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https://blacknerdproblems.com/dead-dead-demons-dededede-destruction-episode-0-review/

This is a mostly spoiler-free review of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION. This review covers EPISODE 0 which premiered Thursday, May 23 at 8:00 PM PT. Thank you Crunchyroll for the advanced screener of the English Dub!

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“I wish the world would end so I won’t have to deal with this”

Raise your hand if you thought that Inio Asano’s first animated work would be DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION? Was a manga with a premise of a world forever changed a little on the nose to watch right now? Are aliens ever off the table in pop culture and the media we consume? This is an Asano manga series I hadn’t got around to reading so I have been hyped that the anime adaptation was coming out. Episode 0 of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION opens to perpetually tired and sleepy voiced Nobuo Koyama (Giles Panton) working away his life. For a moment, he sees his daughter, the unimpressed Kadode (Elyse Maloway) who not so gently tells him he stinks and that she’s home that day, August 31 because it is summer break. In a taxicab, Nobuo, looking out the window along with other Japanese people across the city witnesses the alien mother-ship touch down.

The first five minutes of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION throws the audience for a ride and then a father wakes up—years later with a found family, a sea of exposition and history, and a need to find his family: his daughter Kadode. The world has changed, he himself has changed, and the place of refuge he’s been at is at first glance a safe place yet also a breeding ground for power struggles and inequality forcing some to seek other options on the outside–present with new dangers.

The longer he stays out in the outside world the more dangers present themselves, man-made and extra-terrestrial created. The closer Nobuo gets to the location where he is supposed to escort and see off his traveling companions–those younger than him that have been like family in a way, the more the audience is clued in that something is not quite right, after all. In this new world, DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION reminds the viewers that tragedies are still happening, new organizations and groups have risen up further dividing humanity’s survivors, and this one man’s journey is only starting… 

Verdict

DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION does a great job in its outing in Episode 0 by setting up the world building of a ruined Japan and those affected. The first five minutes lures the audience in and sucker punches them square in the jaw with a time skip and a lot of backstory that eventually is fed to along the way. Seeing the trailer, I figured that the main protagonists and mainstays in the cast would be Kadode and friends–the students and young adults figuring out how aliens further complicate their adolescence. Seeing Kadode’s father Nobuo take center stage in this Episode 0 reveals not only a Japan much worse off but whatever organisms that have come to Earth much more advanced–my interest is piqued for sure.

DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION is filled with a general sense of unease throughout watching Episode 0. Nobuo waking up and having a new (found) family, a new place and way of living is startling as the minutes drag on. He’s determined to see his daughter again as well as look after the two companions, young adults he finds himself with who have told him he’s protected them as if they were his own. It is a haunting feeling to watch him embark on this journey back to home, back to his daughter knowing that something insidious is waiting for him, and there is no way any of us watching can warn him.

I love that in Episode 0 of DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION we, the audience, are treated to an post-apocalyptic world of a father trying to reunite with his remaining family. The world may be ending (or beginning again), but he’s going to find his kin and do all he can to be a family again, no matter what it takes. Earlier in the episode, we saw that Nobuo was not the most present father, being swamped with work and the doldrums of everyday life as an adult. Later, upon waking, he calls out for her and verbally tells his companions that he’s going looking for him, despite the odds. Episode 0 ends on a hopeful note with Nobuo being told even more depressing news but with a clue and a ride on where to go next. This gives the series some emotional weight that will carry with audiences for sure when we all get to see the alien mothership touch down from the point of view of the true protagonists of the series: Kadode and friends.

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DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION

As the world is threatened by the sudden appearance of a mysterious alien mothership, best friends Kadode Koyama and Oran “Ontan” Nakagawa carry on about their high school life. But as they grow up, they face existential questions, learning adulthood’s complexities, and that the true threat may not be from above.

