Heavenly Delusion

Mcsuper★ 9

The theme of finding hope in a seemingly hopeless or dark world has been done before, in a slice of life way in Girls’ Last Tour, in a lovecraftian horror form in Made in Abyss, or in many other ways of which I haven’t seen before. Tengoku Daimakyo takes this theme, but has a sci-fi mystery backdrop to it, making it quite a unique experience, and one I haven’t really experienced personally. What do we want from a sci-fi mystery show? Do we want twists and turns, dark reveals, or unpredictability? Tengoku Daimakyo has all of that, but it also has the one narrative technique Iappreciate the most in media, which is “show, don’t tell”. This anime masterfully handles that by giving us virtually no real direction on the surface, but encourages the viewer to ponder on the events of each episode, pay attention to how the characters act, and recall past events to make a scene or reveal hit that much harder. It’s an anime that can generate a lot of discourse because it is just so mind-bending at times, and confusing, in the most wonderful of ways. It’s not exactly “unpredictable” either, but in order to get the full picture, some thinking must be done — I really appreciate that, as it makes for another level of engagement to the events of the anime. In many media, it’s the author who seems to be the one dumping the information, but in this show, it’s instead the viewers who might try to put two and two together, like a puzzle, to figure out what exactly is going on in the story. There’s no better feeling than when you put two and two together and find out your theory was indeed correct. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air from the constant info dumps in other anime, though there are still some info dumps in this show as well. To give a gist of the setting and story, it’s set in a post apocalyptic world where human civilization was destroyed, man-eating monsters are all over, laying waste to the remains of the land, and threatening the lives of the survivors. Meanwhile, there is a facility that is isolated from the rest of the world, which nurtures children in a very peaceful setting. It reminded me of The Promised Neverland in a way, with the Grace Field house. The two protagonists, Kiruko and Maru are seemingly looking for this place, which they call “Heaven”, and along the way they encounter many intriguing things, as tales on the inside of the nursery and outside get told. Themes around human nature, companionship, and the search for meaning can be seen in both settings, which made for great parallels and comparisons between both the children and the protagonists of the outside world. It was quite interesting seeing the stories of both the nursery and the outside world being told side by side with one another, not relying on info dumps or conventional flashback sequences to understand the lore of the world. Not only is it very thought-provoking, it also looks and sounds incredible, with an audiovisual experience that always had me paying attention and sometimes on the edge of my seat. The directing is phenomenal in really setting the atmosphere and the eerie tone in the more important scenes, but also can change into a very light tone in more comedic scenes. The backgrounds show us the backdrop of urban decay, rather than just flat out telling us. The soundtrack contributes to the atmosphere a lot too, as Kensuke Ushio, who composed music for anime like Chainsaw Man, A Silent Voice, and The Dangers in My Heart, did a great job yet again here to convey the occasional emotional gut punch, or to get us even more uncomfortable in a horrifying sequence. Everything about the production overall was at a very high level, and after seeing the staff behind it, I can see why. It was truly a legendary team of people producing a passion project from start to finish, with the art director Yuji Kaneko, numerous elite episode directors and storyboarders in Haruka Fujita, in which it’s her first work outside of Kyoto Animation, Kai Ikarashi, who worked on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners as well as the Turning Point episode of Mushoku Tensei, and also Toshimasa Ishii, who directed 86: Eighty-Six. I would also love to shout out Hirotaka Mori, since it was his directorial debut in the anime sphere. The characters were quite a strong part of the series as well, with Kiruko and Maru’s relationship and chemistry being quite the highlight of the show. The dialogue between them felt quite natural and organic, like bros just having a great time together, rather than forcing romance into the dynamic in a contrived manner.. That said, as this show has quite a focus on human nature, there is an element of romance there, but it’s more that the show tries to explore human emotions, sexuality, and gender, so how the relationship is handled is quite natural and interesting to watch. They both have past traumas, and I have stated in my past reviews about my disdain for “sob story backstories”— but when an anime can build upon the traumatic past with developments in the present time, it can work well. In this case, it was handled quite well in this anime to create a coming of age narrative for the protagonists, as they tried to find meaning in this mess of a world they found themselves in. The children in the nursery admittedly were quite abundant and difficult to follow along at times, but with some thought, some of them still ended up being very endearing in their own ways along with the protagonists of the outside world. Among the popular hitters like Oshi no Ko, Hell’s Paradise, and Demon Slayer, Tengoku Daimakyo has gone a bit under the radar, but I’m glad many people gave it a shot. It’s something a bit different, very thought-provoking, emotional, and something that will be quite memorable to me for quite a while. That said, while it’s one of the best anime of this season in my opinion, it’s nowhere near finished, so as the kids say, let it cook, and we may be in for another masterclass when the time comes for a sequel, which I hope we’ll get, even if it takes a while. With time, this may become a modern classic, who knows? Till next time, see you, bye bye!

remeemes★ 6

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.