Heavenly Delusion

Heavenly Delusion
First tankōbon volume cover, featuring Kiruko (back) and Maru (front)
天国大魔境 (Tengoku Daimakyō)
Genre	Adventure Mystery Science fiction
Manga
Written by	Masakazu Ishiguro
Published by	Kodansha
English publisher	NA: Denpa
Imprint	Afternoon KC
Magazine	Monthly Afternoon
Demographic	Seinen
Original run	January 25, 2018 – present
Volumes	10
Anime television series
Directed by	Hirotaka Mori
Written by	Makoto Fukami
Music by	Kensuke Ushio
Studio	Production I.G
Licensed by	Disney Platform Distribution
Original network	Tokyo MX, HTB, RKB, TV Aichi, MBS, BS11, AT-X
Original run	April 1, 2023 – June 24, 2023
Episodes	13

Heavenly Delusion (Japanese: 天国大魔境, Hepburn: Tengoku Daimakyō, lit. 'Heaven Grand Makyō') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masakazu Ishiguro. It has been serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon since January 2018 and its chapters have been published in ten tankōbon volumes as of February 2024.

The manga has two narratives; in one narrative, the characters Maru and Kiruko travel across a post-apocalyptic world to reach an area called "Heaven"; in the other, a group of children live in a school their superiors call "Heaven". The series was inspired by a manga Ishiguro read in university; he intended to make Heavenly Delusion different from his previous work, And Yet the Town Moves, portraying a proper dynamic between the two leads and the evil they face. Heavenly Delusion has themes of gender and natural disasters, which were inspired by Ishiguro's personal feelings. The manga has been positively received positively, and was praised for its sense of mystery and the relationship between the characters.

Heavenly Delusion was adapted into an anime television series that was produced by Production I.G and aired from April to June 2023. The anime's director Hirotaka Mori and his colleagues worked to properly convey the setting seen in the manga, while balancing the screen time between Maru and Kiruko, and the students from Heaven. The anime adaptation has been positively received for its animation, and its focus on relationships and gender issues. It has been regarded as one of the best anime of 2023.

Premise

Fifteen years after an unprecedented disaster destroyed modern civilization, a group of children live in a facility isolated from the outside world. One day, a girl named Tokio, receives a message that says: "Do you want to go outside of the outside?" Mimihime, another girl who lives in the same facility, has a premonition and tells the upset Tokio two people will come from the outside to save her, one of whom has the same face as her, while the school's director tells Tokio the outside world is Hell. A boy named Maru, who looks just like Tokio, is traveling through post-apocalyptic Japan with his bodyguard, a girl named Kiruko, in search of Heaven. Maru is looking for a person who has his face, and he and Kiruko often encounter thieves and kaiju-like creatures they call "man-eaters". The narrative constantly switches between Heaven and Hell, expanding each side of characters.

Characters

Main

Maru (マル)

Main article: Maru (Heavenly Delusion)

Voiced by: Gen Satō (Japanese); Jonathan Leon (English)

A 15-year-old boy who is traveling together with Kiruko. He is skilled in martial arts.

Kiruko (キルコ) / Haruki (春希)

Main article: Kiruko

A young woman around 18 to 20 years old who travels with Maru. She is searching for both the doctor who performed an operation on her and a friend she knew.

• Kiriko Takehaya (竹早 桐子, Takehaya Kiriko)

Voiced by: Sayaka Senbongi (Japanese); Anjali Kunapaneni (English)

Haruki's older sister who raced electric cars in Tokyo.

• Haruki Takehaya (竹早 春希, Takehaya Haruki)

Voiced by: Mariya Ise (Japanese); McKenzie Atwood (English)

Kiriko Takehaya's younger brother who looks up to Robin Inazaki.

Takahara Academy

Tokio (トキオ)

Voiced by: Hibiku Yamamura (Japanese); Brittany Lauda (English)

A young girl who lives in a facility isolated from the outside world. She has a similar appearance as Maru.