Premiering on Crunchyroll

Premieres Thursday, May 24 at 8:00 PM PT

PRODUCTION STAFF

Based on the Original Graphic Novel Created by 

Inio Asano

Directed by 

Tomoyuki Kurokawa

Series Composition and Screenplay Written by 

Reiko Yoshida

World Setting by 

Takaaki Suzuki

Character Design and Chief Animation Direction by 

Nobutake Ito

Color Design by 

Satoshi Takezawa 

Art Direction by

Mika Nishimura

CG Direction by 

Satoi Inami

Cinematography by 

Takuma Morooka

Editing by 

Masayuki Kurosawa

Sound Direction by 

Takeshi Takadera

Music Composed by

Taro Umebayashi

Animation Production by 

Production +h.

SONGS

Opening Theme Song “Shinsekai Yori” Performed by 

ano and Lisa Ikuta

JAPANESE VOICE CAST

Lilas Ikuta as Kadode Koyama

ano as Oran “Ontan” Nakagawa

Atsumi Tanezaki as Kiho Kurihara

Miyuri Shimabukuro as Ai Demoto

Saeko Oki as Rin Hirama

Azumi Waki as Futaba Takemoto

Ryoko Shiraishi as Makoto Tainuma

Miyu Irino as Keita Oba

Koki Uchiyama as Kenichi Kohiruimaki

Taito Ban as Watarase

Junichi Suwabe as Hiroshi Nakagawa

Kenjiro Tsuda as Nobuo Koyama

Naoto Takenaka as Chairman

TARAKO as Debeko

Tomokazu Sugita as Isobeyan

ENGLISH DUB STAFF

English ADR Voice Direction by

Karl Willem

Scripts Adapted by

Jack Cox

English Translation by

Paul Baldwin

Recording Engineering by

Konrad Piaseczny

Dialogue editing by

Marc Matsumoto

Brian Gamblin

Joshua Stevenson

Taylor Gervais

Re-Recording Mixed by

Keith Goddard 

Derek Simpson

ENGLISH VOICE CAST EPISODE 0

Giles Panton as Nobuo Koyama

Michelle Creber as Kimika

Lexi Ly as Hako

Elyse Maloway as Kadode Koyama

Graham Hamilton as Kenichi Kohiruimaki

Chelsea Miller as Futaba Takemoto

Travis Turner as Makoto Tainuma

Bill Newton as Hanazawa

Michael Dobson as Editor

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Inio Asano began publishing DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits magazine from 2014-2022, for a total of 12 volumes. VIZ Media releases an English version of the manga. Read more about the series up on the Crunchyroll site here.

Cover image: © Inio Asano/Shogakukan/DeDeDeDe Committee

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The post REVIEW: ‘DEAD DEAD DEMONS DEDEDEDE DESTRUCTION’ Brings Post-Apocalyptic Dread and Hope in Episode 0 appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://www.essence.com/fashion/brandon-blackwood-costume-design-interview/

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham By Skylar Mitchell ·Updated May 28, 2024

Keerati Jinakunwiphat a dancer and choreographer has been performing with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, a dance company for nearly a decade. Both she and the eponymous founder studied at Purchase College, State University of New York, finding a mutual love for contemporary dance in different journeys in motion and physicality. Jinakunwiphat’s aptitude for stagebound worldbuilding post-grad was nurtured through A.I.M’s self-reflexive praxis that cultivates the technique and conceptualism of the dancers at the heart of its repertoire. 

Collaboration is embedded into the process, and young choreographers like Jinakunwiphat are encouraged to own their sartorial direction with whatever tools heighten the story they seek to tell. So, when Jinakunwiphat visualized her ideal costume design for her latest work, Someday Soon, she tapped Brandon Blackwood to create pieces that would amplify what makes her choreography and the dancers who would perform it so captivating. “We wanted to genuinely represent the themes in the dance piece and how they are parallels to how we tell stories through fashion,” Brandon Blackwood said. 

