Hatsukoi Zombie a Poor Manga that Never Experienced the Glory of an Anime Adaptation Until Now.

The Anime and Manga industry is big. It is so big that it has anything to offer to everyone. From the mainstream works like Naruto, Hunter x Hunter and Dragon ball to the cult seinen ones like Billy Bat(Naoki Urasawa) and Solanin(Inio Asano).

It can offer action, comedy, romance and even porn(recommended!).The thing is, just like Holiwood, not everyone really makes it big. In Holiwood, you'll find people that are extras, doubles, cameraman and other people that whose name will never be heard and known by most people. Same thing goes with the Anime and Manga industry.

Today, I will be ranting on a fairly popular manga that I had read a few months ago. To be honest, I kind of liked it(at first) but since this is a rant review, there is really nothing that I should do but complain.

For the sypnosis of Hatsukoi Zombie, this work is an ecchi/ romance/ comedy manga. It's not a harem manga that has a talentless, plain and uninteresting protagonist that is surrounded by different females that somehow are attracted to the protagonist. Well, the main character is still talentless, plain and uninteresting in this work but he is only limited to two girls and two girls liking one person isn't really a harem but just a love triangle.

The story revolves around Tarou, a guy that can see "first love zombies"(hence, the title). These FLZs (first love zombie) are like ghosts that float around near a person that has an unfulfilled first love.The FLZ of every person depends on who is that person's first love and they only appear on males, making all FLZs female.

Let us Rant Now!

This manga starts out with introducing the protagonist(Kurume Tarou), he was introduced as a guy who is uninterested to wamen because he finds liking wamen and being related to them romantically as something troublesome, to put it short, for this guy falling in love is just a hassle(relatable).

It is not only wamen that he avoids, he also avoids other hassles like sports and school clubs because he believes that a person should save as much energy as he can and avoid work. He is so into this saving of energy that he made it into some kind of philosopy, he even calls his self as "The energy saving man"... You know dude, there really is no need for such a title, pffff... Energy saving man?!! Just call yourself lazy, ASSHOLE(but honestly, I can relate to this XD,but again, ASSHOLE!)!!!

Around Tarou are other characters that also have questionable attitudes and actions like Ibusuki Ririto, a fucking cross dressing lady that fools everyone into making them believe that she is a he, she is so good with this act that after 100 chapters she is still into it.

Ebino Mei, a thicc lady with big badonka donks that plays a lot of volleyball. She is Tarou's childhood friend that rejects the idea of her dating Tarou at the early chapters and completely going 180 after sometime... Well, thats stupid but she is thicc so I forgive her...

And ofcourse Eve, Tarou's FLV that resembles Ibusuki Ririto. Tarou can talk to her and LEWD her by making her wear anything that he wants, unfortunately, Tarou doesn't abuse this feature of Eve and also unfortunately she can't touch her. That is the saddest part of this Manga. And yeah, I forgot to tell you, Ririto is Tarou's first love.

The first chapters of this manga revolves more into learning more about the FLVs and making other people's FLVs disappear(from their sight). The Manga puts in some conflicts in the story by making the FLVs be vulnerable into becoming a "broken heart zombie"(let's call it BHZ). BHZ is another version of FLV where the FLV is producing black smokes(I don't know if thats actually a smoke) and does undesirable things like stare at someone with an evil and disturbing stare.

Sometimes the BHZ is so bad that it does some really terrible acts like, screaming a lot(but only Tarou and Ririto can hear), hurt Eve and sometimes even hurt the one that owns that BHZ.

In order for them to stop a zombie, one has to get rid of his FLV by fulfilling his love. If someone with a FLV falls in love on a different girl his FLV will then fall asleep. The act of sleeping of an FLV is a representation of someone's love dying out.

Well, love is always an interesting subject and topic and how this manga used the subject is kind of interesting too at someways because the story is pushed more on how a character would feel and should feel. The ideal of this manga is always about fulfilling someone's love until the further half where they had scenarios of unrequited loves that ended up as happy endings regardless. That part of accepting unrequited love and rejections is a good thing, it is mature and not everyone does it "before". And as this decade goes near to the start of a new decade(2020) I start to see more and more content that portrays unconventional relationship views like same sex (Boy's Love/ Yaoi and Girl's love/yuri), failed love interests or living single all his life.

