Spoilers be warned, though I find no incentive of hiding the full fact from all of you. Just who was this show made for, other than to promote Square Enix's brand new IP: Deep Insanity? No, not one, it seems. In all circumstances, this show is just outright horrible on every angle, and this is a classic case study of how NOT to formulate an anime that wastes everyone's time and money, resources of which are timeless and cannot be earned back. For one, Deep Insanity hinges very heavily on its mixed-media themes, because without the context of either one of them, you would be very lost,and I honestly don't blame you if the anime itself doesn't really offer a lot to begin with, much less execute the "show, not tell" golden rule in a very bizarre and unsatisfying way. The context is that this IP has 3 forms of media attached to it: the manga, anime and the mobage, ALL of which are intertwined in one form or another to the central plot of the series as a whole, which tells of a world where humanity has fallen into comas as a result of the mysterious illness called "Randolph Syndrome". The illness spanning from the South Pole in this deep underground "Asylum", and the quest to go explore and find a cure or even find any sorts of treasure lurking around. And before you ask, don't ever expect "Made In Abyss" levels of lore in this one, you'll be severely disappointed.
The context continued, is that while the manga (named Deep Insanity: Nirvana, written by Akudama Drive co-creator Norimitsu Kaihou and Psycho-Pass screenwriter Makoto Fukami) features a boy immune to the Randolph syndrome and simultaneous an Antarctian trader journeying into "Asylum", and the mobage featuring a main character who's the only sole survivor of the syndrome, the anime itself takes place in between both mediums and treads that line with Deep Insanity: The Lost Child, featuring the MC Shigure Daniel Kai who joins the Antarctica Front as a "Sleeper", exploring the Asylum with monsters called "Scarred" and humans called "Exiles", the infected ones referred to as "Cultists". We basically see what the hell is going on within the Asylum and the Antarctica Front members as progressing plot unwinds to open up the big picture.
Except that the big picture itself...is just a burgeoning mess really, and for real. Shigure just feels like the typical MC in the mobage where we have full control of him as a character, but have no narrative control as you would in a typical RPG. Of all the choices he could've done, he is a blind follower whose dream is to be a hero, and not someone whom has exactly a sound mind to discern what's right or wrong. Instead, he is the literate definition of a new recruit: coercing and making friends with other Sleepers (Lawrence Larry Jackson, Reika Kobato and Sumire Motiki) whilst traversing through the Abyss with their leader Leslie Blanc. And man, does the experience don't get any better than this. If you need an example of a walking trope, these characters all are their own one-of-a-kind mind-numbing boringness, the biggest sin being Commander Vera Rustamova because nothing pops out from her mouth, only action matters to reach her goal.
The issue with setting up such plot where the Sleepers (and us the audience) only knowing that they have to exterminate the Scarred, while being silent about the true issue at hand: the psychological battle between Vera and this unknown organization with members of gay-centric Hayden and rabbit-tamer Nadia to target this "Child of God" The Lost Child named EL-Cee, whom harnesses the power to destroy the world. First come, first serve, that's it. So in the words of Gordon Ramsay: crap, on top of crap, on top of crap, on top of crap, on top of crap...it's not hard to see why the anime version of Deep Insanity is just that: an all-out dysfunctional atrocity. And knowing that Silver Link in-house scriptwriter Kento Shimoyama had his hand on this, with the horrible works that he has done before (Masamune-kun, Death March, Nakanohito Genome (this I can at least acknowledge that it's decent), KimiSen), I find it hard to swallow how does this guy manage to one-up himself by being worse and worse.
Speaking of Silver Link, not even head director Shin Oonuma can save this travesty, because this is got to be one of the worst productions ever done in the studio's history, and yeah, good luck with the karma of KimiSen airing directly in the same season last year. The production values just went ham on being too dark to try its best to evoke the depths of the Underground Asylum Abyss, and that in the process, just mysteriously gave up altogether, because it shows of the roughness and unpolished feel of the show as a whole. Even as a Kadokawa and Square Enix-produced show, this easily scrapes the bottom of the barrel.
Speaking of Kadokawa, this is the sole reason why I don't rate this show a pathetic score, just because of the euphemism of the OP & ED songs and their importance to the show. I have to conceit that Konomi Suzuki's OP is just quite mid that's fitting with the subpar visuals, but while the same also exists with Kashitarou Itou's ED, knowing his debut performance with Deca-Dence only raised my expectations, and the whole show IMO is worth it for the glorious ED alone.
When all is said and done, I've definitely gushed more than enough to "understand" this show because like many others, I just don't care that all for this mish-mash mess that does everything the exact opposite. Just avoid this one, it's pure atrocious and you would not want to spend even a second of this, even for caution.
FlFlexySpagoot
January 1, 2022
Not Recommended
Deep Insanity: The Lost Child is the epitome of a "bad" show. It has a boring plot, looks ugly, and weird pacing and structure. Part of my dissatisfaction is likely due to the fact that the show was nothing like I thought it would be originally. The little synopsis given before the show aired sounded a lot more gritty and interesting. The actual show, was not. Whether that's the show's fault or mine, or if that even matters, is up to you. If I was to sum up the story in one word it would just be "bad." It's really that simple, it starts outbeing a boring action story with some secret underground organization trying to do evil things, and then ends up strangely being a time loop show. I personally like time loop scenarios if done well, but one being introduced in the literal last 2 episodes is not usually a sign of a good one. This element was jarring and honestly should have been kept out of this show, all it really did was just make the plot slightly more complicated. The rest of the show was just really boring. The world it creates lacks any real believability, and could have really done with some extra fleshing out and world building. And the plot that takes place in that world isn't very good either. The first chunk mainly plays out like a really tame Slice-of-Life show, before devolving into generic action, that does have a few unique plot elements, but is honestly largely uninteresting.
The art is another one of my big problem areas. In all the aboveground scenes it looks ok. Nothing too special, maybe a nice background here and there, but really not that amazing by any stretch of the imagination. But belowground, in the mysterious "Asylum" everything looks like dog shit. The color palette switches to browns and sickly greens with a touch of faint purple. Everything looks ugly and disgusting in the Asylum, and instead of feeling like I'm looking into an alien world I feel like I'm gazing into a trash can that hasn't been emptied in a month. And don't even get me started on the CGI, which somehow looks WORSE than hilariously bad CGI shows like Ex-Arm or Tesla Note. Those shows were quite bad, but at least they were entertaining and didn't have CGI that looks as abhorrent as this awful show's.
The music ranged from ok to not present or forgettable, and was really not even worth mentioning in my opinion. The OP and ED were fine, but again, not really worth mentioning. Although I must say the OP has some of the most generic camera shots you can put in an OP, and a bit too much strobing for my tastes.
The characters were all pretty "ok." They were all pretty much tropes or archetypes that had been done before, with Shigure being the definition of a shounen protagonist (although this isn't a shounen, so I guess it's a little unique). The rest of the cast are a little bit more interesting, but none are really that deep. The one exception is Leslie, who was more interesting than the rest of the cast of cardboard cutouts. He also was a crossdresser, and not in like a femboy trope way, like a more representation-ey way. Whatever representation or empowerment this character could bring however, is kind of wasted by it being in this mess of a show.
This show suffered from a myriad of issues, but for me the biggest one was that it just wasn't even remotely interesting. And I don't think there is any greater sin an anime can commit than being boring. Because then, what's even the point?
