Zombiepowder. (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. The manga ran in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump for 27 chapters from August 1999 to February 2000 before being canceled. The series was collected into four volumes, released the following year. Zombiepowder. is distributed in North America by Viz Media, who licensed it in 2005. Although critical reception in the United States was largely mediocre, the series achieved moderate commercial success in the western market due to the prominence Kubo had achieved by that point for his second manga series, Bleach.
Zombiepowder. follows a teenaged boy named Elwood Shepherd, who joins with mysterious criminals Gamma Akutabi and C.T. Smith in their search for the Rings of the Dead. These rings are a group of legendary artifacts with the power to resurrect the dead and grant immortality to anyone who collects 12 of them. The series has a Weird West setting which mixes a background of sparsely populated frontier settlements and gunslinger aesthetics with modern conveniences, occult magic, supernatural martial arts, and mad science. The trio travel from town to town in this world, fighting other criminals for possession of the Rings of the Dead. The protagonists obtain three of the rings in the course of the story, but due to the series' cancellation, the eventual success or failure of their quest is unknown.
The series was a commercial failure in Japan but has been successful in the United States. Critical consensus is that Zombiepowder. was a technically proficient manga, but one which lacked the originality necessary to bear intrinsic appeal to most readers, which accounted for its cancellation. Additionally, the series was heavily focused on battles even by the standards of action manga, though whether this was a positive or negative trait is a matter of contention. Due to these factors, combined with its abrupt and unsatisfactory ending, critics hold that Zombiepowder. is significant primarily as a chapter in the career of its author, and would otherwise be a footnote which found an audience only among fans of violent action.
Setting and plot Zombiepowder. is set within a western-themed environment with inconsistent levels of technology, similar to that found in Yasuhiro Nightow's manga series, Trigun. The most prominent characters in the series are Powder Hunters, individuals who seek the titular Zombie Powder, a life-giving substance that can imbue an individual with limitless life force, capable of granting immortality and even raising people back from the dead. Zombie Powder can only be obtained from the Rings of the Dead, dangerous magical artifacts that (individually) devour the vitality of anyone they touch, rendering them comatose; this stolen life energy is converted into the Zombie Powder, which can only be extracted if twelve Rings of the Dead are brought together.
The story begins with young pickpocket, John Elwood Shepherd befriending Powder Hunter, Gamma Akutabi after a botched attempt to rob him. It also turns out Gamma is a highly wanted fugitive in possession of a Ring of the Dead; because of this, when another member of the local gang Elwood is working sees them together, he assumes that Elwood's harboring him in hopes of turning him over for his bounty. The gang attacks Elwood's home, and Gamma comes to the rescue, but not before Elwood's sister, Sheryl, is killed by the gang's leader. Following the gang's assault, Elwood decides to accompany Gamma in his powder hunting in hopes of resurrecting Sheryl.
After leaving Elwood's hometown, the pair meet up with Gamma's long-time partner C.T. Smith, another Powder Hunter who's also wanted. Smith has infiltrated the ranks of Ash Daughter, a gang which has found a Ring of the Dead. The three challenge the gang's leader, Ranewater Calder, and Gamma slays him using his mastery of the fictional sword art karin zanjutsu, which involves the user channeling their own bloodlust and manifesting it as pyrokinesis. Elwood, Gamma, and Smith thereby gain a second Ring of the Dead, concluding the first arc and volume of the series.
The remaining three volumes concern themselves with the battle for a third ring, which has been embedded for years in the body of a comatose young man named Emilio Lufas Getto. Gamma and company learn of Emilio's existence from his sister, Wolfina, a tabloid photojournalist and vigilante who does not believe in the Rings of the Dead. The group of hunters offer to restore Emilio to consciousness in exchange for the ring he contains. Before they can do so, however, Emilio is kidnapped by Balmunk the Mystic, a powder hunting magician who leads a circus-themed gang. Wolfina teams up with Elwood, Gamma, and Smith to retrieve Emilio, and they succeed in doing so after a number of battles with Balmunk's henchmen. The conflict culminates in a fight between Gamma and a giant golem summoned by Balmunk, which Gamma defeats with the help of a berserk state. Balmunk is beaten but not killed, and departs whilst swearing revenge upon Gamma.
After rescuing Emilio, Gamma arranges to have the Ring of the Dead removed from his body by an old friend, mad scientist Nazna Gemini. The characters are brought to Gemini's lab by Angelle Cooney, a young girl with the power of teleportation. Once there, Gemini agrees to operate to remove the ring from Emilio in exchange for a year of experimentation rights on Wolfina.
Due to the series' early cancellation, Zombiepowder. is ended without a solid conclusion, the final chapter showing Gamma and Smith leaving Elwood and Wolfina behind as they depart the Gemini Laboratory, whose staff have just begun the operation to save Emilio. It is left ambiguous whether Elwood chooses to follow Gamma and Smith, stay with Wolfina and Emilio, or become a Powder Hunter in his own right.
