Being a massive sucker for darker themes, the brief of the anime hooked me up at once. However, although I have plenty of experience in this field, I never learn - the reality often differs from expectations GREATLY. I did expect some gore and killing and generally a lot of darkness, just like any absolutely sane and sweet female in her early twenties would. What I was offered, however, included the latter so briefly it almost felt like a mock. It did tickle my fancy for I was given at least HINTS of what the description promised, hence why I carried on.You can't deny presence of the plot, but it is quite...Vague? Probably what got me truly interested and inspired to watch the other two animes was the conspiracy theory theme. I'm quite a big fan of those and usually have a documentary playing on the background, so naturally once the theme was introduced, I became very interested. I liked the concept of action taking place online via chat, considering the main character being a shut-in, which was another strong side of this anime. I can't help but love delusions of Taku, for it's so otaku-ish I fear that one day it might hit me, too. I don't mind Arystair Krory cuddling me and calling me his wife though, but people already think I'm borderline weird, so I'd rather not have the matters pushed any further. The inter-dimensional thing and rambles about technology, however, gave me a mild headache and belief my brains will explode as I'm well trained on Serial Experiments Lain and Interlude. And yet, it was nothing but big words to describe the obvious things. The anime started becoming predictive, which I'm not a fan of - plus the amount of clichés it included was making me roll eyes. However, nothing annoys me more as little sub-plots that are literally there for 10 seconds or so, just so certain things that were causing questions and wonders get explained...And usually none of those explanations are even close to satisfactory. I will just mention the nurse here. Or the leader of the opposing political party. Get my drift? Hmpf. The story wasn't an UTTER disappointment, but hell, I understand all the low ratings now.
The art, on the other hand, complimented my standards. After Casshern Sins and the drawing style that was making me shiver every second I spent watching the series, Chaos;Head was an eye candy. I think I'd appreciate it even if I had not watched an old-school drawing anime beforehand, because the anatomy game in the series was fairly strong. It also a palette I've anticipated, as well as the modern digital colouring I dig loads. The design of characters wasn't entirely special, considering Rimi and Sena's appearance and colour choice itself were a huge clichés, but I did like Ayase. Being a rock chick myself, I couldn't help but appreciate her stage outfit and how they actually gave her some dark make up. The Di-swords were quite beautiful, although as a digital artist I could easily tell how easy it was to draw them. Overly, I'm quite satisfied with the art. The quality is high, the anatomy is well, the colours did not make me want to gauge my eyes out. No complaints.
Sound wise, I will just state the opening was annoying. A cheesy J-pop song that would go with a harem anime, a theme of which Chaos;Head DID have, but it wasn't quite the main point. The anime tried to find a middle ground between funny and serious, and sort of failed in that, but given the other two adaptations of the visual novels we know it's meant to be focusing on the serious part rather than the fun. For that reason I dislike the opening even more now, especially after being familiar with Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes. Despite that, ironically, I loved the ending. Not because it'd suit the anime, it was even worse than the opening in terms, but I somewhat liked the song. And the Japanese attempts to English in cheesy pop songs never fails in giving lulz. Miracle baby, ftw. The sounds in the series itself were alright. I hardly ever pay mind to those, really. So if I hadn't - it means they were okay. If they did come to my attention, it means they've probably irritated me.
Characters...NOW WHERE DO I START. Clichés, clichés everywhere but with Taku himself. He had no development really, and that's what actually made him unique. Instead of a shut-in becoming a super duper poo-per (hahahaha see what I did there hahahasomeonedatemepls), he remains a helpless whimpering bum for the entire anime. While most found it irritating, I actually found it soothing, given the fact all the other characters were bloody cliché - driven. Also randomly killing characters that were randomly introduced and existed for no actual point is quite lame. In general it seems as if many characters were introduced solely to fill the time of the episode and they never really played an important role. Their existence, after you finish the anime, just makes you tilt head to the side and go "eh?". The further I write this review, the better I'm starting to understand all the rage you guys felt when writing earlier opinions of this anime.
BUT despite all that, and how much I'm angered at the moment, because upon writing things down I'm starting to realize I somehow overrated the anime, I must admit I'm guilty of enjoying it. I guess I'm still recovering from my 2nd year of university, and my brain don't enjoy pressure such as thinking applied to it. And this anime did not really demand much of it, even if it tried to convince me I needed a degree in physics to understand what the hell is going on. Despite my dad having one, I was failing physics miserably during my glorious times at school, and yet I understood pretty much everything THAT WAS ACTUALLY EXPLAINED, AND NOT JUST RANDOMLY MENTIONED. So yeah. This anime is a lie.
Overly, I don't really regret watching it. It's somewhat of a guilty pleasure to watch something not so good once in a while and be able to go on without hating it. Plus, thanks to Chaos;Head, I've discovered Steins;Gate (which I actually refused to watch earlier for it being so popular) and Robotics;Notes (which finally gave me the darkness I demanded). I can't say the anime was WOW, considering I've ended up lowering all the scores as I went on writing the review, spotting all the potential flaws I've somehow managed to ignore before, but I still did enjoy it quite a bit.
And so the final scores are:
Story: 6/10
Art: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Characters: 4/10
Enjoyment: 9/10
OVERALL: 6/10
