Yuurei Deco

In the cyber city Tom Sawyer, society revolves around earning "Love," akin to receiving likes on social media. Citizens of this augmented reality exchange Love for public services and appearance-changing avatars via the Decoration Customizer, also known as "Deco," a hologram device implanted in an individual's eyes from early childhood. Under the government's careful management, the people of Tom Sawyer live a peaceful existence, outside the occasional appearance of Phantom Zero, a mysterious criminal who brings all Love to zero within their vicinity.

Berry, a mischievous girl fascinated by Phantom Zero, lives comfortably in the system of Tom Sawyer until her Deco malfunctions, enabling her to see a camouflaged prankster named Hack. Believing Hack to be Phantom Zero, Berry chases after the suspect and, in the process, begins to uncover society's most well-kept secrets. As it turns out, Hack is not the only person living outside the system's rules—and the vibrant colors of Tom Sawyer hide a darker nature.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hack Main

Nagase, Anna Japanese

Finn Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Berry Main

Kawakatsu, Mira Japanese

Hank Main

Satou, Setsuji Japanese

Smiley Main

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Madam 44 Main

Sadaoka, Sayuri Japanese

Phantom Zero Supporting

Gankai Supporting

Mitsumame Supporting

Analytica Supporting

Cao, Cong Producer

Kim, Lili Producer

Sakita, Kouhei Producer

Tomita, Shizuka Assistant Producer

Reviews

Sep 19, 2022

KaiKEKz

Recommended

It's kinda sad to see Yurei Deco kinda underrated, because it's pretty impressive, atleast for me personaly.

Despite how it cartoony looks, the overall art of it still looks so dang good, the soundtracks dope, and most importantly the messages that author want to deliver actually pretty deep.

The story kinda reminds me about how evil Facebook Community Standard is.
The Show itself trying to show what really happen in this current digital era where Illusory Truth Effect, Privacy Violations, and, States Censorship made us live in a bubble, and made us forget how reality looks like.

This series really deserves more audiences.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 18, 2022

Mcsuper

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

If I were to describe this series, I’d describe it as a mixture of Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One”, and George Orwell’s “1984”, but in a very kid-friendly sense. It tackles themes of a futuristic world of augmented reality and information control, and in a sense, it almost has me fearing if this kind of world is what we’ll see in the future.

In a nutshell, Yurei Deco is set in a world filled with advanced technology where people see the world through “Deco”, which is a compulsory piece of equipment for citizens that allows them to see things in augmented reality. The other function of ... Deco is for the Customer Center, which is basically the government, to keep tabs on all its citizens. If you don’t have a Deco, you’re considered to be “dead” or “nonexistent”, or a Yurei, as this show describes the phenomenon as. The main character, Berry, has a broken Deco, so she can see some things that the citizens can’t see, such as the Yurei. Through this, Berry’s mundane life expands, and a sci-fi adventure of mystery and exploration begins.

My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20

STORY: 13.5/25

The story is interesting, and relatable to a degree, because there are quite a few parallels to modern society, such as the “love” system, which resembles social media likes and also seems like some type of currency or social status. It also has me thinking if the future could be like this, with higher-ups choosing what we see and don’t see. Heck, that might be happening already, who knows? Overall, it’s quite simple, as most of the series is focused on solving mysteries, and also, trying to figure out who “Phantom Zero” is along with the “Zero Phenomenon”, which reduces the love of every person and object down to zero.

The issue I have with the story is that it’s rather underdeveloped. The love system and the world itself are a bit under-explained, and I think that took away from the intrigue I had at the start of the show. With the simplicity of the premise, it wasn’t very engaging all the way through, but it definitely had its good moments.

ART: 7.4/10

I find the colour palette to be quite nice and refreshing, but the character designs left a bit to be desired. It has the Science Saru touch to it, and you can almost feel that Masaaki Yuasa was directing this, but it seemed a bit watered down and less jarring compared to his works.

