Chaos;HEAD #01 — She Drives Me Crazy

October 9th, 2008

 

No, Takumi, you’re already a raving lunatic to begin with.

Impressions:

So… the thing about thrillers is that you generally hope that people aren’t rooting for the killer. When you start out with someone who is obviously clearly hallucinating up a storm, that kind of takes the edge off of any further descent into madness. Above and beyond that, Takumi is a pathetic waste of a human, anti-social, hiding in a shed on a roof, and afraid of his own shadow. I’m already hoping and praying that he ends up dead by the commercial break of the second episode. The gimmick in the game was that you could control his hallucinations and make them either positive and silly, or mental traumatizing. I don’t know how well it worked there, but I’m not really a fan here because they really just come out of nowhere, are extremely jarring, and didn’t really served a purpose this episode except to show that somebody who hallucinates about an anime character is… you guessed it… crazy. Well, and maybe some fanservice. I think if they had tightened those up a bit more and maybe not been so obvious that he was just being crazy, they’d have had a bit more of an impact since at least the audience wouldn’t know for certain that he’s loopier than a box of slinkies.

As expected from anything with Imagin as a headliner studio, the production values were middling at best. They get something of a free bye because hallucinations mean that you don’t need to pay too much attention to consistent art, but they still did absolutely nothing particularly impressive or unusual through the entire episode. I did find the music during the classroom scene to be pretty irritating, but otherwise, no major complaints on that front.

What it really boils down to here for me, is that I don’t like a single character in this show. I wish great bodily harm to befall Takumi, and only whoever the hell it is with the pink hair vaguely intrigues me in the slightest. That may even change if/when she’s revealed to be his long lost adoring childhood friend that he promised to marry or some such nonsense. The sister got the death knoll the moment she pulled out those damn frogs. Every other character should be chucked into an incinerator which will be thrown into the sun which will be thrown into another larger sun. I realize that Takumi’s trying to trivialize the situation into some kind of abhorrent dating game in his interactions with them, but just because he’s a repellant human being doesn’t mean that the rest of them have to be too… not that I’m certain 22 minutes of Takumi would be worth 5-10 minutes of somebody likeable.

Chaos;HEAD OP

Posted in Anime | 23 Comments »

23 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Jerry says:
    October 9, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    Hmm, I was just about to watch this on Veoh. Then I saw your post and decided to go do something else. Thanks for saving me 20 minutes.

  • Tensho says:
    October 9, 2008 at 10:05 pm

    I hate this kind of main character who indulges himself in the 2d world with an imaginary STUPID idol girl and has a face that looks like someone who is about to die because of malnutrition, in addition to living in a dump.

  • Rawr says:
    October 10, 2008 at 1:00 am

    I think we have a new contender for worse anime protagonist (aka. fucker that needs to die). Haven’t wished someone dead this bad or fast since Itou Makoto from School Days.

  • kearsie says:
    October 10, 2008 at 1:12 am

    watch till the end if you have time for it, apparently takumi gets gar

  • Alt Eisen says:
    October 10, 2008 at 2:15 am

    He, i wish to see in a pool of blood the guy from linebarrles. Yhis one can sink depper before diying
    ——–

    I miss Gaou and miharu. I like better gay characters than this kind of assholes

  • DmonHiro says:
    October 10, 2008 at 4:19 am

    If they follow the game, he sould turn into a badass by the end

  • Sheba says:
    October 10, 2008 at 4:49 am

    Ugh, his pants made me go ugh…

  • Gummi says:
    October 10, 2008 at 5:47 am

    Lol looks like the main character is a lunatic LOL.

  • bob says:
    October 10, 2008 at 6:45 am

    wait this was made from a game??? damn they either run out of ideas oorrr they must be high on drugs to make this into a anime

  • Hinano says:
    October 10, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    From the screenshots it looks like Clannad on crack.
    I’m actually gonna watch this, I downloaded it last night but you know Pangya takes precedence etc..

