What is Kiruko’s gender in ‘Heavenly Delusion?’

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the Heavenly Delusion anime and manga.

As soon as Heavenly Delusion‘s first season hit streaming platforms, viewers were hooked. Based on a manga of the same name by Masakazu Ishiguro, this anime follows two teenagers on their journey in search of Heaven, while traversing the city of Tokyo. During their backpacking adventure, we get to learn about the protagonists’ personalities and past lives, which in Kiruko’s case brings about a lot of questions.

While at first glance, people tend to assume this character is a girl, in episode two, viewers are surprised to find out that’s not quite right, and that in this sci-fi anime, things are often more complicated than they seem.

What is Kiruko’s gender?

When viewers hear Kiruko confess to Maru that they have the mind of a boy stuck in a girl’s body, it’s easy to connect that to trans people’s experience, since it’s the most common way society tends to describe it. Putting it simply, the person who inhabits Kiruko’s body is a boy, Haruki, their brother. As fans later discover, in the aftermath of a fight with a man-eater, Haruki found himself in a different body, and as we’ve come to understand, that’s because his mind was forcefully transferred into the body of his sister by a doctor, while they were both dying.

After the surgery, Haruki started living as Kiruko, using her name and accepting female pronouns; however, it seems as though that’s more out of practicality and conformity. Hence, taking into account that the character still thinks of themself as a boy, it’s safe to assume they still identify with the male gender.

Heavenly Delusion season one is currently available for streaming.