Episode 1

**Idea 1** is the 1st episode of the Heaven's Design Team anime.

## Synopsis

### Part 1

It all started when God got a bit too lazy to create animals. So, he outsourced the project instead of the Heavenly Creative Agency's Design Department, where the animals are made.

It's Shimoda's, a rookie angel, first day, and he'll be the acting liaison between the Animal Design Department and God. Typically, Shimoda is a bit nervous, seeing that it's his first day.

His supervisor, Ueda, explains to Shimoda the Animal Department's role in the creation of animals. She and Shimoda go inside a conference room to take part in the meeting. Shimoda then introduces himself to the designers: head of the department Tsuchiya (Mr. Saturn), Kanamori (Venus or “Ven”), Kimura (Jupiter), Meido (Pluto), Mizushima (Mercury), and Unabara (Neptune).

One of the first projects is to create "an animal that can eat leaves high up off the ground." The team has developed three proposals. Tsuchiya comes up with a Pegasus, much to the dismay of the rest of the team. Nevertheless, they start talking about the next proposal; however, each one comes with animals similar to their original masterpieces. Mizushima comes up with a carnivorous plant called a ping-pong tree. Unabara’s proposal is for a deer with an extended neck.

So, they send all their proposals to the engineering team to see if either of the designs will work. Just before Ueda and Shimoda reach the Engineering Department, Higuchi (Mars) opens the door. She's mad that Tsuchiya still wants to push the Pegasus idea, even though she had told him many times in the past that it won't work. Therefore, she rejects his idea much to his dismay. Not only that, Higuchi rejects all the Design department's ideas, emphasizing that they also have flaws. Mizushima’s idea wouldn’t be able to withstand Earth’s gravity, and Unabara’s idea fails because of complications with the heart. Higuchi had even built a prototype to demonstrate the problem.

All the designers start thinking of new ideas for the project. Since Unabara’s design was the simplest of the first three, they all brainstorm on how to improve it. With a few tweaks, the team comes up with a new animal, the Giraffe. God then sends his stamp of approval to Shimoda, who is happy to have witnessed the creation of a new animal.

Suddenly, Ueda receives a message from God. Mizushima’s ping-pong tree idea gets a stamp of approval as a sea sponge, much to the surprise of Mizushima.

### Part 2

In a dark room, a spotlight turns on to reveal Mizushima as he makes a big speech to the other designers about a new creature he has designed. A horse without legs and one hole, the snake. But the rest of the team doesn't like it. Consequently, a massive debate begins after its introduction between two members of the team; Mizushima and Kanamori. They both argue about the pros and cons of snakes and birds, which are Kanamori's masterpieces.

Shimoda walks in on the debacle. Kimura, who was in the room listening, explains that since being introduced, Mizushima’s snakes have been causing problems for Kanamori’s birds down on Earth. Hoping to cheer Kanamori up, the four start brainstorming ideas on how to improve the egg. Aside from Mizushima’s ridiculous ideas of the parents carrying the egg during flight, Shimoda and Kimura come up with the idea of making the eggs hatch early when they sense a snake. Kimura even thinks that it could work for frog eggs. However, after testing some prototypes, there are a few flaws with the idea.

Several days later, Shimoda informs Kimura that his idea for the frog eggs has been approved, much to his surprise. He explains that upon sensing movement when a snake strikes, the rest of the eggs immediately hatch into tadpoles and escape into the water. Both jealous and desperate, Kanamori demands that her colleague help her come up with a defense mechanism against snakes for her birds. After some thinking, the three come with an idea to have the bird’s nest hang from a branch. Kanamori writes a proposal requesting an upgrade and has Shimoda submit it to God. God then approvals the proposal and thus the weaver bird is upgraded.

A few days later, Shimoda walks in to find the team witnessing Kanamori hard at work with a look of resoluteness on her face. The situation on Earth between the snakes and birds has escalated with the weaver birds upgrading their defense mechanism to the extreme. In response, Kanamori has come up with a new type of bird and asks Shimoda to submit it. God approves this and the secretary bird, designed to hunt snakes, is born, much to Mizushima's dismay.

