Warning: Spoilers for Undead Unluck chapter 152The severely underrated Shonen Jump series Undead Unluck revitalizes its already innovative power system, reinventing the entire genre of classic shonen battle manga in the process.
A second character has had their powers evolve in an unprecedented way after Undead Unluck’s most selfless hero, Fuuko Izumo, altered historical events in Undead Unluck chapter 152 by mangaka Yoshifumi Tozuka, translator David Evelyn and letterer Michelle Pang. A Negator named Mr. Billy could originally only tap into his Unfair negating ability that allows him to copy another Negator’s abilities so long as his targets viewed him as a threat. Now the condition only requires Billy to acknowledge his own strength.
Undead Unluck Reinvents Shonen Power Systems With Fuuko
On the surface, Fuuko is just altering history. But instead of strictly time traveling on the same world, she is living on the 100th and final version of Undead Unluck’s world. Her planet has reset and repeated 99 times after their universe’s gods have destroyed it, in what’s turned out to be a twisted bet between deities. Every time this so-called loop starts again, these gods bestow certain Negating abilities onto particular people at specific moments to ensure these individuals experience the most pain. While Fuuko’s main mission is to gather Negators onto an ultimate team to defeat these gods, she has also been endeavoring to prevent the same tragedies that happen every time a Negator’s powers awaken.
During Fuuko’s attempts to save Mr. Billy from tragedy, the hero realizes that Billy might not even gain his powers just because she has already eliminated all the factors that originally contributed to his awakening. But Mr. Billy’s Unfair still manifests because, as Fuuko realizes, his kindness towards everyone else is what’s truly unfair since it always comes at his own expense. Since readers still don’t know how his powers awakened originally, the full scope of his power’s evolution is unknown. But what’s clear is that Negators can alter how their powers function based on how they perceive their condition. This differs from most anime and manga series, which normally require characters to discover the true extent of their powers that they then must in turn conform to like Himiko Toga’s Transform quirk in My Hero Academia. But, in Undead Unluck, characters are able to manipulate how their powers manifest even though their gods manipulated events to ensure these powers destroyed their lives.
Undead Unluck Ties Powers to the Human Condition
But another level also exists in Undead Unluck. This has happened before. Other characters have been able to change how they use their powers based on the way in which they perceive what rules they can actually negate. What’s different is that his ability’s condition changed even before he knew what it was or even wielding it before. Skeptics could just chock this up to a butterfly effect since Fuuko is altering “past” events even if they are on a new version of their previous world that gods destroyed. But what’s incredible is that this changes how Mr. Billy looks at himself. Before, he was unfairly burdened with having to betray his friends so that he could leverage their powers. Now, how he unfairly treats himself will force him to look deeply at who he is as a person.
Powers evolve in anime and manga, and many of them relate to the human condition. But not like in Undead Unluck, which adds so many more nuanced layers than any other series in Shonen Jump and beyond.
