Chäos;HEAd - Episode 9

After giving us an almost solely action-packed eighth instalment, episode nine of Chäos;HEAd returns to the real meat of the series, continuing to link together various mysteries and questions that have been posed within the series so far.

While a visit to see Ayase in hospital leads to her trying to explain Takumi's significance to what's been going on (and how he can obtain a Di-Sword) in rather medieval terms, far more revealing is Rimi's part in proceedings. Aside from a stand-off with Ayase (we only see the latter slap the former, nothing more), Rimi is forced out into the open, proving herself to be a Gigalomaniac complete with Di-Sword as she has to protect Takumi from an angry Sena. This leads to the revelation that her primary objective is to prevent Takumi from "awakening", which can only lead to no good as far as she is concerned. She also clearly knows a little about Sena, and her weakness (i.e. wanting revenge on her father), and seems willing to manipulate anybody she needs to via delusions to help her cause.


All of this confrontation comes about from a discovery that Takumi makes himself, linking his childhood self to both the "Whose eyes are those?" meme that has been a key part of the New Gene killings and to the Noah 11 project that Sena and company were trying to stop last time. How this connection has manifested itself we really don't know, but the true identity of Shogun looks likely to have everything to do with it.... All this is without the danger to Takumi's sister Nanami, and the role of those mobile phone accessory frogs in the whole story.

Overall, this was another excellent episode of Chäos;HEAd, throwing plenty of new information (in the form of both answers and more questions) at us, but rarely sinking to the depths of confusion and instead presenting us with a compelling storyline with some fascinating developments. While Takumi continues to be far from the most likeable lead male ever to set foot in an anime series, the show as a whole somehow manages not to suffer from it, and even the rather generically evil N.O.Z.O.M.I. organisation can be forgiven for its part in a story with plenty of twists, turns and intrigue. Just as I was wondering if my interest in Chäos;HEAd as a series might be starting to wane, so this episode has come along to put me right back on track to leave me wanting more, and not particularly welcoming the thought of having to wait another week for the next instalment.