I personally find those kind of views as acceptable and are good topics. But man, these subjects are starting to become oversaturated because of their increasing numbers. Just go to webtoons.com and other webcomic sites. There, you will see a lot of homo content that I personally think that are over rated. Why does people patronize those kind of content?!! Why are they fascinated with these things and not patronize other works that makes sense like Spirits(Joseph Grabowski) and Yumi's cells (Donggeon Lee). Well, that puts us away from this rant post's topic so I'll save the rant on that website on another rant!

So that is one of the things that I see that is wrong with this Manga, the author made a Manga that has subjects that are starting to get saturated in the market. Doing trending contents based on trending subjects is good "if" executed nicely and "nice execution" nowadays are way more limited than 21 million bitcoins!
(segway plug here, buy Bitcoin! 1DyFW2xQspuqHs1ShscwGe4nc8KCLwbV4W)

Another thing that I see is Ririto's motives with her actions. Like, this gal that crossdresses came into Tarou's school to take revenge on Tarou because she believes that Tarou ruined her life for making her have the ability to see FLZs. For me this take on her character is kind of too forced, it is unnatural and makes no sense to me. You had this ability for years that one day you just received because you accidentally banged heads with someone. For me, personally, that kind of reason is not enough fuel for me to put a lot of grudge to a person(that I formerly love, yeah, loved my ex) to the point where I will crossdress and deceive everyone with my gender. Like, what is next after that?

Oh yeah, her dad has something to do with her crossdressing too, cause her dad left because she mentioned to her dad that she can see her dad's FLZ making her dad want to see his first love overseas! That is straight up retarded AF.

Here and there, if you read more into it, you will keep finding things that makes no sense in the story like Ririto's dad returning and her mom forgiving her dad in a comedic way that the Manga thinks is okay. I don't know really how to accept that part of the Manga, I think that approach on Ririto's dad returning to them somehow works but for me its a lame way to do it.

The Best Arc it had that Made Me Read it was a Waste

The best arc of Hatsukoi Zombie that I liked was the arc of Miyakonojou Shizuka and Mimata Noa. I found this couple interesting because there aren't that much contents/work/manga/anime that has a relationship like this.

You see, I really find this couple cute right from the start and I really hoped that the author will use these two characters wisely because of how interesting they were in the story(even though they are just side characters that shows up irregularly).

The arc of these two is like this, Miyako is a nerd fat boy that has pet flies that fly around his hair wherever he goes (in case you took the flies seriously, I just want you to know that was a joke, there are no flies in this manga) and Noa is a hot fashionista that is soooo into fat guys.

Making two very opposite characters like each other isn't really rare, like fucking hell dude, just browse for some Shojo Manga on those manga sites and you will see "Ojou-sama and I", "Butler loves master", "I'm so inlove with my maid and so I lewd her", "I am so into my sex robot" and "My boyfriend is a werewolf, no, I mean he is a vampire?!!".

note: Ojou-sama means princess, you noob!

See that? This kind of fantasy relationship isn't just limited to rich guy loves poor girl type, it also goes beyond that they even "ship" a dog and a girl. And worse, they even ship a girl with a bat(vampires). I'm so sick with these non-sense that as I type this blog, I kept pullinh my hair cause of how irritated I am... GRRRR...turtle turning into a dog.

The thing that I hate with these troupe is, even the two characters differ in social stature and specie they still make the characters equally attractive! Yeah, that is the thing that I hate the most with these non-sense bullshits.

Bat loves girl, girl loves dog, master loves peasant but why never grandpa loves child? And people even call it a crime? So you disagree with pedophilia but is pro beastiality?!! LOOK AT YOU!!!

note: I am not a pedophile, I don't condone pedophilia in real life, I'm just referring to fiction!

