Reviews

Jan 7, 2019
If you come to this show expecting a sequel, or at least a spiritual successor to Tiger & Bunny, return whence you came. The overly smug narrator and the direction will try to convince you otherwise, but this is not the show that you were looking for.

My main gripes with Double Decker are threefold:
- The genre shift
- The needlessly complicated sci-fi elements
- And the fact that everything has to be a plottwist

The first point is pretty self-explanatory. If you go into the sequel of a samurai show after it has been advertised as the new samurai show, but for some reason they changed the setting to a modern day highschool drama where only one character is a major samurai fanboy, you'd be disappointed too. Now the genre switch from superhero to supernatural detectives isn't too big. Especially when they kept some key similarities. Both shows are set in an ambiguously America-inspired world. The heroes in Tiger & Bunny work for agencies with strict rules, almost like a police department. Both shows feature a fujoshi-baiting buddy cop duo as the main characters with a quirky support cast on the side. And they also fight criminals who abuse superpowers in a rigid Monster of the Week format. Wow, it's almost like they're not so different after all, huh?
But that's exactly the problem. The fact that they changed the concept from superheroes to regular cops, but still had to incorporate the supernatural aspects, forces them to waste a lot of time on introducing stupid gadgets and technology that only serves the purpose of Monsters of the Week or Deus Ex Machinas, rather than intriguing you by exploring how this technology would change society. Most of the time they don't even explain the technology - in fact one of the main plotpoints is that nobody knows how anything really works. At that point it might just be magic or regular superpowers. So if they had just set the story in the same world as Tiger & Bunny where the audience accepts that some people have superpowers, it would've worked much better, even if the plot only focusses on regular cops (as opposed to superheroes).
Some of the supernatural contrivances are extremely stupid. And just like with their audience's expectations, Double Decker is VERY aware of that. The most obvious indicator for that is the obnoxious narrator who constantly lampshades how stupid or convenient some of the events are, as if that made them okay somehow. But some events don't need a narrator to rub the show's overbearing attitude in your face that "you totally thought we'd play out this old stereotypical plot for the entire 20 minutes, but lol psyche we tricked you". A twist at the end of a story arc, isn't bad at all. But Double Decker throws around twists at any moment of any episode for minor and major things alike. There's a limit on how often you can do this before turning into a parody, and unfortunately Double Decker crosses that line and just keeps driving while pretending to be serious.

If this doesn't discourage you from wasting your time on a show that's just milking your leftover goodwill from a better show, at least let me warn you that the plottwist which kicks off the final arc is David Cage levels of stupid. And I'm not talking Detroit era Cage. I mean Indigo Prophecy era Cage.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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