All this bitching is making Kozue a sad girl.
Recently I’ve ran into a lot of complaining about Chaos;HEAd on the internets, especially on many IRC-channels I regularly hang out. The arguments range from completely prejudiced to somewhat solid arguments, with some pretty straightforward raging around in between. This leads to one crucial question for all the masses out there who are unsure about Chaos;HEAd: Is this show going to give me something in return for sacrificing 25 minutes of my lifespan every week?
There is one thing in pretty much all the arguments I could find about Chaos;HEAd that really catches the eye: Almost all negative arguments use the original Nitro+’s visual novel as a base of comparison. Not that this would be anything out of usual – the anime adaptation of Toradora! for instance has been under heavy fire from the fans of the original works using very similar arguments throughout its run. Obviously you’d expect something of the similar level of quality as the original work the anime series is based on – not that it would be such a bad thing as it’s pretty much inevitable whether you consciously want it or not. If an anime series was made of the KID’s VN Ever17 I loved so very much, I’d definitely end up being biased by my experiences with the visual novel and look for similar experiences in the anime.
Other negative arguments about Chaos;HEAd are mostly about its graphical merits, and to those I can relate. The character animation in the show is definitely not among the best, being inconstistent and stiff. The fight scene in episode 8 was lame at best thanks to poor animation and heavy use of shounen-ish scrolling backgrounds. The background art saves a lot; it’s definitely among the best of the season along with Clannad After Story and Hyakko no matter how you look at it, but it cannot fully compensate for the poor character animation. Make no mistake, it isn’t absolute trash such as H2O and in my opinion it’s tolerable, at least outside battle sequences which up to this point have been thankfully sparse. PROTIP: If you expect anime to look like a CG cap from a visual novel, then close the player and never watch anything again.
The show has been accused of bad directing but I do not support this claim. Unlike for example Index, Chaos;HEAd has not even once been a completely blind flight where only those familiar to the visual novel fully know what the hell is going on. Sure, there have been boatloads of confusing shit, but given the genre “Mystery” I’d be disappointed if there weren’t any and they aren’t really left unexplained. Chaos;HEAd has neither over- or underestimated its audience and I appreciate that. Pacing is fitting for a 12-episode show (I’m not going to address complaints about its length, you might as well complain about motorcycles for having only two wheels) and the show hasn’t been wasting time doing fast-paced explorations into different storyarcs in the visual novel to satisfy all fan camps, at least not in an obvious fashion. Nor has there been any annoying filler episodes – at most you could talk about filler minutes. I’ve been observing complaints about the cutting of source material in the show as well and my response to this is pretty much the same as what I just wrote above. In fact I don’t quite understand this claim because I never felt there was anything missing or out of place. The show is not incomprehensible, the pacing doesn’t feel to be totally random and to a person who isn’t acquaintanced with the original visual novel the storyline in the anime appears solid and consistent.
Is Chaos;HEAd worthy of watching? My answer: If you are a fan of the visual novel, NO. There is a strong chance that the anime will not be anything else but an awkward and disappointing recap to you – and forget about any tasty fanservice, the visual novel has much more juicier scenes. However, if you have not played Chaos;HEAd visual novel then I say YES, the anime is worth checking out. It ain’t Higurashi, but nevertheless its mystery elements are fully able to glue one’s ass to the seat for a weekly half an hour. But is Chaos;HEAd among the very best of the season? No dice. Episode 8 was a horribly weak link in the show and sure, it managed to make me worried about how Madhouse is going to steer the show on its latter half. But to make me spit out some RAEG and drop the show? No way in hell. My bottom line for the show: Not a masterpiece but entertaining enough. I has spoken.
Follow-up
After a bit more thinking I’ve come to the following conclusion: Madhouse has one more episode to prove itself. Had the episode 8 been executed decently, it wouldn’t have ended up making the plot look like a silly conspiracy story. However all Madhouse managed to do was to deal a huge blow to the credibility of their show. As such I say episode 9 must be the breaking point and if by then Chaos;HEAd cannot recover from the stall that’s been going on since episode 7, it hardly will be able to avoid a crash. I’ve done a post in the show’s defence and I have been convinced thus far that it will end up okay. Dear reader, mark my words when I say that if Madhouse lets me down on this, I’m going to be a very, very bitter man.