The Ones Within Anime Series Review – A Weird Genre Mix and Incomplete Ending Yet Still Kind of Fun

Within Series Review
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What Happens When You Blend Gamers
With A Creepy Guy in a Llama Mask?

Incidentally, even once The Ones Within finished its run I still don’t know if the guy is wearing a mask or if he’s actually a human with the head of a llama. One assumes its a mask because of how it sits on his suit but it isn’t as though we ever see him take it off. That’s just one of many unanswered questions Nakanohito Genome leaves the audience with.

Normally I have a fair dislike of shows that finish in a completely open manner, seemingly oblivious to their own run time as the story just stops almost mid-sentence without any announcement of a continuation. In this case, that fact still makes it hard to recommend The One’s Within whole-heartedly, but it didn’t really detract from my overall enjoyment while watching.

What started as a weird little outlier for the season grew on me before stumbling a little and then picked up again before it all ran out of time and just stopped short of the characters achieving their goals or getting any real answers.

The cast of The One's Within

And for some this will be enough to not dip their toes into the water or even start The Ones Within. I can’t really argue with that logic. Incomplete stories abound in anime and with so little chance of ever being finished, why spend the time when there are other titles to invest those precious minutes in?

The One’s Within isn’t unmissable but there’s enjoyment to be had.

It isn’t as though Nakanohito Genome is some unmissable masterpiece. The story relies very heavily on randomness for its humour and the characters begin in a decidedly one note fashion and while they may grow on you by the end and the chemistry in the group works well enough, they are not deep by any means. Throw in the incomplete narrative and that’s three strikes against The Ones Within before it even begins.

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With that being said, I had a lot of fun with this series over the Summer season. The first episode kind of had me a little concerned as I kind of got Danganronpa vibes (only with no where near the oomph) from it and I wasn’t the biggest fan of that franchise. Fortunately, The Ones Within progressed over the rest of its first half by kind of carving out its own weird style and there was just enough mix of mystery, random comedy moments, occasionally on point characterisation, and some interesting visuals to continue to draw me into the odd story of the group of gamers who were abducted or selected to play a series of games to earn views.

It is never really established if they would actually be killed but there’s certainly a number of threatening moments that the characters face and even if death isn’t on the cards, isolation certainly is. ‘The White Room’ is an ever-present threat and one that forms a nice catalyst for drama in the second half when one member of the team is finally isolated and the rest are racing against time to get him back.

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The games themselves are equally ambiguous with it never being clear if this is meant to be a real world, a virtual world, or some alternate reality. Some of the games are very clearly just life versions of actual games where others have what appear to be genuine supernatural elements (or at least clearly impossible elements such as a ghost, giant panda, or the creepy plant things). You never really get a good grasp of where the kids actually are or what the mechanics are behind the whole thing though each ‘mission’ is kind of interesting in its own way and watching the group working together, or trying to, in order to overcome the challenges was largely entertaining.



I mentioned the visuals earlier and I do want to return to that. While the animation isn’t great and relies very much on stills and pans, the art itself is incredibly diverse. The range of styles used to express mood and character throughout the series is really interesting and the way the visuals changed up various scenes kept each episode feeling fresh.

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Ultimately, The Ones Within is incredibly flawed and yet it isn’t a disaster. More than that, if the characters don’t turn you away, there’s some fairly interesting development of the characters throughout and various pieces of the puzzle are revealed even if the overall picture still hasn’t formed. Basically, I enjoyed this. I do recommend giving the first episode a try if you are looking for something a bit different to watch, but for those who are time poor or who haven’t already watched most of the standard titles out there, this probably isn’t going to worth the time investment.

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Then again, creepy llama guy is creepy and there was definitely a tone in this story that just clicked for me. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so divided in my opinion of any anime ever but this one was enjoyable despite its faults.


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Karandi James


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Images from: Nakanohito Genome [Jikkyouchuu]. Dir. S Oonuma. Silver Link. 2019.

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Review – Was There Anything Not Wrong With This Anime?

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Review

I normally go out of my way in an anime review to find something positive to say about a story even when I didn’t much like it. I consider who in the audience may have been watching a show like Deep Insanity: The Lost Child and got really caught up in it or maybe developed some empathy for any of the cast along the way. Only, when it comes to Deep Insanity: The Inane Waste of Time, I just can’t find anything particularly good to say other than, at least it wasn’t worse.

