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Last edited by Tony K. on Thu Apr 11, 2024 4:21 pm; edited 18 times in total

Season 01 (1st half): Dead Mount Death Play (TV)
Season 01 (2nd half): Dead Mount Death Play (TV 2)

Source: Manga (ongoing @ 12 volumes, written by Ryohgo Narita, illustrated by Shinta Fujimoto)

Demographic: Seinen

Animation Studio: Geek Toys

Genres: action, comedy, drama, fantasy, mystery, supernatural

Themes: dark fantasy, ecchi, factions, gore, isekai, reincarnation, sorcery

Plot Summary: It's a showdown for the ages as the legendary hero takes on the corpse god necromancer, but when the dust settles, something isn't quite right. In the final moments of their epic confrontation, the corpse god's final gambit shot was wholly unexpected -- reincarnation magic. Across space and time, a boy named Polka Shinoyama awakens feeling not quite himself.

Air Date & Platform:
Season 01 (1st half): April 10, 2023 (Monday), (2nd half) October, 9 2023 (Monday)
Available on: Crunchyroll

Episode Count / Runtime:
Season 01: 12 episodes
Season 02: 12 episodes

Total: 24 episodes
----------------------------------

EPISODE INDEX

(Clicking on the episode will take you to my post that has a summary, comments, and screen-caps)

- Season 01

Episode 01: The Reincarnation
Episode 02: The New World
Episode 03: The Necromancer
Episode 04: The Mad Dog

Episode 05: The Monster
Episode 06: The Firestarter
Episode 07: The Magician
Episode 08: The Assassin

Episode 09: The Signpost
Episode 10: The Emblem
Episode 11: The Beginning
Episode 12: The Scared Place

Episode 13:
Episode 14:
Episode 15:
Episode 16:

Episode 17:
Episode 18:
Episode 19:
Episode 20:

Episode 21:
Episode 22:
Episode 23:
Episode 24:

Last edited by Tony K. on Sat May 20, 2023 5:53 pm; edited 2 times in total

Episode 01: The Reincarnation

Summary: A legendary necromancer known as the Corpse God is finally slain by a hero—only to wake up in the body of Polka Shinoyama, a newly assassinated boy in present-day Tokyo. Can the sorcerer survive in this strange new world? [-Fan Wikia]

Comments: This was a pleasant surprise. Based on the key art and isekai descriptor, I was afraid this would turn into some generic throwaway title. But it's pretty dark, and I have no idea if the protagonist is the real villain or not.

You'd think nercromancers are usually one of the bad guys, but we never really get any context as to why that knight is fighting him, in the first place. The prospect of this turning into something like Death Note or Overlord (as in, having villainous main characters) is pretty exciting.

The art for characters and backgrounds feel so-so in quality, but the CG effects for all the spells and magic look pretty neat and are used a decent amount. With all those characters I see in the key art, I'm hoping this might even turn into a low-to-mid grade fate-type-Holy-Grail kind of war. That's probably wishful thinking, though.

Screen Caps:

My humble observations:

I did like it, though it isn't my kind of show, usually.

Feels, initially, like a fighting show with magic, swords and sorcery, with a Deep Backstory. Who is the Big Bad? Is there a Secret Organization, or maybe more than one? Where is the Hero? From Crunchy's blurb description and the ending & post ending, lots to look at and wonder about

Anyway, starts with a lot of fighting with 3D minions and monsters to get through. No mention of the plot, beyond lots of warriors dying and a hero fighting, with like 3 onlookers commenting. I don't mind the 3D stuff, but I got bored with that long fight. Did seem to establish that This Fight Is Serious. And a couple things get mentioned that May Be Important Later. Or not.

I did fast forward through some of this fighting, I was so bored, so I may have missed a bit. I think now I'd better go back and re-watch. Anyway...

And then, we see a guy with strange hair is in a modern city alley, confused, wondering what's going on. He leaves, wanders onto a city pedestrian street.

And then, a drone goes buzzing into empty alley, and a fellow with a headset at a desk with a zillion monitors seems annoyed.

And then, some cops talk to strange hair guy. He's normally dressed - mostly - but he seems out of place. The cops are polite, but get concerned.

And then, Maniac Girl spoiler[ jumps on cops head, and runs off with strange hair guy to another alley.]

I got the impression that Maniac Girl is some humorous relief. The art style changes to very simple. Particularly when she ( minor humor ) spoiler[ casually flips the guy upside down and shakes him so all his money falls out. ] And spoiler[ flips him around some more, so we get a face in boob landing ( With hand clutching! Extra points for that. ) Doesn't bother Maniac Girl at all. ]

The humorous stuff threw me off a bit, it seemed jarring to me. Time will tell if it adds much to the show.

And then, some context from Maniac Girl.

And then, there's more fighting.

And then, two young men back on the street say, "Well, strange things sure can happen in Shinjuku." ( sorry i can't spell. ) They casually walk off. One of them looks familiar.

And then, there's more fighting. And some talking.

Ending credits - I liked the style, though I had to freeze frame a lot. The kind of ending credits with a million story hooks and/or fake-outs in it.

