Chaos;Head
Encyclopedia
, stylized as ChäoS;HEAd, is a Japan
ese visual novel
developed by 5pb.
and Nitroplus
that was released on April 25, 2008 for the PC
. A port of the game, named , for the Xbox 360
console
was released on February 26, 2009. The game is described by the development team as a . 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 start happening afterwards as more gruesome murders occur in the area. Takumi struggles to cope with reality and the delusions he experiences as he tries to avoid 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
. A second manga adaptation that focuses on Sena Aoi and Kozue Orihara began serialization in Media Factory
's seinen
manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive
on August 28, 2008. It has been decided for this adaptation to be a side story to the original visual novel. A third adaptation begun serializing in Jive
's shōnen
manga magazine Comic Rush
magazine on September 26, 2008. The anime
adaptation of Chaos;Head by Madhouse
aired in Japan between October 9, 2008 and December 25, 2008.
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 system. This system presents the player with three choices relating to Takumi's psychological state. Two cardiac cycle
s 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.
, Tokyo
. Many of Shibuya's physical locales like its busy pedestrian scramble
and the Loft building appear in the game although their names have been altered slightly. Some notable Internet websites like Wikipedia
, 2channel
, YouTube
, Google
, and Yahoo!
also show up in the game with modified names to avoid trademark issues, and as jokes, as We-Key Pedophiria, @-channel, MewTube, Deluoode, and Taboo!.
As the title implies, psychological themes relating to one's psyche
and mind
plays a large role in Chaos;Head. Delusion
s 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.
midway through Grim and Takumi's conversation. After Grim leaves the chat room, Shōgun begins to talk. He speaks in a very cryptic and confusing manner, leaving Takumi nervous. He then sends Takumi a barrage of image links, one of which appears to be of a brutal murder of a man being pinned by stakes to a wall.
The next day, Takumi comes across a real life murder scene. Witnessing a mysterious pink-haired girl pinning a man up by stakes in an alleyway, he immediately realizes he is witnessing the very murder detailed in the pictures he received the day before. Convinced Shogun is targeting him and the girl he saw committing the murder is somehow connected to him, Takumi tries to avoid getting involved with other New Generation events. However, as Takumi begins attempting to distance himself from the crime he witnessed, he soon catches interest of the police.
With the police suspecting him, and himself convinced that he is being targeted by Shogun, Takumi finds himself caught in a spiral of delusions and paranoia, as he desperately tries to keep himself safe and figure out why he is apparently being targeted. He eventually comes into contact with several other people related to the events, including the girl he saw committing the murder herself. Unsure of what is real or who he can trust, Takumi finds himself thrust into a much larger scheme than he ever thought possible, as the mysterious company NOZOMI carefully plots something from behind the scenes.
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. 5zizz studio contributed the music to the game and Nitroplus handled the development and production of the game. Chaos;Head was temporarily named as when it was first announced. The decision to port the game to the Xbox 360 was decided around June 2008. Ayumi Tsuji, the voice for Kozue Orihara, noted that Orihara's new route that was introduced in Chaos;Head Noah was likely the cause behind the game receiving an 18+ Z rating from CERO
.
s and the second was a telephone card. A consumer console port, named Chaos;Head Noah, to be published by 5pb. Games for the Xbox 360 was released on February 26, 2009. The port contains new routes for the heroines of the game as well as new CG graphics. The CGs are rendered at a resolution of 1280x720, improving on the PC version's scaling of 800x600. Interestingly, Chaos;Head Noah has also been released in America as an iPod Touch/iPhone app, and in HD for the iPad. However, the game still only supports Japanese.
show named 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. The show was streamed online every Friday and lasted for ten episodes with the last episode airing on May 30, 2008. A soundtrack named containing two CDs was released on August 29, 2008. The first CD contained all ten episodes of the Internet radio show and an eleventh show titled . All eleven tracks are in MP3
format. The second CD is in regular audio format containing and .
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. A second manga adaptation, named Chaos;Head -Blue Complex-, revolving around Sena Aoi and Kozue Orihara began serialization in Media Factory
's seinen
manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive
on August 26, 2008. The illustrations are provided by Nagako Sakaki. A third adaptation entitled began serializing on September 23, 2008 in Jive
's Comic Rush
magazine.
and will be released in North America in a DVD/Bluray Disc combo boxset on November 29, 2011.
and the ending theme, entitled "Super Special", was sung by Seira Kagami.
