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CHAOS;CHILD
Episode 6

by Anne Lauenroth,

How would you rate episode 6 of
Chaos;Child ?
Community score: 3.6

Sadly, having to wait a few extra hours didn't mean we were in for anything special in this rather mixed bag of an episode.

Kunosato's team has figured out part of Uki Yamazoe's Gigalomaniac powers, which was only relayed to us long after the fact. While there's no necessity (and in the case of this adaptation, also no time) to include the viewer in every single step along the way, the feeling of being left out gets further emphasized in Dr. Dad's summary of Yui and Uki's relationship and shared past. With both girls standing right there, the prospect of a much more interesting reveal and even possible emotional connection provides an all too sharp and frustrating contrast to how the scene was actually handled – a detached, boring recap of something that happened off-screen, with Yui only allowed to confirm what her foster dad recounts.

Uki herself is a bit of a conundrum. Her height seems to fluctuate between extra tiny and almost normal, depending on what the given scene requires. It doesn't help that her facial features make it really hard to accept that she's supposed to look like a 7-year old in-universe, when Onoe and Arimura are almost 10 years older despite looking relatively the same as her. Uki also seems to settle in at Aoba dorm surprisingly fast, given what she went through and how she acted before. Dr. Dad sure is a pro at re-socializing supernaturally traumatized teenagers!

Taku might still be a rookie at the supernatural, but in light of his growing female entourage, he wouldn't be a high-school boy if he didn't at least briefly entertain the idea of trying his telekinetic hand at pushing up one of those ultra short skirts. At least, that's what the camera lingering on the zettai ryōiki area of the girl's legs and Arimura's lie detector reaction imply. In its awkwardness, this kind of fanservice is more charming than last week's peeing shot, even though Arimura's flashback sadly reminds us about it.

With the girls now suddenly super chummy (because they're girls, obviously), and everyone apparently having been connected long before the return of the NewGen murders, there's a noticeable lack of actual chemistry between these characters. Compared to the warmness that even the most excessive antics succeeded at creating in some other semicolon shows, Chaos;Child's interactions feel forced and static, bringing me back to my initial criticism of keeping the viewer out of the emotional loop.

Like before, Taku's delusion was neatly done and reasonably scary, even if he didn't seem in any immediate danger. This might very well change though, as crying blood-tears just after Kunosato's talk about brain swellings in the NewGen victims surely cannot be a good sign. With our three known Gigalomaniacs making it through D-Day, will they be out of the woods for now? Sadly, it looks like the pink-haired pyro girl really is Kurusu's old friend, Senri Minamisawa, not that there was ever much doubt about that.

Rating: C

CHAOS;CHILD is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Anne is a translator and fiction addict who writes about anime at Floating Words.


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