How Undead Unluck Defied Many Shonen Expectations

Alongside My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen, another notable Shonen Jump title published its last chapter. Undead Unluck was an amazing entry alongside these titans of modern Jump, achieving its own notable heights as well. Meanwhile, it accomplished all of this while managing to stand out in one of the most interesting lineups in Jump and the wider Shonen market in recent history.

Undead Unluck defied a lot of expectations for how a shonen title should be handled, carving out its own lane in the genre while still maintaining the spirit of Jump. With its main character and themes especially, Undead Unluck should go down as one of the most unique titles in Jump history.

Related

The Undead Unluck Ending, Explained

Undead Unluck’s ending finds the Union facing off against Soul, Sun and the Master Rules. But Fuuko’s heart may be the key to victory.

Undead Unluck and Female Characters

Shonen Still Carries Stigma with How it Handles its Female Characters

While there are many more shonen titles today that feature female main characters or at least female characters as prominent parts of the cast, there is still a lot of discussion around how they are treated in and by their stories. With Fuuko, Undead Unluck offers another point of discussion and sets a trend that can hopefully be maintained in shonen moving forward.

Fuuko remains front and center on the magazine covers, color pages, merchandising, trailers and much more when representing the image of Undead Unluck. While other series can often downplay their female characters or make them less visible, Undead Unluck makes sure that you understand that Fuuko is the MC, and the heart of the series. For some, this can be a very low bar to pass, but hopefully Undead Unluck can inspire other Shonen Jump titles that follow. Another important part of Fuuko’s inclusion in the story is how she reacts and responds to a key theme in the story; Love.

Undead Unluck and Romance

Some Consider Romance to be Unnecessary in Shonen

Romance is another topic of discussion that causes a lot of debate when mentioning shonen. While fans may demand more or less of the theme in their favorite series, some authors claim that romance does not have much of a place in shonen at all. When it is included, it’s not often the focus, at least for the most popular shonen titles. That being said, Undead Unluck yet again defies a lot of the expectations of what a shonen should do, by leaning heavily into the aspect of Love and Romance.

While there are some rom-coms or “romance” stories in shonen at large (Nisekoi, Komi Can’t Communicate, The Quintessential Quintuplets) the most popular shonen stories are often criticized for how they include romance (Attack on Titan, Naruto). Undead Unluck is interesting in how it doesn’t shy away from the topic and instead makes it an essential part of the narrative.

Now, does that mean that Undead Unluck is a romance or rom-com story? Most people would probably still classify it as a battle shonen, but an argument could be made that it is a romance as much as Sword Art Online or Inuyasha is. Regardless of how you classify it, it is also notable that it includes romance as a core theme, alongside a female MC.

Oftentimes in shonen, when authors want to make their female characters stand out, they make it a point to show that they are more emotionally hardened or aren’t concerned with love. And while this may sometimes be a façade or an issue to be addressed later (like Ochako in My Hero Academia) with Undead Unluck, Fuuko is unapologetically a romantic. The manga begins with her reading a “parody” version of Kimi ni Todoke, lamenting the fact that she will most likely not receive a romance much like it. And by the manga’s end, it is through the love that she found and built throughout the course of the story that allows her and her friends to overcome their greatest challenges.

Related

The Greatest Romance Anime Of All Time (February 2025)

There are plenty of great romance anime out there. These romantic tales are sure to pull on the heartstrings of any anime fan.

Undead Unluck’s Ending

Undead Unluck Bucks the Trend of “Bad” Endings

It is hard to talk about a shonen ending without talking about shonen “endings”. While the genre is perhaps the most popular in anime and manga, it is also notorious for having poorly received endings. While there isn’t an objective measure for the validity of an ending, series like Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia, and Jujutsu Kaisen (to name a few) all caused a lot of polarizing responses with their conclusions. It’s possible that this is just a result of a popular series with legions of followers with different wants from the series seeing it come to an end, but a common complaint is that the endings leave too many questions unanswered, or too many questions unasked.

Undead Unluck sparked some discussion around whether it’s ending came too soon, but after that, the reception was not like the series mentioned previously. It seems like those who experienced the manga in its 5-year run are generally happy with how things came to an end. Fuuko sheds the “curse” of Unluck, and is able to achieve happiness and a true romance with Andy. The Master Rules, an imposing enemy of Negator’s and the entirety of Humanity for millennia, have been resigned to a passive force, no longer interfering with events on Earth moving forward.

There aren’t many questions that the ending doesn’t settle. There aren’t many new ones that it proposes either. All-in-all, for a fan who read week to week, or even those who binged after the anime was released, the ending felt like a fitting finale to an incredible journey.

With a sequel anime planned for Winter 2025 (November or December of this year), Undead Unluck should still find fans long after it’s run in Shonen Jump has ended. And when looking back on the entirety of its run, it should be seen as an incredibly unique and hopefully influential series in the history of Jump.

Undead Unluck is available to stream on Hulu. You can also read the Undead Unluck Manga on VIZ’s Shonen Jump app and website.

Related

Hulu Spoiled This Dragon Ball Daima Transformation — Fans Say It’s Not the First Time

Hulu spoiled a major Dragon Ball Daima transformation, reigniting fan frustrations over streaming services revealing key moments too soon.

Undead Unluck

Release Date

October 7, 2023

•