Winter 2024 Anime: The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Synopsis

Rentt Faina, a 25-year-old adventurer, has been hacking away at monsters for a decade. Without much talent for the job, Rentt finds himself stuck hunting slimes and goblins for meager amounts of coin every day. Little does he know, all this is about to change when he comes across a seemingly undiscovered path in the Water Moon Dungeon.

What awaits him at the end of the path, however, is neither treasure nor riches, but a legendary dragon that wastes no time swallowing him whole! Waking up a short time later, Rentt finds himself not quite dead, but not very alive either―He is nothing more than a pile of bones! Armed with nothing but his trusty sword, tool belt, and ghoulish new looks, Rentt sets off on his quest as a newly reborn skeleton to achieve Existential Evolution, hoping to one day return to civilization with a more human form.

Will Rentt succeed, or will the dungeon consume him for the rest of his un-death…?

(Source: J-Novel Club)

Comments

Alif Naufal H. (The Indonesian Anime Times)

In recent years, there’s one thing that irks me from the fantasy genre in anime: The way that some of them ports video game (RPG, most of the time) logic into its world and dumbs down the characters’ progress into ‘levels’. It’s fine and works well in shows that are set inside of an MMORPG—Fall 2023’s Shangri-la Frontier is a shining example of this—but in shows like Rising of the Shield Hero and Berserk of Gluttony that’s set inside of a high fantasy world, having the world obey to a game-like system takes out all of the immersion for me. It makes me question how terms such as ‘level’, ‘skill’, and ‘status’ are used in this high fantasy world despite their origins from the real world, and more often than not, the show itself doesn’t explain the etymology of these words inside of its setting. It takes me out even further if the characters themselves use a magical screen to see their status points and skills, which by that point I feel like the anime should’ve been set inside of a game instead.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer technically incorporates the things I mentioned above: the main character, Rentt, ‘levels up’ and gains ‘experience points’ by fighting other monsters. However, the writer makes it feel ‘natural’ to the fantasy setting by making him revive as an undead skeleton and gradually ‘levels’ him up by evolving him into a higher being. In the first episode, he already evolved from a skeleton into a ghoul by absorbing the magic energy of the monsters he defeated, which is something that every monster can do in this world. The Unwanted Undead Adventurer managed to break free from the usual writing conventions by doing this, showing that it is possible to not fall into the trap of inserting game-like aspects inside of the story to ‘simplify’ a lot of its character progression, and thus preserving the audience’s immersion as well.

The story itself hasn’t gotten far, Rentt is still discovering new things about his newfound undead body and how to get used to living with it from now on–especially now that he has to keep his identity a secret because of it. His goals for now are to explore more of the undiscovered areas of the Water Moon Dungeon, with the hope of discovering why he revived as undead after losing his life at the hands of a dragon.

I personally don’t care about the mystery being set up there, because the strongest aspect of The Unwanted Undead Adventurer is its portrayal of the protagonist itself: Rentt is an adventurer who, despite having a decade of experience, is still stuck as a Bronze-rank adventurer. Because of this, he often thinks of himself as someone who is ‘unwanted’ (hence the title of this anime) and expects people to not care if he’s gone without telling anyone. Contrary to his belief, it is shown that people do need him throughout the episodes. As someone with a decade of experience, he often shows the ropes to newer adventurers, and the adventurer’s guild itself is considering recruiting him as a permanent staff. The blacksmith he knows well is saddened that Rentt didn’t confide in him about his undead problem, and most importantly, his best friend Lorraine relies on him to take care of her and is now helping him research his undead nature.

So clearly, he isn’t as ‘unwanted’ as he thinks. This relationship between Rentt and the people around him is the most interesting part of this anime to me, as seeing how someone with low self-worth is surrounded by people who care about him and have nothing but gratitude for his actions is really uplifting, despite the ‘dark’ themes of this anime. I certainly hope that eventually, Rentt grows as someone who can accept the love from people around him.

 Facts and Figures

Screenshots and Trailer

The Indonesian Anime Times