Undead Unluck

Undead Unluck (アンデッドアンラック) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshifumi Tozuka. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from January 2020 to January 2025, with its chapters collected in 27 volumes. The series is licensed for English release in North America by Viz Media.

An anime television series adaptation, produced by TMS Entertainment and animated by David Production, aired from October 2023 to March 2024. A one-hour special anime sequel produced by E&H Production aired in December 2025. A second season has been announced.

Synopsis

Fuuko Izumo is an 18-year-old girl who has been living in seclusion for ten years since an incident that left more than 200 people dead, including her parents, when she was eight years old. Following the completion of her favorite long-running manga series, Fuuko decides to commit suicide. She is tormented by the fact that her "unluck" ability brings bad luck to anyone she directly comes into contact with. She soon meets an "undead" man who has amazing regenerative abilities and who desires to die the best death possible, disliking his immortal life. For the sake of convenience, Fuuko names him Andy because he is undead, and they begin to work together. However, they soon see themselves chased by the Union (ユニオン), a mysterious organization.

Eventually, an assassin of the Union called Shen tells them that the organization has a special team consisting of ten people with special abilities, and that by joining the team, they will no longer be hunted, so the two decide to join in order to attain Andy's wish for "the best death", and face numerous enemies and the mysteries of the world.

The missions of the team are proposed by a talking book called Apocalypse, which has supernatural powers. There are people with the ability to negate the rules of the world called Negators (否定者). The Union is an organization of Negators specialized in the hunting of UMA (ユーマ) or Unidentified Mysterious Animals, creatures that are the embodiment of the Earth's rules (such as thirst and decay) and are created by God as both the objectives for the quests provided by Apocalypse, as well as punishment for failing them. They also must defeat a group of Negators that opposes the Union called Under (アンダー) and Regulators (調整者), beings chosen to do God's bidding.

Media

Reception

By September 2022, the manga had over 1.8 million copies in circulation.[35] In 2020, it won the sixth Next Manga Award, placing first out of the 50 nominees with 31,685 votes.[36][37][38] The manga ranked fourteenth on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of the best manga of 2021 for male readers.[39] The series ranked sixth on the "Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics of 2021" by the Honya Club website.[40][41] Type-Moon's Kinoko Nasu recommended the series with a comment featured on the obi of the ninth volume.[42]

The series' first volume received mixed reviews.[43][44] Anime News Network commended Tozuka's artwork but was highly critical of the depiction of Andy and Fuuko's relationship and its sexually exploitative nature.[43] Hannah Collins of Comic Book Resources praised Tozuka's art in depicting violence and its comedic potential but also criticized the series' portrayal of the main characters' relationship wherein "Fuuko's body is primarily used as a sexualized tool for Andy to grope and fling around at will."[44]

Explanatory notes

External links