### Part 3

Kimura is in the mood to eat something tasty. Shimoda and Unabara overhear this, and Shimoda volunteers to make a batch of fluffy angelic cream puffs. Unabara is surprised that Shimoda can bake. However, their conversation is quickly interrupted when Kimura points out that he wants to eat a tasty animal. The revelation shocks the rookie angel. Unabara lets out a deep sigh, as he can already guess what is about to happen due to Kimura’s “bad habit”.

While Shimoda tries to make sense of this, Kimura asks Unabara what he is working on. Unabara tries to hide his project from Kimura, who wants to try to sneak a taste. The project is for “an animal that only eats in tiny bites.” Unabara tries to persuade Kimura against eating his project, when Higuchi walks announcing that she has Unabara's prototype ready. She asks if he wants to go to Trial Island to test it. Shimoda is confused until Higuchi explains that it is where the team tests the animals they create. Excited about going to Earth, Shimoda agrees to go, with Kimura proclaiming that they have a barbecue

The crew descends to Earth to Trial Island, located in the Galapagos, to test out the new prototypes on different conditions and terrains. However, Kimura and Higuchi are more focused on eating spicy sausages, rather than focusing on conducting the tests. The duo continues to talk about other animals and how they taste, much to Unabara’s consternation. In desperation, Unabara quickly makes a design change to his prototype. Now the animal has a layer of defense against predators. Seeing the change in the design, Higuchi heads back to the engineering lab to bring back a prototype from an old design for inspiration. When she returns, a giant Glyptodont appears and stomps on Kimura, instantly killing him.

Shimoda starts to panic when he gets a message from God. Both designs are approved, which Unabara exclaimed how fast that was. Later on, Kimura is still lying on the ground, when he gets back up appearing to be unharmed. He ends the episode by stating how he saw heaven.

## Characters

* Shimoda
* Ueda
* Tsuchiya (Mr. Saturn)
* Kanamori (Venus or "Ven")
* Kimura (Jupiter)
* Meido (Pluto)
* Mizushima (Mercury)
* Unabara (Neptune)
* Higuchi (Mars)

## Featured Animals

* Giraffe (*Giraffa camelopardalis*)
* Ping-pong Tree Sponge (*Chondrocladia lampadiglobus*)
* Weaver Bird (*Ploceidae* sp.)
* Egg-eating Snake (*Dasypeltis scabra*)
* Red-eyed Tree Frog (*Agalychnis callidryas*)
* Sociable Weaver (*Philetairus socius*)
* Secretary Bird (*Sagittarius serpentarius*)
* Anteater (*Tamandua* sp.)
* Armadillo (Cingulata)

## Trivia

* This episode features chapters 1, 2, and 4 of the manga series.
* In Chapter 1 of the manga:
	+ When the team was discussing how the long-necked deer wouldn’t work, the designers exclaim that they had issues with previous designs. One example that Meido mentioned was the acorn barnacle. The conversation was cut from the anime version to cut time, and possibly due to the sensitivity of the conversation.
	+ When Higuchi was berating Tsuchiya about wanting to make a pegasus, Higuchi uses Shimoda as an example by stating that he would have to have big muscles in order to fly. This causes Shimoda to imagine himself with wings and a large muscular physique. This did not appear in the anime version.
* In Chapter 4 of the manga:
	+ Kimura was also working on a project using a spicy sausage as a base. After some modifications, it becomes a sea cucumber, which is later approved by God along with the Anteater and Armadillo. However, the scene did not show up in the anime version.
	+ Kimura was in the office a few days after getting trampled by the Glypodont. Shimoda then pops in and informs him of how all the animals got approved while he was unconscious. Kimura then makes a suggestion that they try insects sometime. This was not shown int he anime version.