It’s way more than just a zombie!
Creative Staff
Story: Shinichi Kimura
Art: Sacchi
Translation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say:
Life – or undeath? – isn’t easy for Ayumu Aikawa. A seemingly normal high schooler, he is in fact a zombie who serves as a bodyguard to an introverted necromancer. But his already complicated existence becomes even more outlandish when he accidentally steals the powers of a magical girl, transforming into one himself – complete with frilly dress and pink chainsaw! How’s a reanimated corpse supposed to keep his head on his shoulders with roommates like these girls around the house?
The Review!
Technical:
The cover here is a rather eccentric one, possessing an image of Haruna in her magical girl outfit over a pink and white background. The title is relegated to a dinky little speech bubble, and the staff is placed sideways and out of the way, as is a blurb informing us that this is in fact volume one. It’s certainly an attention grabber, even if it is a little odd. The back cover goes for a more normal route, containing a short summary and a small image over a plain pink background. A couple of color pages are included in the beginning, and the paper used throughout the book is decent but not exceptional. The text reads smoothly, though the term “magikewl girl” is a little painful to look at. Translation notes are included, honorifics are maintained, and sound effects are left in their original form and subtitled.
The art here is in a serviceable “cute” style, but it’s not really anything that stands out. Fortunately, the character designs are all vastly divergent, so there aren’t any issues with characters blending together. Backgrounds appear when needed and look decent.
Content:
It’s tough being a high schooler, but it’s even tougher when you’re a zombie. The surprisingly normal looking zombie known as Ayumu Aikawa knows this first hand, possessing such issues as a weakness to sunlight. One night, when returning home from school, Ayumu decides to take a rest in a graveyard, only for a strangely dressed girl to fall out of the sky right before his eyes. As if the situation wasn’t odd enough, he picks up a nearby chainsaw only to be told that it is her “magikewl weapon.” However, her clothes quickly disappear and she is unable to hold the weapon any longer. It is then that a large bear in a male school uniform appears and sends Ayumu flying. It turns out that this bear is something called a “megalo,” and the girl warns him that he can’t defeat it. Ayumu isn’t having any of this, and uses his zombie abilities to call forth great power and defeat the bear in a single blow. The girl introduces herself as Haruna, a “magikewl girl” from another world tasked with defeating megalos, monsters that are trying to destroy her home. It also turns out that Ayumu has stolen her powers, so she bestows him the title of “magikewl girl” and follows him home.
Once they arrive home, we are introduced to the strange and silent armor clad girl known as Eucliwood Hellscythe, or Eu. Apparently, she is a necromancer who has been living with Ayumu. While Ayumu begins preparing dinner, another strange girl appears in his house. After a quick flashback to Ayumu’s death at the hands of an unknown assailant and subsequent revival at the hands of Eu, we learn that this girl is a vampire ninja named Seraphim. She came to request that Eu revive the head of her village, but through a variety of antics she ends up as Ayumu’s servant.
Later on, one of Ayumu’s school friends says that a girl by the name of Kyouko wants to meet him. It turns out that she was a survivor of the serial killer incident that resulted in Ayumu’s death. Once he arrives to see her, Ayumu wastes no time and asks if she saw the killer’s face. To his shock, she responds in the affirmative and gives a description perfectly matching Eu. Before he has time to think about it too much, a megalo crayfish in a school uniform appears, forcing to focus on battle. This time things seem a little more evenly matched, forcing him to use his “magikewl girl” powers and don the embarrassingly unfitting outfit, easily finishing the battle.
Upon returning home once more, Ayumu confronts Eu, but is unable to get a satisfactory answer. After a quick interlude involving bowling, Eu admits that she must hold back her feelings because they have the power to change the fate of those around her. They are able to make up, and things go back to “normal.” As the book comes to a close, Ayumu finds himself confronted by one last strange visitor: a dog in a trenchcoat calling himself Cerberus Onethird, Guardian of the Underworld!
In Summary:
This series seems to take the approach of simply throwing things nonstop at the reader and hoping that something sticks. Instead of focusing on any one thing, every single character seems to have some sort of crazy, unrelated quirk. While the sheer randomness of all this may work for some readers, it certainly could use a heavy dose of cohesion to help tie things together. Additionally worth noting is that the character of Haruna is portrayed in a way that is at least a little disturbing. The book and male characters spend a large amount of time sexualizing her, and she spends a good bit of the volume naked. And yet, she looks indistinguishable from a small child, and there’s nothing whatsoever presented to make the reader think otherwise. Hopefully future volumes will do something to make this at least a little bit less unnerving, but for now it simply gives the book a creepy feeling that it definitely doesn’t seem to be aiming for. Perhaps future volumes will try to organize the series’ universe into something a little more palatable, but for now it’s more or less one big jumbled mess.
Content Grade: C+
Art Grade: B
Package Rating: A-
Text/Translation Rating: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released by: Yen Press
Release Date: March 27th, 2012
MSRP: $11.99
