A manga and Eleven Episode Anime series by Peach-Pit (of Rozen Maiden, Shugo Chara! and DearS fame).Michiru Kita is an orphaned girl living with her aunt and uncle. She is pretty much normal other than the fact that she possesses "Shinigami Eyes", meaning that, without her glasses, she can see rings around people's necks that show they will die soon.One day, she meets Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana, two survivors of a horrible bus accident in the middle of a Zombie Hunt, and learns the horrible truth about them — they're already dead, and only alive through a "Z Loan" that they seek to pay off by hunting Zombies who are alive illegally. Michiru ends up unceremoniously dragged along in exchange for her life and the use of her eyes to find the already dead.Has a character sheet.
Provides examples of:
Abusive Parents: Chika's mom left him alone at home to live with another man, resulting in him nearly starving to death.
All Love Is Unrequited: Let's see. Shito, Chika, Zen and Yomi have all shown an interest in Michiru, who doesn't notice. Koyomi has a crush on Shito and Aso, who both don't notice.
Ambiguous Gender: Yuuta. The only definite thing this troper can say is "he/she is cute".
Better as Friends: Michiru and Aso after one date decides to break up.
Beware the Nice Ones: Michiru is one of the nicest characters around. But when Carmella tried to hurt her and her friends, she snapped and easily crushed Carmella's core.
Big Badass Wolf: The director of the dormitory has one of these as her pet/assistant.
Blind Without 'Em: Subverted, Michiru can actually see fairly well without her glasses, she just doesn't like seeing the rings around people's necks.
Brand X: Koyomi is known to get drunk on "Fantan", a sound-alike soda to a real brand. There's also a card game called "Umo".
Broken Ace: Shiba is a cool, handsome, friendly and highly intellectual person. But he became so bored with his monotonous life that he committed suicide and would come head to head against his best friend Chika.
Chains Of Love: Between Chika and Shito's hands (long story) and neither of them are happy about it.
Cliff Hanger: Had they left the anime as just the 11 TV episodes it would have been fine. The two DVD episodes set up a brand new arc... and then stop.
Dead All Along: Shiba, and later, Shito, who was actually born a zombie from a 7-year zombie pregnancy.Eww...
Deal with the Devil: The very idea of the Z Loan, though some forms are more devilish than others.
Demonic Possession: Yomi briefly possesses Michiru after the latter went into her Heroic BSOD and to get them out of the warping space from collapsing and taking them with it.
Diabolus ex Machina: So Shito manages to save a rather woobie-ish golem girl from her creator, who saw her as nothing more than a defective failure. Now she's gonna go back with him to Z-Loan and get cared for by people who won't abuse her, right? Cue said creator's assistant shooting her in the head out of nowhere, saying that she was just another monster to be dealt with.
Dysfunction Junction: Pretty much everyone living in the dorms. Michiru lost her parents at a young age and we find out those aren't really her parents. Shito is a living corpse, trying to save his mother. Chika suffered from Parental Abandonment as his mother went to live with another man, resulting in him nearly starving to death in his own home. Koyomi's family had Yomi sealed inside of her to please Yomi, and that didn't work as well as they thought it did, they locked Koyomi inside the house.
Expy: The Butterfly looks like an older Jun Sakurada from Peach-Pit's earlier series Rozen Maiden, and Yuuta and Kuze Shimotsuki are dead ringers for Souseiseki and Shinku respectively. (Although this troper believes Yuuta much better mirrors Natsuki Ikuhara of another Peach-Pit series, DearS.)
And not to mention, Chika looks quite a lot like Hatsuharu Sohma..
Forbidden Fruit: An interesting case. The little servant boy tells Michiru when entering the entrance to the spirit world, she mustn't look back. However, Yomi, the one that Michiru is looking for, tells her to turn around. Not knowing whether to trust the boy or Yomi's voice, Michiru does turn around, only to find that the little servant boy standing creepily behind her, wanting to eat her.
Grim Reaper: An actual character; also, the job description of the heroes.
Hand Cannon: Subverted, other than the barrel Shito's gun is not actually that big.
Heroic BSOD: Michiru briefly suffers through this, when she finds out that her parents had actually adopted her and there was something dark lurking in her past, unknown to her.
Hot Shounen Mom: You gotta admit for a corpse, Shito's mother is really, really pretty.
Meido: In one story arc, Michiru and Koyomi end up buying maid outfits and blending in with the Otaku gathered for an offline meeting.
Mind Screw: In the most recent manga chapters Michiru has to dive into Chika's subconscious mind a la Pensieve Flashback, but something goes wrong and his younger self is able to see and interact with her, making the conversation that originally happened in his mind part of his reality in the past making the whole situation into a bit of a Timey Wimey Ball. When his teenager self showed up, all bets were off.
Otaku: A group of Otaku following a serial murderer's "virtual murders" feature prominently in one episode (complete with Nerd Glasses on all of them).
Papa Wolf: Zarame tends to act this way towards Michiru. Same with Yomi, Shito and Chika, when Michiru gets involved.
Parental Incest: Shito really, really, really loves his mother, even making the loan, so that she could have her years back.
Pensieve Flashback: when Michiru has to dive into Chika's mind after he reverts to his cannibalistic zombie instincts
Unwanted Harem: Not so much unwanted as unnoticed, as Michiru has garnered the affections of Shito, Chika, Zen, and Yomi but is oblivious to it. She has also been shipteased with Shiba a little.
The Virus: When it's discovered that a new breed of Zombie can create other Zombies by killing normal humans, it's a problem.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Shito promises the golem girl that he will take care of her, teach her how to speak and send her to school like a normal person. She gets killed by Yoshizumi's assistant the next page.
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