Do zombie apocalypse stories ever really go out of style? It's like a pendulum—usually spurred by one super-successful title, they'll go in full force for a while. Then maybe there's a brief lull when audiences start feeling sick of what's become an oversaturation of them. And just when you think they've gone out of vogue—BAM. More zombie stories. This is to say that, it's easy to sometimes feel exhausted at the prospect of yet another zombie apocalypse manga, and during those times it takes something truly special to cut through all that noise. Perhaps, a blade of some sort. But certainly not the first volume of Corpse Blade, which can't even cut it as a memorable manga.

Corpse Blade is about as standard-issue a zombie apocalypse story as you can imagine: one moment things are as they've always been, and the next—for reasons unknown—the undead are feasting on flesh. Luckily our protagonist, Tsuranuki Tsutsuki (try saying that five times fast), is a pretty good shot, and his family has a gun. Less luckily, however, he's been separated from his family, including his twin, so he's unsure how they're doing. On his way to a meeting point that his father designated, Tsuranuki runs into the whimsically named Karina Karina (yes, you read that correctly) who claims that her family is composed of longtime zombie hunters called Corpse Blades. Furthermore, she claims that Tsuranuki's father tasked her with protecting him and his twin.

In a manga with virtually no other characters outside of two protagonists, it becomes evident pretty early on that they will be carrying this manga's appeal on their backs. And they have cute names going on—so maybe, you might hope, that's a sign that our protagonists have equally distinct personalities to match. But alas, you'd have an easier time, well, finding your family amid a zombie apocalypse than I've been trying to find any traces of discernible personality in them. You'd think this wouldn't be a problem in a manga where our protagonist has a gun, and he's traveling with a skilled swordswoman who comes from a long line of zombie hunters. They don't even have the sort of edgy streak you might expect from characters like this, because having a streak of anything would imply it has a base of some kind to be upon.

You might be thinking: in a zombie apocalypse story you can easily make up for having no characters if the story itself is good enough, and there are great stories out there that have been told through the vehicle of, well, the zombie apocalypse. So, is this first volume of Corpse Blade such a manga? In a word: no. In more words: usually, zombie apocalypse manga get the chance to add some spice through their explanations of how their zombie apocalypse broke out, but this first volume of Corpse Blade doesn't seem interested in this question—instead, essentially just saying that it happened because reasons, anyways isn't the sword girl cool? Or, to be more specific: in the world of this manga, zombies have always been around—after all, what else has Karina's family been fighting all this time? But outside of this and a few other small in-universe factoids, this alleged zombie apocalypse manga seems weirdly uninterested in the whole zombie aspect of it most of the time. This will probably (well, hopefully) get explored later as the series continues. But in the absence of any other unique qualities, completely ignoring this low-hanging fruit feels like such a wild decision. Weirder still is that the manga does this, and even lets its apocalyptic aspects—in particular the survival, which is usually one of the main things people love about zombie apocalypse stories—take a backseat, too.

This is a battle manga first and foremost: specifically, battles against zombies. And that's not an issue in and of itself—, in the right hands, that could be cool. But Corpse Blade's aren't those hands. Corpse Blade has put itself in a difficult position: Karina's the main fighter of the duo. And Karina wields a sword. And swords are usually one-on-one weapons. Meanwhile, when you think of fights against zombies, you don't think of those dramatic 1-v-1 duels, do you? Traditionally, zombies rely on their vast sea of numbers—rather than individual skilled fighters—in battle. There are a few what you could call boss zombies that Karina gets to fight against, but only one of them—the last one Karina fights in this volume—feels intimidating since it turns out, it's hard to make singular zombies worthy combatants for an experienced zombie hunter. The only consistent saving grace to the fights in this volume is the art, which isn't anything spectacular, but still solid overall.

I desperately wanted to make a pun somewhere about how this volume isn't as fleshed out as it needs to be, but its problems run deeper than that. Its fundamental problem is that this manga doesn't realize how poorly a battle manga and zombie apocalypse mix. Battle manga tends to rely on one-on-one fights, and zombies are a class of monsters known for relying on numbers rather than particular skills. So it's already working with this major structural disadvantage. Combine this with characters, storytelling, and worldbuilding that are all painfully bland, and you end up with a volume that just doesn't cut it.