It always makes me happy when I get a show that's just twelve episodes long and then it's complete. It's even nicer when it turns out to be a really good show. Deca-Dence takes two episodes to establish the world because two distinct aspects are going on. What starts as a simple post-apocalypse show where humans are trying to survive the incursion of strange creatures in the first episode morphs into a kind of demented game played by a race of cyborgs. Basically, the humans, called Tankers, are just treated as NPC's for the Gears, player avatars of the Cyborgs. The System does this to both entertain it's citizens as well as keep the humans under control, saying it was their fault for destroying the environment of their planet. The Humans, however, are completely unaware of this setup.
When I say Avatar, I don't mean an online one. They are controlling a robot that interacts on earth. The Cyborgs are aware of this as well, so it's not some shocking reveal to them, only to the humans. Everyone is essentially ruled over by the System, whose goal is to keep things in a state of order. Kaburagi is a Cyborg tasked with acting as a Tanker, specifically on the repair team, and it is his job to find and eliminate 'Bugs'. Bugs are a catch-all term by the system for anything they feel disrupts the order of the world. Specifically, he is there to eliminate any Tankers the system view as bugs.
Our other lead, Natsume, is a girl who lost forearm in a Gadoll attack when she was young. She now wants to become a member of the Power to end the existence of the Gadoll and bring peace. The Power are the Tankers who fight the Gadoll alongside the Gears, who are seen as a warrior race but are the Avatars. There is a pretty obvious theme that Kaburagi is kind of doubting the system as it's relevant at the shows beginning, but the short of it is that the system doesn't recognize Natsume, which makes her a bug. Fixing up her robotic hand, he instead shows her how to fight rather than eliminate her, and this is where the story starts to take off.
Both Natsume and Kaburagi are fantastic. They aren't the most unique characters in terms of outlook and personality, but the show does a fantastic job with the archetypes. Kaburagi as the disillusioned veteran, and Natsume as the bright-eyed and thick-headed upstart. It's a dynamic that is old as time itself at this point, but the show manages to make it work. Natsume's character is given more depth than just an 'I want to save the world' outlook with a bit of a deeper look into why it is she tries so hard, and Kaburagi's pessimism comes from a place of understanding how the world works as opposed to just being jaded by everything. It helps the two have great chemistry together.
The fights with the Gadoll are all pretty excellent as well. They fight them using devices that let them 'ride' energy waves the Gadoll give off, something that needs to be done because they give off a field that disrupts the gravity around them making regular movement impossible. Due to there ability to regenerate their flesh at incredible rates, they are fought using these strange sharpened tubes that effectively bleed them out. Shoot it into an artery and drain the body of blood. There are a good number of these Gadoll that show up throughout the show giving you a lot of fun and interesting fights. To be honest, I don't know if anyone of them is going to go down as an all-time classic battle, but the quality is consistently high throughout the show.
I'll say the themes of the show are fairly obvious and predictable given the premise. You may not see every detail coming, but at the same time, it's a rather predictable story once everything is set up. It doesn't help that there is a time where the show feels like it chickened out with a potentially dramatic moment in a way that feels a bit forced like they didn't want to have something that tragic happen. This is odd, because before that happens there is a great moment where the show doesn't' feel like it's pulling punches at all, and it was really sad. Probably the saddest moment in anime all year, and it was handled perfectly. It's possible they just didn't want to go out on to sour note, especially given the previous scene I mentioned, but it doesn't stop it feeling forced. I know I am talking vaguely here, but I can't get into more details without spoiling it.
If there is another criticism of the show is the Cyborgs themselves look a bit goofy. It can be kind of hard to take them seriously at times. It works in favor of the ones labeled as Bugs, but for the rest of them, it's a design choice that doesn't sit well for me. I think they wanted to make them seem all relaxed and aloof when compared to the Tankers on Earth, but considering they are all part of the Order obsessed System it seems out of place. The Fortress Deca-Dence where everyone lives is a pretty well-designed area, the livable parts looking like a run-down slum of a town, and then the design of the Hub World the Gears go to for weapons and cosmetics is a really good design choice. For those who are unaware, the 'Hub' is generally what people who play MMO's refer to as the place you aren't going out for combat, it's more of a meeting place where everything is calm, you can craft, stock up on items, possibly find quests and plan out what it is you are going to do. MMO players will probably get on me for not being entirely accurate with that description, but it's close enough for explaining it here. This is a great contrast showing how the Gears view Deca-Dence, and how the people who live here view it.
It's hard to say how this show may be viewed years down the line. The mixed art quality, predictable story beats, no fights that truly stand out, fairly plain side cast, and lack of anything truly unique in terms of character interactions may well prevent this show from being an all-time classic. At the same time, it's a constant high quality throughout the show, it is a fantastic concept, and it does a great job with the tropes it makes use of. There is a lot great and unique about the show as well as knowing how to make it's the saddest moment hit without being overdramatic. The show does surprisingly well with its subtlety compared to just about any other show out there right now, and I may do an Aspect Analysis on it so I don't have to spoil it for the review. Deca-Dence is defiantly worth giving a shot.