Leslie’s Legacy

Toward the beginning of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 8, Shigure is seeking out people from whom he can learn more about Leslie. He wants to know who Leslie really was and what the message Leslie left for him means.

Naturally, this means Shigure paid a visit to the bar that Leslie “frequented.” Although, as we learn, Leslie wasn’t actually that frequent of a customer. As such the bartender wasn’t able to help Shigure figure out what the message was supposed to mean.

In fact, I’d say she was pretty useless in that regard — she suggested it might be a credit card number. Now, maybe Japanese credit cards are different, but the credit card numbers where I’m from don’t have letters.

However, the bartender does mention that Leslie would sometimes sit at a table alone and write in a journal rather than speak to her. At the time, this seems like it could have been an important lead. But, it turned out to be almost as useless as her credit card comment.

Yes, Shigure did eventually find Leslie’s journal. However, he didn’t find the journal because he knew he was looking for a journal. He just happened to find that the journal was hidden where the clues Leslie left him led to.

I guess this first part of the episode is there to set up the fact that Leslie had a journal he wrote things in. But in all honesty, that didn’t need to be set up. Simply by finding Leslie’s journal where he hid it and the contents found within that journal would have told us all of that.

The fact that Leslie had a journal isn’t some twist that needed to be set up to not feel like it came out of left field.

Following the Clues

In Shigure’s defense, it’s not like I immediately knew what the message left behind by Leslie meant either. I can’t claim that he should have known what he was looking for. But, I did notice that the codes associated with the pictures matched the message before it was pointed out.

To be fair, though, it was made pretty obvious. There was a close-up shot of one of the pictures with a code directly beneath it. What surprised me, however, was how normal the picture Shigure found turned out to be.

I was expecting some picture that was taken in secret of a meeting between two people we’d never expect to be meeting. Or maybe a picture of a secret hideout where El-Cee was going to be.

But, since the picture of Leslie, Kobato, and Larry was so ordinary, it intrigued me even more. It made me start to think about all the other pictures of Leslie found within the database. After all, it was stated that he was facing the camera in every one despite when or where it was taken.

To me, this implies that Leslie was the one taking all of the photographs. But why was he doing that? Was he taking all of these photographs over the years simply so he could hide the one he wanted Shigure to find among them?

I wouldn’t put that past Leslie to do. However, the other option is that all of the photographs contain something Leslie wanted Shigure (or whoever his successor ended up being) to find. There might not be major secrets in each one. But I think Leslie was using them to document something — like Commander Vera, for example.

The Truth about Commander Vera

We know that Leslie’s journal contains the “truth” about Commander Vera, which is why I think the photographs he took may be meant to document her. I think she was even featured in most of the ones we saw, which checks out.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to learn what Leslie knew about Vera in this episode. His journal probably explains her past and why she’s in the position she currently is. It will probably make clear why Vera has her sights set on assassinating El-Cee.

But, we did learn something major about the commander from another source. The man who El-Cee was handed off to at the end of the episode stated that Vera has the ability to turn back time. So, with that kind of twist, of course, I need to make a bold prediction.

In my review of Episode 7, I mentioned how I thought Vera actually cared about her subordinates despite how she acted. I still think that’s true. But, I think her ability to turn back time also may explain why she seems emotionless. She’s probably seen her subordinates die countless times by now.

But, anyway, why is she turning back time so that she can kill El-Cee? Is it really because El-Cee has the ability to destroy the world? That may be the case. But I think it’s more personal for Vera than that.

I’m going to predict that Vera is actually an adult El-Cee attempting to assassinate her past self for some reason. And if that’s not it because that has more to do with time travel than turning back time, my next prediction is that Vera is El-Cee’s mother.

Of course, I guess she could theoretically turn back time to before El-Cee was born and stop her birth, which might be easier.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 8? I thought the developments within the latter two-thirds of the episode were good. The beginning wasn’t, and the animation was bad, but I am interested in whatever Leslie uncovered about Vera.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 9 is available now.

One Less Pawn

Another week, another bad episode of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. At least in Episode 7, Commander Vera finally takes an active role in the series. She seems like she could be a cool character. But I’m sure she’s going to have a lame backstory in the end.

