English Dub Review: Heavenly Delusion “The Test Begins”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Maru and Kiruko make better headway now that they have a car and later spot smoke coming from a nearby area. Meanwhile at Takahara Academy, Tokio gives birth to twins before returning to her friends and the director begins her plans to transplant her brain into the newly appointed Deputy Director, Aoshima. Mimihime befriends one of the newer kids, Ohma, but finds that Ohma can create nightmares when someone removes her sunglasses, though Mimihime eventually learns to adapt to it. The kids are all gathered and told they will be taking a test that will need them to reach “the outside of the outside as Hiruko”, something that stirs something within some of them.

OUR TAKE

Okay, NOW we’re starting to cook with gas. Minimal focus on Maru and Kiruko this week, but given they got a lot of the episode last week, it’s really only fair. Speaking of, you may or may not have noticed that I didn’t really refer to those two by name last week. Well, that’s because there are so many god dang characters in this story that it is legitimately difficult to keep track of them all. Take, for example, Mimihime and Ohma, who get special focus in this episode. I do remember Mimihime from previous episodes, but I genuinely lost track of her and just about most of the other kids at the academy. They’ve done what they can to make sure a few get focus above others while also making sure the rest are distinct enough to stand out, but I think that backfired by having TOO MANY KIDS, not helped by the recently arrived new batch AND the adults whose characters and motives are getting further fleshed out with each episode. I know this is probably odd to have an issue with after last week arguably had a lot less story to balance, but it comes down to an imbalance on both ends.

As for story developments this week, the main advancements are Tokio’s confirming that the director plans a brain transplant into a younger body, which incidentally is the same thing that happened to Kiruko when his brain was put into his sister’s body without consent. This is obviously not the only suspicious connection between Kiruko and Maru and the events happening at the academy, but it is one that feels like a reward for paying attention as it is something that isn’t called out but is there for people who have kept track of things. Another such connection has been building up with hints for some time: the implication and seeming confirmation that the kids at the academy are becoming Hiruko/Man-Eaters in some way. We saw last week that the kid in the former slave camp was able to generate odd abilities like a Man-Eater. Whether this is just what children born in this post-apocalyptic time have naturally happen to them or if it is the result of experiments, or possibly both, is still vague, but in an interesting way. What is clear, at least, is that things are very close to coming to a head, which we will likely see happen next week.