The CD single for "F.D.D." (with additional song "Fly to the sky", both in original and off vocal versions) was released on October 29, 2008. The CD single for "First Sight" (with original and exclusive edits), which included the ending theme "Super Special" as its B-side
, was released on November 21, 2008.
Also the CD single "Phantasm. FES cv. Yui Sakakibara" was released and contained "Haritsuke no Misa" and "Harukanaru idei yona" songs (both in original and off vocal versions), which can be heard in Episode 3 on Phantasm club performance (end of "Harukanaru idei yona", first couplet of "Haritsuke no Misa" and begin of "Harukanaru idei yona").
Both of Chaos;Heads opening theme, "Find the Blue", and ending theme, "Desire Blue Sky", are performed by Kanako Itō
. The CD single was released on May 7, 2008. The single was able to stay on the Oricon
charts for three weeks with a peak position of 54th place. A single for the game's insert song, , and third ending theme, , performed by Yui Sakakibara
was released on June 25, 2008. Sakakibara's single peaked at 63rd place on Oricon and stayed there for two weeks. The soundtrack for the game was released on July 4, 2008 in a two CD set with seventeen tracks each. The soundtrack's second CD included the second ending theme, , sung by Kanako Itō.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese visual novel
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
developed by 5pb.
5pb.
is a Japanese video game manufacturer and record label for video game and anime music. 5pb. formed on April 6, 2005 after Chiyomaru Shikura left Scitron to begin the company as its executive director, the position he still holds. The company name is derived from the phrase "The Five powered &...
and Nitroplus
Nitroplus
Nitroplus Co., Ltd., stylized as nitro+, is a Japanese visual novel computer software company that has developed a number of visual novels, including eroge. They have also have been collaborating with TYPE-MOON to create the light novel series Fate/zero. Their works usually have dark themes such...
that was released on April 25, 2008 for the PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
. A port of the game, named , for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
was released on February 26, 2009. The game is described by the development team as a . 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 start happening afterwards as more gruesome murders occur in the area. Takumi struggles to cope with reality and the delusions he experiences as he tries to avoid getting caught by the perpetrator behind the chain of murders.
The game's story has been adapted into a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
that started serialization on May 21, 2008 in ASCII Media Works
ASCII Media Works
is a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group which formed on April 1, 2008 as a result of a merger between ASCII and MediaWorks where MediaWorks legally absorbed ASCII. Despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company...
' shōnen
Shonen
The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...
manga magazine Dengeki Daioh
Dengeki Daioh
is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works under the Dengeki brand. Many manga serialized in Dengeki Daioh were later published in tankōbon volumes under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Comics imprint. The magazine is sold every month on the 27th...
. A second manga adaptation that focuses on Sena Aoi and Kozue Orihara began serialization in Media Factory
Media Factory
is a Japanese publisher. It was founded on December 1, 1986, and its headquarters are situated in Shibuya, Tokyo. It is a subsidiary of Recruit Co., Ltd...
's seinen
Seinen
is a subset of manga that is generally targeted at a 20–30 year old male audience, but the audience can be older with some manga aimed at businessmen well into their 40s. In Japanese, the word Seinen means "young man" or "young men" and is not suggestive of sexual matters...
manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive
Monthly Comic Alive
is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Media Factory. The first issue was released on June 27, 2006.-Serialized titles:*Asobi ni Ikuyo!*Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai*Bone Crusher*Chaos;Head -Blue Complex-*D-Frag...
on August 28, 2008. It has been decided for this adaptation to be a side story to the original visual novel. A third adaptation begun serializing in Jive
Jive (publisher)
is a Japanese publishing company in Shinjuku, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan and was established on May 12, 2003. In 2004, the company sold its stock to Poplar Publishing and now Jive is an affiliate of that company....
