Note: This long ass review has major spoilers about events present in the second episode and some other minor ones
Deca-Dence was the best anime from last year for me, at least outside of sequels. And saying that is kinda weird since outside of Japan not that many people gave it a chance and among those that did give it a chance, many people dropped it within the first two episodes. Heck, I wasn’t even planning to watch it because of the premise and the previous works made by its studio, I watched it two times and even I think is not that big of a deal either, which says a lot about what I think of anime from last year.
The main reasons why I think that Deca-Dence deserves to be considered as the best or at least one of the bests shows from last year boils down to being fairly original, having a steady pacing and an evolving plot brimming with lots of interesting themes and ideas that are actually looked into throughout its duration, and how many things it does better in its twelve episodes compared to other products of its time.
At first, the setting is rather typical but engaging enough, a city within a fortress attacked by giant monsters with steampunk aesthetics in the middle of a wasteland is hardly original these days but it works well if done properly and it also makes everyone instantly remember previous works such as Children of the Whales, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Darling in the Franxx and Mortal Engines, which can be a good thing…although in this case is not that good because of the titles mentioned.
Compared to those, Deca-Dence is a complete story which doesn´t fool around for half its duration with pointless slice of life teenage dramedy with sexual innuendos in both its mechanisms and its memeable crappy dialogue, and does not throw ludicrous elements and situations just for spectacle purposes (despite having its own silly things) nor does it change plot points and characterization every five minutes, which automatically makes it better than all of them.
Then the second episode begins and drops a big plot twist that changes the show completely by apparently turning everything into a VRMMORPG and that made lots of people drop the show. The thing is, it is not really a videogame. It has elements that resemble videogame mechanics but that world is actually real, the npcs are actual people with actual lives and their deaths kinda matter. And that world is inside a huge dome and the game is in reality the way a tryrannical government of chibi robots control what was left of the human race after a most typical post apocalyptic sci-fi scenario happened, and the greatest warriors that fight against the monsters turns out to be avatars used by said tiny robots. Thus the series moved from a combination of the previously mentioned shows to a mix between Log Horizon, Ready Player One, The Matrix, kind of a reverse Surrogates, with even bits of SSSS. Gridman thrown in there.
How does it stand against those? Compared to Log Horizon, Deca-Dence is, again, a complete and far more compressed story where something relevant is always happening and does not have as much slice of life comedy and slow mmo progression. Plus it has far better characters.
Compared to Ready Player One, it combines elements that are present in other ips but are not exclusively from them, and it does it to build its own thing, not for comedic and referential purposes while mentioning them to sell on their names. It also has a break the norm/take down an evil government/organization type of plot that does not pander to gamers while mocking them with self-depreciative humor and plot points and has more interesting themes in it.
Compared to Gridman, it lacks the anti escapism message but it has a more focused plot where the ideas, objectives, points and twists are presented much earlier and not near the end, and that’s all I can say about that other series without spoiling its final episodes.
Compared to Surrogates, it does not saves its plot twists for the last ten minutes and thus it does not make the plot and characterization feel inconsistent, and it doesn’t feel like a typical thriller/action flick…and yet it still has better action.
I even dare to place it slightly above The Matrix, which came out at the right time in the end of a millenium filled with fear of technology and that was far cooler in terms of visuals and action, combining martial arts with cool gunfights with CGI and directing that were innovative and impressive at the time, but its theme exploration of virtual reality and free will was very superficial when you think about it, since having a destined choosen one as a protagonist contradicts the whole premise, there’s no real tension and free will when you do what a prophecy says that you have to do.
Deca-Dence also has cool action and a basic theme exploration, but at least it has actual proactive characters that want to change both the world and themselves, with strong dynamics between them.
That’s how Deca-Dence gets its peculiar identity and manages to be somewhat unique, by mixing altogether a plethora of elements that normally wouldn’t be in the same show.
With that said, I have to admit that Deca-Dence is barely worth watching more for its ideas than its execution, which is severely lacking in presentation and a proper finale. It’s not a thinking man’s action series, it’s a semi serious and semi comical action adventure first, and a barely competent sci-fi series that explores interesting themes of existentialism, free will, the meaning of life, revolution and stagnation, change and status quo, that leaves you pondering about stuff waaaaay after.
The main reason for that is that the tone is very light. Although it’s refreshing to have an energetic and positive girl as a protagonist in a show where humanity is on the verge of extinction, it can’t be denied that Natsume’s attitude takes out a lot of the sense of urgency that the show could and should have. Even aside from her, Kurenai is presented as a badass veteran fighter that wants to end the war against the Gadolls and leave the city yet she turns into a complete fangirl the moment she sees Kaburagi (heh, if she knew) and the artwork in the robot society makes hard to take stuff seriously at first.
This other side of the setting has a much more cartoony artstyle and the cutesy designs don’t help out either. It’s on a middle point between Yuasa’s Kaiba and Imaishi’s Dead Leaves, not as bizarre as the former and much more innocent than the latter. In the middle of the series there are even more comical moments in this other society and there are about…shit. I guess the point is that the system exploits the workers, takes everything from them, and then fills them up with just the bare minimum, so they decide to revolt, leave and take down said system. Good concept and the execution wasn’t bad but I’ve seen it better in more bizarre and gross ways in both Dead Leaves and Aachi wa Ssipak, even if I still rate Deca-Dence higher than them for having more substance.
