Heavenly Delusion Director Discusses Keeping the Story Straight

In 2023, Heavenly Delusion captivated audiences with its suspenseful and intricately woven storytelling. The series was highly praised for blending psychological horror and science fiction. Director Hirotaka Mori was at the helm of the series, whose creative vision and deft storytelling propelled Heavenly Delusion to critical acclaim.

Hirotaka Mori started his career in anime as an assistant director at Toei Animation. Throughout his career, he has worked on and contributed to renowned series and films like ERASED and Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale. In 2023, Mori made his directorial debut with the anime adaptation of Heavenly Delusion. His expertise and management of his staff's talents contributed to the series' wide reception from fans.

At this year's Anime Central, I enjoyed talking to Mori about his process from inception to realization, the series's reception, and navigating through challenges. Moreover, we discussed the art of crafting the anime while exploring the depths of fear and intrigue within Heavenly Delusion. Mori also explained the creative process from inception to realization, shedding light on the collaborative efforts and artistic endeavors that brought Heavenly Delusion to life.

Heavenly Delusion was the breakout series last spring. Did you ever expect the series to get such a high reception?

Hirotaka Mori: That was actually beyond expectation. And I'm really grateful that the manga fans were all supportive of the show.

How familiar were you with the source material before production?

MORI: Volume one of the manga was out when the project was first pitched to become an anime. I also followed it in the magazine serialization and read about the first two chapters or so when it was being pitched. That was the extent of my familiarity with the series at that point. And after that, I read the whole compilation of the series.

Heavenly Delusion uses multiple alternating storylines, which keeps the story engaging. Did you find balancing the storylines challenging at any point?

MORI: It was, in fact, quite a challenge because there is a lot of skipping between timelines and locations. The show had to tell a story without confusing the audience. However, a TV episode is limited to 20 minutes in length—a lot of source material from the manga needed to be skipped over. So, the challenge was to selectively skip over material without making the anime confusing to the audience.

Can you share your experience navigating the challenges of shaping the overall TV series from the writing stage to its realization?

MORI: The way I took it, the fans of the original manga would have their own vision of how their favorite manga would appear on film. So, my challenge was ensuring I perfectly accommodated their expectations.

For example, if I put sad music in the soundtrack, I am forcing the audience to agree with me that this is supposed to be a sad scene, but that may not be interpreted that way in the manga. Also, as the series is linear, we are forcing the audience to follow the story at a pace we set for them. And so this kind of imposition could violently destroy the expectation of what fans had for their manga. My challenge was to keep my ego from overriding what the fans wanted to see in anime.

Heavenly Delusion is a psychological horror series. What horror elements did you want to use in this story?

MORI: That was most prominent in the battle against the “hiruko” (man-eaters) monsters. We expressed that with the coloring and lighting to make it look much more horrific, like in the manga. Instead of directly showing the monsters, the depiction of the unknown is used to show these horror elements.

It is a mainstream trope that's used in general Japanese horror that the unknown is scarier than the known. So, if you have a monster, the unknown elements are more scary. If a person is in front of you and you can't get a read on them, that's scary. And if there's something going on, but you can't figure out why. That's more scary.

Can you talk about developing the artistic style of the anime's opening sequence with unit director Weilin Zhang?

MORI: I didn't really give him too many orders. I wanted to see his own talent prevail. I listened to his ideas and tried to make sure it came through in the work. So, I concentrated on a lot of work behind the scenes so that he could do his job.