Chris

Nick, there’s a lot of talk of problematic ships these days. Fortunately, I’ve found one ship everybody ought to be able to agree on.

Nick

We really botched this whole thing by not covering this show on 4/20, huh?



Thankfully, that has to be the only noticeable scheduling failure surrounding Heavenly Delusion/Tengoku Dai Makyō, right?

Oooooh boy. Even before getting into whoever was waking and baking, instead of getting this series streaming everywhere upon its premiere, just that whole issue of the title of this show requires clarification. Because even under ideal circumstances, it would be hard for people who heard about this new Heavenly Delusion anime to find it thanks to that swerve of nomenclature.

Yeahhhhhh, so outside of being a lusciously produced and gripping sci-fi mystery, the other big story about this series is the rest of anime fandom getting familiar with the…let’s say, « quirks » of how Disney handles international streaming of their anime.

It says a lot that while there was plenty of chatter about the project and its source manga leading up to the release, in the wake of the « premiere, » pretty much all of the discussion I saw around the anime for the next couple of days came from confused US fans trying to figure out if it had been released here on Hulu yet, and how we could find it.

It’s a bizarre bumble from a company with the media presence and promotional power like Disney, especially picking up big names like Tokyo Revengers there, as well as Bleach and this, a highly anticipated Production I.G adaptation of popular manga Heavenly Delusion.



I realize even we haven’t clarified that title business yet, by the way, so know that that’s problem point #2: Eschewing the official English title used elsewhere in favor of the decidedly less search-friendly « Tengoku Dai Makyō. »

Who needs an already existing, recognizable title that the manga has been published under for years? Throw that romanization up there like your favorite anime are Hagane no Renkinjutsushi and JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken.



It’s not like this is hosted on a service primarily known for English-language television or anything. I’m sure people will know where to look.

Of course, that brings us to the third issue: Even if viewers did somehow manage to stumble onto this show against all of the big D’s apparent efforts, trying to watch the subtitled Japanese version might still prove more trouble than it’s worth, with the captions on these streams regularly drawing ire even in comparison to Hulu’s already famously lax standards.

It’s already not great that the subtitles routinely get out of sync when I’m binge-watching LOST, but it turns out that’s a way more significant issue when you’re watching something in a foreign language. Whoops.

I’d heard speculation that the mistimed captions might result from Hulu not playing nice with AdBlock, though even switching it off did little to help. But that might not have been the issue since the recently released fourth episode featured subtitles that worked!



It’s a quality-control Russian Roulette that, for all the issues I have with Crunchyroll and HIDIVE as companies and services, makes me appreciate that they can at least get the basics right!

Yeah, it’s not like mistimed subs haven’t happened to other platforms. The difference is Disney/Hulu is a black box where feedback is tossed into an unknowable void. It’s entirely possible those mistimed subs will never be fixed, and Heavenly Delusion will have that roadblock stapled to it for as long as that license lasts.
Though, at least in episode two, it leads to unintentional comedy.

Regardless of the audience, it’d be enough of an annoyance for any series. But it’s incredibly frustrating that so much of the discourse around this anime has been about its botched launch. Because what Disney has in Heavenly Delusion is a series that absolutely should have tons of people talking about its plot. It’s every bit as wild and outlandish (complimentary) as the trainwreck of a release.



We’re only four episodes in, and some Samurai Flamenco-level swerves are already powering this show.

It speaks volumes that there weren’t some Guillotine Gorilla-level meltdowns on my Twitter feed during episode three. Truly, Disney’s indifference has robbed us.

That said, given the way some dorks out there get about characters’ gender identities, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that I didn’t have to sift through a ton of reactionary takes following the reveal of Kiruko’s situation.

In a just world, my social media feeds would look like this every time an episode dropped.

Part of me wonders if Disney’s odd obfuscation of the show is down to them not thinking it fits their « branding » or whatever. Because so many of this show’s big, reaction-worthy moments can get grisly, weird, or some wonderful combination of the two.




You just aren’t going to get kids killing a horrible fish monster with weed anywhere else on Disney+.

It’s the most open endorsement of the drug I’ve seen in an anime, even if, in this case, it’s on account of its weaponizable properties. But it also feels right at home in a series like Heavenly Delusion, which has been all about odd indulgences in what it’s covered so far. Weed, cross-gender brain-switches, and a fair amount of casual same-sex smoochin’.

Granted, with the sheer amount of mysteries baked into this setting and story – which the show is in no hurry to divulge – it’s hard to say exactly where it’s going with all this. There’s a mountain of things we could dive into just from the school half of the narrative, but where it’s all building to is a big question mark.

