Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, Vol. 6

デッドデッドデーモンズデデデデデストラクション [Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction] #6

by Inio Asano, John Werry (Translator)

The collaboration between S.E.S. and the Self-Defense Forces is going beautifully. Fujin Type 9s patrol the streets of Tokyo, and the slaughter of the Invaders is at an all-time high. It’s almost enough to distract the populace from the ominous smoke coming from the mother ship!

Meanwhile, Kadode is getting used to having an Invader living in her apartment. His delicious cooking almost makes up for the stress of dealing with the constant threat of vigilante exterminators taking him down right in front of her eyes!

Genres: Manga, Science Fiction, Comics, Fiction, Comics Manga, Graphic Novels, Seinen

164 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 30, 2017

About the author

Inio Asano (浅野いにお, Asano Inio) is a Japanese cartoonist. He is known for his character-driven stories and his detailed art-style, making him one of the most influential manga author of his generation.
Asano was born in 1980 and produced his first amateur comics as a teenager. His professional debut happened in 2000 in the pages of the magazine Big Comic Spirits. Since then, he has collaborated with most of the major Japanese magazines of seinen manga (comics for a mature audience). Among Asano's internationally acclaimed works are: the psychological horror Nijigahara Holograph (2003-2005); the drama Solanin (2005-2006); the existentialistic slice-of-life Goodnight Punpun (2007-2013); the erotic A Girl on the Shore (2009-2013); the sci-fi Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction (2014-2022).

Reviews

[Urbon Adamsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

At this point, I’m eager to learn more about the invaders.

The final chapters are always the most exciting, and while I love Inio’s dialogue and character development, I find myself craving more answers and information about the invaders.

I’m hoping we’ll get more insight into them in the next volumes, though I have my doubts. Unfortunately for me, it seems likely that Inio will maintain this slower pace right until the end.

We’ll see.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things are heating up on all fronts as alien movement from the mothership continues, as do the plots to murder them by various factions. This is one beautifully drawn, politically complex tale, where conflicts between and among humans and aliens intensify. No one seems to agree on how to proceed, as the mothership hovering over Tokyo (in its third year) is smoking more every day. It's ominous; if it explodes--shot down, or blows up on its own--will it lead to the end of the world through nuclear annihilation?

This series continues to be timely in terms of world events, as yet another war threatens the stability (or continuing the instability) of the planet. And we still face numerous global crises, of course.

In one brief interlude we see that the proliferation of satellites emanating from the mothership are less of a concern to people peering into their phones on the morning trains than the break-up of a popular musical group (see the social media hits of Kim and Kanye and and so on versus Ukraine).

Japanese politicians and the military want to leverage the crisis to wrest world domination from the hands of China and the USA, if at all possible. Vigilante citizens randomly kill the invaders even as the student protest movement splinters. What will it mean to really enact the pro-alien resistance movement?

I am not so deeply connected to the two main characters, Koyama Kadode and Nakagawa Ouran, as I am in many manga series, but this is in part because of the complex and ambitious political landscape Asano explores with his wide-angle lens. But I have heard the series ended last month, so I am hoping we will get translations of these final volumes this year.

[Artemy · Rating 5 out of 5]

DDDDD really took a dramatic turn with the past couple of volumes. The seeming end of the world gets closer by the minute, the global political tension and existential dread is starting to get out of hand, and it's all suddenly very dark and gloomy in the world that once felt so indifferent and carefree about being invaded by aliens. I appreciated getting more alien perspective in Ooba chapters of this volume, and Futaba's pro-alien activism was really interesting as well. Overall, another great volume from one of my favourite manga series, and once again I can't wait for the next book.

[Jon Ureña · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reviewing the fifth and the sixth volumes.



This series is doing a good job of upping the stakes for its "arena subplot", a better one in fact than the cult subplot in "Oyasumi Punpun", but in that case the subplot existed for very different reasons. Since the alien mothership arrived in Japan more than three years ago, the country has become the focus of the world. The need to develop stronger weapons has brought in foreign investment and created economic booms across the country. Along the way the politicians and industry leaders realized that those aliens were mostly harmless, but at this point keeping them in the eyes of the public as terrifying foes will strengthen the country, so they stage periodic alien raids to keep the patriotic flame burning in the public, even going as far as pushing some groups of aliens into public areas so the military can promote its capabilities.

