Zombie-Loan is a “loud” manga. The characters scream a lot, they fight a lot, they shout at one another a lot. There is a lot of expository discussion by characters who “hmmph” dismissively at the protagonists’ lack of knowledge, then proceed to monologue the entirety of the story, with punctuations of shouts of denial by the listeners.

For an action manga, there’s a lot of talking.

For a complicated plot, there’s lots of fighting.

For an occult story, there’s a ton of humanity …

…and for a story about people, there’s a lot of handwaves of magic, and spells and powers being thrown around.

In the end, I find Zombie-Loan to be absolutely exhausting with very little payoff.

However, by Volume 10, Michiru is really starting to get a clue or three about her own existence and in a cliffhanger/climax she begins, for the first time, to truly assert herself.

To save Koyomi no less, although it might be too late.

The rest of the characters remain rather uninteresting to me, to be honest. The more the two boys yell, the less I can hear them. So it’s rather unfortunate that the bulk of these three volumes is mixed up in Shito’s backstory of angst, incestuous affection, misery, eternity, depravity and more angst. Snooze.

Just to sort of extra super duper piss me off, it turns out that Yomi, while living inside Koyomi, is a sort of refined male spirit made from the unwanted male children of Koyomi’s family. So…the one bit of Yuri we had to hold on to is not, and Koyomi is reduced to a vessel and a nonentitiy just as we were kind of getting to like her.

Ratings:

Art – messy
Characters – angsty
Story – scattered
Yuri – nonexistent
LoserFanBoy – must exist

Overall – loud

I’ve read a few of the recent chapters of Zombie-Loan in GFantasy magazine, and it’s more of the same – screaming, always with the screaming. But they’ll have to do it without me. 10 Volumes is more than enough for me to decide that this manga is just too loud for me to read.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kate Dacey for Volume 10 of this set. It will be going to a good home at the library. Thank you very much!