English Dub Season Review: Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction Season One

The idea of “high concept” gets thrown around a lot, when really it can be summed up as “based on an easily explained idea”. What if scientists brought back dinosaurs? Jurassic Park. What if you were caught in a time loop? Groundhog Day. What if you could enter and influence someone’s dreams? Inception. Now, what if aliens finally came to Earth…and got stuck? Well, then you get District 9, but ALSO this series I’m reviewing now: Dead Dead Demon’s Destruction. Only instead of allegories for South African Apartheid, it’s more about mixing the tensions from the Cold War with Japanese daily life. Originally a manga that was turned into two movies, those movies were cut up into twelve episodes and then given six more to be something close to a regular TV show, along with having a flashforward that set expectations about the story very differently than they panned out. And I think it would not be that much of an exaggeration to say that it’s probably the most interesting anime I’ve covered all year. But does interesting mean good? Well, I’d say yes in this case…for the most part, so let me clarify what exactly that means for the next two paragraphs.

D8, as it’s affectionately known, follows the lives of Kadode and Ouran, two high school girls nearing the start of adulthood years after “August 31st”, when a gigantic mothership landed in Tokyo, caused some damage and casualties (among them Kadode’s father) and then…stopped. Life evolved around it and many remained cautious, but most moved on with their lives. But this changes when the “invaders” themselves begin to slowly touch down, all happening in the background of the normal daily lives of these girls and their friends. And that turns out to be D8’s greatest strength as a story. The worldbuilding and alien related stuff does matter and become more prominent over time, but it’s very much the background to people living their lives like things are normal, because for them, things ARE normal. The story also gives plenty of focus to dozens of other characters dealing with different perspectives and problems, which helps to fully flesh out this alternate world. This is a fully thought out and fleshed out world that you can feel trying to persist despite everything that has happened, and what looms over them, making investing in this world and these characters increasingly easy to do.

However, it becomes a bit too lax with the focus, as those who get involved in bigger things. It soon becomes apparent that certain characters had more of a hand in how the world became this way than it seemed, so one would think that they would have a hand in either undoing this or helping to resolve the current hair trigger that could end the world…but no, this is instead taken by a different character with their own unique relationship to the problem. And then, in closing episode, the focus shifts again to a character who had not been present for the entirety of the story, leading to even more multiverse and time travel shenanigans that are definitely going to lead to some mixed feelings about the ending. But what I will say I appreciate about this story as a whole is that it was never scared about where it wanted to take things for any given character, even if the way things concluded gives off feelings of being written into a corner. So, I would recommend it, but go in with an open mind. Or go in wearing a tin foil hat and maybe that’ll help you with the ending.