Author : Mitsuru Hatori
If I had to classify it I would say that Sankarea is a romantic comedy with a lot of supernatural and seinen elements thrown in. It even brings in vorarephilia, a pretty obscure sexual deviation. And the best part? the mangaka did not fuck it up!
Premise: 4/5
A highschooler tries to bring his dead cat back to life using a reseruction potion which he concocted. A very pretty high school girl finds out about his experiment. Due to circumstances she drinks the potion and dies. She comes back as a zombie. Shit happens.
Kudos to the mangaka for trying out something original. Well atleast as original as it can get in the current state of shounen manga.
I am not sure but i think this was the first shounen Zombie-love story every to be written. Of course to make it more acceptable the had to make sure the Zombie looks fresh ie still pretty human.
Plot and Story overall : 4/5
It starts of with the introduction of the male protagonist Chihiro Furuya, a Zombie obsessed boy who recently lost his family pet. I mean lost to the "great beyond" . So he decides to try to bring him back to life using a potion he makes following the instructions he found in a book in the attic. While he is doing this he hears a girl screaming outrageous things into a well. Something along the lines of "Why cant I live the life of a normal girl?", "Why did I have to be born into the Sanka family?" and "Why does my father take naked pictures of me every year on my birthday?" (Freaky shit right? )
She spots him and they end up talking and she find out about Babu( the cat). She decides to steal the potion and drinks it to commit suicide wishing that she was born into the life of a normal girl. But she doesn't die. later she gets into an argument with her father and falls from a cliff. Lo and behold she is now a zombie.
The rest of the story focuses on her living a normal life as she wished ( the irony isn't lost on Chihiro ), her relationship with Chihiro and her struggle with her Zombification.
The story is nicely paced and none of the characters seem unnecessary. Every time things begin to reach a normalcy something that threatens it appears on the horizon.
An important element is the states of Zombification. The fresh state, the confused state and the terminal state. The zombie retains memories of life in the fresh state and behaves like a normal human being. In the confused state however feelings of lust and hunger are confused so the zombie will attack and eat what it loves ( see vorarephilia ).And finally The terminal state, the zombie looses all vestiges of humanity and tries to attack and eat everything at sight. so the love between Sanka Rea and Furuya Chihiro is dangerous. Talk about star-crossed lovers.
Character : 2.5/5
The characters are not very strong and seem almost stereotypical. However the story more than makes up for it.
Furuya Chihiro - A zombie obsessed middle schooler who successfully creates the resurrection potion with Sanka Reas help. He is forced to take responsibility for her once she becomes a zombie. He is the son of a shrine priest. His obsession and love for zombies stems from a memory of his mother where she confides in him that she was a zombie. Other than that personality quirk he is very normal person and essentially the stereotypical nice guy who thinks of others.
Sanka Rea - The titular character. She becomes a zombie by consuming the resurrection potion and then dieing afterwards. She is unique as she has drunk the potion before she died and is hence able to retain her humanity for longer. She is essentially the virgin, a naive character with very little real world experience so everything is new to her. her only wish is to live a normal life and becoming a zombie seems to have given her a chance to do so. Her feelings toward Chihiro are a bit confused as she seems to have fallen in love with him and at the same time being a Zombie begins to crave his flesh.
Furuya Jogorō - The senile grandfather to Furuya Chihiro and the original creator of the resurrection potion. Portrayed as senile the man has a few lucid moments. His backstory in the creation of the Resurrection potion is pretty well thought out. He expresses regret in having made it because of how it fucked up the lives of those who consume it.
Darin Arciento Kurumiya - A female researcher looking into the Resurrection potion. She worked with Jogoro and her adopted father when they were in America. Although she initial appears as a villain she gradually softens around Chihiro and becomes disillusioned with her adopted father (who is obsessed with recreating his daughter) and eventually switches sides.
Saōji Ranko - Chihiros childhood best-friend and the obligatory friend-zoned girl. There is obviously a love triangle here but it does not form as important a plot line as you would expect so kudos to the mangaka.
Art 4/5
I don't know why I write about art. I am not am not an art critic!
I just do it to give you an idea of what to expect when it comes to the manga . The art work is clean and the charterers look appealing. Except maybe Chihiro who resembles his cat.
Sanka Rea looks like a otakus dream 2D girl which is nice. Scratch that she also reminds me lot of a lead in a horror movie, Something innocent and dangerous at the same time.
I also appreciate the way the act of eating has been sexualized and turned into a horror show in equal amounts.
The gory scenes are very well done and definite worth a look, they are a bit late in the story though.
At 56 Chapters however it seems very doable.
Verdict
I liked the story. Give this one a shot, who knows it might make you explore this fascinating topic.
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