Chaos;HEAd Episode 3 Overview

Author: nova

In my previous post I expressed doubts on the quality of Chaos;HEAd. Well, the third episode makes short work of these and does a whole lot of things better than the previous one. The atmosphere of mystery is now around again as strong as ever and we also get to peek a bit into Takumi’s past. Sit tight, this one’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

After a short recap narrated by Takumi we jump straight into a flashback sequence of his past. Not being able to attend a school field trip, the kid Takumi grabs a crayon and scribbles a picture of the school bus crashing onto something. And whaddya know, the school bus actually crashes a bit later. After hearing about the accident on the news, Takumi thinks he caused the accident by wishing for it, which makes him seclude himself and stop speaking to people. Does Takumi possess some kind of Death Note-ish power, or did he simply predict what would happen in the future?

In present time Takumi decides to go to the same hospital where he was examined as a kid, in attempt to find some kind of explanation for what Yua slammed him with in the second episode. Of course, he demonstrates his attributes as a hikki once again and seems to have a great difficulty speaking to the doctor, who he remembers examining him in the past. However, looks like the doctor doesn’t remember him. Maybe because Takumi expressed himself rather poorly…or is he just pretending? What was that MIB in the flashback sequence, with the golden N.O.Z.O.M.I-pin doing? Prepare the tin hats, people. In any case, Takumi wants to be examined for sleepwalking, since that would somewhat explain what the hell is going on. Agreeing with a three-hour sleep test, Takumi lies down on a bed and…uh

It’s Seira-tan! And man, ain’t she smokin’ in that nurse outfit!. But what the hell is going on? From what we can see on screen, it’s not clear at any point that Takumi actually falls asleep. He blinks and after a brief blurry effect, Seira-tan appears. I think it’s quite clear that this is where he falls asleep. But note that Seira greets her with “Good morning.” Is he now actually awake, or dreaming? Was all the stuff about Rimi being his classmate and old friend just a dream after all? It would make sense, seeing that he doesn’t remember anything about her from the past. But what is the reality then? Have we been observing a dream all along, or some bizarre mixture of dream and reality with no clear border in between? Oh man, I’m getting dizzy here.

In any case, the sleep test yields no unusual results – or that’s what the nurse says! But she sure ignores the question on the doctor’s whereabouts… Next up we get a peek of the Devil Woman Rimi at school, where she meets a strange girl reading what appear to be mythology books. Later in the evening at Takumi’s container our number one nerd is trying to get his head clear of what Yua revealed to him. Since sleepwalking is scratched off the list, the next logical conclusion would be to prove that the images he saw before the murder were SHOPPED. Seira-tan appears to help him out, and together they start examining the pictures.

Unfortunately their valiant effort backfires, as the picture from Shogun actually reveals Takumi himself, running away with a stake in his hand! He remembers this happening on 29th…but the picture is dated taken on 28th. Once again he feels like someone gazing at him and utters “sono me, dare no me?“, and we get a short explanation of these sequences – that he has felt like someone is gazing at him since he was a kid.

The scene skips over to Yua’s place, where she’s doing some frantic googling (We-key PedophiriA, Cyclopaedia of Useless Knowledge? Can’t say it’s that far from the truth though) on Dissociative Identity Disorder – apparently she suspects Takumi having multiple personalities. What is she after? Meanwhile Takumi is googling too – for any evidence on precognitive abilities. After a while he stumbles upon a band named Phantasm and its vocalist known as FES. After taking a good look at the lyrics of one of their songs, he notices a clear connection between it and the murder he witnessed in Shibuya. Since the lyrics were composed a few months before the murder, Takumi suspects that FES is actually Rimi, which would make sense – but no pictures of FES are around online to find.

To find out what this FES is about, Takumi does the most un-hikki thing ever and goes to the live concert. Meeting up with Misumi at the live house, Takumi hears about the vocalist from him and concludes that it isn’t Rimi – otherwise Misumi would have surely recognized her. Misumi drags Takumi in and he finally gets to have a look at FES; who turns out to be the silent bookworm girl Rimi met at school. Since it is a gothic punk band we’re talking about, after the song she babbles some pseudo-mythological nonsense that hints to world collapsing and the usual stuff like that.

And then…uh..what? A transparent, glittery thing appears in her hand, a bit same-looking as the nasty bladed thingy Rimi was wielding in the intro of the very first episode. The audience doesn’t seem to give damn about the vocalist having a two-meter long glass sword though but I’ve never been to gothic punk lives, maybe that shit happens all the time. Next up is, of course, the song that Takumi found online earlier. Which ends with FES gazing at Takumi, walking down from the stage to him, somehow lose all but her underwear on the way and hugging him…but then Takumi startles and notices that FES is still on the stage and wearing her clothes as normal – a delusion once again. But she looks at him again and utters on the mic “sono me, dare no me?” Having his fill of gothic punk, Takumi decides to take his leave but can’t help wondering how FES knew that phrase and what is her connection to the murder.

In a short sequence we get a look at someone who seems to be another notable female – a silent young girl who seems to have some nasty voices in her head. Meanwhile Takumi has finally decided to join Nanami on a cellphone shopping spree, when he notices a girl standing in broad daylight holding a huge, transparent sword-like object nobody seems to pay any special attention to, familiar from the Phantasm concert. Unfortunately (or maybe not, the man’s got his head full of problems already) before he has a chance to put any thought into it, Nanami intervenes by smaking him in the head and dragging him away.

After wasting some time with her, Takumi returns to his base of operations, where his old buddy Grim informs him on IM that the fourth murder incident took place. This time pictures of the incident are on online auction. Taking a good look at the picture of the corpse (holy crap that’s nasty), he notices a text written on the wall with blood saying, of course, “sono me, dare no me?”

I really liked this episode. It introduced a whole deal of mystery and theories to whatever is going on. Does Takumi possess precognitive powers and if so, why doesn’t he remember of ever informing himself about future events? Or is this more like “the guy who gets tomorrow’s newspaper today”-kind of thing? What about the multiple personality disorder stuff Yua was googling about? What is dream and what is reality? Keep it up madhouse.