YMMV / Undead Unluck

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Luna’s view on humanity. Does she, like Sun, genuinely not care about humanity, merely seeing them as playthings she happens to help, in contrast to her other self who wants them dead? Or does she actually care in her own way, unfazed by their deaths because she knows that humanity will ultimately be fine and reset in the next loop? This is even addressed In-Universe by the first Master Rule: Soul, who notes that she was the one who created him rather than Sun, and tries to question her on why she made him and gave humanity potential in the first place, with Luna remaining enigmatic.
• Awesome Art: The anime adaptation received raving reviews for its visuals, fluid animation, and great direction. The moody opening with great animation and a dark color palette has also been praised.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • Gina's ability being "Unchange" is presented as a reveal at the end of chapter 6, but it's pretty easy to guess beforehand due to her frequent mentioning of disliking change.
  • Likewise, Billy's ability wasn't quite named until Ragnarok, but fans could guess what it was since Billy made a habit of saying things were "unfair".
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Andy's immortality and complete disregard for common sense make every moment with him buck-wild and unpredictable, and it's a blast to follow along.
  • Fuuko, for her part, takes some time to grow into the insanity, but eventually finds herself matching her partner, if not outright exceeding him by the 101st loop, as her ludicrously daring and zany schemes are conducted solely on her confidence in betting her much more mortal life.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The first popularity poll showed that despite their rather small roles and both being removed from the story soon after they were introduced, Gina and Anno Un are quite popular characters, Gina ranking 6th and Anno Un ranking 3rd.
  • Thanks to his past and actions in the 101st loop, Tella ranked 7th in the 3rd popularity poll.
• Evil Is Cool: Rip has earned this reaction from fans, due to his snazzy design, cool personality, and unique powers.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Baby Rip," alongside variants like Child Rip and Chibi Rip, became a popular one for Rip after he was reincarnated into a younger form.
  • "Belie" became one for Billy after the reveal that he was a traitor.
• Fridge Brilliance: When the negator Lucy shows Andy how to manipulate his soul, she compares his older ghost self to Captain Hook. Not only is it appropriate because she recognizes Andy as an adult, it also works because Hook's whole motif was a fear of death that's got him obsessed, while Andy's goal in life is to die.
• Growing the Beard: While the Intro and Gina arcs aren't bad, per se, it isn't until the Spoil Arc where the series really hits its stride, establishing the overarching goal of the story, introducing the other members of Union, and giving a taste of how exciting the battles against UMAs can be. Most fans point to chapter 9 as where the manga really started getting good.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Chapter 37 (the one where Fuuko storms Shueisha to get her manuscript looked over) was released the same week that fellow Weekly Jump manga Me & Roboco decided to have its own manga making parody. What's more, Roboco herself ended up bringing a manuscript that's a giant ripoff of Undead Unluck, just as Fuuko made her manuscript the story of her meeting with Andy.
• Ho Yay: Billy and Tella big time, after Billy betrays the Union. They're never seen without each other, care about each other deeply, and are the only same-sex pair voted on in the Favorite Pairs poll.
• I Knew It!: Undead Unluck is pretty good at hinting at future events, so there are several occasions where fans were able to guess plot points before they happened.
  • Several fans predicted that Chikara's ability would be "Unmove" before it was officially confirmed in chapter 24, noting that it fit the effect and activation requirements of his power.
  • Tatiana's "Untouchable" ability was guessed before it was revealed in chapter 26 due to her name (the katakana transcription of her name is very similar to タッチ (tacchi), meaning "touch") and the fact that her ability release was referred to as "UT area."
  • Rip having artificial legs was something fans actually figured before the reveal, noting that he had strange feats in movement and speed that didn't fit his stated ability.
  • Isshin being Unbreakable was a very popular theory in the fanbase due to their overall design aesthetic matching the ability and their demonstrated high durability perfectly fitting the role. Lo and behold, they were officially confirmed to be Unbreakable in Chapter 31.
