Chaos; Child: The Complete Series [Blu-ray]

I've been collecting the science adventure series and this finally completed it thank you very much!

I bought this because I am a fan of Steins Gate and this turned out to be a great mystery!

I waited to buy this series until I could get it with the OVA for a good price. Bless the Essentials Collection! It contains episodes 0-12 (so 13 episodes) and the OVA episode as well. As a gay man, I was a bit put off by their choice of cover for this collection; the series touches a lot of subjects, and the anime itself has almost no sexual instances in it, so it was incredibly disappointing to see Funimation reduce such a deep anime to "titties". Horrible portrayal of what the anime actually is. Luckily, the cover IS reversible, and the reverse cover is honestly what the front cover should have been from the start. The front image has all the characters together, and the back cover shows the two main characters from the OVA.Onto the actual series...Much like Chaos;head, this anime does lose out on a bit of storytelling by limiting itself to only 12 episodes. They included an episode 0, which is a quick retelling of Chaos;head's story (although a bit different). Quite honestly, it's a horrible episode. They squeezed a 12-episode series that should have been a 24-episode series into a single 30-minute episode. It's just bad in every way. It's sad that there is some significance in this single episode, so it's still best to watch it as the prequel to C;C. However, if you've never seen Chaos;head, you won't have any idea what's going on, even after watching this recap episode. You really gotta watch the full C;H series first.I played through the game once, and I've gotta say, I do wish they had found better middle ground between the anime and game. I sold my game after the first playthrough because it was just too long and dull. There was too much boring character dialogue that didn't lend enough to the story, and drew everything out far too long. The anime, however, does a great job at moving the main story along, but it loses out on proper character development. I find most of the characters to be well-represented, but the main character, Takuru, isn't developed at all. You don't get any true sense of his actual personality or traits. He's very basic in the anime, and it doesn't highlight his quirks and flaws. This makes his character development scenes, which are actually one of the main plots of the entire story, fall pretty flat. You don't realize how much he grows throughout the events of the series, because it doesn't show through. He's the most important character, and the one who is the most poorly represented. This is the anime's major downfall.Aside from that, the story is very complex and a bit over-the-top, if I'm being honest. I do find that a major improvement on C;H, though, so it keeps you guessing and wanting answers the whole way through. I will say, their choice of storyline does come off as a bit conceited, as if they're showing off how many twists and inceptions they can put into one story. But all negatives aside, it is still a great story, and I recommend it to those who are into the series.Just like C;H, I wish C;C had emphasized the murder scenes a lot more. Maybe they were trying to expand their audience base to those who don't like gore, but I think the whole thing would have been a lot more thrilling and hit home a lot harder had they showcased the main attraction a bit more. The game starts out in great detail as we witness the first murder. It was enough to make me feel sick, and I had chills for days, because I couldn't get it out of my mind. It was perfect. But the anime just kinda runs past it, and from a much more distant perspective.The OVA wasn't great, but it does help give some more closure to how the anime ended. It's based off of one of the multiple endings from the game. I personally would have preferred they chose a different ending, but it's ok. It is nice to see Funimation finally adding English-dubbed OVA episodes to their collections to make them complete.I know it seems like I have a lot of bad things to say, but quite honestly, I am a fan of the anime still, and will continue to rewatch it over and over again. I'm only so critical because I feel it's a great series that kind of stunts itself by being limited to so few episodes. It may take a few watch-throughs to take everything in, but that's not a bad thing, necessarily. It's just very complex. So if you think you can handle such a twisted storyline, I do recommend it.

For the "Essentials" Funimation release.Blu Ray Region: A & BContains Episodes 1 - 13 & OVAEnglish & Japanese audioI've always found the "Chaos" series a little weird, it can also be complex at times too. There's some moments that are kinda shocking too. Not one to spoil but if you love a combination of these things this series delivers.

While I have no issue with the series/show in itselfThe packaging said it came with a digital copy even says so on the summery on the back, but there was no digital code slip.

Great price, fast shipping.

fun and all the great twist to the story was worth the watch

Good