Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (ONA)

When you look up at the sky, what do you see? A blue sky? Freedom? A hopeful future? The people of Tokyo see none of these. Instead, an ominous alien mothership looms overhead, engulfing the city skyscape.

Three years ago, they came. The arrival of the "Invaders" sparked the greatest war humanity had ever faced—one that threatened to end the world. The Japanese government scrambled to fight the Invaders. Weapons were mass-produced, sparking controversy and pacifist movements.

That day, everything changed. And yet, nothing has changed. Kadode Koyama and Ouran Nakagawa live their final days like they always have: going to school, playing with friends, and doing what any carefree high school girl would do.

As they grow up, they come to learn what it truly means to be an adult, in a world where adults seem to be demons who only deceive and destroy. They come to learn the real threat to humanity is not the Invaders, but humanity itself.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nakagawa, Ouran Main

ano Japanese

Koyama, Kadode Main

Ikuta, Lilas Japanese

Ooba, Keita Main

Irino, Miyu Japanese

Nakagawa, Hiroshi Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Isobeyan Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Tainuma, Makoto Supporting

Shiraishi, Ryouko Japanese

Watarase, Naoki Supporting

Ban, Taito Japanese

Kurihara, Kiho Supporting

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Hirama, Rin Supporting

Ooki, Saeko Japanese

Demoto, Ai Supporting

Shimabukuro, Miyuri Japanese

Beniya, Yoshikazu Producer

Keyamura, Shinya Producer

Honda, Fuminori Producer

Arai, Shuuhei Producer, Planning

Reviews

Sep 19, 2024

CaptainKenshiro

Recommended

Disclaimer: This might contain some spoilers

Dededede is a stand out title as far as anime goes, as there aren’t that many about alien invasions and the ones you can find are nothing like it. The closest thing to it that I can think of is Figure 17, as it also combines slice of life with sci-fi, and yet it’s very different to this series.

Of course, if you step out of the medium, the show is no longer original really, Arrival, Contact, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien Nation, District 9, and more, are there to be compared to it, but for an anime, ... it’s a rather fresh premise.

It also stands out as a work from Inio Asano. His usual post-Solanin cynical and critical worldview is there but Dededede doesn’t suffer from the same issues as most of his other titles.

It has violent content but doesn’t overdo it with the edge to the point of becoming torture porn and it is dramatic but the characters don’t cry about their problems all the time, which are common complaints about Punpun.

Said characters share the same worldview as their author but are not know it all psychos that yell their lungs out to the whole world as in Hikari no Machi.

It has questionable romantic content but doesn’t include weird fetishes, as I came to know about Girl on the Shore.

The non-mundane elements are properly introduced and anticipated, unlike in Subarashii Sekai, and although it has timeskips, its narrative is nowhere near as non-linear and convoluted as it was in Nijigahara Holograph.

Unfortunately, it also lacks the psychological aspect of some of his previous works. There is some exploration of how messed up a lonely girl neglected by her parents and bullied by most of her class can become, alright, but the series still can’t be labeled within the genre. As most things are spelled out, the show doesn’t have the same introspection and inner monologues that were the most praised thing about Punpun and the best aspect in Solanin.

Despite that, it is not as if the characters are unexplored. Dededede is half a slice of life show and thus it follows its cast more than enough to flesh them out properly. The series does a good job in showing a kind of numerous cast, their interests, their families, their romances, the connection between all of them, and also for once it shows high school girls and builds a friendship with teen quirks without moe aspects nor yuri bait (not that much at least).

Is their actual teen behaviour and personalities that makes them stand out and be memorable. And yet, they have their own quirks, Kadode having childish crushes and yet being a bit pervy, also being a fan of the kind of dark parody of Doraemon that exists within this manga, which in turn is partially responsible of her dark past, and there is also some substance due to her complicated family situation.

Ontan presents herself as silly and childish saying nonsense all around all the time yet also has a dark past, and even two personalities or consciences of sorts, and it is clear that despite all her goofiness, she does care about the serious situation at hand, and that her weird behaviour is just a façade to avoid facing the big issue and her responsibilities.

The secondary cast is fine as well but not as looked into or as interesting as far as characterization goes. Rin is into yaoi but that’s it, the teacher is just sad because of a break up and is possibly pedophilic, Hiroshi is a good and interesting guy that cares for his sister and Kadode but remains in the background, Makoto stands out mostly for cross-dressing, Kiho works just as a plot device, Ai has a lot of stuff to deal with but is only looked into for one episode.

