Summary
Undead Unluck season 1 has an excellent storyline and lots of great animations. However, said animation is very inconsistent and often comes with terrible overall pacing and direction. Season 1 largely failed to live up to the source material and the anime needed a complete overhaul for season 2.
Unlucky zombies is Weekly Shonen Jump's latest manga to be adapted into an anime. This manga has always been an underrated gem and with the studio and staff behind both JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Fire Force working on it, Undead Unluck has quickly become one of the most highly anticipated anime Most waiting for 2023.
Undead Unluck season 1 just finished airing and overall, it's hard to say that it was as successful as expected. The story is just as interesting as the original manga, if not more interesting, but unlucky zombiesInconsistent animation and strange editing and pacing made season 1 difficult to watchand that makes for what should be an incredible anime that is often just average.
Undead Unluck season 1 was never the worst thing to air, but unfortunately, it was never as good as it could have been.
Undead Unluck has one of Shonen Jump's most unique stories
Undead Unluck's story cannot be beat
The best thing about Undead Unluck season 1 is that there are no bugs that hinder its story. First, like the original manga, Undead Unluck's Negator power system is one of the most complex in any manga, with the series always pushing the boundaries of what seemingly basic superpowers like regeneration can do while still keeping the basic form of said powers intact. That results in each fight having a lot of creativity, which only grows as the characters hone their abilities, and in that regard, they're always fun to watch.
The cast of Undead Unluck also plays a big role in creating the greatness of the story. Although season 1 ended before many of the cast members were discovered, Unlucky zombies did a great job of portraying characters like Fuuko, Andy, and Juiz as fascinating and tragic characters with a lot of character developmentand especially Fuuko's development is one of the best of any shounen anime, especially for the female protagonist. Whether the moments are humorous or tense, the cast of Undead Unluck always shines, and their interactions are often the highlight of each episode.
Undead Unluck's animation rarely comes close to the quality of its story
Why Undead Unluck's animation rarely works
Unfortunately, the first season of Undead Unluck had more negatives than positives, and one of the most notable was in the animation. The first few episodes of Unlucky zombies There's a lot of creative animation and it's overall stunning, the artwork and cinematography easily ranked among the best cartoons airing at the time. The majority of the staff behind Fire Force, mainly comprised of veteran animators from Studio Shaft, worked on Undead Unluck, so it makes sense that it would have the same level of animation excellence, even Sometimes Undead Unluck even surpasses Fire Force.
The problem with Undead Unluck's animation, however, is that it's extremely inconsistent. While the first few episodes always have great animation, most episodes of unlucky zombies has very stiff and cheap animations, with many scenes featuring a combination of stiff visuals, recycled footage, and ugly ambient artwork. Undead Unluck was never the worst looking anime to air during its run, but the moments where its animation matched its story were few and far between, and it was eventually canceled. It has the potential to be one of the best Shonen Jump anime in years.
Undead Unluck's direction is poorly executed more times than not
Why is the direction of Undead Unluck so bad?
However, what ultimately let Undead Unluck season 1 down was its extremely poor direction. Animation construction is inconsistent, many episodes Unlucky zombies has a bizarre and boring direction that just conveys the story in flat and uninteresting ways. The best example of this is in episode #14, where for no reason, the sequence of events surrounding Andy's final attack on the Under Negator Rip was changed so that the explanation behind it, instead of is given immediately, conveyed through a flashback immediately afterward. it already happened, thus undermining the tension through awkward and unnecessary pacing.
The worst part of Undead Unluck's direction is easily the plethora of flashbacks. Nearly every episode is filled with recaps and flashbacks, even if it's something that just happened in the previous scene, throwing off the pace. For example, episode #18 was supposed to be the biggest episode of the season, but Undead Unluck's reliance on flashbacks has moved to episode #18into an epic clip screeningso it's by far one of the worst and anime has never really learned how to pull it off.
If anyone can blame the inconsistent quality of Undead Unluck's direction, it has to be series director Yuki Yase. Yase is by no means an incompetent director, as his work on shows like Fire Force and Hidamari Sketch would show, and there are plenty of great moments in Undead Unluck. Unfortunately, Yase's directing style was not suitable Unlucky zombiesand as a result it quickly lost much of the hype surrounding it.
Things Undead Unluck needs to improve in Part 2
Part 2 needs to be better
Undead Unluck teased a season 2 announcement later this year and there's a lot of room for improvement. Having more consistent visuals and animations is one thing, but above all, Unlucky zombies needs to stop having so many flashbacks and being so slow paced, because repeating that would only further damage its reputation. Yuki Yase being replaced as director won't necessarily fix all of that, but if he's going to stay, then he needs to do something to try to focus more on what worked the success of his previous projects.
Considering everything that will be mentioned in the second part hypothetically, an improvement in quality can easily occur. Everything Undead Unluck Part 2 covers is often considered to be when the manga really started to find its footing, so just from there, unlucky zombies Season 2 will be much better than season 1and with any luck, animation and direction will improve in tandem. unlucky zombiesIts creativity and overall quality make it worthy of a much better adaptation than season 1, and with any luck, that will be realized with an improved season 2.