Yurei Deco is a candy-colored coming-of-age mystery set in a surveillance state
Love is everywhere in the world of Yurei Deco, the latest anime from celebrated Japanese animation studio Science Saru — or at least that’s what the thought police would have you believe. “Love is approval. Love is value,” an elderly teacher tells an online classroom of animal-like avatars at the beginning of the series. “And so, with love approximated as a score, it serves as a currency required for public services.” In this world, “love” is not so much a feeling as it is a means to reward or punish those who uphold or oppose the authority of the state.
Directed by Tomohisa Shimoyama (Super Shiro) and based on a story conceived by former Science Saru president Masaaki Yuasa (Devilman Crybaby, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!) and screenwriter Dai Sato (Eureka Seven, Cowboy Bebop), Yurei Deco is a sci-fi coming-of-age mystery loosely inspired by Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The series follows Berry, a mischievous but average girl living in the utopian “data metropolis” of Tom Sawyer Island, a “benevolent” surveillance state where reality and cyberspace intersect.
After playing hooky from class, Berry unexpectedly crosses paths with Hack, a talented hacker and habitual prankster who lives between the margins of Tom Sawyer’s society as a “yurei” (aka undocumented citizen). After Hack is captured by the island’s police force and falsely implicated as a nefarious hacker known only as Phantom Zero, Berry teams up with Hack’s fellow yurei Finn to help Hack escape while uncovering the dark truth behind Tom Sawyer’s supposedly “perfect” world.
Dai Sato is no stranger to dystopian premises packed with allegory-laden imagery — see his work on 2006’s Ergo Proxy. What will immediately leap out at any viewer — and
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