Ranked #1454

ChäoS;HEAd

ChäoS;HEAd is an anime that jumps on the psychological murder mystery bandwagon only to fall right off.

The straight and narrow: the recluse Takumi, who is an otaku hikikomori, receives a link online to a picture detailing the grotesque murder of an unidentified man. Takumi is appalled, and decides to ignore it. The following day, he comes across the exact crime scene he saw in the picture. Very soon, he starts suspecting everything and everyone around him. He gets paranoid. Who sent him the link online? Who are these strange girls who suddenly have interest in him? Why did he get a picture of a murder that hadn't even taken place as yet? Soon, Takumi can't trust anyone and eventually realises that he can't even trust himself. There is a pretty good set-up for the anime, but it quickly falls apart.

The first problem with this torture-filled gore-fest is the lack of sympathy for what is seen. The more successful anime in this genre know how to play with the viewers' emotions. They understand that the blood and gore and torture has a more resounding effect if it happens to a character the audience cares about. ChäoS;HEAd ignores this. For the most part, horrible deaths await characters who are rarely given a name and hardly given a face. This anime pretty much fails from the get-go to involve the viewer emotionally and mentally, and this is exactly what anime of this sort are supposed to do.

In terms of the subtlety of delivering the plot, ChäoS;HEAd is like a giant rat stomping through your kitchen at night gnawing away loudly at a hunk of smelly cheese. There is no subtlety. There are the typical 'I'm up to something' grins, the 'I'm watching you' glares, and the 'You have it coming to you' growls. What happened to leading the viewer astray? Am I supposed to think this is a thriller? Thrill me! Don't make me figure out the plot by the fourth episode.

Another problem is that the storyline doesn't seem to know exactly what story it wants to tell. The first half pans out as a supernatural murder mystery and then the second half shifts gears abruptly, turning the anime into a grand sci fi anime about corporate conspiracy and world domination. Lastly, the whole concept of using the 'unreliable narrator' completely fell flat. At first, it does seem that Takumi may be one of those protagonists whose point-of-view and limited knowledge add to the suspense factor of ChäoS;HEAd. The use of an unreliable narrator can actually make a story ten times more interesting, as seen in anime such as Perfect Blue or Paranoia Agent. However, as the show wears on, everything becomes rather easy to figure out and Takumi's actions become predictable and easy to interpret.

The production values for this anime are not that impressive. The art's consistency wavers at points, but generally, it is a decent-looking anime despite the tired character designs and the lazy-at-moments art. If you pay attention to Takumi's face, for example, in one scene, it's long, skinny and angular, and then in another, his face takes on a more oval appearance. Then there are proportional issues as well.

The score seems to have as much of an identity crisis as the rest of the anime. There are haunting, halting (for intense scenes) or sappy (for the..."romantic" scenes) piano piecies, 80s cheese synths, music that sounds like it came off a video game soundtrack, and then heavy metal guitar work. Some moments, the score shines, others it doesn't.

And now the characters. Takumi is the protagonist. He comes across as a totally annoying, socially-inept person with the maturity of a twelve-year-old boy. It's also astounding that he never seems to realise that every girl who interacts with him is an archetype from one of the galges I'm sure he likes playing. The geeky, soft-spoken meganekko? The needy, tsundere little sister (whose relationship with him is borderline incestuous)? The mysterious weird girl who is into the occult? Smells like stereotypes to me.

The only character with any sort of depth or personality is Takumi himself. And even if his personality is awful, it doesn't stop him from being a good character. He is pathetic. He's delusional. He's disturbed, he needs a life and his general attitude to everything stinks. His fantasies about sex and girls are limited to what he has been exposed to: countless eroge. His personality is handled quite well, as he exudes the characteristics of an escapist with subtler megalomaniacal traits (as seen in his childhood). I think it further deepens his character that despite these attributes, he is incapable of doing anything to help himself or get what he wants. There is also something that makes him easy to pity/relate to concerning his mania against real-life girls and his deep affection for animated or two-dimensional ones. Although, watching him is a near torture--he's easily one of the most irritating leads for anime ever seen.

ChäoS;HEAd has not been an enjoyable ride. It treats its audience as though they need to be spoon-fed half the time. There are more entertaining, smarter, subtler anime of this sort out there. I would suggest you look for those instead.

ChäoS;HEAd is like playing a game of Clue, only to figure out that it's Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with a candlestick about three turns in. read more

I will have to admit to not going into viewing ChäoS;HEAd with a great deal of expectations. Having read through many of the reviews and hearing some firsthand accounts on it I got the impression that it was going to be an average at best experience. However this was a show that I had been very interested in seeing since it started airing. For me it’s a great example of not believing everything you hear.

The story starts out as a pretty interesting mystery involving a number of grisly murders and a high school boy who believes he has witnessed one of them and is being fed information about future killings before they happen. The boy is Takumi, a severely disturbed and socially awkward individual who is terrorized by delusions and paranoia. The plot feels genuinely creepy at times but doesn’t manage to sustain this over the course of the entire series. Because of Takumi's delusions the viewer is not always sure what is real or what isn’t. It does take some significant detours and while it’s not the smartest thing I have ever seen, in my opinion it managed to be interesting through the end. However one might feel about how the story changed focus over the course of the show, I did feel that it ended very nicely with most of the loose ends tied off.

Takumi's character for me was extremely interesting. Sure he is a stereotype of a socially awkward otaku, but what makes him a great character is his personality. He is an extremely disturbed person. His inability at times to know what is real or what isn’t made him fascinating. I enjoyed how he coped with his fear of others by imagining his favorite anime character as a companion. I felt the story did a great job in developing him and having him overcome his fears and questions about his own existence.

Sadly as good as I felt Takumi was as a character, the rest of the cast is quite uninspired. The girls all fall into the usual patterns that we see in every anime, from the moe sugar sweet best girlfriend to the brainy and to the cold hearted swordsman. Still despite this I still enjoyed most of them, particularly Yua and even though they weren’t that groundbreaking. The villains are equally stale from an originality standpoint. Their motivations are 2-dimensional and boring and really were a poor foil overall for the heroes to overcome.

The artwork is good for the most part but a little inconsistent at times. I felt the colors were kind of flat and the styles seemed awfully dated looking. In addition the character models felt.. familiar. It didn’t seem like there was any originality in designing them and some of them actually looked like they were ripped directly out of other anime. I did like the music, the opening was good and I felt set the tone, but the ending while a good song felt out of place considering the subject matter of many of the episodes.

Despite a number of faults I just can’t say that I didn’t like this show. It’s not great at anything it does. The thriller elements of the plot fall a bit flat and the action scenes really aren’t that interested either. My interest in the main character and a decent storyline made this an enjoyable experience for me. I would recommend it, however if you looking for a superb suspense thriller or a great action you’re probably going to be disappointed.
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