やすらかモンスターズ

YASURAKA MONSTERS

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
3
RELEASE
July 23, 2018
CHAPTERS
28

DESCRIPTION

Not everyone wishes for a peaceful afterlife… least of all Bonzo Scalobania, whose dearest wish is to find a case for a skeleton detective like him to solve! Along with his unreliable assistant, Vampy Vinegret, and zombie frenemy/bounty hunter Nero Lichman, Bonzo swears to solve the problems of Limbo City! But does it still count if the problems he’s solving are ones of his and his friends’ own making?? A wacky, weird, heartwarming tale for the undead in us all.

(Source: Kodansha USA)

CAST

Vampy Vinegret
Bonzo Scalobania
Nero Richman
Medellin
Serapica Angelica
Vivian Wineland
Fiona
Wendy Wolf
Frankie
Onnanoko
Vinegar Vinaigrette

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

CaptainZaimon
100/100
A bunch of fun stories about cute monsters hanging out. Exactly what it says on the tin. Also, it has an OFF reference.
Allow me to preface this by saying I can't shake off the feeling that Yasuraka Monsters is somebody's rejected idea for a western cartoon series turned into a manga. And I don't mean that in a bad way - rather, it feels like something I would've loved to watch as an episodic cartoon back in the 2000s, but would then struggle to find any information about on the internet just a few years later. Kinda like Miś Fantazy, an award-winning adaptation of Polish children's books I've literally never heard about before watching the show. Or like an animated music video that's a core memory for me, yet nobody remembers, L'ame Immortelle's Nur Du. It's obviously not the case, but the feel of this manga, especially its artstyle, is just something else.

A lot of it has to do with how the author clearly loves all sorts of western media the same way we love anything Japanese - you'll see references to things like FNAF, Gorillaz, Undertale, Papers Please, luchadore movies and perhaps most surprising of all - Mortis Ghost's OFF, in the form of an Enoch figurine on one of the characters' shelf.

Most of the chapters follow our protag, a bishounen skeleton private detective in Limbo - a world where all sorts of monsters, freaks and the undead who are "neither good enough to get into Heaven, nor bad enough to get into Hell" end up. The thing is, Limbo's something of a peaceful paradise, so he ends up getting hired for all sorts of odd jobs instead, quite often kinda just ending up as a malewife-for-hire for random other residents of this strange realm or getting into all sorts of shenanigans that he sees as worthwhile detective work (like rescuing somebody's pet cockatrice from a vent).

Occasionally, he's accompanied by his partner, a NEET vampire who kinda just tags along to whine and make snarky remarks on whatever's going on. Gradually, we're also introduced to a bunch of other charming residents of this world, like a terminally online wannabe e-celeb zombie with an odd obsession with our protag and/or get-rich-quick schemes depending on the chapter, a biker delinquent angel, or a funny twist on the Frankenstein's Monster concept who's well, both the monster and the doctor herself, kinda like how Stein in Soul Eater was. And also happens to have made a monster herself at one point. There's also a Medusa-inspired fujoshi who writes spicy WLW doujins about her favourite werewolf wrestler. But perhaps my favourite extended cast members of all were featured in chapter 15, being a trio of ladies that bonded together over their mutual hatred of our protag for extremely petty reasons - they're just born haters and love to complain about what a goody-two-shoes he is. Overall, an assortment of adorable freaks all around.

Even though this manga is very episodic and extremely comedic in tone, it doesn't shy away from some cute, touching moments either - it may not be the deepest thing ever, but I certainly appreciated subplots like one characters' troubled family history being explored or the reveal that one of our side characters was an ordinary human all along and needs to be returned to the world of the living. Something about the series' style of comedy really works well, too, which lends itself well to slightly more emotional subplots - I certainly cackled a bunch over this one side character working in Hell who obsesses with making eternal damnation as efficient as possible, or how Zeus of Greek myth is a public figure apologizing for failing to have an affair this one time.

In a world oversaturated with "DUDE, WHAT IF THE CUTE/NORMAL THING WAS SECRETLY ALL MESSED UP AND WEIRD?! ZOMGWTFBBQ!11" type media, Yasuraka Monsters is a pleasant reminder that the opposite can be more fun - "hey, what if all those weird monsters hanged out and went on silly little adventures that felt straight out of a morning cartoon?" - and I can't help but recommend it if you're looking for well, exactly that. Especially if you watched Nightmare Before Christmas and always wanted to see a spinoff about the Halloween town's residents kinda just hanging out.

Also, be sure to check out the author's extra doodles on Tumblr if you end up liking the series. Hilarious stuff. I was not ready for this official shipping art of the aforementioned fujoshi and her favourite wrestler.
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