Though, with Commander Vera becoming a main, or at least more active, character now, I’m starting to doubt if we’ll ever see the character featured in the cover art for the series. It’s pretty weird that we haven’t seen her yet.

Anyway, right at the start of Episode 7, it was confirmed that Leslie is, in fact, dead. He’s not going to reappear later in the series, even as a scarred. Well, he shouldn’t. If he does, I’ll think even less of this series than I already do.

Regarding Leslie’s death, Vera’s only real response was that she now has one less pawn to help her reach her goal — of assassinating a child. I don’t think that’s how she actually feels, though. She might act as if she doesn’t care, but it seems pretty clear to me that she does.

Vera just has to put on a facade in front of everyone else because she’s the commander. If she was to show emotion, that could negatively impact her platoon. There’s no room for emotions in the Asylum. That would just lead to more deaths.

With all that said, I don’t think Vera is a good person. Maybe she thinks assassinating El-Cee will stop the world from being destroyed. But even then, that doesn’t make her a hero. As Shigure could probably tell her, a hero would try to save everyone, El-Cee included.

Mission to Area 306

Leslie has only been submerged in his coffin of green liquid for about a day and Vera already decided to launch another mission to Area 306 of the Asylum. This is the rundown town where the platoon gathered information before their botched assassination.

As Vera states, she knows El-Cee is going to be long gone. So it’s not as if she’s leading this mission to the area in hopes of finishing the job. But, it’s clear that she’s after something. At first, I thought that something might be the ring she obtained from the village chief.

However, based on the end of the episode, I think the something Vera is after is actually revenge. As I mentioned earlier, I do think she cares about her “pawns” despite what she says. And Leslie was someone she knew for years. Vera wanting to avenge him makes perfect sense, especially since she personally knows his killer.

Now, we know Vera’s revenge mission didn’t succeed since Hayden escaped at the end of the episode. But, now I’m wondering how long Hayden is going to last. He doesn’t really seem like the main antagonist of the series, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets killed off as well.

However, I’m still feeling like this is going to be the kind of series in which a “greater evil” is revealed and the characters from various factions have to come together to stop it. That would mean Hayden would eventually team up with the remaining members of Vera Platoon.

Basically, I see this series going down the same path as Magatsu Wahrheit, which is another anime based on a game. It’s also another anime I thought could have been good but ended up mediocre and forgettable. Though, that’s better than the direction Deep Insanity is heading.

Commander Vera

As you probably know, there’s a lot we don’t know about Commander Vera. We know she was formerly a member of a Sleeper platoon with Leslie and Hayden. And we know she has strong feelings about the fate of El-Cee for some reason. Other than that, she’s a mystery.

Since we knew she was a Sleeper herself at one point, it’s no surprise that Vera is skilled in combat. But I wasn’t expecting her weapon of choice to be a giant scythe. This is just a guess, but that could be a hint toward her past.

No, I don’t think Vera’s use of a scythe means that she’s actually the grim reaper or anything like that. But the only other Sleeper we know of who didn’t use a firearm was Leslie. And if you recall, Leslie mentioned that his skill with a sword had something to do with his life before he was a Sleeper.

We still never got a definitive answer for what Leslie’s life was like before he became a Sleeper. But since we never got an answer, that seems to lend itself to my theory that his past and Vera’s past are connected in some way.

We might finally get to learn about Leslie’s past when we learn more about Vera’s past. Or, at least, that’s what I hope will happen. Considering how the anime has been going so far, though, I also wouldn’t be surprised if we just never learned about either of their pasts.

I’m going to be extremely disappointed if the fact that Vera uses a scythe to fight is never actually addressed. That kind of seems like an important detail when you consider everyone else uses high-tech firearms. Also, her scythe works like a boomerang.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 7? Were you surprised when it was revealed so quickly that Leslie is really dead? Do you think Vera secretly cares about her pawns? And why do you think she uses a scythe? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in Discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 8 is available now.

The Star Child of God

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 6 was an extremely predictable episode, and yet had a lot of potential to be something good. Unfortunately, I don’t see this anime ever living up to its potential. It’s always going to be bad.

