(L) Deca-Dence

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Kanon

Being one of the creators of Deca-Dence and being one of the creators of the System are two very different things. I doubt there are actually any real Cyborgs left, they were all created by the System like one of them explained earlier.

She did mention when "they" were trying to create the perfect system. Also, it would appear their cores are still not under the System's control so there's that even if the rest of them are virtually part of the System

[SeaDoor]

I was amused by Jill going all Dr. Malcolm from Jurassic Park during this episode.

[Funkatron]

Awesome ending. I can live without a season 2, but is they decided to make another one, I wouldn't complain

[stray]

We Story of Seasons now...

That was a pretty fun ride overall though. I wasn't sure what to make of Deca-dence the first few episode but glad I stuck with it.

[FlareKnight]

That was pretty good. You've got room to go from there if there's a desire. But it can serve as a very solid conclusion by itself. Considering all they had going in this episode, that's a pretty darn good finale.

Kind of love how they still are finding a way to make this setting an entertainment space. Just instead of monster battles we're switching up genres to something like Rune Factory . Farming, battle, sports, it's all on the table. Honestly it works out really nicely as a much better entertainment space than the limited genre they had going before. Plus it's far less hostile to humanity and more room for slow improvements in terms of human and machine relations.

Would have been nice to get more shocked reactions from people as they found out the reality of the situation and that robot people existed. But I can buy after a few years things have stabilized pretty nicely. Starting out with this Deca City situation and seeing how things go from there.

Older Natsume is looking good and seems to be enjoying her life quite a bit. Finding a good way to live the way she wants and totally embracing the possibilities of that mecha arm. Yeah it is pulling a very happy ending option in having a backup of Kaburagi existing for Jill to bring back. But I'm fine with things ending on a good note. Natsume and those that cared about him had to go years with just accepting him being gone and moving on with their lives. So a bit of happiness right at the end is ok.

Also, glad to see Pipe in some form. Not alive of course, but as a car mirror charm type thing. That was a fun ride even if it did surprise me early on with the twists on what was going on with the setting.

[zeando]

Well done ending. Even if, it's a pretty creepy ending, if one stops to think about it.

The new sport facility has ball games, where the ball is a cyborg core, the cores which get extracted from bug cyborgs once they get disposed of. It's like they are playing ball with a brain.
The Tankers obviously unaware of it.

Pieces all over from the experiences of Natsume and Kaburagi are getting reused, like some parts from the training of Natsume, reused as entertaining/sport/exploration.
Natsume herself is now being a tour guide over what is the recreation of her own experience. Imagine being a tour guide to a museum of sneak photos of yourself.

Kaburagi is back, but he's basically a clone of the old Kaburagi. That's some uncanny valley shit there.
Well, given all the body changing happened up to that point, having also clones is not so far off. Maybe the course of the serie in general allowed to get more accustomed and maybe a bit desensitized, to the more transhuman concepts in it.

It was also an interesting touch, to have dead Kaburagi be found in a very similar setting as the cyborg the father of Natsume did find in the past.
Maybe that first cyborg had been an hero of the previous version of Decadence, who did have a similar role as Kaburagi in bringing the big change to the world. Maybe that first cyborg was indeed a previous version of Kaburagi.
That would had one more layer of hopelessness in escaping the cycle and control of the system.

Besides i wonder what did the system mean with not having a body.
If it was just about not having an active avatar/robot body, which would imply the system is like a program living only inside cyberspace; or if it was meant as not even having a physical support, so no servers or the like, just something like electric/magnetic waves, like that game of megaman starforce.

I was unsure if to call this a bittersweet ending, but the feeling isn't that. Maybe uncanny-sweet ending.

[Wandering Soul]

It's nice to see that this show stuck the landing and had a satsfying ending. I would have liked to see more people react to the truth about their world, but I don't mind the timeskip to the new Deca-dance. Seems like a good way to give everyone what they want. I honestly don't even mind bringing Kaburagi back at the last minute to end things on an even happier note.

[Kanon]

I personally ended up very disappointed in this show. The first few episodes showed huge promise, but the show completely failed to make use of its setting. Besides Natsume and Kaburagi, everything and everyone was underdeveloped. There was so much wasted potential here.

The ending was also just way too convenient.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I personally ended up very disappointed in this show. The first few episodes showed huge promise, but the show completely failed to make use of its setting. Besides Natsume and Kaburagi, everything and everyone was underdeveloped. There was so much wasted potential here.

The ending was also just way too convenient.

Don't you think a longer serie, like a 24 episode one, so having more episodes to explore the introduced themes, would have ended being actually more slow and milked out of ideas?

Do tell, what did you find convenient?

I had some issues with the part where the last piece of the mega-drill flies off, only for Natsume and other Tankers to pull it to Kaburagi-fortress, which felt unnecessary. And, then all of them being stored inside the drill... shouldn't that have insta-killed them once the drill did impact the final monster gadoll?

