Friday 14 November 2008

Chäos;HEAd - Episode 6

It's time for another dose of the delusional thanks to episode six of Chäos;HEAd, but is anything more going to be revealed in this instalment, and just how deep does the rabbit hole go?

There's undoubtedly plenty to note within this episode as you might expect, but the main point of interest is Takumi's eventual and new-found willingness to trust Rimi, allowing her to follow him around everywhere he goes, and even going as far as divulging his thoughts about Shogun, his delusions, Di-Swords (to some extent) and the like to her. Given the fact that we can't really take anything for granted in this series it's difficult to get a grip on Rimi's place within what's going on, and perhaps I'm just paranoid myself, but something is definitely not right with her interest in Takumi - She asks a lot of questions, seems genuinely shocked/worried when he mentions Ayase's possession of a sword, and doesn't seem to be particularly affected by the incident at the end of the episode. Things are amiss, of that much I'm sure.


On the subject of Takumi's delusions, our protagonist is trying to get his head around both what they mean and where they're coming from, suggesting that what he sees could be the products of another persons mind, simply transmitted into his own brain. Again, we don't know if that's just Takumi being crazy or whether it has some elements of truth, but it's an interesting concept nonetheless.

Aside from all that, this episode gives us another New Gene murder (inevitably, of Takumi's psychiatrist who went missing in an earlier instalment), Sena's Di-Sword materialising as a solid object that everyone can see, the police's continuing investigation into oddities of gravity causing the murders, and a backpack full of electronics with the name N.O.Z.O.M.I. attached to it. Oh, and then there's the crazy Japanese crossing music of doom, which always seems to signal bad things and on this particular occasion has basically ground Shibuya to a rather ear-piercing halt.

As I say, there's plenty to get your teeth into with this episode, and all of that contributes to another top-notch episode of Chäos;HEAd. Even as you try to figure out what's going on and who is friend or foe, you find yourself both factoring in Takumi's delusion personality and also fighting against your own paranoia about many of the characters, so infectious is Takumi's state of mind. I can't say that anything has particularly become any clearer in episode six, but my mind has been further muddled in a well paced and vastly entertaining way, which is more than good enough for me. Once again, I find myself waiting impatiently for the next episode in the hope of further revelations about this increasingly intriguing story.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see that some people are really enjoying the anime too haha. Since I played the game I can't help but make comparsions with the anime x.x; so the quality of the anime seemed exceedingly bad. A lot of moments didn't seem to have nearly as much impact, and I didn't feel the crazyness of Takumi's brain. However it could be just me.
The sky turning white is supposed to happen just before the earthquake but that's irrelevant x.x

Hanners said...

I'll probably be playing through the game once the translation of it is complete, but for now I don't really have any frame of reference to compare with - It sounds like that's probably a good thing... :p