Anime Review: Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction

I contemplated skipping a review on this one since I reviewed all 14 volumes of the manga here on The Outerhaven; however, after watching the anime and being one of the rare occasions that I stick with a show even after knowing the source material, that alone proves just how good of a series this is and it made me want to review it twice! So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the anime adaptation of Inio Asano’s Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction!

Let’s go!

The Story

Let’s just come right out and say it… an alien mothership appears in the skies over Tokyo. Beneath the mothership in the city, life goes on as normal. People get up and go to work, children get up and go to school. It’s almost as if the world has gotten used to the fact that the eventual end of humanity looms over their heads on a daily basis. All the while, the government is trying to convince the population that the aliens are invaders but there are those who want to welcome and protect them to Earth because nothing has truly been shown that they’re hostile.

Throughout it all, we have two girls… Ouran and Kadode… are friends and are just trying to live their lives as simple kids. They have very childlike dreams of the future that are sure to warm your heart! From Ooba playing first-person shooters and wanting to overthrow the government to Kadode wanting to date and have sex with her teacher despite herself being underage… as well as carrying out a sense of justice on the world using alien technology, you can find yourself relating to them as their dreams are the same as every able-bodied human on this planet!

Okay, maybe not.

There are so many facets to this story that it would take a novel to explain them all and, likely, ruin every twist and turn within it. However, there is a polarizing lesson to be learned here. In Asano’s demented and twisted way, by the time you reach the end of the series, he sends a very simple, yet, humbling message to all of the people who read/watch this series… find a common ground to understand one another because in the end, if you don’t, no side will emerge the victory. You’ll be worse off for it.

The Characters

While there are a few characters that stand out, let’s touch upon the prominent mainstays of Kadode and Ouran.

Kadode seems like a normal high school girl, but I noticed she has a Punpun-esque quality about her. (Referring to Asano’s other great work, Oyasumi Punpun). She’s always wondering what people would think they would do if they could fly. This reminds me of Punpun’s wish to leave Earth and go live on his own little planet. While the contrast between the two wishes is rather stark in its face value, the underlying wish is rather similar. Kadode is, essentially, wondering what it would be like to be free from the shackles of life. It’s almost as if she hasn’t really come up with an answer to this herself so she’s asking others for their opinions. It seems like an innocent question from a young mind with an imagination, but that question holds deeper meaning and raises more questions such as “What is Kadode wanting to escape from specifically?” “Where is she looking to escape to?” “Does she mean to escape physically or spiritually?”

One could attribute her desire to escape to her mother who has been affected by the invasion. She’s not sick, but she has a touch of hypochondria mixed with depression and anxiety. There are some days where Kadode can deal with her and other days she cannot. Kadode gave up going to college so she could support her mother which shows that she does genuinely care, but even that is starting to wear out the more episodes she has to deal with. Of course, Kadode has a bit of a dark side, which is to be expected in an Inio Asano story. Her “dark side” is the fact that she’s in love with her teacher Watarase which, as you could guess, would be an illegal relationship. I don’t necessarily know if I would label this as dark, per se, but it is an unethical, albeit rather common, trope used in some forbidden love stories.

Ouran, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward and a bit demented. She is a gamer who loves playing FPS games, but her hatred for society has her rooting for the invaders. She wants to see chaos and destruction and even has aspirations of taking over the world in a dictatorial fashion. Her love for FPS games is in direct correlation with her hatred for society. Since it’s illegal to kill people in real life, she exerts her joy by doing it within the confines of a fantasy setting.

Ouran seems like a handful and her mindset makes every conversation involving her something colorful and special. She seems like a polar opposite of Kadode which makes me wonder how the two of them remain friends. Kadode seems to just generally accept Ouran for who she is and, in fact, has a bit of an obsession with her. When Kadode was asked what she could do if she could fly, she said that she would fly straight to Ouran. It seems their friendship is mainly based off of the fact that they completely understand one another. I can buy that as I have a friendship with someone who is based on the same exact foundation. I really find Ouran to be an interesting character and I think that even though she is a main character, she’s not the main star and I’m fine with that. She’s easily my favorite character so far and I think her role is absolutely perfect for what she is.

