Heavenly Delusion

Captivating beginning, disappointing ending. I am the last person advocating for less mystery or less predictability (at least with the plot in the case of this anime, as the result of encounters with the monsters of this world were clear). However, I felt as though there was a bit too much "new" mystery and not enough building on the "old", or the mysterious reveals already in place. This leaves the viewer with a lot of questions and the worry that the majority may never be answered. The show really does well in creating a post-apocalyptic atmosphere, and it was very fun to watch our twomain characters journey in such an environment. Had it been just that, this might've been an enjoyable, lighthearted at times, heartfelt in others, ecchi-at-times show. However, the last two episodes come out of nowhere and taint the pleasant feelings with unpleasant ones to say the least. To make it worse, the unpleasantness goes on too long, the characters move on too quickly for such an experience, and the ending scene with our protagonists seems to act like what happened in the past two episodes were as important as a filler arc, making the characters feel unreal and not human. The art, shot composition, and audio were all amazing and really caught and kept the viewers attention. The OP and ED were really good, but I have to say that it was really hard to feel the same way about a clearly happy and lighthearted ED after watching episodes 10-12. Things really weren't the same after that. I really wanted to like this show - I really DID like this show - and I was willing to overlook the suboptimal writing if not for the greatly disappointing final episodes. Sometimes many shining moments can be undermined by a terrible few. I believe that to be the case for Tengoku Daimakyou. As much as I enjoyed nearly every aspect about the show up until that point, I cannot ignore the ending.

Trigger warning: sexual assault It is a testament to how stale anime has become if Tengoku Daimakyou is considered great. It is not quite awful, with strong production values throughout and clear artistic effort put into it. The major issues with the pacing, coupled with the poor story and characters that we are shown, land it as a high 3 out of 10. The short TV anime squanders so much of its limited runtime on boring and pointless scenes. Not the side stories; such diversions are welcome in this kind of show. However, the scenes showing the children in 'heaven' were excessively long and dull. Noneof it mattered whatsoever until the final few episodes, and still it didn't tie back to the main characters. These parts took up a large portion of the show and were unecessary. This might only be a problem because the show is unfinished. The entire pacing is built towards a climax that is being saved for some future second season. It can't stand on its own as a single season without that second part. The entire show is unwatchable because of how it was structured. Unless you're watching it for the above average art and animation, there's no point in seeing this until they release the rest because the only interesting part of the show is the mystery, which is built up through the whole season and never resolved. Of course, if it had good characters and individual stories it would still hold up. Unfortunately neither are quite the case. The creators were good at writing a mystery, not so much interesting characters. None had complex personalities. The only real character trait an important character had was the main boy who's trait is that he is horny. Main girl, heaven girl etc., are all completely forgetable but for their designs (the designs clearly came before the characters). The side quests are really forgettable as well, all just exploring very basic and surface level themes. They were all just incredibly mediocre and poorly written. The climax of this season is about the main girl's character. Her character arc is the real point of this season. But this main pillar crumbles only a few episodes after we hear her backstory (which does look to be interesting at first). The whole thing is handled so poorly and the writers clearly can't make anything complex or believable. This character's story is just such an insane planewreck that crashes into heathrow, leveling several terminals and killing thousands. The quasi-normal anime sexual assault that the main boy does to her is just even less forgivable because in the last two episodes the show actually brings up sexual assault and its just so awful. And its like mainly about gender but only the wierdest conception of it. There's nothing wrong with touching these subjects as long as you treat it with respect (the show doesn't). It's also fine to have boobs and fanservice, and the show isn't bad because it has those things. It's bad because of how the fanservice is presented and how it ties to the character themes. It could have still been a good show despite this depiction... Tengoku Daimakyou would have been less talked about than Aico: Incarnation if this had come out in 2018 (not the highest point in anime). But today it is somehow praised to the moon and given an ultra-high ranking when it is fundementally, detatched from its poor handling of the main character and themes related to her, a 4 out of 10 show, or 5 out of 10 at a stretch. Don't watch until the second season comes out. Even when it does, only watch it if you like the character and monster designs.

