Manga Review: Sankarea

Title: Sankarea
Author: Hattori Mitsuru
Release: Monthly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Supernatural, Romance, Comedy, Horror
Art: S
Originality: A
Story: A
Characters: A
Humor: B
Action: B

Impression: This one’s about a boy who’s obsessed with Zombies to the point he actually tries to bring his dead cat back to life with an occult ritual in an abandoned building. Coincidentally, he happens to meet a popular high class girl who frequently comes by that building to have her frustrations vented out by screaming into the well outside. She then realizes that she was seen and in her attempt at having him keep her embarrassing secret, she learns about the boy’s obsession and this starts her off in the world of zombies. Through a series of events later on, she actually does become a zombie and this is where the series gets really interesting. Despite having only the first few chapters out in English, this series proves itself to be a fun and intriguing story filled with some interesting takes on several character archetypes and a fresh approach to the whole Zombie genre that may not be new but sure hasn’t been done enough. I love the clear and crisp art style the author uses here and the way he manages to use it to throw in scenes that could initially come across as funny or romantic at first but can be twisted into something with more horrific implications if one gives more thought to it or if more details are given later on. The way I see it this could go either way between being a full blown love comedy with a bit of horror or a love comedy that slowly mutates into a horror manga. In any case, I am looking forward to future chapters.