Deep Insanity Episode 8

The last anime that left me feeling so disappointed that I’d actually finished it was Full Dive and that was largely because it was just full of unpleasant characters who made poor choices but at least that anime remained true to its overall premise of a guy playing a game because he got tricked into buying it and because he was too stubborn to just cut his losses and quit.

Deep Insanity: The Dull Progression can’t even manage to figure out what its actually about.

The synopsis and first episode set up the possibility of exploration of a brave new environment. There’s a huge underground world that has appeared in Antarctica and been called Asylum for reasons that are never made clear. Only exploration is difficult and risky and only certain people are actually compatible. Those that do explore it are called Sleepers (again for reasons that don’t actually become clear). It has all the makings of a less moe Made in Abyss from that set-up.

Deep Insanity Episode 1

Throw in a mysterious disease that is sweeping through humanity and the many organisations manipulating situations for power and wealth and there’s a near endless array of interesting plots Deep Insanity: The Meandering Heap could have followed and been half-way decent.

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child was a confused mess of a narrative with dull characters and zero joy.

Unfortunately none of these plot points really come to fruition or even really get much in the way of a mention after their initial set-up. The disease, Randolph Syndrome, doesn’t even get mentioned in the entire second half of the series and we never learn anything about it or even if it is actually connected to Asylum. So the plot thread that appears in the synopsis and is introduced to us straight up in the first episode just vanishes and never really seemed to make any impact on any of the story anyway.

What does Deep Insanity: The Lost Cause focus on instead?

Deep Insanity Episode 2

That’s kind of hard to say. We’re introduced to main character Shigure Daniel Kai as he enslists to explore Asylum as a Sleeper. He’s taken into a squad run by the laconic (and almost always seen sitting in an empty room in front of an empty desk) Vera Rustamova. The squad’s executive officer, Leslie is fortunately quite verbose but doesn’t actually answer questions or ensure Shigure gets any training before they all go for a few forays into Asylum where the untrained Shigure makes numerous mistakes.

Go figure that sending an untrained person with minimal explanation into a hostile environment wouldn’t work out so well.



The objectives of this squad are never really made clear other than they are ‘investigating’. But investigating seems to consist of walking to a spot, getting attacked, shooting the thing that attacked them which seems to have no impact, until the XO draws a sword and cuts the thing in two. Then they return back to base.

Deep Insanity Episode 4

And I guess having characters carry out vague missions could have been interesting enough had Deep Insanity: The Empty Shell bothered to make the core case more than just one note characters.

Shigure is just hopeless as a lead, not so much because he’s not good at the job he just started and wasn’t trained for, but because he is incredibly boring. From his blank expression to stilted movements and his tendency to simply repeat dialogue back to people, even in his more passionate moments the lines he uses are just echoes of things other people have said, there’s nothing vaguely interesting about this lump of generic average male lead.

Deep Insanity Episode 7

The rest of the squad is made up of Larry who apparently doesn’t feel fear or pain except when he does and Reika who doesn’t talk much but likes to draw in her spare time. They are also supported by a formal idol who doesn’t enter Asylum but communicates with them from the base and likes to bounce around the base in bright revealing clothes probably because someone realised this anime was duller than dishwater to look at.

I’m not even kidding about that. Deep Insanity: The Murky Mess is a very grey anime when they are on the base and when they enter Asylum it is more a pea-green murkiness. It isn’t attractive to look at and the monsters Asylum throws at our characters are not only ugly in form but their animation is pretty horrendous to look at as well. Which doesn’t allow the few action sequences to really come across as anything more than a visual mess upon the screen.

Deep Insanity Episode 3

Anyway, the ‘story’ such as it is for Deep Insanity: The Desperately Reaching really kind of kicks off when Shigure is tasked by Vera with assassinating someone who is living inside Asylum. Why there are people there is also never explained. Just don’t ask.

Anyway, turns out the person he’s to kill is a child and one he met randomly when he snuck into Asylum with Larry when they were off-duty.

The remainder of the series is the various assassination attempts with the different factions trying to abduct or save the child for their own ends only we don’t know what any of their end-goals are or even what their intention is for the child so there’s little reason to become invested. By the time they throw time-loops into this story you may as well just toss your hands up in despair if you are expecting anything to get an explanation or be in any way satisfying.

Deep Insanity Episode 6

From start to finish Deep Insanity: The Most Disappointing didn’t manage to engage. The best thing about the entire series is the promotional video that suggests a much more serious and methodical story and one that has some tension and drama. Instead you can watch the squad in Deep Insanity plan BBQ’s and get beaten by a pair of grey rabbits, more than once.

