Black Annis

Wolverine definitely won't sue us…

"Let the games begin." —Champ

A Web Comic on Deviant ART created by the troper known here as Miyu Miyu 2, Black Annis is set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies were organized by members of their kind that retained their sentience to destroy everything in sight. Unlike most situations like these, though quite a bit of damage was incurred, major population centers like London and New York were able to beat the zombies back and protect some of the rural areas. Though the threat of zombies has not disappeared, most people in large cities can easily pretend it has.

Our story centers in on Tokyo, or to be specific New Tokyo, since quite a bit of it was destroyed in the zombie apocalypse and only half of it has been properly rebuilt. Kimyou Monomezurashii, an orphaned high school student, is tracking down the legendary man known as Champ to avenge her brother's death by his hands. When she finds her man, things go awry and she finds herself enslaved to the very man she set out to kill.

Kimyou finds herself in a very distressing situation, since her new master is both one of the most powerful kinds of zombies out there AND a womanizing Attention Whore. The former fact leads them to clashing with Nefastus, an organization dedicated to keeping zombies down that just happens to employ Kimyou's best friend and crush Kuroi Kaede. Along the way, they pick up a French girl named Antoinette (who isn't as normal as she seems) and a dog with some rather remarkable abilities. However, there's another organization in the shadows pulling the strings of the zombies, and soon enough Nefastus and Champ's team will have to team up to fight them while Kimyou will have to fight her oncoming Necrophilia towards her new master.

The series hasn't progressed far enough for anyone to know whether it's bad or good, but it can be read here.

Tropes used in Black Annis include:

