Summer 2022 First Impressions – Yurei Deco

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Original

Episode Summary: On Tom Sawyer Island, love is a ruling force. Or at least that’s the ideal – as people interact with one-another, the love they share with one-another and/or put out into the world is converted into points, which can then be used to upgrade one’s user experience and enhance one’s “Deco” (both the tool used to virtually interact and the outward-facing appearance one has). Berry and her friends are somewhat less inclined to buy into the utopian message that the authorities are selling; what interests them more are stories related to a mysterious figure known as “Phantom Zero” whose actions cause havoc within the Deco system.

Berry’s Deco has been acting-up, but this turns out to give her an advantage; with her malfunctioning right eye, she can perceive cloaked items – and people. She discovers a piece of odd origami stuck to a pole, and soon after encounters a mysterious person who she assumes to be Phantom Zero. After a lot of running around and a couple of confrontations, this mysterious individual draws Berry into a completely separate, truly virtual(?) world where they’re both soon pursued by formations that have the ability to destroy pieces of their Deco. After being forced onto a rooftop, a floating figure descends into view – the real Phantom Zero.

Impressions: As our society continues to stumble ever further along the timeline, the twisting, turning forward movement of technology and social media has provided a wealth of potential inspiration for storytelling. From Serial Experiments Lain to Dennou Coil to some of the better “trapped in a video game” anime, these stories provide insight into social interactions through the lens of the types of online interactions we currently have access to. Yurei Deco seems to continue in this vein, from its earliest moments presenting some interesting theses on the general trajectory of how the life cycle of technology tends to unfold.

I recently listened to an episode of the podcast “You’re Wrong About” focused on the evolution of how we use email. What was once a very idealized technology that had the potential to facilitate connections and communication in an easy way has since transformed into a way for people to be constantly connected, in some cases almost against their will. It would take a lot of privilege for someone to completely disengage from email as a communication tool, because it’s so ingrained in how many of us work and interact with one-another despite how burdensome it is.

The virtual world of Tom Sawyer Island seems to have undergone a similar life cycle; as Berry and her friends are in class, being indoctrinated into the “official” and incredibly idealized vision of what the Deco system and love points were meant to facilitate, it becomes almost immediately clear that the points are extremely transactional. The pursuit of love points encourages people to behave a certain (likely false, at least at times) way when interacting with one-another, all for the promise of prettier avatars and more complete access to virtual spaces. It’s an obvious form of governmental control which, judging by all the evidence we have at this point, seems to have ingrained itself in the way that social media often does – bit-by-bit, in ways that we barely notice them happening. Chilling.

Living in the world that we do, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about “how in the world did we get to this low point?” The answer is really just that liberties disappear incrementally when we decide to compromise with people who are trying to take them away rather than call them out for who and what they are. Those types of people are well-versed in playing the long game and utilizing deception in order to achieve their goals, and human beings in general are very good at then adjusting to and normalizing bad situations for the sake of our own sanity. But there are always those who are working toward the expansion of freedoms – “phantoms” doing their work through the tools of disobedience and subterfuge. I suspect this story is set to travel that route, and I hope it’s able to go the distance.

Pros: This episode goes all in on its peculiar and charming visual style, with character designs that are pleasantly outside the norm and work well to convey the types of virtual enhancements the characters use. It’s almost unavoidable to compare this series to Kaiba – a series that also uses its character designs to make a point, and which feels like a natural inspiration considering its pedigree. It’s one of the reasons why I appreciate Science SARU as an entity (despite the issues it seems to share with the anime industry in general) even when, like this case, Masaaki Yuasa isn’t directly involved – it seems to be a studio that invites visual creativity in an environment that doesn’t necessarily otherwise encourage it.

I also just like anime that seems to be conveying a political message. Even if the follow-through ends up being incomplete and/or flawed in some way. I think it’s a good reminder that art at its best can be a way of presenting complicated ideas in an entertaining and thoughtful way.

Cons: I enjoyed this episode a lot, but that in itself can sometimes be a problem – my expectations were high ahead of time and they’re even higher now. This is barely a criticism, however; I really just wanted to find something to put here because I think there are always imperfections to be found and yet my positive feelings really overrode any I may have had.

Content Warnings: Some extremely mild body horror. Dissemination of propaganda.

Would I Watch More? – This series was already high on my list prior to the season and nothing has really changed in that regard. I enjoy original stories and creative visuals and this appears to have both. I’m excited to watch more.