Kona (コナ)

Voiced by: Toshiyuki Toyonaga (Japanese); AJ Beckles (English)

The oldest of the facility children who is a talented artist, although his drawings seem peculiar.

Mimihime (ミミヒメ)

Voiced by: Misato Fukuen (Japanese); Tia Ballard (English)

A socially inept girl from the facility who seems to be clairvoyant.

Shiro (シロ)

Voiced by: Shunsuke Takeuchi (Japanese); Hao Feng (English)

An observant, tech-savvy boy who seems to be attracted to Mimihime.

Kuku (クク)

Voiced by: Tomoyo Kurosawa (Japanese); Madeleine Morris (English)

The youngest of the children, she is very agile and curious.

Taka (タカ)

Voiced by: Yuuki Shin (Japanese); John Choi (English)

A very athletic and energetic child.

Anzu (アンズ)

Voiced by: Misato Matsuoka (Japanese); Courtney Lin (English)

A young girl in the facility who loves to dance and swim.

Tarao (タラオ)

Voiced by: Kei Shindō (Japanese); Xanthe Huynh (English)

A young boy close to Tokio who is suffering from a debilitating disease.

Iwa (イワ)

Voiced by: Satomi Kobashi (Japanese); Felecia Angelle (English)

A young girl who is attracted to her classmate Nanaki. They are often seen kissing each other.

Nanaki (ナナキ)

Voiced by: Ayano Shibuya (Japanese); Risa Mei (English)

A young girl who is attracted to her classmate Iwa. They are often seen kissing each other.

Asura (アスラ)

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese); Ell (English)

One of the children with an unsettling appearance, with healing and telekinetic capabilities, who was close to Kona when they were younger.

Ohma (オーマ, Ōma)

Voiced by: Hina Kino (Japanese); Madeline Dorroh (English)

A young timid girl who avoids the other children due to her power causing intense hallucinations upon eye contact.

Nata (ナタ)

Voiced by: Riho Sugiyama (Japanese); Jennifer Losi (English)

One of the new girls at the academy, who gets tangled up in the adults' scheme.

Michika Takezuka (竹塚ミチカ, Takezuka Michika)

Voiced by: Mai Nishikawa (Japanese); Kayli Mills (English)

One of the new girls at the academy, who has enhanced physical capabilities and an aloof nature.

Mako (マコ)

Voiced by: Ayu Matsura (Japanese); Caitlyn Elizabeth (English)

A new kid at the academy who befriends Nata. He has the ability to compress and disintegrate matter.

Sakuya (サクヤ)

Voiced by: Haruna Mikawa (Japanese); Abbey Veffer (English)

One of the new kids at the academy and friend of Nata. She has the ability to scan the area around her, even seeing through objects.

Shino Kaminaka (上仲 詩乃, Kaminaka Shino)

Voiced by: Masako Isobe (Japanese); Anzu Lawson (English)

The elderly paraplegic director of the facility.

Mina (ミーナ)

Voiced by: Aya Hisakawa (Japanese); Lisa Ortiz (English)

The artificial intelligence running the facility.

Yuko Aoshima (青島 裕子, Aoshima Yūko)

Voiced by: Atsumi Tanezaki (Japanese); Jennifer Sun Bell (English)

A nurse and interpreter in the facility who gets promoted to assistant director.

Teruhiko Sawatari (猿渡)

Voiced by: Tadashi Mutō (Japanese); Nick Martineau (English)

A doctor working in the facility.

Eikichi Kaminaka (上仲永吉)

Voiced by: Kōsuke Echigoya

Eikichi is the husband of Takahara Academy's director, Shino Kaminaka. He is also a high-ranking executive within the academy.

The Outside

Robin Inazaki (稲崎 露敏, Inazaki Robin)

Voiced by: Kazuya Nakai (Japanese); Eric Vale (English)

Kiruko's childhood friend and a sort of mentor who went missing years ago.