The composition premiered at the start of the new year as part of A.I.M’s latest repertory with performances throughout the spring and summer. The partnership results from a longstanding respect for each party’s work—a connection made all the more meaningful by the members of the dance company’s alumni who have since transitioned into fashion. Imani Simmons, vice president of brand partnerships at Brandon Blackwood studied with A.I.M for a period of time and was versed in the cross-disciplinary parallels between the worlds of design and dance. Hence the meeting of the two companies most recently was seemingly kismet. 

A.I.M by Kyle Abraham

Art, organic creative discovery, and athleticism underpin the foundations of A.I.M’s mission, in part reflecting founder Kyle Abraham’s journey toward dance. In establishing an ethos for his company, which would come to be known for longer performances grounded in a central idea for audiences, he was a product of combined influence. Early in Abraham’s career, he was exposed to the works of Ulysses Dove and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which built its model performing the work of its founding director but also works from other choreographers.

Abraham studied how this format has been expanded upon in other contemporary collectives such as the Bebe Smith Company or the Ralph Lemon Company and now leads with that same concept of collaborative choreography. Creating and staging new work is as much a meditation on the sport of dance as it is on the curation of history showing audiences where the evolving elements in today’s dance zeitgeist derive from.  

“The way that I look at programming I like to think about how best to think about where my influences come from, whether they be someone in the past or someone from the next generation like Keerati Jinakunwiphat,” Abraham notes. Jinakunwiphat has been performing with A.I.M since graduating with her BFA from Purchase College. With the company’s most recent repertory performance, she and Abraham amplify the distinctive tapestry of Black and queer narratives in motion. 

The concept for the costumes was established over time, developing in tandem with A.I.M’s rehearsal period. The Brandon Blackwood team worked closely with Jinakunwiphat as she choreographed Someday Soon—her second original work with the company following 2019’s Big Rings (sketches are below by Brandon Blackwood). “I started playing with this idea of flowers,” the artist tells ESSENCE. “I was just in a place in my life where I was trying to really allow myself to accept the love that I was being given, whether it’s in like relationship, success, career, any of those things,” Jinakunwiphat adds.

Brandon Blackwood

Last winter, Keerati made history as the first Asian American woman commissioned by New York City Ballet to create a new work in the company’s 75-year history. Keerati says that though it was a historic accomplishment, it was also overwhelming. As she processed being on the receiving end of high accolades, she identified how flowers represent the push and pull of validation in her work and personal life. 

As the curtain rises for the number, two earth-tone-outfitted dancers stand before a gradient backdrop as a bouquet lays downstage. Tyler, the Creator’s explosive “IGOR’S THEME” scores the moment they are joined by more dancers in an undulating canvas of light and motion. Their movements are fluid and seamless, highlighted by the warm, soft hues of the custom-dyed costumes Brandon Blackwood constructed for the performance. “For the tops we used double-lined a four-way mesh, best for movement, and nylon for the cargo pants,” Blackwood explains. He adds that when developing a color palette with Keerati, she expressed how she wanted emotive yet gender-neutral hues.

Dancers Jamaal Bowman, Juan Carlos Franquiz, II, Amari Frazier, Mykiah Goree, Faith Joy Mondesire, Donovan Reed, Keturah Stephen, and Gianna Theodore construct a fluid canvas of externalized longing pointing to then away from the bouquet at oscillating points. As Keerati explains, the bouquet is tied to a string offstage, trailing the dancers’ movements and stopping when they pause. The flowers evade them as they move between chasing its proverbial validation and trying to escape it. 

“It follows the dream of someday soon, you’ll get what you want or what you think you want. Or at least that you’ll have that feeling,” Keerati explains. Over the course of the number, the flowers move through many forms as an object of aspiration to be feared and coveted. To highlight this relationship, Keerati aptly scored later parts of the performance to Tyler, The Creator’s track “EXACTLY WHAT YOU RUN FROM YOU END UP CHASING.” 

