Last season I promised to release mini analyses of the running anime that piqued my interest/gave us stuff to talk about. Unfortunately life got in the way.

It's actually happening this time around. These threads will be updated regularly and may become essays.

DECA DENCE

Deca Dence is a perfect show.

This... is going to be a long thread. Both because I have a lot of episodes to cover, and because the show gives me a lot to talk about.

This may sound like an exaggeration, but I do mean it in a very specific way.

When I say "perfect", I don't mean "this show is objectively good" in the way some tool like Mauler might mean.

I say "perfect" to mean that Deca Dence is everything that I look for in an anime.

It's perfect because, while I'm sure there are valid critiques of the show to be had, none of them matter to me. Everything that I care about and want in an anime viewing experience, I have in Deca Dence.

The idea that MAL looks like this... never mind

If I were given the money to will an anime into existence, it would be like Deca Dence. And I know because I wrote a book and it's functionally similar to Deca Dence in a lot of ways.

But also it's terrible and I try not to think about it so much.

So I should probably maybe describe what the show does, yes?

Basically in a far-distant future, humanity climate-changes itself to extinction. The rich afford to convert themselves into cyborgs to live lives of luxury in space while the poor burn and starve.

These conditions lead to a collapse of nations as we know it (based), and a new order where authority comes directly from corporate power instead of through the arms of a bourgeois state (not based).

Basically the logical conclusion of anarcho-capitalism.

Solid Quake, a global conglomerate run by this cyborg race, and quoting the text directly now, "acquired the rights to humanity" itself.

The advent of cyborgs freed capital from humanity itself, allowing it to treat the human race like another commodity.

Solid Quake determines that the reason humanity failed was not because of capitalism, but because people had too much free will actually. It inserts a computer chip into every sentient being on the planet, carefully tabulating all of their movements and decisions...

...forcing them to live out a real-world RPG known as Deca Dence (roll credits). Deca Dence revolves around killing a race known as Gadoll. Players (gears), hunt them for points on a leaderboard, and a match ends when all enemies are defeated and their blood harvested for energy.

Anyone who does not perform their role in this game is deemed to be a bug and is terminated.

The human race that Solid Quake gain the rights to? They're converted into Deca Dence's NPCs. The corporation hopes that the novelty of interacting with a real-life endangered species will help boost their sales.

For the humans, however, they don't know their world is a manufactured video game. Their own humanity is self-evident (put a pin in this). They're just trying to survive the best they can.

If there's not enough food or resources, it's because that's just the way things are.

The story starts in the reverse of how I've described it. We start by following the humans, and their very real and dangerous mission to hunt Gadoll for survival and to ward off scarcity.

Then we're told that it's actually all just a video game.

A LOT of people dropped Deca Dence in its second episode. Because "since it's just a video game, nothing matters".

This is as close to an actual, objectively incorrect opinion I think I've ever heard. Because the point of Deca Dence is to play with this dichotomy.

In episode 5, for example, the humans are lead to believe they've destroyed the Gadoll nest and have liberated humanity from their terror once and for all.

The humans are happy because the war is over. The Gears are happy because they leveled up.

It's then revealed that there are, in fact, more Gadoll.

Because duh!

This is a video game. You just spawn more enemies. Deca Dence is the equivalent of a multibillion $ enterprise. It's not going to stop.

The Gears are excited for more gameplay. But the humans are mortified!

This conflict is class conflict. And it's quite literally THE POINT OF THE SHOW.

So the response "it's a video game so nothing matters" is like, the exact behavior the show is criticizing. Which is why it's funny and a little frustrating.

The set-up on its own would already make this show praiseworthy, for the creativity it uses to expose the inequalities present in real life.

But the show isn't just good in theory, it's good in praxis.

Our lead Natsume is

okay she's very cute

but also

She's just a fucking fantastic character.

She has shounen protagonist energy. She has the desire to help others, to save the world, to gain a sense of strength and self-confidence. And she's "special" like a shounen protag. Bc of a bug, she's unrecognized by the system

But unlike a lot of male-driven stories, Deca Dence rejects the idea that the entire world will rest on her shoulders. That she will gain the power to rid the world of evil alone.

Natsume is strong, but she's even stronger when she works together with others.

Our secondary lead Kaburagi, Natsume's mentor, I think will be especially relatable to leftists. Because his story is basically one of being radicalized against the system.

Kaburagi's arc is him becoming a communist.

Kaburagi at first doesn't question his position in the system. He's on top of the Deca Dence leaderboards and doesn't think much of his life.

When the system asks him to report bugs for termination, he agrees at least at first.

First he meets Pipe, a buggy Gadoll too cute and harmless to terminate. Kaburagi decides to at least spare him from the system.

Then he meets Natsume, and begins to realize that any system that would hurt her cannot be a just one.

Kaburagi goes through a phase where he thinks he can just hide away from the system, keeping Pipe and Natsume safe and not caring about the rest.

But over time he realizes that this position too is untenable. He realizes that no system that causes humans to suffer needlessly...

...can be justified.

He then reflects on his own actions, and realizes that he is not free from the system either. In fact, no one is free. The system prides itself for "individual decision making", but the system itself is the most authoritarian thing there is.

He rejects the idea that people can rebel on their own. Unless people have the means to truly make their own decisions, the "freedom" to live life comfortably by yourself is, like Deca Dence itself, an illusion.

There's more to it. Like a lot more. Maybe this thread seems spoilery but I promise if you watch this show knowing what you know they'll still be so much to discover.

Among those oppressed by the system (the humans and the Gears), the "reactionaries", those who want to uphold the system, basically always say something along the lines of:

"I'm comfortable the way I am. Isn't this good enough? Why do we need change?"

And just, damn if, as communists, we haven't heard this a million times from liberals or conservatives.

I'll end this thread on this:

I did my Re:Zero Frozen Bonds take not too long ago on how that show fails race politics. And I got a comment on it that still sticks out to me. It went something like:

"While I agree with you, I don't like this essay because you lean too hard in to 'bad thing' discourse. There's no reason to hate Re:Zero so much when stuff like Shield Hero exists and is worse".

And well, I get that.

Sort of.

But stuff like Deca Dence exists?

Re:Zero doesn't understand oppression.

The Misfit of Demon Academy doesn't understand oppression.

Deca Dence understands oppression.

On a personal and masterful level.

And the fact that Deca Dence exists makes me not want to settle or be charitable to shows that don't take the time to say anything worthwhile on issues that are so important to me.