The most interesting characters besides the main ones end up being the supporting cast that, even though they don’t have the most elaborate characterization, are the ones that actually move the plot forward and are the plot devices to explore the themes and different perspectives. Thus you have Kohiruimaki (fuck his name btw) and Futaba being the exact opposite positions regarding the aliens.

He is paranoid about them, plus also depressed, and only feeds himself with information that confirms his bias, and becomes an alien hunter of sorts, especially after losing someone dear to him. She on the other hand, wanting to know the truth before judging, and after a somewhat shocking experience, becomes an activist in favor of coexistence and communication with the aliens, for they are beings equal to humans and thus deserve human rights.

And there’s also Hikari Sumaru, PR of a certain company developing technology for the government and military to fight off the aliens, and the freelance journalist Miura, that tries to expose the whole thing.

Oh, and how could I forget Keita, an actual alien that tries to befriend humans, sees the good in them, and tries to prevent the escalation of the whole thing.

The thing is that all of that happens mostly in the background, leaving the viewer watching the main girls doing silly stuff on the school. Thus the plot, although is not slow nor is left as an afterthought, might feel boring and undeveloped for a while for some, even more so if they are not fans of slice of life stories.

The people responsible for the anime must have thought something like that too, seeing how they sped up the pacing by cutting off content from the manga, and rearranged events and scenes to come earlier and in different order so they could have more exciting things happening on the background or as flashbacks.

Perfect examples of this are half the flashbacks of the protagonists shown earlier, differently, and in just one episode, when they amount to at least two volumes of the manga, and the infamous episode 0.

I don’t know how it was received in Japan, but at least the opinion online about it on anime databases and sites wasn’t very good, as it shows stuff from some of the last chapters from the manga, in a media res flash forward way in order to make it seem that more exciting things are coming, and possibly ruining the element of surprise for some I guess.

Plus the episode itself wasn’t that good, it had too much action without a proper introduction of the characters first, and the information provided made it to be full of exposition, thus coming off as boring for some.

And the thing is that there wasn’t really a good reason to do this, the world building from the beginning of the manga is good, the plot is still happening in the background, the final showdown is built upon throughout the whole series, so why did they feel like they needed to anticipate stuff is beyond my comprehension.

And it is not as if there wasn’t any reason for the slice of life portion to have more focus than the alien invasion, as it is part of the themes. Here you have these girls unaware of the crisis or refusing to acknowledge it and playing dumb to keep living a normal, simple and more or less happy life for the little time it has left.

There are also background characters that, whenever new information about the aliens or human victims come out, they keep looking elsewhere, acting as if nothing happened, or choosing to ignore the situation through consumerism, of a dark Doraemon parody, gacha games, or pop idol bands.

There are even people living on contaminated places faking being sick so the government gives them a pension, heck even places where tragedies happened are used as tourist attractions so the whole slice of life part is actually a social critique from the author.

The pop idol bands in turn get into scandals, used to get the full attention of coverage of the news and thus distract the public from the scandals and actions of the technological companies and the government, so it is criticizing the mass media as well.

As it is also a criticism on both the Japanese government and self-defense forces, and later on the super powers, the United States, China, partially France on the source material but the anime changed that for some reason.

So here you have the alien situation going on, and the government pass them as dangerous enemies even though they are not exactly hostile, there is a lot of discussion between the different parties regarding what to do, not really that much about the aliens themselves, but with other countries instead.

Meanwhile the government builds up this image of a public enemy, and exploits their technology and uses it as a source of energy, while taxes the people to build a huge spaceship reserved only for the elite, with the Prime Minister being just a scapegoat for the politicians that actually move the strings.

And as for the United States, they interfere in other countries’ problems, through militaristic intervention of course, and they make things worse in the long run and even elevate the whole thing to a war. Does that remind you of something?

I don’t know if the Primer Minister is a satire of Abe, but on the other hand President Padron is very clearly a satire of Trump on the manga but the anime changed his hair colour so it is not as obvious, and he is even more of a puppet than the Japanese.

Whether if this vision is accurate or not is up to discussion and debate, and exceeds the objective and purpose of this review, but for the political criticism that the author was going for, it was well presented in-story, even more if you happen to dislike the international politics of the States and how they constantly meddle with other countries.

