Shadow’s Impressions:
I saw a preview of Deca-Dence at a Crunchyroll Expo panel back in 2018 and it looked pretty cool. But then I forgot about it until they announced it coming out, so I was already pretty interested in seeing what this anime was all about since I did like the atmosphere and art-style. Though I was feeling a bit wary seeing the lower score on MAL and wondered if it was bad. But upon actually watching the first episode, it seems like it was just more of a slow start, which I’m fine with.
There was a lot of world building through out this first episode and I do appreciate that they took the time to try and show us what goes on in this post-apocalyptic world. I feel like people tend not to like slow first episodes, but I rather enjoyed this one. It kind of gives us time to get a feel for the world along with how the characters interact with the environment. I already really like Natsume as a character. She’s just so full of energy and life despite this world being super dreary and desolate. Especially since I can only guess she’s now an orphan after her dad died in the first few minutes of the episode. As soon as that man said he would make it back home, I knew this guy wasn’t going to make it. Natsume is a tanker who wants to be a Gear but is reduced to armor repair er cleaner to be more exact in what she actually ends up doing. At first I thought she had given up on her dream to be a Gear, but with how things played out in the episode, I’m sure she’s going to be heading in the direction of her initial dream and show everyone that she can do it. Which is pretty cliche when I write it out like that, but we’ll see if this series can make it convincing and make me want to root for her in that way.
I do admit the pacing was a little weird and it introduced some really out of place things through out the episode. Things happened really fast during the beginning and then slowed down in the middle while speeding up again at the end. But overall, it wasn’t too bad and was easy to follow for the most part. But I am worried at how they’ll pace this series because it seems like there is a lot to explore but not sure if one or even two coures can really capture everything this world has to offer. So far the pacing is fine for what it is, but there’s no guarantee they’ll try and shove a lot of things in at the last second because they’re out of time.
So far, I’m really liking the art and animation style. It all seems so clean to me and the movements of the floating technology was very well depicted and animated. The cinematography was great and the action sequence was just overall really fun to watch. Not to mention I have to give kudos to Kaburagi to maneuver through all the chaos while also dragging Natsume along and keeping both of them from getting hurt. That was some pure skill right there. Also the backgrounds are just gorgeous, even if most of them are desolate desert lands. STILL, that shot of them sitting above the clouds was a beautiful and just showcased how big this world was despite humans being holed up in this moving fortress.
I’m not sure how I feel about Kaburagi yet since he seems like that typical, “doesn’t talk much and is strict” kind of adult-figure. Though it seems like he’s got some sort of complicated history because not only does he seem to be working for some shady organization, he’s keeping a small monster thing called a “gadoll” as a pet secret and he is suspiciously great at using the gear soldier technology. He by far is one of the bigger mysteries in this series that I wouldn’t mind finding out more about. It almost seems like this will be his story that we’ll be following rather than Natsume’s. Though I do hope that he and Natsume form some sort of father-daughter relationship since they do seem to already bounce off each other pretty well in that regard.
I am pretty intrigued so far with this series and I honestly didn’t mind the laid back parts of the episode because we got to see a lot of world building. I’m already pretty attached to the main character and I’d like to see how the series will flesh out the other characters. I’m usually not really into sci-fi, but this world has me curious… especially since there seems to be some sort of techno world as well??? That part was just straight up weird and I hope that it won’t make things more complicated than this series already is. It was confusing at times, but hopefully they will be explained later on. I’m definitely looking forward to keep up with this series but I’m unsure as to whether I’m willing to cover it since this series screams bingeable to me rather than week to week. So I’ll give it a few episodes before making my decision on whether to continue blogging about it or not.
Possibility of Watching: High
Possibility of Blogging: I’ll give it 3 episodes to convince me