With such a resonant subtext, Blackwood sought to amplify both the intentionality of movement and the visual cohesion of the performance. He has previously ventured into costume design, perhaps most famously with creating custom gown, gloves, and heels for Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, and handled this collaboration with the same meticulous attention. 

Blackwood shares that with costume design he believes it is imperative to custom-fit the fabric in a seamless fashion to provide comfort and aesthetically pleasing pieces. “My vision is always to enhance the greatness of the person wearing the clothes; whether it is when we are doing a gown for a red carpet, or this dance performance, I want to make sure that the dancers feel comfortable and that the clothing is an extension of themselves and the story that they are telling to the world,” Blackwood shares. 

There were several fittings during this process. Blackwood and his team wanted to ensure that in every move the dancers made, the fabric moved with them exactly where they wanted it to on the body. “The color of the tops was really special as I worked with our design team to make our very own gradient color print,” Blackwood continues. 

The overall performance deals with questions of past, present, and future, with answers achieved through multiple partnerships of artistic focus. Jinakunwiphat’s choreographic genius anchors A.I.M by Kyle Abraham’s electrifying resonance of Black and queer cultural histories, referencing an esteemed tradition while still feeling palpably current. Someday Soon is a vivid exploration of the personal complexes that exist in gradience, calling upon dancers and audience members alike to face their uncertainty. There is an idea of multiple truths approached in various approaches from costumes to choreography.   

“We hope the audience was able to understand and see the modernity and sentiment in the clothing. The color story was purposely chosen to represent the softness and vulnerability in all people and to blend with the body in a way the movement of dancers can truly shine,” Blackwood adds.

TOPICS:  Black Costume Designers brandon blackwood costume design

The post Brandon Blackwood On Disrupting The Contemporary Art World appeared first on Essence.

https://www.blackenterprise.com/rochelle-porter-design-expands/

The celebrated Black-woman-owned home decor company Rochelle Porter Design has a new collection hitting major online retailers for the first time.

The Atlanta-based designer brings her Caribbean roots-inspired hand-drawn patterns to life on a new assortment of duvet sets, pillowcases, and more, BlackNews.com reports. The collection’s inclusion on major retail sites like Wayfair, JCPenney, Amazon, and BedBathandBeyond.com marks a new milestone for the burgeoning apparel, accessories, and home decor brand.

This news follows Porter’s partnerships with West Elm, Target, and Nordstrom locations nationwide.

“I love creating pieces that bring smiles to people’s faces,” Porter said, according to BlackNews.com. “Seeing our brand reach this major milestone fills me with gratitude. It’s amazing to think that now, folks can enjoy my products right in the comfort of their own living rooms.”

Pieces include Porter’s popular Wild Out Printed duvet set of oversized florals digitally printed on 100% cotton sateen. The vibrant blend of colors is spread across two shams, an accent pillow, and a duvet insert.

“It’s the perfect way to infuse your bedroom with style and personality,” she wrote on Instagram. “Don’t miss out on this mindful, made-with-love addition to your home!”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rochelle Porter (@roporterdesign)

Design enthusiasts can get a taste of the Caribbean wildlife with Porter’s Jaguar Safari wallpaper that comes in neutral tones and showcases Guyana’s national animal. The peel-and-stick paper aims to add a pop of life to any bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rochelle Porter (@roporterdesign)

The passionate self-taught designer who openly shares how “YouTube University” helped secure her with the tools to take her design dreams to the next level is experiencing a new level of growth. Thanks to an eco-friendly design aesthetic, consumers can transform their homes with pieces that keep the planet’s health in mind.

To shop and learn more, visit RochellePorter.com.

RELATED CONTENT: Disney Dreamers Talk Business And Philanthropy

https://www.essence.com/health-and-wellness/youth-mental-health-crisis/

Maskot/Getty Images By Chloe Castleberry ·Updated May 25, 2024

This story is featured in the May/June issue of ESSENCE.

