Dead Dead Demon's Dededededestruction

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I would imagine creating a successful follow-up to your most critically acclaimed work is a very unnerving thing to do. Goodnight Punpun is what many manga readers believe is Inio Asano’s masterpiece. The series is not only masterful in its writing, but dreadfully awe-inspiring in its delivery. Believe me, I am not here to echo the praises of Goodnight Punpun; others have made the case for its genius in more convincing ways than I ever could. The reason I am mentioning this manga is because I believe its existence directly affects Dead Dead Demon’s Dededededestruction (for the sake of this review I’ll abbreviate it to ... Dededede). As the successor to Goodnight Punpun in Asano's catalog, Dededede is unfortunately aggressed with a subconscious mindset of constant comparison. Many believe Goodnight Punpun is on a different level of manga entirely. Going into Dededede with that behavior will do you no good. Even long-time fans of Asano’s manga will be surprised by the ideas put forth on this manga, whether it be subtle changes in artistic choices or making more debatable narrative choices. While Goodnight Punpun is Asano cohering to his strengths, Dededede is a veteran mangaka experimenting with unfamiliarity.

This is a manga about the human reaction and general anxiety to the uncertain future. It's about the coping mechanisms that humans utilize when faced with more thoughts than they can handle at one time. The story follows a group of soon-to-graduate highschool students who are living their regular lives during an alien invasion. The main two characters, Kadode and Oran, are enjoyable personalities who offer an interesting perspective on the world. An elderly or middle-aged perspective on the impending doom would be similar to that of a reflection; looking back on memories and proudly accepting the life that they have lived. Kadode and Oran, on the other hand, are just graduating high school. Their lives are arguably just beginning. These characters may seem like they are always fun-loving and cheery but they are really just coping in the only way they know how. Dededede is a manga filled with joyful moments, but these same moments can also be rather melancholic.

Dededede plays with comedy, slice-of-life, sci-fi, and drama, which are fused together beautifully in this melting pot of a manga. I love how Asano is never afraid of writing political humor in this manga either. I’m sure he had a plethora of ideas given the manga’s serialization occurred throughout the entire Trump administration (which is mocked more than a few times here). Asano isn’t totally foreign with the concepts in this manga though. Humanity, death, and depression are all themes we’ve seen before, but this time he approaches this from a socio-political lens. That isn’t to say that this manga lacks an 'Asano-personalized touch'. The Isobeyan comics at the beginning of each volume is delivered with a subdued tone I could only attribute to Asano. And, the vivid page-to-page paneling that Asano has mastered at this point is nothing short of breathtaking.

This manga is a slice of life, and not exactly a euphoric one. The 'slice' of this particular 'life' is quite believable. I would describe Dededede as a modern dystopia. It does have the sci-fi tag, and there are some far-fetched ideas that you either accept or dismiss, but Asano doesn't totally abandon realism here. I imagine this is how society would actually act if this situation occurred. The world and characters are established nicely while themes of existentialism and social panic are simultaneously constructed. The plot develops at a relatively slow pace in the beginning, but there is much to uncover regarding the world-building and dialogue. It's just extremely well planned, and every scene serves to build the world or develop the plot and characters.

Speaking of the characters, they are well written and fit into the story well. I wish more development was given to characters such as Rin, but every relevant character is given enough characterization to be serviceable in their respective roles. Oran and Kadode are brilliant, as well as Oran's brother, who proves to be more than just a gag character. Every appearance he makes has me bursting in tears of both kinds, and I'm surprised with something new about him each time. Futaba and Ooba are also nice additions to the cast as well. Kadode can feel like an Asano self insert at times, but as the manga develops, her personality develops too, and she proves to be a multifaceted character in a later arc. Every character is believable. Even Oran, who seems to be the most contrived in personality, is developed in a clever way, negating her character of any criticism I could give.

I normally dislike when writers insert ‘gamer’ slang into their works. It’s normally dated by a couple years and there’s always some mention of something like “Leroy Jenkins'', “get pwned”, or maybe some inaccurate ‘1337speak’ tossed in there that makes me want to blow my brains out every time I see it. Rather than trying to appeal to the demographic, Asano approaches this, and most of the comedy in this manga, with a caustic and exaggerated tone. Comedy is something we rarely see in an Inio Asano manga, and I would say he has full control of it here from the very first chapter. This manga knows how to be brutally honest, hilarious, and heart-wrenching all in one scene.