However, the biggest development has consisted in some Japanese industry leaders having isolated the energy source that keeps the mothership hovering. They've found out it's so strong that it will completely monopolize the energy market worldwide. The rest of the world has realized it as well, but currently Japan remains the only territory with access to this energy source. The government is paving the way for a future when Japan will become the world leader, and will have to push its new military marvels against the US and China, who will use any excuse to prevent Japan from rising up above them. For now the Japanese navy has had to fire against a Chinese ship that was violating its border, and an alternate version of Trump has taken the chance to put more pressure on Japan and threaten sanctions.

Meanwhile the industry leaders, along with the highest ranking politicians, have realized something regarding the mothership and the new energy source that they would have known before if they could understand the aliens' language: its engine is going to burst in a matter of months, and the resulting explosion not only will erase Tokyo from the map, but the radiation that will leak will sterilize the entire planet. At this point it seems inevitable: the military can't shoot down the mothership, because the end result would be the same. Some industry leaders have focused most of their resources on creating an ark that uses the aliens' technology: they intend to make it hover to space, where humanity will continue on in the hopes of coming back to Earth as soon, or if, it becomes habitable again. Some people that have come to understand this are maneuvering to get a place in that ark. The public is becoming suspicious; the mothership started emitting huge plumes of white smoke that the media can no longer cover up as its energy source interacting with the weather.

The aliens stuck on Earth, facing extinction, have split into different factions. Some want to bury the humans along with them, and others want to engineer some way to avoid the mothership from crashing. Some of them struggling in the makeshift colonies in contaminated zones are planning to attack nearby human centers as retaliation, although they lack significant weaponry; however, during one of those discussions, the newly released mobile alien hunting robots catch them unawares and massacre hundreds of them. We learn that the aliens that looked smaller than the rest were in fact children. And by the end of this volume we learn some more: they are actually human beings, or the evolutionary descendants of humans, whether from the future or from a parallel dimension (or both).

The author focuses a bit on a recurrent character, a member of the military that gets dispatched on alien hunting raids. During one of the government stunts where they pushed some aliens into a college campus (in fact the college campus our girls attend, and they got to witness all of it), this soldier guy apologized to the aliens, adults and children, he was massacring. We see him coming back home only to get called a murderer by his sister, one of the many people protesting the government's handling of the alien presence. While the soldier's parents, proud of his son, invite him to a restaurant and praise him for his contributions to defending the country and humanity in general, the soldier asks them to shut up. At this point, to him everybody seems crazy. Later on he runs into a group of youngsters discussing internet rumors, and he explains to them that maybe it's true that the aliens have feelings, and can form relationships with each other, and maybe if he could speak their language he'd hear them begging for their lives, but now it's better that he doesn't understand. It's better for the country's future if they can keep massacring those aliens steadily, and it'll be up to people like him to do it. The author decided to give this guy a cartoonish face, a rather brilliant contrast with his actions.

One of the girls was involved in a resistance group against the government's handling of the alien menace. The group keeps losing steam and members. The leader of the branch the girl belongs to is getting worried, because there are internal rumors that the higher ups are going to ditch non-violence and push for some members to sacrifice themselves as suicide bombers. After this girl defends her group against a vicious member of the vigilante militia, the head of the resistance organization calls her in for a meeting. She gives her a 3D-printed gun. She intends to use the girl to kill the industry leader, an Elon Musk type.

The disguised alien, who now lives in the conspiracy theorist girl's apartment, has become a good friend and gets involved in the general shenanigans the group goes through. As his personal arc he has to balance how he appreciates some kind, funny or generally OK humans like the group of girls, with the fact that many other humans are exterminating his kind. By the end of this volume, as the disguised alien witnesses one his kind getting ambushed by a pair of vigilante alien hunters, the disguised alien saves the other alien. The injured alien speaks his last words on a roof, telling the disguised alien that he's the only one who, passing for a human, could enter the mothership and somehow stop the engine from breaking down, and therefore save not only humanity but the aliens stuck here. We understand that he's come to love the girls who care for him, so he'll at least try. I wouldn't be very surprised, though, if this author pulls a mid series turning point consisting on the mothership crashing and most everyone dying.

