Desired death. Fated death. Prolonged death. Accidental death. Vengeful death. Regretful death. Sacrificial death. Senseless death. This manga deals with death in all its forms. It is central, constant and ever present, as threat and reward. This is a story of people who want to kill, people who want to die, and people who want to live. In the pages of Undead Unluck, Yoshifumi Tozuka dares to try and tell the story of the greatest death ever.
I somewhat foolishly began this review simply because I had a copy of volume 1 on hand. I had been following the series since chapter 1 and I had mostly enjoyed it. I remembered thinking some arcs were not very engaging but the series normally ranked among my current favorites in Shonen Jump. Reading a series weekly is a completely different experience than reading it as a whole. I had realized this before. I often found myself appreciating the slower arcs of One Piece more on a re-read than during their original release. However, I keep forgetting this lesson. And Undead Unluck really put me in my place. I didn’t anticipate the kind of density that an analytic retrospective would reveal. There are many things I’d like to talk to you about. Specifically, the brilliance of the Four Seasons Saga. However, for the purposes of this review I’ll have to limit myself to the promising running start that is volume 1. I’m sure this book holds many secrets yet to be uncovered, many seeds that are yet to germinate. So far, in its currently released 117 chapters, Tozuka has patiently revealed how shockingly significant a lot of the seemingly minor details presented in the first 7 chapters of his work truly are.
Chapter one begins with an attempted suicide. I am not going to make assumptions about how Japanese audiences reacted to this scene. And I'm certainly not going to wash my dirty laundry in public. Not here, on this first review. Not yet. But I will confess, I did find this particular scene somewhat relatable. The somewhat frivolous handling of the normally impactful subject matter can be forgiven, or at least overlooked, because of its fantastical context. It's a rather common scenario to see characters in fiction contemplate death as an escape from their more supernatural conundrums. The child of a dark lord, the unwilling chosen one, the walking time bomb. Our protagonist, Fuuko Izumo, is an example of this last category. Ever since she was a child, everyone she touched was cursed with dangerous, even fatal misfortune. So, having read the newly released final chapter of her favorite manga, ‘To You, From Me’, she sees no more reason to prolong her unfortunate existence. Boy, that one hits kinda close to home.
Just as Fuuko is frantically explaining the situation to her would-be-saviors, she is restrained by a hunk of a man. Visually more of a Kenshiro or maybe a Goku than a Luffy or a Deku. He is big, imposing, and in a lot of panels even monstrous. This man beats her to the punch. He walks into a knife she’s holding, stabbing himself without much of a reaction. He’s roughly handling Fuuko, clearly interested in the veracity of her threats. From the instant he lands on the page, he’s loud, confident, impulsive, and carefree. He’s an instantaneous foil to the Fuuko we’ve seen so far. We soon learn these two have at least something in common. This man wants to die too. Thus, by the second page of the story, Fuuko has met her perfect complement.
After this brief introduction we see Fuuko’s powers in action. Once he lets go of her, the man is summarily torn to pieces by the very train she had been waiting to jump in front of. She’s immediately concerned, reinforcing the already clear guilt and responsibility she feels for her condition. “Zombie!” She exclaims as her self-flagellation is interrupted by the severed head of her recent victim. “Undead!” he corrects her. Earlier we heard Fuuko name her curse Unluck. In this early echoing of the series title we’re introduced to the nomenclature of the story’s power system. And just as she is able to negate others’ luck, we’re shown in amusing spectacle how Undead is able to negate his own death. Cheeky scenes of cartoonish mutilation serve as one of the principal signatures of the series. From this early on we see Tozuka play with Undead’s anatomy, producing dynamic panels depicting the non-zombie in varying stages of regeneration. There is joy in his movements, a distinct kinetic energy that clearly communicates the violence and speed with which his body replaces missing parts and mends injuries. We see him regrow his entire body from the stump of his decapitated noggin. Undead is reckless in life and battle because there is no such thing as danger to him.
