Manga Review: Zombie Loan Volume Five

[Jason]

Title: Zombie Loan
Volume: Five
Mangaka: Peach-Pit
Originally Serialized In: Gfantasy Square Enix
Licensed by: Yen Press
Genre: Shonen, supernatural

Picking up where volume 4 left off, Chika, Michiru and Sotetsu are on a mission to rescue Shito, whose been kidnapped by a mad scientist who is searching for the secret to making the perfect undead golem. Matters are complicated by the organization who ‘owns’ Shito and the creatures the scientist uses for protection. Once Chika sees Shito is ‘alive,’ he refuses to help him until he agrees to call Chika by his first name. Shito seems he’d rather be a captive than that friendly with Chika, setting off the running joke for the rest of the volume.

Once Shito is safely home, Koyomi tricks the whole lot of the boys, including the Shinigami hauling Michiru around, and they end up having to obey her commands. Koyomi inflicts her idea of a good time on them: karaoke death matches. In the mean time, the Ferryman is meeting with others of his kind, discussing the fate of the barely legal Zombie Loan and the formation of a new group, the Life Loan, which is bound to cause conflicts in the future. We even see Michiru realizing that ever since she turned down Yomi’s sexual advances, Koyomi’s alter ego hasn’t been seen. My complaints in this is that the fight scenes are confusing and often it felt like panels had been skipped in the making of this volume. It felt choppy.

Zombie Loan seems to be gearing up for something big, storywise. Artwise, there’s still that bit of unevenness. As I’ve said several times, Yen likes to leave the sound effects in place and add in both phonetic and English translations but it didn’t seemed too cluttered this time. For some reason, the translation notes are shoved in, not at the end but between chapter breaks.

Reviewer: D.M. Evans
Proofed and Edited by: Jason Punda