The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

UNDEAD

What's It About? 

Nineteen-year-old Hikaru Asahina lost everything the day the world ended. Everything, that is, except his childhood friend Ai Kosaka, who has always taken care of him. Now the two of them, along with other survivors, struggle to stay alive in a post-apocalyptic world filled with man-eating zombies.

And when Ai confesses to feeling something more for Hikaru, it changes everything. After all, the more precious someone is to you, the harder it is to lose them. In a world like theirs, is something like love even possible?

UNDEAD has a story and art by Fumi Tsuyuhisa. The English translation is by Christine Dashiel, with lettering by Vibrraant Publishing Studio. Published by TokyoPop's LoveLove imprint (October 24, 2023).


Content Warning: The following manga includes graphic depictions of dubious/nonconsensual sex. It should be read by mature (18+) audiences only.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Zombie stories hit differently after the COVID-19 pandemic. While I didn't find this one as uncomfortable as my reread of School-Live! was in light of pandemic life, there's still something that makes it feel distinctly more plausible than it might have before – although given that the copyright is 2021, it seems like the creator may have been counting on that. The story takes for its basis the idea that anyone you love could be unceremoniously ripped from your side at any moment, and protagonist Hikaru is already skating on the edge of that truth. The book opens with him walking into his house to find his mom eating his dad, and it ends with his childhood friend/love interest Ai being bitten by a zombie and walking off into the night, presumably to save the man he loves. Even the romance portion of the story could perhaps be better termed “romance” because of the dubious consent involved; at this point in the narrative, it's clear that Ai has much stronger romantic and sexual feelings for Hikaru than Hikaru does for him.

Balancing a love story with a zombie apocalypse tale isn't an easy act to pull off, but Fumi Tsuyuhisa does a pretty good job. The urgency of Ai and Hikaru remaining together (and getting together romantically) takes on a much more desperate tone, especially once their little band of four survivors grows when they take in a pregnant woman, her child, and a few other men. Hikaru and Ai seem to have been students when the apocalypse hit, but their companions Kaname and Yukio were a cop and a doctor, respectively, and they must balance out the two younger men with their words and actions. Kaname is much more willing to put his life on the line. Kaname's determination to get medicine at a hospital known to be overrun with “the infected” for Chizuru's upcoming labor is what gets Ai bitten in the first place – and it's doctor Yukio who advises against the trip, deeming it an unacceptable health risk. The character dynamics are just very grounded, which helps to make the story feel more plausible in a way it very much needs.

We don't know much about what led to the outbreak, but overall, the worldbuilding feels decent. The idea that a hospital would be much more likely to have a high number of zombies makes a lot of sense; people went for medical help or medicines after the outbreak and turned the hospital into a giant zombie-breeding machine. Strikes to the head are the only stated way to kill them, and Yukio does raise the possibility of some people having antibodies or high resistance to the zombie virus, which offers a little hope. (Although, why no one thought to cut off Ai's arm when it became clear that the infection was spreading from the bite, I don't know.) This is graphic in a few ways but also an interesting story. If you don't mind the dub-con, it's worth checking out.