Apart from the release woes stunting its audience and not accounting for others caught up on the manga, it could make following Heavenly Delusion and discussing it on its own merits week-to-week a real treat. It helps that the writing and direction of the show are structured so well, with clever stuff like the obfuscation of exactly when the school segments take place compared to the Kiruko/Maru parts. That’s a shoe drop I’m anxiously awaiting, even though I know it’ll probably be a while.

And also, given Maru’s near-certain connection to Tokio, the former’s misgivings about getting together with guys are all the more ironically amusing.

Oh buddy, trust me, there’s a whole lot more Gender™️ where that came from. To cross-promote for a moment, watching our friends on The ANN Aftershow get confused over Tokio’s entire deal was enjoyable. I spent that whole podcast giggling like a kid who put a whoopie cushion in the teacher’s seat.

See, those are the sorts of shenanigans that lent themselves to group watches, apart from telling people where they can even watch the show. This series got me cackling like a sicko over a lady getting disassembled right after they played us with a « He’s still my son even though he’s a monster » moment. I need to be able to share this with others to catch their reactions!

Thankfully, the show is still good on its own. Even watching stuff I’ve read is fun, thanks to the fantastic production and voice acting. There’s a fittingly gripping atmosphere through every episode that always alleviates at just the right moment with some charming levity before ripping you right back into « Oh shit! » mode. Like episode three ending with this terrifying line:



That’s horrifying. Thank you, off-brand Tsuyu.

For a show so built on offbeat weirdness, it’s amazing how it wields that for genuinely arresting moments like that. It’s a series that will drop that these kids have superpowers, then hang a suspenseful stretch on Tokio’s inexplicably goofy pose before wrapping around to reveal it was all a misdirect.

That’s one of my favorite aspects, honestly. So many little hints and clues are hiding in plain sight that don’t draw attention until you rewatch them. The most obvious is Kiruko in episode one:

The reveals in episode three absolutely roundhouse kicked my mind back to that « joke » from the first episode. It plays off all of those weird inclusions the show has already thrown in as compelling clues. Such things like the bizarre scene of Kiruko getting frisky with the mirror later in that first episode suddenly seem to crystallize until you back up again and go, « Wait a minute, that just raises further questions! »



It’s great.

It honestly makes me feel bad for the innkeeper lady. She gets so embarrassed about giving Kiruko and Maru The Talk about incest being bad, but she was right to do it! Just not in the way she thought!

I mean, there are certainly other reasons to feel bad for her. But she also drugged our leads and may have been feeding others to what she thought was her giant mutant bird-son, so maybe things evened out.

Either way, it’s some of the most creative and indirect foreshadowing I’ve seen in storytelling, and it keeps popping up across this show. I mentioned LOST before, and while that show had a similar style of piling on more questions with every answer, the difference here is in how clever Heavenly Delusion is at seeding answers. It cannot be a coincidence that Kona’s fish drawing shows up as a monster two episodes later, but it’s anyone’s guess when or if that will be explained.

It chains together seamlessly when we see the faceless « babies » in the school sporting the same eye markings as the man-eaters. We don’t get anything approaching answers yet, but it gets our gears turning, which is enough this early in.

It’s just super fun writing that rewards paying attention and speculation. That, more than anything, is why the show’s troubled release leaves me bummed out. This has as much – if not more – going for it as The Witch From Mercury to be appointment television. I should be pregaming Heavenly Saturdays to prep for Suletta Sundays, dammit!

Two shows that could be united on how discussable they are and their inclusion of plot-relevant tomato crops.

What impressed me the most was how it can effortlessly shift away from the bigger moments. Part of the show’s charm is that, among the big revelations, wild turns, and sci-fi insanity, there’s a pretty chill and friendly road trip at the center of it. Maru and Kiruko feel like real friends despite (or because of) the weirdness surrounding them.

I mentioned this in last week’s column with Nicky, but I love how the show’s ED captures that vibe. Even as we’re propelled along by all the mystery elements and the maybe-flashbacks to the school, it makes me think I could keep having a good time with this series regardless of how long it runs, just coming along with Maru and Kiruko as they crash cannabis communes and scam people out of batteries.

It’s a super charming and unique show, and I thoroughly encourage everyone to watch it, in part so I can laugh at their theories while waiting for the next manga volume to drop. Just uh, maybe stream it on a mobile device or a streaming stick. I hear the subtitles are less jank on those.

We can’t help anybody find Heaven, but we can at least spread the good word about Heavenly Delusion, er, Tengoku Dai Makyō if you want to search it up. We, like company dubbing managers, shouldn’t have to be the ones doing PR for what ought to be a huge show like this, but that’s just the wasteland that Disney and Hulu have left us to wander.



Though it could always be worse. At least Anime Strike isn’t still around to pick this one up.

In the meantime, I guess we can keep submitting support tickets to Disney’s complaint box: