Chaos;Head

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Chaos;Head
カオスヘッド (Kaosu Heddo)
Genre	Sci-fi, Supernatural, Thriller
Game
Developer	5pb., Nitroplus
Publisher	5pb., Nitroplus
Designer	Yukihiro Matsuo (original concept) Naotaka Hayashi (scenario writer) Choco (product designer) Toshimichi Isoe Takeshi Abo (composers) Mutsumi Sasaki (character designer)
Genre	Visual novel
Rating	15+
Platform	PC
Released	April 25, 2008
Manga
Author	Nitroplus and 5pb.
Illustrator	Sumihey
Publisher	ASCII Media Works
Demographic	Shōnen
Serialized in	Dengeki Daioh
Original run	May 21, 2008 – ongoing

Chaos;Head (カオスヘッド, Kaosu Heddo^?) is a Japanese visual novel developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus with gore, psychology, and science fiction elements that was released on April 25, 2008 for the PC.^[1] The game is described by the development team as a "Delusional Science NVL" (妄想科学NVL, Mōsō Kagaku NVL^?).^[1][2] The game's premise revolves around a high school student named Takumi Nishijō who unknowingly walks into the scene of a gruesome murder on his way home. More mysterious events starts happening afterwards as more gruesome murders occurs in the area. Takumi struggles to cope with reality and the delusions he experiences as he tries to avoid being getting caught by the perpetrator behind the chain of murders.

The game's story has been adapted into a manga that started serialization on May 21, 2008 in ASCII Media Works' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh.^[3]

[edit] Gameplay

A screenshot of Takumi having a conversation with Kozue. The delusional trigger system's green and red cardiac cycles can be seen at the top.

The gameplay of Chaos;Head, like other visual novels, requires little player interaction as the game is primarily made up of text dialogues. The player only needs to read and click through the text to advance through the game. The text that is displayed on the screen depicts conversations between different characters or their thoughts.

Chaos;Head presents choices to the player through a unique "delusional trigger" (妄想トリガー, mōsō torigā^?) system.^[4] This system presents the player with three choices relating to Takumi's psychological state. Two cardiac cycles will be displayed on the screen. A green, stable one will be on the top left hand corner and a red, unstable one will be on the top right hand corner. The third choice is not visible to the player as it requires no player interaction. The player may choose to click on the green or red cardiac cycle, or to simply proceed through the game without selecting either of them. The player is not required to make a choice immediately as the two cardiac cycles will remain on the screen until a predetermined number of lines has been passed since they appeared.

Selecting the cardiac cycles will often decide what kind of delusions Takumi will experience. The stable choice often shows a happy or humorous scene whereas the unstable choice will show very negative scenes possibly with gore and violence added. Yes and no questions also show up at times although they are much less frequent than the delusional triggers.

[edit] Plot

[edit] Setting and themes

Chaos;Head primarily takes place in Shibuya, Tokyo. Many of Shibuya's physical locales like its busy pedestrian scramble^[5] and the Loft building appear in the game although their names have been altered slightly.^[6] Some notable Internet websites like 2channel, YouTube, and Yahoo! also show up in the game with modified names as @-channel, MewTube, and Taboo!.

As the title implies, psychological themes relating to one's psyche and mind plays a large role in Chaos;Head. Delusions and the method of projecting one's own delusions onto the physical world, or onto someone else's visual system, is a key driver behind the story. Other scientific themes such as the concepts of matter, antimatter, and the Dirac sea are also brought up.

[edit] Characters

Takumi Nishijō (西條拓巳, Nishijō Takumi^?)

Takumi is the main character of the series. He is a very reclusive person and only attends school at the bare number of times per week in order to fulfill graduation requirements. He often notes that he is not interested in girls in the three-dimensional world and avoids conversations with others whenever possible. He prefers to engage in watching anime, playing eroge, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games. He is a second-year student at Suimei Academy (翠明学園, Suimei Gakuen^?). Voiced by: Hiroyuki Yoshino

Rimi Sakihata (咲畑梨深, Sakihata Rimi^?)

Rimi is a mysterious pink-haired girl that Takumi encounters at the crime scene on his way home. Rimi was wearing Suimei Academy's uniform at the time and appeared to recognize Takumi. Voiced by: Eri Kitamura

Sena Aoi (蒼井セナ, Aoi Sena^?)

Sena is a third-year student at Suimei Academy. Takumi first encounters her in a hallway at school but quickly excuses himself after facing her ominous glare. She is often seen standing around Shibuya holding a very long sword. Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame

Yua Kusunoki (楠 優愛, Kusunoki Yua^?)

Yua is a third-year student at Suimei Academy who seems to be stalking Takumi but later befriends him. She seems to be quite into anime and manga. Voiced by: Chiaki Takahashi

Kozue Orihara (折原 梢, Orihara Kozue^?)

Kozue is a second-year student that transfers into Suimei Academy early on in the story. She is not shown to be speaking but appears to have telepathic abilities. Kozue is in the same class as Takumi and appears to know him as he spoke to him through his mind when she walked past him on her first day at school. Voiced by: Tsuji Ayumu

Ayase Kishimoto (岸本あやせ, Kishimoto Ayase^?)

