benkozel 's review for:

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction #1 by Inio Asano

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A good analysis of growing up in a post 9/11 world. Asano is a millennial and does a good job understanding the striving of the zoomer generation but can at times let his own views seep in and destroy the messaging. Set in a world on the constant verge of an invasion, Asano paints a surprisingly bright picture compared to his previous works. Dead dead captures the apathy that the gen Z saw in their high school years where everything seem set up against us so we became existential, aggressive and happy oddly. Absurdism is prevalent throughout the entire series where characters act as though there isn't a flying saucer right above them. Its almost relatable but Asano gets it just wrong enough to throw off his target audience, at least for me. In particular, how Asano treats world leaders and the government at large is extremely millennial, everyone who holds office is an idiot while the super geniuses are in the background pulling the strings. It's funny but I don't think that's how the gen Z thinks of leaders, if they think of them at all relative to millennials.

It's a really messy series with a lot of good, plenty of bad and a very poor ending but it does have an inkling of something I think is uniquely relatable to my generation.