If it isn’t clear let me sum it all up; don’t waste you time watching Deep Insanity: The Lost Child because I can almost guarantee any other anime would be a more satisfying watch. This one isn’t even so bad it is good. It’s just dull and lazy and ultimately pointless.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episodes 11 + 12 – Do It Again But Better

Deep Insanity Episodes 11 + 12 Review

Deep Insanity well and truly earned its place as the anime I was most disappointed by after feeling somewhat excited for it prior to the season beginning. I blame a solidly intriguing promotional video that is absolutely nothing like what you will get in any episode of the show.

But I’ll save the full rant for when I’m reviewing the whole anime. For now I’m supposed to be talking about the train-wreck that makes up the final two episodes of Deep Insanity only I’m going to struggle with this. Largely because with Shigure now in the time loop because of the magic and unexplained gizmo a lot of episode 11 is a repeat of what we’ve seen before and it wasn’t that interesting to begin with. When they do change the script it is only to throw in some baffling revelations before the whole anime ends in a monster fight and I genuinely have no clue how that resolves anything.

Deep Insanity Episode 11

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child remains ridiculous to the end.

Because I am almost certain no one is going to watch this anime after the season has finished airing I am going to throw a number of spoilers in here so be warned.

You know that weird disease they mentioned way back at the start of episode 1 and how some guy exploring the Abyss turned into a monster and all of those other intriguing things that were happening back when there was still hope for this series? Yeah, turns out none of the writers of Deep Insanity remembered any of that either and so they just didn’t address it. Not a single mention of it in the entire final episode and no explanation. So if you held on for twelve episodes hoping somehow it would all make sense you have tragically wasted your time.

Deep Insanity Episode 11

Also, the revelations we do get in the final two episodes here don’t explain any of the real questions. For instance why could Vera go back in time. Sure, she had the mystic what-sit thing that she gave to Shigure but what is it and why did it allow her to turn back time? And where did it come from?



More importantly, we learn that Vera is actually El-Cee so her whole plan has been to kill herself but even if she’s in a time loop how does that explain her being a child and an adult in the same time line? I get why Vera couldn’t kill El-Cee but none of the rest of it makes any sense.

And after Shigure does his whole hero thing, where is El-Cee?

Deep Insanity Episode 12

Seriously, about the only part of these final two episodes for Deep Insanity that you can really kind of get behind is Shigure gives himself a new hair-cut. Yep, its the standard I’m now resolved so I need to cut my hair trope only I’m not sure how he managed to cut it like that by himself or why you would bother when you are in a time loop and in all likely-hood your locks are just going to revert to the way they were on failure. Still, he looks better.

The overall motive of the villains, other than destruction and ending the world, is also not really explained or explored and in fairness I couldn’t care less anyway. Deep Insanity has proven it has no interest in its own premise and stuff is just going to happen so let stuff happen and let it end.

Deep Insanity Episode 11

With that the final two episodes of Deep Insanity end with the not-so-tragic death of a character we never really began to care about because he is the single most forgettable entity anime has every thrown force as a protagonist. You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episodes 9 + 10 – Apparently They Have 3 Chances And Have Done This More Than Once

Deep Insanity Episode 9 + 10 Review

Deep Insanity seemed to change its mind about having one chance to assassinate El-Cee. Or maybe it didn’t and they’ve now just clarified. Apparently Vera’s information gave them three opportunities to assassinate the girl. Too bad it didn’t tell her that Shigure was going to be hanging out with her in asylum before the mission even began because that could have saved them a lot of trouble. Assuming of course that Shigure could ever pull the trigger.

And that’s what really makes me wonder about the entire plot of Deep Insanity. We now know the Commander has tried again and again, with three chances in each time line, to kill El-Cee and yet apparently this many repetitions in and she’s still allowing Leslie to be killed on a failed mission and she’s still entrusting the actual sniping to Shigure even though it is clear that even when he has a shot he’s not going to take it.

Deep Insanity Episode 9

I’m really failing to see Vera’s logic on this one.

Just a heads up, in case anyone cares, there are spoilers below.

Deep Insanity has bigger issues than plot holes.

Then again, it probably doesn’t matter whether Vera’s plans and motives make sense or not at this point. These two episodes of Deep Insanity were deeply boring and even with potential assassinations, magic gizmos, betrayals and conspiracies, we spend a large part of one of these episodes with the three stooges (Shigure’s platoon mates) planning a BBQ (another one) and blocking their commander from assigning anything that would get in the way of meat and fireworks.