Jamal Clay was the type of child who always wanted to help people. He was an intuitive soul, and his mother, Rafiah Maxie of Chicago, dubbed him her “right hand.” Jamal would often wake his mom up early so he could be dropped off at school before the morning bell rang, in order to assist teachers in setting up their classrooms. At home, he helped Maxie tend to his younger sister. “I think a lot of times he thought we were both parents,” she recalls. “He was very responsible.” He was also struggling with his mental health—and had been for years.  

On May 27, 2020, Jamal took his life in their family home. He was 19 years old. His sister found him hanging in the garage. He used the same karate belt he’d utilized for a suicide attempt when he was 12. At that time, Maxie and medical professionals attributed Jamal’s mental state and low self-esteem to his being bullied, and he was diagnosed with single-episode depression.  

Attempts at continued treatment with therapy fell through, with Jamal’s providers failing to make agreed-upon home visits, retiring, or not following up with him or Maxie. “There was definitely a stream of events that failed us,” Maxie says. “We were left to deal with it on our own and to find a way to work through it, when we really didn’t have the resources or ability.”  

Stretch Photography/Getty Images

When the pandemic began, Maxie believes, months of isolation due to quarantines pushed her son into a dark place. She also thinks George Floyd’s murder, which occurred two days before Jamal’s suicide, triggered psychological trauma. “And then, social media is an influencer in itself,” Maxie says. “It can almost take your whole self-esteem and tear it into pieces.” 

In recent years, social media has been a dominant force for youth ages 13 to 17, who split their time between Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok, according to data from the Pew Research Center. The latter is currently the most-used app by teens, with an average of 105 minutes spent on the platform daily. Studies conducted in 2018 revealed that 95 percent of teens had access to a smartphone, and 45 percent admitted they were online almost constantly. Research has pointed to the negative impact that viewing race-related traumatic events online can have on the mental health of adolescents of color. Social media has also been found to be particularly harmful for youth susceptible to or suffering from mental disorders. Maxie believes it had a negative impact on her son. Because of it, “I don’t think he was able to say, ‘I’m okay. Things are going to be okay. Life is going to be all right,’” Maxie says.  

An Ongoing Crisis  

Kamala Uzzell, Ph.D., a psychotherapist based in Durham, North Carolina, started her practice in 2009 with a goal of normalizing counseling for people of color. “If patients see a therapist who looks like them, they may think, It must be okay to go to therapy if there is a Black therapist,” Uzzell says. “Even before I opened the practice, I had heard the common belief that African-Americans don’t go to therapy. We go to church and pray about it. Or we’re in denial and say, ‘That’s not really happening.’” 

Maya Williams, a 26-year-old nonbinary person from Portland, Maine, grew up dealing with the consequences of that denial. “My family would talk about mental health, and the conversation would shift to ‘growing pains’—or ‘God doesn’t give you any more than you can handle’ and ‘Are you sure you’re praying hard enough?’” she says. “Prayer has helped Black people for years, but at the same time, it’s like telling us, ‘Talk to God about it so you don’t have to talk to me about it.’ I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my parents and unpacking that until I got older.”  

Maya saw a school therapist for a year in eighth grade—around the same time she expressed suicidal thoughts to her mother, and two years before a suicide attempt at 15. Her family didn’t know she had tried to take her life until she was 19 and published an essay about her experience. 

According to the American Psychological Association, African-American teenage girls surpass their White and Hispanic counterparts in suicide attempts. Additionally, deaths by suicide among African-American adolescent girls rose 182 percent between 2001 and 2017. Some organizations, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness, in California, point to untreated mental health conditions as one possible cause for the increase. At age 5, the year her parents divorced, Maya started exhibiting signs of dermatillomania, which is the repeated urge to pick one’s skin—sometimes related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet she wasn’t diagnosed with the condition until she was 19, at the same time she was diagnosed with anxiety. And she didn’t start medication to treat either of her diagnoses until July 2020. “I’ve struggled with mental health issues for a really long time, but now there are new sets of anxieties to process,” she says. “So I wanted to try medication, to feel the way I want to feel.” 