  • Chapter 32 confirmed Billy and Top to be Unbelievable and Unstoppable respectively, which were both predicted before hand due to the abilities fitting their names (Un-Billy-vable, Uns-Top-pable) and both abilities fitting the power sets the characters had shown off by that point.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Crab/Uncrab ^{Explanation (spoiler)} One of the first time skips Fuuko does in the 101st loop, Apocalypse reveals the penalties for skipping the quests introduced several new UMAs into the world, including UMA Crab. Fans latched onto this and began to make numerous crab jokes, including one that the existence of UMA Crab means a Negator with an "Uncrab" ability must be out there.
  • Unpace ^Explanation Fans like to blame this imaginary Negator for the anime adaptation's many episodes with pacing bogged down by numerous recaps. When an episode with little to no recaps airs, those fans surmise that Unpace was locked up somewhere for the week.
• Padding: A common complaint regarding the anime adaption is the excessive use of Recaps to reach the desired runtime. There are many instances where an episode has a flashback of something that happened mere seconds earlier in that same episode, and often the first several minutes of an episode outright involve repeating the last several minutes of the previous episode. Episode 18 is the point where it really got hard to ignore, though, as around half of the actual episode is flashbacks relating to all the exposition being stated in the other half.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: Yoshifumi Tozuka pays remarkable attention to detail regarding the story's internal consistency.
  • UMA Spoil bends down to taunt Fuuko during the last stage of their fight. Fuuko is able to use this to determine how Spoil's "spoil field" works and its range. Tozuka later apologizes for invoking Space Is Noisy during Spoil's fight with Victor.
  • If the Earth and Moon were the only celestial objects prior to UMA Galaxy being released, how was Fuuko calling down meteors before that? Juiz reveals that these are fragments of previous Earths that were destroyed by God.
  • Rip and Latla have a brief conversation about how they can talk even though they're frozen by Unmove.
• Rainbow Lens: Due to Juiz being born before Gender was added as a rule, it's become more common for the fanbase to interpret her as transgender, having technically gone from genderless to identifying as female. The fact that in a lot of flashbacks Juiz sports Boyish Short Hair and a flat chest only added to the fire.
• Salvaged Story:
  • The relationship between Andy and Fuuko, in particular, is an interesting point. Andy's initial unwarranted approach and lack of care for Fuuko's uncomfortableness with how he touches, grabs, and drags her around made them a pretty toxic couple with which many readers were uncomfortable and made for a negative first impression of the main pair of the manga. Over time, as the two have a proper time together to bond and eventually fall in love with each other properly, many fans consider them one of the best couples in modern manga due to how dedicated, loving, and sweet they become to each other.
  • Quite a few readers were initially put off by the Top/Isshin pairing due to it being an Age-Gap Romance, with the former being only 15, and the latter being 23, making the latter unintentionally look like an ephebophile, the only saving graces for them being it wasn't explored much before the end of the 100th Loop, and was partially a case of Strangled by the Red String. The 101st Loop fixes this by giving them both an Age Lift, with Haruka now being roughly 16, Top appearing somewhat older than he did in the 100th Loop, and by having this iteration of them much more closely connected thanks to Fuuko having Haruka stop Top's accident from occurring and her sticking by his side for several years before Fuuko's return, giving their relationship a sense of Childhood Friend Romance in the process.
• Strangled by the Red String: Battle Couples, by mid-series, have become a fairly common duo. Andy/Fuuko and Shen/Mui are the most obvious ones, but when Andy gears to to say goodbye to the Union members before he quits to save Fuuko's ghost, he deliberately starts pushing the younger generation characters together. While Top/Isshin had some teasing in the Spring arc, Chikara/Tatiana had very little to work with, and both bonded more with other characters on-screen.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Some readers feel this way about Gina. Her powers are decently unique, her motivations are interesting, her personality is likable, and her design is cute, yet she's only around for five chapters before she's killed off so Andy and Fuuko can safely join the Union. Some readers wish she could have somehow stayed alive and become a supporting character alongside the other Union members. Guess what Fuuko's first big mission of the next loop is, 120-odd chapters later: averting the tragedy caused when Gina's powers first manifested and befriending her.