's shōnen
Shonen
The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...
manga magazine Comic Rush
Comic Rush
is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine, published by Jive. The first issue was published on January 26, 2004; the magazine is sold monthly on the twenty-sixth.-List of serialized titles:*Busin 0: Wizardry Alternative NEO*Casshern Sins*Clannad...
magazine on September 26, 2008. The anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
adaptation of Chaos;Head by Madhouse
Madhouse (company)
is a Japanese animation studio, founded in 1972 by ex–Mushi Pro animators including Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It has created and helped to produce many well known shows, starting with TV anime series Ace o Nerae! in 1973, and including western favourites Ninja...
aired in Japan between October 9, 2008 and December 25, 2008.
Gameplay
Gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
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 system. This system presents the player with three choices relating to Takumi's psychological state. Two cardiac cycle
Cardiac cycle
The cardiac cycle is a term referring to all or any of the events related to the flow or blood pressure that occurs from the beginning of one heartbeat to the beginning of the next. The frequency of the cardiac cycle is described by the heart rate. Each beat of the heart involves five major stages...
s 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.
Setting and themes
Chaos;Head primarily takes place in ShibuyaShibuya, Tokyo
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 2008, it has an estimated population of 208,371 and a population density of 13,540 persons per km². The total area is 15.11 km²....
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. Many of Shibuya's physical locales like its busy pedestrian scramble
Pedestrian scramble
A pedestrian scramble, also known as a 'X' Crossing , diagonal crossing , scramble intersection , and more poetically Barnes Dance, is a pedestrian crossing system that stops all vehicular traffic and allows pedestrians to cross an intersection in every direction, including diagonally, at the same...
and the Loft building appear in the game although their names have been altered slightly. Some notable Internet websites like Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, 2channel
2channel
is a Japanese textboard. In 2007 there were 2.5 million posts made every day. Launched in 1999, it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue upwards of ¥100...
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
also show up in the game with modified names to avoid trademark issues, and as jokes, as We-Key Pedophiria, @-channel, MewTube, Deluoode, and Taboo!.
As the title implies, psychological themes relating to one's psyche
Psyche (psychology)
The word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
and mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
plays a large role in Chaos;Head. Delusion
Delusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...
s and the method of projecting one's own delusions onto the physical world
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, or onto someone else's visual system
Visual system
The visual system is the part of the central nervous system which enables organisms to process visual detail, as well as enabling several non-image forming photoresponse functions. It interprets information from visible light to build a representation of the surrounding world...
, is a key driver behind the story. Other scientific themes such as the concepts of matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
, antimatter
Antimatter
In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles...
, and the Dirac sea
Dirac sea
The Dirac sea is a theoretical model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles with negative energy. It was first postulated by the British physicist Paul Dirac in 1930 to explain the anomalous negative-energy quantum states predicted by the Dirac equation for relativistic electrons...
are also brought up.
Story
Chaos;Heads story is set in 2008 in Shibuya and is centered around Takumi Nishijō, a high school student at the private Suimei Academy, and the strange and brutal murders that have recently occurred in the Shibuya area, known as the Madness. The story begins on September 28 with Takumi talking to an online friend called . Grim is trying to bring Takumi up to speed about the recent New Generation events since Takumi is not interested in local or international news. A person named joins the chat roomChat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
midway through Grim and Takumi's conversation. After Grim leaves the chat room, Shōgun begins to talk. He speaks in a very cryptic and confusing manner, leaving Takumi nervous. He then sends Takumi a barrage of image links, one of which appears to be of a brutal murder of a man being pinned by stakes to a wall.
The next day, Takumi comes across a real life murder scene. Witnessing a mysterious pink-haired girl pinning a man up by stakes in an alleyway, he immediately realizes he is witnessing the very murder detailed in the pictures he received the day before. Convinced Shogun is targeting him and the girl he saw committing the murder is somehow connected to him, Takumi tries to avoid getting involved with other New Generation events. However, as Takumi begins attempting to distance himself from the crime he witnessed, he soon catches interest of the police.
With the police suspecting him, and himself convinced that he is being targeted by Shogun, Takumi finds himself caught in a spiral of delusions and paranoia, as he desperately tries to keep himself safe and figure out why he is apparently being targeted. He eventually comes into contact with several other people related to the events, including the girl he saw committing the murder herself. Unsure of what is real or who he can trust, Takumi finds himself thrust into a much larger scheme than he ever thought possible, as the mysterious company NOZOMI carefully plots something from behind the scenes.
