Chaos;Child

It is always nice to start with a two-part special because you have a lot more material for a possible initial evaluation. However, half of it is filled with a truncated recap of another anime series, which recounts most of the important things about what happened in the first anime series (Chaos;Head), even though it almost leaves out some other things (the Gigalomaniacs). So it is probably quite a messy deal for those who have not yet seen the original anime series, although it is quite confusing even for those who have seen the first anime series. I worked out that the events are more or less the same as described in the original anime series; it is just that the ending is probably a bit different because in this show the aftermath of the earthquake remained. This show and the game it is based on have multiple endings, and the happy end from the anime series is not canon here. I think I worked it out pretty well, although even with the recap that took the first twenty-four minutes of the first special episode, it took me a few more hours to understand it. The second half is then an introduction to the plot, which does not seem entirely pointless and immediately has a much better and more enjoyable atmosphere, unlike, say, Occultic;Nine. Still, it is not what I would have expected. Chaos;Head played around with the main male protagonist's perception rather beautifully in the first half and messed with the viewer's head as well. Initially, this show hinted at being more of a crime drama than a sophisticated psychological drama with sci-fi elements, which is how it goes almost to the end. At the very end, however, it picks up quite a bit, and probably from the "little doll in the boxes" onwards, it is much better and more interesting, although it took me a lot of work to take it all in, and I am not really sure I really did work it out. So mostly, it is a bit better than average, and the last few episodes were pretty good. However, I still did not feel it was worth more than 6.3/10 in the end. (01/12/2017)