Manga / Marry Grave

Marry Grave is the story of Riseman Sawyer, a bandage-covered vagabond, and his journey to complete the "Deadman's Recipe" in order to resurrect his deceased wife, Rosalie. His journey takes him all over the world gathering ingredients for the recipe, but its easier said then done as most of humanity has been devastated by the demon army and a single human alone has a very slim chance of surviving.

Unless you're also an undead brought back to life by the Deadman's Recipe.

Marry Grave is an adventure/fantasy manga written by Yamaji Hidenori and published in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 2017 to 2019, with 5 volumes total.

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Tropes:

• Abandoned War Child: The beginning of the Whole Episode Flashback reveals that Sawyer was abandoned and subsequently treated as a slave until meeting Dante. Considering the state of their world, it definitely counts as this.
• Action Girl:
  • Rosalie is shown to be this in various flashbacks, she would have to be in order to complete the recipe.
  • Jean is one as well, which contrasts with her really tiny body.
• Back from the Dead: The fabled result of completing the Deadman's Recipe. Sawyer is proof that it works as Rosalie managed to complete it and resurrect him.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Let's just say it took Sawyer a while to finally propose to Rosalie.
• Central Theme: What is the true value of life and love in a world where death always looms over you?
• Character Title: In an indirect way. Marry Grave refers to Rosalie's full name (Marry Grave Rosalie), and considering the plot is driven by Sawyer's efforts to revive her...
• Childhood Friend Romance: Sawyer first met Rosalie when they were both young children.
• Complete Immortality: Thanks to the Deadman's Recipe, Sawyer does not age nor can he be physically destroyed as any damage will quickly regenerate. This later turns out to be subverted: Hurting the body of the one who used to the Deadman's Recipe will deal lasting damage to the revivee.
• Cowardly Lion: Sawyer's first instinct when coming across monsters is to run away screaming, but when peoples lives are in danger he is a force to be reckoned with.
• Crapsaccharine World: The setting seems cheerful at first, but humanity is constantly being threatened by demons, monsters, and each other. As a result, death looms over everyone, both human and other creatures (at times). People try to be happy regardless, however.
• Cut Short: The manga was cancelled after 52 chapters due to low volume sales.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Jean the Dark Fairy is a good person despite looking like a miniature Maleficent. Her Jerkass front was the result of pain from outliving all of her friends.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As much as the demons relish in the destruction of human settles, one demon comments that at least some demons find Sergei betraying his own kind distasteful and a few show little respect for him.
• Foregone Conclusion: Since we already know Rosalie succeeded in resurrecting Sawyer, we know she's probably going to be successful in all the tasks she needed to get to that point.
  • Throughout the arc focusing on 100 years ago, we already know that Sawyer will die during the invasion of Cape Side.
• Golem: Sawyer and Jean encounter one named Atos guarding the former grounds of the Order of the Grave and the Deadman's Recipes its master collected.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Sawyer isn't the most skilled warrior, but thanks to the Deadman's Recipe he is almost completely immortal and any wound done to his body will quickly regenerate.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Golems only last for as long as their masters are alive. Atos so desperately wanted to see its master one last time, it remained fulfilling its master's last order to guard the Deadman's Recipes and the land long after his death.
• Hero of Another Story: Rosalie's journey to resurrect Sawyer happened before the start of the series.
• Identical Granddaughter: Rise looks exactly like Rosalie did around her age to where Sawyer mistakes her for Rosalie at first. It's shown that one other descendant (implied to be Reviso's (Sawyer and Rosalie's son) daughter and the couple's actual granddaughter) also looks like Rosalie minus having a different hair color.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The series has "journeys" instead of "chapters."
• Kryptonite Factor: The only way to actually hurt Sawyer is to attack Rosalie's body, any wound done to her corpse will appear on Sawyer too.
• Little Miss Badass:
  • Even as a child, Rosalie was a powerful magic user with no equal.
  • Jean is a tiny fairy barely bigger then a human hand, she also possess immense Super-Strength, enough to let her fight even most demons hand-to-hand and win.
  • Rise is a pre-teen capable of using Chain Explosions powerful enough to leave a path of destruction in its wake. Being descended from Rosalie helps.
• The Lost Lenore: Rosalie is this for Sawyer after she died resurrecting him. Sawyer himself was this for Rosalie after he dies trying to protect their home from monsters.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Sawyer remarks he and Zel aren't very different and describes them both as fools who cling to the past and don't know when to give up.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Sawyer shares his name with Rise's father who is also named Sawyer. It's justified as the latter is indicated to be one of Sawyer's descendants from his son Levin..
• Orphan's Ordeal: It turns out that Sawyer suffered from this prior to meeting Dante.
• Posthumous Character: Rosalie's journey to resurrect Sawyer is told entirely in flashbacks because she died to resurrect him.
• Red Baron: During her journey to resurrect Sawyer, Rosalie battled many powerful monsters and was given the moniker "The Witch of Calamity."
• Super-Strength: Jean, her tiny fists have more power behind them than a cannon. It's explained by other fairies that this is a trait of dark fairies, who have the strength of giants.
• Undying Loyalty: Atos the golem toward his master, a member of the Order of the Grave, having been by his side for decades. To where when his master tells him his soul will be released once he dies, Atos requests to be by the side of him when it happens. So much so that Atos persisted long after its master was killed by bandits on his last journey because it wanted to see him one last time even though it already knew he died. Sawyer uses Slime Fluid to create a clone of its master so the golem could have its wish fulfilled and finally join him in death.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Jean suffers greatly due to the fact that- as a dark fairy- she has a much greater life span then other fairies, who usually average around 300 years, and has been forced to outlive all of her friends many times, the pain eventually making her isolate herself just to escape it.
  • Sawyer also feels this way concerning his undead immortality, especially as someone who gets lonely easily.
    Sawyer: What is the point...of being immortal, of living forever... When the only thing you can experience is the pain of saying goodbye to the people you love?
• Whole Episode Flashback: Or Whole Arc Flashback to be more precise, as chapter 20-40 goes from how Sawyer and Rosalie met all the way up to Sawyer's death.
• Widowed at the Wedding: Sawyer is killed shortly after he and Rosalie get married.
• Worf Had the Flu: Rosalie the day Cape Side fell was for some reason unable to use materials, leading to her being unable to save Sawyer from dying. Later on she finds out the reason: she was pregnant and her magic was being used to nourish the child.