Characters
Gamma, the team leader and main combatant of Zombiepowder.s cast, is a 22-year-old Powder Hunter who desires the Zombie Powder for the sake of immortality, and has already obtained one Ring of the Dead at his introduction in the first chapter. Due to numerous past violent crimes, Gamma is one of the most wanted criminals in the Zombiepowder. universe, with a bounty to match. This high bounty was one of the first things determined about Gamma's character by Tite Kubo, dating back to a pre-draft rendition of the character who was a sort of samurai. Gamma's personal history is never expounded upon, but it is implied by Balmunk that he was once a mercenary, but reformed and became a Powder Hunter following the death of a woman. Throughout the series, Gamma bests his enemies using his superhuman strength and speed, a steel-plated right arm which allows him to catch bullets, and a large sword-chainsaw hybrid. Other abilities Gamma possesses are mastery of , a fictional ancient martial art which grants him a controllable aura called the "Black Flame of Death", and a berserk state Balmunk refers to as Gamma's "Black Monster." Neither of these elements is fully explained in the course of the story. Theron Martin of Anime News Network considered Gamma to be a typical "bad-ass anti-hero", good at creating mayhem and not much else. IGN's review of the series treated him similarly, saying his role of "protagonist who wields a lot of power and hides a dark secret" was done effectively but not remarkably, and was typical of shōnen action manga. Alexander Gorban of the Russian Animemaniacs Magazine believed Gamma's typical nature as a hero with an inner demon was offset by the character's "devilish charm" and portrayed willingness to fight to the last breath to not lose his humanity. He noted that aspects of this personality were reused for Bleach protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki, who would also bear some similarities in physical appearance to Gamma. Gorban felt, however, that these same strengths of character made Gamma dominate the cast, and that Zombiepowder. would have been improved if he had simply been its sole protagonist.
John Elwood Shepherd, referred to more commonly as Elwood, is a 13-year-old pickpocket who joins up with Powder Hunters Gamma and Smith in an effort to resurrect his dead sister, Sheryl Ann Shepherd. He is introduced in the first chapter of the series. His character is named after Gotee Records co-founder Joey Elwood, a real-life music producer whose name Kubo thought fit Elwood's character design perfectly. Elwood has great talent with throwing knives, and is ingenious in combat, but struggles to overcome his sidekick status and measure up to the abilities of his superhuman partners. Smith and Gamma both see Elwood as a younger version of Gamma, which fills Gamma with hope and pride, but also the fear that Elwood may turn to evil. This concern prompts Smith and Gamma to leave Elwood behind at Gemini Laboratory at the end of the manga, so that he can find his own way without Gamma's influence. Whether Elwood decides to follow the pair or not is left ambiguous. Reviewers of Zombiepowder. found Elwood's character mostly unremarkable, due to his similarity to numerous other tag-along/protégé characters found in manga. Ed Chavez, reviewer for MangaCast said he grew "fond of" his character while he read, but that he suffered from sidelining by Gamma, while Den of Geek thought his motivation for seeking the zombie powder was an effective twist on the usual plot device of avenging a dead relative.
C.T. Smith is introduced in the third chapter of Zombiepowder. as an apparent antagonist, a hired assassin working for the Ash Daughters gang. This is, however, a disguise, and Smith is actually Gamma's long-standing partner in powder hunting. Smith is the least developed member of the main cast, with little known backstory or motivation. It is implied that he is, like Gamma, an infamously dangerous criminal. Smith possesses superhuman speed and dexterity, is above-average at everything, and fights using handguns and an armored briefcase. He has no other known abilities but, according to the duo, Gamma and Smith are incapable of killing each other. Tite Kubo's character commentary for Smith in volume one states that Smith's appearance was based on a London banker, and notes that the "C.T." in his name was eventually meant to hold some plot significance. Compared to his two fellow protagonists, C.T. Smith was considered more novel. Anime News Network said he was one of the few fresh points of the series and had the most distinctive design among the cast, though even his role as an unassuming businessman who's actually an expert gunman felt as if it must be borrowed from somewhere else. MangaCast's reviewer, on the other hand, found his role mostly extraneous, due to being overshadowed by Gamma. Animemaniacs Magazine Online noted that Smith's physical appearance was later echoed by Bleachs central antagonist, Sousuke Aizen.
Wolfgangina Getto, nicknamed "Wolfina", is an 18-year-old paparazzi journalist who specializes in criminal exposé stories. Her brother, Emilio, hosts a Ring of the Dead that he found 8 years before the main storyline. The ring has been consuming his life force ever since, forcing him into a coma. Wolfina is introduced in the ninth chapter of the series, and joins up with the main characters soon after in order to protect her brother from Balmunk. She fights using a modified camera tripod she calls the "Tripod of Justice". At the end of the series, she agrees to work for Zanza Gemini for a year as an experimental subject in order to pay for the operation of removing the Ring of the Dead from Emilio. She is thus left behind by Gamma and Smith as they continue their powder hunting. Critical reaction to Wolfina's character was limited, with reviewers contrasting her large-breasted character design to the otherwise lanky, shōjo manga-esque designs used in the series and praising her novel weapon choice.