English Dub Review: Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction 9

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kadode and Ouran make friends with Futaba and Makoto, Kadode goes on a date with her former teacher, and tensions both for and against the Invaders rise after they become more commonly seen in the streets of Tokyo.

OUR TAKE

…well, yet again, I expected the major attack on the mothership to lead to some major attack or status quo shift or some major horrific thing to happen on a large scale AND…nope. I mean, there was definitely some small shifts and tensions do in fact rise a bit, especially as the awareness of the Invaders becomes more prominent and people living there start taking sides on the issue of how to deal with them, but that’s about it. And really…that might be the point. For all the provocation that the military has tried by firing multiple lasers at the thing and killing so many of them, the Invaders still seem to be not trying anything drastic. But every big step seems like it will be the moment the fuse is lit and THEN…nothing. Which only adds more to the tension of whether the next blow will be the one that breaks the Jenga tower, or any other metaphor for an increasingly fragile peace. But that’s the reality of living during a Cold War, I suppose. I wasn’t alive for the one between the US and Russia (or at least not the one before the supposed current one) but the culture definitely felt the impact of feeling like they were always only seconds away from nuclear annihilation. Then they got up and went on with their lives anyway.

That may be the cultural center of this show for all I know, testing things against a stated enemy but only getting more anxious when no major retaliation is made and life continuing on as it was. That certainly seems to be what we’re seeing with Kadode, who is seemingly ignoring everything happening with the Invaders in order to try going on a sort of date with her old teacher. Thankfully said teacher is not a monster and just humors her as she tries her best to be an adult, but it still ends up being a very human moment for both of them. But things may not be as easy to ignore now as, like I mentioned, the Invaders are getting more and more into the population, with the one wearing the skin of the dead boy band member meeting with Ouran again AND that guy who dated Kiho becoming a vigilante killing them off. And on top of that, they finally added subtitles to the OP! But now the ED has changed so I guess we’ll never know what the heck they were saying there.