Last time on Deca-dence we changed our entire outlook on the state of the world. This time, we have a much more standard episode, but one that was also very needed for what’s ahead.
Specifically, this episode is mostly
dedicated to a training montage. Natsume is learning how to fight
the Gadoll from zero, or arguably less than zero, so spending time
with Kaburagi in the “tutorial zone” grinding on the weak ones
until she gets the hang of riding gravity waves, moving gracefully in
the bubble fields, and killing her foes efficiently and effectively.
As training montages go, it’s a pretty
standard but pretty effective one. We see Natsume fail a lot and
then, slowly, go through the same motions again with different
results. Her resolve is questioned a couple times, but each time she
seems ready and able to move onward and upwards from her failures.
It’s a slow process, but by the time we get back to real action, it
will be able to be believed that she’ll have a baseline of
competence, perhaps even enough skill to shine given that she’s
getting Kaburagi’s training.
Though, we have to question, especially
as the end of the episode seems ready to put Natsume into an
underground battle against a pack of mid-sized Gadoll, with Pipe (the
huggable/horrible little pet Kaburagi had) potentially caught in the
middle.
We also get more reveals about the
setting. For instance, the history and the relationship between the
robots and humanity;in the 2400s, Earth’s atmosphere became, at
large, too toxic to sustain human life. Nations crumbled and were
replaced with a corporate power structure that preserved itself with
the production of intelligent robots. Eventually, the robots
naturally took over from the rapidly declining human population and
created Deca-dence as their Human preserve, in a bubble-domed
Eurasia. With an eye to not repeating the myopic tragedy of mankind,
the robots became part of the omnipotent ruling System, which directs
their lives and determines their outcome for, supposedly, the greater
good.
To me, this works very well as a loose
sketch of how we got to the world we have in the show. There aren’t
too many details given so it’s not easy to question the how or why of
the decaying environment and mega-structure dome, but at the same
time based on what details there are, it’s not the lind of thing that
I feel most viewers would reject right away. Atmosphere turns to
poison, corporations take over, make obedient robots to replace dying
humanity… yeah, that sort of checks out. Robots submit to an
authoritarian government to avoid self-destruction? Also checks out.
Further, we get a good scene of
character from Natsume, where she laments the state of her prosthetic
arm, that she loves what it’s allowed her to accomplish and can’t
really imagine ditching it as dead weight, but also recognizes that
its mechanical limitations may be her weakness. Kaburagi hears her
out, and though he’s a very gruff mentor, he’s a good one, taking her
to a mechanic’s shop where he can not replace but retrofit her arm
and hand into something that will be able to keep up with her better,
taking her part human, part machine status and turning it from a
weakness into a strength.
There are also some solid hints of more
for the show going ahead. I think it’s safe to say that it looks
like the System, more than the Gadoll, is the real enemy in
Deca-dence, and that there’s going to be some discussion (which needs
to be managed carefully) between free will or free choice and the
security that the System’s overarching plan offers the greater whole.
This kind of debate between individualism and collectivism usually
comes out stale and trite in Western media, because Western culture,
especially American culture, is fairly hardline individualistic.
When it crops up in anime, though, even though you know that the side
supporting totalitarianism is going to be in the wrong, there’s often
a lot more nuance in the treatment because the home culture of the
media is more about the group than what western audiences would be
familiar with, leaving some wiggle room to debate ideas and
ideologies rather than just going with “The Man” being always and
in every way bad. Like I said, it’s easy to see how the System
gained power and why individuals would submit to it, even if it’s
even easier to see why they shouldn’t submit to it, or why life under
it could easily become intolerable.
In that end, we get a hint that
Kaburagi isn’t totally out of influence. He’s able to make a direct
call to one of the leaders of Deca-dence, someone who seems to be in
on the secret that Pipe represents, and to have that important person
listen seriously to him and help him. So it’s not as though our bug
hunter and bug duo are completely powerless should they end up facing
off against the authorities that control and dictate their lives.
A confrontation does seem almost
inevitable. Natsume wants to shine, but if she makes a name for
herself, forces she doesn’t even know exist may look at her with
scrutiny, and aim to correct the bug that she represents by killing
her off so the System’s declaration that she’s dead will be accurate.
Her dreams are going to see her emerge directly in the face of that
kind of enemy
Still, for the moment, it’s something
that seems very much above the characters. The Gadoll aren’t
compelling enemies, especially as Kaburagi’s talk of tutorial levels
suggests that they might be unnatural entities (like the Gears
avatars themselves) that exist for the sole purpose of giving the
robots their fun with Deca-dence. But right now, the Gadoll are
something that we’re training to fight, and that can be fought. The
System isn’t, and I’d personally guess that we won’t really start
resisting the power in any meaningful way until somewhere in the
second half, even as the seeds are being planted now.
As of this episode, I firmly believe
that Deca-dence, as a show, has great potential. Is it for everyone?
No, especially not with the bait-and-switch that the pitch,
advertising, and first episode did into episode 2. Will that
potential pay off into a great overall package? It’s way too early
to say. The show could crash and burn as easily as it could soar, or
even more easily. But the potential is there. There is no cap on
how high this could really go.
We’ll just have to watch and see what
it actually does from here.