Diskette: Undead Unluck

Author

Yoshifumi Tozuka.

Status

Finished with 239 chapters.

Rating

8/10

Where to Read

Available on Manga Plus or Viz, though both require a paid subscription. I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find less reputable distributors.

When recommending Undead Unluck in the past, I've shot myself in the foot by focusing too much on the ways it sucks. Which are most of them, for the first few chapters. I want to be forward about this so people aren't caught off-guard, but I've found that it tends to just make it stick out that much more. So instead, I'm going to acknowledge here that it's valid to be put off by the start, and cut straight to why you should give this series a chance anyways.

Undead Unluck is a story about finding love and killing god. It is pure, distilled "cruel uncaring universe vs indomitable human will", and it rules severely.

Regardless of how it begins, the main romance is a genuinely good love story. It's believable how both these characters slowly come to care for each other, and the way their relationship becomes central to the rest of the plot is fantastic. If you like the vibes of "our meeting was explicitly an unlikely chance and yet it feels predestined", you'll love it here.

Crucially, the love is not strictly romantic! The friendship and comradery between the main cast is an explicitly important part of the story, to the point the second half focuses much more on it than the romance (which at that point has firmly developed). And the side characters are really the hidden gems of this story, most of them feeling like the main characters of their own stories.

This section contains spoilers for Undead Unluck chapter 133-onwards

Loop 101 is a genius direction to take the story, giving us a look into the characters in new perspectives - or maybe just a look at all, in the case of Void and (arguably) Gina. Giving these characters, who were once basically just nameless opponents, their own little arcs to shine does a lot for their previous depictions, retroactively.

As for the 'killing god' part, firstly, the action is great. It's thrilling, it's easy to follow along, and the power system is very fun - a little reminiscent of Jojo's in how it adds mind games and arbitrary conditions to otherwise mostly physical fights.

But the real star of the show is the why of it - the worldbuilding. My goodness the worldbuilding. I cannot describe it to you. Seriously - to spoil any of the inner workings of this setting would ruin the masterful build-up to their reveals. But let me assure you, it's some of the most well-done exposition I have ever seen: the seeds are sown surprisingly early, they pay off in extremely unexpected ways, and when it all comes together, it's such a fun and original design.

I remember when Undead Unluck first released, and the people in manga circles I frequent all said it was awful and shouldn't make the cut. Fast forward a year or two, the exact same people were losing their minds ecstatic every time a new chapter dropped. If that's not some of the best proof this story is worth it, I don't know what is. Please give this story a chance: it deserves it.