Tengoku Daimakyou – 10

「壁の町」 (Kabe no Machi)
“The Walled Town”

I don’t pretend to know enough about the industry to understand every decision it makes. I’m a big fan of Tengoku Daimakyou, but I have no idea why this manga – very well-regarded and only modestly popular – has received one of the most lavish adaptations I’ve seen. It had the luxury of time, being in the can and done before the first episode was aired. It has a frankly absurd list of talented creators working on it on all levels of the production. And now we can see that it has the artistic freedom to experiment in the vein of Gurren-Lagann or Space Dandy, with results that are incredibly fascinating.

Of course that trait is yet another link between Heavenly Delusion and the class of anime it calls to mind – the surrealistic and psychologically-driven sci-fi masterworks of the 1980’s-2000’s. And the episode director this week, Ikarashi Kei, is a gigantic fan of those works. He’s worked at the likes of Bones and Trigger and considers Yuasa and Imaishi artistic models (as you can surely tell). He’s already an industry legend and this week’s staff is loaded with them, including animation director Takeuchi Tetsuya and key animator Yoshinari Kou (best known recently for the creature creation in Made in Abyss).

There are risks to that sort of experimentation, as history tells us. If it angered fans when TTGL did it you can certainly bet it will now, and I’ve seen a lot of criticism from viewers annoyed at such a radical change (and unused to that sort of thing). It’s jarring, I admit, and the first few minutes of this episode look so different than anything that came before that it took me out of the moment. That changed quickly though, as the sheer artistry of what we were watching played out. It helps to have some grounding in that visual style, surely – and it’s one we hardly ever see in anime these days.

In terms of story, Juuichi (Sakuya Shunsuke) takes center stage. And as was foreshadowed last week, he’s not just some bullshitter – there was obviously at least a grain of truth in his tall tale, and as it turns out a lot more than that. He takes Kiruko and Maru on a journey to the place he told them about, to see if his son is still alive. Juuichi seems quite terrified to be so close to that place, but when Maru and Kiruko explore it, there appears to be no one about – it was abandoned in a hurry. A sudden cold snap is an indication of a hiruko attack, one which the two of them only narrowly manage to survive thanks to Maru’s keen eyes.

Juuichi’s son is alive, as it turns out – as are some of the “breeding pigs’ he left behind at the facility. As they tell it, a hiruko attacked the facility one night and because the bay (Juugo) had them already awake, they escaped with their lives. It seems like a rare Tengoku Daimakyou happy ending – all Juuichi’s enemies are dead and he’s reunited with his son. But another appearance by the cold-wielding maneater leads to a startling conclusion from Maru – Juugo is the hiruko. Maru manages to save him, but exactly what this means is never made totally clear.

Juuichi gifts his van to Maru and Kiruko, along with a few other items, but their cool exit is ruined when she stalls it out about 10 meters from the start point. And the drama is hardly over. There’s another part of the story Juuichi never shared – on the night of his escape one of his fellow “boars” ratted him out, leading to the execution of the two women (including Juugo’s mother) escaping with him. If revenge is a dish best served cold, Juuuichi’s is positively icy – rather fitting, in context. His escape with his son is without a hitch this time, but the uncertainty over just what the child is makes their future uncertain indeed.

SThere are developments in the other thread here, too. Tokio is isolated from the other children and getting close to her due date, the adults are still freaking out about that, and for the first time we’ve seen there are new students arriving. They’re described as “fifth-years” and do indeed look about ten or so. Where does a school in a post-apocalyptic world draw an incoming class from, anyway – and does their arrival have anything to do with the adults’ panic over Toshio’s condition and the timing of it?