THAT Animeblog

Sena: 1, Fatboy: 0.

(Apparently, WordPress hates my guts. I apologize if you have seen this post appear and disappear from the front page multiple times, but I promise this is the final version. At any rate, on with it!) I hate to drop spoilers at the beginning, but a meteoric epiphany slammed into my brain when Sena destroyed the illusion generator. Now don’t get me wrong, her Di-Sword limit break totally slays, but I’m not talking about Sena-sama’s cool moves; I’m talking about the exposed circuitry. After what seems like ages of confusion, six simple letters brought it all clanging into place: NOZOMI (dun, dun, DUUUUUUUN!)

Yea, yea, so they planned it like that. So what! Just because my understanding has been piecing together precisely the way the writers and director intended does not lessen the brilliance of the freshly-illuminated light bulb in my head. Indeed, it was a glorious moment. And while we are on the topic of glorious moments, anyone who happened to read my Touryanse editorial can now add another bold-faced submission to the list of pop culture references I pulled from Wikipedia. I nearly shat my pants at the end of this episode.

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IKARI-KUN!

I knew from the very beginning the moment would arrive when this anime would bust out the ’science and progress’ like so many anime are prone to do. It didn’t dilute the mystery by explaining everything away, though. I’m actually thinking it will make the story even more twisted now that we know the Matrix a high-tech contraption is creating the delusions by utilizing Shibuya’s dense pockets of G-Errate… err, something like that. I could ask you not to quote me on this, but seeing how this is a blog…

Random highlights: The Di-Sword was holy space-time-ripping AWESOME. Taku gets two thumbs down for buying that embarrassing cosplay accessory. Ayase looks like Ayanami Rei philosophizing in that indigo swimsuit in the underground tunnel. I don’t care that her hair color is one-trillionth of a shade different, I will not forgive contemporary anime for emitting Eva vibes like a foul smell. Kozue’s random acts of moeness were unbearably cute, but you can’t trust anyone these days. And I’m really starting to wonder if that Gero dude is foreshadowing something. Maybe there’s like, a Gero-Sword.

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Of course Phantasm made "whose eyes are those" into the latest craze.

The trouble with series that have overarching plots is that unless the story is a complete nuisance, they are hard to put down! There is no turning back now. I’ve got to know what happens to Taku next at all costs. It’s time for me to strap myself up and get ready for the long haul, because I just felt the opportune time - the time when I could have gracefully dropped Chaos;HEAd before becoming too involved - brush gently by and slip away for good.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not griping because I want to drop C;H. Quite the opposite. I am lamenting the confusion this episode left in my hands, and trying to figure out how to endure another week without answers to my burning questions. This wasn’t quite a troll episode (Geass has got a monopoly on those), but at the same time it forced me to toss out a lot of my hypotheses about where C;H is headed, mostly guesses about who the good guys and bad guys are. Is it harem versus Taku? Harem plus Taku versus New Gene murderer? Bah. Hell if I know!

The appearance of the ‘real’ Shogun threw me for a bit of a loop. That scene in the empty metropolis reminded of Ichigo’s psycho-spiritual encounters with Zangetsu in Bleach, so I don’t know whether to assume that Shogun is a personality ‘within’ Takumi (like Seira) or an altogether separate character. Aside from that little tidbit, the harem is my main source of confusion. They have all neatly congregated in Shibuya, but as to their intent… who can say?

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When Harems Attack, Part III

And just when Takki thought it was safe to leave the shipping container and bump elbows with the 3-Ds! Actually, Taku makes a surprisingly levelheaded decision for being such a doofus. He checks himself into the local hospital for a psychiatric examination. That’s right, he thinks he’s crazy. Wonder what would give him THAT idea?

Taku is not crazy. My reasoning? Exhibit A: He is at least sane enough to step back and realize that he has specific moments that feel like utter, bottomless insanity. If he recognizes that he is going crazy, then he is not totally crazy, at least not yet. Exhibit B: Taku only goes into the hospital to check on a certain part of his sanity. He only wants to know that the little part of the human mind that makes sure we all don’t go around hanging unsuspecting sarariman up with wimbled crosses and forgetting about it afterward is intact. He mentions nothing about Seira, who goes out of her way to make an entrance on his hospital bed decked out in nurse cosplay. He just wants to know that he isn’t the one committing those horrible murders.

Then again, maybe he’s so batshit that he only he thinks he’s partially insane, when in fact, he is about as far off the deep end as one can get. Maybe he IS the one committing the murders. Maybe there is a reason that Yua is busy researching dissociative personality disorders. When a buxom harem shows up toting gigantic, fantastical swords and insinuates that a poor, helpless loogey of a NEET is going to bring about the destruction of the world, you know *something* has got to be up. Let us scrutinize the otaku in question. Sorry for the late post; was waiting for m.3.3.w. subs, as requested ^_^;

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Zero to moe in six seconds flat.

C;H #01 made it clear that (o)Taku suffers from serious delusions — there’s no doubt about that. What remains unclear is when we are being shown another delusion and when we are being craftily fed the truth. There was some speculation that the murder scene in the first episode was another delusion — but I never bought that. I could not buy that. I would demand the precious, wasted seconds of my life back from Madhouse if the central premise of the story turned out to be a big, fat, steaming lie (::Maipeisu proceeds to bludgeon himself to death with a series of convulsive facepalms::). No, no, no — that would be the troll way out.

But what of the opposite extreme? Are Taku’s grandiloquent fantasies simply there to help define his character? Will they lose significance as the series progresses, to make way for the gruesome facts of the central plot? Or will Taku’s psychological interpretation of the New Gene murders prove to be just as important as the murders themselves? As episode two continues to integrate his delusions into its piecemeal unveiling of the truth, we find that there’s a bit (okay, a lot) more to Taku’s wild imagination than meets the eye. The plot thickens…

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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.]

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