CHAOS;HEAD / First Impressions

Summary:

While at school, Takumi wonders why Shogun uploaded that video, and he considers it a provocation. He thinks that Shogun’s previous appearance in front of him was a threat, and he still doesn’t know how to obtain a Di-Sword either. On top of that, he questions if Rimi is a friend or foe. Takumi also remembers what Sena had told him, and from it, he theorizes that a person could transmit the images in their head to another person using technology, thus making one person’s delusions into another’s reality. He concludes that this could be a way to obtain a Di-Sword. With this on his mind, he gets up from his desk and realizes that Yua is staring at him from the classroom’s doorway. It causes him to panic, and he flees as quickly as he can from her, eventually throwing up once he reaches the courtyard. Right as he’s wishing for someone to save him, Rimi appears and comforts him. Takumi is now afraid of being alone, so Rimi promises to be with him as much as she can. When he questions why she’d do that for him, she explains that it’s because they’re friends. The two then go home together, and along the way, Rimi asks him about what happened. They stop at a cafe so that Takumi can explain everything, and after hearing about Shogun, Rimi notes that the area in front of Shibuya station wasn’t empty on that day. Either way, she hadn’t seen anyone in a wheelchair. From this, Takumi decides that Shogun wasn’t a delusion, but the empty Shibuya might have been. His thoughts are interrupted by a procession of protesters passing by the cafe who are against the New Generation incidents and want to drive the demons away.

When Rimi and Takumi return to his room, Takumi immediately gets on his computer and looks up information about brain imaging and technology for secretly recording people’s thoughts. He goes from this to thinking that he might have the power to project delusions into reality, and because he suspects that obtaining a Di-Sword might require this, he takes his broken toy sword and tries to envision a Di-Sword. Rimi, however, stops him and suggests that he throw it away, but her reason turns out to be that she thinks he’s too old to be playing with it. Takumi subsequently explains that this sword is a fake, but he also reveals that there are two girls at their school who have real ones. Rimi tries to get out of him who the girls are and is relieved when he denies that either girl is his girlfriend. This leads to Takumi having a delusion about Rimi wearing just a shirt and underwear, but it ends abruptly after the delusion version of her runs out of the room because she’s thirsty. The real Rimi is also thirsty and goes out to buy something to drink, and while he’s alone, Takumi gets back on his computer and starts chatting with Grim. Grim bears news of the fifth New Generation incident which involves a man who got his brain removed. What shocks Takumi is the fact that the victim is none other than the doctor he was seeing at the hospital, and he once again thinks that Shogun is provoking him. Right as Takumi reaches the height of his panic, Rimi returns and calms him down. Being held by Rimi causes Takumi to feel that her warmth is the only support keeping his mind from breaking, and he doesn’t want to be separated from her.

Meanwhile, Sena finds a group of people gathered in a park, all chanting the whose-eyes line. Observing this group is a guy wearing glasses and a backpack, and when Sena approaches him, he tries to get her to go away. She questions him about the location of someone named Hatano, and although he doesn’t know, she still materializes her Di-Sword – in the process scaring away all the people – and destroys the contents of his backpack with it. What was inside the backpack was a piece of electronic equipment that carried a microchip labeled NOZOMI. The next morning, Takumi is on his roof thinking about having the power to make delusions into reality and about what had happened with the school trip he hadn’t gone on when he was a child. When Rimi shows up to walk with him to school, she comments on how she thinks the winter sky looks faded because there are less people who wish for blue. This is something that Takumi feels like he’s heard her say before. At school, Takumi is approached by Ayase who continues to tell him to look for the sword. Her own experience was that it was there before she knew it, and she only needed to change her viewpoint a little to notice it, so she thinks that he might already be able to see it as well. Later on, Rimi notes that Takumi is unexpectedly popular, and she goes through all the girls in his life currently, including herself. She’s alarmed when he reveals that Ayase has a real sword, but she tries to dismiss it as a toy. When he then talks about how he thinks he has the power to project delusions into reality, she first treats it as a joke and then as one of his delusions. Their conversation is cut short when Takumi suddenly spots Yua staring at him from far away with a shocked look on her face. Yua, however, disappears a moment later.

Elsewhere in the city, detective Ban visits a woman named Momose Katsuko to talk about the New Generation incidents. Ban has been investigating the GE Rate because of what Momose had told him, but she’s alarmed that he’s doing it on his own because it’s dangerous. She points to what happened to Professor Oota who had given a lecture about the GE Rate on TV – he was the victim killed by stakes in the third New Generation incident. Ban knows this, but the GE Rate stuff is too wild and he hasn’t been able to persuade the higher-ups. More importantly, he asks Momose about biorhythms leading to a murderous madness, so she talks about a force greater than a full moon causing biorhythm curves to rise higher – if the GE Rate is high, the biorhythm curve rises. What the murdered Professor Oota had found out was that the GE Rate suddenly began to increase half a year ago, but such a thing is theoretically impossible. Even more suspicious is the fact that the TV program that Professor Oota was scheduled to appear on the day before he was killed had been hastily replaced. Momose implicates the Meiwa political party, causing Ban to realize that if things go bad, then the country will be shaken. Back at home, Takumi finds an online bulletin board thread revealing that FES, aka. Ayase, has a history of mental problems and hospitalization, and this makes him wonder if he can trust her. He then receives a phone call, but the only thing he hears on the other end is a melody. It gets louder, and soon Takumi’s entire room is hit with a shockwave. The same shockwave is reverberating around all of Shibuya, and it’s affecting everyone caught in it.

