The city of Tom Sawyer is an augmented reality society where citizens buy and sell services and appearance augmentations with Love, a currency akin to likes on social media. The Decos implemented in their eyes from early childhood allows them to enjoy augmented reality and also allow the government to control it. One day, a girl named Berry with a malfunctioning Deco in one eye manages to see a boy invisible to everyone else. Following him, she ends up in a Love-draining event pulled off by the mysterious Phantom Zero. After the government catches the boy believing him to be Phantom Zero and she helps his friends free him, Berry begins to unravel a never-ending spiral of society’s secrets as she is pulled into the fringes of society where people live without Decos and Love.
It takes a minute to get into the series, and that’s probably why it shall remain largely underrated, but I guess that is everyone loss, right? If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Yurei Deco, head on down below.
Anime Like Yurei Deco
For Fans of Augmented Reality
Denno Coil
Yuuko Okonogi and her family move to Daikoku City, the technological center for the new augmented reality technology. There, she joins an investigation agency with other children equipped with powerful virtual tools. She encounters a hacker named Yuuko Amasawa that seeks to unlock the mystery behind a computer virus that has cut off a portion of the virtual world.
Think of Yurei Deco like late game augmented reality and Denno Coil like early game, because that is very much what it is. Denno Coil features characters interacting in an augmented world while a larger mystery is occurring in the city. As both series also have children as the main characters, they also maintain a similarly younger vibe.
Deca-Dence
Driven to the point of extinction by creatures known as the Gadoll, humanity now lives out of a large mobile fortress known as Deca-Dence. Inside, the residents are separated into Gears, warriors that fight the Gadoll, and Tankers who maintain the fortress. Natsume, a Tanker, has dreams of becoming a Gear, but is forced into armor repair where she meets a surly senpai named Kaburagi that has more skills than he lets on.
Like Yurei Deco, in Deca-Dence, there are those that suffer and those that treat life as a game. Some characters have customizable avatars, and they play all day from their perfectly safe virtual space. However, when a girl with a quirk in the system appears, she becomes one of the ones to tear down the whole thing.
Kyousougiga
In ancient Tokyo, there was a priest named Myoue who could bring anything he drew to life. He drew a black rabbit who also fell in love with him. Borrowing a body of a goddess to be with him, they started a family with three children. However, it was decided that the family was causing too many problems, so they fled into the Mirror World full of the priest’s drawn creations. While everything was peaceful in this world where no one dies and no one is born, the parents of the family had to leave. Awaiting their return, the three children are shocked when a girl arrives from another land in the Mirror World sharing the name of their mother and looking for both of their parents.
While Kyousougiga isn’t the same sort of augmented reality like Yurei Deco, it is a story that takes place in two worlds. Alongside being visually unique and interesting, Kyousougiga is also a story that is not easily grasped like Yurei Deco. Both series become clear by the end, but the plot isn’t fed to you right away.
For Fans of Living on the Fringes
No. 6
After a series of bloody wars, humanity retreated into six city-states. However, while everything seemed peaceful and perfect to the elite of these cities, the poor suffered. One day, Shion, a resident of the elite, encountered Nezumi, a fugitive from outside the utopia. After taking him in, Shion and his family were forced from their home and now learn the ugly side of their society.
Both stories start with children who are living in the nice part of their futuristic and clearly dystopian society. However, one day they cross paths with a criminal and member of the fringe. Although it takes a little longer in No. 6, that encounter eventually has them leaving their privileged life behind and teaming up with them.
Shangri-la
After a series of natural disasters, much of Japan has returned to nature. In Tokyo, a project has been created called Atlas. It is to create a utopia, but only has space for so many. The rest will be left to survive in the harsh remaining landscape. Not chosen for Atlas, a group of renegades decide to make the trek to sneak into the city.
Both Yurei Deco and Shangri-la tell a story based in a society that is split. You have the people that live officially and in rather decent luxury, and you have the people unofficial on the fringes who barely scrape by but form a strong community. Both series explore the flaws in the overall system and have female leads that start to tear it down.
Fractale
In the future, the world is managed by the Fractale System. One day, Claine, a boy living with his computer-generated parents, meets a girl named Phryne. She is being chased by someone, and when he rescues her, he ends up pulled into the conspiracy that involves their whole world unraveling.
