‘Heavenly Delusion’: What Is the ‘Outside of the Outside’?

As fans will know, Heavenly Delusion is a very peculiar manga and anime series. It combines many known elements but still manages to create a uniquely special story that has captured the attention of fans worldwide. The characters are our usual topic when Heavenly Delusion is concerned, but in this article, we are going to discuss a concept or, more specifically, location in the series that has been hinted at from the beginning, but it is only recently that we’ve actually seen the location and confirmed its existence. The location in question is the “Outside of the Outside,” called “Soto no soto” in Japanese (Kanji: 外の外), and in this article, you are about to find out everything you need to know about it.

Since the first episode, when Tokio received the “Do you want to go outside of the outside?” message, the “Outside of the Outside” has been a crucial location in the Takahara Academy portion of the story. The term “Outside of the Outside” refers to the world outside Takahara Academy, the real world that the children were unaware of as their director taught them that the outside was Hell. When the Academy was attacked, some of the children could escape through a hole in the wall and finally see the “Outside of the Outside,” i.e., the real world.

The rest of this article is, of course, going to focus on the concept of the “Outside of the Outside” in Heavenly Delusion. The story behind it is nothing special, as it is just the real world, as we’ve said above, but the concept itself and how it relates to the children in the academy is crucial, which is why it needed further explanation, as it was the only way to actually expand on the lore properly. The article, we have to warn you, will contain many spoilers, so be careful how you approach it if you don’t want to ruin the viewing experience.

The “Outside of the Outside” is a crucial concept in understanding the role and position of Takahara Academy in the world of Heavenly Delusion

Fans of Heavenly Delusion will know that Takahara Academy is a mysterious and strange place. It is seemingly cut off from the outside world and implies that this is the Heaven the two protagonists seek.

Whether that is true or not is something we won’t be revealing to you at this moment, as it is not our intention to spoil everything for you in this article, but we are going to talk about the relationship between the Academy and the outside world, so there’s that. For everything else, we sincerely suggest you take up the manga because it is really good and has a great storyline. Now, back to the “Outside of the Outside” concept in the series.

Going back to the first episode of the series, you’ll remember Tokio receiving a mysterious message asking her the following: “Do you want to go outside of the outside?” This was the first time that we saw Takahara Academy, and we immediately saw that the seemingly idealistic place was actually strange and eerie.

The Takahara Academy has a main building and a garden in front of it, and everything is enclosed by thick walls and a ceiling that imitates sunlight. For the children inside, everything outside the Academy’s walls is Hell, and they actually don’t know anything about the outside world; they don’t live under the illusion that there is nothing behind their walls, but they have absolutely no idea about what it could be and what the world outside of the Academy is like.

So, for the children in the Academy, the “outside” meant the garden in front of the Academy building. And while it still was within the walls, for them, this place was the “outside.” Nothing else existed for them, so what was located behind the walls of the Academy was the “Outside of the Outside,” called “Soto no soto” in Japanese (Kanji: 外の外), but the children had absolutely no idea what it could be.

So, when Tokio received the message, she was quite confused and somewhat scared, as she did not understand the meaning of the question nor what the term “Outside of the Outside” referred to.

As the story evolved, the “Outside of the Outside” was mentioned from time to time, but aside from the conclusion of the children that it must be referring to what was behind the walls, no one really questioned it further, at least not until the most recent episodes.

As a group of new children came to the Academy, and a lot of other things happened (Tokio giving birth, Tarao dying, Mimihime having strange visions of the future, etc.), the children were finally given a chance to go to the “Outside of the Outside,” but only if they passed a certain test.

All the children were wholly confused, as the test was a surprise and they were told they wouldn’t have to study for it, which was strange. It is unknown, though, what the test was, nor what the Director had in mind as far as the test was concerned, as a strange and unexpected thing happened on the day the test was about to start.

In the garden, a group of small girls suddenly started crying out about a danger approaching, and moments later, the Academy was attacked, its walls and ceiling being broken. Whatever attacked the children, aside from the explosions, seemed to be invisible but afraid of water, so the children hid in the pool area.

But, a group of four older children (Mimihime, Shiro, Anzu, and Taka) saw a hole in the wall and decided to explore while the Academy was in a state of absolute chaos. As they crawled through the wall, they saw a fence surrounded by a forest and, for the first time, the sky (Mimihime believed that it was a high ceiling – that is how little of the outside world the children knew). Shiro and Mimihime explored the forest, while Anzu and Taka ended up at the beach, where they saw the sunset.

At the same time, the Director survived, but she sustained heavy injuries, so she tried to steal Tokio’s baby to transfer her mind into the baby’s body, but Tokio stopped her. Her deputy, Aoshima, meanwhile, took a car and located the four children who managed to escape the Academy, taking them with her. At the same time, she revealed, in shock, while talking on the phone that the attack on Takahara Academy was not an accident or something similar but an actual attack, with planes dropping bombs on the building.

And with this, we will conclude the story of the “Outside of the Outside” in Heavenly Delusions. We know many details from the manga, but we won’t be spoiling them for you here, as we don’t want to ruin the viewing experience for you, but we have to let you know that things will become more and more interesting as the series evolves.