Deep Insanity Episode 10

It’s all just so inane and even though Shigure uses the cover of buying ingredients for the BBQ to sneak back into Asylum, again, nothing particularly interesting happens.

And then, weirdly in episode 10, Shigure is actually given a consequence for illegally sneaking into Asylum, something that all of the characters seem to do regularly. Deep Insanity finally removes him from his platoon which of course means the rest of the platoon members now need to take him for a drinking party…

Wait, is Deep Insanity’s entire plot just an excuse to watch boring characters eat and drink?



Anyway, when Shigure steps out of the bar for air he hears gunshots and rather than alert his team mates, or anyone, he runs unarmed toward the sound and finds a wounded man who essentially tells him to warn his commander.

Deep Insanity Episode 10

By the end of the episode the commander has led the last of the team down into Asylum and gotten them all killed or severely injured and Shigure turns up just in time for the whole thing to be too late and then gets shot through. Then he wakes up. I’m assuming the implication is he’s now gone back in time though why and how I guess is due to the magic gizmo his commander gave him earlier though there’s no clarity on this and more to the point, I was kind of happier that these characters were all done with because they really are just dull.

Deep Insanity Episode 10

So there are two episodes left and I still don’t know who is plotting what or why and I’m not even sure what El-Cee is other than a great plot device. None of their missions have made any sense and the entire set-up with the exploration of Asylum because of some disease spreading around seems to have been utterly abandoned. Deep Insanity is probably an apt title. I really should have dropped this one much earlier in the season and yet now I’m kind of committed to seeing it through to the end.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 8 – If At First You Don’t Succeed, Fail Again

Deep Insanity Episode 8 Review

Deep Insanity decided to address my chief complaint of episode 7 where I pointed out there had been no consequences for Vera’s failure despite the dire threats prior to the mission beginning. Problem is, the only real consequence were the toothless people sitting at the table making noise and the occasional threat but it signified nothing. Even Vera didn’t seem to take anything they said as meaningful and then she just went on doing what she planned to do anyway.

It all kind of makes everything happening feel meaningless. Couple that with the lacking explanations for anything and fairly poor world building and Deep Insanity has some fundamental problems that it just can’t overcome in the time left to it.

And having one character ask another if they know what the death of El-Cee would mean is just frustrating because, let’s be honest, nobody knows and even if you give us an explanation it won’t feel authentic at this point. It won’t be built on anything. You could tell me her death would lead to the end of the world and I’d probably just shrug at this point.

Deep Insanity Episode 8

Deep Insanity – Watching the Rest Of This Anime And Expecting It To Maybe Get Better

Anyway, Deep Insanity again has Shigure trying to dig up some info on the XO and so he talks to the woman at the bar he met exactly once and also helps his teammates go through some old pictures. By weird coincidence, the seemingly pointless string of numbers Leslie left Shigure refer to a photo, that Shigure had never seen, and direct him to the place where this episode’s assassination attempt will happen.

Deep Insanity Episode 8

I don’t mean to throw rocks at dead characters but why would you give the one person on the team who wasn’t in the photo and didn’t know the location that clue as to where to go? That seems like a severely flawed plan.



Meanwhile, El-Cee is being taken by her guards through the Asylum to be handed over to someone for some reason and the now one-armed guy who killed Leslie is in pursuit and Vera is also going to lead her team down to intercept. I’d say Deep Insanity was heading toward an exciting three way conflict but the whole thing is just messy and again, we don’t have a clue what significance any of this has or for what purpose one group are protecting El-Cee, another want to kidnap her and the third want her dead.

Those key details missing make it difficult to care.

Deep Insanity Episode 8

Also, I’m still not understanding the white haired guy accompanying El-Cee. He’s got a really obnoxious way of speaking and doesn’t seem particularly useful and yet there he is plodding along and making weird pronouncements. I’m actually surprised the people with him didn’t shoot him just to be rid of him because literally he just seems to be there to fill some screen time and have a character who doesn’t talk in monotone.

Glasses guy serves a much better purpose being the one leading El-Cee’s defence. Though again deep Insanity doesn’t give us really anything to connect with him. He’s just good at his job and working to protect El-Cee from threats that exist… because?

Deep Insanity Episode 8

Honestly, if I wasn’t this far along, I’d probably drop Deep Insanity. It has well and truly proven it isn’t going to flesh out this world, the characters are poorly constructed, and the plot might come together but it would be too little too late. It just isn’t enjoyable to watch except that much like an unfolding disaster there’s something about it that prevents you from looking away.

