So, this starts off beautifully, a really touching anime that looks at and examines the father-daughter bond, or more-so the step-father/daughter, bond. Usually anime loves to overdo the "we must force love stories onto the main characters at all costs", here we have a familial tie, and a unique one at that, with it being a step-father and daughter. You just don't see that touched on a lot in anime, and when you do the step-parent is some evil monster that hates the child, and their biological parent can't see it! I really enjoyed this aspect of the anime. I loved seeing their relationship build to the point that they genuinely cared for one another. If the anime were to continue on this route, with the emphasis on these two characters and their relationship, I would have rated it at least an 8. You can see that they aren't perfect either, this isn't some shiny, bubbly, everyone is perfect style of characters, they do have their flaws which makes them even more likeable. Even the side characters come across as more human than the usual absurdity you can get in anime's with characters maniacally laughing out loud as everyone just stares at them.

BUT. The genre changes around the 4th/5th episode, and it becomes a very typical run of the mill action anime. I also hated this whole idea that the robots became the focus of Deca-Dence, and I personally found it very jarring to go from a very complex, touching, sensitive anime. To one that was basically 'the whole world is lying to you, and there's a villain who's holding us back, now we've gotta fight lots and ignore any sorts of below the surface emotions'. Ignoring all the inconsistencies in legitimate human logic/emotion, when they all basically find out that their lives are a lie. The potential they had for this anime in the first 2/3 eps, and the fantastic start it had was something I wish they expanded on. Instead we got just another post-apocalyptic action anime.

The audio and visual of Deca-Dence is decent, although in 2021 are the visuals something that we should be praising so much? Almost all top anime's and even slightly lower budget ones have done great jobs in their presentation. I'd say that there are quite a few anime riding on the back of exactly that, (looking at you Demon Slayer). The characters and story should always be the main focuses in my own opinion. You could compare this to movies that lack logic, sustenance, and good characters, but are rated highly because of their cinemaphotography (1917). Even with music, if the video is shot really well and entertaining, should that have a huge impact on the quality of the song? I am writing this last sentence just to hit the 2200 characters, ty.