The bar with Deca-Dence is, oddly, both very high and very low – it depends on how you look at it. We have a truncated season that was weak even before the pandemic decimated it, and this is an original series from Tachikawa Yuzuru – it would be shocking if it weren’t at or very near the top of the pile. But then, because it is a Tachikawa Yuzuru original expectations can’t help but be high. Tachikawa-sensei is the most accomplished young director in TV anime, and everything he’s helmed has been great (at the very least).
To be honest, if I didn’t know who the staff was, I’m not sure Deca-Dence would have been a show I was really targeting. The premise sounded pretty generic. But the staff list is a dazzler – in addition to Tachikawa it sports an all-star team of animators and designers (many of whom worked on Death Parade). It’s interesting that Tachikawa developed this project at little studio NUT after stellar success as giants Madhouse and Bones, but it’s clear from the premiere that budget wasn’t an obstacle.
My take after one episode was – frankly, to my disappointment – just about what it looked like it was going to be. Deca-Dence mostly does look great, but the story and characters feel extremely generic. Tachikawa was involved in the development but the main writer here is Seko Hiroshi, who has a very goos track record with adaptations (including Mob Psycho 100) but not much history with originals. Maybe he’s capable of writing a great original (we know Tachikawa is), and maybe Deca-Dence will be it, but there’s no evidence of that after one ep.
Based on interviews Tachikawa seems to have developed this show mostly because he really just wanted to do a mecha anime, and that’s perfectly fine in and of itself. But it plays like not much more thought than that went into it. Hell, there’s even a lazy exposition-by-explanation scene at the beginning, which I’ve never seen this director stoop to. The plucky girl heroine Natsume (Kusonoki Tomori) is generic. The grumpy boss/foil Kaburagi (Konishi Katsuyuki) is generic. The post-apocalyptic premise is generic. In fact Deca-Dence more than anything starts off like an amalgam of earlier mecha shows which were themselves mostly generic, which makes it generic squared.
There are hints there may be more going on here. I want to know more about this secret life Kaburagi leads, where he searches for “bugs” for some sort of secret organization. And the last few moments of the episode are very weird indeed – are those creatures robots or aliens? It’s not unrealistic to hope that with Tachikawa on the bridge all this predictability is s feint, and Deca-Dence is going to chart a much more unpredictable course than it appears. But that’s no more than a hope at this point.
If nothing else there’s the eye candy, which is probably why a lot of people are here. And the premiere certainly offers plenty of that, though there’s a not inconsiderable amount of CGI to go along with the sakuga. The giant mechanical fortress of the title is certainly a fun creation, though its method of attack is more campy than practical. And the battles have plenty of gorgeous animation, though the way they’re choreographed is rather impersonal in that it’s hard to follow what Kaburagi and the others are actually doing. I want more than all that though, and badly. Deca-Dence doesn’t have to be Tachikawa at his best to stand out this season, but no season ever needed him at his best more than this one does.
Darrel
July 9, 2020 at 9:46 pmDefinitely not a hard and fast rule, but generally good writing + bad directing results in a better show than bad writing + good directing.
Guardian Enzo
July 9, 2020 at 10:22 pmI agree with that in principle and practice, but I’m not ready to say that’s what we’re looking at here.
Darrel
July 9, 2020 at 11:56 pmYeah, but this is more to reinforce the point that whether Deca Dence works out right now isn’t really up to Tachikawa’s brilliance (which is almost a given), but whether Hiroshi is able to write a good canvas for him to work on.
Panino Manino
July 9, 2020 at 10:39 pmMixed feelings.
It’s too much “like Trigger” and for me this isn’t a good thing. I hope they’ll also not copy Trigger’s weakness.
The CG is not good and that action scene in the end, too much movement and too little spatial awareness.
The characters are very standard, I want to see Natsume explain why she wants to be a fighter so much. To kill those monsters? To be like her father? She just wants to do what she wants and not be ordered which work she must dedicates her life?
Let’s see.
Panino Manino
July 16, 2020 at 12:06 pmAfter watching the second episode I can say that I WAS BLOWN THE F OUT! Amazing! I wasn’t paying attention and thinking much during the first episode and was caught by surprise.
Guardian put his chips on the wrong horse this season lol.
Guardian Enzo
July 16, 2020 at 1:10 pmIt’s not like I made any decisions after one episode. I said in the damn post that the whole predictability thing could be a feint.
Raikou
July 9, 2020 at 11:03 pmSo far Tachikawa Yuzuru never disappoint me, so I’m gonna give this a try even the plot, character seems generic.
First episode is too early to give a judgement. Also the whole bug thing hinted a secret in the system. I wonder what…
I’m hoping there’s more than eye-candy action stuff.
Toni
July 10, 2020 at 12:26 amThe ‘exposition-by-explanation scene’ is an inelegant way to avoid having a few episodes dedicated only to worldbuilding and getting on with the main story from the first. I’m OK with that.
And while I don’t dislike 3D, some of the textures used were pretty ugly. Pity, because it’s quite a handsome looking show otherwise.
leongsh
July 10, 2020 at 7:06 pmFeeling mixed about this. There’s a lot of deja vu since it is a mash-up of various ideas from other well-known popular shows. Watching more to get a better idea. Let’s see where it goes in the next 2-3 episodes.
Toni
July 10, 2020 at 7:36 pmWell, starting from ‘ ideas from other well-known popular shows’ is in the DNA of most Mecha shows. Actually, anime rarely is about something you’ve never seen before. It’s all about where they go from there (and how)
leongsh
July 10, 2020 at 9:19 pmThat’s why I wrote:
Somehow, the last 2 sentences I wrote were ignored.
dc22
July 11, 2020 at 12:50 amFeels like a Trigger show, and thats a good thing in my book.
Like you said it doesn’t feel very fresh tho, hopefully the next episodes will develop into something interesting after the lukewarm exposition is done.
Chaitan
July 11, 2020 at 4:45 amSo far the fight scenes look like “Attack on Titan with physics”. Monsters create an anti-gravity field around themselves (for some unknown reason). Human warriors initially mass-inject pointed pipes into these fields as the weapons to be reused during the battle, then refill their personal anti-gravity devices via a monster’s “blood” (a green liquid) during the fight. So monsters and humans are in kind of symbiotic relationship during the battle. And in contrast to Attack on Titan, it seems that the creators want the fight scenes to be more or less “physically plausible”. An interesting approach.
Yann
July 12, 2020 at 7:53 amI’ll give it another 2 episodes based on pedigree alone… Otherwise I would probably have stopped mid-episode. This was pretty bad if I’m being honest. Even the animation didn’t do anything for me. I’m mildly intrigued by the Apple HomePod minion at the end, but… We’ll see!