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TL;DR: Short manga with a story that had a lot of potential, if it had taken twice the amount of pages to tell its story. The art style, however, is perfect.

Zombie Maria is a short one-shot Manga about a boy that goes into a forbidden forest to commit suicide. Once there, he meets a zombie girl who, determined to make sure he keeps on living, stops the boy from killing himself time after time, until he seems to go into the forest not to kill himself, but rather to meet her instead.

The story is told in only 45 pages, a length that contributed to the ... fact that the characters are fairly flat, Chekov's Guns are obvious, and the plot twists feel almost like Deus Ex Machina.

The art style, however, is beautiful. It's almost Tim Burton-esque, a style that goes very well with the theme of death that thing manga is about. Amusing to see is that Misao, the boy who is alive, is drawn more angularly to fit with the dark themes, where dead zombie Maria is drawn more traditionally Manga-round. This makes sense, as Misao is depressed and suicidal, where Maria is happy and appreciates life.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I feel like this story would have been better if told in a single volume as instead of a single chapter, but it was good nonetheless.

Shinigami-Sama ni Saigo no Onegai wo (from now on abbreviated as Shinigami-Sama ni Saigo because the full name is a pain in the ass to type a hundred times) has a pretty straight-forward premise. A boy is sentenced to death for the triple murder of his entire family, and his sister, who is one of the victims, has become a Shinigami, or God of Death, to make sure the sentence is carried out so she can drag him to the deepest pits of Hell herself. But did he really do it?

Art - 7

The art is not the best I've ever seen, but it's definitely not ... the worst. Facial expressions fit the characters, environments aren't repetitive and there's a clear difference between characters. Pretty straightforward.

Character - 8

The characters are great. There is a clear developement visible in Shizuka and Hibiki both, Hibiki transitioning from a sister who loathes her brother for what he has (seemed to have) done, to a sister who would give her life to save her brother. Shizuka, at the start of the manga, has pretty much resigned to his fate and accepted death, but later on he starts to actually wonder if he did it at all, and if not then who? At first it seems that all that he does, he does to solve the mystery of the murders he was charged with, but it is eventually clearly visible that he does care about the people that he helps, giving up several chances to solve the case just to help other people.
The side-characters are very well-developed, each with a clear personality that differentiates them from the others, some with a clear background if needed. An 8 well deserved.

Story - 9

The story is an absolute masterpiece, even with a plot as simple as this, there is little to no filler. The story strays from the plot several times, which I thought was unneeded, but by the end of the manga even those little stories seemed to fall into place.

Oh right, the ending.

Let me change the score, hang on.

Story - 5

There is no ending. None at all. I don't know if it's because the manga was cancelled, or because the author intended it to end in a way that would make the readers solve the mystery themselves, but even if it was planned the way it did, many questions are still unanswered and not just the "but then who did it?" that this entire manga is about. All of the clues to the main question of the manga are summarized in the last few pages, and the story ends with a flowchart of all the information you have, which is not nearly enough to actually solve it. The worst part is that in the three years since the story "ended" (quotes because I don't consider this an ending), the author, or anyone else related to this manga for that matter, has come out with who the real killer was. There's tons of speculation all over the web, but no definite ending to the story at all. I really would have given this a 9 for story alone, if not for that ending.

Enjoyment - 7

Nevertheless, the story was good, and contrary to a lot of other mystery/horror manga/anime/visnovs out there, it actually *does* make you think along, list all the clues to the identity in your head. The manga was short and, as mentioned before, ended incomplete, but it was a fun read anyway.

Overall - 7
A great manga with good character developement and an enjoyable story that was ruined with a lousy ending that leaves the reader with a feeling of table-flipping frustration.