• The Woobie: Pick a Negator. Any Negator. They're always suffering.
  • Fuuko. Her power caused the death of her parents when she was only eight-years-old, and that lead to her becoming a shut-in for most of her life. The series starts with her suicide attempt, for crying out loud! It makes you want to give her a big ol' hug, which you can't even do without risk of dying.
  • Chikara. Firstly, his mother died when he was younger, which is already pretty sad on its own. But things get worse after the unification of languages occurs. While the members of Union know what happened, to him, he just woke up one day and with everyone is suddenly speaking English while he's stuck speaking Japanese, which frustrates him and alienates him from his friends. Then, he gets kidnapped by the mafia and taken to Brazil to be auctioned off on the black market, where he's stuck in a cage and held at gunpoint when he escapes. Then, just when it seems like he's been saved by the Negator Hunters, his saviors try to murder him to gauge his worth, and he's constantly put down by Rip just because he's scared by everything that's happened to him. This guy just can't catch a break! It makes you want to give him a big ol' hug, which you can't even do from the front since his power would paralyze you
  • Tatiana. Like Fuuko and Chikara, her power caused the death of her parents when it first emerged, but unlike Fuuko it happened when she was 5 on her birthday! After running away in fear, she was kidnapped and put for auction by the mafia. While she is soon rescued by Billy, her first reaction upon seeing her savior is to ask him to kill her so she can see her parents again. Thankfully, Billy is able to restore her will to live, but that doesn't change how sad it was to see her so far past the Despair Event Horizon. It makes you want to give her a big ol' hug, which you can't even do because of her power.
  • Anno Un, real name Akira Kuno. He was a normal, manga loving kid when he was born and only became a negator after stumbling onto an artifact pen that gave him visions of the future... at the cost of being made the Negator 'Unknown', negating the ability to be percieved by anyone. He had to watch his mom break down in tears as she desperately tried to find her son and prayed he was alright, all while he was unable to reassure her that he was right there. Part of the reason he made the manga To You, From Me was to try and connect with her. Unfortunately, by the time he figured out how to make his Anno Un double, his mother had passed away. And later on, his double dies to return Rip to normal and the pen is destroyed, meaning he no longer has a way to be perceived by the world since his manga is finished. It makes you want to give him a big ol' hug, which you can't do since you can't even touch him, much less see him.
    • The above is made worse when you take into account Union's theory: God had turned their quest reward (for the capture of Uma Information), giving knowledge of the current loop for whoever touches a specific object, into a booby trap designed to ensure whoever got the information could never use it by making them the Unknown Negator, unable to interact with anyone or share the information they obtained.
  • Top. Born as a kid in the slums, he constantly did his best to try and help out everyone else, even being willing to forfeit his chance at joining a professional track team by throwing a race to let one of his three friends have the chance. Unfortunately, right when he tried to slow down, he was granted the Unstoppable ability, causing him to take off in a burst of speed and crash into the three of them, with only one surviving as a cripple. The only silver lining he has is that he met Juiz around this time, who was able to help iron things out and give him a reason to keep fighting: Kicking God in the face for what he did. It makes you want to give him a big ol' hug, which you can't without him breaking some bones since he's currently running right now.
  • Isshin, real name Yamaoka Haruka. Described as the most cowardly member of Union, it's not hard to see why when you see her backstory: She was forced into her role by inheritance and watched her father die due to her ability faltering during a battle against an Uma, despite him killing it in the end. After that, she's been constantly holed up in her armor despite joining Union, terrified of putting herself or others at risk, only to be yanked away to fight against one of the Uma. In particular, the very same Uma who was forced to attack her ancestor, and also forced to duel against the very experienced Andy as part of the battle against Spring. It makes you want to give her a big ol' hug, which you can't do since she's a near-permanent resident in that big suit of armor.

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