As the brainchild of this franchise, Masakazu Ishiguro created this piece of work that I can easily say is a creative story. Rather than following the recent endless trend of fantasy isekai or romantic comedies, he had a vision for Heavenly Delusions. That vision is to create a postapocalyptic world where we see a dystopia-like environment and how mankind adapts to survive. With two colorful story plot within one setting, Heavenly Delusion is one of the most ambitious shows I've seen in 2023, and that's not an unerstatement. Unlike his previous work And Yet The Town Moves, this show adapts a much darker tone in storytellingand setting. To me, this was an experimental type of anime that focuses on the 'what ifs' and how people can survive in a world without laws and being in ruins. The postapocalyptic setting of this anime is never shy to show the cruelty of reality. Not only do we meet monsters known as 'Man-Eaters' but our characters must deal with everyday environments too. It's a setting that depicts how humanity can live without modern technology and being part of something that's far from heavenly. As mentioned before, the show follows two storylines. One of them focuses on the pair of Maru and Kiruko as they travel through the desolate lands with their personal goals. The other storyline involves a facility for children with special abilities. This place in the show is dubbed as 'Heaven', a name contrasting sharply with the outside word. Both storylines contains a similar tone with a sense of mystery and dark themes. Masakazu wanted us to experience the story as if we were there ourselves. His creative vision leads to many elements found in other postapocalyptic settings and most noticably, we realize how he wanted to create a society where our worst nightmares can come to life. Maru and Kiruko's journey throughout the anime shows how dangerous their environments can be. With cities in ruins, Man-Eaters are a constant threat to humanity. Their encounters with them leads to vicious fights as these monsters show no mercy against their prey. However, I would also like to mention that despite all the dangers, Maru and Kiruko make an effective pair. Their skills and talents along with resourcefulness allowed the duo to survive. Maru and Kiruko also has an unique chemistry among the cast. Let me just say that as we follow their journey, we see how the duo cares for one another beyond just survivng. Maru's goal for searching for Heaven inspires himself to not give up no matter what obstacles are ahead. With Kiruko's resourcefulness, she helps him during their journey while also making jokes and and humor to lighten up the mood. In fact, having Kiruko's companionship gives Maru's a sense of relief and her tomboyish personality brings out the best of the two. For herself, Kiruko feels more comfortable when not alone with Maru by her side. The chemistry of these two characters brings out not just the lighter side of the anime but perhaps also show that there's hope for humanity after all. The other more darker and mysterious story plot involves characters at a nursery type of facility that we come to know as Heaven. Under a controlled environment, the characters are clueless about the outside world. They are not being held as prisoners but something always felt off and ominous. It is also under mysterious circumstances that some of the characters have special abilities that transcends above logic. Watching these segments brings a lot of questions, and unfortunately, this season alone doesn't have enough answers for them all. Yet, I find this side of the story intrguing because it ties in with a theme of the show about facing the unknown. Heavenly Delusions' mysterious world is created based on a postapocalyptic setting and we really have to ask ourselves what truly exist out there and if there's a bright future for humanity. Characters at Heaven often feels a sense of danger as if something is out to get them but also fears about the outside world. Behind the scenes, we don't know a whole lot about the endgame goals of higher ups. Some brief glances gives us a disturbing picture related to experimentation. But again, being a 1-cour (13 episodes) anime does hold this anime back from answering our questions. Thankfully, the plot doesn't carry itself around loosely between the two plots. We have the characters with personalities that makes us curious about the anime altogether. This is especially true for characters within that mysterious facility such as Tokio, Shiro, among others. One especially interesting episode details background events about Heaven that takes place years ago. A particular child named Asura begs a lot of question about her true origins and why she existed in the first place. She even exists in the main timeline and we must ask ourselves how much she affects the world. On the more disturbing matters, we also learn about Tokio's fate at the end of episode 9. In fact, I would say Heavenly Delusions contain dark and somewhat controversial elements throughout its duration. From experimentations, psychological violence, and postapocalyptic elements, you need to brace yourself as this anime is not light to the heart. Production IG is an interesting choice for this show, as they adapt a world in ruins. From the fictional world setting to its characters, the studio wanted to give us a real look at how it's different from our modern society. In fact, the world is crafted with care and precision to show how much the world lies in ruins. On the other hand, Heaven is built on a foundation that sounds out more than any other place in the world. Finally, expect graphic violence from the show. Man-eaters in this anime are designed with grotesque elements. Make no mistake, the man eaters show no human traits and their presence inspires fear among humanity. Combined with its eerie soundtrack, Heavenly Delusions truly is Masakazu Ishiguro's darkest work to date. Ultimately, Heavenly Delusions may not be aimed at everyone but certainly is a special anime on its own. Using ideas from postapocalyptic themes and tying together two storylines together always kept me at the edge of my seat. With every episode, I felt like the anime continues to build more and more into its mystique. And to be honest, Masakazu Ishiguro truly gave us a worthy anime to talk about this year.

For ~95% of this show's runtime it is a very solid, 7/10 sci-fi mystery series that I would genuinely recommend. The problem is the other 5%; so bad that it makes me a) wish I hadn't watched the show and b) feel forced to write this review in order to warn others as I wish I had been warned myself. Anytime the show has to deal with gender, sex and sexuality, all the subtly and decent writing goes straight out the window and the scenes with such included get increasingly uncomfortable to watch. That is not taking into account the last episode and a bit which -though I will not spoil - was disgusting, completely unnecessary, gratuitous and left me genuinely upset. In a moment I will discuss around the ending and while I'll try to minimise spoilers, if you're the sort who (like me) likes to go into media blind, check out content warnings for this show and thanks for reading. My description of the last episode (and a bit) may seem like hyperbole, but I genuinely think the sexual violence portrayed in this anime is worse than that included in the first episode of Goblin Hunter. While you could argue that Goblin Hunter's sexual violence being fetishised makes it inarguably worse, I would level the same criticism at the scenes in this show; if you want to have sexual violence in your anime (I mean, why would you?), use of audio, dialogue and discretionary shots can get the point across to the audience without having to actually depict the sexual violence in question. The dialogue by itself is more than explicit enough. So if you choose not to do that, if you choose explicitly depict the sexual violence in question, what other conclusion can I draw other than a desire to fetishise that sexual violence for a portion of your audience to enjoy? Let's address the second of my criticism, that those scenes were unnecessary. I am not a manga reader so what does the inclusion of this sexual violence subplot add to the anime's story? Genuine question. The victim brushes it off afterwards with a 'can't stay depressed forever' that is just, incredibly insulting to actual victims of sexual violence and the ending of the anime gave the impression that it was returning to the episodic adventure formula afterwards so...what was the goddamn point? I get that the anime ends near immediately after; there is no time to deal with the fallout but a) why act like the second season (if it gets one) is going to just pick up on the normal adventures of the two characters, thereby robbing this event of the weight and discussion it deserves? And b) why include it at the very end of your first season, giving you no room to treat the sexual violence as anything other than a 'well, that just happened'?! I'm sorry but I cannot understand, excuse or forgive the sexual violence as it was depicted at the end of this show and it has reduced my rating to a 1/10; I genuinely wish I had not watched this show and I will be recommending others not to watch it.