Warning: The following contains spoilers for Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction!!The TV adaptation of Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction was a late addition to Crunchyroll’s spring lineup, but it has all the makings of a major hit. With great art and animation surrounding a unique take on apocalyptic science fiction, it’s set to be a fantastically surreal science fiction anime, just like how all the trailers made it out to be.

Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction‘s anime seems to be living up to its hype, but oddly enough, it’s making major changes to the story. Only the first episode of the anime has been released so far, and while it’s not adapting the manga in an inherently bad way, the Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction anime still adapts the manga in a way that completely changes the story.

It’s unknown why the anime went in this direction, and with any luck, things will still play out fine, but it’s still an odd way for the manga’s story to be handled, regardless.

Crunchyroll’s New Sci-Fi Anime Spoils The Manga’s Final Twist

Original series created by Inio Asano; anime adaptation produced by Production +h

Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction episode #0 opens with aliens touching down in Tokyo and causing massive destruction in an event that went on to be known as “August 32”. Eight years later, a man named Nobuo Koyama awakens to find that an alien had taken over his body before dying and returning control to him, and Nobuo must now travel across a post-apocalyptic Japan filled with airborne toxins and a corrupt government to find his daughter, Kadode.

All of that makes for a gripping and engaging opening, but that’s not how things were supposed to start. While episode #0’s story is chronologically the first arc of the manga, Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction episode #0 adapts the content from the last volume of the manga, and in doing so, it spoils both the mystery of what happened to Kadode’s father and the story’s true tone. It’s unclear if the anime will go as far as spoiling everything Nobuo does in the story, but overall, those changes still completely change the series’ narrative.

Why Did Dead Dead Demon Change Its Story?

The episodic adaptation of the series’ feature-length film series has yet to reveal why its decided to give away the manga’s biggest secrets

It’s unclear why, exactly, Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction changed its story in such a major way, but it’s not impossible to guess. As unique and engaging as the story might be in its original form of a slice-of-life story with an alien threat just ominously sitting in the background, it’s not the kind of story with universal appeal. Based on that, Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction might have wanted a more engaging opening for the anime to better draw people in, which is why the first episode began with what’s technically part of the last story of the manga.

Assuming that was the idea, then it’s not an inherently bad way of handling things. While the story does lose its main appeal by starting at that point, creating a different and more accessible way for people to get into the story can give it new appeal and help it gain popularity it might not have had, otherwise. It might not be the straightforward adaptation fans of the manga were expecting, but Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction’s TV adaptation still shows a lot of promise.

Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction releases new episodes Thursdays on Crunchyroll.