takumi doesn’t find out that he is only a delusion created by Shogun, who is the “real” Takumi. Their overall objective is to destroy Noah II, a machine created by an evil corporation called Nozomi to control people’s minds via delusions. Noah II was created by taking people with abilities to control people’s delusions–called Gigalomaniacs–and stealing a part of their power, combining them into a super weapon. All of the girls involved with Takumi are Gigalomaniacs, and they all have special weapons–called Di-swords–that only other Gigalomaniacs can see.
A lot of crazy technobabble terms are used in the anime to explain what’s going on in Shibuya. GE-Rate? IR2? magical human controlling machinery? Imagining colours? Nothing was really explained so much as having information thrown at you in the form of analogies. I had no idea what was going on half the time with Noah II or any of the characters. I vaguely understood the idea of transmitting particles or something into people’s “blind spots” to make individuals (or groups) see something that wasn’t really there. But, for the most part, I was watching episodes with a raised eyebrow saying “what?”
Another problem is Takumi: he spends 11 episodes being a gigantic pussy, and suddenly come episode 12 he can fully control his “powers”, has his Di-sword (which he absolutely could not obtain before, even under similar circumstances), and has become very sharp and badass. He also copes with finding out he is a big fat fake pretty well.. I’d probably break shit and commit a few major crimes if I found out I was a delusion. Also, why does he live in a container box? How does he get wireless access in there? How does he cook, shower, go to the bathroom? Unless he’s an astronaut and poops in a bag.
The animation was pretty inconsistent, too. Some episodes looked great, while others looked awful. The background animation was great, however. The ending theme made me want to kill myself every time I heard it. Although all of the background music was pretty kickass.
While I think Chaos;Head could of been great, trying to cram so much information into only 12 episodes just wasn’t working out. A lot of loose ends were left untied and characters received the minimum amount of development necessary; even Rimi, the main heroine, was left in the dust. Why was she so adamant to protect the real Takumi? What kind of experiments did Nozomi conduct on her for two years? Why does she salute constantly? Unless, holy crap, maybe she’s Wolverine and has participated in every single major war, and Nozomi Company took her to put adamantium in her body.. and Takumi is her lover she thought was murdered?? Oh god, Rimi did Three Mile Island.
I enjoyed Chaos;Head’s horror and mystery aspects, but not any of it’s harem or comedy factors. I’m probably going to play the game sometime in the next 50 years, as an english translation is out.