All Fuko wanted was a passionate romance like in her shoujo manga. However, she has the unpleasant ability of Unluck that causes anyone she touches to suffer an accident – its severity based on her affection for them. After accidentally causing her parents to die in a plane crash, Fuko has been paralyzed by fear that she might accidentally touch someone all through her school years spent as a shut-in.
With her favorite manga now ended, Fuko was about to end her own life when a man claim to be unable to die swoops in and saves her. Delighted that her ability might finally be able to kill him for good, this man that she nicknamed Andy declares that he will make her fall in love with him so she will give him the most fatal stroke of unluck possible.
Teaming up and entering the organization that hunts people like them with dangerous abilities, the pair tackle a number of unique enemies.
Shounen these days is all about flashy fights and emotional stories, but Undead Unluck returns to a time where shounen was packed full of action and ridiculousness in equal measure. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like Undead Unluck, head on down below.
Anime Like Undead Unluck
For Fans of Big, Energetic Action
Fire Force
A phenomenon has started overtaking mankind – one where people spontaneously combust and turn into destructive fire demons called Infernals.
To fight these demons, special fire forces were established full of those with dedication and powers to control fire.
This is the story of Fire Force 8 and their newest recruit – Shinra, who aims to become a hero and discover the truth behind the Infernals.
Aside from both being shounen action anime, Fire Force and Undead Unluck are the type of shounen action anime that go big. They both go for that big, exciting, and/or ridiculous action and you often keep watching because you want to see what the next fight is. Furthermore, in between those fights, there is a little bit of ecchi-style comedy.
If you enjoyed Undead Unluck because it had a likable array of creative characters with creative powers, Fire Force has that as well – though most characters have fire-based powers.
My Hero Academia
After the sudden appearance of super powers, or “quirks,” now 80 percent of humanity has some kind of power. With some Quirk users turning to crime, it gave rise to super heroes that help the police keep the peace.
Since he was a child, Izuku Midoriya has idolized super heroes, especially the symbol of peace, All Might, but he is devastated to learn that he won’t manifest a Quirk himself. Still, he studies super heroes and is determined to become one.
After a chance encounter with All Might, Midoriya learns that there still may be a chance for him to be a hero after all.
Both My Hero Academia and Undead Unluck are part of the newer school of shounen action anime that lets its characters be creative, but keeps people coming back for those big moments of action.
Undead Unluck often gets into a cycle of constantly outdoing itself with how grand the action is and how truly ridiculous it can be. However, My Hero Academia spends each season building up to some of the most stunning and hype-inducing fights in anime. The kind of fights that feel so epic they leave your heart racing afterwards.
If you like Undead Unluck because it featured enjoyable, creative characters and also knows how to bring the hype when it comes to its bigger action moments, My Hero Academia mastered the art of creating hype fights.
Kill la Kill
Ryuuko Matoi is on the hunt for her father’s killer, and her only lead is the missing half of his invention, the Scissor Blade.
On her quest, she arrives at the prestigious Honnouji Academy, a school that is ruled over by the super powerful Satsuki Kiryuuin and her Elite Four. Believing Satsuki knows who killed her father, Ryuuko challenges one of the elite, but gets beaten due to their special uniforms.
After receiving a special uniform of her own, Ryuuko sets plans into motion to dominate the school and find out what happened to her father.
Both Undead Unluck and Kill la Kill enjoy their high-energy action and interesting characters. However, while Undead Unluck is energetic, its isn’t the same sort of frenetic high energy that Kill la Kill uses throughout the series.
Kill la Kill does everything at a fast pace that gives the series a high energy feel. Furthermore, due to its animation style, the characters in Kill la Kill have a much more fluid feel to them. However, both Undead Unluck and Kill la Kill fully embrace having weird aspects in its power systems, but explaining them in ways that make perfect sense given the rules presented in the world.