We already know Asano has consistent fluidity from panel to panel with each drawing. Dededede is no exception. The one change I noticed from previous Asano manga is the change in character design. While the landscapes and textures are still photo-realistic, the character designs are goofy and exaggerated. This isn't a complaint though. I think it was a completely necessary decision, or else the manga would visually play like any other Asano manga. Besides, I think it's an artistic evolution that pays off. The designs compliment the backgrounds very well and they feel natural when facial comedy is used on a character. As always with Inio Asano, the art is amazing, but it should be the last reason you pick up this manga.

This is a must read. Even if you aren't a fan of Asano's previous works, give this one a shot. And if you are a fan of Asano, don't try to compare it to Punpun. This manga is currently more relevant than ever, and I believe everyone can take something away from it. There aren't that many other modern writers creating works like this with the amount of creativity and honesty Asano displays here. And just like his other works, everyone should read this at least once in their lifetime.

DDDD is a weird manga. Its on one hand a very lifeless manga with no sense of direction for almost half of it, but on the other hand almost all of that content has been quite enjoyable.

The problem is....I waited.
I waited for something to happen..
Nothing did.

The plot is weird, and very hard to explain, because, really there is no plot (for atleast half of it). Its just a manga portraying real life drama and how shit works. But the thing is, it doesn't know how shit works.

It shows how the government works and stuff but it overexaggerates almost everything about them. Its like ... the manga wants to be realistic with its premise but its so dead set on doing that, that it overdoes it.

For almost 20 chapters in the start, I was trying to figure out what the manga was trying to do, it felt so without any direction and life. It introduced its characters so out of nowhere that it all felt very unnatural.

For a manga with the premise about Aliens invading the world, it just didn't feel like one. Then, I tried to accept the manga and enjoyed what I could!

Enjoyment wise, this manga rocked!
I mean, seriously! It was very fun how the characters behaved so unrealistically and it was just bizarre! The wild nature of it made it so worth the read, I was already invested now that I had accepted its wild nature!

It really never had a twist that would be called as a turning point for it, it had twists related the Aliens and about them but it all felt like that it just happened. It happened and went away.

This was basically how DDDD worked for the first 50-60 chapters, then...the author decided to do something.

Character backstory arrive!
Character have been something special in the past!

It became overly ridiculous and unreal now that it was showing us such bullshit but honestly saying it was very enjoyable, despite it being so random, I enjoyed it!

The art for this manga is top tier! The author knows how to draw pretty buildings and overall the art is perfection...until you see how the characters look like..its very intentional but the author decides to make the characters look so weird and ugly, especially the women...eww man....

Overall
Its a decent manga with an enjoyable concept and characters but that's about what it really is, other than that its a lot of potential sent to the trash can, and the ending was pure garbage. Not garbage because of being incomplete or anything or leaving holes in the story but because it was so unsatisfactory, it puts everything that happened to a place, leaves it and just ends.

I have a lot more to appreciate and despise about the manga..but I will end my review here, I do recommend it to everyone but keep in mind, its not what it seems like!

*Mostly spoiler-free review, spoiler section marked below*

Trying to write a coherent review of an Asano piece is a monumental task, but considering Asano himself is able to consistently deliver compelling work after compelling work, all while separating himself from the formulas that brought him success in the past, I figured I’d at least give it a try.

Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction (DDDD for short) can be a hysterical dystopian slice-of-life, an all-out sci-fi world war, a defamation case against our superficial society, or perhaps the most modern and pertinent sociopolitical commentary of our time, but to me, it’s just a fun, simple reminder of things ... that matter.

If you never read Asano’s books before, you might be taken aback by the incredibly genuine dialogue, unfiltered humor, or even just the impossibly detailed background art. There’re probably just as many brushstrokes on each page than there are pixels on your screen. Flip through a landscape or two and see for yourself. But instead of dropping your jaw at each exquisite illustration and passing it off as substanceless detail, I implore you to look past just the art and take a chance at understanding Asano’s deeper ideas, as wordy as they may be.

The funny thing is, you can probably get away with skipping 75% of the text, specifically all of the news talk and political pseudo-speech. Not to say that it’s not important to the story, but you really only need to read the headlines to know what’s going on. Anything beyond that becomes drastically diminishing returns in terms of useful information, much like in real life (a comparison that applies to many other ideas in this story as well). At the same time, there are certain conversations which have such heavy implications yet have such subtle delivery that it’ll take a revisit or two to really understand. If that sounds like something that interests you, then please, be my guest.

On one hand, you could be more entertained by tuning out all the outside noise and relegating everything to “cute girls doing cute things”. On the other hand, the fact that you wouldn’t be able to even if you tried is what makes DDDD such a unique experience. Whether it be the overbearing news headlines, Asano’s doomsaying scenery, the, not-so-subtle foreshadowing (X DAYS UNTIL ___________________), or the convoluted character writing which has you wondering how the hell they became the people they are, the story of the world told between the lines drives the narrative and its glaring contrast with the apparent story of the characters pulls you in for more.

