Heavenly Delusion vol. 1
The anime season from Spring of 2023 was an unusually bountiful one for myself, Steve, and whoever else decided to join us on our weekly viewing sessions. Not only were we watching eight series at once (the most we’ve ever done before or since) but we continued to watch series from that season through the Summer and Fall afterwards. “Heavenly Delusion” was one of those series that we picked up on in the Summer after word-of-mouth indicated it was a weird sci-fi series that broke from the norms of the medium.
It only ran for twelve episodes, but they were an entertaining bunch. The series felt like a real passion project from the staff at Production I.G. where they were really passionate about making it work, regardless of its commercial potential (see also: Mappa and “Dorohedoro”). “Heavenly Delusion’s” only real problem at the end, aside from a badly misjudged story about sexual assault, was that it ended with a lot more questions about its story, characters, and world than we started with. So it’s a good thing that the manga it’s based on is currently being published in English because that means I’ll finally get some answers. Probably.
The story alternates between two different settings. One involves a group of teenagers living under the eyes of some watchful adults and robots in a campus sealed off from the outside world. The kids don’t know what’s out there, and they’ve only been told by the adults that it’s HELL. One of them, Tokio, is starting to get curious about what’s out there, and her curiosity has only been stoked by some weird encounters she’s been having recently.
The other setting has two different teenagers making their way through a post-apocalyptic setting that’s more “Fallout” than “Mad Max.” Pockets of civilization still remain and people go about their business as best they can, which is how jack-of-all trades Kiruko gets a job bringing Maru to a place called Heaven. The person who asked Kiruko to do this died before she could elaborate, so now this guardian and her charge are going to have to figure out for themselves where and what this Heaven actually is.
There’s a lot that’s familiar about the storytelling on display here from mangaka Masakazu Ishiguro. From the obviously sinister undertones projected by the campus setting, to this being yet another post-apocalyptic setting menaced by random roving gangs. While he’s not out to turn your expectations about these things on your head, at least in this first volume, there are bits that do surprise and they mostly involve what Kiruko and Maru get up to in their setting.
What really sets “Heavenly Delusion” apart from other post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories is that it has a genuine sense of humor about how everything plays out. It can feel a bit more restrained in the campus setting where the silliness mostly involves what the teenagers get up to when the adults aren’t looking. Yet it really becomes apparent in the scenes with Kiruko and Maru as they not only have a great chemistry together, but real comedic rapport as well. Ishiguro also comes off as a lot more willing to mine their setting for comedy as seen in their encounters with a gang early on, along with a lone innkeeper and the inhabitants of a commune later on.
All of this humor is genuinely welcome here as it provides a real hook for the reader to latch on to here. That’s mainly because while the series is getting its various mysteries started here, they come off as fairly generic at this point. What is outside the campus? What is this Heaven Maru and Kiruko are looking for? Why does that fish drawing have so many hands? They’re not going to be answered right away, so it’s good that the series has enough humor and character on display to keep you interested.
Speaking as someone who does know where some of these mysteries are going, I can say the payoffs are worth it more often than not. The only thing disappointing to report here is that there isn’t a lot of surprise to be had in terms of seeing how they’re set up here. That’s also down to how straightforward the anime adaptation appears to have been based off of the first volume. This isn’t another case where the anime surpassed its source material (Hi there “Bocchi the Rock!”), but one closer to “Vinland Saga” where the adaptation executed quite well on the material they were given. That’s in addition to benefiting from the polish you’d expect from an A-list studio like Production I.G.
So while I’ll be reliving a lot of familiar material in these early volumes, that doesn’t necessarily feel like a bad thing at this point. It’s been a while since I’ve watched the anime, so it’s good to have the refresher course presented by the manga in this form right now. The real test will be whether the manga can keep its momentum going after we reach the point where the anime finished, but I’m inclined to keep following it and reliving the story for now.