エピソードの紹介と概要
Konnichiwa, I am your host Mayu for 2AM OTTACK! In this podcast, we talk all about anime, manga,
movies, music, and history through our distinct perspectives. As a born and raised Japanese
non-otaku, that's me and an American anime fan. That's me. Welcome to our 11th episode. Today,
we are going to talk about Undead Unluck. I've been watching the anime and I caught up until
the 12th episode. What about you, Sisko? I've watched the anime up to the 15th episode, and
I've read all of the manga, I guess up until... I didn't read today's yet, but I'm essentially
all the way caught up. Awesome. Alright, first of all, for people who don't know or who haven't
watched or read Undead Unlock, could you read the synopsis from Wikipedia, Sisko?
Sure. So, Fukuo Izumo is an 18-year-old girl who has been living in seclusion for 10 years
since an incident that left more than 200 people dead, including her parents, when she was 8 years
old. Following the completion of her favorite long-running shoujo manga series, Fukuo decides
to commit suicide. She is tormented by the fact that her unluck ability brings bad luck to anyone
she comes directly into contact with. She soon meets an undead man who has amazing regenerative
abilities and who desires to die the best death possible, disliking his immortal life.
For the sake of convenience, Fukuo names him Andy because he is undead, and they begin to
work together. However, they soon see themselves chased by the Union, a mysterious organization.
物語の進行とキャラクター
Alright, thank you so much. So, I want to dive into the story first.
Um, before I talk anything, what's your thought about this anime or manga?
Um, so again, I've read the manga up to where it is now, and it's currently like a lot,
lot farther. Well, I don't know. I guess I haven't seen the whole anime series yet,
so I don't have a really clear sense of how far they got in the first season, but
I'm pretty sure it's pretty far ahead of where the anime is. And I really like this
series. I liked it since it started being serialized. I found it really interesting
the whole way through. And it's sort of the rare manga series that actually got better over time.
So I think I like it more. I don't know about like right where it is in the story now, but
I grew to like it more and more the longer it went on. Not that I didn't like it in the
beginning. I thought it was good in the beginning too, but it's become more interesting to me as
the story has gone deeper rather than less. And I think, you know, it's very hard to write a good
story. And I think it's easier to come up with a good premise than it is to like flesh the story
out. And so this one has really stayed good all the way through. So I like it quite a lot.
To me, there are lots of characters in it from early beginning. And then I was wondering if I
could catch up, like remembering who's who. But I don't know how it's going to go.
Like, it's going to be like a One Piece, like there'll be more characters.
I mean, that's a good question. I don't think it'll be quite as large a cast as One Piece.
I mean, One Piece is kind of in a league of its own because of how long it's been running.
But there are a lot of characters and they get introduced pretty quickly in this show.
So I think it's reasonable to feel some sort of like character overload by about episode three
or four to just be like, oh, my God, how am I going to keep all these people straight?
The character designs for each character are pretty unique and they're really defined by
their abilities. And at this point, I think as far as we've watched up to episode 12,
there's still a lot of characters whose abilities have not yet been revealed.
And that makes it really hard to kind of latch on to and understand anything about them.
And the show, well, again, I don't know the show. The manga does a lot of going into the
backstories of many of the characters so that the longer you stick with it, the more individual
each character becomes. And so I think you've seen up to the part with Unmove, right? Chikara?
The boy?
Probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Like, I think in some ways he's kind of the first character where you get a pretty full backstory
about what happened to him and how he got his power and how it affected him and how he's like
making decisions around it and stuff. And I think like many of the characters get some degree of
character development like that that helps you remember who they are better. But at this point,
you take a character like Billy, the guy wearing the glasses with the gun and like you don't know
what his power is yet. And it's really hard to understand what, you know, what role he's
going to play or is he actually important or, you know, who is this guy? And that'll get answered
in later episodes to a greater degree. And like, you know, I assume there's parts of who he is
that aren't going to get revealed in this season at all because they come out in like later parts
of the manga. So I feel you on it feeling like, wow, there's so many different characters. But
if you stay with it, it'll eventually reward you by giving you more information about each of them.
お気に入りの瞬間
Is there any favorite moment or episodes so far?
I mean, my favorite part of this manga in general, and end of the show too,
is the sort of suspense of finding out what powers people are going to have.