I’ll hope that by the end of the season I at least know what El-Cee’s purpose is other than being a MacGuffin.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 7 – So, No Consequences For Failure…

Deep Insanity Episode 7 Review

Deep Insanity episode 6 did in fact see the death of the only character with any personality in the entire show. I’d wondered if the fact that he ‘fell’ to his death meant they were going for a fake out but nope, we have a coffin and the collection of his personal items. The XO is dead and with it any small amount of personality or interest that may have existed in this cast.

Deep Insanity Episode 7

That would be frustrating enough except that Vera was warned of consequences for failing the mission including having her platoon disbanded and as far as I can see, other than the death of a team-member, absolutely no consequences have been applied to anyone. Instead almost as soon as they are done packing up the XO’s belongings the team simply return to the Asylum and realise the guy who killed Leslie is still hanging around and has taken a whole pile of party guests hostage.

Why?

Something about finding the god child but given none of them know where she is mostly he seems to just be standing around waving a gun with the one arm he has left (oh yeah, because you can totally function as normal after having your arm shot off without seeking serious medical attention) until our team of bland characters show up to fight him (also for reasons unknown).

In case it isn’t clear, Deep Insanity is just not very interesting.

From the practical side of things, Deep Insanity initially sets up an episode that seems like it is actually going to look at grief as the younger cast members are genuinely stilled by Leslie’s death. However all too soon the plot whips away from that and has Vera telling Shigure that the assassination plot is still on and he’ll be given a new time to carry it out later.

Deep Insanity Episode 7

Why she thinks he’ll actually pull the trigger this time when he couldn’t last time is seriously questionable.

For a brief moment Shigure actually asks some decent questions but all too soon simply decides to passively ‘think about it’ and then they all go on the mission that I’m still wondering how they even knew about.



Why were they sent back to that village? Why did the other guy stay there when it was clear the god child was no longer there? And why do the monsters just kind of suck? Also, why are they carrying guns and weapons that don’t effect the monsters? And why do bullets not work but swords and scythes apparently cut through the monster flesh like scissors through paper?

Oh Deep Insanity, if just one thing about you was interesting or made sense.

On that note, I’ve mentioned before that characters shouldn’t review their own shows. Equally though, characters shouldn’t say something that is obviously completely rubbish. One-armed guy tells Shigure that he could see why Leslie was interested in him because he’s interesting.

Deep Insanity Episode 7

Has he met Shigure? The guy is the single most boring character to ever exist and he hasn’t gotten any more interesting over the past seven episodes. He’s still just kind of there and wandering through the plot like a sleep-walker. Even his decision to continue with the assassination plot (even though he so isn’t cut out to be an assassin) is simply to not let Leslie’s death be in vain. Only when he inevitably fails and more people die, won’t that be worse?

Anyway, Deep Insanity remains deeply flawed and has really failed to do anything interesting with its premise or setting. Again, the whole disease thing seems to have vanished from the plot’s radar, the fact that this base is meant to be in Antarctica is more or less meaningless, and inside the Asylum is so generic as to be completely forgettable.

Deep Insanity Episode 7

Basically, it really doesn’t matter what this anime does with its final 5 episodes. There’s pretty much no salvaging this anime.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 6 – The Flawed Plot Fails (What A Surprise)

Deep Insanity Episode 6 Review

What to say about Deep Insanity episode 6?

Hmm…

A simple recap would go along the lines of leaders give Vera the go-ahead with her ‘plan’ which is more or less just shoot El-Cee during a party (not exactly the conspiracy of the century) using an assassin who is never (and I do mean never) actually going to pull the trigger. So the whole thing is doomed to failure even before outside interference comes in to play.

Deep Insanity Episode 6

The team infiltrate the party (a party inside asylum mind you) dressed as maids with Daniel in some building somewhere set up to snipe El-Cee as soon as she comes to a window. Interestingly enough, before the infiltration she was outside the building on a swing. Prior to that Daniel and Larry ran into her just walking around. Pretty sure this party is the most difficult time ever to actually access El-Cee so naturally that makes it the perfect time to actually try and kill her.

Plenty of people at the party mention she’s the God-Child. I guess even the writers of Deep Insanity understand that no one knows what is going on or why and if they just keep telling us El-Cee is special they can at least justify the plot progressing even if their words don’t actually make it any clearer what El-Cee is or why she’s important.