Later in the series, we are introduced to Hiroshi Nakagawa, Ouran’s older brother who is pretty good at fixing computers. He’s a bit out there as well and is in love with Kadode. They even promised to marry each other when they were younger, but Hiroshi is kind of a fat slob these days with no aspirations of getting a real job or making anything of himself, which causes Kadode to dismiss his love entirely. Hiroshi is the kind of person who spends all day in front of a computer posting memes and haunted pictures at people who are suspicious until the end up deleting their social media accounts.

There are also Ouran and Kadode’s friends and while most of them are treated as side characters, Kiho’s boyfriend turned ex-boyfriend Kohiruimaki plays a massive role in the story. He becomes radicalized by the internet and feels that the world is headed towards doomsday. He forms a faction and gets involved in the political world with it (sort of… you’ll see what I mean when you watch it). All the while, you think he has a certain goal but it turns out to be something completely different. “Off his rocker” doesn’t even begin to describe him but through it all, he becomes such a fun villain… even if he is greatly exaggerated in his character.

The next major character is Keita Ooba. He’s a pop idol who died with an invader craft crashed into a studio where he and his group were recording. One of the invaders was also gravely injured so to save him, they transferred the invader into Keita’s body. Now, both of them get to live but it’s the invader’s mindset that controls it. Keita Ooba as we know him is gone forever. He ends up running into Ouran and Kadode and when they discover he’s an invader in the funniest way possible (achoo), they glean a lot of information about the invaders, who they are, why they came to Earth, what is happening to them, and more! Plus, through Keita, we also learn of a really interesting secret about Ouran which could change the fate of everyone!

The cast for this show is MASSIVE so I’m going to stop here but there are a LOT of other great characters that all have their impactful contributions to the story… and yes, that includes President Padron (GOOD LORD I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY ADAPTED HIM!… although they left out something in the manga that would have been HILARIOUS I understand why they left it out.)

Art, Animation, and Sound

Production +h did an incredible job with this series. The character artwork might be off-putting for some; however, if you’ve read the manga, you’ll see that it captured Asano’s style perfectly! The backgrounds were also very well-done as it gave a nice sense of scale along with that dystopian society vibe.

As for the animation, there are places where it was fairly average; however, there are also moments when it the animation was exceedingly good. There is one moment at the end of the show; however, that I was waiting for and I was a bit disappointed with how it was depicted. I was hoping for something more and I’m sure if you’ve seen the show or read the manga, you’ll know exactly what big moment I am referring to. Outside of that, I believe the production of this show was handled extremely well, and was pleased with the way it came out.

As for the soundtrack, the opening was something I didn’t care for; however, the first ending theme I thought was amazing. I’m not sure why that wasn’t used for the opening as it’s a straight-up banger and fits the overall theme of the show so well. The second ending was okay but didn’t truly do it for me. As for the in-show soundtrack, there were some nice pieces with the one that stood out the most to me was the music that played in the final episode when they were showing the Fujin battle. I loved that piece and I’ve rewatched that scene a few times just to hear it again.

Overall Thoughts

Of course, this is going to get a good score from me because I loved the manga and Inio Asano is my favorite mangaka so there is some bias there; however, just because he’s my favorite doesn’t mean Production +h gets a free pass because there were some issues that I had with the show.

The first is the deviation from the manga’s source material at the end. This was coupled with skipping to the end of the manga and using that as the Episode 0 opening which confused me a bit when I started watching. I can understand doing the whole “Here’s how we got here” angle for this series but it wasn’t truly needed. I think they did it because they knew they were going to deviate at the end it was the only way to fit that in. So, unfortunately, some bit of the score will be subtracted for not being a true adaptation of the source material.

There was also material that they left out and/or just skipped… like the aforementioned fate of President Padron but, again, in that particular instance, it’s probably best to leave it out given recent events… good call, to be honest. But there were a few other things that were glossed over or omitted. From an anime-only watcher’s viewpoint, it doesn’t really impact the overall story but from a manga-reader’s perspective, it was kind of annoying.

Outside of those gripes, this is a sci-fi series worthy of your attention. Mixing an alien invasion with Asano’s unique and dark viewpoint on life meshes so well. Add in his typical dark humor and you have a recipe for an incredible viewing experience! Despite the adaptation flaws, this one is still worth a watch!