I think the author did a really good job coming up with different types of powers to have. And
the thing that binds them all together is that they all start with un, right? Or in Japanese,
fu, like anti or not. And so they, you know, there are a lot of different types of powers.
They're all kind of unique and interesting in different ways. And meeting new characters and
then finding out like what their power is going to be and how it works and what its rules are
is sort of the fun of the early part of the show, at least. And so I think anytime they
introduce a bunch of new characters and you get to see what their power is, how it works,
and how they try to figure out how to counter it, that's a big part of the appeal for me.
When I watched episode seven, where on the end, Fuko goes to Nevada and then
try to catch Uma. And then there's a scene that Uma talking to Fuko,
and like really up close. And it kind of reminded me of Spirited Away.
I don't know what exactly he said, but like, Fuko is like talking back to it. It's like,
it's like Chihiro saying, like, I don't want it.
Right, right, right, right, right. I think that the second form of Spoil does have some
visual similarities to No-Face. That's what you were thinking of, is that it sort of looks
similar or that the moment of her being like, no, I don't want this is similar.
Yeah, the moment. My face kind of looks similar, too. Also, I'm not a big into
action, but I liked Andy. When Andy doesn't have a card, and they go kind of crazy,
that his like appearance was like total like 80s anime character.
Mostly hair.
He does go a little bit Super Saiyan. Yeah, you're right.
Right? I was like, oh, this is funny. Oh, interesting.
Yeah. Yeah, that he that he gets like bigger, longer, thicker hair. That's spikier.
That's a good point. I actually hadn't thought of that. But it does. He does. He does kind of
go Dragon Ball. That's true. Right, right. And then like, besides that part,
he whenever he attacks, he has like names for attacks.
Oh, yeah.
Like, do you remember any of them?
The one I remember is Crimson Buretto, where he puts all the calcium or something into his,
I don't know. Watching it in Japanese has the drawback for me that sometimes I don't really
understand like technical stuff about it. But there's a there's a scene where he shoots off
just like his fingertip, but he packs it with like all the blood in his body or something.
So it's like especially red. But yeah, I liked I liked that one. But I think all I don't know,
I wish I knew more of the names in English because we're watching it in Japanese.
The Japanese names don't stick for me in the same way that the
English names do. I guess most of them are named in English, right? Like head bullet,
finger bullet, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Yeah, it's shown in kanji, but whatever he says is all English.
Yeah, I mean, it feels like very appropriately anime in a way that
is totally completely unnecessary. Like he doesn't need to name any of his attacks, but he does.
And I appreciate that. The other characters don't really name their attacks in the same way, do they?
No, I don't think so.
They just do attacks. Yeah, but so I like that. Yeah, it's a it's a fun
throwback in the same way that some of the other things you're pointing to
are throwbacks to other anime.
My favorite part of the show is all about Fuko and her feelings. Like when she gets like emotional,
I like that part a lot. And then also when she shows that like a little special feeling
towards Andy, like sometimes she blushes on her face. Yeah. So like, I like Fuko is feeling feelings.
Yeah, that they I mean, she's an emotive character. She shows her feelings easily.
And I mean, Fuko is really the heart of the story, especially in the later parts of the story,
like she's driving the story forward. It's really about her. I mean,
Andy is really important to the to the story and a main character and everything else, but
感情の力と成長
his character doesn't drive the action in the same way that Fuko's character does.
And one of the things I think this series does really well is that it represents having emotions
and like moral feelings and like caring about people as a real source of strength as opposed
to a liability or a weakness. And I think the fact that, you know, Fuko is very much the main
character and is, you know, isn't like hiding those parts of herself or like, you know, taking
them away to be like a stronger warrior, but rather sort of leaning into them and really
appreciating them for sort of what they are is part of what makes her both strong and like
able to lead and stuff. And so I think, I don't know, I really appreciate that aspect of the show
and the way that it sort of privileges shoujo manga as like a fun thing that people are into
that can kind of help them and save them and stuff. I like that, too.
Also, I want to mention about episode nine when Andy goes crazy,
he becomes what do you call in the show? God?
He becomes Victor.
Victor.
