Finally caught up with the end of Deca-Dence. It was a pretty aight show. Nothing it did individually was really all that original or interesting, but as a whole it came together into something entertaining and felt mildly fresh. I'm a lot more cool on the show versus other opinions I've read here, and I think a big part of that is just how the show handled its main characters. At the very beginning, it seemed like Natsume was the main character, since the first episode mostly focused in on her POV and fleshing her backstory/personality out. I really liked her as a character, and thought her being the focal point of an anime-original, late night, action show, was pretty daring, intriguing, and noteworthy. But I guess I really should have known better. Because anime gonna anime.
Soon after it became clear that at best, Natsume was going to be a co-main lead along with Kaburagi. Ok, that's a little disappointing, but in general good shows work better when characters have strong relationships and can bounce off of other well developed characters. But then she started looking more like a deuteragonist. By the time Kaburagi was in the poop-prison for several episodes on end, and the perspective of the show didn't shift back to Natsume a single time, it became abundantly clear to me that Natsume really only existed as an accessory to Kaburagi - to provide him motivation for his heroic arc. Which isn't the end of the world or anything, but the misalignment of expectations made it rather disappointing to have to experience.
Otherwise, it was a fun show. It looked great, it obviously had a lot of heart and thought put into it, and it was a fun setting with an immensely likable cast. If it had been a little more upfront about who was the main character, I might have graded it better. But all things considered it's a solid 7.5/10. In a better world, the show would have been double the length, had several episodes dedicated to just better fleshing out the side characters and their society, more slice of life moments, and invested more priority and agency into Natsume versus Kaburagi. But what we ended up getting was still a largely good time.