English Dub Review: Heavenly Delusion “The Journey Continues and Begins”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Mimihime and a few of the others begin exploring the outside, eventually finding a speedboat that takes them to an unknown city. Back at the facility, Sawatari gives one of the babies to Aoshima and another to Tokio. The Director emerges, horribly injured, and tries to take the baby from Tokio, which triggers her own strange abilities.

Back on the outside, it’s been two days since Kiruko left, so Maru goes looking for her, being told her and Robin have been “busy”. Upon hearing this, he storms in, knocking out all of the guards, only to find Kiruko tied up. Kiruko has memories that only Kiriko could have and wonders if some of Kiriko is still in this body, also feeling the memory of being shot and wondering if maybe Robin killed her, explaining why he was so shocked to see her alive. When Maru finds Robin, he beats him within an inch of his life and escapes with Kiruko, confessing his feelings and promising to protect her. With that, the two drive off.

OUR TAKE

And that wraps up Heavenly Delusion, at least for this season. I gotta say…not a great ending, if you could call it that. Some turning points are made with back in the academy, but we don’t know who attacked the grounds or why, what exactly the plans of the adults were besides the director wanting to be put in a younger body, or what the heck the connection, if any, there is between the academy kids and their emerging powers to the Man-Eaters. I don’t expect everything to be answered right now, clearly there’s more story they need to adapt, and I did call that at least some of the kids would make it outside (though for different reasons than I expected), but I guess I expected more. We at least leave all the characters in this plot in a different place than when we first found them. They were all snug in their enclosed system, spent the season learning and questioning things, now they’re finding themselves outside of it and some of them are willingly exploring it, venturing forth into parts unknown. I’m not exactly compelled to look into how that venturing progresses but I’m curious enough that I might check in with the second season if they ever get into it.

As for Kiruko and Maru…well, I think I’ve made clear my issues with the turn that took, and the resolution to all that only really helped by ending. Maru came and beat the shit out of Robin, took Kiruko, and left. If I’m being generous, I could say that we got a hint towards the bizarre situation with Kiruko’s body, with implications that some of Kiriko’s memories still remain within it and that Robin was involved with her death, leading to her brain being replaced with Haruki’s in the missing time between when we saw his body retrieved and waking up. However, we could’ve gotten that in any number of ways that did not involve rape, so that’s hardly a plus. As it’s the end of the season, I find myself looking back on the previous dozen episodes and how they’ve expanded on Kiruko’s situation and its complexities…so for it to culminate in Kiruko being raped simply because of having a woman’s body, then is rescued by her male companion who then professes his love and that being considered the point of everything…it’s not a great look. However, it thankfully was not the only thing that happened this season, so in the Season Review, we’ll look back on the good and bad of the series overall.