Exiles of the Asylum

After watching Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 3, I sat here and procrastinated for an hour because I really didn’t feel like writing about it. But, now that I’m mentally prepared, it’s time to power through this review so I can do other things.

The big piece of information we got from Episode 3 is that there are people who live within the Asylum known as Exiles. The origins of these exiles are unclear, but there are a few theories surrounding them.

The most likely theory is that the Exiles are natives of the Asylum and have been there from the very beginning. This is evidenced by the fact that Exiles were present in the Asylum even during the first expeditions into its depths.

However, another theory, which could be partially correct, is that the Exiles are refugees who fled their homeland and took up residence within the Asylum. Just because the Exiles may have been refugees at one point doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be considered natives now.

For example, if their ancestors fled to the Asylum thousands, or perhaps even hundreds, of years before the rest of the world learned of the Asylum’s existence, I’d call them natives. But that’s not the only way Exiles could be both refugees and natives.

It’s also possible that there are multiple types of Exiles, as it simply refers to those who live within the Asylum. Some may be natives, and others may have arrived there as refugees. In either case, their existence is a problem for the private companies that wish to profit from the Asylum’s resources.

If they’re natives, they own the land. And if they’re refugees, then they need to be protected.

Drug Run

Larry and Shigure meet one of these Exiles when they enter the Asylum on an unofficial “mission” to gather powerful drugs. They’re hired to do this by a drug dealer they meet in the Cliff Town underground.

While collecting drugs for a dealer probably isn’t something Sleepers should be doing, Larry has an ulterior motive for accepting the job. He’s searching for the source of Randolph Syndrome in hopes that it will help him learn more about his own brain injury.

Such exploration isn’t something Larry can do while on official missions as a Sleeper. However, I’m not really sure why he needs to accept an illicit request in order to enter the Asylum without permission. I guess he figures that if he’s going to break the rules anyway, he might as well get paid to do it.

The main problem I have with this drug run that Larry and Shigure go on is that it doesn’t seem to have mattered in the end. Okay, Shigure met El-Cee and Larry “learned a lesson,” but the actual drug run didn’t mean anything.

We never see them interact with the dealer after they return from the mission and the samples Larry collected are never mentioned again. Did they hand them over? Does Larry still have them? Are they going to help him learn the truth behind Randolph Syndrome? We have no information.

And, although I’m going to discuss the “lesson” Larry “learned” in the next section of this review, I don’t think that matters at the end of the day. Will that really affect the series going forward? Probably not.

So, what we’re left with is just an episode that (barely) introduced the character of El-Cee, who I’m guessing is the titular lost child. I mean, she’s the first actual child character we’ve met so far and she lives alone in the Asylum.

Larry’s Brain

I don’t hate Larry’s character. The fact that he can’t feel pain or fear due to a brain injury is a pretty interesting concept that you don’t see explored in media very often. However, whether or not he becomes a truly good character will depend on how his disability is used going forward.

In this episode, he learned that even if he can’t feel pain and even if he doesn’t fear death, those around him don’t want to see him injured or killed. I think that’s a pretty good lesson. He was willing to sacrifice himself, but now he knows that’s not acceptable to his teammates.

Where does his character go from here, though? That’s why I questioned how this is going to affect the series in the future. Larry probably won’t offer to sacrifice himself again. But does that matter? I wouldn’t really expect him to do that again anyway because it would just be repetitive from a storytelling standpoint.

With all of that said, I’m not entirely sure what I’d like to see from Larry. I don’t want his brain to be fixed, because that would remove what makes him unique. But, I do want to see him learn to use his disability in a positive, non-destructive way.

How does he do that? I don’t know. Being a sacrifice, or at least being used as bait, seems like a great way for him to use his disability to the advantage of his team. But there must be other ways he can benefit them without putting himself in harm’s way.

Maybe there is no positive way to use his disability. Maybe coming to terms with that is how his character grows from here. I’m interested to see how it all plays out for him.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 3? Where do you think the Exiles come from? Will Shigure be able to follow through with the assassination of El-Cee? (Probably not.) And how do you feel about Larry? 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 and Toma 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 4 is available now.

What are You Good At?

