Undead Unluck: What Is the “To You, From Me” Book & Why Is It So Important?

Undead Unluck is a manga series written and illustrated by Yoshifumi Tozuka, which has been ongoing since January 20, 2020, and has now been collected in 18 volumes as of the time of writing. The story is a supernatural adventure filled with humor, so you can imagine the series will be filled with ridiculous powers and abilities. But, aside from these, the world of Undead Unluck also contains several interesting concepts and phenomena. The To You, From Me manga is a very metatextual aspect of Undead Unluck (somewhat unexpected, to be fair), and in this article, we are going to explain what it is and how important it is for the series in general.

The To You, From Me manga is a very metatextual moment in the series

We have already written about the world and the lore of Undead Unluck and we have deduced that the series has a lot of interesting concepts. Despite the overall ridiculousness of the series as a whole, there are some interesting facts from Undead Unluck that definitely deserve some attention. A surprising metatextual moment recently came into the spotlight and while we did not expect such boldness from Undead Unluck, our positive shock motivated us to write up this article for you.

The metatextual thing we are talking about is the To You, From Me manga series, which is a manga within a manga, but aside from that literary aspect, the To You, From Me manga actually seems to have some relevance for the real plot of Undead Unluck which is quite interesting. But, let us give you a general idea of what we’re talking about.

If you remember the start of the series, Fuuko is reading a story that is much akin to her own life. Sure, this might seem like a coincidence, but as the story progresses, it becomes more apparent that it was not. The manga Fuuko was reading was her favorite manga and its title was To You, From Me. To You, From Me is actually an extremely popular sci-fi shojo work published by Shueisha; it’s also known as You-Me. It is an extremely long-running series, having 101 volumes as of the time of writing.

To You, From Me is written by Anno Un, a pseudonym of course (and a play on the word “unknown”), who is actually the Negator Akira Kuno; Kuno’s ability is known as Unknown, which explains the pseudonym. Now that we have explained this, let us see why To You, From Me is so important.

Its overall importance has not been specified, but it is a major part of the lore

Now, this might seem like a hobby to you, or a leisurely activity, but it turns out that the To You, From Me manga actually has a very important place in the lore of Undead Unluck, which is why Juiz sent Andy and Fuuko to investigate the manga, thus confirming its overall importance for the plot of Undead Unluck: But, why is it so important? Where’s the catch, you ask? Well…

The thing with To You, From Me is that it seemingly has a lot of relation to reality as it is. Remember Fuuko’s story from the beginning? The story in the manga had a lot of similarities with her own story – in fact, the story initially tricks us into believing that it actually is Fuuko’s story. There were also other instances when the plot of To You, From Me resembled reality as it happened, but not always as it happened – sometimes it also resembled reality as it was about to happen.

This means that To You, From Me is actually a chronicle of the past and a book that can predict the future as well. This is why it is so important and why the characters had to investigate it, but it is also why Akira Kuno is so important for the plot of Undead Unluck and why he is an integral part of the story.

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