And since the self-defense forces kill the non-hostile aliens, even the children, and people celebrate the killings, all the while the lives of people get ruined because of the battles, and even one soldier gets traumatized by the whole thing, you can even count the show as a critique on militarism. And since this character has a change of perspective here, he is better than the one dimensional bad guys from District 9.

And of course, as it is always the case for stories with this premise, you can see is a metaphor for discrimination against immigrants, and in this particular series, since the aliens claim to be the original habitants of the planet, as occupation and ethnic cleansing, and I am sure that will remind you of things that actually has happened and are happening right now.

Another thing about this show is that it is one of those “humans are the real monsters/bad guys” of the story, which is a fine premise but a bit overdone these days in my opinion. Thankfully this series showed that the aliens WERE actually planning an invasion, slave the humans, and they even form a suicidal resistance, so the conflict isn’t one sided with clear victimized and demonized sides of it as it happens a lot of the times.

It seemed that the author was going to ruin all of his good stuff with the inclusion with an ever problematic plot device that is time travel/different timelines/parallel worlds, in a Madoka Magica like fashion, but for a while it was underplayed and used just for fleshing out the cast through flashbacks, and even presented the possibility of the whole conflict being the result of one of the main characters escaping reality, so it seemed like it was going to be good.

And as you can always expect from Asano from a point, what followed was what was anticipated throughout the whole story, shit gets real and a lot of characters start dying one after another and everything goes to shit, in a horrifying sequence that will likely remind you of Barefoot Gen, Akira, Godzilla, or even Watchmen, or any other nuclear explosion allegory you can think of.

That was the highlight of the story as far as I am concerned, and I really wanted to see what the author was going to do with it, and what I got was one of the most disappointing finales I have seen recently. Turns out he goes for a coward’s easy way out of the conflict, and it is not even one of the main characters that “finishes” the story, it was a secondary character with barely any focus throughout the whole show that did it.

Thus the story and the themes you followed for the whole show don’t get a real conclusion, the characters have a catharsis but it feels shallow, hollow, even unreal, and one you don’t care about, the supporting cast gets forgotten with no resolution whatsoever as if they were never there, despite being the ones actually moving the plot the whole time, and you are left wondering what the point of the last mini arc and time skip even was. So yeah, it was truly really undoubtedly bad.

Visually, the series goes for character designs that strike as childish and reminiscent of the ‘60s and ‘70s, as you would expect from a show that partially parodies Doraemon, but because of so-so animation, and inconsistent character models, they didn’t translate that well to the adaptation, and even took a bit of seriousness from it.

The actual animation isn’t that good either to be honest. The artwork, backgrounds and special effects for everything that isn’t smoke, which is always done with CGI these days for whatever reason, are otherwise very good.

So yeah the visuals are overall very good, it’s just that could have been better, and are not as good as the ones from the manga, which to be fair was kind of impossible, as the manga is one of the best looking I have seen in my life.

What was a neat detail, however, was showing the backdrop of the main characters with a 4:3 resolution, to differentiate it from the current events, simple but very effective trick.

As for the sound, the effects are very good and immersive, the voice acting is kind of atypical for anime, very fitting for the show, but it lacks impact somewhat, and the music is pretty good. The opening and endings don’t sound like much, but they reflect the innocence or fake ignorance of the main characters well, especially with those lyrics.

Oh, and other aspects that could be said about the anime that were kind of an issue were the poor marketing it had, since it is an alternative version of the movies, with actual footage that isn’t in them, and Crunchyroll messed up the subtitles as they infamously tend to do with the liberties they take and how they did not translate any text on screen, for at least 7 episodes. I don’t think these things are that much of an issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning them for some people.

As a whole, I thought of Dededede as a great critique on society, militarism, politics, mass media, consumerism and war, and a very interesting slice of life series and mix of two very different genres. I was going to rate the manga with an 8 out of 10, and since the anime is a bit more messy with its pacing and explanations than the source material, I was going to give it a 7 out of 10, but because of the really bad ending that renders practically every important aspect basically pointless, I had to go with the latter for each one. Meaning, I consider both versions to be worth consuming for at least one time, but not as good as they could have been if the author didn’t chicken out at the end.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by CaptainKenshiro (112)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Sep 4, 2024

remeemes

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (14/17 eps)

Main takeaway: If you are planning on watching ddddd, I want to recommend to wait until all the episodes are out and then watch them in a timely fashion. The show is slow and it is easy to miss details.

