Digging Into Yurei Deco - Episode 4

Hello and welcome back to my journey through Yurei Deco! I've really been enjoying my time with the show so far, although that feels like a weird sentiment after its third episode brought up tough topics like corruption in the justice system and the way the ruling class manipulates information to oppress people they don't want visible. But none of that is a mistake—the show is intentionally and remarkably light despite the weight of its subject matter, peppering in big ideas on top of its mystery-adventure premise. 

If I'm being honest, that approach has given me pause a couple times. Is the show actually making deep statements about these ideas, or am I reading more into it than the script is bringing? Is it right to present such deeply troubling topics in the context of a lighthearted action-adventure cartoon? 

The short answer to both of those questions, at least in my opinion, is no. Yurei Deco's first three episodes might be gesturing at some of their ideas broadly, but so far, every single new revelation has only deepened the level and fervor of its societal critique. And having watched the fourth episode, it's clear that the show is only going to dive into more ideas over time, especially with its introductory material out of the way. It's less that the show is digging into specific societal issues with the depth and precision of something like Shiki, and more that it's casting a wide net and building up to a broader statement along the lines of an Utena or Gatchaman Crowds. Very different approaches, but both valid.

As for the tone thing, perhaps that's just a matter of taste, but I don't think the cartoony tone is detracting from the poignancy of its ideas, and it falls into a long lineage of shows and movies packing big political statements in unconventional packages. Not every internet-critical show needs to be Serial Experiments Lain, after all.

So with that preamble out of the way, I'm excited to dive into the fourth episode. Let's get to it!

Episode 4

We start with a big timeskip—Berry is now sharing a room with Hack and begins her narration with "Dear Diary." Not only has time passed, but Berry's started journaling, and the narrative mode has slightly shifted to let her diary entries fill in the audience

Berry and Hack have a strained relationship, mostly due to Hack being a little gremlin who hurls paper airplanes all the time

Berry walks outside, breathes in the morning air, and overlooks the Yurei's town. There's an immediately noticeable difference to the aesthetics. The main city of Tom Sawyer Island is glitzy and colorful due to the omnipresent AR, but the architecture underneath is incredibly plain and boxy. Here, the buildings are more ramshackle, but that gives them a genuine, unaugmented beauty—they're painted vibrantly, and you can see the human care and attention in the details like chipping paint. We even get some natural beauty, panning up to see the plateau with the big yellow windmill statue as Berry smiles in the breeze. There's a tactility to this part of the island that doesn't have to be dolled up by AR

Finn cooks up gapao rice that looks absolutely delicious. This show's loose aesthetic (and Science Saru's style in general) seems like it wouldn't be a good fit for food porn, but the relative extra detail here doesn't clash. 

Also glad to see Finn's ponytail making a return

"Around here, you can't tweak how it looks with your Deco, nor how it tastes with Flavor." Okay, I know this is a dystopia, but the Flavor thing would be revolutionary. Eat healthy while making it taste like the trashiest junk imaginable. I'd down raw Soylent powder every meal while making Hack's "gobble gobble gobble" noises if I could trick my brain into thinking it was Oreos

That's not the point the show's making, of course. Berry remarks that you can "taste the realness" in this meal. Flavor enhancement can't replicate good old home cooking

Berry downs her meal and happily helps with dishes. She's adjusting to her new life on the lam quite easily. She's still calling things Love-y, though—a lingering piece of slang, and perhaps a sign that she hasn't fully given up on the island's Love system yet

Finn, Berry, Hack, Hank, and some others have started a detective club to make ends meet, but are really investigating the Zero Phenomenon, both to get past the coverups and prove Hack and Berry's innocence. They haven't taken a job in four months, though. Seems like a problem, even if I can't disagree with Finn not wanting to do a flash mob

Through the power of Berry's diary entries, we flash back to resolve last episode's cliffhanger. Finn fabricated data to make it look like she and Hack died on the cargo train, and although she lost her personal data and Love when her official record was deleted, Finn hacked her left eye so she can still use her Deco 

Berry seems totally enthusiastic about being a Yurei now. There's a bit of childish immaturity to her—she's not worried about effectively being a second-class citizen, or how she's going to survive, or the fact that everyone she knew thinks she's dead, because she's just curious and excited to be a rebel. Will be interesting to see how she grows up throughout the series

Congratulations! Your BERRY has evolved into HAT BERRY!

Really, her new look makes her look less like a Pokemon and more like a trainer

Mustache Cat and Gas Mask Girl are just hanging around without any introduction. Wonder if they're involved in the detective club or if they just live here

An unkempt person with shiny Deco clothes walks down the street, sticking out like a glowing cartoon thumb that just got whacked with a mallet

The new person, Mitsumame, comes to the detective club saying he's looking for his daughter, but Hack quickly digs up personal information saying he's single and childless. Turns out he's actually lost his avatar, who is a cute anime girl. OKAY I GUESS WE'RE GOING THERE

So on a basic level, I think the show centering an episode on this is pretty great, because this reflects a very real societal good of online games and social media. Queer people, and especially trans people, are able to customize the way they present themselves online in an idealized and affirming way, and the internet often becomes a way to find community if they don't have supportive people or gender-affirming healthcare in their life. Mitsumame losing his avatar really does read like a queer person losing a part of themself

