Deep Insanity: The Lost Child

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child anime series cover art
Deep Insanity: The Lost Child

Series Overview

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child (ディープインサニティ) is a very bad anime. I don’t want anyone reading this to get any misunderstandings about that. It’s bad and I don’t recommend it in any way. In fact, I’m mad that I watched it. But, I’ll get to why that is later on.

The general plot of this series is that there’s a giant abyss in Antarctica known as the Asylum. Within this pit live monsters known as Scarred and mysterious people known as Exiles. However, the Asylum also holds rare earth elements that countries and corporations alike seek.

Due to the potential for riches that the Asylum provides, private military contractors have set up shop around the Asylum. The agents who work for these contractors are known as Sleepers and specialize in missions within the dangerous environment of the Asylum.

So far, that probably sounds pretty good. But, the writing is bad, the characters are bland tropes, for the most part, and the animation is sub-par. Honestly, the only redeeming quality of this series is the OP song, Inochi no Tomoshibi by Konomi Suzuki.

Speaking of the sub-par animation, absolutely awful 3D GCI animation is used for the monsters in the asylum. And I think the same may have been used for some of the futuristic weapons used by the Sleepers, though I remember those looking better.

So if you’re hoping for a series that looks good, you won’t find it here. And if you’re someone who can look past bad animation as long as the story is good, you won’t find that either. There are a ton of holes in the plot and it felt like every other episode was a random slice of life episode.

Vera Platoon

Vera Platoon is the platoon the main characters of the series are assigned to. It’s named after its commander, Vera Rustamova. Normally, I’d try not to include major spoilers just yet. But because this series is so bad, I will. Commander Vera is eventually revealed to have the ability to turn back time, which she uses in an attempt to assassinate herself.

No, she doesn’t go back in time. She turns back time. If you’re wondering how that helps her assassinate herself, welcome to the club. This is never actually explained and instead contradicts what we see in the anime itself.

Shigure Daniel Kai is the protagonist of the series and is your generic, bland, self-insert character. He’s a “good guy” who would never do anything bad and dreams to be a superhero. Oh, and later in the series, his backstory is retconned to turn him into some elite special forces sniper.

Shigure Daniel Kai from the anime series Deep Insanity: The Lost Child
Shigure Daniel Kai

Leslie Blanc is the 2nd in command of the platoon and is trans(?). Despite being biologically male, they often refer to themself in a feminine way, and the other members of the platoon use gender-neutral pronouns when referring to them (in the translations). Leslie was probably the best character, but then got killed off.

The other two Sleepers in the platoon are Lawrence Larry Jackson (Larry is part of his name, not a nickname) and Reika Kobato. Larry has a brain injury that prevents him from feeling fear and Kobato is a fujoshi who’s self-conscious about her prosthesis.

Lastly, there’s Sumire Mochinoki, whose official title is “Sanity Anchor.” Originally, the Asylum was described as being a place that caused people to go mad, and so the Sanity Anchor was meant to monitor the vitals of the Sleepers in the field.

However, that whole “the Asylum causes insanity” thing was dropped about 2 episodes in, and Sumire is revealed to be a former idol.

False Advertisement

The biggest problem I have with Deep Insanity is actually that the series advertised itself as something very different than what it actually is. It advertised itself as practically a sci-fi version of Made in Abyss.

It’s supposed to be about a giant abyss that draws people from around the world to it, is full of dangerous creatures, and causes those who spend too long in it to develop “Randolph Syndrome” and go insane.

However, none of this is really true. People go to work as Sleepers in the Asylum when they have no other prospects in life, there are whole communities living within the Asylum just fine, and the Randolph Syndrom/insanity angle was dropped almost immediately, as I mentioned.

Basically, everything that made the series sound good turned out to be too good to be true.

Sumire Mochinoki from the anime series Deep Insanity: The Lost Child
Sumire Mochinoki

On top of that, the trailer for the series makes sure to show as little as possible. This gave it a mysterious and almost adventurous feeling. But it turns out they did that so they wouldn’t have to show how terrible the animation actually was.

And, in all the key visuals for the series, as well as the original cover art which I didn’t include in this review, the series looks different too. Out of the three characters featured in this art, only one of them exists in the anime, Shigure.

The art prominently featured a female character wearing a tight bodysuit and sunglasses and holding a large rifle. Her design is really cool. But she’s not in the anime.

Ultimately, the synopsis used for the series only describes the first episode, the trailer hid what the series actually looked like, and the key visuals advertised something we never got. It’s Rail Romanesque all over again.

Conclusion

As much as I want to give it a lower score, I’m going to give Deep Insanity: The Lost Child a 3/10. It had potential. There were interesting things that could have been done with Leslie and Larry (but weren’t). And there were a few plot developments that could have been cool if they were actually explored.

The anime should be renamed Deep Insanity: What Could Have Been.

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