Episode 3

**Steering** is the third episode of the *Deca-Dence* anime series.

### **Plot**

Kaburagi researches Natsume's "death" and discovers that although her heart stopped after the Gadoll attack in which she lost her arm, she was revived, possibly causing her chip to malfunction making her a bug. He takes Natsume hunting Gadoll and they find a small "spoonwormer" where Kaburagi shows her the basics of the Gadoll defense system and ways to counteract it. She finds fighting it to be more difficult than it looks and suffers some minor injuries, but still aspires to be a great Tanker fighter like her hero, Kurenai, and continues training. Kaburagi then modifies her mechanical hand to become a more effective weapon against the Gadoll, able to launch the spear-like "needles" used to kill the beasts. One day, while Kaburagi and Natsume are out training, Deca-dence comes to a grinding halt from subterranean attack by a horde of Gadoll. Pipe falls into the underground cavern and, as the Gears rush out to engage the Gadoll, Kaburagi thinks back to six years earlier when he found the bug Natsume now calls Pipe.

### **Summary**

Natsume isn’t going to let failure after failure or naysaying peers keep her from learning how to “ride the wave” of Gadoll Zones. Kaburagi attaches her to a kite to learn how to fly, and tosses her into the drink to learn how to catch fish with a spear. Both are essential foundational skills for a Gear or fighting Tanker (a group of merely 200, compared to 50,000 Gears). The montages accelerates the pace of Natsume getting knocked down and getting back up again until she gradually gets better and better, and even impresses Kaburagi. You can tell she’s working her bum off, and it’s paying off because she has a good, patient teacher.

Kaburagi even goes over film of Natsume’s training, and notices her crude artificial arm is taking too long adjusting her flying device, which could prove fatal in a real battle against tougher Gadoll. In the middle of film review, he’s contacted by Hugin, who wonders why he hasn’t processed a Bug in 13 days, 7 hours, and 28 minutes. Both Hugin and a corporate presentation of world history, in which cyborgs eventually supplanted humans as the dominant species on Earth, implies that not keeping bugs in check led to the humans’ downfall.

When Kaburagi dives back into his human avatar, Natsume is at his door with an outfit for Pipe so he can run around outside. When Natsume tells Kaburagi that she’s aware her old arm is a problem, he takes her to a weapons shop and outfits her with a new five-fingered model. She’s already over the moon to have fine control in both hands now, but Wait…There’s More: her arm can transform into a spear-gun, which should improve her fighting speed considerably. She’s eager to test it out in the field, but a Gadoll alarm sounds, Deca-dence hits some kind of sinkhole and stops, and the resulting earthquake sends Natsume, Kaburagi, and Pipe flying.

When Pipe falls into one of the cracks in the earth, Kaburagi follows after him, and requests location support from Commander Minato. We quickly flash back to six years ago when he found Pipe in a glob of Gadoll guts. Rather than kill or report the bug, he bought a trailer in Tanker Town and kept it as a pet. Both Pipe and now Natsume are products of his desire—his need—to rebel against Hugin and The System…at least a little. Meanwhile Natsume runs down and through the underground passage until she comes upon an absolutely massive cavern where she can watch the battle between medium-sized Gadoll and Gears unfolding. The scale of the sight is awesome to behold. If only she had her gear, she could join in the battle. Then again, the size of the cavern and possibility it was made suggests that a much, much larger Gadoll may be lurking deeper in the earth.

### **Character**

* Kaburagi
* Natsume
* Muro
* Fei
* Kurenai
* Fennel
* Hugin
* Munin
* Linmei
* Pipe
* Minato

### **Video**

TVアニメ『デカダンス』 第３話「steering」予告Episode 3 Trailer (JP)