Thinkstock/Getty Images

A Parent’s Nightmare  

While rates of mental illness in African-Americans are similar to those of the general population, only one in three Blacks who need mental health care receives it, according to the American Psychiatric Association.  

“There are a lot of different resources that did not exist three or four years ago,” says Tia Dole, Ph.D., executive director of the Steve Fund, an organization that supports the mental health of young people of color. “It takes some persistence, and parents too often wait for the child to be in an actual crisis. You might see their withdrawal over a period of months, and then all of a sudden you see a self-injury. The sooner you get in, the sooner they get better.”  

For parents whose children are 18 or older, getting them treatment may be a Herculean task. Such was the case with Atlanta resident Bridget Gipson, whose son, Steven A. Gipson, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2015. He had started exhibiting manic behavior before his diagnosis, and his mother sought professional help. But given that Steven was an adult, she needed his cooperation. In September 2014, he left Atlanta and became uncommunicative with her. She filed a missing person’s report; he was found days later in Miami Beach and taken to a hospital in the area.  

“The doctor told me, ‘Your son is here, and we’re going to release him,’” she says. “I begged the hospital to put him in a facility where he could get additional help. They wouldn’t.” But when Gipson drove to Florida to pick Steven up, the hospital wouldn’t release him to her. “I was devastated,” she says. “They released him back onto the streets of Miami. He went missing again for almost three months.”  

Steven returned to Atlanta with his mother that December. After being hospitalized, he started taking medication, attended therapy sessions and lived in a condo close to Gipson’s home. She even managed to get guardianship of Steven in early 2015, but with restrictions. She couldn’t admit him to a hospital unless he was a danger to himself, and she couldn’t force him to take his medication—which, in February 2015, he stopped taking. A month later, on March 19, 2015, Steven died by suicide. He was 26.  

Changing the Dialogue 

People of color are now more openly discussing mental health and its associated challenges, but many parents still don’t understand the underlying reasons for their child’s struggles. “I see a lot of guilt in parents of color,” Dole says. “They think, If my child is depressed, self-injuring or engaging in dangerous behavior, somehow I caused it. If my child receives help, then I will be shamed and blamed for their mental illness.”  

But parents, she notes, need to get past this kind of thinking. “The root causes of mental illness in children and young adults can stem from a myriad of factors, from environmental to genetic,” she points out. And because every child is unique, with a different set of circumstances, signs that they may be struggling present differently. The best thing for parents to do is talk, listen, pay careful attention and be open to learning.  

“Because therapy wasn’t as accessible or acceptable in the African- American community, there are lots of parents and grandparents who don’t believe in their pain,” Uzzell says. “One in four people will experience some type of mental health challenge. It may not be a long-term condition, it may be short term, but one person in four is going to experience it. That means it’s normal to go through mental and emotional distress, and we need to normalize talking to someone about it.”  

These resources help raise awareness and offer support to young people  

The Steve Fund has created a special keyword, STEVE, that young POC can text to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.  The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress. Dial 800-273-8255.  The National Alliance on Mental Illness allows you to Text NAMI to 741-741 to receive free, 24/7 crisis support.  Mental Health Real Talk, founded by Bridget Gipson, focuses on ending the stigma of mental health challenges.  Soul Survivors of Chicago, founded by Rafiah Maxie, donates the shoes of loved ones who have died to organizations and individuals in need—and provides educational workshops on the importance of mental health assessments. 

Chloe Castleberry is a writer and editor based in New York. Her work has appeared in The Daily Mail, New York Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens and SheKnows. 

*Photos used for illustrative purposes only

TOPICS:  covid mental health awareness month parenting

The post The Kids Are Not Alright: Addressing The Mental Health Crisis Impacting Our Youth appeared first on Essence.