Since its debut in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 2020, Undead Unluck has struck the crucial balance between story development and speed of delivery. An anime television series adaptation produced by David Production and TMS Entertainment premiered in October 2023, only increasing the number of people following the series. Hulu, where the series streams in the United States, has also highlighted it consistently as part of their Animayhem platform. It’s certainly one of the fastest-growing new-generation titles in Shonen; mangaka and creator of the series, Yoshifumi Tozuka has credited some level of his project’s success in this regard with his own familiarity with Jump. His perspective is incredibly interesting not just because of his work’s prominence, but also because of how he integrates his own experiences as a fan of other manga into his own career. We got the opportunity at Anime NYC to speak with him as well as the Japanese manga editor Takumi Hashimoto about working on Undead Unluck.
If there’s any word that could describe Undead Unluck it would be unique. The story, art, and characters all have the characteristic essence of shonen/action manga titles. There’s plenty of combat with careful attention to detail and scenes that keep steady energy throughout. But, in addition to that, the premise of the story and Yoshifumi’s storytelling ability take things to another level. The duo of Andy (Undead) who cannot be killed and Fuuko (Unluck) whose mere touch dooms someone to endure a deadly disaster is a perfect recipe for antics. Combining this with Yoshifumi’s understanding of what makes a shonen series a strong one, Undead Unluck really stands out apart from its contemporaries. I wanted to understand how he made use of his own experience reading Jump, as well as how David Production got involved with the project.
“I’ve been a Shonen Jump reader for such a long time. Within Shonen Jump, it’s a pretty quick turnaround as far as what series continues on and not, for successful ones and unsuccessful ones. Through reading them I could tell what makes it [those series] successful and what doesn’t. It was definitely a learning component, [reading] Shonen Jump”
In addition to Undead Unluck, Yoshifumi has authored two other one-shots and both of them were published in Jump Next, an offshoot of Weekly Shonen Jump dealing principally with one-shots and a few of its own serial works. I was curious if Yoshifumi had any plans to try to have his other works Cosmic Arc Travel and Super Heavy Charge Vanguard serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump or elsewhere, but he explained he’s quite satisfied with Undead Unluck right now and can’t imagine much else being more fun than this project.
“Right now I’m really happy with Undead Unluck, I do have a little bit of a tug toward one-offs, but then I ask myself ‘Would it be more fun than Undead Unluck?’ and I think ‘Probably not really.’ As far as beyond Undead Unluck…I have no idea.”
When it comes to the process of adapting the series from a manga to an anime and how that interfaces with direction, manga editor Takumi Hashimoto explained that the relationship between himself, the staff at Shueisha, and the staff for the TV anime is quite synergistic and collaborative.
“Creative-wise we are very very involved. Our overall goal is to make the anime great. We’ll speak with the animation production side about certain settings that are in alignment with the manga. And [as for] the character design and voiceover sessions, both myself as the editor and Sensei [Yoshifumi Tozuka] will actually be present or involved with those. So we’re quite involved with the anime production.
And then I got the chance to work with David Production. I know that David Production has been doing amazing work over the years. We were very excited to work with them; we already knew that they created great anime. They actually came to us wanting to turn Undead Unluck into an anime and they were just so excited. They even prepared a little pitch short anime of what it [the animation] could look like. We really could feel that they were excited to work on it. That’s how we ended up working with David Production.”
The anime especially has been immensely popular in the United States, something Yoshifumi has experienced directly at Anime NYC and Anime Expo earlier this year.
“Yesterday [Friday, Nov 17th] I had a signing, my first signing during my time here at Anime NYC. There were fans from all over the world; we even got to meet someone from Argentina. People showed up in Undead Unluck cosplay and we even had some fan gifts as well. So I’ve been feeling the love from the fans, yes.”
Wrapping up, I wanted to ask Yoshifumi about a few of his interests not related to Undead Unluck. Namely, I wanted to know who his favorite character was in Hunter x Hunter and what his favorite game mechanic was in Yu-Gi-Oh! was, as these are series/games he’s expressed interest in before. He shocked the room (most people quite literally gasped) by revealing that his favorite Hunter x Hunter character is Franklin Bordeau, member #7 of the series Phantom Troupe.
“I like Franklin because of his character design […] I really like that character design and his fighting style, with his fingers. In chapter 8 or 9, you see it in Undead Unluck“
As for Yu-Gi-Oh!, he had an interesting theory about how one of the most important mechanics in the series came to be. I want to emphasize that although I find this very interesting, Yoshifumi truly meant it as a theory and it shouldn’t be taken as anything other than that.
“Yu-Gi-Oh! has a system called trap cards. [By using them,] you can do something during the opponent’s turn. In most card games, the opponent’s turn is the opponent’s turn, and your turn is your turn. But in Yu-Gi-Oh!, you can do something during the opponent’s turn. This is just my theory, but in the manga, when it’s Yugi’s turn, the opponent cant do anything. In a manga space, that means we’re just waiting. Theoretically, I think that Takahashi-sensei created the trap card so that there’s more action. There’s no waiting. But who knows what the truth is; this is just a theory.”
We’d like to thank Yoshifumi Tozuka and Takumi Hashimoto for the chance to speak with them at Anime NYC. Don’t forget to vote for Undead Unluck in our weekly poll.
© Yoshifumi Tozuka, SHUEISHA/Undead Unluck Project