Undead Unluck

Episode 19

At long last! After what feels like an eternity, we have finally been graced with that most elusive of gifts: An episode of Undead Unluck that is (outside of the tiny bit of recap at the beginning) comprised entirely of new footage and material! Her Holy Grace Fuuko and Saint Andy the Well-Hung and be praised.

Before I get to the praises (of where there is a lot), it is my duty as a critic to mention that all of this new footage isn't exactly the most impressive animation we've seen from this series. There are a lot of montages that carry this episode and they all contain a very noticeable amount of single-frame shots that are held for ever so slightly too long; a tell-tale sign of padding if ever there was one. It doesn't help that the story for this episode doesn't call for dynamic visuals in the first place, as the Union crew mostly spend their time sitting around and/or standing a few feet apart from each other and having very wordy conversations.

Thankfully, the story for “Undead + Unluck” more than makes up for the lack of pretty things to look at, as Undead Unluck takes a headfirst dive into the pool of Weird-Ass Metafiction this week. In a brilliant bit of payoff, it turns out that the “To You, From Me” manga that provided the cold open for the entire series—the comic that Fuuko was obsessed with back in her days as a lonely shut-in—was a book of thinly veiled sci-fi shoujo prophecy all along. Juiz is convinced that the only way for the manga to contain such specific parallels to Union's (mis)adventures is that it was written using the G-Liner artifact. Naturally, the only logical way for the team to uncover the truth behind “To You, From Me” is to create their manga called “Undead + Unluck”, which is naturally based on Andy and Fuuko's entire journey, and submit it to Shueisha's newcomer contest in the hopes to earn some face-to-face time with the Anno Un, the mysterious author of “To You, From Me.”

This ridiculous storyline is exactly as delightful as it sounds, mostly because of how it contrasts the recent heaviness of Billy and Under's betrayal with the sitcom-y shenanigans of the gang at Union all banding together to create a manga about a sad shut-in girl's run-in with the giant-dong-wielding zombie weirdo. There are just a whole bunch of funny jokes here, though my favorites are the reveal that Andy dabbled a little in manga creation back when Tezuka was getting the industry started back in the 60s (because of course he did), and the recurring sight gag of Top trying to read through all 101 volumes of “To You, From Me” to figure out what the big deal is. Another shout-out has to go to poor Shen, who is forced to spend the entire episode stuck in a pumping iron montage that runs the risk of completely wiping him out by the end.

So, while this is far from the flashiest or most exciting single episode of Undead Unluck, I am incredibly excited for the directions this new storyline could be taking us. Having the cast of Undead Unluck create Undead + Unluck within the universe of Undead Unluck as a mission-critical plot point is just the kind of so-stupid-that-it's-actually-brilliant energy that I come to this show for, and I'm all in favor of the story finding as many creative ways as possible to incorporate its time-twisting, recursive world-building into the proceedings. Bring on the next episode, please!

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Undead Unluck is currently streaming on Hulu.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.