English Dub Review: Deep Insanity THE LOST CHILD “take 02”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

As Shigure begins to settle into his new life as a Sleeper, he starts to wonder what he’s good at, and what he can accomplish down in the Asylum.

Our Take:

We all have moments in our lives that make us question ourselves. These can range from “What am I good at?” to “Am I capable enough to help others?”. It’s moments like these that help us become the people we want to be. Unfortunately, in Shigure’s case, the journey ahead is far from smooth sailing.

That is the case with the second episode of Deep Insanity, which sees Shigure struggling to find his worth as a Sleeper. However, his problem is cut short when he discovers that Sanity Anchor Sumire Motiki was a former underground idol. This episode focuses on the relationship between Shigure and Sumire and the latter’s previous life before joining the crew. While the show could’ve explored more on this partnership before heading into this type of territory, the episode served as a suitable character-driven drama that packed in a lot more interest than last week’s series premiere.

The episode provided the show’s attempted ability to showcase more of the supporting members of Platoon 11. Last week, we knew that Larry lacks fear and is impervious to feeling pain. Here, we see that Larry is good at brain surgery, which could be helpful in case someone needs their brain checked.  

More importantly, the episode further explored Sumire, who left her life as an idol behind due to her embarrassing incident. It also represented that she was promoted to Sanity Anchor after failing to meet the Sleeper entrance criteria. It’s a compelling piece of character development that could be significant to Sumire’s growth in later episodes. But, again, I wish that the show would offer more build-up on the partnership between Shigure and Sumire before reaching that point. Other than that, however, I would consider myself impressed with how the episode represents Sumire.

I also want to point out that the CGI effects for the Scarred monster were solid improvements over last week’s episode. I mentioned in the previous episode that the CGI for the first Scarred creature looked rough around the edges. Fortunately, in “take 02”, the animators were able to correct course by making its Scarred-Monster-Of-The-Week, a sandworm, far less jarring than the creature from “take 01”. Here’s hoping they can keep the consistency going in the upcoming episodes.

Overall, “take 02” offered a decent improvement over the previous episode by showcasing more of its intriguing character-driven moments. While Sumire’s development would’ve worked best in a later episode, the episode still delivered an engaging character piece for the Sanity Anchor amid its Asylum assignments. But, of course, Shigure’s quest to find his talent is far from over as Commander Vera assigns him to assassinate someone at the end of the episode. Hopefully, we’ll know who that “someone” is later down the road.