Deep Insanity Episode 6

Deep Insanity seems like it wants us to take this plot seriously but you just can’t.


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Then the guy who tried to kill Daniel and was beaten up by his boss for failing last episode shows up and has a tussle with Leslie before Daniel, set up to snipe someone else, shoots his arm off.

This naturally results in mission failure and the team run, pursued by a robotic thing.

Deep Insanity Episode 6

And for a closing act, Deep Insanity decides to resolve this whole situation by most-likely killing the only character in this anime who actually has any kind of personality or is enjoyable to see on screen. Good move. Will make future episodes really entertaining. I do say most-likely killing largely because any character who dies by falling, when you don’t see the impact, is always suspicious. Poor writers have a tendency to later on ret-con a last minute save to bring them back even if it makes no sense what-so-ever to do so.

I’d be somewhat more concerned about this whole mission failure thing except that Deep Insanity never explained why it was important in the first place. The only immediate penalty the story has indicated is that Vera will lose her platoon (though whether they’ll all be killed, fired, or reassigned wasn’t really indicated) and I’m not really caring all that much about that outcome.

Deep Insanity Episode 6

I don’t get Asylum and the exiles. Initially the thought that there were people in Asylum was kind of intriguing wondering how they survived in that wilderness full of monsters but now we see they just have villages and parties and it is more or less just like the surface only somewhat more medieval in clothing choices and weaponry. It makes it distinctly less interesting.

There’s also the added annoyance of Larry this week. For all his indifference to everything which was apparently medically caused, this week for whatever reason he acted scared and hesitant enough that even his co-worker called him on it. This kind of character inconsistency just seemed unnecessary right at this point in time and it isn’t as though it added anything to the episode other than making me wonder why we spent so many weeks meeting the team if they are just going to change personalities on a whim.

Basically Deep Insanity continues its trend of being pretty inept and not that much fun. Oh well.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 5 – Blah, Blah, BBQ, Blah

Deep Insanity Episode 5

I watch a lot of rubbish television and movies, by choice. I’m pretty happy to sit through lame sci-fi, much like bad horror or action movies provided they keep me interested. Deep Insanity: The Lost Child isn’t keeping me interested and with episode 5 I was actively having to remind myself to pay attention I was that bored.

It isn’t any one particular issue but rather the fact that five episodes in I still have zero reason to care about any of these characters, still no nothing more about the setting, am not invested in the conspiracy and secret plan going on in the background (which two characters discuss opening in a communal space this week so I don’t think even they care that it is supposed to be super secret), and basically everyone in this show just feels like they don’t know what their role is either so they all come across as just kind of bland.

Deep Insanity Episode 5

Deep Insanity: Underwhelming for 5 straight episodes.

I’d say I was going to call it after this episode and just drop Deep Insanity off my watch list except for one thing. And that is we’ve now had one episode with Daniel getting closer to or learning more about (what little shallow points there are to learn) another member of his team. He’s now done this will all the members of his team that he interacts with so maybe, just maybe episode 6 will finally do something worth watching.

Of course, if it doesn’t I’m pretty sure this one is coming off my watch list without any regrets.

Deep Insanity Episode 5

This episode of Deep Insanity starts off with bad guy in suit getting into the glasses wearing bad guy in a suit’s face because of his failure to kill Daniel last week. And in the unsubtle way this show works, to demonstrate this guy is bad news he beats the crap out of his subordinate and his subordinate thanks him for it.

What follows is an uninspired and uninteresting walk through realising that Daniel is struggling to communicate with Kobato and so the rest of his team decide the best way to fix this is a BBQ.



You know, I love that the people hired to investigate (or whatever it is they are doing in asylum) the world’s greatest mystery that might in fact be releasing a disease that could wipe out humanity, are all such clear and rational thinkers and come up with awesome plans like this. (Heavy eye-roll.)

Deep Insanity Episode 5

So Deep Insanity sends Daniel and Kobato shopping together to get ingredients which leads to a chance (?) encounter with the weird little girl from last week who sends her ineffectual evil bunny rabbits to harass the pair.

Seriously, there’s nothing funnier than watching too supposedly trained soldiers flee from a pair of blue bunnies.

Anyway Daniel and Kobato work together and overcome the menacing rabbits and then for whatever reason a weird blue smokey thing appears. At this point I just didn’t care. They run away, have a small heart to heart, go back and beat up the blue thing. Then we get the group BBQ and everyone is all happy because they’ve come to a better understanding of one another.

