Review of Deca-Dence

Deca-Dence is the personification of the problems I have with a lot of sci-fi, which is why I tend to avoid that genre in general. What a lot of sci-fi anime and basically any other form of media love to do is make use of a interesting, futuristic concept and basically throwing it in a story without any explanation. Deca-Dence does exactly this. Deca-Dence throws in random, "cool" ideas, like cyborgs, "AI system that everyone has to follow," and "dystopian society" into a survivalist plot of humans vs monsters. Basically, the story just features these things in the plot, and you as the viewer are expected tomake sense of it all. There's not much, if any, explanation at all for how things became the way they became. It's just implied that these things could have feasibly happened, and now it's an integral part of society now.
I mean, this story doesn't bother with making sense at all. Plot holes are innumerous. I won't mention every single one, since that'd be too much. But, some things I've noticed which are just stupid is the fact that every human is chipped, but robots aren't? They're given an extremely amount of autonomy with no supervision or monitoring at all. You'd think for such an advanced system, there would be event logs, thought manipulation, or at least a kill switch. If the system's wish was for autonomy of cyborgs, a kill switch would be the smallest of the smallest precautions. They did it to humans. Clearly, they could have done it for the cyborgs. The whole thing about how the Deca-Dence system is a game for cyborgs? It's never explained at how the game works at all. Nothing about what cyborgs do are really explained. Plus, the fact that such an elaborate game was set up to begin with is weird. Wasn't the system created to prevent human tragedy to happen again? How did it evolve to: creating a game where humans are an attraction? Isn't this system supposed to act in the best interest of mankind? Shouldn't humans be given the highest priority? Why are they living like caged animals in a ruined continent? How about the fact that the "bug correctional" facility is an absolutely arbitrary place only put in the story for there to be a way for cyborgs to rebel? What about Gadol? It seems like oxyone is a vital resource to even the cyborgs. It seems very weird, then, that this stuff is absolutely pumped into the Gadoll. What's the point? Where does Oxyone even come from? is it "farmed" from the Gadoll? Is there a net gain of oxyone from creating Gadoll? Seems like the answer is no, considering the conclusion of the series. Gadoll seem to have no practical purpose other than entertainment. There are so many other things, but these are the thoughts I was thinking of the entire time this stupid cyborg part of the plot comes inn to play.
This story, disregarding the sci-fi BS is honestly not bad. I really wonder why it had to be complicated in such a way. Probably just because it's easier to have something like a "dystopian system controlling all." There's a clear enemy in this case, and the entire plot and motivation of the characters can be really simple given the circumstances. Given Nastume's "determination to become someone alive," that gave Kaburagi the motivation to "break the system." It's such a simple message for such an elaborate and god-forsaken plot. If there was none of this sci-fi, then there would have had to be a coherent plot, good character development, and a decent conclusion. It seems that this story didn't really want any of that.
Honestly, characters in this story are alright, it's just that they weren't given enough time to shine. Nastume goes through her entire hero's journey in such little time, but she's a decent character still. Imagine if she had more time to develop and more arcs focused around her? She could have single-handedly carried the series on her back. Instead, she's relegated to more of a support role for Kaburagi. Her character development period is rushed as a result. Kaburagi is obviously not a bad character. He goes through a similar period of soul searching just like Nastume, albeit in completely different circumstances. Other characters, I don't have much to say. There definitely are quite a few decent side characters, and they had the potential to become great in their own right, but sadly, they were pushed to the side due to the focus of the story being the plot of "overthrowing the system." Like I said, characters had the potential to be decent, and Nastume and Kaburagi were even considered "good," it's just that almost all the characters weren't given a lot of room for development, and so almost all of them feel a bit bland.
I thought the art and animation in this show was amazing from episode 1. Sure, there was bad CGI from the gadolls, but the facial expressions on Nastume were vivid and rich, the backgrounds stunning, and the fight choreography good. It seems that all of the budget went into that pilot episode since the rest of the show felt really bland. It's a shame.
Deca-Dence essentially is filled with plot holes that the creators don't even bother to explain, but you're expected to sit through this narrative and accept that "this is how things operate in this world" of the show despite it not making much sense. Add some generic message and purpose to the characters, and you have Deca-Dence's sci-fi portion of the story. The "humanity vs monsters" plotline is a lot more interesting, but it gets ruined by the sci-fi plot. it could have been like Attack on Titan or Code Vein, where it could have been a desperate battle for survival against monsters, but instead we get this convoluted story.