Chaos;Head
- Filed under: Anime, News
- Date: Oct 12, 2008 06:57 JST
- Tags: Adaptations, Chaos;Head, Nitroplus, Shibuya, Suspense, Thriller, Visual Novels
Shibuya psychological thriller and suspense anime Chaos;Head finally makes its appearance. An adaptation from the popular visual novel by Nitroplus (not an eroge as such), the title promises, and delivers, a very contemporary vision of murder and delusion in Shibuya and on the Internet.
What it does not deliver, however, is much in the way of sound production values.
The protagonist collects figures and lives in a shipping container playing MMORPGs, so he is something of a hikikomori prince, and perhaps worthy of tremendous respect or derision as such.
I particularly like how close he has his fridge to his computer (bonus points for it being full of coke bottles), although in practice a fridge is best kept in an adjoining room to reduce noise. About the only nice touch in the show, however.
What really surprised me about this anime is how cheap the animation is and how shoddy the character designs look, especially compared to the original CG. It may not be bad throughout, but in most places a distinct lack of quality and effort is evident.
Seiyuu work is mediocre to my mind; the protagonist is appropriately whiney but intensely annoying as a result, and the female characters are a little overdone.
Music is poor – I’d really expect an edgy or avant-garde score from this, but what is provided is bad J-pop.
No censorship seems evident; it looks as if people being nailed to walls with metal stakes is currently more palatable to stations than the prospect of seeing their pantsu or otherwise. There is no service to speak of either.
If you look at his figures, you can see some interestingly familiar ones. The nicely detailed figures are a little spoiled in a later shot when they are shown from a completely different perspective but are not redrawn in the slightest.
The ED is amongst the worst you’ll ever see. For that matter, they don’t even bother with an eyecatch in the breaks.
The actual story seems fairly interesting, though very little is actually developed in the first episode save establishing the fact that the protagonist is already out of his mind even before the murders and hallucinations start.
I’m not at all convinced by this title; though it may yet pick up and deliver an engrossing story in later episodes, the lack of effort and poor production values in the all important first episode suggest it is destined for mediocrity.
Fans of the original visual novel and those intrigued by a very contemporary psychological thriller with strong otaku overtones may well embrace Chaos;Head, but I have my doubts about the reception it will receive elsewhere.
I loved this one; seemed like some kind of strange cross between NHK and Higurashi… will definitely give it a few more episodes, I’m sure it’ll pick up…
It definitely is very like NHK… Hopefully it will pick up, though if it does I’m surprised they let such a weak first episode through.
I was looking forward to this show for one reason onla. OP/ED sequence. I love Itou Kanako and i love Kagami Seira. I loved both songs but knowing what anime is about i doubt it suits the atmosphere. And animation… i have to agree (i’ve spiked the whole thing but few seconds was still enough). Maybe getting anime so fast was not the right idea after all.
This production is a mess. Scene transitions are horribly jarring, so it seems as if they mechanically stitched the show together with no regard for timing.
On the plus side, the writers arranged the story quite faithfully. All important plot points have been covered, albeit in a rushed and watered down form. However, I’d still take a well made re-interpretation over something like this.
Even with mess production, at least I hope the sory won’t get messed too…
As expected from a low-budget anime… hehe
idk i kinda liked the show it was weird and that usually catches my interests
even tho the protagonist is a total baby
People have been knocking a lot of anime for their production values after having been converted from whatever source to an anime. Come on guys, can’t you think of something better to whine about? Or do people really not know why and how quality level of anime is the way it is? It doesn’t take a genius to take on the point-of-view of the animation studio.
I think the problem here is not budget, but rather, the lack of a good director to pull things together properly, and a bit more passion on the part of the artists would also help.
my hopes are not high for this one,(animation wise) considering most anime starts off at its best animation quality then drops in the middle, only to pick it up again near the end. and the animation is already pretty bad as it is.
although there are much worse out there….
at least the story has promise, which is more than I can say for allot of recent anime.
whether it picks up or not, its still above bleach and other shit anime in my books.
Like many game to anime conversions, the best way to experience Chaos;Head is to play the original game yourself.