DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

ONE SHOT ActionUndead + Unluck
ANIME ActionUndead Unluck
NOVEL ComedyUndead Unluck: Fuzoroi na Union no Nichijou
NOVEL ActionUndead Unluck: Romantic na Hiteisha no Kyuujitsu
SPECIAL ActionUndead Unluck Special

REVIEWS

• 

  SpikeWasAlreadyTaken

  89/100
  An unique spin on battle shonen that only gets better as time goes on

  Disclaimer: I'm going to try and keep this review spoiler free, but there may be minor spoilers.

  With the upcoming anime adaptation and a lack of reviews on this gem of a manga, I figured I'd write one. I think that Undead Unluck is genuinely one of the best Shonen Jump series of the last couple years, so I hope that my review gets some more people to give it a shot.

  First things first. The first couple of chapters are not good, and portray one of the main characters in a way that makes light of sexual assault. It's horrendous and I think the mangaka realized it, since that element is completely gone by the time the first real arc starts. Afterwards, the series gets better every arc. I don't want to sound like one of those "it gets good 10 volumes in!" people, but Undead Unluck picks up significantly around volume 4 and gets really good around volume 6. Something to keep in mind.

  Undead Unluck follows Andy, an immortal who wishes to die, and Fuuko, who brings bad luck to anyone she touches, ranging from mild annoyances to death. Andy believes that Fuuko is the key to finally laying him to rest, and the two of them soon find themselves tangled up with a mysterious organization that's attempting to prevent Ragnarok.

  Andy and Fuuko, first off, are great characters. After volume 1, the author tosses some less savory aspects of their relationship, and both of them continually grow as characters, which I appreciate. Andy is goofy, and wild, and full of life, but especially as the series goes on he does have a mature side that comes with his age. The mangaka has done an excellent job weaving that maturity into him while still keeping him wild, and it makes him feel very well-rounded. Fuuko starts off as you'd expect someone thrown into all kinds of craziness to, if a tad optimistic, but over time grows into a mature character in her own right.
  The side characters in Undead Unluck are also excellent. For a battle shonen cast, they're unexpectedly fleshed out, and especially in recent chapters more and more insight into the side cast has been added. They have their own views and motives, and aren't all perfect, happy people like in some shonen. I can't go into much detail without spoilers, but when UU has backstories, they're well timed and normally reveal a lot about the character. Overall, could some of the minor characters be a tiny bit better- sure, but Undead Unluck has done an extremely good job with them overall. In addition, Undead Unluck has a good female cast! Some shonen seem to have issues just making the female characters people instead of tokens, but Undead Unluck avoids that pitfall.
  *Updating this review a year later: Undead Unluck has continued to flesh out and even recontextualize its cast even as we approach the endgame, and it's truly incredible. I don't agree with every decision made on the characterization, but I don't need to, since they wind up being great in other ways I didn't expect. Wicked sick!

  As a battle shonen, Undead Unluck has taken a lot of the typical battle shonen things- power system, power reveals, new abilities, etc- and done a great job with them. The power system is really good at tying a character's ability into their backstory and provides a lot of unique powers- you still have some typical ones like super speed and invisibility, but a lot of them are creative. I also really enjoyed how power-ups and battles were really dictated by creativity in using powers, rather than the power itself becoming notably stronger. The battles themselves are really fun, again because the powers are creative. The villains are also generally interesting, and aren't just punching bags.

  As far as the story goes, the first couple of volumes are a pretty typical and fun battle shonen, but as the story goes on, it becomes more unique. Continually building upon the main narrative, Undead Unluck doesn't bring stuff into the story only to toss it, and it doesn't really go off on tangents. It just keeps bringing new pieces into the story, and it does an exceptional job weaving it all together. Tropes that are often present in battle shonen are also used well- UU doesn't subvert expectations entirely, but it plays around with tropes in ways that feel relatively fresh and clever. The series is also not afraid to take risks and go in unhappy directions, and that's especially obvious in the current arc as I'm writing this. As a side note, the current arc is absolutely incredible and has been tossing out great chapters that build the world and characters almost every week for months.
  *Update a year later: even early elements that seem unimportant have been tied back into the story neatly! Little anecdotes about side cast members, explanations of the power system, they're all being used really cleverly to make the final stretch satisfying.

