(Spoiler free blabber about manga)

Quite a mouthful of a title isn't it? The title itself makes it difficult to recommend to others because of how weird it is. I mean the title is a significant part of a story, right? Well anyway, DDDD is a manga written and illustrated by the one and only mangaka, the man behind my GOODNIGHT PUNPUN, Inio Asano!

What's the synopsis? Well it's a story about two high schoolers> living a mundane life in the midst of an impending threat of the world ending. That's the simplest way to tell you the gist of it all. But the catch is not everyone is panicking and going hog wild about the crazy situation that a giant alien ship is hovering over them. Not even the main characters.

I'm struggling to write about it all because Asano is the kind of author whose stories just throw your mind out of the window after reading them. It's just he's so skilled in writing about life, love and loss that you are in awe. Especially life in the time period of 18-23 years. He puts such fine details into the interaction between his characters and intricately tells the reader the genuinity of their bonds that it's almost as if you're watching their biography. And not even that, he also puts focus on social issues and the philosophy of blissful ignorance and deliberate obliviousness into action and fills the story with them in a right amount that it wouldn't feel that you're reading a nonfiction.

I think this is a manga where his skills as a mangaka truly shines. Because what I have blabbered before is what he implements in this story in such an obvious-ambiguous manner.

For the first few volumes of the manga, DDDD is a slice-of-life story about two girls and their friend group going through the last few months of highschool and eventually entering the real-world. Now the story focuses on the normal life of teenagers and how they go-through their days hanging out, talking about crushes, playing video games, reading manga and a lot more. While this being the main focus, there is a side plot running in parallel about alien invasion on earth, an alien mothership looming over Tokyo skies and Japan’s struggle with fighting the aliens. I guess that's the catch where most readers get interested in this manga but I believe that the most interesting thing about this story is the invasion from the point of view of the “ignorant” main characters.

What's more is that when you are 4 volumes deep in it, you start to think, man this is what exactly would happen if aliens actually invaded the earth. Because of the reaction of people toward the invasion, the government's strategy to counter it, the societal division based upon views on aliens, and the loss caused by destruction due to war. And what's so relatable about this all is the internet and conspiracy theories, I mean realistically if you think most of the wars and things that impact a larger population in a short time are talked about on internet and conspiracy theorists suddenly rise out of nowhere well Asano implements that in this manga which gives it a touch of realism in fiction.

After half of the story, there's just gut-punches every other chapter and you realize what this man is capable of. Because the alien side plot and main character's life get intertwined and shit goes down. This manga never fails to surprise you, I mean you get a sense of it'd happen in the early stages of it but it hits hard and close.

I believe this manga shows the uprising of Asano after his DOWNFALL. That manga is about struggles in the manga industry and how it affects his thought process while also providing a view about a men-in-crisis having a lackluster relationship with their partners and their tendency toward constant need of intimate pleasures from different women to take out all the frustrations. Like he takes the darker themes from GOODNIGHT PUNPUN into DDDD, he also takes the relationship dynamic from DOWNFALL and puts it in between a couple in DDDD and that is one of his signature themes. I find it wonderful and so personal when an artist has its signature moments throughout his different works hidden in the subtleties.

I don't think I'm capable of talking about the nuances of this manga without spoiling it so I'll just leave it here. The anime is airing right now so if you're more into watching than reading go for it.

(Monke brain can't think much, bye)