Zom 100 – Bucket List of the Dead
While initially excited to begin his adult life, Akira Tendou ends up employed at an exploitative company that breaks his spirit and saps his energy. Unable to quit and contemplating suicide, he dreads each new day of going to work.
That is, until one day when he leaves for the office only to discover that a zombie apocalypse is in full swing.
Realizing that the world as we know it is now over, Akira is overjoyed! He creates a bucket list of all the things he wanted to do but never had the time or energy for as a working adult. Now, he enjoys the apocalypse to the fullest before he becomes a zombie like everyone else.
The similarity between Zom 100 and Undead Unluck is not that both series have at least one zombie apocalypse. No, while Zom 100 is an zombie apocalypse survival anime, it is a zombie apocalypse survival anime that treats the situation as lackadaisical as Undead treats life.
Instead of zombies, what Zom 100 and Undead Unluck both have in common is coming at their story with the same sort of energetic main character. The main characters are excited for every new opportunity in front of them. For Undead, he is excited for the potential to die. For Akira, he is happy for another day free from work where he can cross things off his bucket list in the freedom of the apocalypse.
While Zom 100 certainly doesn’t have as much of an action focus as the shounen battler that is Undead Unluck, it still captures the same energy in both the fights and doing things outside of them.
For Fans of Hard to Kill Main Characters
Chainsaw Man
After his father’s death left him with a pile of debt, Denji and his pet devil Pochita struggle to pay it off. However, after the yakuza kills him, Pochita fuses himself with Denji’s corpse and he awakens as a Chainsaw Devil.
Found by government devil hunters, Denji is brought in to hunt other devils on an experimental squad where he is finally able to pursue his simple teenage dreams of eating good food and spending time with a cute girl.
Both Chainsaw Man and Undead Unluck are shounen action anime that offer up main characters that are difficult to kill, then fully embrace the gory freedom that that presents.
Both series have hard to kill main characters whose power essentially mutilates their body and turns it into a living, moving weapon. However, while Undead Unluck’s art style doesn’t let the gore of that seem as gruesome, Chainsaw Man dives deep in the gruesome, visceral, and just plain gross when it comes to visuals.
Dorohedoro
Hole is a disorderly district where death and mutilation are common. The residents of Hole are the dregs of society and the test subjects of the magic users that live separate from it. As such, these residents are constantly tested on or just murdered by these mages.
In Hole is Kaiman, a man with a head cursed to be that of a lizard, but with an immunity to magic. He spends his time set on hunting down these magic users in one small bit of justice for the people that live in Hole.
Both Undead Unluck and Dorohedoro follow main characters who were hunting individuals from a specific organization. While Undead Unluck becomes about them joining said organization, Dorohedoro instead splits its time focusing on both the stories of the main character as well as the “villain,” who is more just a guy doing his job.
While Undead Unluck presents a series of gory battles, its art style cuts off the grit to the gore. Alternatively, Dorohedoro embraces the gore and horror of its battles, but does so often with a light-hearted and comical tone. So while Undead Unluck cuts gore with more cartoonish art, Dorohedoro shows gore off in the art, but doesn’t allow the story to ever become too heavy for too long.
Hell’s Paradise
Betrayed by his ninja clan and sentenced to death for the many lives he took while working for them, Gabimaru the Hollow accepts his fate. However, every attempt at execution has failed, leading them to call in Sagiri, a member of the Yamada Asaemon Clan of imperial executioners.
While Sagiri can carry out the task, she instead offers Gabimaru a chance to receive a full pardon for his crimes. He, along with other criminals sentenced to death, will be sent to the dangerous island of Shinsekyo to obtain the elixir of life for the shogun. However, with all previous expedition teams never being heard from again, this mysterious island is a death sentence in and of itself.
Both Undead Unluck and Hell’s Paradise are action anime that follow a main character that are seemingly immortal and have memory issues. However, after meeting their female companion, they begin to learn more about themselves and grow as characters.