If what you found convenient was for the system to allow control of decadence to kaburagi, actually as the system predicted, Kaburagi died, and the clone Kaburagi has no memory of having talked with the system, because that happened after the time of his backup. Possibly the system had predicted that too, so leaving control to Kaburagi was also part of an experiment, to see if some new useful info could be gained from it.

[grecefar]

Loved this show and I always love the cliche happy ending.

[Marcus H.]

In original anime stories, one cour is a pretty narrow space to elaborate a cohesive story. Concepts like Angel Beats have struggled in creating a story that fits into 12 or 13 episodes, as have others in the past. And so I feel that Deca-dence may have encountered that problem as well. In any case, the portrayal of the story--that of rising defiantly against a stagnant life--was done very well, although some adjustment of expectations is necessary.

The story of Deca-dence is not only the story of Natsume the "bug" that wanted to defy the established norms of being a Tanker. It was also the story of the people touched by Natsume's defiant light; Kaburagi, Kurenai and (indirectly) those who have witnessed Kabu's rekindled and undying will. This eventually culminated in the Omega encounter. While the Omega fell in the hands of Kabu pushing the limits of the Deca-dence (and his core in the process), it wasn't possible if not for his experiences with Natsume that redefined his reason to live.

I personally feel like Kaburagi's encounter with the System contributed little to the overall flow of the episode, and that part can instead be added as a post-credits scene instead. After all, it only adds some substance to the setting in some way. That said, I am impressed about how little the show depended on plot twists unlike other original anime. Although it did affect speculation value, it ultimately produced a story that's built on solid ground, something that I appreciate greatly.

ENTRY #373 GET.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for final thoughts:

So the machine overlords still exist and treat the human world as a game, they are still making monsters, and the humans just all seem to accept this?
I think we skipped a few steps in the story...

Anyhow, it was an interesting premise, but they couldn't really close the story enough to make it a satisfying anime. In the end, it was at most spending one-cour on one episode in Natsume's life.
And that's it. Everything from evil Koyasu to humans fighting for survival was just a background for the story.

I mean, there are anime like Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu where the setting isn't the focus of the story, but this anime spent too much time building on that to just... and everyone lives happily ever after... somehow!

But to be honest, I was worried about how the anime would end the story (hence me saying the value of this anime would be determined by how it closes the story) since the start.
...So yeah. I'd say that it was fine up to Kawaragi deciding to destroy the system.
And then the climax was just... Meh.


You know how in Jojo, some characters just conveniently have powers at times to move the story? That's forgivable because as a result, it was still entertaining to watch.
But now that this anime slipped, that's not the case. So I'm going to say that the female cyborg ex-technician was pretty convenient and a meh character in general.

8/10

[Chosen_Hero]

FINALLY, a show that didn't shoot it's brains out at the last second and ruined itself.

This was a good one cour anime, it did what it needed and wanted to do in the time given to it and I respect that. If there's ever a sequel I would definitely watch it, but this was a clear cut ending.

About the only negative is Pipe dying off screen... I miss the weird little guy.

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by zeando

Don't you think a longer serie, like a 24 episode one, so having more episodes to explore the introduced themes, would have ended being actually more slow and milked out of ideas?

Do tell, what did you find convenient?

I don't think a longer series would have been better, no. After thinking it through, I think they just wanted to tell a character oriented story and never intended to focus on the technical stuff, which is fine but simply not what I expected and wanted.

What I found convenient is how absolutely everything turned out the way Kaburagi wanted. What caused the System's change of heart exactly? A few episodes ago it was "too many humans, we need to cull them" and now it's "let's allow them to prosper by farming and building with them. Oh, and reveal the entire truth to them off-screen too".

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I don't think a longer series would have been better, no. After thinking it through, I think they just wanted to tell a character oriented story and never intended to focus on the technical stuff, which is fine but simply not what I expected and wanted.

What I found convenient is how absolutely everything turned out the way Kaburagi wanted. What caused the System's change of heart exactly? A few episodes ago it was "too many humans, we need to cull them" and now it's "let's allow them to prosper by farming and building with them. Oh, and reveal the entire truth to them off-screen too".

It was a bit abrupt with the whole system change coming soon thing only being brought in at the last minute. However the fact that something strange was going on with the system was obvious from the moment it was first shown. And "sentenced to hard labor at the shit farm" made no sense for the system as described so finding out that the system did not have a problem with "successful" bugs actually made the show seem more reasonable.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I don't think a longer series would have been better, no. After thinking it through, I think they just wanted to tell a character oriented story and never intended to focus on the technical stuff, which is fine but simply not what I expected and wanted.

What I found convenient is how absolutely everything turned out the way Kaburagi wanted. What caused the System's change of heart exactly? A few episodes ago it was "too many humans, we need to cull them" and now it's "let's allow them to prosper by farming and building with them. Oh, and reveal the entire truth to them off-screen too".

