English Dub Review: Chaos;Child “Serika Onoe”

Get ready for a mind-fuck of a twist…

Spoilers Below

The episode has an odd structure as we see a series of flashbacks of whom Serika was on the phone with during the events of Episode 9 which turns out to be Dr. Sakuma. The scenes at least fill in gaps of unanswered info during her phone convo including the fact that their plan was to pin all the murders on the pyrokinetic that everyone assumed Senri to be but Serika is understandably pissed at Sakuma for going back on their deal to spare Takuru’s life.

We cut back to the present immediately after episode 11 where we learn that Sakuma has psychically trapped Takuru within of a delusional state that deprives him of all of his senses and begins to slowly make Takuru go insane. As it cuts to the festival with the crowd expressing disappointed that Takuru didn’t show up, Detective Shindou receives a call and tells Mio that his men received info that Takuru was spotted at “Hikariwo”. We cut back to Takuru in the dark recesses of his mind and out of desperation, Takuru creates a delusion of Serika and despite being Dead, she helps guide him out with a ‘Do-Over” of sorts in which he uses to defeat Sakuma, destroying his artificial D-sword but of course it’s not without obstacles as Sakuma injures Takuru but eventually Sakuma is both defeated & killed.

As Takuru approaches Serika’s body she wakes up and out of reflex tries to strike at Takuru with her Di-Sword but he’s able to defend her attack and inadvertently reads her mind when their Di-swords clash. Takuru discovers through her memories that Serika was born out of Takuru’s subconscious desire to be special & different in terms of social status. To that end, Serika had an elaborate 2-part plan. The first part involved manipulating Sakuma into being the mastermind and started a series of C.S.I-esque scenario’s that replicated the “New Generation” murders to provide a mystery for Takuru to solve and had Sakuma implant false memories in Serika’s mind to throw everyone off. Then, once Sakuma died, the second part of her plan would involve Serika knocking Takuru out and planting evidence implicating Sakuma for the murders giving Takuru his desired hero status.

Takuru is now left both shocked & horrified at the realization that every murder that’s happened throughout this entire series were ultimately & indirectly his fault, Including Yui’s grisly death in Episode 7. Takuru does the mature thing and accepts responsibility by deciding to turn himself in but quickly stops to hug Serika saying “It’s game over game maker” and uses his Di-sword to turn Serika into a normal girl which understandably scares Serika as she doesn’t want to live an existence without a purpose. The Episode ends with a montage as Takuru turns himself into the police, while at the same time all of his friends fall unconscious. He later wakes up in a hospital bed with Mio and Shindou watching over him and Serika also wakes up in her bed all teary- eyed.

Our Take.

This was a roller coaster of mixed emotions but the twist-ending was in a number of ways a mind-fuck that kinda reminded me of the twist ending to “Paranoia Agent” only the grisly crimes in Chaos Child didn’t manifest from the repressed memories of a young girl accidently killing a pet but Takuru’s loneliness & desires created all of it whether he was aware or not.