Poor Takumi Nishijo. All he wants to do is hide in his room, play video games, and moon over his collection of anime-character figurines. You'd want nothing more than that, too, if you were worried that your grip on reality was disintegrating -- and if there was a serial killer working his way through your city, leaving behind some very theatrically-murdered bodies -- and you've been haunted your whole life by the idea that your thoughts might be capable of becoming reality.
Chaos;HEAd (the funky spelling is theirs) is one of the newest anime releases from Nitro plus, some of the same folks behind Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~. Where that story was more a grim, gritty underworld-of-assassins story in the vein of Noir or El Cazador de la Bruja, this one's a cross between several apparently incompatible genres: the harem story (many girls, one guy -- or many guys, one girl, depending on which way you're slicing it), psychological horror, and science fiction.
This is actually the first of two Nitro plus projects which are coming out in English. The second, Steins;GATE, is actually a follow-up -- not exactly a sequel, but more of a spiritual successor. GATE may in fact end up on my list of the best releases for the year; it, too, fuses science fiction and mystery but in a wholly different way. GATE was airing for some time on Crunchyroll, but that ended after FUNimation acquired the show for a U.S. release. (I'm looking forward to it, needless to say.)
In the meantime, check out our review of Chaos;HEAd, which is also now streaming on FUNimation's site.
Image: Chaos;HEAD © 2008 5pb./Nitro plus/RED FLAGSHIP / CHAOS;HEAD PARTNERS. Image courtesy FUNimation.
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