Alongside having similar main characters and a shared passion for grand action scenes, both Undead Unluck and Hell’s Paradise also enjoy gory action. However, Hell’s Paradise does get a bit more artistically creative with some of its visuals and tell a more serious story.
For Fans of Super-powered Quirky Characters
Blood Blockade Battlefront
Vampires, fishmen, supersonic monkeys – They are all normal residents living alongside humans in Hellsalem’s Lot, formerly known as New York City.
When a gate between Earth and the Beyond popped up there three years ago, old NYC became dominated by monsters, and now Libra, a secret organization, is tasked with keeping it in order.
After hobbyist photographer Leonardo Watch obtains the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods, he finds himself recruited into Libra.
Both Undead Unluck and Blood Blockade Battlefront follow new members of an agency that deals with problems using their powers. While each member of Union has specific rules for their abilities, those in Blood Blockade Battlefront are a little more flexible with what they allow characters to do.
What these series share is creating eccentric characters with an interesting sort of contentious, yet friendly relationship with each other in an agency. They then use those characters in interesting battles and explore their surprisingly deep character stories. Both series also nicely set up a little bit of intriguing revolving around the main characters.
Soul Eater
Death City is home to a famous technical academy and ran by Lord Death himself.
At this academy, meisters train with their human weapons in order to evolve them into Death Scythes to be wielded by the Grim Reaper, Lord Death. Only by consuming 99 evils souls and the soul of one witch will a weapon be able to evolve.
This is the story of several students of the academy as they try to grow stronger and protect Death City in the process.
Undead Unluck and Soul Eater are the same breed of shounen action anime where they aren’t trying to necessarily craft an extremely deep story, but more so focus on creating interesting action from quirky characters.
If you enjoyed the character designs in Undead Unluck where the characters aren’t bound by the constraints of realism and are allowed to be eccentric weirdos, Soul Eater enjoys that as well – just with a more gothic/supernatural theme.
If you want another shounen action anime that doesn’t take itself too seriously and lets shounen action be legitimately fun and funny, then Soul Eater is definitely for you.
Bungou Stray Dogs
The orphanage that Atsushi Nakajima has been living at has been recently plagued by a tiger that only he can see. Blaming him for the incident, they kick him out.
Now homeless, he wanders the streets until he meets the eccentric Osamu Dazai and saves him from drowning.
As it turns out, Dazai is a supernatural detective and agrees to help him solve the mystery.
While Undead Unluck is a big, bawdy shounen action anime, Bungou Stray Dogs has big action, but is more restrained and realistic with its character designs. That said, both series enjoy making eccentric characters that all have one specific special ability that they use.
Undead Unluck shows you early and often that it is an action anime. Alternatively, Bungou Stray Dogs starts off more like a detective mystery, but begins to focus more and more on action as it goes on. It also treats some of its plots more seriously and with more narrative nuance than Undead Unluck whose plot arcs can often be summed up with “go to place and fight a thing.”
Akudama Drive
The region of Kansai is overrun by powerful criminals known as Akudama.
One night, after picking up 500 yen dropped by an Akudama, an Ordinary Girl finds herself wrapped up in a huge plot to foil a public execution.
Now with a bomb collar around her neck, she and other Akudama must complete tasks given by a mysterious Black Cat.
Similar to how all Negators are overpowered with a specific theme to their abilities, that is how Akudama Drive presents the criminals it uses as the main characters. Like Undead Unluck has Negators like Undead, Unluck, Untruth, ect, Akudama Drive has criminals like Brawler, Hacker, and Hoodlum.
While the cyberpunk dystopia action story of Akudama Drive differs greatly from the shounen action story of Undead Unluck, both series do have a strong focus on action and unraveling the “something greater” that is going on around the main characters. However, what Akudama Drive and Undead Unluck most have in common is its passion for creating unique characters that are admittedly a bit one note in personality, but never boring.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Undead Unluck? Let fans know in the comments section below.
