Manga: Dead Mount Death Play

Dead Mount Death Play Vol 1 
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

It's a showdown for the ages as the legendary hero takes on the corpse god necromancer, but when the dust settles, something isn't quite right... In the final moments of their epic confrontation, the corpse god's final gambit shot was wholly unexpected -- reincarnation magic! Across space and time, a boy named Polka Shinoyama awakens feeling...not quite himself...... Who could've expected that the climactic battle between good and evil would turn out like this?? 

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this manga, but it definitely blew past anything I was even remotely picturing. The colour pages set the tone with the muted and grim scenes, and the opening itself was cinematic and like the stereotypical, cliche good VS evil battle. Complete with their trash talking, but then instead of the bad guy dying like he's supposed to, his spell sends him to another world....ours. 

The first few chapters where a bit of a whirlwind for me, when our MC woke up in Shinjuku, I figured the guy behind the computer and the girl who grabbed him were part of a group or something that would take him in to their organisation, and maybe they look out for guys like him. It seemed kind of innocent in the beginning with that whole bit, but then it twists pretty quickly, and once he gets his magic working he becomes so sinister. Which is really at odds with his cute character design, and the same can be said about the girl at the beginning too! 

We have action from the start as we have said battle between good and evil, and a life and death chase through Shinjuku. We have an organisation of hired killers, AND it turns out our MC can bring the dead back as zombies so we have a zombie running about too. His reaction when he accidentally killed someone because he didn't know how "delicate people are" was hilarious, "the assassin's in my world can go for 20 rounds". I wheezed. 

Polka, our MC, is the necromancer and he's reincarnated in to the body of the real Polka. He just wants to live a life of peace and quiet but he needs money to do so, so he starts working for Clarissa's agency and taking on jobs. He is morally grey as, because he has no problem killing people or at least hurting them a lot, and then he's saving kids the next minute. 

Misaki is an assassin...and a zombie, and she loves killing people. She's pretty psychotic but I find her oddly funny. The third member of our little group is Takumi, the tech guy who uses a drone to assist them on jobs. He's the most level headed of all of them and a little bit judgy too, but I also find him quite shady as well. The interactions between the three of them are interesting to see, and there's a lot to be learned about all of them! 

Volume 1 is nicely paced, a lot happens in just the one volume without feeling too rushed. The art is pleasing if not grim at points, but there's some cuteness provided by Polka. I also enjoyed the way the magic was drawn and the skeletons and so on. 

I just love how I started the volume and it was seemingly like "wow, fun, he's got a fresh start in another world, and it's gonna be cute and he'll join this fun little organisation who's probably out to protect anomalies like himself" and then two seconds later it twists and it's like "oh wow, she killed him! Oh, now she's trying again....aaaand now she's dead....oh wait, she's alive again, no wait she's a zombie...and now he's teaming up with the organisation of hired killers. Okay. Cool". 

Dead Mount Death Play is a little bit creepy, a lot sinister, and darkly funny. Every single character is definitely morally grey, including the cops we meet although I'd say Arase is a lot worse than Iwanome! I'd even go so far as to call him a little bit unhinged. 

I'm loving the vibe to this, the gritty feel with the sinister moments offset by the funny moments. We've got out group of three and their agency, and then the police department who's investigating strange things....and then the creepy killer who makes an appearance too! For a first volume it excellently sets the tone for the series and we cover a hell of a lot of ground in it. I, personally, have a lot of questions after finishing this first volume, to do with Polka, Clarissa, Takumi and who or what Lemmings is?! I'm definitely looking forward to volume 2 and to having a darker series to read!