MUSIC: 8/10

The OST isn’t too noticeable, but there are some good spots of music here and there. Opening and ending are solid, and I enjoyed them as well.

CHARACTERS: 12.6/20

The characters are pretty nice as well, and fun to watch. They each have their unique personalities, and in some cases, some emotional backstories as well. Berry and Hack bounce off each other pretty well, since they’re both curious, mischievous, and want to have fun. They even have unique ways of speech, which was pretty memorable. Finn was a good character too, with a good backstory, and I like the quietness of his character. Not much to really talk about here, since the characters are pretty simplistic.

ENJOYMENT: 10.2/15

Not every part of the show was the most engaging, but I found some episodes to be quite the watch.

THEMATIC EXECUTION: 12.8/20

I like what the show was going for, but some times, the themes just weren’t executed the greatest. I saw a lack of direction in the story themes sometimes, but this show executes the fun factor, and some of the tech factors decently.

OVERALL: 64.5/100

This show was good, but it could have been much better with a bit more depth and a better direction to the story. Overall, just a simple, fun show that won’t have you at the edge of your seat or anything, but will have you intrigued at times.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 18, 2022

AnimeEnjoyer420

Not Recommended

Recommendation: Skip it.

Yurei Deco is the kind of anime that cultivates an image of being intelligent social commentary, but ultimately is only interested in the trappings of that and has nothing interesting to say. The first thing you'd think upon being introduced to this series is that it's some sort of satire of the metaverse or social media, but this is instead simply a setting for a generic adventure story. It would have been better even with some ham-handed "social media is like a drug, man" Adbusters bullshit, but doesn't even attempt that. The closest thing there is to social commentary is the Orwellian "Customer ... Care Center" censoring inconvenient and harmful information, but the show doesn't even try to engage with the few questions it raises about this and whether or not it's justified. They're never really thematically relevant, just a villain to put our heroes, the Yurei Detective Club, on the run. Likewise, the series extensively references Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but to no apparent end. It's not a retelling of the story in any way and the references appear to be random and pointless. It gestures at a few interesting ideas but has no intention of following through on any of them.

The lack of any message or point to any of this could be forgiven if Berry and Hack's adventures to discover who is behind Phantom Zero were fun and interesting, but this is actually where it falls the shortest. Phantom Zero is not a compelling villain, she mainly just appears and makes everyone's Love (a kind of internet currency) disappear. Most of the series is just aimless, low stakes "mystery of the week" investigations that are even less interesting than Phantom Zero, until they randomly stumble upon the answers to everything while looking for a ramen stand (not joking) during one of them. The reveal of Zero's identity is underwhelming to say the least after being built up as the central mystery of the series. When it's over, all I could think was "what was the point of all this?" Nothing was different, everyone went back to their lives, and the characters didn't even grow.

The characters are consistently a weak point of the series, rarely rising above cardboard cutout status, and tossing out catchphrases like "Love-y!" and "I Love Ai" in lieu of real personalities. They feel artificial and pointlessly quirky. The needless quirkiness extends to the character designs, which are certainly very unique, but not in a good way. To be blunt about it, they look terrible, and the animation is poor overall, which takes the air out of the very few action scenes that threaten to make this adventure entertaining. The result is an overall visual style that's something like neon VFX vomit over misshapen Blue Reflection Ray characters. Whatever Science SARU was going for here, they missed badly.

If I'm looking for positive things to say about it, I'd say the music is pretty good and the OP is very catchy, and there are a handful of individually compelling scenes, like the scene where Berry contemplates deleting her personal data to get her parents released from custody. But these are few and far between, and a few decent points doesn't add enough to this series to even bring it up to average. Overall, it's a forgettable and disappointing sci fi "adventure" with an uninteresting destination and no reason to exist beyond being a failed experiment in developing a unique visual identity.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	This screams hidden gem of the season ( 1 2 ) APolygons2 - Jun 6, 2022	68 replies	by Marinate1016 »» Sep 27, 2023 12:17 PM
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