Ran Kawashima (川島 蘭, Kawashima Ran)

Voiced by: Kanon Amane (Japanese); Cristina Valenzuela (English)

Ran is an odd and cheerful child who lived with Haruki at Funayama Orphanage.

Ken Tachibana (立花 健, Tachibana Ken)

Voiced by: Kōhei Amasaki (Japanese); Harrison Xu (English)

Ken is one of Haruki's childhood friends, who lived in Funayama Orphanage.

Totori (トトリ)

Voiced by: Misato Matsuoka (Japanese); Deneen Melody (English)

Totori is a young girl who works with bandits in trapping and robbing people.

Mizuhashi (水橋)

Voiced by: Seiko Tamura (Japanese); Marcy Edwards (English)

Mizuhashi is the leader of the Liviumen cult, who are disgruntled by technology replacing their body, supposedly in the name of human experiments.

Kuwata (桑田)

Voiced by: Yutaka Aoyama (Japanese); Brook Chalmers (English)

Kuwata is one of Mizuhashi's right-hand man, who has an agenda of his own.

Yoneda (米田)

Yoneda is one of Mizuhashi's right-hand man, who will help him escape when the attacks against the Immortal Order begin.

Juichi (ジューイチ, Jūichi)

Voiced by: Shunsuke Sakuya (Japanese); Jonah Scott (English)

A scavenger and con artist with a dark past who encounters Maru and Kiruko during their travels.

Sakae (坂江)

Voiced by: Chiharu Sawashiro

Sakae is a member of the Ministry of Reconstruction responsible for finding Maru and Kiruko, suspected of having helped Robin in his escape.

Heima (平馬)

Sakae is a member of the Ministry of Reconstruction responsible for finding Maru and Kiruko, suspected of having helped Robin in his escape.

Marin Inazaki (稲崎 真凛, Inazaki Marin)

Robin's younger sister who died prior to the end of the world.

Toru Funayama (船山徹, Funayama Toru)

A tall and imposing, but actually kind man who founded Funayama Orphanage, where Haruki, Kiriko and Robin grew up.

Production

Development

Yumeno Kyusaku (left) and Katsuhiro Otomo (right) influenced Ishiguro in the making of the series.

After Masakazu Ishiguro ended And Yet the Town Moves, he spent around a year devising a new series. Ishiguro was inspired by the early Kojiki era of Japan, and relationships between humans and artificial intelligence when planning to write Heavenly Delusion. The original concept was devised in 2013 as concept art for the cover of the magazine Monthly Comic Ryū (2013). There were unintentional similarities to Ishiguro's favorite work, Akira, such as the post-apocalyptic setting, and the dynamic between Maru and Kiruko. Ishiguro decided to keep drawing the manga like Akira, paying close attention to the backgrounds and the way the leads try eating. Ishiguro aimed to properly write "evil" in contrast to And Yet the Town Moves. In the post-apocalyptic world of Heavenly Delusion, social constructs like laws and rights groups no longer function. Because the goal was to make Heavenly Delusion different from his prior works, Ishiguro hoped to gain a new audience.

After drawing sketches of young characters suitable for the shōnen manga demographic, editorial members from Afternoon asked Ishiguro to write for their seinen magazine again. In contrast to And Yet the Town Moves, Heavenly Delusion employs a dark tone, specifically children's delusions. He also wanted returning fans to read Heavenly Delusion. One of the child charecters, Tokio, lives in a mysterious facility, and enjoys and collects fantasy paintings her friend Kona creates. Kona can imagine things he had never seen before; this aspect overlaps with Ishiguro's statement he is drawing delusions. At the end of the first volume, many of the plot threads have been laid out but to maintain the mystery theme, a few events are directly foreshadowed.