One day, a person living normally in their futuristic society meets someone mysterious. From there, their entire life is turned upside down, but in a positive way as the system they live under is noticeably flawed. This small event also ends up with them unraveling the whole system.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Scraping by a living in the rough technologically augmented society of Night City, David’s mother managed to send him to a prestigious school in hopes he could become a Corpo and climb the ladder of the business world. However, after his mother dies suddenly in a car accident and due to lack of appropriate care, David embraces a cybernetic implant for power and that decision intersects him with a crew of Edgerunners, a group of mercenaries filled with cybernetic implants that do any job and every job to make a living.
Yurei Deco is a society with its problems, but if you crave a cyberpunk society that delves deeper into the terrible things that technology further integrated into society can spawn, Edgerunners is for you. Both series are visually lovely, though in different ways, and tell a story you want to keep watching.
Knowledge of the Cyberpunk game is not necessary to understand or enjoy Edgerunners since it is a standalone tale.
For Fans of Surreal and Unique Animation
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken
With sketchbook always on hand, Midori Asakusa has a passion for drawing both the world around her and the world in her boundless imagination. In stark contrast, her best friend Sayaka Kanamori and her calculated approach to life keeps her grounded. After a chance encounter with model Tsubame Misuzaki who has a passion for drawing characters, Kanamori, sensing a money-making opportunity, suggests they start an animation club.
While not involved in Yurei Deco, Studio Saru who made Yurei Deco has had a decently long relationship is Masaaki Yuasa, and the art style of Yurei Deco mimics many of his anime. Keep Your Hands of Eizouken is a Studio Saru-made Yuasa series with a more initially understandable world, but the same distinct style of art that you get in Yurei Deco. While it has a passion for oddness on occasion, it does remain more grounded in traditional reality.
The Heike Story
The Taira Clan, also known as the Heike, have developed authority in Japan. When a young girl disrespects a representative of the clan, her father pays the price with his life. Later, this girl, now adopting the name Biwa after the instrument her father played, approaches Taira no Shigemori, the eldest son of the Taira Clan leader. To him, she reveals the power of her eye to see the future and portends the downfall of his clan. He reveals to her the power in his eye to see the wandering ghosts of the dead and, after learning of how her father died, offers to take her in in hopes that she can help him steer his clan away from disaster.
Both series are widely ignored, objectively good Studio Saru anime. While Heike is a serious and historical series, it has some outstanding visuals in that same sort of basic, but detailed art style. It’s essentially a whole series of people looking a lot like Finn and attempting to kill each other and/or not be killed.
Welcome to Irabu’s Office
This is the story of the many patients and their many problems that come to the psychiatric ward of Irabu General Hospital. Here, these patients undergo counseling by the child-like son of the hospital director, Dr. Ichiro Irabu and his sullen but sexy nurse Mayumi. While his treatments are unique and his advice seems insane, he gets results.
Bright and colorful. Weird and wonderful. Often unclear in overall plot. Those are statements you could say about Yurei Deco as well as Welcome to Irabu’s Office. Sometimes the strangest little stories start and end up in interesting places.
Mawaru Penguindrum
The Takakura family has always been dealt equal hands of joy and sorrow by fate. For the twin brothers Kanba and Shouma, they have had more than their share of sorrow with their parents dead and their sister critically ill. When their sister Himari is given temporary leave from the hospital, they take her to the aquarium where she collapses. However, Himari is inexplicably revived when a penguin hat from the souvenir shop is put on her head. Her revival comes at a cost, though. There is a new entity in her body that tasks the boys with finding the mysterious penguin drum.
Even as a seasoned anime recommendation giver, it was often difficult to grasp the actual plot of Yurei Deco until the end. If you enjoyed the constantly shifting plot focus and unexpected turns of Yurei Deco with colorful and surreal animation, that is Mawaru Penguindrum. They are both series that, if you were so inclined, you could spend a good while thinking about.
Kill la Kill
Ryuuko Matoi is on the hunt for her father’s killer, and her only lead is the missing half of his invention, the Scissor Blade. On her quest, she arrives at the prestigious Honnouji Academy, a school that is ruled over by the super powerful Satsuki Kiryuuin and her Elite Four. Believing Satsuki knows who killed her father, Ryuuko challenges one of the elite, but gets beaten due to their special uniforms. After receiving a special uniform of her own, Ryuuko sets plans into motion to dominate the school and find out what happened to her father.
Both Kill la Kill and Yurei Deco lean more towards a fluid and flexible art style that some fans would call more “cartoonish.” The characters occasionally make expressions that look like they are more made of fluid than flesh, but this allows for a ton of exaggerated action and more creative freedom with the show.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Yurei Deco? Let fans know in the comments section below.
