©Ino Asano/Shogakukan/DeDeDeDe Destruction
As I was watching “Episode 0” of Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction, a thought kept running through my head: “What a crazy way to introduce people to this story.” Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of starting things off with media but this is more than that. In my view, this is “in the media’s epilogue”.
Let me explain, although I haven't read the original “Dead Demon” manga, I have watched the two anime movies recently released in Japan— which will be split into multiple TV series. series for streaming overseas. However, this episode is 100% new footage — none of the scenes here appeared in those movies. This little story takes place after the end of the second movie. So even though as a viewer I found this episode incredibly entertaining (as it was a surprise ending to an already seemingly perfect ending), it seems crazy that this is the first experience most anime fans will have of this story..
It would be one thing if what we saw in this episode was on par with what was expected in Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction. However, the story is essentially no different from a post-apocalyptic adventure thriller about a man who, after many years of being controlled by aliens, sets out to find his daughter in a dystopian world. The world is filled with violent terrorists, floating balls of destructive energy, and killer robots. Rather, the story is actually about two ordinary girls who are in their final year of high school in a world where nothing has changed even after the aliens arrived District 9 style in the skies over Tokyo. They deal with things like first loves and the uncertainty of life after graduation — while, behind the scenes, humanity acts as foolishly and selfishly as we always have.
But while this episode is a terrible way to introduce people to the story, that doesn't mean it's completely confusing. We also don't know what's going on like Nobuo. However, we can understand what he is going through as well as his motivations. This world may be far different from the one he remembers, but the goal of trying to reunite with his daughter—who may not even be alive at this point—still strikes an emotional level.
Furthermore, the episode has some solid action set pieces, showing (rather than telling) the extreme danger lurking in every corner of the world. In a moment, you are walking in a beautiful sunset. Next, your brain is splattered against the wall for seemingly no reason at all. It's shocking, brutal and thematically giving a taste of what you can expect once the story gets going in the right direction.
That said, I can't imagine the confusion I felt watching this movie without the frame of reference the movies have given me. There's so much thrown at the viewer—tons of meaningless proper nouns for everything from groups of people to scientific phenomena. The simple truth is that it would take 12 episodes to make sense of anything we see in this episode.
In a way, though, that's the problem. This episode wants you to be so curious — so curious to understand what the hell you just watched — that you'll stick around for a long time. I think people will be even more shocked when we inevitably have to go back to the beginning of the story and get a show that looks more like O Maidens in Your Savage Season than anything revealed here.
Finally, if I were to summarize this episode, I would call it a terrible beginning but a great ending. And if I were to recommend this series to a friend, I would tell them to skip this episode and watch it when it fits into the chronological story. Dead Demon's destruction of Dededede is interesting enough right from scene one. This confusing (and spoiler-filled) “Episode 0” was simply unnecessary.
Rating: if you haven't seen the movie. (Rating: if you have one.)
Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
