I’ll let you in on an anime blogger’s secret: I hate the first week of any new anime season, because there’s usually been only a single episode of each new show broadcast, and it’s quite difficult to find any shows I want to write about. In order to get a proper impression of a new series and judge whether it’s worth recommending to J-List customers, I like to watch at least 2-3 episodes so I can get a better idea of how a given show is likely to play out over the entire cour. One show I’m enjoying is Deca-Dence, a post-apocalyptic story about the remnants of humanity who live inside a giant moving fortress that could be described as Attack on Titan meets Howl’s Moving Castle. Enjoy this Deca-Dence review!
Sometimes a creative work can be so influential that its echo reverberates for years. When the epic 1988 film Die Hard came along, it created a string of works that were basically the same concept but in slightly different settings. Passenger 57 was “Die Hard inside an airplane,” Cliffhanger was “Die Hard on a mountain,” The Rock was “Die Hard on Alcatraz back when Nicholas Cage was cool,” and so on.
And this is basically what happened with the mega-hit Attack on Titan, which gave us several shows that can be seen as derivative of that series. Like Kabaneri Of The Iron Fortress, which is Attack on Titan with trains and Haruhiko Mikimoto character designs. Or the newly-airing Deca-Dence, about a world in which 90% of humans have been killed by mysterious monsters known as the Gadoll, with the remnants of humanity surviving in a 3,000-meter tall moving fortress called Deca-Dence.
(The term “decadence” refers to the low level that humanity has fallen to in the story. Phonetically, it could also alternately mean “great dance” which is what most Japanese would think of when they hear the name for the first time, implying the great battle humanity is involved with versus the Gadoll.)
Deca-Dence Review: Why You Should Watch
Natsume is a Great Main Character
Society inside the Deca-Dence is organized into two castes: “Gears” who are the warriors who defend the fortress against the Gadoll monsters, and “Tankers” who are the support crew who grow food, repair armor and perform all the other important duties needed to keep society alive.
Natsume is the daughter of a Gear who died when she was a girl, in the attack that cost her her right arm. Although she wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and fight, she becomes a Tanker and is assigned to repair the outside armor of the fortress…though even this dreary work can’t blunt her cheerful, happy attitude.
Natsume works under Kabaneri Kaburagi, a surly former Gear who doesn’t talk much, and who hides a pet Gadoll creature named Pipe in his room. He clearly has a secret that will be revealed as the story unfolds.
It’s by the Studio that Gave us The Saga of Tanya the Evil
I don’t know about you, but I often will find myself watching a show just out of loyalty to anime studios who have brought us beloved shows from the past. I’ll generally be willing to watch almost anything from JC Staff, P.A. Works, Production I.G., Sunrise, and of course Studio Ghibli and Kyoani. This series is made by NUT, the studio that brought us Yojo Senki, which is another studio I’m a fan of.
Thanks for reading our Deca-Dence review! Will this show turn out to be the sleeper hit of the Season? It depends on what kind of twists and turns are waiting for us in future episodes. I’ll certainly keep watching to see how things unfold!
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