Main characters
- Takumi is the main character of the series. He is a hikikomoriHikikomoriis a Japanese term to refer to the phenomenon of reclusive people who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement because of various personal and social factors in their lives...
and only attends school in order to fulfill the minimum for graduation requirements. He often and repeatedly notes that he is not interested in girls in the three-dimensional worldThree-dimensional spaceThree-dimensional space is a geometric 3-parameters model of the physical universe in which we live. These three dimensions are commonly called length, width, and depth , although any three directions can be chosen, provided that they do not lie in the same plane.In physics and mathematics, a...
and avoids conversations with others whenever possible. He prefers to engage in watching animeAnimeis the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
, playing erogeErogeAn or Ero-ga is a Japanese video or computer game that features erotic content, usually in the form of anime-style artwork. Eroge originated from galge, but unlike galge, they feature erotic/pornographic content.-History:...
, and massively multiplayer online role-playing gameMassively multiplayer online role-playing gameMassively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
s. He is a second-year student at .
- 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. She later claims to have known Takumi for a long time, something that only Takumi seems to be unable to remember, yet she claims to have no idea what he is talking about in regards to the murder.
- 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.
- Ayase is a second-year Suimei Academy student by day and vocalist by night. She sings for a popular indie rock band named . 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. She is also the most spiritual and eccentric of the main characters. , Singing voice: Leah ClarkLeah ClarkLeah Clark is an American theatre actress, voice actress, ADR Director, and Script Writer who works for Funimation Entertainment and OkraTron 5000...
(English) - She (as FES) is also mentioned in Steins;GateSteins;Gateis a Japanese visual novel developed by 5pb. and Nitroplus, and was released on October 15, 2009 for the Xbox 360. This is the two companies' second time collaborating together after Chaos;Head. A port to the Windows operating system on the PC was released on August 26, 2010 and a port for Sony's...
ending credits.
- Yua is a third-year student at Suimei Academy who seems to be stalking Takumi but later seemingly befriends him. She seems to be quite into anime and manga. However, this is all later shown to be an act where she is investigating him as she suspects Takumi of being the criminal behind the recent murders.
- 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 and eating a light blue ice pop.
- 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 abilitiesTelepathyTelepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
. She calls herself Kozupii.
Other characters
- Grim is Takumi's online friend, who talks to him almost everyday through their mutual favorite online game, Ensue. He often encourages Takumi to have more courage while dealing with the "third dimension", and supports Takumi throughout his many ordeals. He is very interested in the New Generation incidents and frequently updates Takumi with gory details regarding the murders. As his interests in anime, manga, and games are very similar to Takumi's, the two get along very well, although later his frequent use of the "Whose eyes are those eyes?" phrase seriously bothers Takumi. It is revealed later that Grim is a she, as well as the New Generation murderer. She was the assistant of Takumi's old doctor and is a member of the cult detective Ban is investigating, known as the "Church of Divine Light", which has ties to the NOZOMI Group. She kills herself by driving a stake used in the third crime into her throat.
- Shogun is a mysterious person that Takumi meets during a chatting session. He sends gore pictures relating to the New Generation incident to Takumi, the equation "fun^10xint^40=Ir2", and the phrase "Whose eyes are those eyes", which Takumi often used. This event gives Takumi paranoia throughout the story, thinking that Shogun is spying on him and trying to kill him. He is the true Takumi Nishijo of the story. In the English dub, he is called the General.
- Seira is the main heroine from Takumi's favorite anime "Blood Tunes the Animation", and also Takumi's favorite character. Occasionally, she shows up in Takumi's delusions, trying to deviate him from reality and push him to be a shut-in. Her delusional appearance is in fact Takumi's own weaknesses given voice.
- Daisuke is the only friend Takumi has in his class. A handsome man, he is well liked by almost all girls in his school.
- Ban is a detective of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Criminal Investigation Division. He initially suspects Takumi of being the criminal behind the New Generation murders, but he soon finds himself investigating other leads, including the company NOIZOMI and a well-known religious cult. He is shot dead by his partner Suwa after it ios revealed Suwa is with the NOZOMI Group.
