English Dub Review: Chaos;Child Episode 2 “Sumo Sticker”

The pace is picking up a bit.

Spoilers Below

The episode starts off delving into the deformed looking “Sumo Stickers” from the last episode as it’s the only lead Takuru has found that connects him to these bizarre murders that are potentially tied to the “NewGen madness murders of 2007” prior to the main series. They realize that there are multiple variant designs of this particular sticker, but it could all be some odd coincidence, even though they were all strangely visible in the pictures Takuru checked.

Takuru and his journalism club then proceed to make a viral Youtube-style video which dives deep into their theories about the titular sticker and its possible connection regarding the killings. They later upload it but doesn’t get immediate results which at first discourages them a little but aren’t the types to easily give up.

After school, Hinae encounters a detective who’s Investigating the crimes and reminds her that she’s on “Conditional Release”. Out of happenstance, Takuru and Serika follow Hinae and eavesdrop on their convo at a colorful cafe and learn that Hinae was cooperating with the murder victim on some sort of investigation.

Hinae may have been playing dumb at first when the cops interrogated for the aftermath of episode 1, but due to a few noticeable changes in personality, the detective knows there’s a lot more than she’s letting on with the detective claiming that the hotel “suicides” were actually murders. Finally, Hinae spills the beans that she was actually cooperating with a different detective as some sort of agent for the department’s murder investigations.

That same detective later shows her a photograph of the episode’s titular “Sumo Sticker” in which Hinae briefly slips out that she dislikes the stickers. Takuru and Serika somehow learn that the original sticker shows up at the scene of a murder before it occurs. In response to this knowledge, Takuru later asks Shinji to set up a hidden camera near a location that has multiple Sumo Stickers all over the walls in an effort to catch the culprit.

Meanwhile, an online newscaster named Kei popularizes a live podcast that Takuru casually listening to. During the podcast, Kei further explains the specific dates these recent murders occurred strangely line up with the exact dates of the grotesque murders that happened six years ago and even goes as far as to share Takuru’s viral video explaining the Sticker’s possible connection with these incidents.

After her online broadcast ends, that same detective from earlier is back but this time asking Kei questions. which further reveals that Kei is not only younger than she looks, But she’s actually a scientist named Mio Kunosato who has genius-level intelligence which helped her skip a few grades to become a researcher overseas in the U.S.

Mio explains that doing her online talk show was an attempt to popularize the discussion by getting internet users involved in the investigation. She was also particularly fond of Takuru’s school newspaper website which is how she got the sumo sticker information from them.

So, the next day their video post about the sumo stickers goes viral beyond measure, With over “a hundred thousand views and five thousand comments” since the night before. Due to the video’s success, Takuru anonymously receives info about the individual who created the Sumo stickers and finds out that same creator is currently in a coma at the Tokyo General Hospital.

That night, Takuru’s sister expresses legit concern as she finds out about the hidden camera and talks to her Dad about Takuru. but the convo turns into in a long-winded info-dump for the audience to further explain that all their siblings had to have a period of adjustment because all of them were adopted and lost their families from the aftermath of that aforementioned six-year-old earthquake (which happens to also be tied with the string of grotesque murders). Afterward, she goes to remove the hidden camera out of concern for Takuru’s well-being but gets stabbed from behind by a dark-cloaked figure and the episode abruptly ends with the camera falling to the ground and Nono next to it bleeding in the street.

Overview

This episode certainly got the investigative aspect right, But the scientist who is using rabid internet conspiracy nuts to do the job for them could arguably put those people in danger, But then again, the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” fanbase never wasted time when it came to finding secrets.

So far the first two episodes feel decently paced but that ending felt like it wasn’t the right time to kill someone off. I know we barely got to know her but damn! To put things in perspective, outside of being Takuru’s adopted sister, Nono doesn’t feel fully fleshed out and the shanking she just received felt like it only existed as a cheap jump scare because it lacks the emotional impact to make us give a shit.

For instance, when A-hole writers like Joss Whedon and George R. R. Martin emotionally manipulated their respective fans, they took time and breathing room to make us care about their creations before sadistically putting their characters through the ringer or killing them. I get Nono is trying up uphold a “big sister” role, and it tried to convey that to the audience, but with the exception of her removing the Camera, Nono prior to this didn’t really take an active role regarding Takuru’s risky behavior.

Aside from learning that Hinae is an investigator herself and why she partook in this in the first place, the real questions I pondered after the ending were:

1. Did Nono really die?

2. If she did, how will Takuru react to this?

And 3. will this have a legit impact that will help further advance the story?

I guess we’ll find out in Episode 3.