Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction

Episode 15

With this episode, all the pieces are finally in place for our big climax. The Japanese government and the most valuable people in society have abandoned Japan for their own flying sky city, Kenichi has control of all the S.E.S. technology—including all their robots and drones—and the alien mothership is mere minutes away from exploding. Tokyo is in chaos and our heroes… well, they're far away from Tokyo, playing on the beach.

From episode one, this series has been constantly contrasting scenes of world-changing sci-fi events with normal, everyday life. Now, in most stories, even if starting this way, our heroes would eventually be drawn into the final climax in some way, shape, or form and find themselves in a position where they have to make a key choice that either saves or dooms mankind.

However, that's not the case here with Kadode and Ouran. They have no interest whatsoever in what's happening in Tokyo—well, beyond the fact that they've lost connection to the internet on their phones. Like always, they're focused on their normal lives. After all, the message of this series is that, no matter how crazy things get, people remain mostly concerned with their everyday lives unless they're directly affected by what's going on—many times, not even then.

All that said, the pair of girls aren't exactly unrelated to what's going on. In a very real way, all that is happening is Ouran's fault. By coming to this timeline and saving Kadode, she prevented their encounter with the alien scout, resulting in him having a different opinion on the possibility of (re)colonizing Earth. Ouran's love for Kadode has not only led to every alien-related death but also doomed this world. However, her love might just save it as well.

In this episode, Oba's love for Ouran leads him to break her heart. He knows that the meltdown of the Mothership's reactor will lead to the end of humanity, including her. Thanks to seeing her memories, he has the password needed to fix the reactor. He alone, among all the aliens and humans, has the potential to prevent what's coming. Of course, given her massive abandonment issues, Ouran isn't down with Oba's apparent suicide mission. She even threatens to shoot him to stop him from leaving her but he shoots first. The last thing he wants is for her to blame herself for another loved one dying. After all, she would literally end the world for those she loves.

All in all, there's a lot of drama going on here and a lot of it comes from the story battling against its own framework. The text narration promises us that humanity will end in 15 minutes. However, we of course hope that this is not true, that Oba will be able to overcome the odds, save Tokyo, and return to Ouran. With this dichotomy, it's like our heroes are battling against fate. The story uses its structure to play with our emotions, and it would work well if not for one nagging issue: Episode 0.

Episode 0 is set several years after this one. Thus we know that the “end of humanity” line is a lie. Sure, things will get bad and the series has done a good job showing us, step-by-step how things went from normal to post-apocalyptic, but we know that humankind will survive. Heck, we even know that several of our named characters will make it past the end. So once again, I am left wishing Episode 0 was either placed into the series where it would fit chronologically or at least released after the series instead of before. All that said, Episode 0 hasn't spoiled everything for us. The fates of Kadode, Ouran, and Oba still remain unknown so we'll just have to see how things play out next week.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Of course, the woman wanting to kill Takarada (and ready to kill Futaba as well for not showing up), didn't care about alien rights at all—she just wanted to bang Takarada.

• While it's only a single quick shot, Futaba seems to have returned not to Tokyo but to her parent's home.

• Poor Prime Minster. He was always in over his head and when he finally tried to stand up for himself—and the people of Japan—he was too late.

• We finally get a reason for aliens coming to Earth: Overpopulation. (And their government didn't care if they lived or died once they were gone—making sure the ship would burn itself to ensure they had no way back.)

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Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.