Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

This was great. What do you do when life goes on and on without anything seemingly happening? Do you find joy in the little things, or do you get hung up on them?
Either way, time moves on and on. This work from Asano has such a tranquil start, and a much different flavor compared to his previous work, yet it is undoubtedly his own.

The beginning did not show much promise, other than setting up the world and some characters, and even further into the story (about a third of the way through), it didn't seem like the story was moving anywhere. Frankly, it was ... quite a slog.

However, and this is something that would ordinarily not work the way it did, it got good. REALLY good. All of a sudden so many things made sense, character motivations became clear, the world itself gained the breath of life. From that point onwards the story moves at a breakneck pace, keeping you at the edge of your seat, and delivering moments that really make you feel.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys a slow start, interesting characters and very human motivations/struggles/philosophies. Personally, with how long it took to become interesting for me, I would've given it a much lower score, but man did the rest of the story pick up the slack in a way no manga has ever done before.

Bravo Asano.

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!

With the advent of an anime coming for the series, I finally mustered my self hate, and finished this comic series.

This review dances around major plotline events, but doesn't contain major spoilers. None the less, I mark it as one with spoilers.

I'm not a huge fan of Asano Inio, but would lie saying I did not enjoy "Goodnight, Punpun" and especially "Solanin".
Coming to "DeDeDe" I was expecting either deep dive, psychological exploitation, emotions or just captivating story, and was met with product, which I believe, is impossible to experience as not only non-native, but not as an experienced citizen of Tokyo.

In this work Inio welcomes ... the reader with a promise of supernatural, coming of age story. But that's just a wrapping.
In reality story is dealing with author's urge to make something hyper-realistic, ugly, strong, while it is poorly made comedy with romantic and action elements.

Whole premise of two highschool girls being friends, going trough earliest stages of adulthood in a world, where there's a huge UFO hovering over the capital city of Japan is a big lie.
Of course, as a seasoned author, it's not just some unexplained deus ex, narration pushover. Mentioned UFO mothership combines elements from films like "District 9", "Independence Day" but also the 9/11 events, making people to deal with the trauma of losing their loved ones in an unpredictable tragedy, but for the most parts, it is just a catalyst for general dissatisfaction, government critique, conspiracy theories and such.
If it all did come and unravel some deep questions and answers for the reader, it would be great piece, but in the case of "Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction" author tried to reach the heights of Hideaki Anno's Shinseiki Evangelion, but it ended more like "and it was all a dream, and they lived happily ever after" kind of climax.

Biggest gripes are twofold for me.
First, being that on the photorealistic backgrounds there are cartoonish-comedic characters with more and more deformed heads.
It worked in "Punpun", it was bad decision in "DeDeDe" because none of the characters seemed serious, even when dealing with some... serious decision making or events. And even worse, those events mostly turned out to be pointless drama anyways, making each additional one just being a reason to roll eyes and take a break from reading rather than emotional or shocking experience for a reader.
Second is that beside main narration and storyline, there's complementary "Doraemon" parody, and further the story, the border between those got more blurry, switching from realistic with cartoon characters comic book, to same but looking like children's cartoons.
For me it was off putting. Bulgakov pulled it amazingly in "Master and Margaret", and ever since so many, especially Japanese manga authors, are trying the same with at best, tolerable results.
Anyway, reader is following the events of childhood friends, weird and most likely mentally challenged Ouran and her bestie: Kadode, who really got her eyes on a teacher, and thank god it ends at it like that.

Ouran is very close to being NEET gamer trash, but that role was filled by her creepy brother. Kadode is just weird because her mother is mentally ill and her father was workaholic, and she seems to not give much to it.

At this point I really am regretting I wanted to make some "New Yorker" grade review, but will try my best without delving into spoilers.

So at first, girls are teens, than young adults. They go to an university, met other people, fall in love, get jobs, party, drink, the works.
Supporting characters are introduced, and author sure did think about some more exposition and backstories, but editor probably hinted that the series would take another 30 years to finish with how sluggish, meandering and lost the narration is in this series.

So for good 60 chapters there's some slice of life, comedy, exposition how advanced aliens with great, doraemon-grade tech are actually powerless and defenseless against brute humans.

Now, and this was the moment I flipped my table, jumped out the window and howled like elk with broken leg, time travel concept is introduced.
During these events, everything reader was forced to go trough, goes into bin. Vsauce Jake Chudnow's - "Moon Men" music chimes in, and it goes: but if I told you that all of what just happened, is not real? Or rather, could not be real... for Ouran! What if Kadode could go full ret... Madoka on her, and selfishly try to protect her, by... sacrificing self, because Ouran did the same earlier, or rather, in paralel reality, which actually, is the REAL real reality... ?!

And at this moment I knew, author went so far into his head, that made a full circle, and forgot he had an idea, making previous hundreds of pages pointless masturbation of how detailed backgrounds could be and how little actual substance a story could have.

Also: in this story Trump also was a tool for foreign nation. What a comedy. And American weebs.
Haha. What fun.

In the end it all felt like a very elaborate critique of Japanese society, bound by strict rules, expectations, social ladder, and so on... Which could be done with finesse and not with cornflakes made out of concrete and asbestos, dipped in sewage water.
This is the reason I think non-natives will not really get it, because, a social critique of a society I am not a part of, and I am aware how flawed is in the first place, doesn't get me.

Comic book narration is messy. Art is both overdone and undercooked. Parallel narration is tiring. Tone of jokes doesn't resonate, events don't intrigue, drama doesn't grip and mentioned finale is weak attempt at mentioned "Evangelion" or perhaps even "Akira".
I'm not a smart reader who'll enjoy "Ulysses". I'm also not someone who'll read "Demon Slayer" or "One Piece" for 400 chapters with glee. But this manga somewhat insults me on both levels: pretending to be intellectually stimulating while throwing cheap gags and jokes, and trying to fix poor storyline with quirky events and "action", without being quirky nor having action events beyond some pointless gore and disrespect for series built around it, like "I am a HERO" for example.

If I could go back to a parallel universe, and prevent myself from reading this series, I would do it as many times I could.
But I can't, that weak fantasy and poor narration. And so is "DeDeDe".
A tiring, mostly boring story which when almost at the end decided to go 270 degrees on the spiral-axis, trying to be smart, and being just annoying and flat.
I don't believe it I am going to write this, but seriously, whatever author tried to do here, Madoka did better, and I hate Madoka with a passion.

TL;DR
"Hey and welcome to Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction, where everything's made up, and the storyline don't matter! Yup! The storyline here is like cancer caution warnings on the pack of smokes - no one cares, not even the smokes makers!"

Basically, go read "Solanin" from Inio, or if you like space aliens and gag comedy, just read "Urusei Yatsura".