Chaos;Head, Episode #01 – “Dark moe extravaganza”

This show is mine, betch.

Well, where to start? I have so many good things to say about this episode and I am so excited to follow this series that I haven't a clue where to begin. I watched it in several five minute snippets while rushing back and forth from the kitchen to cook my hangover breakfast (what a night!), practically trembling with excitement after each installment. The aptly named Chaos;Head is a maniacal muddle of humdrum Japanese high school student life, twisted murder, and most importantly, EXTREME MOE-INDUCED PSYCHOLOGICAL OTAKU-DELUSIONS! Best of all is that we never quite know which mode is at work at any given time, which fractured lens we are viewing the world through. The directing is fantastic, and fluctuates between extreme moods so eagerly and effortlessly that a golden-haired beauty like Kusunoki Yua could babble on about Seira-tan one moment and shake fifteen blades out of her skirt under a crimson glare the next, without seeming the slightest bit out of place. Never has that ‘moe moe smile’ looked so delectably sinister.

[WARNING: I've had one complaint already, so beware -- spoilers abound.]

From the pits of Otaku Hell.

Summary: If I don’t have a clue what’s going on, how can I possibly be expected to summarize! Nevermind, let’s start with the basics: Nishijou Takumi is a moe-obsessed hikkikomori high school sophomore who inhabits in a dingy metal shack atop the roof of a high-rise, surrounded by empty Coke bottles and Seira-chan merchandise. He sits long hours hunched over his HD computer monitor watching anime, playing games and Netsurfing. He is the ultimate otaku Loser, and has receded so far into the cavernous depths of his perverse imagination that he regularly has psychotic hallucinations, many of which somehow involve the incorrigible (and generously-endowed) Seira-chan, who always seems to be cheering him out of an apathetic funk or dragging him out of bed to go to school. Things get very interesting when the mastermind behind a series of grotesque local murders (who Takumi had accidentally discovered burying the final knife into her latest victim) turns out to be an attractive young transfer student that looks disturbing similar to Seira-chan. Why does she know his name? What does she want from him!?

Review: “Those eyes… whose are they?”, is not only Takumi’s signature utterance, but seems to capture the very essence of the show. We never know exactly whose eyes we are viewing the unfolding of these strange events through. Chaos;Head opens with a scene of Takumi laying in the middle of a catastrophic pile of rubble in the rain, his distant gaze suggesting paralysis...? Grave fatigue? Perhaps the dwindling sputters of life that precede death? Takumi narrates a time-displaced monologue about a world where “only the two of us” exist, as a pink-haired girl in school garb kneels to kiss him while holding a massive blade to his chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Intro.

It would be reasonable to conclude that the remainder of the episode is an extended flashback; reasonable, to assume that the chronology will eventually work its way up to the time of the introductory scenes. Problem is, we are not dealing with a *reasonable* show here. Considering the way Seira-chan tries to wake "Taki" and get him to go to class (with bouncy J-Poptronica fistpumping in the background), or the way Takumi's garden-variety classmate Misumi smacks on the shoulder and reports his latest efforts to capture all the girls in his class while he sits hunched over a desk in room 2-C, one would almost expect a 'normal' slice of life to ensue... until we realize that Seira-chan is the diseased outgrowth of his supersaturated imagination, and that the weird tune accompanying the classroom scene hints (if not assures) that 'normal' life will provide no such retreat from the insanity. (I can almost hear the director chuckling.) Takumi sweats profusely from uninterrupted torrents of neurosis, mumbles to himself, constantly compares his daily life to an eroge, thinks perverted thoughts about his sister, triumphs gleefully in video games -- all from the suffocatingly comfortable enclosure of his otaku-box apartment. This dude is a Class-S NUT, so unbelievably over-the-edge in his otakuness that he has transcended the outer limits of depravity and reached some kind of impenetrable, folded-space character archetype that I can only clumsily describe as 'otaku-moe'. (Limit: one per series.)

The killer.

Misumi quickly changes the topic to the New-Gene(ration) murders happening in Shibuya. He continues to pester him about it over chat once Takumi is back home. With new information to worry over and a chilling chat conversation that will reveal pictures of the next murder, the dramatic mood shifts seamlessly away from school business back to the basket case zigzags of Takumi's thoughts, as though they were bouncing off the walls of his stuffy apartment like three-dimensional Pong balls. When Takumi discovers the identity of the New-Gene killer, things take an unexpected twist. Outwardly, of course, it is a mindfuck. But more significant to me were the psychological implications of his discovery. The borders between Takumi's imagination and reality are beginning to shift in unprecedented and frightening ways, as his hallucinatory idol seemingly incarnates as a bloodstained avatar that knows his name and confesses that she "wanted to meet him" (she looks like Seira-chan, doesn't she?) In addition, we are fed subtle hints that a dangerous network of moe (Nanami, Yua, the killer, and the blue-haired girl?) have surrounded Takumi and are beginning to circle closer. If three-dimensional women frighten him, threaten him, then he must be absolutely terrified.