The show focuses more on the robot side from a point on instead of the tragic human side and a big part of the atmosphere is lost because of it. Well, at least I can recognize that Deca-Dence knows how to manage its tone, as the more serious, dramatic and tragic moments does not feature this type of comedy in between.
An also, between the silly comedy and the action bits, there’s good enough downtime for the characters to interact, plan stuff, do that stuff, and being a representation of the themes. In the first two episodes alone there are a couple of good dialogues between Natsume and Kaburagi about her sharing the same ideals as Kurenai and a desire to change herself for the better and to no longer be weak and a burden, even if she has to risk her life and perhaps die while doing so, as someone who has lost everything and is labeled as incapable of chasing after her dreams, she still wants to do it and prefers to lose her life while trying instead of living the same life, which is meaningless to her.
Kaburagi is the polar opposite of her, having lost everything and knowing about what really happens, he sees no point in risking one’s life and prefers to settle down and just try to survive and be unnoticed while working for the system. He kinda begins as a depressive and suicidal guy, and his interactions with Natsume and seeing how she, despite being weak, clumsy, idealistic and a bug that has to be erased from the totalitarian system, still tries her best, changes his views about life and leads him to defy the system and let everyone live their lives on their own. From there, she sees him as the only person that actually believes in her at first and the one that helps her overcome her weaknesses and even grow as a person.
It’s nothing mindblowing, it’s typical shounen stuff, but it does wonders in starting their relationship as a master and student or even a father and a daughter instead of just coworkers with more or less hierarchy amongst them, and thankfully it never has romantic implications and developments. And at least it made me brainstorm and ponder about thoughts of this kind for hours the two times I watched the show, but I’m sure it won’t be the case with everyone.
There was another anime last year where something similar happened, it was ID: Invaded and although it was good in there as well, the interactions between the protagonists are few and begin in the middle of the series, they do not affect each other since the beginning, thus their dynamic is not as strong as this one.
Not everyone shares the same mindset however, in both the human and robots side are people that prefer the status quo and just try to do their stuff the best they can without taking much risks. They are Fei, as someone who sees corpses everyday in the battlefield and cares for Natsume but also underestimates her (but eventually is influenced by her), Turkey as a backstabbing bastard, Minato as someone dedicated completely to the system that does not know what to do once his role is over (for a bit) yet is conflicted because of his friendship with Kaburagi and Sarkozy, who begins as a resigned and useless coward, becomes a traitor and gets influenced by Kaburagi (after he was moved by Natsume), and stars one of the most heroic and epic scenes in the whole series. So by extension, the interactions between Natsume and Kaburagi leads them to affect others through their actions. Again, wonderful character dynamics.
Then there is Jill, who doesn’t have the same thematic depth behind her like the previous characters, she’s more about regretting the past, and someone who had good intentions but ends up learning that the system just can’t control everything and breaking the stagnation is ultimately inevitable, even if it takes time. She ends up being the most useful character in the show, since she’s both a hacker and someone with a strong connection to the system itself.
With that said, not every character is as good, Donatello is the typical macho dude that just wants to fight and kill stuff and the antagonists, as imposing as they are, lack screentime and effectiveness to become memorable. From a point on the mass produced jailers become a joke because they are defeated with shit, and the rest of the robot society is completely ignorant about how they are being exploited and treated as livestock of some kind, and keep treating everything as a videogame to the end. Basically, they are distracted from what’s going on through entertainment. Sadly, there are no more human characters explored as much either.
And I have to admit that aside from Kaburagi, the development of the rest is not as good and happens in a matter of episodes, even Natsume’s breakdown and recovery happens in the same episode, but at least is shown seriously and makes her doubt about her meaning and objective in life for a bit and if it would have beeing preferable to remain ignorant to the whole thing.
Since the setting combines steampunk, futuristic sci-fi and videogame ideas and elements, it needs to have a way for objects and logics to work in all of them for the world to feel organic. The steampunk elements are non existent outside the fortress so let’s pay more attention to the other two.
There are people that defy the system and the way it works, labeled as bugs, which of course fits the videogame terminology and logic as well, for they do the same in there, the leveling system and upgrades explain well how these players are above the humans in terms of skill in the war against the Gadolls, the weapons and energy they use works well as both a sci-fi element and a videogame mechanic, a tank that absorbs energy from the monsters and serves as a fuel, and since the people live in a wasteland they have to eat their corpses as well, it’s not rare to feed on the creatures you kill in a videogame so this also fits well on that part of the setting as well. The reason for the robots to participate in this whole thing, aside from the empowerment fantasy, is to gain more of the same fuel from the Gadolls that keeps them functioning, so that element fits within their society as well and that is of course a good reason to keep playing the game. And everyone is seen and more or less controled via chips and cores inside their brains. Thus this weird world they live in feels organic as a whole. The exposition could be better though, it’s ok to have infodumps inside the school or when Kaburagi explains stuff to Natsume, but outside of those situations, there is a lot of spoken information that is not integrated in the best possible way.
