Heavenly Delusion – 11 – Two by Two, Eyes of Blue

The new Fifth-Years are doing a number on Mimihime—whom I only just realized has animal ears in addition to ESP—but her pains are nothing compared to Tokio’s labor, an unprecedented event at the academy. Not only that, it seems Kona can sense some of that pain.

This episode is “Heaven”-heavy, so by nature it had to be “Hell”-light. The first of Kiruko and Maru’s two scenes keeps it light, naming the totally bitchin’ Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagon they inherited from Juuichi by merging all of their names: Kirukomaru II. The “II” representing Juuichi, which means 11 but should be read as Roman numerals.

Tokio successfully gives birth to what looks to be a healthy boy, but the Director confides in Sawatari that she is planning to transplant her brain into the child when he’s old enough. To get over the fact she’s 80 and may not make it, she’ll transplant her brain into Assistant Director Aoshima’s first.

First of all, her casually saying “the assistant director knows they’ll eventually become the director” sent a chill down my spine. That’s not how promotion works, lady! But yeah, what might’ve been good intentions to rebuild civilization has clearly gotten to the Director’s head. She has delusions of grandeur (and immortality) and there’s no law or god to stop her.

The twist of the knife is that Sawatari is recalling this chilling meeting with the Director while watching Tokio’s newborn in the nursery, and who should pop her head in to call the baby cute but the Director’s next vessel, poor Aoshima. This is some demented Being John Malkovich shit.

In Kiruko and Maru’s only other scene, they stop at an abandoned and completely gutted house to sleep for a bit, but because Maru slept off his carsickness he’s wide awake, and spots a plume of illuminated smoke on the night horizon. He wakes Kiruko, who gets out their map and compass and determines that the smoke is coming from the Takahara facility.

We then zoom in on that smoking, churning, foreboding complex, which resembles neither “Heaven” nor the facility where Sawatari and Aoshima are (or were). Stalking its halls is Robin—or possibly whomever had their brain transplanted into Robin? Who knows with this show!

Mimihime, bless her heart, reaches out to Ohma, one of the Fifth Year kids who is off on her own, saying she’d just annoy the other kids and crying big sopping tears. Mimihime gets out her handkerchief to dry Ohma’s eyes.

When Ohma opens them, they glow blue, and Mimihime experiences her worst fear: the wall opens up and she’s restrained, poked, prodded, and stabbed by implacable machines. It’s literally a heavenly delusion.

Mimihime went through the same hallucinatory nightmarish experience as Kiruko, which all but confirms Ohma is, or will be, the Hiruko at the Immortal Order parking garage. Mimihime wakes up in the infirmary where she encounters Kona, who explains that he and Tokio are now “synchronized.” While Tokio is fine, he’s stuck in bed.

As he talks, Kona transforms into a hideous, very Hiruko-like monster. It may just be another hallucination, but it’s still creepy as fuck. But it’s also productive, as Mimihime is able to will away the illusion and restore reality Kona and the room.

Having stumbled upon a defense for the hallucinations, the next time she sees Ohma (who was waiting for her to return her handkerchief), she again removes her dark glasses, and is again restrained by machines. Only this time, Mimihime is able to will those away, telling Ohma she’s okay; she doesn’t have to cry or apologize.

The Adults at Takahara are the blind being led by the artificial: following directions for building something they know not what. We then see Sawatari and Aoshima speaking in the Director’s office, but the Director isn’t there; just her wheelchair. Are they following her orders, are they planning a revolt against her? Also, Tokio gave birth to twins.

The next morning all the children are summoned to the pool, but not to swim. They’re reunited with Tokio, who tells them she’ll be returning to them soon. Then the robot announces that there is to be a test. It will be a long test, but they’ll have plenty of time.

It also explicitly calls them all “Hiruko” for the first time, and a couple of the children comment that hearing that words sounded like they were hearing their real name for the first time. The test, no doubt, involves most if not all of them transforming into horrible monsters, doesn’t it? I hate this!

Mind you, this isn’t bad. It’s just upsetting, even if it had become all but inevitable that these kids would end up being the Hiruko that Kiruko and Maru hunt in the near future. It sucks because I’ve come to care about Tokio, Kona, Mimihime, and the other kids, and don’t want them to suffer.

But they surely will, and all to satisfy the whims of one megalomaniacal old woman, out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct.

Heavenly Delusion – 10 – Stone Cold

It was clear from the jump that this was a different kind of episode of Heavenly Delusion, but not due to its narrative content, which is almost its weakest aspect. Instead, it’s how that content was presented, which was with a dynamic, freewheeling style more reminiscent of Trigger anime.

That’s no coincidence, as Trigger’s own Ikarashi Kai is the guest storyboarder, director, and key animator this week. And the episode looked fantastic. So fantastic, it almost overshadows the fact that Juuichi…wasn’t lying about the “walled city” where women held men captive as breeding pigs!

Juuichi drives Kiruko and Maru to the former school where there’s a huge hole in the wall. The place is abandoned, but when a sudden rush of icy air threatens to kill Kiruko and Maru, Kiruko just manages to fire off a round of the Kiru-Beam and save both their lives. There’s a Hiruko in there, and it uses ice to freeze its prey. Both the visuals and sound design excel at portraying the extreme cold.

Kiruko doesn’t take too much time warming up, instead choosing to bum-rush the monster and fire the beam at it before it freezes them to death. The plan seems to work, and the beam cleaves the Hiruko in half, but the half with the core gets away, and thus the threat lingers.

From there, Juuichi is reunited with two of his fellow “boars”—men who were awake and escaped the women when the man-eater arrived. They brought with them a baby boy—Juuichi’s son. His reunion is so touching even a tough nut like Kiruko wells up a little bit.

A hot bath and a soft sofa later, Kiruko and Maru are planning to head to the Takahara facility the next morning, but before morning arrives, the Hiruko returns. Kiruko grabs Juuichi’s son and runs as far away as they can, only to find the cold is following them. That’s when Maru realizes that the kid is the Hiruko: capable of creating deadly ice to defend himself.

In this week’s seemingly cursory check-in at Takahara, Tokio remains isolated as she carries her child to term, while her friends are suddenly introduced to a new batch of “fifth year” kids who are shot in such a way as to look sinister, even evil.

That intro is juxtaposed with Juuichi gruesomely murdering one of his fellow boars with a circular saw while his son plays with blocks (the block sounds also accompany the shots of the creepy new Takahara kids). I don’t 100% know why, but I guess he believed the man he killed sounded the alarm that he was escaping?

Either way, something’s not quite right with Juuichi, but at least he’s reunited with his son, who has special powers like one of the X-Men. Since he has no more need to travel, he gives Kiruko and Maru his van, which breaks down ten feet from where they started off. Hopefully they’ll get it running again so they can get to the fireworks factory Takahara Academy to uncover more mysteries.