Review of Deca-Dence
Deca-Dence = Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress = Knights of Sidonia = Attack on Titan. Yes, there's a "twist" (if you can even call it that) that gets revealed very early on that makes this setup technically different from the aforementioned anime that this is clearly copying, but at the end of the day this anime is far more similar to its influences than it is in any way original and it simply never escapes that. It also doesn't help matters that the female lead here, Natsume, looks like several other characters from different anime as well. Throughout the entirety of my viewing experience ofDeca-Dence I felt I'd seen what it was showing me multiple times before and the handful of things it did in an attempt to distinguish itself came up well short, leaving it feeling like an inferior knock off more than anything else. Hell, the warriors of this program even fight the big baddies that live outside the walls with ODM gear straight out of Attack on Titan!
The respectably good English dub, helmed by Trina Nishimura (who, oh so appropriately, voices Mikasa in Attack on Titan) and the standout soundtrack, featuring bagpipes of all things, which is not a particularly common instrument in Japanese animation soundtracks, are probably the biggest highlights here. The color pallet as a whole is also worth mentioning as it's very bright and vibrant, though in my view more in a cartoony way than an awe-inspiring "man this is beautiful" kind of thing. The visuals are a mixed bag. The in-game area looks modern and clean, minus a couple points for blatant CGI in one particular instance, but the OTHER area, which I'll decline to name or define for the sake of avoiding (relatively minor) spoilers I think looks like total garbage. It's designed deliberately to vastly contrast its counterpart, which is probably a wise choice, but I loathe the direction they went with this. It looks like something you'd see on Adult Swim on American television rather than anime. It also looks like something a young child should be watching rather than something an adult could watch and not feel a bit silly when another adult walks into the room.
The ending is rushed and ventures into preachy territory, though it's far from the most egregious offender I've seen in this regard, and multiple anime tropes and cliches come out during the late episodes of the show. A very late scene clearly intended to have emotional impact falls very flat and then, even if it hadn't, they go ahead and undo it just minutes later.
There were a few moments in the plot that were genuinely suspenseful and interesting, with the mission and eventual fight against the Alpha Gadoll, definitely not to be confused with an intelligent Titan, being the peak of the program in my opinion. The plot really lost steam after that and was never able to regain its momentum. There was plenty of potential with the setup they created, and I don't think they utterly butchered it, but I definitely don't think they maximized it either. They absolutely could have pushed further and gotten more out of what they built, though admittedly the 12 episode runtime puts a pretty hard cap on how much you can do.
Despite this review probably coming off a bit more negative than positive, I didn't actually dislike Deca-Dence, and I thought it was a decent show. Really, the "humanity is almost extinct and what's left of us lives within the confines of X and monsters called Y that we know very little about live outside of here and threaten to eat and kill us" setup, even though it's definitely not new anymore, is so consistently engaging that it's hard to go too far wrong. Nevertheless, this show is too much like its influences and too little of a standalone product and it certainly cannot live up to the programs it's trying to imitate and it just flat out loses too much steam after the midpoint. With those things in mind, I can't go so far as to say I'd actively recommend Deca-Dence, but, there are certainly worse shows out there.
OBJECTIVE RATING- 6.5-7
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7