Cha0 is a wonderfully strange and compelling story about humans and, well, other folk living side by side. The film opens in a colourful, near-futuristic city where a journalist is commuting on a train specially adapted with pools for its non-human passengers.
Running late, he hops into a floating jet stream of water (think Futurama’s transport tubes, but aquatic), which washes him along to his next deadline. Except he spies a famous fisherman and diverts to interview him. It is here that the film’s true story begins, rolling back time to the fisherman’s youth.
A Surreal and Grimy World
The contrast between the anime’s two timelines is stark. The bright, aquatic future gives way to a past that is “grimy and cluttered and just horribly grotty.” This is the world our protagonist, a young man, inhabits.
But the grime is only the beginning of the world’s strangeness. Cha0 presents a reality that is deeply surreal. The merfolk are just the start; the human population itself is bizarre. Many characters are proportioned like the Titans from Attack on Titan, while others, like a key shipping tycoon, look remarkably like a Weeble.
What makes this world-building so effective is that no one ever comments on it. People of all shapes and sizes simply go about their daily lives, adding a layer of wonderful, deadpan absurdity to the entire affair.
A Fishy Riptide of Drama
The core plot follows our young man, who works for the Weeble-like shipping tycoon, CEO Sea. This tycoon builds ships with traditional screw propellers, which are a deadly hazard to marine wildlife. Our hero, a nobody living with a relative who is a bit of a mad inventor, is trying to pioneer an alternative: a safer air-jet propulsion system.
His ambition seems doomed until the daughter of the Sea King falls for him and essentially strong-arms him into a wedding. This is where the film’s surrealism and drama collide. The “mermaid” bride is not what you might expect; she is, in fact, a giant goldfish who wears boots on her fins and waddles around the city.
The rest of the film follows the young man as he grapples with being “railroaded into this fishy marriage.” We know from the film’s opening that he ends up as a simple fisherman, so the central questions become: what happens to this bizarre marriage, and does his safe-shipping invention ever see success?
While Cha0 is not an action movie, there is barely a slow moment. The drama keeps coming like a riptide, pulling the characters and the audience along.
Strangely Relatable Characters
A film this strange risks alienating its audience, but Cha0 succeeds by grounding its story in its characters. The young protagonist is, admittedly, frustrating in the way many young men can be, struggling to cope with the bizarre hand he has been dealt.
His goldfish bride, meanwhile, can be “oddly naive” at times. Yet, neither character becomes unlikable. The film does an excellent job of making its extraordinary situation feel relatable on an emotional level. You remain invested in their fate, even when one of them is a giant, boot-wearing fish.
Unless you have absolutely zero tolerance for the surreal, Cha0 comes highly recommended. It is a visually unique, engaging, and surprisingly heartfelt story, and a clear candidate for one of the best contributions to Scotland Loves Anime so far.
If you liked Cha0, you can vote for it on the unofficial SLA-ed fan poll.