Deep Insanity Episode 5

Meanwhile anything resembling plot is on hold unless you count the Commander lady confirming that it will happen in two weeks.

I could be fine with Deep Insanity diverting from this whole conspiracy plot for some character development focus is only it was in any way interesting. But it really isn’t. None of these characters, even on closer inspection, are more than one or two descriptors on a page and they aren’t interesting. Their interactions never seem authentic. What little conflict we are getting through the random bunny attack here feels superfluous and fairly pointless.

All and all, Deep Insanity has thoroughly unimpressed me across 5 episodes. It gets one more and then it may be time to say good-night.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


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Karandi James


Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 4 – Deeply Unimpressive Intrigue

Deep Insanity Episode 4 Review

I was curious what other viewers thought of Deep Insanity: The Lost Child and so went looking for some posts about it on a variety of forums. The end result is that it isn’t being particularly well covered with a number of first episode impressions and then it just kind of goes quiet. Which more or less matches what I thought given I was trying to think which blogs I followed were covering this anime during the Fall 2021 season and I was coming up with very few options.

Now not having a lot of reviews doesn’t necessarily make for a bad anime. Some of my favourite anime were very sparsely covered for a variety of reasons. But in the case of Deep Insanity, which had quite a bit of buzz pre-season (or at least a number of reviewers were curious about it), it really seems like after people got a taste of these characters they decided it didn’t matter what the truth was about Randolph Syndrome or the random Asylum region that appeared in Antarctica.

Deep Insanity Episode 4

And if I’m being really honest, now that I’ve finished episode 4, I’m feeling pretty indifferent to this series.

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child isn’t even bad, it’s just bland.

Episode three introduced us to the idea of Exiles or people who apparently live in the Asylum. You know the place filled with monsters and apparently the source of a disease that can potentially turn people into monsters. And we met the cute El-Cee who starred as damsel in distress in order to allow our dull protagonist Daniel to play hero saving both her life and Larry from his own recklessness.

But there was the twist at the end of the episode that I’ll now spoil in order to discuss episode 4 properly. You’ve been warned.

Deep Insanity Episode 4

Yep, El-Cee is the target that Daniel was tasked with assassinating.

And episode 4 picks up right from this point with Daniel being told he can’t hesitate but needs to follow his orders.

Of course, not in this episode. We’ve got a month to kind of kick around first. Really have to give people time to uncover this conspiracy and try to stop it. Oh wait, that happened almost in real time and almost before Daniel has decided to actually carry out the mission someone is trying to kill him.

Deep Insanity seems to be under the mistaken idea that just leaving out huge chunks of explanation and leaving the audience in the dark makes for an intriguing viewing experience and will build some kind of anticipation and suspense. While it might be true that delaying an explanation or leaving out a key piece of intel might succeed at this, and delaying gratification can have a good payoff, you can’t leave out everything and expect us to just ride along with dull characters and wait for the exposition to drop.



The characters do continue to kill Deep Insanity: The Lost Child as a viewing experience. We’ve had an episode where Daniel gets to know a bit about Sumire, which has added nothing to any scene she appears in and it doesn’t even look like Daniel has interacted with her since. Last week was a focus on Larry but again its added nothing to his few lines in this episode.

Deep Insanity Episode 4

Part of this episode has Daniel asking the others about Leslie, the XO of the group, and doing some basic searches on his history but by the end other than a few random factoids we’ve really learned nothing about what is driving Leslie’s character. And while Leslie might be the most dynamic and interesting character in the cast, that isn’t saying much when everyone else could be replaced b a plank of wood with a name written on it.

So El-Cee is being targeted by some faction that Vera and Leslie are clearly a part of and they are going to use Daniel, the new kid, as their patsy to carry out their plans to avoid problems if it all goes south. That much makes sense even if the reason why this is needed at all is still incredibly vague.

How any of this is connected to Randolph Syndrome is completely unknown and Deep Insanity doesn’t seem ready to try to answer that question.

Why the girl with the rabbits and the guy with the interesting hair-cut who eats nutrient supplements in a manner clearly not as directed on the label want to interfere with this plan is unknown other than they talk about a ‘star child’. How they get into the facility, recruit cultists from within the Asylum and get them into the base, and manage to orchestrate an attack on Leslie and Daniel is anyone’s guess.

Deep Insanity Episode 4

More, why?