The closest the series has come to being good, though, was within this episode. The fight between Leslie and Hayden (who apparently used to be lovers), actually had some nice keyframes. However, those keyframes weren’t tied together by any in-betweens, and so the fight looked janky.

And, while I’m on the topic of Leslie and Hayden, I’ll say that I assumed Hayden’s former lover was Vera. I’m pretty sure however it was phrased in Episode 5 was supposed to make us think that so this Leslie twist would be even more shocking.

Anyway, let’s talk El-Cee, also known as both the Star Child and the Child of God. I believe it’s the Exiles who refer to her as the Child of God, while Vera’s superiors were the ones to call her the Star Child.

We finally know what’s so special about her, and it’s just as boring as I expected. El-Cee has the magical power to end the world somehow. We don’t know anything more than that. But, even with what little we do know, it’s a lame development.

The stakes don’t always have to be the fate of the entire world. Though, to be fair, it was never really going to be anything else. I mean, what other reason was there going to be for assassinating some child?

I mentioned a few possible reasons in a previous episode, but they were too rational for an anime plot.

Exile Society

Now, as shocking as the reveal regarding Leslie and Hayden was, that wasn’t the biggest surprise of the episode, for me. I was much more shocked to find out that there’s a thriving society of Exiles living within the Asylum.

Of course, we knew that there were people living there and that they may have been there even before the Asylum was discovered by the rest of the world. But there was never any indication that they had a large-scale, civilized society.

Some Exiles we saw, such as El-Cee, were well-dressed enough to imply that there was a society of some sort. However, I assumed it was going to be small villages of Exiles who primarily gathered modern goods, like clothing, by scavenging the corpses of Sleepers.

When we first met El-Cee, she was alone out in the forest of the Asylum. There was no indication that she was a member of a high Exile society and that they hold parties in mansions. It seemed more like she was a capable, young girl who had learned to survive in the Asylum on her own.

Honestly, this Exile society development changes my entire view of the Asylum. Yes, there are giant monsters here and some unexplained force that causes people to go crazy and mutate. But at the same time, there are also people living completely normal, peaceful, and relatively modern lives there.

The only reason I can see for the other nations of the world not recognizing the Asylum as sovereign is because of the abundant natural resources. This was already stated fairly explicitly at the beginning of the series.

But, considering the dangers associated with entering the Asylum, most notably Randolph Syndrome, it’s a bit odd. Wouldn’t it make more financial sense to simply enter into a trade agreement with the Exiles?

Mission Failed

Okay, so let’s get into why Episode 6 of Deep Insanity was so predictable. In my mind, there were two key moments that defined this. The one that’s set up first is the “death” of Leslie. He might actually be dead, or he might not be. It doesn’t matter right now.

What matters is that Vera gave him a good luck charm, and then he stated that he left it behind because he didn’t want to lose it. As soon as he said that, I knew his fate was sealed. That’s such an obvious death flag.

Regarding whether he’s actually alive or not, I don’t have a strong opinion. I think it’ll be lame if he turns out to have survived. But I also think he’s a somewhat enjoyable character, so I’d like for him to return later on.

Just to have something to refer back to later on, I’ll predict that’s not the last we’ve seen of Leslie.

What was even more obvious than Leslie’s death was Shigure’s inability to assassinate El-Cee. There was a 0% chance in my mind that he would actually follow through. And I don’t simply mean that I thought he would somehow fail. I mean that I knew he wouldn’t even take the shot.

Shigure is a bland character with no real personality of his own other than that he wants to be a hero. A character like that is never going to do something like assassinating a random child. Look, even Light Yagami from Death Note didn’t do that, and he’s a villain.

I know there are going to be some people who think “well, anime heroes sometimes still make hard choices like that.” Sure, but not bland, cardboard cutout characters like Shigure. For a real character with depth, that would be a defining character moment.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 6? Are you even still watching this series? Did you find the episode to be overly predictable? And what do you think will be Leslie’s fate? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 7 is available now.

Shigure x Kobato

I feel like Deep Insanity: The Lost Child had been acceptable for a few weeks there. But Episode 5 reminded me that this is a bad anime, not an average one. I seriously considered whether or not I should drop the series from my weekly review schedule while watching this episode.