This scene was pure genius.

If we were to dissect the show (assuming that Episode #01 is an accurate augury of things to come), and examine its component pieces, we would find that each is strong in its own right. The music is diverse, yet never strays far from the comically insane undertones that tie it into the meat of the show, even in the most lighthearted moments. The animation is gorgeous in terms of color, contrast, style and balance. The directing is superb, making clever use of simple but spontaneous cinematographic tricks to delicately adjust the mood of a particular scene (e.g. minimizing Takumi's visual dominance during bloody encounters, or skillfully reusing a still to introduce school scenes, or shifting between shots of Yua's and Takumi's feet while maintaining precisely the same gait in the scene where he realizes she is following him.) But what has impressed me most about Chaos;Head is that each of these aspects operates in near-perfect unison. As a coordinated effort, the show seems to give equal balance to visual, contextual, and aural elements, the result of which is a juggernaut first episode that pleases in almost every way possible and is definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY worth replaying. Chaos;Head is off to a strong start, and sets the bar high. Let's hope #02 does not disappoint.

Verdict: B+/A-, and I will definitely be blogging this.

Impz on Understanding The Delusional State of Takumi

To end off Maipeisu's excellent entry, I have invited myself to this entry in order to present the true delusional behavior of Takumi. This will be a very serious continual editorial to understand the true delusion of Takumi. It is also to strengthen and build up the logical hints of confusion into a state of instability and chaos. It's time for the true chaos: Understanding the delusional state of Takumi and Chaos;Head.

Key Case #1

The surface issue is to debate whether Takumi has a younger sister. I bet most of you have not thought beyond how he tried to sexualize his younger sister. Considering how fake the sister is (I mean, a stereotypical genki young sister with an otaku elder brother), I believe that it is in fact a delusional thought by Takumi to imagine a younger sister that is annoying. In the near future, he will start realizing that she is in fact a non-blood sister and starts to find her moe. Eventually, he will create the first delusional virtual reality world where he has 1055 clones of Level 6 younger sisters who can conjure balls of electricity and the 1056th clone is the one who looks like a 300 pound Girl Saurus.

If we dig in deeper, there is in fact a sublime delusion that aims to affect us in real life. That is in fact a conspiracy by Coca Cola to usurp the control of Pepsi in the oriental country of Japan. Despite the great popularity of Coca Cola in Japan, it is said that one of the rare population groups that have not taken on the brainwashing is the otaku group. The otaku group has generally went up in arms after realizing that Coca Cola is the mastermind that has orchestrated the creation of a stereotype known as retarded moe, aiding in the development of Soul Link (*the greatest anime show that is strangely and wrongly hated by 99% of all anime viewers*) and the delay of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Key Case #2

This is in fact a quicktime event where he has forgotten to press the X button within 3 seconds at the top right of the screen. If you notice, that X button is the key to getting 100% completion in the game, "How to click off stupid and ridiculous chain letters.", a cult hit among the spamming population. In fact, it has hit triple platinum recently and has sparked a fresh debate whether to make the 195th sequel.

Moreover, anyone can tell you that the image is photoshopped. Yet, is it really a photoshopped image that is blatantly fake? Being a conscientious viewer, this is where the confusion comes. It is actually a photoshop image after not being photoshopped. Try to figure that complex psychological fallacy created by the brilliant mind of Takumi.

Key Case #3

Have you heard of the show called Truman Show? It is a series about a salesman where his life is in fact a TV show. This is in fact the complexity of Takumi's life as his parents has sold their son to the secretive media known as the "OOC" - The Obsessive Otaku-loving Community. This OOC has some of the most influential members of society, whose main aim is to broadcast the confusion of otakus when they have scenes straight from various games.

This is in fact a scene re-created by the OOC to see how Takumi will react to a killing that is from a visual novel known as Chaos;Head. In fact, the OOC spent a million dollars on the cosmetics and special CG effects to appear real to Takumi. Moreover, they also spent two hundred thousand yen to make the advertisement sound like a news piece in order to make it great. Of course, everyone but Takumi knows about this, and is a secret subscriber to "The Takumi Show: Your life is ruined when you watch this."

Key Case #4

If you think that this is in fact a delusion, you are wrong. It is a delusion to think that it is a delusion because delusions which are so easily delusional are obviously not delusional unless you do not believe that it is a delusion. Try to figure that simple delusion problem.

For those that are lazy, the truth is that Takumi is already dead after being killed by this killer bishoujo of hell. She is in fact known in the otaku circle as Sena the murderous Aoi for her ability to kill otakus using female figurines of the rarest order. She usually tangles it around their face after binding them with her ninjutsu, making them lose blood from profuse nose bleeding until they die in extreme agony.

Key Case #5

The bikini is a lie. She is naked.