Style over substance is a phrase I’d never use to describe Yurei Deco. That’s not because I think it does or does not have either style or substance, but because it manages to have both, yet doesn’t know how to utilize them to their fullest capacity. It has all the tools to invent itself as a visually marvelous show with a creative critique on modern society. Given the artstyle, use of visuals, and worldbuilding, was Yurei Deco able to deliver on my expectations or did I set the bar too high?
Yurei Deco presents the viewer with a dystopian future that mirrors our current reality. That of which the sum of someone’s self and material worth is determined by the amount of “likes” or rather “love” they have. Love is used as a currency and without it, don’t expect life to be a cakewalk. The story follows a young girl named Berry who has the ability to see happenings and glitches that the normal population cannot due to their augmented reality visors/decos. It’s this ability that leads Berry down a rabbithole in uncovering the truth behind how the world got this way and what she can do to fix it, along with the help of some of the friends she makes along the way.
Without squandering your own viewing experience, the reason I kept tuning into this show week after week was for three reasons: the theme, hack, and the world building. More on the latter two later. For now, I want to focus on the messages the show presents throughout. Though an anime critiquing social media, fad culture, and an all seeing “Orwellian” government is nothing too out of the ordinary. I believe the way it’s handled in this show, along with the juxtaposition to its bright, neon, gradient fabricated visuals set atop a gloomy setting with pueblo-like architecture, is quite innovative. Though I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a show tailored towards a younger demographic, I do think the way the show tackles the various philosophies the way it does sets it apart from other series that deal with similar subject matter that have the leniency of being a show geared towards an older demographic and therefore being able to get its message across more bluntly. So seeing how this show managed to make the topic of dealing with reality head on without making it seem as grim and bleak as possible, was clever and fun to watch unfold.
However, in the last act of the show, the show drops the ball on the message in a way that retcons the “anti-all powerful government” message the show was obviously going for since the beginning by just transferring that same amount of “god” power to someone else who we’re supposed to believe is supposed to do the right thing. Now either this show changed its mind on its message at the very last second, or this show is the greatest subversive metacommentary masterpiece on how power is transferred in a government behind the curtains and how we just blindly accept it as the truth or as the right thing. Regardless, I’m likely giving it more thought than the writers were.
A less faulty aspect of this show were the visuals. As I mentioned earlier, we see these projections of a fabricated reality that’s appeal determined by the amount of “love” someone has. Despite this, the viewer can still see the reality faintly hidden behind the projections and I think this a good example of how the bright and gradient effect of heavy colors add to the show’s theme. Even with that aside, I found the visuals on their own pleasing. I’d hesitate in saying that it looks like a western cartoon, but it is visually distinct from its contemporaries. So much so that it was the visual style that initially grabbed my attention. An often overlooked aspect when discussing the visuals, are the 3D backgrounds that are heavily used in the hyperverse. In fact, just about every scene that takes place in the hyperverse takes full advantage of the show’s eccentric artstyle. From CG books, to the way the color palette is used, I always found these scenes to be a place where the show’s visuals truly lend themselves.
The last bit worth touching on is a component that excels and falls in a similar way to the show’s story/message/theme. What I’m referring to are the characters themselves. The interactions and banter between Berry and Hack was another aspect of this show that kept me coming back. I found their conversations and the situations they’d find themselves in to be fun and engaging. Their dialogue was usually silly, juvenile, and full of miscommunication, but that was the beauty of it. I suppose it felt natural and slightly more developed than that of the rest of the cast’s relationship with one another. That’s not to say the other characters are all terribly written, but I felt that the cast was too big for its own good. Despite their creative and cute designs, they don’t nearly get the same amount of development that the two main characters (plus their mentor, Finn) receive. In fact, I think the show would’ve greatly benefitted had it just followed Berry, Hack, and Finn to even better develop them and their relationships with each other so that the audience could grow more fond of them. Because I’m sure I speak for most when I say that none of the other characters felt necessary to the story, like at all, which only helps Finn’s “antifamily” argument in episode eight. Regardless, for the most part the characters felt very flat and underdeveloped. Had the show cut down on the cast, it would have benefitted from having a smaller, yet better cast the audience could actually empathize with. Interestingly enough, I found the Watson and Nue episodes to be my favorites despite them being heavily focused on side characters and being their own self-contained stories. But this is due to them showing off what the show does best, which is using its creative world building to critique ideals that are embedded in our world, rather than the way the characters are written.
Style over substance is a phrase I’d never use to describe Yurei Deco. That’s not because I think it does or does not have either style or substance, but because it manages to have both, yet doesn’t know how to utilize them to their fullest capacity. Given the artstyle, use of visuals, and worldbuilding, was Yurei Deco able to deliver on my expectations or did I set the bar too high? Though I enjoyed my time with this series, I felt that by the time we reached the halfway point, the show had narrowed the scope of its story, message, and character developments and in part so did I with my expectations. It doesn’t help that by the end of the series, the status quo is mostly left the same and the way it deals with the “antagonist” is almost comical. Though certain episodes reminded me that this show did have the ability necessary to do something truly groundbreaking, it largely restrains itself from unleashing its full creative capacity save for a few episodes and moments littered throughout. So sadly, I’d say I set the bar too high, though I’d also say it was still one of the better shows this season.
