Sometimes, I begin recaps of first episodes by listing off the studio or director’s pedigree. However, it’s not unreasonable for anyone to be mostly unfamiliar with NUT Co. Ltd., the presumably squirrel-owned studio behind Deca-Dence.
Deca-Dence offers up an astoundingly promising debut in a lean season. “Ignition,” the first episode, is likely the best premiere of the season so far. NUT have a very small filmography. They were one of several studios helping out on the divisive FLCL Alternative, and adapted the controversial Saga of Tanya The Evil. Director Yuzuru Tachikawa is much more prolific, but his only other directorial work that casual fans are likely to be familiar with is the second season of Mob Psycho 100. As such, Deca-Dence is something of an opportunity for NUT to establish a signature identity. If it’s at all indicative of what’s to come, we should be excited.
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Iron Arm
Deca-Dence‘s component parts aren’t new, in and of themselves. A post-apocalyptic society divided into castes (“Tankers,” who do menial jobs and repair work, and “Gears,” who are warriors) and giant monsters (called “Gadolls”) menacing a mobile fortress (the titular Deca-Dence), these are things anime has done before. One reason Deca-Dence is so exciting is that they’re simply not that common anymore. (The most recent iteration on some of these aesthetics I can think of is, unfortunately, Darling in The FranXX). Another is the sheer excitement with which they’re deployed. Our protagonist is Natsume. She is an orphaned Tanker who lost both her father and an arm in a Gadoll attack some years ago. In a familiarly YA novel sort of premise, Tankers have jobs assigned to them when they graduate school. Natsume hopes to be the rare Tanker who can fight alongside the Gears. Instead, she gets stuck with cleaning duty.
On a purely visual level, “Ignition” offers a lot of great character animation and quite a bit of CGI. The latter will of course be divisive, but if “Ignition” is guilty of occasionally looking like a video game, it’s at least a cool one.
The full deck of proper nouns can make Deca-Dence‘s story seem complicated. In reality, it’s fairly straightforward. Natsume wants to be a fighter to avenge her father and possibly stop the war with the Gadolls altogether. Society has stuck her in a position where there’s no way she can do that. Which is where her boss comes in.
Ugly Cute
Kaburagi, Natsume’s superior, is initially introduced as a pretty standard stick-in-the-mud old guy. In the first few minutes we get to know him, he tells Natsume to give up on her dreams. Then, instantly exposing him as a hypocrite, we learn he has a pet. This is Pipe, a diminutive Gadoll that looks like a cross between a pitbull and a grub.
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Other scenes in “Ignition” show him possibly assassinating someone and imply he’s being controlled by some sort of computer. It’s the one element of Deca-Dence‘s plot so far that feels a little out of place, but it’s too early to say if it’ll still seem that way in a few weeks’ time.
Cannonhammer
“Ignition” ends in grandiose fashion. A horde of Gadoll, with a gigantic one at the front, attack the Deca-Dence. We get to see the Gears, fighting with anti-gravity backpacks and armored cars, in action. The Deca-Dence fires up a massive cannon that slams a huge hammer-like apparatus into the creature, dissolving it into a mass of energy and gore as Natsume, Kaburagi and the fortress’ other citizens look on in awe. Huge plumes of dirt and smoke fly into the air, and you are left with the feeling that you may have just watched something not just good, but important.
Time will tell how true that ends up being. Even if it’s not, the show’s wealth of energy and fascinating aesthetic put it in the upper echelon of 2020 anime premieres alone.
Until next time, anime fans!
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