But, since I’m writing this, it should be obvious that, for now at least, I’ve decided to push on and continue the reviews. That might change over the next few weeks, though. I do have a lot of other things I’d rather write about, so freeing up another slot in my weekly schedule would be nice.

You’re not here for that, though. For some reason, you’re here to read about Deep Insanity Episode 5. I can’t relate to wanting to put yourself through that.

This week’s episode was all about the relationship, or lack thereof, between Shigure and Kobato. Despite being the two rearguard team members, the two of them don’t have a good rapport with each other.

It’s not that they dislike each other. It’s just that they both — mainly Shigure — go out of their way to avoid the other. As we learn later in the episode, Shigure avoids Kobato because she’s a better otaku than he is. And Kobato doesn’t particularly like Shigure because she thinks he’s avoiding her because of her prosthesis.

I can understand where Kobato is coming from. She’s probably pretty self-conscious about her leg and the way Shigure has been acting doesn’t help. But, Shigure, really? You’re afraid to talk to Kobato because she likes anime and manga more than you do?

It’s no wonder Leslie and Sumire think Shigure is a virgin since he acts like that.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

By this point, it should be clear to everyone that Deep Insanity isn’t exactly the most unique anime around. It may be an “original” series, but the themes, tropes, and everything else about it are anything but original.

As soon as it was made clear that this episode was about Shigure’s and Kobato’s relationship, I knew how it was going to play out. The two of them are going to be separated from the other characters and then have to put aside their differences to overcome some obstacle that gets in their way.

This is a classic “filler” episode plot that I’ve seen countless times. I mean, I feel like it’s probably happened at least a handful of times in Boruto alone so far. However, unlike Boruto, Deep Insanity doesn’t have a bunch of episodes that need to be filler to keep the anime behind the source material.

Also, I guess I should point out that the obstacle the characters in these types of episodes need to overcome is rarely all that severe. Sure, Nadia is an assassin who works alongside Hayden. But did she pose any kind of real threat here? I’d argue no.

Nadia’s rabbits were easily distracted with some meat and then taken out with simple kicks. Based on that, it’s clear to me that Hayden is the only real threat out of the two of them. It was even implied that Hayden was the one who summoned the Scarred, not Nadia.

And, as for that Scarred, it was probably the weakest Scarred we’ve seen in the whole series so far. It was literally a teenage girl — school uniform and everything. Usually, Sleepers need specialized weapons to take Scarred down. Shigure and Kobato used some pipes they found lying around to defeat this one.

Kobato is Literally a New Character

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about this episode, as you’ve probably gathered by now. But the thing I disliked the most was that Kobato seems to be an entirely new character. She didn’t get any development. She was literally rewritten to be someone else.

We’re just supposed to accept that she’s now a hardcore otaku who draws bishounen manga and is extremely self-conscious? I don’t think she gave off those vibes in any way previously. To me, it just seemed like she was a kuudere with a bit of dandere mixed in.

She came across as someone who was extremely confident in her own abilities, but who wasn’t good at expressing herself, which is why she didn’t interact much with the others. Maybe I just missed all the signs. But I don’t see how the character in this episode is the same person as before.

With all of that said, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by Kobato’s sudden personality transformation. After all, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen it happen in this series. Remember when it was revealed that Sumire used to be an idol and she suddenly started speaking in slang?

To be fair, I think the change in Sumire’s personality was less of a shock because her character design kind of gave it away. But who she is now is still vastly different from the person she was before she had her heart-to-heart with Shigure.

This makes me wonder if something similar will happen with Larry. I don’t feel like it will since Larry’s personality is influenced by his brain injury. It’s not as if he’s trying to hide who he used to be like the other two were. And, we’ve already gotten an episode focusing on him with some development.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 5? Although I definitely think it’s a bad episode, I did find this one easy to write about. I guess it’s just that I have more opinions about things when they’re bad than when they’re average.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 6 is available now.

Leslie’s Past

Unfortunately, it’s now time for my least favorite part of the week — the part when I have to write about the latest Deep Insanity: The Lost Child episode. To be fair, I don’t think there was anything overtly bad about Episode 4. But it wasn’t good either.

