Title: Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction Vol. 6
Author: Inio Asano
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 164
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Fantasy, Drama
Publication Date: July 16, 2019
The Story
The sixth volume of Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction starts off in an interesting way. We see Takarada touring the facility that was built to protect citizens from the invaders alongside a woman named Sumaru. Like most corporate/government ideas, the facility does have a hidden intent behind it.
Go figure, right?
After that intro, we rejoin our ragtag crew of Kadode, Keita/Oba, and Oran. They hatch a plan to celebrate Oran’s birthday by surprising her all amongst the rumors that the world will be coming to an end in August. This starts playing into the philosophy that if you know the world is coming to an end, does anything really matter anymore? We’re taken through that journey by way of Kadode as she spends the night at Watarase’s house. It gives a nice glimpse into the stark contrasting opinions of people when they are facing certain annihilation. Watarase is the counterbalance here as he believes they are nothing more than just internet rumors; however, you could clearly tell he was having some self-doubts.
In the midst of all of this, there is now growing political tensions between Japan and the United States over Japan’s newly acquired technology from the ships that have crashed. President Padron is now threatening military action against Japan but Japan isn’t budging one centimeter on their stance of not sharing the technology.
Finally, we shift gears to the Invader’s point-of-view and even get a glimpse at how Keita/Oba received his human body. While he was out and about one day, he came across an invader getting attacked. After saving him, the invader confirms that the ship will fall in August and it would be the end of all life as we know it. He tasks Keita with stopping the ship and our volume comes to a close.
Without going into too much detail to avoid spoilers, this volume set up factions more than anything. Factions within the Japanese government, protestors against hurting the invaders, protestors against the invaders themselves, even factions within the invader population itself! Everyone wants something different and it’s becoming a race to see who is going to achieve their goals first. All the while, the reader is left wondering just who is in the right? There are so many deep-seated stories going on here, I felt like this volume served as a crossroads for all of them. While past volumes helped set up one story over the other while teasing some of the different paths, this one highlighted everything that Asano has built up thus far.
Characters
The biggest highlights in this volume were Keita and Futaba.
First off, we take a look into Futaba’s life as both a part-time worker and a member of S.H.I.P., a peaceful protest unit who wants rights for the invaders. Here, we see that she only wants peaceful protests. An event happens at a meeting that suggests that the group would be heading into a different ideology when it came to protesting. She was conflicted with staying on as part of the group but was reassured that it was simply a hoax… until there was a protest where the director pulled her aside. While we didn’t get much development for her as a character, we did get to experience her personality a bit more than we had in the past. I think she needs something to make her stand out a bit more because she seems rather plain and boring. She was placed into a rather simple conflict but didn’t really act in a way that made it seem super important to her outside of the obvious. Seems like Asano is setting her up for something big soon so we’ll see.
Next up is Keita/Oba. He ends up having a dream about how he received his human body. The interesting take on this is once he wakes up, we get to view the world through his eyes. It seems that everyone who is speaking Japanese is speaking a different language. Whenever Keita speaks in “English” in the book, he’s accidentally speaking in his native language. I thought that was a pretty nice touch. Not being able to read what’s being said causes you to focus on the artwork and through that, you can still understand what’s going on. Although, with the way the manga ended, we might be seeing a shift in Keita’s character soon. Makes you wonder how he’s going to approach the situation he was placed into.
Kadode got fat after “breaking up” with Watarase. I had a pretty good laugh at that. No matter, though. By the end of the volume, she returned to her old weight. Still, a pretty hilarious touch for no apparent reason whatsoever!
Final Thoughts
Another great volume of Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction! It seems like we are at a crossroads here with everyone’s stories and that’s a good thing. We see all of the work Asano has put into the individual storylines coming into fruition and how they are now intersecting with each other. On top of that, we still have the mystery behind Ocean, the name of the facility built by Takadara, to contend with. We are far from done with the story layering in this series but with everything going on, it’s not overwhelming in the least bit. Everything is laid out and segmented rather nicely so that readers can keep up with everything that is happening.
S.H.I.P., Invader protestors, the political conflict between nations, Japan’s own government, Ocean, dissention among the invaders… we’ve got a lot going on and all of this was highlighted in this one, single volume. On top of that, we have the whole August deadline which is, ironically, one month away (just as it seems in the real world), before potential Armageddon. Needless to say, this is a series that continues to hold your attention! Things just keep getting better and better and now I can’t wait to check out volume 7!
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media