His sort of alternate possibility, alternate personality. He makes a reference, right,
to saying like, I'm just Victor, not Vic Thor, like the God of Thunder, right? But they spell
it with a th, which is unusual for English spelling. So Victor as a word means winner,
like the person who wins. But it's also a fairly common first name in English speaking countries,
like, you know, Victor Frankenstein from an English speaking country. But like Victor is
キャラクターの感情の発展
like a first name that appears in English speaking countries, and I guess in German
speaking countries, probably. Anyway, I think that's the name of that character.
And I don't want to give anything away. So you find out more about him later.
I think, you know, yeah, the emotional beats of the show are pretty good
and effective. And I think from just the first few episodes on where they deal with,
you know, fighting Gina and like the outcome of that battle, I think you kind of can tell
pretty soon like, oh, this is a show that's going to take, you know, emotions seriously
and sort of do justice to the characters that it introduces by developing their emotional worlds.
Also, like, it made me wonder, like, most of the time, like, Andy's naked, fully naked.
In the beginning, doesn't he have like, feeling of embarrassment? Or he's like, just fine,
as he's like, you know, showing his whole body to the world?
Yeah, some of the I mean, I don't know how the anime will adapt it. But some of that gets kind
of like, maybe it doesn't get answered in the manga. But I feel like by the point at which I
got to in the manga, that no longer surprised me is probably the right way to put it.
There's enough character development about his life that it becomes more
understandable why he doesn't find being naked to be as big a deal.
And so I don't again, I don't really like want to like spoil things really go into like detail
about that. But that is a surprising part of his character in the beginning where you're like,
what's wrong with this guy? And then, as time goes on, I think it becomes a more
understandable part of his character. Also, he doesn't stay naked for most of the show,
he gets the clothes artifact. And then from then on, he's still periodically naked, but like,
it's less intense than the first couple episodes where he's naked almost all the time. And I
remember reading the first chapters of the manga and being like, where is this going?
Why is this so weird? And that's part of what I mean about I think this is a show that gets
stronger as it goes on. Where it started off kind of like slapstick almost, and then became more
serious and sort of well-developed as it went on. Okay. I also have to talk about the opening
オープニングテーマの解説
theme song, which is 01, I think, or 01. 01 is the right one. 01 by Queen Bee. I watched the music
video on YouTube, and I really liked that video has a story, and it really fits. The music itself
fits to Undead Unlock, and the lyrics fit the Undead Unlock story too, and I really enjoyed
watching it. Yeah, I was surprised by the video. And this is part of my ongoing question about anime
theme songs in general. Sometimes I guess I just do enough research or reading to find out what
the story really is. Like when we discussed Nobody by OneRepublic a couple episodes ago,
that one was clearly written for the anime specifically. He met with the anime directors,
they were like, please write a song, this is what we want to be about. He was like, okay,
wrote a song, it fit the anime, great. With this one, I wonder whether that was the same process,
whether the song was written for the anime, or whether the song was just written by the band,
and then the directors of the animation were like, we want this one. Do you know what the
answer to that question is? I tried to find out how the process went, but just reading the lyrics,
it really describes the show. So I assumed they made the song for the thing, because like it says,
これが最後と決めました。あいつは行ったら死んだらどうなる? そこでナイフが飛び出して、
あけなく涙流よも早く。 So it's like totally describing the first episode of the show.
She had a knife, and she was trying to kill herself.
Well, she tried to kill herself by falling off onto a train. She wasn't trying to stab herself.
No, but she showed a knife to Andy, like, you can't stop me.
True. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, you're probably right. I don't know. I wonder if there was an era where that wasn't
true, or if it's always been the case. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, seeing the music video made
me question it more, because the music video, to me, made a lot of sense with the song too.
And maybe they just reinterpreted it in sort of a different direction. But watching the music video,
I was all of a sudden like, oh, maybe they wrote this song, and it just happened to fit lyric.
I don't know. Probably it's the former, that they wrote it on purpose for the show, and then later
came up with a music video that also works with it, even though it's sort of different.
I highly recommend watching this music video, because it's really good.
And for people who don't know about Jo-obachi, Queen Bee, the band, it's like, I don't know
how many exactly people are in the band, but at least three, as far as I know. And the main
vocal is called Abu, and then Abu is like Heike's descendant.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow. Okay. I did not know that. That's interesting that you can trace your
lineage back that far. That's a really, really long time ago. That's like the 1100s, right?
