HEAVEN’S DESIGN TEAM — WEEKLY REVIEW 1

Welcome~ In the end, I decided on Heaven’s Design Team as the series I’m going to review this season. The first time I came to know about this was through Al’s manga review, and I was already captivated by the premise! Additionally, one of the BL mangakas I love, Suzuki Tsuta, is involved as one of the writers along with Hebizou. What is there to NOT love about it? 

Episode Summary:

God Almighty is understandably tired of being responsible for all the creation; from microscopic to macroscopic beings, from the land to the sea and the sky. It’s a strenuous task! To divide the workload, he outsources a design team and an engineer to take responsibility for creating animals. Very efficient, if you ask me! The first episode mainly focuses on introducing the team and the new angel, Shimoda, appointed to act as a mediator between the team and God.

The team receives a task from God, and the members come up with a design, discuss these creations, and take it to the engineer, Higuchi. She either directly rejects the design, stating her reasons or if it seems doable, she creates the prototypes. They fine-tune the creations and after getting their approval from God, all that’s left is to test them on Earth to see if they will survive.

Favorite Aspects & Moments

Boy, did this anime take me back to my high school biology class! If only they were more enjoyable like Heaven’s Design Team. I was especially puzzled with that “ping pong sponge tree”, the show knows that we’ll be asking “Do these really exist???”, and the answer is yes, they exist. The bits on animals and their biology was blended well with the rest of the story. I also burst into laughter when they went to Galapagos Island to test the animals.

The episode mainly happened inside a room with three doors; one is to connect the room outside, the second one takes us to Higuchi’s workshop and the third one is to peek at the Earth. Despite being in that single environment, the show still managed to keep my interest on the screen, the inter-personal relationship dynamics, and the characters themselves. The process was intriguing, and I especially anticipate seeing Higuchi’s workshop. For now, it’s a mystery.

The variety of the characters was another aspect I appreciated. We didn’t even get to know them that deeply but it felt like seeing a group of really close friends hanging out, and that’s always fun to watch! The voice acting fleshed out the characters nicely, and choices fit every single one of them. Maybe minus Kanamori. I haven’t read the manga, so it’s just speculation but she/they seem to be either a trans woman or a non-binary person. Why would they cast a cis man as the voice actor, is beyond me. Still, Kanamori is one of my favorite characters along with Higuchi!

Overall, Heaven’s Design Team does a very good job in establishing its characters and their dynamics, the inner workings of the office, the designing and engineering process that leads to approval from God. The new angel Shimoda is such a cute character and it seems like he’ll experience a lot of ups and downs together with the team. I wonder if the series will continue episodically or will have some sort of arc in the future.

Adapting a gag manga to a 24-minute episode format is an arduous task and may become easily boring if the viewer cannot find some aspect to invest in. However, Heaven’s Design Team’s theme itself is interesting, the cast is fun, and the comedy is executed well. I am already contemplating how to say goodbye to this show when the season is over.

Are you keeping up with Heaven’s Design Team? Who is your favorite character or animal from the first episode? Let me know in the comments and see you on Tuesdays with my weekly reviews. Until then ~