Stop with the retellings already.
Summary:
- Episode 14 of Undead Unluck was good, but disappointing.
- The constant retellings of the previous events are getting on fans’ nerves.
- The absence of a new opening and ending upset fans, too.
Don’t come here angry and ready for blood after reading the title, please, we can explain. The new episode of Undead Unluck was indeed entertaining, and it set the stage for something even more curious with its ending. But we can’t help but feel that something was off, and we’d like to discuss it.
Constant reminders
We’ve already discussed the pacing issues that Undead Unluck is currently having, and while it’s nothing terrible, there are still a few annoying things in the series now.
Undead Unluck keeps reminding us of what has happened before. And that’s fine when it’s at the beginning of an episode in the “Previously on…” section, but Episode 14 went beyond that. It includes the retelling of some previous events right in the middle of the episode.
While some fans are irritated by the constant retellings as a whole, we think there’s nothing wrong with reminding viewers of what has already happened. But perhaps it should be limited to the beginning of an episode. When a reminder interrupts the narrative, it ruins the immersion and just looks straight-up weird.
On top of that, after Andy has dealt with Rip, the series spends a couple of minutes explaining how exactly he did that. And again, there’s nothing wrong with explaining, it’s even nice that the anime wants to make everything clear. But why do it afterward?
The fight was over, and revising it using the same frames from the said fight felt out of place. This, and endless retellings just feel like a way to extend the duration of an episode and could have been omitted. If not for such things, we’d be a good 5 chapters ahead in the adaptation.
Opening and ending
Due to the fact that Undead Unluck hadn’t managed to conclude the current arc before the series went on a short break, the new opening and ending weren’t included in this episode. And fans are naturally upset.
They do understand that it would make more sense to change the opening and ending themes with the beginning of a new arc (which, by the way, starts this week), but they can’t help but feel disappointed.
It all goes back to the pacing of the series. Had it been faster, more events would have been adapted in 13 episodes, and we would already have the new arc now, in Episode 14. Which, unfortunately, didn’t happen