STOP IT JAPAN.

It's just not fair of you to keep coming up with fetishes to hook us poor unsuspecting fans over and over again with your adorable characters. You know it will work every time, so just stop abusing this power. Some of us still need to go outside and interact with normal people in a fashion that doesn't get us sent to the insane asylum.

Now you try to turn us into necrophiliacs? What did we ever do to you? Oh right the piracy, nevermind.

Anyway Sankarea is in a word, mindblowinglyawesome. See, I didn't use spaces so that still counts as word one.

STORY: 10
From the very first panel it throws you right into the story with an image of the lead female with her guts hanging out. Oh S***, how did she end up like that? Where does the story go from here? Is it wrong that I'm really turned on right now? By the time you stop reading you're five chapters in and ready to down to the cemetery to try to bring back your own cute zombie girl. For many I assume this will be an entirely original premise. But I think what I like best is that this is one series that doesn't beat around the bush with the romance stuff. Oh does MC-kun like me? I could never tell him that... Hattori says FUCK THAT SHIT you want romantic development in your manga? I got your romantic development right here, people (and zombies) are actually going to talk about their feelings and confront each other in a timely fashion.

ART: 10
I didn't like Umisho, but I couldn''t argue with Hattori's ability to draw good characters then and I won't now. Sure the MC has hair that looks like cat ears for some unexplained reason, but no one's looking at him anyway. It's all about dem girls, girls, dead girls. He even finds a way to make Rea's emergency surgery marks look cute. If you can draw a character in such a way that I want to hug a walking corpse, you deserve at least a 10 and legally that's all I'm allowed to give you.

CHARACTER: 8
Well to be honest there's nothing original here. There's a rich girl who just wants a normal life, a creepy overprotective father, the semi-incest childhood friend option, the quirky little sister. We've seem these before, but Hattori makes them work well together. Plus Rea is so cute. After all the stuff she's put through in the first couple chapters (you know the whole zombification thing) it's a joy to watch her marvel at how fun it is to just do normal things like shop or go to the beach or try to eat her lover to sate her incurable hunger for brains (hey we've all been there).

ENJOYMENT: 10
Have I mentioned I love this series? I started the anime on Friday, and I've caught up to the manga by Monday. For someone who normally drags his feet when it comes to reading manga, even at 26 chapters that's quite a motivational feat for Sankarea to pull off. I couldn't put this thing down. I wanted to know what was going to happen next to the characters, how adorable a zombie could be, how in the name of all that is undead could they ever make a zombie love story that's not wholly depressing and creepy.

And that's why this series this is JustRad. Now if you excuse me, I have to go down to the graveyard to pick up chicks.