Ishiguro devised the manga when he was a university student. The story is based on the story of a race on a circuit; the Earth is destroyed in the middle of the race and the main character is about to die. For the title, Ishiguro wanted to use wordplay to create ambiguity. Because the character "heaven" will appear, he uses "heaven" but he also wanted to use "dai" in the middle and then added "hell". The artwork became more detailed, most notably Kiruko's facial expression. Once reaching its ending, Ishiguro planned whether to make the title explicit. The man-eaters, kaiju-like creatures Maru and Kiruko fight, are based on prehistoric creatures such as Cambrian-period organisms; their shapes are often designed to appeal to Ishiguro's drawing style. He had been drawing science fiction themes since his childhood and continues exploring them in Heavenly Delusion; they were influenced by the late manga duo Fujiko Fujio.

Ishiguro thought about the manga for years. Because he enjoyed walking, he often fantasized about a world that had been destroyed by a catastrophe and found himself inspired by an anime in which the main character wandered alone, like Chirico from Armored Trooper Votoms. He liked the idea of a hero traveling alone through a desert in combat armor, which inspired the leads. At the beginning, he planned to depict a desert-like world. When the first volume was released, the company Minami Kamakura Film Commission provided a video promotion; they had previously released a video with music by Kenshi Yonezu, with the same image: Miku in a jacket against a desert. Ishiguro decided to change the plot and returned to an urban setting, though it was difficult to draw backgrounds with a large number of buildings. The concept of the academy was modeled after Yumeno Kyusaku's novel Dogura Magura (Dogra Magra, 1935),. The original length of the manga was extended because Ishiguro found the ending weak. While working on the series, Ishiguro sometimes has to completely rewrite panels or correct a script to turn it into the best version.

The sibling-like dynamic between Maru and Miruko was based on Ishiguro's personal life. He was inspired by an event in which he noticed a person who was interested in his sister. Another aspect of the protagonists' dynamic was inspired by buddy films. Maru's design is based on Kon from And Yet the Town Moves, and is inspired by the way JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's eighth story arc JoJolion reuses previous characters. In the beginning, Maru has feelings for Kiruko without knowing his bodyguard is a man inside a girl's body. Ishiguro called this premise "transsexual sci-fi", alluding to the possibility of Maru still loving Kiruko despite knowing the truth.

Themes

When Ishiguro started writing Heavenly Delusion, he felt discomfort about events in Japan. Around 2017 and 2018, Japan was looking for flaws in its governance in the run-up to the 2020 Summer Olympics. Ishiguro personally experienced a case of déjà vu because of the scandal with the empty New Year's food and wanted the handling of meals to be properly shown in his work. At that time, the country also experienced earthquakes and tsunamis. Sensing an ominous similarity between that time and the present, Ishiguro wanted to convey the sense of threat the society increasingly felt. The credo of the series is to be cautious, lest may encounter something truly terrible. The character of Totori was written to prove people who can easily be seen as villains are important to others; Totori is friendly with Maru and Kiruko to the point she attempts to seduce Maru who rejects her. In the aftermath, the duo learn that Totori belongs to a gang who had been chasing them in the past days and died, leaving her all alone. While reading the manga, Ishiguro wanted the reader to experience fear. One the manga's central themes is the most-minimal "heaven" for people is to "feel extremely comfortable in their own field of vision"; if a manga continues this search for "heaven" too much, the place will come across as a "hell". The concept of looking for heaven is the biggest moral of the series.

Ishiguro wanted to tell the story of a girl's body that contains the brain of her younger brother, but he does not remember when the idea came to him. He was inspired by stories of brothers and sisters, so he wanted to create his own story about a brother and a sister swapping places. He rejected coincidences related to magic and wanted to create a more-realistic world to show what might happen after a brain transplant. He opposed the idea of a man turning into a woman, leading to jokes about cleavage and lacking a penis. Instead, with Kiruko, he wanted the scenario to be more realistic. Another theme is a change in relationships in the event of a sex change. Ishiguro often writes metaphorical situations; Kiruko's menstrual cycle is caused by a clash with Maru's lips when awakening from an hallucination from a Hiruko's attack. Kiruko represents a gradation of spiritual sexuality. The school is depicted as a kind of thought experiment in a world where sexual elements are abolished.