Shortly after the shockwave ends, Yua receives a phone call and speaks with someone briefly before going to the hallway and seeing what all the other students at school are shocked about: everything has become covered in a white fog.

Preview

Okay, what the heck is going on at the end? It couldn’t have been Takumi imagining things since everyone else experienced it too, but something like that is harder to explain away with science. I’m not saying that the series is very much grounded in reality, but something like that makes it feel even less grounded than it was before and even more supernatural. That in turn makes me think that a lot of the confusing stuff right now could be explained away by some supernatural reason, so there’s no point in trying to make sense of the clues. Having said that though, it does appear that there are some larger forces at play with the NOZOMI logo showing up again and a political party’s involvement, so maybe this is supposed to be a combination of conspiracy theory and supernatural stuff.

The other interesting thing about this episode is how Rimi is getting ever close to Takumi, yet she kept having moments where she looked suspicious, such as after he told her about Ayase having a Di-Sword and during the event at the end where she didn’t look scared and instead seemed like she knew what was going on. She might just be putting on an act in front of Takumi, but at the same time, she’s genuinely concerned about him, so I don’t think she has bad intentions. Either way, it’s a little alarming to me that he’s getting so attached to her since it opens him up to being betrayed or left completely in shambles whenever she’s not around. I assume that he’ll eventually get to the point where he can have enough confidence to stand on his own, but given what kind of character he is, that may be a bad assumption.

32 Comments

  3. hmm…I’m trying to put all the pieces together myself, since the anime is parallel to the game, however the anime feels out of place after the first episode since the game is so well paced and detailed, the anime feels like they are taking parts from the game and putting them in random places. I’m hoping that things will start to click together later on however. (I’m not done with the game, just got it recently.) I seriously hope Takumi starts figuring things out, because things looking like it’s going straight to hell very soon, and Takumi needs to start realizing his role in the world…

    aki09
    Reply

  6. Trust me, things will make sense very shortly. Omni, if the end event was Show Spoiler ▼

    Sinax
    Reply

  15. another confusing episode once again, although i wasint expecting any sense of closure since there are still 6 episodes left (or is it 7?) so it looks like Nozomi was behind that earthquake or sound frequency thing at the end, im pretty sure it wasint an illusion since its apparent that they might have been getting revenge or something of the sort for their (spy? colleague?) getting killed (the guy with the back pack) Its obvious based on the first episode Rimi knows much more then taku does, id like to see her evil side or at least her true side soon..they also have to introduce the blonde haired girl soon enough (the shy one) i hope that the series remains at a nice pace near the end and actually adequately explains all of this though.
    besides that exagerated long post, good episode and ill be awiaiting the next one.
    on one more note,next episode looks emotional?

    Precise Moment
    Reply

  18. Ahhh, from the preview it looks like things are REALLY rushed, but the next 1/2 episodes will pretty much explain most of what’s going on. Really looking forward to the next episode. I do hope they’re able to make me feel bad for Taku in the next few episodes like they did in the visual novel =D.

    lmaoknife
    Reply

  20. Well honestly with all this going on I went back to episode 1 with Taku and Rimi in the beginning. They keep asking in the series whos eyes are those. Well I guess there Rimi’s. Taku said… My world is within her eyes…and her world is within my eyes. Rimi knows everything thats really going on. I think she simply wants him to be happy in this fake world created for him. Thats why she kills anyone thats close to the truth. To protect Taku from the real world that is outside this fake world. Notice that sound that was going off and earthquake didnt bother her at all, while everyone else was freaking out. Rimi holds all the cards. She loves Taku and just wants him to live a normal life. But people keep bothering him with the truth.. I think pretty soon once he finds out the truth Rimi is going to get very pissed off at all those people that have been talking to him.

    Something happened to the real world, Rimi and Taku simply created this world. Rimi remembers everything and taku doesn’t. Poor girl trying to hold the one she loves together the best she can while knowing the truth.

    This is all a guess btw anyone thats played the game let me know if I’m close or not in a spoiler tag. lol.

    chaosdemon06
    Reply

  21. And again an epic episode of this best anime this season. I wonder why so many don’t think the same :/ and why the hell don’t i have a better PC, so that i can play the Game ?! Anyway i’m looking forward for the rest of the review, i liked to read the others. And well, don’t have anything to say about this episode beside that i like the idea of a device, which can read and insert thoughts. If the technology progresses further like that, it shouldn’t be so much a fiction, I myself at least think it should be possibly and if i have to invent this x). So much by me …
    P.S.: @nunarita: I couldn’t refrain myself from grinning while looking at her jealous face xD.

    maxiantor
    Reply

  25. Nice episode saw some di-sword action, and the ending was very interesting.
    On Rimi if you noticed the same thing happened with Yua he started to like her then boom
    she “turned” on him. If you pay attention to some of the ep Rimi can be seen in the background like in this ep when takumi is talking with Ayase. My thoughts on this anime so far is that this world is the real world nozumi or some group is changing things and it seems the girls and takumi have some sort of mental disorder that protects them agianst this.

    On a side note watching the op do you guys see the outline of takumi’s di-sword?

    P0
    Reply

  27. My guess is that he does have multiple personalities; and he ends up being the homeless guy holding those weird messages. I also think his “sword” is made out of the other girls (souls, their swords, I don’t know)and he is going to kill them all. The quote of “whose eyes are those” is meaning whose personality is in Takumi’s body when he is killing people. Maybe he already killed the girls and this is some made story combining different time periods or just the homeless making this whole thing in his mind.

    DKCesia
    Reply

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