Also, I know this isn’t the anime’s fault, but the subtitles that I was watching the episode with weren’t the best. Specifically, the translations were off during the scene pictured below when Sumire meets up with the rest of Vera Platoon after their mission.

After Sumire tells them that Commander Vera is calling, Shigure mistakenly thinks this was directed towards him. But in reality, the message was for Leslie.

The translations had Sumire saying “No?” in response to Shigure’s confusion, followed by Shigure saying “No.” back to her. A better translation would have been Sumire saying “Not you.” followed by Shigure saying “Not me?”

Anyway, Leslie is who I actually wanted to discuss at the start of this review, so let’s move on to him. His background is a mystery, with everyone telling Shigure they heard something different about his time before he became a Sleeper.

It seems pretty clear that all of these rumors are going to be incorrect. And, so, I’m going to make a wild prediction of my own. I’m guessing Leslie is actually a prince of some nation. He looks the part, he seems to be someone important, and that could explain where he acquired his skill with a sword from.

As for that second point about him seeming to be someone important, I’m basing that on something Commander Vera said. She told him that going forward she can’t guarantee “even [his]” safety — implying he was protected by something (his status maybe?) before.

Assassination Mission

In Episode 3, it was implied that the assassination mission Commander Vera gave to Shigure was just between the two of them. But, we now know this isn’t the case. Commander Vera is plotting something that extends beyond the mission she gave to Shigure.

Other than those two, Leslie and whoever the armorer is are also in on the plan. Leslie only agreed to be complicit within this episode, but it was made clear that he already knew about the plan. He knew what Vera’s cryptic message meant and that it was a crime.

So, what is this crime Vera is planning? Obviously, it involves the assassination of the Exile El-Cee. However, what became more clear from this episode is that El-Cee is someone particularly special.

Sure, you could have guessed that El-Cee was special simply from the fact that she’s being specifically targeted for assassination. That’s fair. But we now know that there are multiple factions that have their eyes on her — with Hayden and Nadia planning to kidnap her for some reason.

I don’t really have any evidence for this, but my assumption is that El-Cee is the answer to the mystery of Randolph Syndrome. She seems to have complete control over her sanity, unlike other Exiles within the Asylum. So perhaps she’s immune to Randolph Syndrome.

If that’s the case, the faction supported by Hayden and Nadia may want to experiment on her to find a cure (probably so they can take advantage of the Asylum’s resources easier). And perhaps Vera wants to eliminate El-Cee to prevent anyone from gaining that kind of control over the Asylum.

Whatever the case may be, I’m fairly certain Shigure is going to break away from Vera Platoon at some point. The other characters he’s pictured with in the cover art still haven’t appeared yet.

Hayden and Nadia

I don’t particularly think Hayden and Nadia are that interesting as characters. Hayden’s personality is pretty bland and almost robotic. I’ve never been a fan of his kind of character, especially since he does the whole “eating real food is inefficient” trope.

Is that supposed to make him seem cooler to viewers? I’ve always found it to be dumb. So any character that does that is automatically boring in my book. Nadia doesn’t have any quirks like that, but she’s still not really any better as far as characters go.

When I see Nadia, all I see is a random loli because this is an anime. The fact that she’s a little girl has no purpose within the story as far as we know. She just is one because that’s the kind of thing you can expect from anime.

As with Vera, it doesn’t appear that Hayden and Nadia are the ones who are in charge of their faction. I don’t exactly remember, but I feel like we saw Hayden reporting to someone else presumably higher up the food chain in a previous episode.

And although Vera is the one who brings up the assassination plot to her subordinates, she doesn’t seem like the one who came up with it. Someone else gave her that mission. But, if they’re all just pawns, that means there’s the possibility that they’ll join forces someday.

Maybe they’ll all grow disillusioned with their leaders and join the resistance that I’m guessing Shigure is going to start or join himself. This just seems like the kind of series in which some big, unforeseen cataclysm occurs, and then all the various factions have to come together to save the world or something.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 4? What do you think the truth behind Leslie’s past is? Why do you think El-Cee is so important? And how do you feel about Hayden and Nadia? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 5 is available now.