Undead Unluck

Episode 20

Right off the bat, I have two bones to pick with “Anno Un", and the first shouldn't be surprising at all. After a glorious week of almost entirely new footage, we're back to wasting nearly five whole minutes on recaps and repeated scenes from last week! The only reason I'm not more irritated is because the opening flash-forward to the battle with UMA Autumn was at least a decent hook.

I have one more gripe to get off my chest regarding the flash-forward scene: Undead Unluck needs to cool it with the ridiculously oversaturated red color profile of these action scenes. In small and effective doses, it can look cool. Here, it makes some shots of the sequence almost impossible to look at without the risk of getting a migraine, never mind how difficult it is to decipher what is happening on screen.

Aside from those complaints, the rest of “Anno Un" is pretty good! The visuals are kind of janky but the story is filled with intrigue and excitement to make up for it. This is thanks in no small part to Anno Un themselves, whose ultra-meta brand of devil-may-care shenanigans is a great counterpoint for Andy and Fuko to play off of. Also, UMA Autumn is a giant spider beast that feeds off of “human biography” and transforms people's insides into eldritch tomes. What's not to love about that?

For all of the complaining I did about the “flash forward” fight from the cold open, I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that the big battle in the episode avoids the messy coloring entirely. Again, the animation on display is hardly more than functional, but I can be very forgiving when I can just see the damned action I'm supposed to be getting excited about. I can't deny Anno Un's infectious addition to the party chemistry, either. Their G-Liner powers are equal parts wacky and cool, rivaling Andy's Undead abilities for the sheer lunacy that they can result in on the battlefield.

Overall, I'm incredibly excited for this new storyline of Undead Unluck, even if the execution of this latter half of the series' run has been more hit-or-miss than I'd like. The core strength of the source material is just too damned strong for even the wonkiest of pacing and editing decisions to stymie, it would seem. Andy + Fuko 4 Ever, baby!

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Undead Unluck is currently streaming on Hulu.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.