Post credits. Seems Serious, and then minor spoiler maybe, spoiler[ We get some simple art style suprise exhibited. I think it was supposed to be funny, in maybe a thoughtful way? ]

I almost gave up on this one three minutes in, cos I didn't like the CGI. Normally I can handle a fair bit of CGI nonsense - learning to bend a little and put up with a certain amount of things and knowing when to squint is kind of a necessity for loving anime - but the buck shot blasts of blatant CGI in a compressed time made me think the show wasn't very ambitious. I can get weird about visuals and music as I apparently demonstrated when I confessed my love for A Galaxy Next Door.

But I'm glad I hung on, cos once the...I guess he's the protagonist...made it to contemporary Japan, the show drew me in. I liked the moral confusion and the isekai bait and switches. I'm still not sure who or what I should be rooting for, but it's interesting.

And yah, I thought the manic killer girl brought a lot of energy with her too.

Liked it more than I expected, certainly. I'm not sure I'll stick with it though- I tend to bounce off "villain protagonist" shows (Overlord comes to mind.) But I'm intrigued enough to give it a chance.

Is he even a real villain though? His reaction to seeing the happy kids and him thinking back on leaving behind people in the previous world makes me unsure. He may be more of a neutral/grey kind of guy.

Absolutely a fair point. That's actually why I'm going to give it a chance- while I tend to bounce off "villain protags", I'm not sure that's an appropriate label. I think it could be- but I'm not certain it will be.

Episode 2

A reverse isekai - nice! It's amazing what a shot in the arm even a simple new twist on a tired old genre can provide. I knew nothing about this show going in so I did get sucked into to the notion that... Polka... (sigh, I really wish Japanese content creators would be more careful with their English name selection. One of the hero's middle names is Edith... come on, guys.) was the reincarnated hero, not the necromancer. I'm really enjoying the set up. A necromancer who is actually a nice guy and just wants to live a peaceful life linked up with a wacky team of... "retrievers" (aka killers) works for me. Should be fun seeing where this goes.

I have been recovering from the effects of a pretty bad flu with other cascading effects, so I missed most of these first episodes.

I watched the first two episodes, and I am weirdly into it. I thought perhaps I was not paying attention enough when it was revealed that the one reincarnated into the kid was actually the monster skeleton guy. My concentration is still a bit limited, so I hope that I am understanding most things about him coming from a sort of grimdark world. Where I think the implication was that most with his gift would go to the church, but he did not in becoming a necromancer, the church pretty much purged everyone around him after discovery. He set himself up somewhere with an eventual plan to reincarnate.

It was pretty funny that he apparently expected the killer girl to back up after being run through her gut, and kind of accidentally looked more villainous like he was going to turn her into a zombie puppet or something.

Last edited by Tony K. on Sun May 21, 2023 1:56 am; edited 3 times in total

Episode 02: The New World

Summary: Polka scrambles to get his bearings while facing off against his would-be killer's colleagues. Is this the prelude to a new fight for survival or the start of an unlikely friendship? [-Fan Wikia]

Comments: This was a nice surprise on the Corpse God's origin. He's basically a guy that happened to fall into dire circumstances, acquired these powers to see and/or control the dead, got screwed over by mean/stupid people, got angry, and has stayed angry ever since.

I'm curious to see what he does in the modern world, given how vastly different the civilizations are between the this one and the fantasy one. I'm pretty sure the worlds will probably cross over, at some point, so that could be entertaining.

Some of the fan service feels poorly placed. And the girls aren't even that well drawn, so I hope they rely on it, too much, for comedic relief. I am liking the prospects of conflicting ideologies and culture clash, though.

Screen Caps:

Like teased during the first episode, he is not a true villain, which I like. He is more in the grey side of things. I agree that the hero from the other world will probably pop up sooner or later to make a mess of things. As for the new undead companion...mixed feelings.

Last edited by Tony K. on Sun May 21, 2023 1:57 am; edited 1 time in total

Episode 03: The Necromancer

Summary: Polka is settling into his new life when a man arrives begging Misaki Sakimiya to save him from gangsters. Polka sends her with him, but the job isn't what it seems. Meanwhile, other factions in Shinjuku investigate Polka's role in the fire. [-Fan Wikia]

Comments: Looks like Corpse God is putting his team of anti-heroes together. And at least he seems to somewhat doing it for a brute kind of justice. It should be interesting to see how many different kinds of dirtbag people he'll run into and how he decides to punish them.

The cops at the end were a nice twist. It'd be even twistier if they had some kind of superpowers/sorcery or had a way of being able to investigate it. Maybe one of the otherworld characters will end up in their bodies or something.

Screen Caps:

This one is definitely giving off whiffs of being a keeper for me. I wonder what the "Dead Mount" in the title refers to?

Maybe it's referring to the amount of "dead" things "mount"-ing up for Polka/Necromancer to "play" with after their "death(s)"?

Then again, it could be some kind of word play, or maybe it's just weird Engrish like "Attack on Titan."

The supernatural police seem rather interesting, though I do wonder how much they can really do against a necromancer and very powerful person in bandages.

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