The art is very good, it's nothing amazing, but it's very clear and generally pleasant, unless we see a side shot of the face of any character in which case, it looks horrendous. The art is very consistent, until one point, which is the only time we really get a major change in the style, chapter 130-131, the fact it comes in so late makes the change so much more meaningful and gives the events that relate to it so much more power, it is amazing.
Okay, the 10 first chapters are just perfect. It is so funny, the characters are so intriguing, every new unlock
...
is stupider than the last, the plot is so ridiculous, the way the fights are structured with an "information gathering" phase and then the actual fights is fascinating, the pacing's great. If the manga was just that, it would easily be a high 8.
After that, once Andy and Fuuko join the Union, it slows down for a bit and the more serious story starts to take its place while the jokes take a backseat (though the ones we get remain very funny) and we get a second introduction of sorts, it's still good, just not as good in my opinion as the first 10 chapters and that applies for the rest of the manga I think.
However, we do start getting more characters, which are all absolutely amazing, their designs are each super great and distinct, their personalities are all very interesting. This truly applies to every character, including characters like Rip or Top who present archetypes I usually hate, or Creed who is unbelievably simple, yet still super interesting.
If this manga was nothing but the story of each of the character's backstory, it would be a 10/10, their stories are just this interesting and present such emotionally powerful scenes, I just want to learn more about them, all their misfortunes are so unique! Every time the story goes back to a misfortune that has already been presented to add detail unto it, it feels great. Every character interaction is just a joy to read.
The action scenes are good, but I personally feel that action scenes in general have a sort of hard cap on how good they can be without being animated (for instance Demon Slayer or Mob Psycho II) or being absolutely insane (Chainsaw Man or Goblin Slayer), since the Unluck Undead manga offers neither (until the God fight when Undecrease comes into play, HOLY SHIT, just thinking about it puts a smile on my face), they are good, but nothing more really. However, the non-conventional fight scenes like the fight against Spring are very good (but not amazing).
The setting is underdeveloped I think. We barely see any interactions with Apocalypse or any explanations relating to his rules, we don't see many artifacts and see even less of them being explained, Umas are explained in a way that doesn't make sense if we take into account what rule they are supposed to represent and how the world was before their existence, some rules seem to exist before their Umas do (Insect for instance (if we compare the 101th's loop's earth to the one where Insect was killed)), some Umas have rules that make no sense (Move or "Kain" for instance), some Umas seem to exist without Apocalypse, etc. The one chance we had to see a lot of Apocalypse is used to skip 26 years, there's so many little holes that feel like they could easily be patched up if the author just took the time to explain them properly.
This leads me to my next point, negators are a mixed bag, most of them are pretty self-explanatory, like Unluck negating luck, Undead being unable to become dead, Undecrease being unable to run out of things, Unrepair making things impossible to fix, but others feel a little wonky like Untruth making people do the opposite of what they want (the part about them saying the opposite makes sense though), Unfair... just... I get it, but... why? Unruin and Unfade also make very little sense. That's not to say negators aren't great, most of their abilities are really interesting, but some others feel out of place like Umas.
The pacing is pretty bad honestly, it gets better during the 101th loop, but the problem is that the story seems to be too focused on doing 1 thing at a time, so we'll get 10 or more high speed, combat focused chapters before 5 or 6 slower chapters, but the fact that they are often so grouped up makes it so that the highs don't feel like highs (cough cough Spoil fight cough cough), because they are surrounded by other highs, and the lows don't feel like lows, because they are surrounded by other lows. It's a lot better when it mixes it up like during the Autumn fight or while Fuuko is looking for other negators.
The 101th loop is just god tier, the time skip feels like a huge shame, because it's more of my biggest problem with this manga, we don't see enough of the small things (artifacts, Umas and the world in general outside the main plot) to truly be able to appreciate the world, but what we do get is taking what the 100th loop did well and polishing it until no impurities remain, we don't just see the flashbacks about the misfortunes that every negator has, we see the misfortunes take place, it's so good. We get to learn about the characters we couldn't learn about in the previous loop, every little spec of information from the first part comes back into play, it's just amazing.
It's a mid 8. Because of the terrible pacing, while reading it, I was thinking more of giving it a high 7 or low 8, however, thinking back on it, it has so many memorable moments and such a powerful and interesting plot, I just can't give it any lower than a mid 8.
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Mar 4, 2023
Undead Unluck
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The art is very good, it's nothing amazing, but it's very clear and generally pleasant, unless we see a side shot of the face of any character in which case, it looks horrendous. The art is very consistent, until one point, which is the only time we really get a major change in the style, chapter 130-131, the fact it comes in so late makes the change so much more meaningful and gives the events that relate to it so much more power, it is amazing.
Okay, the 10 first chapters are just perfect. It is so funny, the characters are so intriguing, every new unlock ... |