I bought the thirteen volumes of "Oyasumi Punpun" published in my language; I usually avoid reading anything in Spanish, because the people translating most works these days in this country distort the original words through colloquialisms; many times I don't even understand or hadn't heard before those expressions, maybe because the translators originated from an area of the country, Cataluña, not known precisely for how widely Spanish is spoken. In general, they just don't seem to respect the original materials enough to represent the scripts faithfully. However, it's a series that I needed to own and keep near for the rest of my life. I'll start rereading it as soon as I finish with this one. "Dead Dead Demon's etc." isn't remotely as compelling as "Oyasumi Punpun", of course (nor does it try to be), but it's the kind of story you can read without feeling like your heart is leaking blood, and that after finishing it you will understand better others who have finished it, as member of a private fellowship of sufferers. Unfortunately, Asano seems to be producing this series rather inconsistently, mixing it with more serious projects, so its ending might be a long ways off.

[micha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Bücher dieser Reihe scheinen häufiger einen etwas zähen Mittelteil zu haben, aber zum Ende hin, also etwa das letzte Drittel, war wieder exzellent. Leichte Tendenz zum Cliffhanger also, ohne dass der Band mit einem Knall aufhören würde. Eher mit einem spannenden Ausblick.

Es haben sich drei Haupt-Erzählstränge herausgebildet: 1. die Planung des Attentats der SHIP-Leute bei der Einweihung des Stadions, 2. der drohende Absturz des fremden Raumschiffs aufgrund des defekten Antriebsystems, und 3. der Alltag der Hauptfiguren um Kadode und Ontan.

// 3.5 Sterne

[Estibaliz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is taking a much darker turn, that's for sure, with some extreme activism and the violent treatment of the invaders being more prominently displayed in this volume.

The last couple chapters here were both minimalistic and very interesting, as the dialogue is portrayed from the point of view of Oba, and in Invader language.

The major plot might not advance much, with the end of the world being still imminent and slowly approaching, but this was a delightful addition to the series nonetheless.

[Lionel · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

Cada vez me gusta más.

[Karine · Rating 4 out of 5]

that escalated quickly.

[Tohoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funke springt bislang einfach nicht rüber. Maximal Durchschnitt für mich.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Altro volume pieno di premesse potenzialmente distruttive, if you know what I mean.

[Ariz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally picked it back up since December last year. Maybe it's the apocalyptic vibes, but this is so much more relevant in 2020. I've always loved how in this invasion we follow normal people struggling. Everyday life still goes on but in an abnormal context.

Watanabe. Bro. That part with Kadode was kinda funny. Glad it didn't go anywhere cause-teacher. Also he seems like an ass.

Oda. His story is so interesting and we get to learn more about it in this volume. He was dying from the crash and people hunting them so he was transferred to the body of a boy- who I don't know if was dead, dying , or alive. Dunno where his story will lead and where he will side in everything.

Loved the surprise birthday party side story. So nice.

This volume left me assured of my love for it. The art. The ART. The characters and plot. Everything makes this world so real.

[Nate]

Those last two chapters... wow, Asano. Way to keep me on the edge of my seat. That’s some good storytelling. Comparing this volume to the first is night and day in terms of intensity. I did like the quirky slice-of-life vibe to the early volumes, but I’m equally impressed with the dramatic turn of this one. I really like how the story has progressed into this existential dread-filled apocalypse. This series remains very unique.

[David Doel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've figured out why my appreciation of this series doesn't match its quality. No entity or person in this book escapes its satire; all are "deplorable" to some degree. I like stories where I can relate to one of the characters. This story has no such character for me.

Volume 6 finally has a picture of the American president Padron. He's just who you thought he was.