Adaptation

For the anime adaptation by Production I.G, director of photography Kentarou Waki appointed Hirotaka Mori as director based on their close relationship. Mori was worried he would not perform well in the role but was helped by directors Yuji Kaneko and Waki. Mori had known the animation producer Masashi Ohira since he started directing; Ohira motivated Mori to work on the project. Because expectations had been raised, Mori felt he had to make a proper product and meet the expectations. He was particularly attracted by the premise of the dual storylines and how the manga would change.

Writer Makoto Fukami had read And Yet the Town Moves which made him interested in Heavenly Delusion. The offer to make the anime happened before the fourth volume was released so the staff did not know how to end it. The narrative of the first chapters were trimmed to tell a more-direct story. Fukami avoided trimming the constant banter between Kiruko and Maru, which they noted was important for the plot setting. Mori said because the episodes were 20 minutes long, they had to decide how much screentime to give each side of the narrative to properly show the characters' stories.

For Mori, action scenes were the most challenging parts. The most prominent were the man-eaters, which were animated to give the idea of horror. Maru's action sequences were animated by Tetsuya Takeuchi, who wishes to match wuxia-like choreography with active camerawork. Maru was also assisted by Ryo Araki. Mori said it would look better with sound and movement, and that is why he thinks there is a significance to doing it in animation, which led to more effort on it. Because manga is drawn black and white, Mori was conscious of adding color to the world, such as the ruined landscape and the school, to make it look more attractive. Mori thought Maru is very pure and knows nothing yet. Mori finds Maru attractive for how he does not strangely rubbed his perception of the world different the more he travels around it. The director thought Maru meets Kiruko from a place where he does not know his own past, and gradually gains an ego. Kiruko is in a complex relationship with Maru, and has a past that is too heavy for her to handle alone. As a result, Mori enjoys the two characters and thinks they have a complementary relationship. Tokio is seen as a pure, adolescent-like character. She has a different kind of purity than Maru, and he thought Maru has maintained his innocence despite having experienced a lot of hardships because he has not have a clear view of the world until meeting Kiruko. Tokio has never being exposed to external pressure. Mori thinks Maru embodies common topics explored in adolescene.

According to Mori, the original work already contains the message Ishiguro wanted to convey so the production side does not add anything else but has many elements, such as disasters and technology. Mori thinks his responsibility is making anime properly convey the original work with as much integrity as possible. Mori is glad if the audience can see the series from various perspectives. Production of the first episode was the most difficult; it is an introduction, so the animators wanted the audience to like the world view and characters, and look forward to future episodes. The series was intended to have twelve episodes but an extra episode was added to provide proper closure.

Gen Satō, Maru's Japanese voice actor, found while Maru expresses several emotions, little about him is known so voicing the character became difficult for him. Hibiku Yamamura, Tokio's Japanese voice actor, regards Tokio as a delicate, difficult-to-approach character. Regarding the anime adaptation, the director and production team had to think about the overall structure so Ishiguro had to tell them the manga's full story. He asked the editorial department to appoint an editor specifically for the anime. The first season is an adaptation of the first six volumes of the manga. Both Satō and Sayaka Senbongi initially had problems understanding their characters Maru and Kiruko, respectively, because there was little information about their pasts in the first episodes. Satō said Maru was one of his most-challenging characters of the works. Ishiguro contacted the voice actors and told them they made their characters properly interact in the way he had envisioned.

Media

Manga

Main article: List of Heavenly Delusion chapters

Heavenly Delusion is written and illustrated by Masakazu Ishiguro, and it has been serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon since January 25, 2018. Kodansha has published its chapters in individual tankōbon volumes, the first of which was released on July 23, 2018; a promotional video that was directed by Tasuku Watanabe for the first volume was released on the same date. As of February 22, 2024, ten volumes have been released.

In North America, the series is licensed in English by Denpa. The first volume was released on December 31, 2019.