However, if you have read Asano’s books before, like myself, you can probably go in expecting his signature style of “deep fiction” and still be impressed because, despite the complicated description of his style I made above, one of the first things you’ll notice is “Hey, it’s not as heavy as I thought it would be.” Compared to his other works (Solanin, Punpun, etc.), DDDD turns out to be quite the easy pill to swallow, and I’d say that’s mostly due to the fact that the minimal humorous jabs he’s included previously has been replaced with the very upfront satire against everything superficial in this world (AKA anything that comes out of Ontan’s mouth). I mean, the inclusion of “Isobeyan”, a weekly manga strip within a manga, in the beginning and throughout makes a slight against the average, terrible-yet-not-completely worthless and mildly entertaining media that saturates today’s market, and if that doesn’t explain how meta you have to be to understand Asano’s sense of irony, I don’t know what will.

The comedy will definitely throw you for a loop, especially at the beginning, and it’ll take you a while to figure out what the story’s actually about but once you get into the meat of things, you’ll find that it evolves into a pretty hard book to put down.

*BEGINNING OF SPOILER SECTION*

I’m not gonna pretend I understood everything DDDD was about. I’d even go as far as to say that trying to understand absolutely everything Asano was trying to say is a completely futile task. But at least *some* of his themes got through to me, enough of which I was able to internalize, feel, and form my own ideas with.

There’s realist/pessimistic romantic drama (historically one of Asano’s strong suits) reflected through short yet dense side character mini’s (Watarase/Sumaru, Kiho/Kohiruimaki, Ai/Monica, etc.).
There are political agendas tinged with conspiracy and corruption, where, although fictional, is explored on such a worldly scale that it feels nearly impossible Asano was able to accumulate so many points of views from his home in Japan.
There’s socially-driven xenophobia fueled by economic interests, and the fact that the cause and effect of A-rays are never clearly explained should tell you a lot.
There’s conflict on the very thin line between centrist-progressivism and radical progressivism, where I wish I could step back, ignore, and roast the masses with a vocabulary as articulate as Ontan’s, but instead find myself in Futaba’s shoes believing in independent thinking, noble and self-righteous up until the very moment it actually matters.

There are so many themes that I can try to list, but ultimately, there’s no better place to hear them than from Asano’s own pages.

On top of all of that is Ontan’s, Kadode’s, Hiroshi’s, Ooba’s, and Asano’s own argument that none of it actually matters, and despite the turbulence of the ever changing, politically and economically-driven society we live in, we’re better off choosing to focus on what’s in front of us, because there’s only so much of it that’s in our control. Sure, you could say it’s naive to oversimplify things to “absolutes” like the characters do, but in the end it’s up to you to decide who’s actually happier and who you’d rather be like. The validity of the argument is constantly up for debate.

I, for one, had doubts on the believability of each character’s path. For example, there was a turning point in chapter 64 where a demon takes the autism pill and a pen-shaped AK-47 falls from the sky, greatly exaggerating a point that’s already been made while also becoming the basis of the entire plot. However upon rereading, I actually appreciate the intervention of the pill because it made Kadode’s personality even less contrived than it could’ve been if she’d developed her disturbing worldview “naturally”, regardless of the bullying, domestic tension, and blind devotion to her friend.

But of course, I went full circle and thought “Wait, how much of that even matters.” I mean Asano literally resets his entire universe twice, the first time for a little girl trying to save her friend and the second for a manga artist trying to look out for his daughter yet doing nothing more than speaking to her nicely a few more times, which in my opinion, is a really self-deprecating thing to do, but hey, Asano’s the manga artist, not me.

Some would say that’s a bit of an anti-climactic conclusion, but again, let’s try to wrap our heads around what “actually matters” here. In some universes, Ontan is friends with Kadode. In others, they’re not friends. And in some, the earth is destroyed. You can decide for yourself which one you’d rather be in, but I think the smiles on their faces tells which one Asano would prefer.

*END OF SPOILER SECTION*

Asano really outdid himself this time, writing my personal favorite manga to date, and that’s not to take away from any of his other works or manga in general. It’s just that when you read something so modern and relevant to our generation, it’s hard not to make comparisons between a fictional world and our own and constantly form ideas that challenge the status quo. The story is an argument and a counter-argument in it of itself, endlessly touching upon complex themes, while at the same time, remains delightful and enjoyable.

“No matter what anyone says, your life is yours alone.”

Thanks for reading to the end. I realize that this review might come off as a bit of a roller coaster, but maybe it reflected my experience reading this book.