[Cecilia Carolina Vicario · Rating 5 out of 5]

Futaba, no hagas nada estúpido 😣

Ooban es mi pequeño ser de luz brillante 🥺

[liv_melodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction 3 ᄒ

ᗪᖇᗝᗪ乙Ƴ ᗝᗷƳᗯᗩ丅ᗴᒪᗴ ᒎᗩᑭᗝᑎᎥᎥ!
Od dnia dzisiejszego macie pełne prawo do samoobrony przed najeźdźcami.
Rząd ogłosił nowe zasady walki przeciwko kosmitom.
Czas najwyższy sprzeciwić się inwazji i pokazać wszystkim, kto tutaj rządzi!

„Życie polega na nieprzerwanym radzeniu sobie z tym, co zgotuje nam los”.

Nowe zaawansowane technologicznie roboty zaczynają patrolować ulice Tokio i stają się dla obywateli symbolami chwilowego bezpieczeństwa, spokoju i porządku.
Gdy rząd ogłasza informacje pozwalającą cywilom zabijać obcych, prywatne korporacje chętnie dołączają do walki z przybyszami.
Tymczasem urokliwa Oncia niespodziewanie spotyka na swej drodze dość osobliwego kosmitę podającego się za człowieka, którego bez zastanowienia sprowadza do mieszkania swojej przyjaciółki, Kadode.

A podobno tego dnia wszystko się zmieniło, a jednocześnie nie zmieniło się nic...

„Nie wiem, co Onci chodzi po głowie”.

Nietuzinkowy, nieco pokręcony, ale zarazem przerażający świat, w który wciąga nas Inio Asano jest czymś niebywale zachwycającym, ale również dosyć kontrowersyjnym.
Wojna z kosmitami nadal trwa, nie widać jej końca i co gorsza - zbiera za sobą spore żniwa.
Od tego tomu pojawia się więcej rozlanej krwi, a tematy polityczne zostają częściej przytaczane niż dotychczas, przez co w niektórych momentach można już odczuć ich ciężar.
Nie jest on jednak tak przytłaczający, jak w innych dziełach tego autora i raczej stawiana jest tutaj pomiędzy tym odpowiednia równowaga.

Ponadto nareszcie możemy poznać też bliżej naszych przybyszy z kosmosu.
Fakt faktem nie łatwo ich na początku jakkolwiek zrozumieć, bo porozumiewają się w dziwnym języku, ale nie stanowi to żadnej przeszkody komunikacyjnej między czytelnikami, ponieważ ich emocje można łatwo odczytać z samych ilustracji.
Ilustracji, które nadal zachwycają swoją innością oraz wyjątkowością i tak, jest to tytuł dosyć specyficzny, ale jak najbardziej godny mojego polecenia.
Akcji tutaj co niemiara, a bohaterowie są świetnie napisani, więc serio pytam się, czego chcieć więcej?

„Jak myślisz, czemu najeźdźcy tu przybyli?”.

W dalszym ciągu jestem podekscytowana faktem, że doczekamy się dwóch długometrażowych filmów twórczości tego mangaki i mam wielką nadzieję, że pojawią się u nas one w kinach.
Ten tytuł jest nie tyle dobry, co wręcz zaskakująco przebojowy, dlatego powtórzę się znowu - koniecznie szybko po niego sięgnijcie.

„Kocham cię, Isobeyanie!”.
Ograniczenie wiekowe: 16+
TW! Wojna, polityka, psychologiczne, przemoc
Wydanie 2 w 1

[Philip McCarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm consistently impressed with this manga and the way it handles issues that feel essentially timeless and highly relevant to the past couple of years. The volume starts with Kadode finally ending things with Watarase (the teacher). I hope it's done, but who knows if he'll be back since this series likes to bring folks back. We've also got the S.E.S. girl, Sumaru, meeting with the president of the company Takarada to be shown the interior of the escape ark disguised as a stadium. The more that this private corporation becomes involved the more troublesome things to get, their profiting off of violence is something too relevant to human history. A great chapter that happened in the middle of this volume, was scenes of our main players interspersed with a government report being read to the Prime Minister, who cares more about moe girls than the actual politics. When this manga plays with the format of story telling I'm always impressed and excited to read about it. Basically we have the government (who is in the hands of SES and looking to use their violence against the aliens as a way to prove themselves to the world,) the Youth United Front which is a group of youths looking to kill all the invaders personally but running into issues with the state sanctioned killers, and SHIP which has been working hard to peacefully get people to stop supporting the invader killings. Futaba plays a role here as she believes in the peacefully methods and what the group stands for, but now her beliefs are being used to potentially get her to shoot the politicians. So much for peaceful. Kadode's mom is doing fine at the moment up in Nagano and even gets a news special done for her. Oba, the alien everyone has been hanging out with, is revealed to be an invader who was put into a human body when their ship crashed and after a run in with the invader who has been in the background this whole time he decides he needs to set off and try and stop the extremists from blowing up the ship. Also, turns out that the alien's look a lot like us inside their cute little helmets, which isn't too surprising.

