Spoilers ahead for Episode 6 of Heavenly Delusion.
One ofHeavenly Delusion’s best traits is its sense of humor, mainly because every wonderfully directed serious momenttends to make one forget how funnythe characters can be. Episode 6, “Safe Water” is one of the funniest yet, with Kiruko and Maru getting into trouble constantly between a new monster with an unexpected twist and just so many misunderstandings played for laughs.
After receiving a map of the area, the pair decide to look into an area that supposedly has “100% safe water” but ends up holding a “monster” that turns out to just be a wild bear. When they end up cornered, they need to rethink their strategy, which leads them to consider their individual strengths and what makes them work so well together.
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Don’t Anger The Wildlife
It’s funny how changing a single variable can introduce entirely new problems in an action scene. Kiruko and Maru make fora phenomenal monster-hunting duobetween the former’s quick thinking and technological advantage and the latter’s superhuman touch of death. Thinking in terms of binaries, something less than a Man-eater should be easy to fight until you really think about it.
A wild bear might not look as unnatural as a Man-eater, but if it can’t be killed by Maru’s touch then it’s effectively a tougher threat compared to what they’ve fought before. It’s a hilarious subversion of the pattern that audiences are used to during the action. Plus the running joke of coming up with cool-but-dumb anime names for abilities continues strong with Maru calling the “Maru-Touch” the “Fatal Dive.”
The set-up feels like a very classic TV dilemma that traps the characters, offering ample time for team-building. What really makes this episode work are the ways in which both of them understand their worth. In particular, Kiruko is starting to realize how strong she has becomecompared to when she was Haruki, a boy who yearned to be useful to people he cared about.
It’s a very sweet message to take away from an otherwise fun and memorable detour in their ongoing journey and hopefully, there are plenty more fun episodes like this in the future. Beyond the bear fight, everything seemed to be a comedy of errors this week, especially when the pair decides to settle down for the night.
A Deal Is A Deal
It’s no secret thatHeavenly Delusionhas had an undercurrent of sexual tension, be it some of the other kids in Tokio’s storyline or the tension between Kiruko and Maru. These moments have been common enough to create a pattern, but have been understated or otherwise tasteful enough to bewritten off as typical anime fanservice. But this is a rather unusual episode.
Kiruko encouraging Maru with the promise of touching her breasts was legitimately funny, but later in the hotel when it was time to cash in on the deal, something felt… off. The series becomes as horny as it ever has, but it does so by playing off somewhat sketchy circumstances for laughs. It also paints an unflattering trend of Maru not being the best at gauging consent.
To be completely fair, perhaps this is overreacting. A lot of comedy is about misunderstandings, and it’s hard to argue that this scene didn’t succeed in making something truly awkward. But it’s hard to fight this feeling that the horniness of this episode felt a little distracting by the end, as if they went a bit too far with it - NOT because it was morally objectionable, but becauseit sorta makes one think “…why?”
It’s a shame because it muddies what is an otherwise pivotal character-driven episode that is clearly making a motif of characters' complex sexual feelings. This same episode reveals Tokio and Kona’s relationship, as well as reveals Tokio’s gender, which is now confirmed to have been purposefully unaddressed until now.
Heavenly Delusionis using sexuality as a key driving force in its character relationships and when it is approached seriously as a way of progressing the plot,it can be quite fascinating. It can even lead to some good comedy, assuming the creators don’t get too carried away. There was far more to love this week than there was to be critical of, and that’s what matters most.
