Fuuko Izumo is cursed with "Unluck". She brings misfortune to anyone who touches her, and the scale is proportional to how long they had physical contact. She's saved from a suicide attempt one day by Andy, a strange man who can't die. He hopes to figure out a way to use Fuuko's misfortune to finally bring him death. The unlikely pair team up to complete missions given to them by the Book of Revelations, but if they or any of the other negators in their union fail, the book might punish humanity.

"It gets better, trust me" is one of the most common refrains around Undead Unluck's early goings. I can attest to that sentiment as somebody who's read a good bit of the manga. Several frankly shitty elements in the manga's first couple volumes are quickly excised, disappearing from the material so abruptly and staying gone so completely that folks wondered if this adaptation would just go ahead and alter the start of the story to better align with what the series becomes. That didn't happen, so we're getting the unfiltered Undead Unluck experience, for better and worse.

Undead Unluck is a story that I absolutely would've dropped after the first two chapters if I read it weekly in Shonen Jump. The opening chapters casually blend suicide with handsy groping for laughs as we watch Fuuko get caught up in the violent adventures of Andy, an undead man with a perpetual shit-eating grin. Fuuko is cursed with "Unluck", where anyone who has direct physical contact with her exposed skin is doomed to suffer unfortunate circumstances, which in no way sounds like something out of an American comic book franchise that starts with the letter X. Meanwhile, Andy is very much tired of his immortality and hopes to use her to cause a disaster so catastrophic that there's no way he can come back from it. Additional wrinkles in Andy's plan soon show up, including an explanation as to why both parties have these powers in the first place, but the story's insistence on framing the main duo's relationship as one that could devolve into assault or even rape at any time took all the fun out of it.

Apart from the fact that Fuuko would really rather not die, despite the story opening with her suicide attempt, the main goal here is to get Fuuko to have strong enough feelings for the Undead half of the titular duo that she can slam him with an especially virulent stroke of badness. Because as much as Fuuko would like to not be dead, Andy pretty desperately does. This is entirely because his power is to constantly regenerate from any and all deadly injuries, and after over 200 years, he's about done. Since Fuuko's bad luck is proportional to how long her skin is touched for and how emotionally charged the action causing the person to touch her is, Andy figures that if she falls in love with him and they bang, he'll get slammed with enough badness to finally kill him once and for all. As you can probably guess, this means a lot of Andy groping Fuuko to generate worse luck. Fuuko is perpetually mid-wail about her situation and it's not particularly comfortable reading or viewing, even though it's clearly meant to be funny. That Andy can't seem to keep his pants on is a little more humorous, mostly because of the enormous censor bar that implies an impressive amount of dick, but also because that black panel is basically just part of his character design and practically becomes its own recurring character after awhile. Considering that the rest of his design incorporates such imagery as a sword occasionally plunged through his chest and what looks like a card stuck in his forehead, nudity seems like the least of his concerns.

So yeah, Undead Unluck has one of the worst, most unendearing starts of just about any Shonen Jump series ever, and a lot of that holds true for the anime. I hate the gross way the series indulges in invasive fanservice towards Fuuko, using the nature of her powers as an excuse for Andy to constantly violate her personal space and grope her for cheap gags. I hate how that comedic dynamic means Fuuko's worth as a character gets reduced to her boobs multiple times in this premiere. I hate that the pair's dynamic is essentially Wolverine and Rogue but with 1,000% more sexual harassment. I hate that Andy's design gives him a permanent Dreamworks Face and he's constantly mugging through every last second of the episode. An episode that ends with our heroine making a "comedic" escape from the male lead because he's stripped down and is loudly demanding they have sex.

It sucks because there are some cool ideas even in these early bits. I love the unique way Andy uses his regeneration powers, utilizing the morbid cartoon physics of his very physiology to pull off stuff like turning his bones into weapons, shooting his fingertip like a bullet and blowing off his regenerating feet over and over to make bloody jet boots. Similarly, Fuuko's "Unluck" is a cool concept even outside of its potential in battle, even if it is literally just lifted from X-Men with little alteration, and the way it fuels her self-loathing is an effective emotional hook. I still can't stand Andy in this earlier part of the story (and even after he improves, I still can't stand his one stupid expression constantly plastered on his face), but seeing Fuuko so happy to have her hair cut and finally have somebody she doesn't have to keep her distance from for their own safety is genuinely sweet. Combined with this adaptation's ambitious direction and great animation, there's a ton of potential here to make something unconventional and unique this season.

However, it's hard to tell anyone the show is worth sticking with when it changed nothing about the manga's terrible start. Cool powers and engaging character writing are shallow compensation for sitting through the noxious character dynamic and juvenile groping gags. If those hurdles leave you undeterred, you'll probably have a good time before long. For everyone else, it's probably gonna be a harder call. Unlike so many other shows people have made the claim about, Undead Unluck DOES get better, but it may be too little, too late for the uninitiated.