After the disappointment that was the first episode, I was hoping Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 2 would be better. Unfortunately, I’d argue that it was actually worse. The plot didn’t improve, it included some content that really didn’t seem to fit the series, and it proved the protagonist is extremely boring.

The first sign that this wasn’t going to be a good episode came when Shigure was asked what he’s good at and he couldn’t come up with anything. This seemed to be setting up for the cliché that the thing he’s good at is being a Sleeper.

However, it ended up being even worse. I’ll go into it in more detail later on, but the thing Shigure is good at is being a shounen protagonist. Basically, he has the power of friendship or the talk-no-jutsu — the ability to bring people together.

But, enough about Shigure for now. What are the other members of Vera Platoon good at? First up, we have Larry, who’s apparently good at neurosurgery. He likes learning about how the brain works, and he practices brain surgery for fun in his free time.

I get the feeling that Larry being good at brain surgery isn’t actually going to matter in the end. But, the fact that he has something wrong with his brain definitely helps him when it comes to being a sleeper. He can’t feel fear nor pain.

The other team member we learned about in this episode is Sumire. As it turns out, she’s good at singing and dancing because she used to be an idol. And, more importantly because she’s a sanity anchor, she knows how to effectively communicate with people.

Deep Insanity: The Lost Idol

This may come as a shock, but I don’t think Sumire’s whole backstory about being an idol was necessary. Her character could have had the same cookie-cutter development without introducing idols into this anime about going crazy in an abyss.

But anyway, it was obvious that she used to be an idol from the moment we saw her reaction to some random Sleeper saying how idols have it easy. And, I mean, just looking at her character design, it should have been pretty clear.

Despite the fact that I think Sumire being a former idol wasn’t information we needed to have, it’s not the craziest thing to have been revealed in the episode. It was also revealed that because Sumire wasn’t very popular, she became a JAV actress to help her idol career.

If you don’t know what a JAV actress is, look it up as long as you’re 18 or older.

Of course, I have nothing against JAV actresses. But it’s clear that this stage in Sumire’s life isn’t something she wants to be reminded of. She became a JAV actress out of desperation — it wasn’t a positive, or even neutral, experience for her.

And, what made this whole portion of the episode even stranger, is that Sumire’s past experiences somehow allowed her to help Vera Platoon defeat the Scarred they were fighting. She literally compares her own experiences to those of a giant worm monster and it somehow helps.

As a former “underground” idol, Sumire knows that creatures that live underground take every opportunity they get to survive. That’s why she became a JAV actress, after all. And since this worm monster lives underground, that obviously means it’s going to go after every opportunity — even if it’s bait — just like Sumire did.

Maybe that Scarred should get into the idol business. It would fit right in.

The Power of Friendship

As the former idol and JAV actress, Sumire, tells Shigure at the end of Episode 2, the thing he’s good at is “affirming other people.” That’s a pretty odd way to say it, but what it means is that he’s good at saying the right things to people to make them like him.

You can think of this ability as the same as Naruto‘s infamous “talk-no-jutsu,” by which he defeats villains with his words, not his fists. To be fair, Naruto does still use his fists, but it’s his words that usually end up winning over the bad guys.

Shigure is the same way. His actions aren’t what made Sumire see him in a different light. In fact, it’s his actions that made Sumire dislike him in the first place. He was able to jump right into the abyss without any trouble, which is something she was unable to do.

But, it’s thanks to Shigure’s words that Sumire was able to appreciate the value her role as the sanity anchor brings to the team. And he also helped her realize that her past experiences aren’t something to hide from — she can use those experiences for good.

It just goes to show that you never know when some dark part of your past will help you relate to a giant worm monster. All you need to do is find some bland, cardboard cutout of a person to help you realize your true potential.

I wonder if the rest of this series is just going to be about Shigure using his power of friendship to bring the other members of Vera Platoon together. Maybe they’ll all be able to achieve their goals if they can learn to trust each other completely as teammates.

Conclusion

What do you think of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 2? Do you have a skill that would be valuable for a Sleeper? Will we ever get to see the JAV Sumire starred in? And why are you still watching this series? Let me know your thoughts 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 and Toma 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 3 is available now.

The Hero

I was looking forward to Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 1. The preview for the series made it look pretty cool. Unfortunately, reality is often disappointing and the episode was much worse than the preview was.