Ayase is a third-year Suimei Academy student by day and vocalist by night. She sings for a popular indies rock band named "Phantasm" (ファンタズム, Fantazumu^?). Her stage name is "FES". The lyrics in her songs appears to describe the events of the recent murders, leading the police to see her as a potential suspect. Voiced by: Yui Sakakibara

Nanami Nishijō (西條七海, Nishijō Nanami^?)

Nanami is Takumi's younger sister and is a first-year Suimei Academy student. She often puts up a strong front and seems to argue with her brother whenever they meet but she is actually really concerned about him. Voiced by: Ui Miyazaki

[edit] Story

Chaos;Head's story is set in the year of 2008 in Shibuya and is centered around Takumi Nishijō, a high school student at the private Suimei Academy, and some strange events that have occurred recently in the Shibuya area. Two events have occurred so far and is being referenced by the media and the public at large as being New Generation (ニュージェネレーション, New Generation^?) events. The first event named "Group Dive" (集団ダイブ, "Group Dive"^?) occurred on September 7th with five high school students jumping to their deaths off of a high tower. The second event named "Pregnant Man" (妊娠男, Ninshin Otoko^?) happened on September 19th wherein a male university student was found dead with a thirty-two week old fetus incised within his abdomen.

The story begins on September 28 with Takumi talking to an online friend named Grim (グリム, Gurimu^?). Grim is trying to bring Takumi up to speed about the recent New Generation events since Takumi is not interested local or international news. A person named Shōgun (将軍, Shōgun^?) joins the chat room midway through Grim and Takumi's conversation but he does not respond despite being greeted by both Grim and Takumi. Grim sends Takumi a poorly drawn image of a person getting stabbed with several stakes. Grim claims that it is an image of the victim before leaving.

After Grim leaves the chat room, Shōgun finally starts to talk. He sends Takumi a barrage of several image links depicting a murder like Grim's image except that these images appeared to be real images. The next day, as Takumi was heading home after spending the afternoon at an Internet cafe, he comes across the same scene that he witnessed yesterday in Shōgun's pictures. He sees a male body nailed to the wall as well as a pink-haired girl dressed in Suimei Academy's uniform covered in blood. Takumi runs away screaming as soon as he comes to his senses over the situation at hand. The story progresses from here with Takumi trying to avoid getting involved with Shōgun and other New Generation events as he is slowly caught in a grander scheme's wheels of motion.

[edit] Development

Chaos;Head is a collaborative production between 5pb. and Nitroplus with additional assistance from Red Flagship. The original concept art and scenario came from two 5pb. staff members, Yukihiro Matsuo and Naotaka Hayashi respectively. The character designer was Mutsumi Sasaki and Choco handled the product's design.^[7][8] 5zizz studio contributed the music to the game and Nitroplus handled the development and production of the game.^[9]

[edit] Release history

Chaos;Head had two demo releases prior to its final product release. The first version of the demo was released on March 21, 2008 which included the first chapter of the game.^[10] The second version of the demo was released on April 11, 2008.^[10] This second version included the first chapter of the game like the first version as well as a separate "Chapter 1 Evaluation Meeting" (第1章反省会, Dai Isshō Hanseikai^?) which included all of the main characters trying to determine who the main heroine of the game was. The full game was released on April 25, 2008.^[1] Pre-orders of the game came with two bonuses. The first was a patch that added a "Lingerie Conversion System" that swapped the lead female characters' models with models that only wore undergarments^[11] and the second was a telephone card.^[12]

[edit] Related media

[edit] Internet radio show

An Internet radio show named "Chaos;Head Radio Delusional Radio Channel" (Chaos;Head ラジオ 妄想電波局, Chaos;Head Rajio Mōsō Denpakyoku^?) began airing on March 28, 2008 to help promote the visual novel. The show was hosted by Hiroyuki Yoshino and Eri Kitamura who voiced Takumi Nishijō and Rimi Sakihata respectively. Other voice actors from the game like Hitomi Nabatame and Chiaki Takahashi also appeared on the show on select episodes.^[13] The show was streamed online every Friday and lasted for ten episodes with the last episode airing on May 30, 2008.^[10]

[edit] Manga

A manga series based on the visual novel, illustrated by Sumihey, has started its serialization in ASCII Media Works' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh on May 21, 2008.^[3]

[edit] Music

Both of Chaos;Head's opening theme, "Find the blue", and ending theme, "Desire Blue sky", are performed by Kanako Itō.^[14] The CD single was released on May 7, 2008.^[15] The single was able to stay on the Oricon charts for three weeks with a peek position of 54th place.^[16] A single for the game's insert song, "Zaika ni Keiyaku no Chi o" (罪過に契約の血を, "Zaika ni Keiyaku no Chi o"^?), and third ending theme, Gurojiōru (グラジオール, Gurojiōru^?), performed by Yui Sakakibara will be released on June 25, 2008.^[17] The soundtrack for the game will be released on July 4, 2008 in a two CD set. The second CD will include "Kurai" (クライ, "Kurai"^?), the second ending theme, by Kanako Itō.^[18]

[edit] Reception

During the month of March of 2008, one month before Chaos;Head's release on April 25, 2008, Chaos;Head ranked fourth in national PC game pre-orders in Japan.^[19] Chaos;Head came out in third place in sales ranking for the month of April in 2008.^[20]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Chaos;Head's official website (Japanese)