Anime

Main article: List of Heavenly Delusion episodes

An anime television-series adaptation that was produced by Production I.G was announced on October 18, 2022. Hirotaka Mori directed the series, Makoto Fukami wrote the scripts, Utsushita of Minakata Laboratory designed characters, and Kensuke Ushio composed music. The series aired from April 1 to June 24, 2023, on Tokyo MX and other networks. The opening theme is "Innocent Arrogance", which was performed by Bish, while the ending theme is "Daremo Karemo Dokomo Nanimo Shiranai" (誰も彼も何処も何も知らない, "I Don't Know Anyone Anywhere Anything"), which was performed by ASOBI Doumei. Disney Platform Distribution acquired the distribution license of the anime and streamed the series worldwide on Disney+ and in the United States on Hulu. Avex Pictures released the series on two Blu-ray box sets on August 30 and September 27, 2023.

Other media

An official guidebook for Heavenly Delusion was released on November 22, 2022. It includes detailed information about the series' setting, story, characters, and features an interview with Ishiguro.

Reception

Manga

By December 2018, over 130,000 copies of the Heavenly Delusion manga were in circulation.

Reviewing the first volume of Heavenly Delusion, Anime News Network praised the narrative for its focus on Kiruko's and Maru's appealing relationship, and Ishiguro's character designs. The reviewer said while the volume explores the mysteries behind Kiruko, there were still too many mysteries the plot would explore in the future. The French website Manga News called the manga's premise captivating due to the mysteries it shows. Sigue en Serie also commented on the mysteries of the series, which would motivate readers to quickly move to the next volume to understand more of the plot through the parallel storylines. By the third volume, Manga News noted the events on the both storylines had been connected, especially from Tokio's point of view ,while the duo's journey was noted to be more comic than tragic as a result of the way Ishiguro writes the chapters. The reviewer still felt both plots offer interesting mysteries whose connections are not easily given away. Brutus magazine listed Heavenly Delusion on its list of "Most Dangerous Manga", which includes works with the most-stimulating and thought-provoking themes.

Makoto Yukimura, author of the manga Vinland Saga, expressed interest in the themes of Heavenly Delusion due to the idea of a heaven, as well as the way Ishiguro tells two connected stories at the same time.

Accolades

Heavenly Delusion was ranked first on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! 2019 ranking of Top 20 manga series for male readers. Heavenly Delusion was one of the Jury Recommended Works at the 24th and 25th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The manga was awarded the French Daruma Award for the Best Screenplay category at the Japan Expo Awards in 2023.

Anime

When it came to the adaptation, Anime News Network gave the first episode of the Heavenly Delusion anime a positive response due to its dystopian premise and the amount of characters, and compared in to Blame!, and the animation of the human and monster designs. They noted the series appears to heavily focus on gender, not on Kiruko's themes that come across as negative as the reviewer still found the character interesting based on how they are written. The reviewer praised the relationship between Maru and Kiruko for the way they care for each other, and noted the flashback's incestuous "angle might just be sensationalism for the sake of it, but I don't mind that extra splash of taboo when the full picture is this interesting".

Toni Sun Prickett of Anime Feminist enjoyed the handling of the animation and the dynamic between the two leads, and said Maru looks suspiciously similar to another character in the parallel story. Prickett also mentioned the amount of gender-based violence that occurs when Maru and Kiruko are attacked. With the eventual revelation Kiruko is a young man who had his brain transplanted into his sister's body, the website was optimistic about the handling of the main duo; for Maru still appearing likable when confessing his feelings to Kiruko and not sounding homophobic in response to the twist. Prickett was troubled by the repercussions of this twist on Kiruko's feelings because her early scenes in the first episode now made her look incestuous. Alice Gallo of Comic Book Resources also noted the series gender norms due to the complexity of Maru's and Kiruko's relationship because Maru seems to retain his affection for Kiruko despite knowing he is male. Gallo also compared Kiruko with a transgender character who is trying to accept the idea of having a female body.

