Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction vol. 1

Inio Asano has had enough works translated into English that his tics have become readily apparent at this point.  The characters who speak with arch know-it-all sensibilities, his love of magical realism or outright surrealism, and stories that mix everyday whimsy with crushing despair.  It’s to the point where I’d imagine that you’re either onboard with what the mangaka has to offer or have decided that his style is not for you. In that regard I have to say that it’s a little bit disappointing that his latest series feels like “one for the converted.”  As someone who has liked his previous works I enjoyed it well enough even as it shows that his style is starting to coalesce into a formula.

It all starts off innocently enough with a “Doraemon” parody strip that segues into a girl getting up and going to school.  Kadode Koyama has a relatively ordinary life as a high school student that she nominally rebels against by just barely flunking tests, nursing a crush on her teacher, and being friends with class weirdo Oran “Ontan” Nakagawa.  It’d be a completely ordinary life if it wasn’t for the giant alien spaceship that’s been looming overhead Tokyo for the past few years now.

No, that’s not a spoiler as the alien presence is mentioned on the back cover.  The result feels like what you’d get if you took “District 9” and chucked out all of the social commentary and allegory and replaced it with the “and then humans got used to the aliens and went about their lives anyway” vibe of “Niea_7.”  (I realize that title may be pretty obscure to today’s audiences, but it was a fun anime from Yoshitoshi ABe, creator of “Serial Experiments Lain.”) It’s not that the alien presence is ignored as we see talking heads debate their presence on the news, hear about how Japan is working with the U.S. to develop new weapons to combat the alien presence, and even see some kids throw rocks at a passing alien craft.

Humans really can get used to anything is the message of the day here.  Even the most extraordinary thing can become commonplace and taken for granted.  It’s an interesting vibe for a story to have even if the way it’s presented here isn’t wholly unique. There is a new element introduced at the end of the volume which will certainly mix things up, even though it’s not clear which of its antecedents the alien presence is going to be more like.

What this first volume is most concerned with is the relationship between Kadode and Ontan.  While they have their own circle of friends, the two feel like outsiders among them as Ontan rails against the conventional desires of these other girls and Kadode takes her side more often than not.  Kadode states that she’s been friends with Ontan because the former has always been on her side, though you also get the feeling that even if Kadode isn’t an oddball herself, she’s drawn to Ontan because she admires the girl’s free-spiritedness in the face of ordinary life.  That, and the stability of Ontan’s family is probably more than a bit reassuring compared to how Kadode lost her father in the initial alien invasion and her mother became a traumatized germaphobe afterwards.

Their disappointment in everyday life also carries over to the aliens themselves.  Kadode specifically mentions that she was never satisfied by how much everything remained the same in the wake of their appearance.  Ontan, however, keeps making arch proclamations about how she’ll destroy the old world order and become absolute ruler in its ashes. Which would be interesting if it turns out to be foreshadowing.  Right now, their actions seem like the kind you’d expect from teenagers who have become used to having aliens all around them.

“Dead Dead Demon’s” first volume had everything I’d come to expect from an Asano work.  Yet it still feels somewhat lacking compared to everything else I’ve read from him. “Solanin” had that perfect encapsulation of post-college ennui, “What a Wonderful World!” had its exuberantly manic and surreal leaps from subject to subject as an anthology, “Nijigahara Holograph” tempered its confusion with nightmarish inevitability, and “Goodnight Punpun” had that great metafictional gimmick to get you personally involved in the story.  There was also “A Girl on the Shore” which gave you all the crushing despair you could want from a teenage relationship, so “Dead Dead Demon’s” wins out over it in that regard. Maybe it’ll seem more interesting to someone who isn’t as familiar with the mangaka’s works or its setup. As for me, I’ll keep reading more because I trust Asano to deliver a worthwhile read in the end than the quality of this first volume itself.