Sankarea: Undying Love (Volume 2) - My Decomposing Girlfriend

Chihiro is desperately trying to come up with a way to stop Rea’s body from decomposing, but first, she needs to get past the rigor mortis stage. Of course, her father hasn’t given up on her yet either.

Sankarea: Undying Love (Volume 2) – My Decomposing Girlfriend

What happened?

Rea was unable to move her body, her muscles and joints seized up due to rigor mortis. Chihiro was panicking and then things got worse. His father called for him to come down and report to the temple. It wasn’t a school day which meant they had to clean. This was the worst possible timing, but there was no way out of it. Chihiro made a bed in his closet and carried Rea inside. She would have to wait, but it wasn’t like she was going to go anywhere in that state.

While cleaning, Chihiro’s father asked him about the new cat. Chihiro told him that it wasn’t a new cat, it was Bub, having returned from the dead. Of course, his father thought that ridiculous, but Chihiro’s grandfather laughed and commented that both Sada and Bub had returned from the dead and it was all thanks to his regeneration elixir. Chihiro laughed too and then stopped, staring at his grandfather. Did he make the elixir?

Sankarea Volume 2 Zombie Rea hiding from Ranko

Ranko arrived at the temple with some food for them and told Chihiro that she had heard that Rea had gone missing. Apparently, she ran away, although Ranko likes to think that she eloped with her secret lover. She made a comment to Chihiro about how he knew her. Could he be her secret lover? Anyhow, she had to get back to work, but since she was there she popped into Chihiro’s room to borrow a DVD.

After discovering a long black hair and the bed in Chihiro’s closet, she was attacked by Rea who was incredibly strong and quite out of it. Chihiro ran to help when he heard Ranko scream. Once inside his room, Rea leapt at him and kissed him, biting his lip in the process. Ranko believed that Chihiro had killed her and was ready to call the police. That was when Rea climbed out the window and followed Bub down to the garden.

Sankarea Volume 2 Zombie Rea kisses Chihiro

Chihiro and Ranko found her sitting in a patch of hydrangea, munching on the leaves. Her eyes cleared up and before long she had returned to normal. Hydrangeas were the key, but would they preserve her body? Chihiro asked Ranko to get his grandfather. She was hesitant since he always got a little too excited around her, but agreed. When she returned, he explained that the elixir wasn’t perfect and that there was no way to stop decomposition. Chihiro would have to solve that himself.

He began to record Rea’s actions in the hope of learning something new, although she wanted to do normal things. To keep her happy, Chihiro took her shopping, but it was just the occasion her father had been waiting for. His men attempted to kidnap Rea, but she was too strong, so they took Chihiro instead and delivered him to Danichiro. They would soon find out which was more suited to looking after Rea!

Sankarea Volume 2 Danichiro stabs Chihiro

What did you think?

It was another fun volume, however, just like the first one it raced through the story at a remarkable speed. This was the source material for episodes five to eleven of the anime (excluding volume nine which I’m fairly sure is anime exclusive filler). That’s a lot of ground to cover and once more I’m actually left feeling like the anime did it better. It certainly took more time to allow things to happen.

I’m really surprised by these developments because when I saw the manga was eleven volumes I was expecting five or six to be the source of the anime. That means, the story that the anime managed should be wrapped up in the next volume and that leaves at least nine volumes of new material. Of course, it’s possible, that some of it may have been done out of order, but it seems unlikely as lots of scenes appeared as a single page or a couple of panels. I can’t wait to see just how much more there is to Sankarea.

Sankarea Volume 2 Rea confirms her decision to leave her father

What have you learnt?

I remember Chihiro being annoying in the anime and it’s very much the same in the manga too. He really isn’t a very likeable protagonist. All I can hope is that he develops as the manga pushes beyond the story that anime told. It’s interesting thinking back to the first time I watched the anime with Yomu and how we both felt like it had rushed things and wasn’t able to use all of the source material. In a way that’s true, but I still believe that the anime laid out the events of these first two books in a clearer manner.

This isn’t an action-adventure story and as such should have been able to take things a little slower. Sure, there is a pressing issue in the form of Rea’s body and how long it will hold up, but we really didn’t need to fly through things so quickly. It was noticeable as well with how quickly Danichiro went from obsessive and creepy father to just allowing Rea to go with Chihiro. He had literally just stabbed Chihiro to get her back, but that was all forgotten moments later as he begged him to look after Rea. The pacing is way too fast.