I’ll get to my expectations vs. the reality of this series at the end of the review. But before that, let’s run through what happened in this episode and what some of my revised expectations for the series are.

For starters, there’s Shigure Daniel Kai, the protagonist who signed up to be a “Sleeper” without knowing what they actually are. Shigure is the equivalent of people who see U.S. Army commercials that compare the military to a video game and thinks that’s what it’s really like.

In the commercial for Sleepers, they’re compared to superheroes whose job is to lead the rest of the world into the future. And when he applied for the job, he claimed his motivation was that he wanted to be a hero like the one featured in said commercial.

Sleepers are actually just soldiers who travel down into a giant abyss in Antarctica to fight against mutated animals referred to as Scarred (which are animated using CGI). For now, I don’t think we know what their actual mission is, but I’m going to guess it’s not very heroic.

Sure, in the end, Shigure and the rest of Vera Platoon are probably going to be heroes. But the organization they work for definitely isn’t “good.” It seems like a combination between a private military company and an oil or mining operation.

Is a militarized mining company ever a good thing? No. They’re probably responsible for awakening the Scarred and releasing the virus that was mentioned at the start of the episode.

Vera Platoon

Vera Platoon (Platoon 11) is the platoon Shigure is assigned to after being brought on as a Sleeper. The platoon only has 6 members, 4 of which are actually out in the field. Maybe my definition of a platoon is wrong, but I’m not sure 6 people qualifies. I’d call that a squad instead.

Anyway, the Commander of the platoon is Vera Rustamova. We don’t know anything else about her aside from her name and what she looks like. But, we can assume that she runs the “unorthodox” platoon.

Aside from all the other Vera Platoon members being a bit eccentric, you’ll also notice that this is the only platoon to dress differently. All the other sleepers we see in the episode are dressed more like what you would expect from a military organization.

Under Vera is Leslie Blanc, the Executive Officer of Platoon 11. He (she? I’m going to assume genders, don’t cancel me) is my favorite character so far. But, that’s not saying much considering how little we know about all of them.

The two other field team members aside from Leslie, and now Shigure, are Reika Kobato and Lawrence “Larry” Jackson. Reika is missing a leg and became a Sleeper to gain access to their advanced prosthetics. Larry suffered a brain injury that resulted in him not feeling pain, so I guess he decided to become a soldier.

And the last member of Vera Platoon is Sumire Mochinoki. She referred to herself as the Sanity Anchor and works as the liaison between the field unit and Commander Vera back at base. Due to her title, I’m guessing that the abyss takes some sort of mental toll on those who enter it.

Maybe this series has a psychological version of the physical effects the abyss has on people from Made in Abyss.

Not What I Expected

Speaking of Made in Abyss, that’s kind of what I expected this series to be like. When I was going through the list of anime airing during the fall 2021 season, I noticed two series that had to do with exploring a mysterious abyss: Deep Insanity and Sakugan.

Since I’m trying to limit the number of anime I have to keep up with, I chose to watch Deep Insanity over Sakugan. They both seemed like maybe they were influenced by the success of Made in Abyss (or at least got anime adaptations because of it). I just chose the one that looked better to me based on the preview.

I get that this is partially my fault, but I really was expecting something a bit more like made in abyss than what I got from the first episode. This doesn’t seem like it’s going to be much about adventure. And instead, it does seem like it’s much more of a sci-fi anime than I anticipated.

A lot of the technology featured in the episode is pretty tame and I wouldn’t necessarily call sci-fi. But then there are things like the FIBE, which are battle robots that get summoned through portals via magic or something. That’s the kind of stuff I’m not a huge fan of.

And on top of that, we have Shigure, who’s not the most interesting protagonist. He actually reminds me of a mix between Deku from My Hero Academia and Kirito from Sword Art Online. If you’re new here, those are some characters I think are pretty bad.

So, at the end of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 1, my thoughts are that this series isn’t going to live up to my expectations. The plot doesn’t seem all that interesting, the monsters are animated with CGI, the characters all seem pretty bland, and I can’t say I enjoyed the soundtrack either.

Conclusion

What do you think about the first episode of Deep Insanity? Were you expecting something more like Made in Abyss? Did you know what this series was before you got into it? And how would you rate it based just on this episode? 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 and Toma 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 2 is available now.