I previously wrote a review saying that the show was essentially too slow and confusing. However, something about my review bothered me, even if no one has seen it. I felt as though the story was better than I had originally thought, but I was not sure whether I wanted to put in the effort to resolve this nagging suspicion. So I went back and ... rewatched some of it upon finally catching up with episode 14 as of today. I have since deleted that review and instead decided to create an advisory message for all potential new viewers. Though I still think that the story develops really slowly and I would not recommend it to the average viewer for this reason, I think that is enjoyable for a different reason.

If you have not already been exposed to the story through the novel (like me), then your viewing experience may be confusing and leave you wondering "where is this going?" Upon rewatching, I noticed I was enjoying the small details and hints scattered throughout the establishing episodes. As I am no longer splitting my focus between deciding whether I should keep waiting for something exciting to happen, I am now appreciating the characters and the jokes more. The thing about ddddd is that it takes a little more effort to appreciate. I like to watch shows when I come back from work or to take a break from college work, so I started this show hoping to be able to turn off my brain and get excited. This is not the case for ddddd. This is also a reason why I think it might not work for the average viewer.

In the expert analysis of someone who has never taking a storyboarding class, a show that is exciting from the get-go tends to have a hook. The story plays off and explores this hook with all the tools in the story-telling toolkit (humor, twists, unique characters, difficult decisions, etc.), which makes it interesting. However, ddddd is not a show that is exciting from the get-go. At first it seems like the alien ship is the hook, but it's just the source of different storylines that later come together. More characters are introduced, setting the stage for them to collide, but this too is not very exciting. It reminds me of Odd Taxi, but instead of things coming together around episode 4, ddddd starts doing this around episode 14...with just 4 more episodes to go. As of now, I cannot say whether I recommend watching the show or not, I will likely post a review when it completes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by remeemes (8)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Sep 6, 2024

SpaceBeebop

Not Recommended

Preliminary (15/17 eps)

Spoiler

The negative points are too many.

Starting an anime from the future and then showing you the past kills the plot. Well, when the father comes out at the beginning, what happens seems to be very intriguing and interesting. but he is immediately removed, remaining in the background so as not to appear again, perhaps almost until the end of the anime he can appear.

The animation and how well constructed it is is impressive with the design of the characters. but these characters are too flat and boring, the only thing they have is that they are fucking crazy and demented.

They only show you their ... daily life with a lot of science fiction without explanation, using only devices and that's it.

The way he develops everything seems absurd to me. the anime has no real tension, giving plot twists like that ruins it.

although then there are many absurd and poorly constructed scenarios with supposed tension and action.
There comes a point where everything becomes so overwhelming.

I put a little of this and a little of that because yes, then I change this, I put that again I take it out I put more of that and more and more.

Well, the anime is very beautiful but so much fantasy and science fiction ruin it. There are no solids in the development or in the story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

What did you think of this review?

Nice 0

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by SpaceBeebop (4)

Show all

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Finished Anime (-> Manga) V1 #-K

by Wusel-chan

49 Entries · 11 Restacks

Psycho-Sociological Anime - Vol 2

by Obakezoku

23 Entries · 6 Restacks

Political anime

by Obakezoku

37 Entries · 23 Restacks

TV Version of 'Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction' Anime Movie Announced

Crunchyroll announced that they acquired the television version of the Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction anime movie on Monday. The television re-edit will span ...read more

May 20, 4:29 PM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (20 comments)

	Poll: Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (ONA) Episode 16 Discussion ( 1 2 ) IzanaSolos - Sep 12	90 replies	by Jonas-K »» 53 minutes ago
	Poll: Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction (ONA) Episode 17 Discussion ( 1 2 ) IzanaSolos - Sep 19	97 replies	by Pillsbury_Uchiha »» 1 hour ago
	Watch episode 0 before you watch episode 17 SabreDrago - Sep 20	9 replies	by Chadrukami »» 7 hours ago
	So, how should i watch this? WraFh - Sep 21	8 replies	by Nostalgik »» Yesterday, 6:18 PM
	English subs fixed on Crunchyroll GrumbleDango - Sep 10	15 replies	by xZabuzax »» Yesterday, 5:50 PM