[Dani Wladdimiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que este volumen maneja muy bien la cuestión de la violencia, mostrándola de manera equilibrada en ambos bandos.

Por un lado, el grupo SHIP, que busca proteger a los invasores, se da cuenta de que los discursos pacíficos no son suficientes. Ante la falta de resultados, sienten la necesidad de dar un paso más allá, recurriendo, paradójicamente, a la violencia como medio para lograr sus objetivos.

Por otro lado, el gobierno despliega todo su arsenal para consolidar su posición en la carrera bélica. Su negativa a compartir conocimientos con otras naciones genera tensiones internacionales, lo que agrava aún más el conflicto.

Además, el flashback sobre lo ocurrido en el 31-A está muy bien logrado. Nos permite entender de manera más clara lo que realmente pasó, brindándonos una visión mucho más precisa de los acontecimientos y su impacto en la historia actual.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

We discover just how much the humans and aliens have in common in this one. Tensions continue to rise between humans and invaders, humans and other humans, and invaders and other invaders. The ultimate plans from S.E.S. also come to light. Both Futaba and invader Oba have new missions to consider, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. I can’t say enough how stunning the visuals are in this series. I’m happy (and then depressed into sadness by the story) to revisit each volume as new ones are released.

[Chris Orme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is getting so bleak at times. Inio Asano’s work seems to resonate with me though. This seems so plausible, if invaders came here, I could definitely see it going exactly this way. I guess I’m a pessimist. But, there is the contrast too. He shows the good side of humanity too. The characters are great. It can get funny at points & there are humans who want to co-exist with the Aliens. Will it all go to crap & we’ll get de-de-de-de-destruction or will we co-exist? Or something in between. Either way I’m looking forward to finding out.

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuando los personajes protagonistas pierden el primer plano para ser ocupado por el tema militar, la narración se empantana. Y en este tomo ocurre demasiado. Afortunadamente los alienígenas ocupan al final el foco y vuelven a surgir algunas de las ideas que más molan de la serie (la aceptación del diferente, los inmigrantes bajo el umbral de la percepción de una sociedad inmunizada ante su presencia y sufrimiento...)

[Alessia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ma tu, dove è che vai? Ancora non riesco a capire come Asano voglia portare avanti la storia, dubito che lui stesso lo sappia. Spero in qualche maggior chiarimento nel prossimo volume, soprattutto sul ruolo del piccolo invasore trapiantato nel corpo del ragazzo umano.

[LauLau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vamos profundizando en lo que toca a los invasores y los diferentes movimientos ciudadanos y de los gobiernos... La cosa se pone cada vez más interesante.

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tone overall gets more adult and darker, but Watarase gets a little storyline that shows the non-creepy side of him.

[Alex Fyffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Annie thebooksengine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hace mucho que ya no sé qué está pasando aquí pero me gusta

[Irati Azpeitia · Rating 5 out of 5]

uf el engantxe comenzó

[Solim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last chapter of each volume is from the opposing sides perspective. Cant wait to see how it develops more.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imminent destruction that only a few know about. The girls are growing up and figuring out their lives.

[DonutKnow · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a bit interesting to see the reactions of people in a crisis- or in this case a prolonged crisis 🤔

[Dony Grayman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sexto tomo de la última serie de Asano a la fecha DDD'DD. Con este ya se cubre la primera mitad.