  • Zeroblade says:
    October 10, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    Trust me, the game is a lot better in execution. However, the initial Takumi (the first 90% or so) is beyond tolerable.

  • Scheris says:
    October 10, 2008 at 9:03 pm

    I hope this get better since this was one of the series I was looking forward to watching. So this episode was disappointing.

  • Sterling01 says:
    October 10, 2008 at 11:25 pm

    You’re supposed to hate Taku… but yeah he gets “better” near the end

  • Bill says:
    October 10, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    I don’t think that’s quite the case. From my perspective, the original story is as much a self-deprecating celebration of Takumi’s lifestyle as it is a jab at him. So while the writers present a caricature fans can jeer at, they also intend for simultaneous understanding and identification (somewhat comparable to say, the Leisure Suit Larry series, which depicts a sex-obsessed loser. Gamers are supposed to laugh and make fun of him, while also sympathizing and cheering for him). The ending is the obligatory payoff.

    In light of the target audience, the idea is for readers to feel some kind of pride as they progress.

  • Newprimus says:
    October 11, 2008 at 9:11 pm

    If you hate Takumi now, the story is doing its job correctly. :)

  • SOSAnimeBoy says:
    October 12, 2008 at 2:16 am

    That pink haired chara looks like a bastardized version of Lala from To-LOVE-Ru O_o

  • DmonHiro says:
    October 12, 2008 at 5:40 am

    But yes, you SHOULD hate him right now. That is the whole point. He was MADE to be hated.

  • Rawr says:
    October 12, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    Well… then I guess they can call this introductory episode a success, since in one episode, they’ve managed to make me hate the guy with a passion.

  • MFreezer says:
    October 15, 2008 at 4:28 pm

    I like this show already – lead dude reminds me of a friend of mine who prefers 2D girls to trying to get a 3D one.

  • Ametista Nocturnia says:
    October 20, 2008 at 9:13 am

    Something must be wrong with me… I almost fell in love with Takumi…

  • navel_fanboy says:
    November 1, 2008 at 6:17 am

    I’ve recently just completed route A of the Visual Novel, after that, watching the anime made my eyes hurt the artwork is horrible!

    I’ve decided not to watch the anime and to play through the visual novel instead!

  • ENKI ][ says:
    December 10, 2008 at 6:47 pm

    I gotta say, I actually liked Takumi. That said, lots of people won’t go for the moe angle when the person to feel sorry for is male. I’m pretty sure that he’s supposed to be pathetic, though he may have been overdone.

    Maybe this is just because I haven’t been keeping up with the new shows coming out, but the animation quality in this didn’t seem half bad. It was better than BPS and Spiral, and probably only slightly worse than Harusu, so I’m pretty happy with it. From what footage I saw of the game, the animation there looks significantly better, but at what cost? It requires 3d acceleration for a 2d visual novel game about a guy who dispises 3d! If I manage to get it to run in wine, and I manage to get 3d acceleration on this machine, maybe I’ll go looking for a copy to attempt to play through, but in the meantime I’d rather be watching the show.

    Aside from the ending theme. That was absolutely the worst song I have ever heard. I wouldn’t blame someone for not watching the show just because of the awful choice of ED. But, I can skip the ED, so I’m good.

  • Travis says:
    August 10, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    Ah, didn’t know you covered this one. Actually, I played the vn to completion, and can assure you that you’re absolutely right; the anime murdered the concept. Not to say that it was much their fault; Chaos Head would have been a really hard concept to pull off fully. In the best and worst ending, half of the problem decoding the story is figuring out what events were real and what weren’t, and eventually even if reality isn’t just subjective. Given the lack of time inherent in anime, I just can’t see them being able to fit all that and character development for a fair few individuals into the anime unless it were a truly superlative effort.

    The vn is very worth a read for some suspense and serious twists, but then again, this is a response to an oooooold post. Just my two cents.