Why not ship two physically opposite characters like fatso and thicc together? That would be interesting. But no one did it other than a few that I don't know the name and Ore no Monogatari.

Hatsukoi Zombie tried to tackle this subject of two physically different characters liking each other in a way that is enough to make me keep on readin. But now, now that I learned more about these two characters from Hatsukoi Zombie, I now realized that everything about these two characters that I loved just went to waste... T_T

The arc of Noa and Miyako ended up with just the two of them agreeing to go out as couples with a not so creative conclusion. But even so, since I got into their theme as a couple, I kept hoping and hoping that the author will write them nicely. And then 100 chapters later, I saw no good progress to them and got disappointed.

note: I will not be telling you the whole story and just encourage you to read the whole arc for yourself. The Noa x Miyako arc is at chapter 9 to 11.

I think the author tried to make good stories around these two characters that I liked but failed to execute properly. The fact that Noa and Miyako still shows up in the Manga occasionally more often than the other side characters is a sign that HE TRIED... THE AUTHOR TRIED... AND HE FAILED... XOXAD..

All and all, I still think this Manga is a decent work but not decent enough to have it's own Anime adaptation.The characters are good in some way, I find some of them as characters that are easy to love as a reader and the art is fairly good too.

What made Hatsukoi Zombie fail in the long run was the author's lack of talent in writing, I am not saying that he has no talent at all. Everyone who is capable to write and draw a manga on his/her own has talents but depending on how much talent that you have if you will be able to pull it off for an Anime adaptation or if you have enough talent just to make the work keep it's interesting factors.

Unfortunately, the later parts of this Manga's quality kept dropping in both art and story.The author keeps trying but I think he is now out of creativity juice and I would strongly suggest to him now to finish this series and rest for a while before making another series.

He isn't the only author who suffers on running out of juice, even top tier authors like Masashi Kishimoto(Naruto) runs out of juice that made his work had a lot of plot holes, just watch the Youtuber named Nuxtaku about his rant on this thing that we call "Hashirama cells."

This character should be dead but he is still alive, how? Hashirama cells.

Naruto's arm gots cut off and now grew back, how? Hashirama cells.

This guy has access to an ability that is exclusive to Uchihas, how? Hashirama cells!

This guy is weak but now he is so strong that he is able control an army of puppets, how? IT'S FUCKING HASHIRAMA CELLS!! Kishimoto just slaps the plot holes with Hashirama cells whenever there is a hole as if he is using Hashirama cells like Flex tape.

I just saw this boat in half.

But you see the point here, most authors kinda laggs off whenever their work gets so long and Hatsukoi Zombie is one of them. Right now, as I type this post, Hatsukoi Zombie is at it's 133rd chapter and is still going. I wouldn't be surprised if I see it being cancelled soon after 20 more chapters.

Even so that you say that this work dropped in quality overtime, I would still say that this work is something that I respect. This guy just ran out of ideas for his work and didn't really slacked off, he kept on trying and I think he is almost at his limit by this time.

What I hate are those series that I see somewhere that runs with just 50 panels a week for two years without improving. Instead of improving, the art gets worse and worse and the story stayed fucking the same like how it started and there is no character progress at all. These things happened on these serieses that I hate not because they ran out of juice but because the fucking author is a lazy B****!

OHH Boy, if someone that knows me reads this review, I know that they know what comic am I pointing out here! This is serious guys, one of these fucking webcomics that has no sense at all is at the top 10 of a certain site because that site kept promoting a certain webcomic and faked the popularity poll.This site that I'm referring to is the site that represents the webcomic industry today. Making that fucking garbage as the most popular web comic on that site makes webcomics look like somekind of cheap art and entertainment...

You know, I should make a rant review about that webcomic that I am saying here. Yeah, after one more Anime/ Manga review, I'll review that garbage!

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the pictures used in this blog has been borrowed from the site mangakakalot.com, I own nothing here other than my opinions and words. Hatsukoi Zombie is owned by Kodansha and is written and illustrated by Ryou Minenami. Please buy the hard copy to support the author!