  Art-wise, Undead Unluck isn't anything crazy, but it's solid enough and has some great moments- especially in creating striking character designs that are still reasonable. The art improves massively after the first few chapters (which look almost as though they weren't inked), and I think it fits the story well. It's rough, but has a decent bit of detail, and just like the story has gotten better as time goes on.

  Overall, Undead Unluck is one of the best battle shonen I've read. It isn't perfect, but with great characters, an interesting power system, and great fights, as well as a story that just keeps on improving, I highly recommend it to any manga fan.

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• 

  Venyx

  93/100
  Undead Unluck, the shonen that just keeps getting better!

  Among the new titles in Shonen Jump, there's a manga that's not very popular with the public, but which deserves success for its originality and its characters. I'm talking, of course, about Undead Unluck!
  Written and drawn since 2020 by Yoshifumi Tozuka, the manga currently has 190 chapters and an anime, currently airing, produced by David Production. Undead Unuck is published in Weekly Shonen Jump and is a fairly moderately popular manga that has even come close to being removed from Jump several times. This manga follows the story of Fuuko Izumo, who possesses a rather strange power nicknamed "Unluck". She meets Andy, a man who seems to be immortal.
  At first, I wasn't expecting much from this manga. The first few chapters are rather confusing, there's some annoying fan service and the manga seems to move very quickly. However, after these first few chapters, the manga only improves and becomes genuinely interesting as the plot progresses. And that's where this manga is incredible. The drawings, the writing of the characters and the story arcs only get better and better, and quickly become excellent. The plot even becomes quite complex and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The latest chapters prove that Tozuka is continuing to build on his excellent momentum.
  But the biggest strength of Undead Unluck is its cast and its power system. Most of the characters are memorable and have developed incredibly over the course of the arcs. I'm not even talking about Fuuko, the protagonist, who is, in my opinion, one of the best heroines in current Jump. My favourite characters are Rip, Feng, Billy and Fuuko. The power system, without spoiling anything, is very original and clearly out of the ordinary. In a way, it sometimes reminds me of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The battles are bursting with inventiveness and are constantly renewed
  In terms of drawings, Tozuka is also constantly improving. The chara-designs are memorable and successful. Some of the plates are a little overcrowded, but they're often beautiful and the action is very well conveyed. As for the covers, I think they're pretty good from volume 10 onwards.

  In short, despite its rather average first chapters, Undead Unluck deserves to be a great success, breaking away from the beaten shonen path and showing that you shouldn't always judge a manga on its first chapters! The manga is quite difficult to summarise without spoilers, so I recommend that anyone who likes shonens should give this manga a read.

  
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• 

  HINAchi

  100/100
  The exact moment, that Undead Unluck, win me.

  This is a reply, while at the same time, my review of Undead Unluck, in response to this tweet To the user: Nero (Avatar Era) / @GearlessScarab Which, for obvious reasons, would never fit there without making A LOT OF EFFORT. But for "reasons" of not wanting to make the text too broken, I decided to send it here.

  First of all, I warn you that there are spoilers SPECIFICALLY from:

  • Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 91
  • Undead Unluck Chapter 15

  • And just a slight quote from a spoiler-heavy Undead Unluck, with regards to its World Building.

    First of all, I want to thank the author of this tweet for giving not only me, but also several people the opportunity to say, or just think, why they like Undead Unluck. More specifically, from when.

    -

    To tell the truth, if it were any other manga, I would have a lot of difficulty pointing it out. Since even though I have read much more as a critic than before, even though I am very aware of what I read, it is a challenge to pinpoint exactly.

    HOWEVER, I was lucky enough to find half of the first chapter of this manga, wandering around TikTok. The premise and how Fuuko decided to kill herself JUST AFTER reading the end of her favorite manga, resonated a lot with my own position towards my life. As sad as this may seem, it is the purest truth and is something I won't go into further into. This post was not written with words that carry despair. Just sweet words that remind us of the truth of the beauty I could feel.

