Three Episodes: Deca-Dence is an example of never judging a book by its cover
Don’t sleep. Trust me.
In this week’s Three Episodes, I watched three episodes of Deca-Dence back to back in order to make some sense of latest sci-fi/post-apocalyptic anime series that you’ve probably seen lots of peeps raving about. Let me tell you, this series throws a curveball at you so quickly that it basically begs you to keep watching. My review:
Never judge a book by its cover, folks. Never. Deca-Dence is a perfect example of this rule in action.
I like to start every review with some light reading. Before even the first second of this show had hit my eyeballs I took a quick glance at the series’ synopsis. Ok, I thought, I’m in for some pretty run of the mill post-apocalyptic anime hijinks.
From My Anime List:
“Many years have passed since humanity was driven to the brink of extinction by the sudden emergence of the unknown life forms Gadoll. Those humans that survived now dwell in a 3000m-high mobile fortress Deca-dence built to protect themselves from the Gadoll threat.”
Source: https://myanimelist.net/anime/40056/Deca-Dence
It goes without saying that this is my jam. It also goes without saying that a lot of amazing and highly enjoyable anime series have been built around this tried and true premise, so I wasn’t going to let negative thoughts like “Oh this is going to be a snooze-fest because it’s been done before” ruin what could potentially be a home run in 2020 anime. By now we’ve learned that when it comes to anime we can leave “Simpson’s did it!” at the door and move on (Only South Park people will get that reference. Do people even still watch South Park? Omg am *I* old now? Oof).
There isn’t much to report about episode one. It’s good old fashioned world building set to a backdrop of excellent visuals, as well as some pretty decent colors and palette choices. While not as eye piercingly vibrant as something like Studio Bones’ Space Dandy, it certainly elevates itself above the doom and gloom or post-apocalyptic staples like Attack on Titan. Although large parts of Deca-Dence take place onboard cold metallic landships or smack-bang in the middle of barren wastelands, the vibrancy in color actually made me sit up and take notice. Enough notice at least to make a mental note of it and put it down for further examination in an official review.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the level of comedic pacing this series seems to employ. It’s actually rather delightful to be faced with a post-apocalyptic story that doesn’t drown itself in self pity or morbid ideology. The characters are actually rather quirky and upbeat.
Episode one also gives the audience some pretty basic structure to the overarching narrative; The Gadoll’s arrived, killed everyone and the survivors live in a gigantic moving city called Deca-Dence.
We’re also introduced to the basic caste system on board ship, with society being split into two groups: Gears, a warrior caste that protects the Deca-Dence from the Gadoll and slaughter them for their bio-fuel, as well as the lower ranked Tankers. Tankers are unskilled laborers that aren’t fit for fighting and spend their days maintaining all the basic services that keep the Deca-Dence running at peak efficiency.
Our protagonist, Natsume, is a young girl with dreams of being part of the Gear force. After losing her right arm at an early age to the Gadolls, she’s more determined than anyone on board the Deca-Dence to achieve some form of glory in combat and save all of humanity from extinction.
Ok. Cool I guess. We’ve seen this before. It has a faint air of AoT or Juushinki Pandora (Last Hope) to it. I’m not mad and it’s definitely not a problem, it’s just episode one doesn’t give you much else to go on and it ends in a place that begs the viewer to ask question.
But not ask too many questions.
So where does the “judging books by their cover” nonsense come into it? That kicks in at the very beginning of episode two.
Before I explain that in greater detail I need to point out that I like to write spoiler free reviews for the website and I won’t be deviating away from that core ideology today – I’ve shaken my fist way too many times at videos and articles that reveal too many secrets to the audience about movies that haven’t yet opened in cinemas. Nearly 12 months later I’m still angry at, on opening night, having a plot twist in Rise of the Skywalker revealed to me by random person on Twitter.
Let me tell you that the Block button was mashed faster than a PS5 pre-order cart.
So how do I even begin describing what happens in episode two without spoilers? Let’s try it like this: standard sci-fi/post-apocalyptic anime are like bowls of delicious ice cream. They’re enjoyable and some kinds of ice cream are more decadent and enjoyable than others. On the surface Deca-Dence presents itself as several scoops of a decent brand of choc fudge ice cream, it has a quality to it that will definitely drive people back into a line for a second portion.
However something happens to the narrative in episode two that turns everything you learned in episode one on its head. I walked away from episode two thinking that all the strides we made towards world building in episode one were for nothing. Normally that would sound the death knell for a series, however, the unexpected nature of the twist was enthralling to me.
Deca-Dence stopped being choc fudge ice cream and teased us with something different. Like a saucy little minx it took its core of choc fudge ice cream, rolled it in batter and began to deep fry itself right in front of everyone.
It was an ice cream stripper that stopped its act and proceeded to pull a long chain of beads out of itself to a soundtrack of Pony by Ginuwine.
Oooh, you little tart.
Our post apocalyptic city was still there, the Gadolls were still a threat to everyone and humanity was still on the brink of extinction, however another unexpected element was layered on top that forced the viewer to follow a completely different narrative path.
However it should be pointed out that this new narrative pathway doesn’t do much to expand the personality and nature of our main protagonists. Everything you need to know about them you’ll be able to glean from the first three episodes and although I haven’t yet proceeded to episode four it feels like there isn’t much growth to be had in expanding the characters’ worldviews. Of course not every character in the history of fiction needs to follow something as complex as Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, but viewers should be prepared to derive their enjoyment from the ever changing narrative and setting more than personal character development.
On the flip side of this, sometimes focusing on characters more than setting can also be detrimental to enjoyment – Darling in the Franxx is a prime example of so much emphasis being placed on character development that the world itself stops being fun and exciting. Over 20 episodes were dedicated to horny teens screaming, “ZERO TWO!” that the quick and unsatisfying ending felt incredibly forced and purposefully rushed.
But again, I’m only three episodes into Deca-Dence and I’m very happy to be proven wrong. It may soon morph into something that is a healthy amalgamation of the two.
In all, my Three Episode escapade with Deca-Dence was incredibly enjoyable. It has action by the truck load, a quirky and enjoyable main character and an interesting setting. Alongside the plot twists I can absolutely say with certainty that anyone that was umming and arring about putting this on their “to watch” list should immediately do so and maybe even thumb it up to the very top.
For the first installment of Three Episodes on thetokyo5.com I feel like this series absolutely lives up to the premise; that is, a truly great anime series can take a few episodes to find its feet and communicate its intentions to the audience. If we turn off after the first episode we may miss something that can leave us begging for more or we could potentially miss a plot twist that was intentionally held back from the audience for dramatic effect.
To summarize, it’s a post-apocalyptic anime…….with a twist you couldn’t see coming in a million years.
Deca-Dence is licensed in the United States by Funimation and is available to view via Funimation, Hulu and Netlix in Japan.
- Andrew Archer