Chaos;Child

Title:Chaos;Child
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - SILVER LINK
BRIDCUTT Emi Sarah
MATSUOKA Yoshitsugu
UESAKA Sumire
A series of bizarre and seemingly inexplicable acts of violence, known as 'New Generation Madness' have been occurring in the Shibuya district. High school newspaper editor Takuru Miyashiru notices uncanny similarities between these acts and events that occurred seven years ago, and which led up to a devastating earthquake.

13 episodes (0-12)


See also: Chaos;Head.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 8 7 7 5 5 5 Ggultra2764 [series:3305#1552]
For the uninitiated, Chaos;Child serves as sequel to Chaos;Head, being set six years after the events of that series as Takuru and several members of his school detective club investigate a series of mysterious murders, seemingly tied to the events from Chaos;Head. While having some interesting angles to its storytelling with its elements of horror and exploring how the effects of giving into one's delusions as a Gigalomaniac effect those around you, the series does suffer quite fairly heavily from its attempt to compress hours of visual novel story development into a 12-episode TV anime with a fairly heavy reliance on plot twists and exposition to attempt explaining and exploring elements to its plot developments. Because of its visual novel roots, not all characters get much in the way of fleshing out or involvement in the developments of the story and the rushed pacing limits any breathing room the audience can have to take in events. Maybe if it was made into a 24-episode anime, there could have been more time to properly flesh out its story. But as it is, Chaos;Child largely comes off feeling rather forgettable thanks to how rushed the adaptation of its source material comes off.

Last updated Saturday, December 25 2021. Created Saturday, December 25 2021.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:3305#628]
(Two episodes watched):

This series starts off with an episode long ('episode 0') summary of the events of Chaos;Head. At first I was thinking that this might be a remake, but it turns out to be a sequel (I think) as, in episode one, we are introduced to a new cast of characters who attempt to investigate and explain the freaky acts of self-mutilation and suicide that have been taking place in Shibuya recently. This is much like the stuff that took place in Chaos;Head, and episode one doesn't take us all that far into the new story; basically, we get a cliffhanger. How much the two shows would be alike was unclear, and likewise whether any of the original characters will reappear, or how the quality will compare, but I was modestly intrigued and decided to watch some more. Presumably somebody would be using the technology that lets users screw with the minds of victims to do evil, and Takuru and friends would try to stop them. Just what was going on was pretty unclear at this point. To be honest, I never completely understood what happened in the first series, and forgot long ago most of what I did manage to figure out, in both cases because it was highly confusing.

In episode two the story gets going, we are introduced to different factions, a weird piece of evidence--and I couldn't help feeling kind of bored. Something like three weeks had passed since I had watched episode one, so my memory of just what was going on wasn't all that fresh, but the problem was that episode one hadn't been good enough that I was willing to re-watch it, and without that episode two was confusing and dull. I couldn't get excited or intrigued about what the newspaper club had managed to discover or what it portended--because, again, the show was confusing. It didn't seem to be worth the effort that would be required to make complete sense of it. Am I supposed to be creeped out by these stickers of Cyclops sumo wrestlers? They just seemed bizarre without indicating anything interesting to me. Perhaps the plot here is overcomplicated to the point where it just confuses us because we can't see all the clever hints that it supposedly contains. Or maybe not enough hints were dropped to begin with. Either way, I couldn't see what was so important about solving this case. Surely the ultimate threat would be worse than a few people killing themselves in strange ways, but so far I wasn't sensing that. And, as usual, the characters didn't reach out to me either. Whatever quirks Takuru has, there was no sign of them this week, except for an incomprehensible dream. I had gone into episode two fairly enthusiastic about Chaos;Child, but afterwards I was left wondering if it would be worth watching at all, and I ultimately decided that the answer was no.

Last updated Friday, April 27 2018. Created Tuesday, January 17 2017.

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