The Unwanted Undead Adventurer Vol. 1
Author: Yu Okano
Publishers: Overlap; J-Novel Club
Illustrator: Haiji Nakasone
Age Group: Teen
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Type: Manga
Content Warnings: Death, Disturbing Content (like re-creating muscle onto bone)
Spoilers ahead
Plot
Rentt, a bronze-class adventurer of ten years, continues his goal to become a mythril-class adventurer only to come in contact with a dragon, losing his life in the process. He thought he was dead but….he’s a skeleton and must find a way to become human again. If that’s even possible.
This is a great start for the plot. The manga is easy to read as a manga style with complex imagery.
Character Development
The character development in this is fantastic. The characters, including background and secondary charactes, are complex. We learn a lot about them just from the interactions with Rentt and their own short experiences outside of Rentt’s perspective.
Rentt is conscious of his flaws and still continues with his goal, even though others know it’ll never happen. He’s also very involved in the adventurer’s guild and the community. The connections he’s made shine through. One example is when he meets Rina Rupaage, he saves her life (even though he’s not human) and gets her on his side to buy clothes so he can return to town without scaring anyone. While his skills haven’t made him a famous adventurer, he’s famous for helping those around him. The background and secondary characters worry about him.
For the human interaction and connections alone, this manga is worth picking up. We don’t see a lot of human connection from a perspective that is human but from an inhuman perspective.
World-building
The world-building in this is fabulous. We learn a lot from Rentt’s knowledge about how this world works. It helps us to understand what steps Rentt needs to take in order to become human or human-like so he can blend into society again.
Everything we learn is practical and relevant to the story, the interactions of characters, and what drives this world to move forward. The imagery also helps us to connect easily with the setting and life around Rentt.
Themes
Never give up, even if you’re different from normal, there’s always something you can do.
Observations & Predictions
I know that Rentt is going to continue using the existential evolution system of monsters to gain more power. Something he couldn’t do as a human. It’ll be interesting to see how many evolutions from skeleton there are and if becoming human is possible.
Rin is going to make another appearance and most likely make a party with him as he gets stronger. He’ll need a good ally in which to help him through checkpoints. His party may even grow as he adventures.
Rentt ponders on what it is to be human versus monster. I see him delving more into this as he interacts with humans and slays monsters (becoming different monster evolutions). His take currently on the connections that we make are what make us human is fascinating and definitely worth exploring. I hope to see more of this in the future.
Recommendations
Overlord By: Kugane Maruyama
Skeleton Knight in Another World By: Enki Hakari
So I’m a Spider, So What? By: Okina Baba
That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime By: Fuse