The thing is, there wasn't a change of heart of the system.
Before the humans were just expendable npc novelties with no value, after the new version a bit more value seems to have been placed on humans, as a result of an evaluation of the journey of Kaburagi and the interactions of Natsume with the cyborgs real bodies.
(yeah, we weren't given an explaination verbatim from the system, on how each choice for the new setup was weighted, would that have made things better? i dunno, i sort of like how it was left open, the system decides without giving much of a fuck to anyone, past its main goals)

If anything what is really convenient is that Natsume wasn't removed in the end, but rather all the new mode of decadence is mostly built around her, her experiences, and her wishes.
Natsume wanted a world where people wouldn't have to fight with the monsters, that alone was granted. Nothing else really changed.

But the heart of the system remains the same: control everything to avoid disasters, and at the same time allow some anomalies to arise to later remove them and use them as source material for improvements(which was the more sadistic part of the system, in how it actually enjoyed erasing bugs it allowed in the first place to exist, since the systems feeds on bugs).
That, which could be said to be the heart of the system, at least how the system claimed, that didn't change.
Except for the convenient part where Natsume the bug, was left alone, and alive. Maybe leaving her alive was something like a prize for the new content and informations she generated, maybe with the intent to have her contribute more in the future.

Oh, and reveal the entire truth to them off-screen too"

We don't really know that.
Sure the humans are now interacting directly with the real bodies of the cyborgs, that's a big shift from the cyborgs using flesh bodies and also the divide between Tanker and Gears.
But the same as before, where the Gears didn't really reveal the truth to the humans all that often (Kaburagi being the exception), why should we make the jump and assuming they are revealing sensible stuff now?

That's a part where Natsume being left alive still comes in, assuming the cyborgs carry on to don't tell anything to the lowly ex-Tankers, Natsume is the only one who could reveal the truth to other humans. Did she? That's also an open question.


Also, something which most watchers seems to have missed, the final minutes where all the new decadence is showed, is an other advertising, the same as the advertising in epidode 2 to the pvp decadence.
The same as with the advertising in episode 2, that was just marketing, we don't really know what is going on for humans from looking at it, we don't really know if there is dirt in the new version, if there are unavoidable problems created by this new state of things, and what those problems may be.

Given what we saw with the first advertising in ep2, and what reality was behind that: people dying for nothing, everyone being pretty miserable. Being wary and not buying it all with this new advertising at the end, should have been a given. But maybe not. All the build up of "how things sucks under the control of the system" was forgotten or moved aside, by the watchers.


Kaburagi wanted to break the system, to have a world without the system deciding and controlling almost everything, he failed, the system won.
And that's why this finale (plot holes, and convenient parts aside), is a pretty good finale, it did actually stick with the world building.

Remember how people were very confused by the shift in episode 2? The same is happening again with this finale.
People back then said "ahhh, it's all a videogame" now most are saying "aaaaww, it's all fun and games now" or complaining "eeeww, it's all fun and games now"

Spoiler for season 2:

Really, in the higly unlikely event a second season will happen, they should spend all of it on showing how the new decadence sucks too(after many years), only to have it changed at the end, back to pvp decadence (or some other form of entertainment maybe car/spaceship racing or esports actually they already got the ball/brain rolling on that)

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by zeando

Spoiler for season 2:

Really, in the higly unlikely event a second season will happen, they should spend all of it on showing how the new decadence sucks too(after many years), only to have it changed at the end, back to pvp decadence (or some other form of entertainment maybe car/spaceship racing or esports actually they already got the ball/brain rolling on that)

Actually Deca-Dense went from Monster Hunter(PvE) with Humans as cut rate Palicoes to Animal Crossing with some PvP added in.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

Actually Deca-Dense went from Monster Hunter(PvE) with Humans as cut rate Palicoes to Animal Crossing with some PvP added in.

Yeah, i meant something harsh as pvp full loot games, looking at how it was for the humans, but you're right, the model at the start was pve but it was (at least apparently) more harsh/deadly for humans compared to the model at the end.

For the model at the end of the serie, it reminded me somehow of mabinogi.

[bastek66]

Best anime of the season. Fuck that commie who wrote reviews of it on ANN.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I personally ended up very disappointed in this show. The first few episodes showed huge promise, but the show completely failed to make use of its setting. Besides Natsume and Kaburagi, everything and everyone was underdeveloped. There was so much wasted potential here.

The ending was also just way too convenient.

There were just way too many conveniences in the final episode alone for me to overlook, so that was disappointing. I liked the message that the system isn't actually intrinsically evil, is nothing more than a sum of its parts, and is capable of change provided you can fight for it, because it provides an optimistic and (imo) appropriate political application. But the execution just wasn't there: I can't honestly believe that there wasn't a significant amount of vindictiveness to the cruel dystopian game setting when a much more humane and productive cohabitation was so easily achievable in the end. But then we don't really get the know the full context of how the setting came to be and how it intends to go so it's impossible to gauge anything really. We're forced to shrug our shoulders and just assume it all works somehow without really understanding how, but ultimately that lack of understanding hurts the core message because it's too abstract to be completely inspiring.

It was a decent show in the end and I also liked the two main characters, but I think I would've been more interested in the aftermath (which was unfortunately nothing more than a footnote) and sequel (which will likely never happen).