Still, you have to suspend your disbelief about how some things play out, for example, why did the system save someone as dangerous as Kaburagi? Why didn’t it remove some parts of his body (his jetpack), as well as Donatello’s laser? Why does it allow the most dangerous prisoners to gather together and even fight with each other when they feel like it? Also this whole thing about them being able to play the game in their cells, and how Natsume is unknown to the system are a bit of a stretch, the corporation is presented as an Orwell’s Big Brother that sees everything type of system yet they don’t notice all of this stuff? There’s an episode where four people run all around to find a body in a Monsters, Inc. fashion and it can’t see that either. Most of this is explained as Jill hacking the system but when you have one single character doing all sorts of stuff, the excuse becomes hard to accept. The system’s course of action does not make much sense either, you want to avoid what happened in the past by supressing humans? That makes sense but why not kill them on the spot? Well I guess they need sacrifices within the game. And what it did at the end was pretty questionable, and I even doubt that the corporation was dismounted, it remains unclear. And that final Gadoll at the end of the series was pure bullshit.
But the biggest issue in the series is the finale itself which is hard to accept, I can deal with the fake deaths since the avatars are an element well established that makes sense within its story and setting, I would prefer for the deaths to be permanent, but I’d rather take a well excused way to survive than a death that happens to maximize the cheap feels when it was possible to be avoided (with that said, the last resurrection is kind of a stretch). What I can’t ignore is what happened to the society after the conflict is resolved, of course and I can’t get into details regarding that, but it’s too friendly and happy and it happens after a time skip thus not letting the viewer to see how it happened and how does all of these people live there without the fuel? It doesn’t make sense, and there should have been more internal conflicts in there.
This is why Deca-Dence is no close to Gurren Lagann in this regard, partially for being rushed and having at least half the amount of episodes it needed. That series did wonders in its second half, showing the conflicts in the newly established society and implementing a big plot twist that changes the whole premise, heck even the whole series up to that point and expands the themes as well as the scope of the story, and also the scale and the epicness of the battles.
As an action series, Deca-Dence is exciting at first but can become dull for some as the episodes go, not because of the production and the atmosphere, which are both pretty good to the most part, but because of how short the fights are, how repetitive the choreography is and how underwhelming are some of the outcomes. At least I can say that I like what they did with Natsume, beginning as a crappy fighter that can’t do anything right, having a training montage, getting upgrades and becoming better, typical shounen stuff, yet remaining unable to do anything during the major battles, and being Kaburagi who has to take care of the stuff at the end. That’s how you handle a power scale properly, for once a series lets the experienced veteran fighter be the one that takes care of things and even making his actions lead to relevant changes afterwards, it even makes more sense because of the limit breaker which the humans lack. Brand New Animal did the same last year, but it suffered of too much ass-pulled power ups for Michiru and a resolution that was even worse than Deca-Dence’s in both its final battle and its conflict.
As for the visuals, the artwork is pretty good to the most part but there are drops in quality when the perspective is located far away, lots of characters lose their faces when that happens, at least the character designs are pretty great, distinctive to other anime because of the weird eyes and for having noticeable noses, A RARE THING IN MODERN ANIME. The robots look much more cartoony but they look good when they are with the humans, the two completely different artworks don’t clash with each other. The backgrounds are low key trippy and well made and the motions are acceptable during battles, not great but excused because of the fields of the Gadolls and the way the angles follow the movements during the battles as if someone was moving a camera (like in Burn the Witch or Majo no Tabitabi, for example) helps to make them feel epic at first. The special effects are good except for the CGI Gadolls, which are pretty bad, expecially in the last episode.
As for the sound, the effects are impactful and immersive, the voice acting is ok, the distortion for the robots is also ok, the soundtrack is not that memorable but is pretty good to the most part. The opening and ending are decent but typical jpop/jrock stuff, and the bgm has some electronic tunes which don’t work outside of the series, but there are also symphonic pieces which are combined with what I think are celtic instruments that makes it pretty unique and atmospheric. Very good stuff as a whole.
As a whole, Deca-Dence is far from a masterpiece because is rushed and not that serious and is not really a memorable work but it has interesting themes, good enough action, strong character dynamics, a mostly organic world, is somewhat fun while still provides food for thought, and it does a lot more in just twelve episodes than a lot of longer shows and more famous movies from around the same time, with at least slightly better execution than them.
Want more like this? Play the Danganronpa videogame series (but avoid the anime) and Transistor for similar plot twists, watch Dead Leaves and Aachi wa Ssipak for the gross and bizarre parts, the first Lego Movie for a comical take in totalitarian dystopias with some existential bits, the 1997 italian action movie called Nirvana for a story about a videogame character becoming sentient due to a virus and his developer helping him while he is chased by his superiors, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to see how the action, the epicness, and the evolution of the themes and the conflict could have been far better, and Dark City, The Truman Show and Zegapain for better somewhat existential stories about free will and fake/virtual realities.
