So cute, she could just eat you up.
Living Dead! is a comedy/horror manga about Aoyama Keita, a boy who has a crush on fellow classmate Haida Monako but was too shy to tell her his feelings. Before he can ever work up the nerve to finally do so, she suddenly dies one day without warning much to his shock. Keita attends her funeral writing a letter and putting it in her coffin as a last respect. However as he arrives back at his home that night, Monako suddenly appears at his window very much alive...mostly.As Keita quickly finds out, Monako has been turned into a zombie though exactly how and why eludes her. As she can't return home since she's supposed to be, y'know, dead. Keita's is the only place she can turn to since she read the letter that was in her coffin. Matters get more complicated as Monake now has a sudden habit of going from her nice cheerful self to a mindless monster at the drop of a hat. Though luckily eating meat seems to appease her. Thus begins Keita's new life living with the girl he adores...and trying not to become lunch in the process.Can be read here
Not to be confused with any of the Living Dead films by George A. Romero. Compare Sankarea for a simlar concept but with added parental abuse and squick.Living Dead contains the following tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: Played for comedy as Monake's body is extremely fragile in her zombie state.
- An Axe to Grind: Believing Monake is an vengeful spirit, Anri Mizumori attempts to exorcize her with an axe.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: In chapter 4, Keita tells a rampaging Monake he doesn't want to lose the girl he loves again. She looks back. And gets run over by a truck.
- Blank White Eyes: Monake whenever she goes berserk.
- Blatant Lies: Keita is forced to pull some outrageous ones to keep his secret. Good thing his parents are very guillible.
- Body Horror: Monake can tear herself apart and then pull herself back together almost as easily. It's meant to be comical, but her insides are depicted in gruesome detail.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Monake.
- Cute Monster Girl: Mo-na-ke.
- Daydream Surprise: Keita has one when Monake first gets out of his sight. He finds she started a zombie apocalypse on the city and the story ends in a Charge-into-Combat Cut, but thankfully it didn't actually happen.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies
- Excited Show Title!
- Eye Scream: In chapter 5, Monake's left eye sticks out of her head, messing with her balance. As a joke at anime-style eyes, her hanging eye looks realistic and she puts it back with a real-world contact lens.
- First Episode Resurrection: Though exactly how Monako came to be this way hasn't been revealed.
- Genki Girl: Monake full stop.
- Grotesque Cute: Monake. Just look at her. At all the scrambled parts of her.
- Half The Girl She Used To Be: Horizontally in Chapter 3 via Axe. Vertically in Chapter 5 via some sliding doors. In the latter case, Keita has to keep the hunger of each half in check.
- Horror Hunger: Monake regularly loses her mind and goes to look for human flesh, but can be calmed down by eating any other kind of meat.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Chapter names use the Title of the Dead trope.
- Losing Your Head: Used as a Running Gag.
- Only Sane Man/Straight Man: Keita.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Monake is a Flesh-Eating Zombie and a possible Voodoo Zombie. There's some obvious magic involved here but hasn't been revealed yet. Monake still keeps her personality save for the usual bouts when she turns to a mindless monster. Also just eating regular meat will bring her back to normal.
- Pulling Themselves Together: With wood glue.
- Real Men Eat Meat: Inverted, it's Monake that loves eating meat. In fact, if she doesn't eat enough, she starts to act like a mindless zombie until she gets some.
- Robot Girl: Manji Akagi is a member of a robot club who wishes to create realistic robot girls. For now he made a silly-looking maid robot named Kanako that doesn't gain him much respect. Believing Monake is an incredibly advanced robot, he kidnaps and chops her to pieces while examining her. In desbelief, he almost figures out she is a zombie, but feels that would be denying the value of somebody's work and accepts her as a robot.
- Shout-Out: In chapter 14, Monake holds a plush of mangaka Shinya Murata, author of Arachnid. Since his avatar is a doodle of a naked guy, she finds it tasty-looking.
- Undeathly Pallor: As the color image above shows. In the manga this is substituted with a kind of darkish color, making her look Ambiguously Brown.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Due to her parents selling her house, Monake doesn't have a home to return to.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Monake in the color page featured above, but averted otherwise because she's brown-haired in the volume covers.