Don't ask me about history.
Okay. That is about the 1100s. Yeah. That's a really long way to go back in your history.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah. So that's a cool thing to tell people. And also, I watched Abu talking about
the relationship with video game, and Abu clearly liked Street Fighters.
Okay. Oh, and that informed the music video.
音楽ビデオの分析
That kind of makes it sense for me about the music video.
Okay. Should we describe the music video a little bit so people know what we're talking about?
Sure.
Okay. So the music video has a person in a coma in a hospital bed with some people who come in
to visit them, and then most of the video seems to take place inside their consciousness as they're
lying there in the coma, fighting what appears to be another version of themselves or someone
sort of similar to them, right? With over and over and over again with different numbers.
And I couldn't kind of tell whether the numbers are going up or down or neither direction, but
they seem to be engaging in battle over and over and over again against another version of
themselves, and often dying at the end of the battle, right? So the fighting in particular makes
a lot of sense that there's a little bit of Street Fighter inspiration there, even though
it does start off with bare-knuckle fighting and then later gets into some guns and some
swords and knives and stuff, right?
Yep. So yeah. They also have a bunch of songs released to check other music as well if you're
interested in. Okay, let's do Word of the Day. What shall we do today?
能力と否定者の役割
Well, I think your suggestion was to go with hiteisha, which is a word from the show that is
translated as negators in the manga. When I heard the word, I think, I guess actually I didn't hear
it first. I saw it in print first and always knew it was going to be negators. But when I hear it,
I think a little bit of deniers or rejecters, someone who denies or rejects something,
which I think is an interesting spin on the word, too.
Well, in Japanese, hite means deny, and sha is person. So denying a person is a literal
translation. And in the animation, they use this word a lot, and you see it and you hear it
quite often.
Yeah, all of the main characters are negators who have the ability to negate different types of,
I guess they call them rules, that exist in the world. So Andy's ability is the ability to deny
death or negate death, so he can't be killed no matter what kind of physical injury he sustains.
Whereas Fuko's ability is unluck, so she negates people's luck. Although that doesn't really seem
to be her ability. I'm just going to sidebar here for a minute. Her ability seems to impress bad
luck upon people. And so unless your concept of luck includes not being hit by a meteor every
second of the day, which I think for most people would be like, yeah, that's not necessarily luck,
that's just normal. Fuko seems to pass specifically really intensely, impossibly
bad luck onto people in her negation of luck, which I, again, I have a little bit of a bone
to pick with that as an idea, but whatever, that's her power, that's how she uses it.
Some of the other ones, the ability to deny or negate seems a little more straightforward. So
when you get early on, another negator is Unchange, who can stop things from changing
all around her. That makes more sense to me as a power or an idea.
Miwa 15 Before we finish, I wanted to mention
that we accept any questions or comments, not the negative ones, the positive ones only, please.
But like, that's our power.
Unaccept. We don't accept negative comments.
We don't accept any negative comments. Nope.
That's our power. We can be sitting in one of the circle table, round table.
Yeah, right. We're in the union. Oh, I wanted to say this because it was something I didn't
notice until watching the anime somehow, but maybe I noticed this and then forgot it and
re-noticed it recently because I can't believe I didn't notice this before. But the fact that
the group that they're in is called the Union is interesting because it starts again with un,
not the sound un, but with the UN. And particularly later when they go up against a rival syndicate,
which is called UNDER. Like again, it's not UN-DER the way we've got like UN-DEAD or UN-LUCK
or UN-whatever. But I do think it's notable that like all of the major groups, like everything in
this show starts with UN as like the first two letters of their other thing. It's really a
theme going through the whole show. I wonder if they did it on purpose.
Oh, 1000% it's on purpose for the union to be like, I mean, it's not UN-ION, right? It's union.
UN-DER is not UN-DER, it's just one word, but for sure that's an intentional choice.
Union's not that weird, but UN-DER, you wouldn't pick that normally unless you were going for the
UN thing. And I like that they all have like the little UN symbol on all of their like clothes and
helmets and things.
Good notice.
Like Juiz's helmet is like a UN symbol. They all have it on like their lapels that allow them to
like talk to each other wherever they are and stuff. Like there's a lot of UN imagery and
theming going on throughout the show.
エピソードのまとめと告知
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