• Action Girl: Kimyou, Kira, Ryoka
• All There in the Manual: Since the comic itself hasn't gotten very far, most important details are within the official bios of the characters on their character portraits and in other reference pieces. This page counts as well, since Miyu Miyu 2 herself created it.
• Art Evolution: Soon won't be as noticeable since the artist is redrawing all of the old pages, but it is quite drastic. The updates are so sporadic that the art style changes from page to page sometimes.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: All zombies from the 'intelligent' class up.
• Brain Food: The first two rungs of the zombie hierarchy.
• Child Soldiers: Subversion. Inferous are human adults, but when they're turned into Inferous they're de-aged down to thirteen at the oldest.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Kimyou, Antoinette, Ryoka, and this is assumed of the Nefastus members until you figure out what went into making them.
• The Dead Have Eyes: Subversion- common zombies seem not to have eyes while the sentient zombies have eyes with inverted colors. Supplementary material says that common zombies hunt using their sixth sense.
• Deadly Lunge: Common zombies do it on reflex
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Fifty percent of the good guys HATE being pitied.
• Enforced Cold War: Champ's group and Nefastus
• Foreshadowing: There's some in the bios, like the fact that Champ reacts badly to betrayal and that Kimyou violently hates liars, even if they're her own friends.
• Free Range Teenagers: Explained away by the fact that most of them don't have parents while the rest of them have Hanabusa as their only kind of authority figure.
• Freudian Excuse: Too many to list
• Glowing Eyelights of Undeath: The eyes that sentient zombies have give the illusion of this with the contrast of white against black.
• Healing Factor: Black Annises by design.
• Heroic BSOD: Champ's bio says that this is how he reacts to betrayal.
• Horror Hunger: The first two 'ranks' in the zombie hierarchy feed solely off human brains and flesh and are said to be completely intolerant of human food/drink/drugs.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Kimyou and Champ; Kimyou is normal sized at five-foot-six while Champ towers over almost EVERYONE at six-foot-seven. Chambers and Emin count as well, with Chambers standing at five-foot-four and Emin at six-foot-five. Armageddon and Celia are a more platonic (and extreme) version of this, with Armageddon at six-foot-three and Celia at three-foot-one.
• Joshikousei: Kimyou starts us off, and most of the female characters aligned on the anti-zombie side of this conflict soon follow. Subverted in that the uniform isn't a sailor suit at all, just a white collared shirt and a long black skirt.
• Love At First Punch: What's the first thing Kimyou does upon meeting Champ? Stab him in the back.
• Neighbourhood Friendly Gangsters: The [[Yakuza Shakihana-gumi was apparently one of the first to respond to the zombie attacks in Tokyo, and they're still sending out Inferous to deal with the problem.
• Night of the Living Mooks: Common zombies.
• No Zombie Cannibals: Though the organization provided by the Intelligent Zombies prevents the zombies from feeding off each other, this is said to happen to zombies not regulated by Aurelia in the zombie-infested half of Tokyo, since border patrol and Nefastus keep humans out of their hands and Aurelia only provides sustenance for the zombies under their control.
• One Head Taller: Spitfire to Amku, Vaneila to Hiro.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The lowest rung of the hierarchy are a combination of types F and V, while the others up from that are possible subversions of type R.
  • Going into detail, the second rung up in the hierarchy retain their sentience, but their personalities from life are warped and exaggerated dangerously while their living memories are gone forever. The next rung up from that are turned into what are basically undead Talkative Loons. Up from that they're just human minds in zombie bodies, and then… then there are Black Annises, who (if they must be put in a category of their own) probably equate best to Type V.
    • These zombies are much different than others in the realm of fiction, since they gain special powers to keep things interesting and Black Annises are based off of/named after a creature in British folklore.
• Parental Abandonment: Let's see, Kimyou's mother died in childbirth and her father went MIA when she was a kid, Antoinette's father and 'step'mother were killed in an attempt by her birth mother to get her back while Antoinette killed her birth mother in half-zombie rage, most Inferous' families (parents included) were killed by the Shakihana-gumi before their transformation if they weren't dead already, Champ's father died of natural causes while Champ killed his mother for reasons of being insane, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
• Picky People Eater: Basic/Intelligent Zombies tend to instinctually prefer the brain over other parts of the human, though they can and do eat other parts of them.
• Playing with Fire: Inferous', though their fire is brown for some reason or another.
• Raising the Steaks: Heracles somehow managed to turn into the highest level of zombie after he died, which is dumb since Champ's bio reveals that you can only become a Black Annis by the devil himself releasing you back into the world of the living after you've been judged in the afterlife.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Subverted- it's said that just about any mortal wound will work to take down a basic zombie, since they're quite fragile, but most characters seen fighting them go with this approach or killing it with fire just to be safe.
• Slap Slap Kiss: Champ and Kimyou; even though the comic has just started out it's all but guaranteed.
• Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: Oddly enough, all of these types exist, with Basic Zombies being TYPE I, Intelligent/Quagmiracal Zombies being TYPE II, Necromancerial Zombies being TYPE III, and Black Annises being TYPE IV, respectively.
• Stages of Monster Grief: Champ is stuck in the Defiance stage while Emin is in an intermediate phase of Acceptance and Betrayal. Antoinette is in Denial at the beginning, and most other zombie characters are right about in Betrayal or Acceptance, depending on their personality (Amku is an exception, in a quiet form of Defiant Denial).
• Squishy Wizard: Kale, Shinji in human form.
• Talkative Loon: Quagmiracal Zombies by design, since their minds are scrambled by the transformation.
• Temporary Love Interest: Kuroi is a subversion in that he actually stays around after Kimyou falls out of love with him.
• Tsundere: Kimyou is something of a subversion for two reasons. Reason One: She has a VERY good reason to be constantly angry at Champ. Reason Two: She's not antagonistic towards her other, Temporary Love Interest at all. That said, she best fits as a Type B. Kira is a more traditional Type A, though she's not unnecessarily cruel towards her love interest, just as bitchy as she is towards everyone.
• Undeathly Pallor: Zombies from Basic to Necromancerial have grey skin, while Black Annises in their true forms have blue skin.
• Wolverine Claws: Black Annises by design
• Zombie Gait: Basic Zombies do this when unorganized, as its their 'natural state'.
• Zombie Infectee: Antoinette can be seen as a version of this, since her zombie half is triggered by danger and she refuses to accept its existence.