Before the series' release, Polygon stated despite the absence of talented creators in the production staff, aside the studio and the composer Kensuke Ushio, the series looks intriguing and the animation is impressive. Clarín and Meristation compared the anime to the video game The Last of Us for its post-apocalypse setting with the main duo exploring areas like The Last of Us's protagonists Ellie and Joel. NME enjoyed the mystery and lack of exposition dumps, positively comparing the premise to those of The Leftovers and Station Eleven. IGN praised both the animation and the dynamic of the leads as the best pars of the anime. The Philippine Star praised the series for focusing on gender dysphoria through the relationship between Maru and Kiruko without queerbaiting audiences in a manner similar to "switcheroos" like Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon.

The voice actor for Kiruko, Sayaka Senbongi, was excited to voice the character because she knew of the manga and liked Kiruko before being cast in the role. Ishiguro praised Senbongi's work in the fifth episode when delivering Kiruko's mental breakdown, having edited he script to add new lines to the anime. According to Ishiguro, Production I.G. made Kiruko more sexually appealing than his own rendering. The scene in which Totori tries to seduce Maru also received Ishiguro's attention because he found it more erotic than the equivalent scene in the manga. Furthermore, Ishiguro claimed that he cried when watching episode 8, much to his surprise as he originally wrote it himself. Ishiguro said Robin was "born in the story out of sheer necessity", and was surprised he became the most-hated character in the series.

Accolades

Heavenly Delusion won the overall "Spring 2023 Anime Awards" in the Anime Trending Spring 2023 awards. With this award, the series became worthy of being of nominated Anime of the Year. Ishiguro was pleased with this award, considering himself a fan of the Production I.G. adaptation of the manga. It also won the Spring 2023 Genre awards for "Favorite Supernatural" and "Favorite Mystery or Psychological". At the 10th Anime Trending Awards, Heavenly Delusion won Anime of the Year, Best in Episode Directing and Storyboard, Best in Sceneries and Visuals, Mystery or Psychological Anime of the Year, and Supernatural Anime of the Year. At the 8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2024, the series was nominated for Best New Series, Best Drama, Best Director (Hirotaka Mori), Best Cinematography (Kentaro Waki), and Best Opening Sequence ("Innocent Arrogance" by Bish).

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Recipient	Result	Ref.
2023	13th Newtype Anime Awards	Best Work (TV)	Heavenly Delusion	10th place
		Best Director	Hirotaka Mori	6th place
		Best Screenplay	Makoto Fukami	2nd place
		Best Studio	Production I.G	Won
2024	8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards	Best New Series	Heavenly Delusion	Nominated
		Best Drama		Nominated
		Best Director	Hirotaka Mori	Nominated
		Best Cinematography	Kentaro Waki	Nominated
		Best Opening Sequence	"Innocent Arrogance" by Bish	Nominated
	10th Anime Trending Awards	Anime of the Year	Heavenly Delusion	Won
		Best in Adapted Screenplay	Makoto Fukami	Nominated
		Best in Animation	Heavenly Delusion	Nominated
		Best in Episode Directing and Storyboard	Episode 8: "Their Choices"	Won
		Best in Sceneries and Visuals	Heavenly Delusion	Won
		Opening Theme Song of the Year	"Innocent Arrogance" by Bish	Nominated
		Action or Adventure Anime of the Year	Heavenly Delusion	Nominated
		Mystery or Psychological Anime of the Year		Won
		Sci-Fi or Mecha Anime of the Year		Nominated
		Supernatural Anime of the Year		Won
	Japan Expo Awards	Daruma for Best Anime		Nominated
		Daruma for Best Suspense Anime		Nominated
		Daruma for Best Original Soundtrack		Nominated
		Daruma for Best Opening	"Innocent Arrogance" by Bish	Nominated

External links

• Heavenly Delusion official manga website at Monthly Afternoon (in Japanese)
• Heavenly Delusion official anime website (in Japanese)
• Heavenly Delusion at IMDb 
• Heavenly Delusion (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia