After a disaster fifteen years ago caused society to collapse, the survivors struggle to eek out an existence. Alongside trying to scrounge together food, clean water, and electricity, these survivors are also plagued by the appearance of man-eating monsters.
Two young survivors, Maru and Kiruko, wander the wasteland and make money off Maru’s ability to kill these man-eaters with a touch. Together, they are searching for a place called Heaven that they both hope will hold the answers to the tragic burdens that they hold in their heart.
While Heavenly Delusion wandered perhaps too long before diving into the meat, I loved that it was genuinely surprising and intriguing, everything a good mystery anime needs to be. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Heavenly Delusion, head on down below.
Anime Like Heavenly Delusion
For Fans of Post-Apocalyptic Mystery
From The New World
After a small portion of humanity suddenly developed psychokinetic powers, the world underwent a rapid transformation. After 1,000 years of turbulent history where regular humans struggled against those with powers, we focus in on Kamisu 66, a small town where 12-year-old Saki Watanabe finally awakened her powers.
This awakening means she is finally able to join her friends at the Sage Academy. However, things in Saki’s life do not remain as simple as those precious days.
With missing children in the village, rebellious rumblings, and a world steeped in myth and mystery, Saki and her friends are about to face the shocking truths of their peaceful society.
Of all the other anime series on here, From the New World is probably the most similar anime to Heavenly Delusion.
Both Heavenly Delusion and From the New World follow children in a post-apocalyptic world. They also share a bit of a split focus between what is happening in the present and what happened in the past which contributes to the overall storytelling.
Both series showcase children with special abilities and how they use them. Many of those children are also kept closed off from the world. There is also some human experimentation at play as well.
All of that is incredibly vague, yes, but discovering those mysteries is part of the charm of both of these series which specialize in front-loading questions, then slowly answering them as the story goes on.
Coppelion
After a nuclear meltdown creates a catastrophe in Tokyo, the city becomes a ghost town.
20 years later, a distress signal is received from the area despite high levels of radiation. The special unit Coppelion is dispatched, but why can they withstand the radiation without a suit.
Both Heavenly Delusion and Coppelion take place in Japan after some event has not completely wiped out humanity, but has decimated modern civilization. In Coppelion, radiation makes it difficult to move outside of safe zones while in Heavenly Delusion, it is the the Hiruko.
However, both series feature those who have the power to counteract those deadly threats. They were made that way through some human experimentation.
While both series are essentially about the main characters who just sort of wandering the wasteland either looking for something or doing missions, it needs to be said that Heavenly Delusion does that with a little more finesse, though.
No. 6
After a series of bloody wars, humanity retreated into six city-states. However, while everything seemed peaceful and perfect to the elite of these cities, the poor suffered.
One day, Shion, a resident of the elite, encountered Nezumi, a fugitive from outside the utopia. After taking him in, Shion and his family were forced from their home and now learn the ugly side of their society.
While Heavenly Delusion is still in the lawless phase of the post-apocalypse for the most part, No. 6 is more of a post-post-apocalypse where society has reformed into a dystopian series of city-states with a number left out in the cold.
While No. 6 has a bit more emphasis on classism, it transforms into a similar sort of journey like Heavenly Delusion where the main character duo is wandering the wasteland and dealing with the various issues that they get tied up in.
For Fans of Isolated Communities
The Promised Neverland
Grace Fields House is a home for orphans. However, even though they have no blood families, they are all one big family. That is, until the age of twelve when they are adopted out.
The kids also know that they are not allowed outside the fenced yard, but one day, two children break that rule. They then discover that the children who are “adopted” are actually subjected to something much darker.
In the beginning of Heavenly Delusion, you are presented with a isolated child farm much like is the main setting in The Promised Neverland. Everything seems fine, yet there is the distinct sense that something sinister is going on, and it is!
However, while that isolated facility played a different role than you might have thought in the beginning of Heavenly Delusion, The Promised Neverland plays it straight. It follows the children, in the present, as they discover the dark truths and decide to do something about it.
Summer Time Render
After his parents died, Shinpei went to live with the Kofune family on Hitogashima Island. After leaving for school in Tokyo he has not been back since, but after receiving word that one of the two Kofune daughters, Ushio, drown tragically, he returns for the funeral.
However, with bruises on her neck, there is some doubt if Ushio’s accident was truly an accident.
As he considers her death, strange things begin to take place on this island that forces Mio, Ushio’s sister, to recall an old tale about how seeing a person that looks just like yourself foretells your own death.
Unlike Heavenly Delusion that takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting, Summer Time Render takes place in the modern day, but on an island. Like many island communities, there is a connection to the outside, but islands always have a certain sense of isolation to them.
What Heavenly Delusion and Summer Time Render have in common is that question that you want mystery anime to make you wonder – “What the fuck is going on?”
They set up their stories to be a bit confusing at first, but then they slowly piece together the puzzle for you. While Heavenly Delusion has some manipulation of your sense of time, Summer Time Render is very much a time travel/time looping series. However, both series do like little emotional punches and brutal death.
Children of the Whales
Chakuro is a young archivist on the island of Mud Whale. This island floats above an endless sea of sand and is home to around 500 people. On this island, most residents have been blessed with special powers but they also curse them to an early death.
While the inhabitants have seen other islands, they have never met or even seen any other inhabitants on them as they drift by.
One day, while passing another island and sent there to scavenge for resources as they pass close enough, Chakuro meets a girl who will change everything.
Sometimes what you see around you seems like the whole world. If you are raised in a building with no way to see the outside, that building is your whole world. Like the facility in Heavenly Delusion, Children of the Whales follows a whole little town that lives in isolation, floating through a sea of sand. They don’t know there is a whole outside world until they meet someone from it.
Furthermore, Children of the Whales also features residents that have special abilities, but it also takes a toll on their lives for a sinister dark secret.
Honestly, what Heavenly Delusion is to post-apocalyptic mystery, Children of the Whales is to fantasy mystery. They tell a similar sort of intrigue.
For Fans of Journeying
Girls’ Last Tour
With all civilization dead, only Chito and Yuuri remain. Together they decide to hop on their motorbike and wander aimlessly looking for their next meal and fuel.
Despite a bleak existence, they remain each other’s light in this dead world.
While Maru and Kiruko do actually have a goal that is fueling their travel, they are, for much of the series, just wandering around the wasteland. Girls’ Last Tour has no particular goal, but also follows two young kids wandering around the wasteland and getting caught up in various events.
The biggest difference between these two is that Girls’ Last Tour feels like there is maybe ten people left in the entire world. As such, while the main characters have very rare interactions with others, mostly everyone else is gone. This means there is not as much threat of being attacked like they have to worry about in Heavenly Delusion.
Girls’ Last Tour is more showing the last gasps of a dying world and showing the two main characters finding small moments to enjoy in it.
Made in Abyss
The Abyss is an enormous cave system and the only unexplored place in the world. No one knows how deep it goes, but generations of bold adventurers have descended into it.
In the town at the edge of The Abyss, an orphan named Rico dreams of raiding, as her mother did before her. One day while exploring the murky depths, she meets a boy, who turns out to be a robot, kicking off the start of her epic adventure.
While not the sole focus in Heavenly Delusion, both it and Made in Abyss prominently feature children that are turned into monsters due to human experimentation. However, while Heavenly Delusion is post-apocalyptic-set, Made in Abyss is more of a fantasy series.
While they share a cruel torture of young children in common, they both also share an adventure focus. Both shows feature duos traveling around a wild and dangerous world with a specific, yet somewhat vague destination in mind.
While Heavenly Delusion can be brutal, don’t be fooled by the cute potato people character designs in Made in Abyss, it takes cruelty and makes it almost traumatic to watch at times.
Sabikui Bisco
A red wind has swept over Japan and withered everything in its wake. Wherever the wind blows, rust grows and consumes all in its path.
With humanity succumbing to this rust, and the world a barren wasteland, mushroom spores bore the blame for it. This has made archer Bisco Akaboshi, who grows mushrooms wherever his arrows land, into a notorious terrorist.
However, he is a mushroom protector who spreads his fungi in order to enrich the land as he searches for the legendary Sabikui, an ancient mushroom that devours rust in all forms.
In both Heavenly Delusion and Sabikui Bisco something terrible has happened to Japan. While humanity isn’t extinct, they don’t live well. Furthermore, there is a serious disease that is, if not just killing people, turning them into monsters. In both series, you follow main characters who are sort of the key to solving this problem.
While Heavenly Delusion definitely puts more emphasis on mystery, like Sabikui Bisco, it is a good adventure series where you follow a likable duo as they try to reach their goal destination, getting in endless trouble along the way.
However, Sabikui Bisco puts a lot more emphasis on action and isn’t quite as darkly themed as Heavenly Delusion.
Kino’s Journey
Accompanied by her talking motorcycle, Hermes, Kino travels through her mysterious world, spending only three days and two nights in each town. The idea is that three days is enough to learn almost everything about a place. This is the story of her journey.
While things aren’t quite perfect in the world of Kino’s Journey, there is enough civilization left that you can’t quite call it post-apocalyptic. Yet, it is a series about a girl traveling to different places, and all the places have different cultures and governing plans, which makes the civilizations quite different from the ones we have today.
While both Heavenly Delusion and Kino’s Journey are about traveling, Kino’s Journey has no end goal. It is all about the journey. Yet, what these series really share is a melancholy, darker view of the world they are displaying. Kino’s Journey is episodic, and very rarely is the tale being told in that episode a wholesome and positive one. If you enjoy darker stories and darker mysteries, but don’t need it to be about freakish monsters, it is worth watching.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Heavenly Delusion? Let fans know in the comments section below.