- Mamoru is a detective of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Criminal Investigation Division. He is Ban's junior, and Ban considers him to be both an underling and a friend. His hobby is watching movies, especially Spark Wars, a parody to Star Wars. He is a member of the "Church of Divine Light" and the NOZOMI Group. He fights Takumi with his new-found Giglomaniac abilities, which take the form of stakes of blue energy, but Takumi, who is more experienced with his Gigalomaniacal abilities, reverses the technique on Suwa and pierces him multiple times with his own stakes, killing him.
- Norose is the president of the NOZOMI Technology Group. His role is kept a mystery throughout most of the story, until he is revealed to be the main antagonist, and the creator of the Noah II device, capable of manipulating brain waves and causing delusions to become reality. He has been gathering people with special psychic powers as young children, and torturing them for the sake of completing his twisted desires. He is killed when Takumi impales him to Noah II with his Di-Sword, causing the device to explode, assuring that Norose has, in fact, perished.
Development
Chaos;Head is a collaborative production between 5pb.5pb.
is a Japanese video game manufacturer and record label for video game and anime music. 5pb. formed on April 6, 2005 after Chiyomaru Shikura left Scitron to begin the company as its executive director, the position he still holds. The company name is derived from the phrase "The Five powered &...
and Nitroplus
Nitroplus
Nitroplus Co., Ltd., stylized as nitro+, is a Japanese visual novel computer software company that has developed a number of visual novels, including eroge. They have also have been collaborating with TYPE-MOON to create the light novel series Fate/zero. Their works usually have dark themes such...
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
Mutsumi Sasaki
is a male Japanese freelance anime/manga artist from Hokkaidō, Japan. He mainly provides character designs for bishōjo characters.-Works:Character design*Happy Lesson*Futakoi*Memories Off*Memories Off 2nd*Myself ; Yourself*Chaos;Head...
and Choco handled the product's design. 5zizz studio contributed the music to the game and Nitroplus handled the development and production of the game. Chaos;Head was temporarily named as when it was first announced. The decision to port the game to the Xbox 360 was decided around June 2008. Ayumi Tsuji, the voice for Kozue Orihara, noted that Orihara's new route that was introduced in Chaos;Head Noah was likely the cause behind the game receiving an 18+ Z rating from CERO
Computer Entertainment Rating Organization
The is a Japanese entertainment rating organization based in Tokyo. rating video game content in console games with levels of rating that informs the customer of the nature of the product and for what age group it is suitable...
.
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. The second version of the demo was released on April 11, 2008. This second version included the first chapter of the game like the first version as well as a separate 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. 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 undergarmentUndergarment
Undergarments or underwear are clothes worn under other clothes, often next to the skin. They keep outer garments from being soiled by bodily secretions and discharges, shape the body, and provide support for parts of it. In cold weather, long underwear is sometimes worn to provide additional...
s and the second was a telephone card. A consumer console port, named Chaos;Head Noah, to be published by 5pb. Games for the Xbox 360 was released on February 26, 2009. The port contains new routes for the heroines of the game as well as new CG graphics. The CGs are rendered at a resolution of 1280x720, improving on the PC version's scaling of 800x600. Interestingly, Chaos;Head Noah has also been released in America as an iPod Touch/iPhone app, and in HD for the iPad. However, the game still only supports Japanese.
Internet radio show
An Internet radioInternet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
show named 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. The show was streamed online every Friday and lasted for ten episodes with the last episode airing on May 30, 2008. A soundtrack named containing two CDs was released on August 29, 2008. The first CD contained all ten episodes of the Internet radio show and an eleventh show titled . All eleven tracks are in MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format. The second CD is in regular audio format containing and .
Manga
A mangaManga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
series based on the visual novel, illustrated by Sumihey, has started its serialization in ASCII Media Works
ASCII Media Works
is a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group which formed on April 1, 2008 as a result of a merger between ASCII and MediaWorks where MediaWorks legally absorbed ASCII. Despite this, the former president of ASCII, Kiyoshi Takano, became the president of ASCII Media Works. The company...