    Still, that was just enough for me to WANT TO READ. (yes, that's the level, it has to be interesting from the beginning with what you want to tell. Not detailed, interesting. Then I decide to read it.).
    And yet; ¹the way the line is very reminiscent of a very sincere aspect of old Mangas, almost something like Osamu Tezuka, with his """""TECHNICALLY""""" idwentical lines, which today, by ignorant people, would be judged as the "facial overfilled syndrome", which is just too simplistic. ²The way that even with such a TECHNICALLY elaborate and "square" line, it manages to do much better than these "modern and round" lines that today's manga have in abundance. Why? A GOOD COMPOSITION, and knowledge of perspectives, which are YES a good fruit of modernity when it comes to how the art of manga developed.

    -

    -

    All this and a little more, made me enjoy each chapter I read, AT THE BEGINNING, something that I tend not to be very critical of because it is based on the presentation of the work's concepts, you know? This is already a FUCKING ACHIEVEMENT.
    Yet, the epitome of it all, arrived in chapter 15, when this face was shown to me... That strange Smile... Strange but not hideous, it carries its own beauty...

    

    This got me for one simple reason. The powers of denial in this history coincide very much with how I write the powers of my own stories, which were modeled after one of my favorite lines from JUJUTSU KAISEN.

    Chapter 91, page 5

    When Mahito is asked something regarding his theory of powers, he immediately responds

    — Does this have to be the same for everyone?
    — Considering our Jujutsu Techniques, you and I practically live in different worlds.

    Faced with this, the greatest form of chaos and knowledge of Jujutsu Kaisen, only responds.

    — So techniques dictate our worlds, right? Hehe...
    — I liked it

    (P.S it's quick: I ACCIDENTALLY got the chapter with the exact same sentence right on my first try. Having read the entire work 2 times, and watched season 1 9 times in its entirety, was useful for something. LOL)

    This positioning given by history itself is about powers, with the users themselves having the dialogue and not a voice from beyond. This freedom while still restricted by rules, is expressed by minds that use it and did NOT actually create it. The way in which the same power is shaped is not necessarily based on a rigid system of the user's personality, but rather on something simpler. Precisely the simplicity of an imperfect being that does not operate all the possibilities of its own strength.
    This is the real beauty of giving fire to an imperfect being. Prometheus being the author, and the imperfect being his own characters.

    I brought all of this to light, because that's exactly what Undead Unluck showed me in chapter 15. With the revelation of the specificities that carry that smile. Falsehood as reality, a real, specific, and false love. The Untruth...

    

    Not to mention how the first page of the manga, which is a manga, is a metalanguage on so many levels as a MANGA, but which is only revealed FUTURE. Still, it demonstrates an absurd construction, after all, IT'S NOT BULLSHIT, this reframing of the entire story, it's simply what it proposed to do FROM THE BEGINNING. it's beautiful

    The Untruth, and everything after that. Just one page, with very few words. A story with VERY FEW CHAPTERS that I found by MERE CHANCE. It became my IDEAL SHOUNEN, something that as a creator, I will follow. And look, not even Jujutsu Kaisen, the work that gave me the most interest in working on my critical sense, MY FAVORITE WORK OF ART IN LIFE. Not even deserves this title that I, as a fan, as a critic, as an illustrator, as a WRITER who one day want to launch my own manga.

    I don't know about you
    But after reading, rereading, and currently following the Undead Unlucky weeklies. This is the work that most carries the name and demographic that is "Shounen" in essence. Being the greatest of all the satires I've ever read about a genre. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, sometimes exciting, sometimes emotional...
    To those who read to the end.
    I'm very grateful, after all, it's the first review/post I've written and shared with people beyond my social circle.
    Sincerely, thank you very much.

  I'm ___lucky___, and I'll never ___negate___ it. Of being ___born___ and read. ___Undead Unluck___..
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