Undead Unluck

Episode 12

I always love it when a story like Undead Unluck throws a “normal” character like Chikara into the madness that we have all become so accustomed to. Fuko was in that position, once, but her life has been marked by so much strangeness and tragedy that she was still a complete trainwreck by the time Andy found her, which is probably what made it easy for her to adjust to the new normal of working in Union. Chikara, though? The poor kid just woke up one day to discover that everyone on the planet started speaking in English except for him, which is a result of his Negator powers that he doesn't even understand, and how he's been kidnapped to be sold as a slave and/or murdered by the Negator Hunters. The best thing that Chikara has going for him is that there's a buck-naked psychopath who flings his severed limbs and gallons of gushing blood around at his enemies while his girlfriend pitches in by occasionally cutting his head off. I'm not always a fan of the Sniveling Coward Archetype, but I'm not going to pretend that I wouldn't just be Chikara if I ended up in Undead Unluck's insane universe.

It looks like this story will follow the same trajectory as the Spoil Hunt arc, wherein we've got a couple of episodes that consist mostly of action and table setting, but it's all done with enough gusto that it remains entertaining throughout. In addition to the aforementioned Chikara, we get to see more of the Negator Hunters (they're bad), and Tatiana gets to contribute to the battle some more, too (she's adorable). There are also some juicy new lore tidbits to chew on, such as the fact that a Negator's powers get passed on to another person whenever the original dies, which I don't think we've established yet. Either way, it's an interesting complication for an already tense scenario, and I'll be curious to see if that ends up affecting Andy's mission in any way.

If I had one major complaint to level at “Activate”, it would be that the fight between Union heroes and the Negator Hunters lacks the creative energy that we've seen from the series' previous action scenes. Unrepair Guy's powers seem like the perfect match for Andy, and while there is a to-do made of Andy's need to work around an ability that prevents him from healing himself in any way, the solution ends up being…honestly, I'm not quite sure. I get that Andy cheated the rules by framing his body explosion as an attack rather than a method of healing, but I'm still fuzzy on why Andy's powers ended up working just fine without much effort or puzzling out. It's funny, I'm usually the guy who complains when anime spends too much time explaining the mechanics of its characters' powers, but this is an occasion where I wouldn't mind just a bit more clarification.

Still, this is a solid episode all around, with plenty of stakes and some fascinating new characters to add to the cast. The Negator Hunters are proving to be formidable foes and Chikara is basically Undead Unluck's version of Zenitsu, except he's got bullet-stopping powers like Neo from the Matrix, and also he doesn't suck! If that isn't a Christmas Miracle that's just in time for the holidays, I don't know what is.

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Undead Unluck is currently streaming on Hulu.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.