At FunimationCon 2020, the world was treated to the premiere of the first episode of Deca-Dence, mere days before its official airing in Japan. Created by NUT, the new animation studio behind Yojo Senki: The Saga of Tanya the Evil and FLCL Alternative, their first original anime is a combination of a giant mobile fortress, monsters, and hope. From what we’ve seen, this series should be on your radar this season.
Ignition
The story begins in a long-abandoned city in a desert wasteland with a group of three men. One of them, a glasses-wearing fellow named Muro, is called over to investigate a broken robot in the rubble. As he does so, a young girl named Natsume appears and shows off a scorpion she found on the ground. Muro, her father, is dismayed by her actions, but the others only laugh. She’d heard so many stories of the surface that of course she’d be curious. However, this amusing moment ends when monsters called Avispline suddenly attack. The group tries to escape in a jeep but fails. Natsume wakes up in an ambulance, seemingly unaware that her right arm below the elbow has been amputated. Her father, after making sure she’s okay, flies out of the back of the vehicle using some sort of anti-gravity technology in order to join the battle.
After that opening scene, we are fast-forwarded to a small classroom setting where the lesson dumps world-building exposition on the viewer. Many years ago, humans were driven to the brink of extinction by an enemy life form known as Gadoll. To survive the threat, the remaining people now live in a massive mobile fortress called the Deca-Dence. Two main jobs exist among the survivors: soldiers who fight the Gadoll are known as Gears, and those that support the Gears are called Tankers. An older Natsume is seeking to become a Gear like her father, but she learns that her application has still not been accepted, much to her frustration. Another girl antagonizes her and ridicules the thought of a person missing an arm becoming a Gear. However, it turns out that Natsume’s application hasn’t necessarily been rejected either. It’s just that for the time being, she has to spend the next five years cleaning the armoring for the Deca-Dence. In short, she’s basically a window-washer, and she’ll be working for an older man named Kaburagi.
Cue a montage of her learning from Kaburagi and doing the job to the best of her ability. After all, even though the position itself is not as glamorous as she’d like, she’s still going to give it her all. After the sequence is over, we are introduced to a green-haired guy who tries (and fails) to hit on her. She calls him Kennel, but his real name is actually Fennel. He encourages her to ask Kaburagi to throw her a welcome party, which actually isn’t a bad idea.
After work, she goes to Kaburagi’s dwelling, an indistinct metal box in a sea of metal. He opens the door for her, but after she explains why she’s there, he dismisses it and promptly closes the door…on her face. She insists that he give her a party, and after much back and forth, she wears him down. At the “party”, a clearly inebriated Natsume bemoans her situation and reveals her desire to become a Gear. However, Kaburagi flatly tells her not to have ambitions, a notion with which she obviously disagrees. The debate is interrupted by the appearance of a weird, white, cat-sized creature. He tries and fails to distract her from it. She quickly realizes it’s a Gadoll, but he assures her that it’s harmless. She quickly warms up to the creature and gives it the name Pipe when she learns that it doesn’t have one. As she plays with it, the viewer suddenly sees her stats being analyzed by some sort of targeting screen.
Later that night, a man collapses in an alleyway. Kaburagi appears and sticks the needle-like point of a device into the man’s neck. He then speaks with another person over a communications link, saying that he’s retrieved a chip. Clearly, Kaburagi is involved with more than we know.
The next day, a massive Gadoll the size of the Deca-Dence itself appears, along with several small ones. The mobile fortress goes on alert, and the Gears roll out to engage. As the cleaners attempt to retreat into the safety of the fortress, Fennel accidentally knocks himself, his partner, Kaburagi, and Natsume into the middle of the battlefield. As the Gears battle, Fennel is seemingly killed, and Natsume looks to meet the same fate when Kaburagi saves her. Displaying some incredible maneuverability and fighting skills, which even impress the Gears themselves, he gets her to safety. Meanwhile, the Deca-Dence attaches itself to the giant Gadoll via cables, and kills it with a combination of a large laser energy weapon and a hammering rod. The Gadoll then disintegrates as it is absorbed by the mobile fortress.
In the aftermath of the battle, Fennel turns up alive (as if it would be that easy to kill him). Meanwhile, somewhere inside the Deca-Dence, a voice encourages people to refill their oxyzone and to have a profitable day.
May I Have This Dence?
The episode was followed by a short discussion by the creators. The origin of the series came from a sketch that showed humans living inside of a giant robot. A higher-up who saw the drawing said that it looked interesting and asked the illustrator if he wanted to make a story about it. After that, when it came to developing the scale of the fortress and the monsters, Macross and Pacific Rim were referenced. Seeing as how the latter was writer/director Guillermo del Toro’s homage to Japanese kaiju and mecha, it’s neat how the inspiration has come full circle. That said, the creators emphasized that Deca-Dence is not a traditional mecha versus monster story, even though there are scenes like it. Instead, it’s a story about characters changing their feelings—about what’s important and what’s not important.
The first episode definitely puts that front and center with its dual protagonists, Natsume and Kaburagi. She’s optimistic, earnest, honest, and wants to choose how she’ll live her life, while he is a jaded realist who has long since given up on hope. He clearly has his reasons, though. As evidenced by his skills during the Gadoll battle, the fact that he’s a former Gear is practically a given, possibly Special Ops. He’s also clearly involved in some secret business. It’s likely that he’s investigating The Power, an appropriately mysterious name which was thrown in during the infodump classroom lesson and alluded to in the episode’s final moments. Clearly, there’s something shady going on in the world of Deca-Dence. Could it be that the Gadoll are more than just a random invading species?
If anyone’s going to provide the energy for that endeavor, it’s Natsume. She’s a bright, young fireball who will never give up once she’s put her mind to do something. I suspect that although her desire is to be a Gear like her father, her real need will be to forge her own path into the future. She already needs to overcome her mean girl classmate, so we’ll see how that goes.
As for everything else, it’s a good mix of comedy and more serious moments. The cleaning crew of her, Fennel, and Kaburagi will certainly be more of the former, but I’m sure they’ll have their you-can-count-on-us-to-help moment at some point. I also really enjoyed the Celtic-inspired music that played during the training montage. I didn’t pay much attention to the soundtrack until that point, but I hope there’s more of that.
Overall, Deca-Dence looks like it will be an enjoyable, original series with fun characters, plenty of laughs, and a solid story. If NUT can deliver on this promise, this new studio will quickly become one to watch.
The official Deca-Dence website open to the public.