Review of Deca-Dence

Anime original shows are a gamble to undertake. Unlike adaptations, you only have a few trailers and some sentences to derive your expectations from and I feel the key to any good anime original show is to make use of that unknown factor and surprise the audience every now and then with new twists to the series keeping the experience fresh. Deca-dence doesn't quite manage that, but the transition from the first episode to the second had me hooked like no other as what started out as a Shingeki-no-Kyojin-meets-Monster-Hunter show undergoes a complete 180 change into an MMO-esque show with cutesy robots. This total dichotomyis the core gimmick to the show and to its credit the vast disparity in artstyles do make for many fun moments as the show alternates back and forth between the two environments. However beyond that the show doesn't have much to offer in terms of originality or unique setpieces, less than halfway into the show it becomes a fight-the-power type show as Kabu and Natsume rise up against the System. The show does become more formulaic and predictable in its latter half, and the appeal of the contrasting artstyles would have worn out their initial welcome at this point. Part of this can be attributed to its short 12 episode length, meaning it can't really introduce any new original elements without radically changing the structure of the whole show, but it's still wasted potential.

Now onto the actual show, there is a surprising amount of slapstick in this. Natsume being the brunt of many of these definitely led to several memorable moments with her very animated and lively expressions making for great reaction images. The tone is generally lighthearted as well and doesn't get nearly as dark as the first few minutes of the show may lead you to believe. There is no real clash in tone surprisingly considering the dual narrative the show employs and it all flows nicely together. The action scenes are fine, but none of them ever reach the same hype levels as the first and final major setpiece involving the deca-dence. Playing the OP in action scenes is practically cheating.

Overall Deca-dence is a fine show, so long as you don't expect the show to continuously up itself with progressively insane twists every episode. It's a fun adventure type show that's over before you know it and regrettably not that memorable in the long run, but at least that ending sure was worth the journey.

6/10