How do you rate episode 19 of
Undead Unluck ? Community score: 4.1
© Yoshifumi Totsuka/Shueisha/Undead Unluck Production Committee
Final! After what seemed like an eternity, we’ve finally been given that most elusive of gifts: An Undead Unluck episode that (apart from a small synopsis at the beginning) includes all footage and credits. New material! Saint Fuuko and Saint Andy the Well-Hung were both praised.
Before I get to the compliments (where there are plenty of them), it’s my duty as a reviewer to mention that all of this new footage isn’t exactly impressive animation We’ve ever seen this series. There are a lot of montages that make this episode, and they all contain a very noticeable amount of frame-by-frame shots held for way too long; a clear indication of padding if any. It doesn’t help that this episode’s story doesn’t require animation in the first place, as the Union crew mostly spends their time sitting around and/or standing a few feet apart and having very lengthy conversations.
Luckily, the story of “Undead + Unluck” makes up for the lack of good stuff to watch, as Undead Unluck takes its first plunge into the pool of Weird Metafiction this week. As a worthy bonus, it turns out that the manga “To You, From Me” that launched the entire series—the manga that Fuuko was obsessed with during her secluded days—is a book about prophecies tri shoujo thinly veiled science fiction. Juiz believes that the only way the manga has such specific similarities to Union’s (mis)adventures is if it is written using the G-Liner artifact. Naturally, the only logical way for the team to discover the truth behind “To You, From Me” is to create a manga called “Undead + Unluck”, based on Andy and Fuuko’s entire journey and send it’s for newbies of Shueisha. contest in hopes of earning face time with Anno Un, the mysterious author of “To You, From Me.”
This ridiculous plot sounds interesting, mainly because it contrasts the recent heaviness of Billy and Under’s betrayal with the sitcom-style shenanigans of the Union gang coming together to create a The manga tells the story of a sad, withdrawn girl’s encounter with a giant clock-wielding zombie monster. There are just so many funny jokes here, although my favorite is the reveal that Andy dabbled in manga a bit when Tezuka took up the industry starting in the 60s (because of course because he did), and the recurring comic scenes of Top trying to read all 101 episodes of “To You, From Me” to figure out what the big deal is. Another shout out has to go out to poor Shen, who is forced to spend the entire episode trapped in an iron pumping montage that threatens to completely wipe him out by the end.
So while this isn’t the flashiest or most exciting single episode of Undead Unluck, I’m incredibly excited about the directions this new storyline could take us. Having the cast of Undead Unluck create Undead + Unluck in the universe of Undead Unluck as a mission-critical plot point is just the kind of truly brilliant stupidity that brought me to the show. this show and I’m all for the story finding as many creative ways as possible to incorporate its time-twisting, recursive world-building into the proceedings. Please show the next episode!
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Undead Unluck is now streaming on Hulu.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which you can also find on Twitter his blog and his podcast.