' shōnen
Shonen
The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...
manga magazine Dengeki Daioh
Dengeki Daioh
is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works under the Dengeki brand. Many manga serialized in Dengeki Daioh were later published in tankōbon volumes under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Comics imprint. The magazine is sold every month on the 27th...
on May 21, 2008. A second manga adaptation, named Chaos;Head -Blue Complex-, revolving around Sena Aoi and Kozue Orihara began serialization in Media Factory
Media Factory
is a Japanese publisher. It was founded on December 1, 1986, and its headquarters are situated in Shibuya, Tokyo. It is a subsidiary of Recruit Co., Ltd...
's seinen
Seinen
is a subset of manga that is generally targeted at a 20–30 year old male audience, but the audience can be older with some manga aimed at businessmen well into their 40s. In Japanese, the word Seinen means "young man" or "young men" and is not suggestive of sexual matters...
manga magazine Monthly Comic Alive
Monthly Comic Alive
is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Media Factory. The first issue was released on June 27, 2006.-Serialized titles:*Asobi ni Ikuyo!*Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai*Bone Crusher*Chaos;Head -Blue Complex-*D-Frag...
on August 26, 2008. The illustrations are provided by Nagako Sakaki. A third adaptation entitled began serializing on September 23, 2008 in Jive
Jive (publisher)
is a Japanese publishing company in Shinjuku, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan and was established on May 12, 2003. In 2004, the company sold its stock to Poplar Publishing and now Jive is an affiliate of that company....
's Comic Rush
Comic Rush
is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine, published by Jive. The first issue was published on January 26, 2004; the magazine is sold monthly on the twenty-sixth.-List of serialized titles:*Busin 0: Wizardry Alternative NEO*Casshern Sins*Clannad...
magazine.
Anime
An anime adaptation of the visual novel was produced by Madhouse Studios and first aired in 2008. The anime adaptation features exactly the same cast of voice actors from the PC game. The anime is licensed by Funimation EntertainmentFunimation Entertainment
Funimation is an American entertainment company. Originally founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga, the company became a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005...
and will be released in North America in a DVD/Bluray Disc combo boxset on November 29, 2011.
Music
The anime opening theme song, entitled "F.D.D.", was sung by Kanako ItōKanako Ito
is a female Japanese singer from Utsunomiya, Tochigi, Japan. She has sung many songs that have appeared in video games and anime. One of her notable songs in games is , the "bad end" ending theme to the visual novel School Days. Itō has also sung songs for a drama CD and anime adaptations of School...
and the ending theme, entitled "Super Special", was sung by Seira Kagami.
The CD single for "F.D.D." (with additional song "Fly to the sky", both in original and off vocal versions) was released on October 29, 2008. The CD single for "First Sight" (with original and exclusive edits), which included the ending theme "Super Special" as its B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
, was released on November 21, 2008.
Also the CD single "Phantasm. FES cv. Yui Sakakibara" was released and contained "Haritsuke no Misa" and "Harukanaru idei yona" songs (both in original and off vocal versions), which can be heard in Episode 3 on Phantasm club performance (end of "Harukanaru idei yona", first couplet of "Haritsuke no Misa" and begin of "Harukanaru idei yona").
Both of Chaos;Heads opening theme, "Find the Blue", and ending theme, "Desire Blue Sky", are performed by Kanako Itō
Kanako Ito
is a female Japanese singer from Utsunomiya, Tochigi, Japan. She has sung many songs that have appeared in video games and anime. One of her notable songs in games is , the "bad end" ending theme to the visual novel School Days. Itō has also sung songs for a drama CD and anime adaptations of School...
. The CD single was released on May 7, 2008. The single was able to stay on the Oricon
Oricon
, established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc...
charts for three weeks with a peak position of 54th place. A single for the game's insert song, , and third ending theme, , performed by Yui Sakakibara
Yui Sakakibara
, is a female Japanese choreographer, dancer, singer, songwriter, and voice actress from Hyōgo, Japan. She appeared on Kōhaku Uta Gassen as back ground dancer behind Ami Suzuki in 1999 and 2000. She used to use the name and others in her previous voices...
was released on June 25, 2008. Sakakibara's single peaked at 63rd place on Oricon and stayed there for two weeks. The soundtrack for the game was released on July 4, 2008 in a two CD set with seventeen tracks each. The soundtrack's second CD included the second ending theme, , sung by Kanako Itō.