As he’s probing Fuuko from information on her Unluck, Undead continues to be brash and impudent, bordering on unpleasant. After a bout of fondling and threatening, the consequences of his next stroke of Unluck send Fuuko flying from the roof of a high-rise. In her descent she begins to regret her deathwish. She has a pure heart and simple desires. Her remorse is missing out on fashion and romance, missing out on normalcy. A dashing scene of heroism is colored irreverent by Undead’s nakedness and the ludicrously massive censor bar between his legs. This contrasts amusingly with the dreamy framing as Undead’s tenderly embraces of Fuuko, assuring that he won’t let her come to harm. After all, he’s finally found her. This romantic phrasing is interrupted by a declaration of self-interest. He’s been looking for someone who could possibly make him die.
This scene draws the attention of a mysterious group of antagonists. The potential conflict takes a backseat to the progression of Fuuko and her pushy companion’s relationship. Aware that she’s unfamiliar with the exact boundaries of her Unluck, Fuuko and Undead begin to learn about each other as he tests and questions her. Tragically, Fuuko recalls that the worst strokes Unluck comes for the people she cares for the most. Her parents died after hugging her, but when her grandfather and Undead did the same their misfortune was negligible. The pain of having lost her family is however an old wound. Fuuko’s suffering is mostly exacerbated by her inability to connect with anyone else, out of a fear of hurting them. When her hat comes off she’s embarrassed by the state of her hair, long, damaged and unkempt. Her condition means she’s been unable to receive any kind of assistance for the past 10 years. In her short life Fuuko has missed out on everything. In his impossibly long life, Undead has missed out on nothing. He reveals that at some point he’s even dabbled in hair styling. We’re treated to a compassionate scene in which he carefully and meticulously cuts and shapes down Fuuko’s hair to a healthy condition. Even knowing the dangers, he’s not hesitant to touch her. We’ve learned now that just as he can be brazen, he can be gentle and comforting. He’s still forward and assertive, but he makes a tactful effort to bring her solace in the mundane yet painfully yearned for act of a haircut.
Their bonding is interrupted by the delivery of the earlier setup. The mysterious group tracking them makes itself known by beheading Undead once more. They are clearly prepared to confront him, holding equipment specifically designed to restrain him. They introduce to us more key concepts. Undead and Unluck are specifically types of Negators, and this group views them as threats. They lump them together with Unidentified Mysterious Animals, hinting that there is more magic to this world than what we’ve seen so far. Fuuko tries to make a case for Undead, now at least somewhat endeared to him. Their assailants are unconcerned with her protests and a battle begins. Undead reveals a limiter he can remove to access an eternal lifetime’s worth of memories. The awakened Undead easily exploits the dynamics of his regeneration to swiftly neutralize (read: kill) numerous goons. The climax of the combat scene shows us Fuuko is capable of weaponizing her Unluck, as she kisses Undead, confident he will survive but that the impact of the misfortune will be enough to dispose of their enemies.
This explosive first chapter closes with a budding friendship between the two. Fuuko is glad to finally have someone in her life she can “safely” touch. She even gives him a nickname, Andy, derived phonetically from Undead as he doesn’t remember his actual name. Excited by the idea that a kiss could lead to so much damage he chases Fuuko trying to convince her they should shag and see what happens.
While conceptualizing this review, I wanted to find some shoujo romance manga to compare the portrayal of Andy and Fuuko’s relationship to a more traditional love story. A lot of the romance manga I’ve read are very passive, the main couple falls in love through proximity rather than any overt flirtation. Andy’s approach is far more assertive, and so I asked my friends for suggestions. I wanted manga where one of the parties was clearly interested in wooing the other from the start. A friend suggested Kimi ni Todoke. ‘From Me, To You.’ It was then that it clicked. Fuuko’s favorite manga is a not-subtle-at-all nod to the famed romance series. It became immediately clear that Kimi ni Todoke was actually required reading in order to understand what Tozuka-sensei was trying to accomplish with Undead Unluck. The parallels are clear from the start. Kazehaya represents hope for Sawako. Andy is hope for Fuuko, even if she doesn’t know it yet. Through their courtship they help the object of their affections open up. They invite them into a larger world. At their core, these are both stories about growing through love.