However, the way the show's framing this is a bit odd—we don't get confirmation that Mitsumame is trans, or any discussion of his gender identity for that matter. He also refers to his avatar as his "daughter" and "the only one for me," as if she's a separate person from him. Can't tell if the show is just presuming the way we talk and think about these issues would be different in this future, or if the translation is off, or if the show's actively trying to distance itself from the trans parallel, but there's a part of this that feels like a half measure

The others deny Mitsumame's request because he only has 26 Love, but Berry takes the case due to seeing connections to the Phantom Zero investigation. A little disappointing we don't have a member who's wanting to help him out just because he has a valid request, although Berry's at least non-judgmental about the whole thing

Lots of Timeline talk this episode. A worldbuilding detail that hasn't been fully explained—I think it's just a record of everything that happens on the island, and that anyone can access? Like a changelog, or a blockchain record if you're an asshole 

Excellent backgrounds this episode. The move to a realer, more tactile world is really letting the artists flex

Berry gets Doggo the Robo-Dog. She really is becoming a Pokemon trainer

When Berry activates her cloaking, she rotates her hat to cover up her malfunctioning right eye with fabric. Interesting character design choice. I think she's covering her janky eye so she only sees the accurate Deco data, but it also gestures at the fact that she's partially blinding herself at will to cross between the worlds of the Yurei and of Tom Sawyer Island

Berry runs into her old friends Logi and Harper on the way to the public records office. They're talking about Phantom Zero again. Still caught up in the bread and circuses that Berry's already seen through

Berry is amused to hear them talking about her until they start talking shit. Her place in society is already starting to be forgotten as people rationalize her absence and move on. A depressing reminder that she can't go back to the way things were

Berry's disguise game has improved from "Tall Berry" to "Tall Blonde Berry"

She hunts through public records and finds very little; nothing about Mitsumame's avatar, and no data on Hack, since they're a Yurei. She does find out she's been marked as deceased on official records, and that her parents were the ones who filed that report. The first self-reflective moment we get from her here

Her mom's name is Lamp, which somehow explains a lot about Berry

Beautiful sunset scene as Berry talks to Finn about her current case. Finn hits the character development nail on the head immediately—"Maybe a client treating a lost avatar like a missing child struck a chord with you." 

Finn pooh-poohs the idea of Mitsumame's missing avatar being a big deal in the grand scheme, since everything the Customer Center erases eventually fades from people's memories with time, but Berry doesn't like that argument. "Is it right for everything to be reduced to zero like that?" She's not only anxious about the fact that she herself might be erased, but also implicitly drawing a parallel between Phantom Zero erasing data and the Customer Center erasing the truth around us

Berry says the erasure of knowledge bugs her because she's learned so much since becoming a Yurei—"Some of it bad, some of it scary, and not all of it stuff I needed to know... But the fact nobody ever has a chance of knowing is what bugs me." This reminds me of how people yearn for the Old Internet, the time before Facebook and Twitter and Google's algorithm going to shit, where information was spread between many different websites and wasn't curated and controlled by singular corporations. You'd surf the web and sometimes find genuine insight and human connection, and other times find racism and videos of people dying, but it was all out there and accessible. It wasn't perfect, but in a lot of ways, it was better than what we have now

Berry sneaks back home so she can hack into her parents' work Hyperverse to snoop around. She finds Mitsumame's avatar, which has seemingly been discarded as part of the Customer Center job. So not some direct link to the Zero Phenomenon or the government trying to repress a trans person, just good ol' bureaucratic incompetence

Surprise surprise, her parents log in after hours, just in time for Berry to overhear them grieving over her. A little convenient, but an important character beat for her—she hasn't been thinking of the impact of her choices, and she now has to face up to her parents thinking their daughter is dead

Her folks got permission to check the secret backup data that the Customer Center collects, and they browse it in front of her for more clues about Berry's "death." Berry records it to show to the detective club. Good, functional threading of emotional material and plotty plot stuff

Berry walks away somewhat regretfully but doesn't tell them she's alive. Probably a necessary move, but also a sign of her continued immaturity that she does nothing to dissuade their grief—her Phantom Zero investigation doesn't seem worth the severe emotional trauma her parents must be going through

Mitsumame gets the avatar back and immediately changes from "awkward" to "the perkiest anime girl you've ever seen." Gender euphoria takes all forms

This avatar has bread hair, sugar cube scrunchies, and cherry shoes, which is A Lot in the best way. It really is cute seeing Mitsumame's demeanor change so quickly 

The others are super hyped to hear about the Customer Center's secret Timeline backup, and Berry's says she wants to solve the Zero Phenom mystery so she can get back to the people who still remember her. A nice way of tying it all together 

And then Hack catches a fucked up pigeon with their bare hands. These cliffhangers have taken a weird turn

Post-episode thoughts

Well dang, that may have been my favorite episode yet! Despite it kind of skirting around the subject of whether Mitsumame is transgender, I was beyond happy to see the show engage with people using the Deco customization system for different gender expressions, and all of Berry's plot and character movement this episode was quite effective as well. I'm excited to see the show continuing its thoughts on specific facets of the internet, and a shift to an investigation-of-the-week format would be a good fit to keep that exploration going as the main plot unfolds. This episode was also one of the most visually striking yet, thanks to the gorgeous background work and wonderful lighting. A satisfying episode all in all, and one that makes me particularly interested to see what it's got in store next!