Zomviguarna

Lady luck deals a bad hand! The story sees fourteen year old ametur doctor Professor (Nat Vittleman) and Maggie, a reanimated zombie known as a "zomviguarna" explore a post-apocalyptic and wild-west style world to stop zombie outbreaks and find out Maggie's past. Over the way, they get into fun hijinks and meet other zombiguarna as they approach the truth about Maggie. The manga's artwork is fantastic. Each character has plenty of details that immediately make then distinct from each other, like Maggie's eyepatch and nail in her head or Nat's backpack. These details are a complete eyetreat that, more than any other fantasy manga, build a worldtotally different from our own. The combination of wild-west themes and mediaeval are both fantastic to immerse oneself in and for getting lost in this beauty of a world. The characters are very good. Each one feels developed with backgrounds and motivators that explain how they act in given situations. This leads to most characters garnering sympathy from the audience, such as the main antagonist. The first volume invokes much trauma in the characters, too early in the story as a reader needs more time to become emotionally attached to the characters. However, the next two volumes flesh out each character enough to make the emotional baggage feel deserved. This manga's biggest issue was a rushed ending. Most of the issues from the previous chapters were piled on to the last couple of chapters. This is a shame, as many of these plot points deserved complete chapters rather than be crammed with eachother. The first two volumes were clearly building up for more, so an ax was likely the cause of this rushed ending. Even so, the ending still worked fine and, on the absolute, was still better than other manga of the fantasy genre. The manga's short run was a genuine shame. Its worldbuilding made for a great experience and almost a longing to be transported into the world and experience its details in full. The characters were written well. A rushed ending unfortunately prevents this from being a great series, even if the mangaka was likely not at fault for this. Regardless, Zomviguarna is a must-read of the fantasy genre. 8/10.