If you were just going to shoot Daniel why bother getting the cultists there? It seems less efficient and more likely to fail than just walking up to him in the bar and stabbing him.

Of course none of this answers the overwhelming world building question of just what are these companies doing in their exploration of Asylum and what do they actually hope to get out of it? Because we’ve watched the team go down, fight some random things, and come back a couple of times now and I still don’t get what the point of this facility is or why they keep going down there. They don’t seem to collect samples or do anything useful.

Anyway, all of this adds up to Deep Insanity being deeply unimpressive and while there’s still potential in the overall plot, even if it manages to answer some of the questions and fill in some of its world-building, the characters are going to need to really pull it together to make viewers actually care and so far they are coming up short.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James


Deep Insanity: The Lost Child Episode 3 – Diseases, Conspiracy, and Cute Exiles

Deep Insanity Episode 3

Deep Insanity: The Lost Child continues to put out puzzle pieces in this episode but has yet to offer any kind of satisfaction in terms of resolution or information for the viewers. Sure delaying revelations and building mystery can be fun but I’d like to know that this had a clear direction and then I’d be content to wait. Instead we kind of bounce between potential main plots and it really isn’t clear what is important and what’s just background noise.

Deep Insanity Episode 3

Deep Insanity has so many potential plot points and yet seems content to develop nothing.

After being a little disappointed that the disease discussed in episode one seemed to cease to be a problem in episode 2, episode 3 starts us with a talk by some big-shot discussing how Randolph Syndrome might be the start of a mass-extinction event but that could be an opportunity for a revolution for humanity. Whenever guys in suits start preaching about revolutions or evolving humanity it’s always a sure sign that things are going to go very badly.

Deep Insanity Episode 3

Honestly, I was kind of getting Gendo vibes from Evangelion, only clearly this guy is a little better at playing an audience which potentially makes him more dangerous. Let’s be honest, Gendo probably would have been more successful if he hadn’t had to fight internal battles continuously because everyone hated him.

Though, we still don’t know what this guy is actually up to or what his plan really is. He’s just one more moving piece in this story and after a few scant minutes we move on and he’s not seen again this episode.



Instead we join Larry, Daniel and the rest of the team as they decide to go shopping in Cliff Town. Fortunately we’re spared a montage shopping trip as the gang all split up except Daniel and Larry and Larry swiftly leads Daniel into another plot that might not end up going anywhere but it was definitely more entertaining than watching characters shop.

Deep Insanity Episode 3

Can I just point out though, that at least half of Daniel’s dialogue seems to be made up of repeating the last thing that was said to him and making it a question.

Larry: “Do you want to come to Cliff Town?”

Daniel: “Cliff town?”

If you’ve watched the last two episodes of Deep Insanity you already know that Daniel is an incredibly bland protagonist. He could take on every isekai and blank-slate harem lead for least interesting character ever and probably win that match up (which given he’s not operating in either of those genres just makes him real special).

Anyway, Larry and Daniel use an illegal entrance into Asylum (because sure, a heavily regulated space will just have a back entrance – and I just wrote Abyss instead of Asylum and had to fix it but seriously the setting is definitely giving me Made in Abyss vibes and I just keep wishing I was watching that because it was much better) and end up in a forest complete with cute anime girl exile El-Cee.

Naturally, Daniel ends up saving her.

Deep Insanity Episode 3

Can I point out how random it is that this girl who lives in Asylum (so clearly has managed to survive this super dangerous place up to this point) suddenly has a life-threatening encounter and needs to be saved by our protagonist who as far as I can tell is pretty useless?

It just makes you question the validity of the statement that she’s living there, though Deep Insanity doesn’t really seem bothered by small details such as how has she survived up until now if one monster is enough to end her life.

While we’re on the negatives though, let’s point out that the monsters in this anime aren’t getting any better. The design, the animation, everything about them is ugly to look at and it makes watching the characters fight them just visually yuck.

Deep Insanity Episode 3

However, I’ll be fair and also point out that this episode did have some decent interactions between Daniel and Larry. While they are both still pretty lame characters, I feel we actually did get a bit more insight into them throughout the episode.

Anyway, the episode ends with us returning to the question left at the end of the last episode and that is whether Daniel would take on his commanders super secret mission. Which leads to a terribly coincidental reveal which largely just makes the events of this episode seem even more contrived.

It did however succeed at making me a little curious so points for that to Deep Insanity.

You can read the full review here.

Images from: Deep Insanity: The Lost Child. Dir. S. Oonuma. Silver Link. 2021


Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James