Chaos;HEAd Episode 4 Overview

Author: nova

The life just keeps getting more complicated for Nishijou Takumi. Episode 4 of Chaos;HEAd introduces a whole bunch of twists and isn’t slowing down. As the series is now at 1/3 mark, Madhouse is getting down and dirty with some serious plot development. Hold on to your butts people, we’re going in.

After the 4th murder classified as a New Gen incident the phrase “sono me, dare no me” has spread around like a wildfire. For poor Takumi this means no good, causing him major creeps every time he hears it. On his way back from an internet cafe he runs into a girl holding a huge transparent sword we all remember from the previous episode. The girl, who identifies herself as Aoi Sena, notices the terrified nerd and demands to know if Takumi can see the huge nasty-looking thing she’s swinging around (what the hell is this SM-play…oh, a delusion again). Thankfully it looks like she isn’t on the mood for slicing up some hikki and leaves our main man alone for the time being.

Back at school Takumi is plagued by Misumi, who tells him the latest news that FES is actually a student attending their school – and conveniently she happens to show up. Misumi, being the playah, attempts to hit on her with expectedly poor results. However, she expresses great interest in becoming Takumi’s wife Takumi and leaves him with a nice delusion and an enigmatic advice to find a sword.

Oh well, today is Takumi’s lucky day, even if it did involve more crazy girls with massive bladed weapons and a will to step on his balls. Because the long-awaited Awakened Version of Takumi’s beloved Seira-tan is out and it’s time for him to storm the anime goods store. However Takumi’s time on the Cloud Nine falls short, as he encounters a couple of police investigators on the way back home. After being asked about the murder he witnessed in Shibuya Takumi snaps and spills out a whole bunch of stuff which in police language translates as “I did it, but I’m just outta my fucking mind.” Takumi is terrified for his life and begs the police for protection from the Devil Woman Rimi, only affirming the investigators’ assumption that he’s simply batshit insane.

But who cares about the Feds when you have a new Seira-tan figurine! However once again Takumi isn’t blessed with much time in otaku paradise, because Devil Woman’s here for a visit. This time Rimi doesn’t have Takumi by the balls, as she makes a fatal mistake and lays her hand on his beloved Seira-tan. Enraged, Takumi goes immediately on the offensive and after a short rabble manages to get Seira-tan back to safety – and his left hand on Rimi’s breast, as anyone who can look could see coming from a mile or two away. Embarassed, the Rimi correctly decides to leave the man alone, although does announce her questionable interest in Takumi’s school attendance before doing so. She’s up to no good.

The next day Takumi decides to go for another visit at the hospital, hoping to find some support from the doctor he’s been dealing with in the past. Unfortunately he only finds out that the doctor is no longer working at the hospital. Having lost the last person he thinks he could trust, he remembers the words FES said at school, something about a sword. Recalling the encounter with the sword-wielding girl and her mentioning a word “Di-Sword“, Takumi starts googling around in desperation. A Wiki-entry describes Di-Sword as an invisible sword of darkness that eats away the soul of its user. Although the picture on the entry looks completely different from what he saw Sena holding, Takumi decides to take the chance as a name of a shop pops up.

The shop turns out to be a rather shady place with a combination of role playing gear and adult goods. The sword looks like an obvious fake made out of junk-grade metal, but being desperate as he is, Takumi ends up buying the overpriced piece of crap anyway. Meanwhile, Sena gets pissed at some bastard trying to take her popsicle.

Back at the container Takumi’s sulking session is interrupted by Nanami who stops by for a visit. Our favorite little sister takes liking in the cheap bangle that came as a freebie with the junk sword and Takumi decides to let her have it as a present. Well done man, I see you’ve been studying carefully the three methods of an older brother – blackmailing, threatening and bribery. Although you really shouldn’t be an ass after using the last mentioned…which is exactly what Takumi does. Pissed off, Nanami bombards him with a bunch of mandarines and leaves. Of course, while attempting to dodge the airborne fruit, Takumi manages to smash the junk sword into something even less useful than what it already was.

On the next day at school there’s a new transfer student joining the class – the blonde, gloomy-looking pseudo-loli we had a brief look at in the previous episode. Although Takumi doesn’t appear to know her from before, she whispers something to him while walking past. It doesn’t seem to be clear whether she actually said something, although Rimi appears to have heard it as well. Then again, she enjoys her passtime by nailing people on walls. Having his fill of Rimi’s babbling, Takumi decides to out for a stroll. With Shogun lurking around on the internet, Devil Woman Rimi at school and psycho girl Yua at the internet cafe, Takumi feels like there’s no safe place left for him to hide and his hikki-instincts surface at full force.

And something a bit more as well it seems. Suddenly he notices that indeed, all people have disappeared and the city is completely empty. In a desperate search for someone, he collapses in a large crossroad and comes to the conclusion that while he wanted to be left in peace, he never really wished for a completely empty world. Then he notices someone – an old, almost corpse-looking man in a wheelchair directly in front of him. The man tells him to awaken before more deaths will happen, and speaks about some message, seems almost like…

Yep, he’s the Takumi’s feared online menace, Shogun. After telling Takumi not to run away (from whatever, as if he can’t be any specific than that ffs) Shogun leaves, leaving him to finally wake from the delusion – in a crowded crossroad with Rimi next to him. Terrified by her sudden appearance, Takumi screams out and starts spitting semi-comprehensible babbling about swords, demons and mental attacks at her. A good ol’ five across the face wakes him to the situation of standing in the middle of a crowded mid-town crossroad. With all kinds of treacherous deredere-thoughts filling his head (remember Yua man! NEVAR forget!), he lets Rimi drag him back to safety.

Although the episode 4 definitely went down in the terms of character art – some scenes are drawn consistently, while in others the proportions are all over the place – the story is definitely starting to intensify. I have nothing further to add really, hopefully it just won’t flatten towards the end.

NOTE: The post was made with D-R’s release of the episode and bluntly said it’s pretty much horseshit, so please ignore any errors you see in the screencaps.

NOTE 2: One of the screencaps on the post showed an error-message, looks like Photobucket doesn’t like breast-fondling. I apologize for the inconvenience.