Dead Mount Death Play is a seinen manga, written by Ryohgo Narita (of Baccano! and Durarara!! fame) and illustrated by Shinta Fujimoto. It began serialization in Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine in 2017, and is licensed for English distribution by Yen Press.
On November 15, 2022, an anime adaptation by Geek Toys was announced for release, and set for two cours, with the first cour premiering on April 10, 2023, and the second cour premiering on October 9, 2023.
A spinoff light novel series by Ryohgo Narita and Shinta Fujimoto, Dead Mount Death Play Side Story: Phantom Solitaire's Art of Disguising Oneself as a Supernatural Being, began in 2023, focusing on the past of Tena Sorimura, the "troublemaker" known as Phantom Solitaire, and featuring several other characters from the main story. A manga adaptation illustrated by Yata Sugami launched simultaneously on Square Enix's online manga platform Manga UP!, and is licensed for English distribution by Yen Press.
Provides examples of:
- The Ace: Calamity Crusher, The Corpse God's final enemy in his world, is a holy warrior famous for crushing calamity-level foes, hence his name.
- Aerith and Bob: 'Polka' seems to be an out-of-place name amongst the mostly Japanese-named Shinoyama clan. Justified since his mother, Kanon Redrazalf, is a traveler from the other world and has different naming sensibilities. Most people in the other world are also this, how can you not call a guy named Shula Zoozolozo Cramplamp Lampton a badass?
- Badass Pacifist: The Emperor of the Byandy Empire was this according to Corpse God, taking on all the wetworks and horrible acts of the empire in pursuit of peace and so that others didn't have to.
- Bait-and-Switch: A very brief one in the first chapter/episode. The reader is led to believe the Calamity Crusher got reincarnated when he attacked the Corpse God since Polka shares his desire for peace. Of course, it turns out it's the Corpse God instead.
- The Conspiracy: The Bastard Children of Sabramond are this on earth, but it seems that they are just one part of the true conspiracy surrounding the downfall of the empire, the rank one wizard Arius Sabramond, and his sister of the Geldwood church.
- Corrupt Church: The Geldwood Church is willing to do unsavory things to promote its faith, from slaughtering necromancers and anyone who associates with them to outright magic brainwashing.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Necromancers are treated as inherently evil by the Church due to their control of the dead. However, necromancy is a neutral magic which can be used for both evil and good. Making deals with the souls of the deceased and helping them move on to the afterlife are far better practices than simply enslaving souls. Clarissa muses that they are the only ones capable of performing the duties of a grim reaper in ensuring the dead do not linger by allowing them to cut ties with the world.
- Decoy Protagonist: Calamity Crusher, who was The Hero in the previous world. It's made to look like he's the focus character after the reincarnation. Then we find out he's still alive in the previous world and the character who reincarnated is actually The Corpse God.
- Eskimos Aren't Real: Polka states that whales are creatures of myth and legend in his world.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Corpse God is really more an appellation, and he admits he's not using his name because there is a curse on it and it does reveal some of his abilities just from his family name, he does apologize to Takumi and Misaki later on. His name is Rizdilusia Redrazalf, it's important because the Redrazalf clan sometimes possesses the Elemental Eye, which allows them to both speak with and see elementals, which he has. It's also significant because he shares that last name with Polka's mother Kanon Redrazalf, revealing them to be half-brothers.
- First-Episode Twist: The main character, the spirit who reincarnated as Polka, is not the Calamity Crusher, but The Corpse God.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: While Polka's scar looks wicked, he is more of a neutral character.
- Invisible Writing: The Corpse God wrote a series of journals and essays during his life using ink that can only be seen by those with the Evil Eye. Calamity Crusher was able to read his books, which led to him losing faith in Geldwood.
- I See Dead People: Necromancers are born with the ability to see souls that linger on the mortal plane. The Evil Eye which allows this is a congenital trait of the soul. It's mentioned that what they do is similar to Elementalism, as the "thing" left behind by souls they send to the afterlife share the same traits.
- Knight Templar: The Geldwood Church abhors necromancy such that they'll kill not only any necromancer they encounter but anyone who willingly associates with necromancers as well, even children. The reason is implied to be because necromancy requires the use of the evil eye, a congenital defect in the soul, and thus the Geldwood Church cannot replicate it on a large scale using what methods they have. It is more envy then outright hatred, as their wish to conquer both worlds is blocked by something they can never use or control.
- Lack of Empathy: Arius is in his own words "someone incapable of assigning value to others, because they are all worth the same". Even when they first met he's always been genuinely kind to Corpse God and tells him to treasure the fact that he has so many people who care about it—because Arius himself cannot form connections to people who he sees as bugs. It's never implied that his kindness towards his juniors or work colleagues is fake—but it's also implied by his plans of world domination that Arius truly does not see the people or the society of Terra Mater(earth) he's about to conquer as important besides their technological innovation—they're all equal under him, equally worthless. It's a good thing his plans failed.
- Made a Slave: The Corpse God was sold by his father early in life, but somehow worked his way out of slavery.
- Magitek: According to Framrodia, his magic is capable of spoofing this. "Civilization" can record and analyze the changes with a space, and then can with knowledge, predict the outcome of what he makes. It's similar to just seeing something and doing trial and error til it works, with Fram saying that it's actually pretty bad....but they don't exactly have a magical engineer on hand, so he's going to try to make a radio to connect to the outside world. Known examples are the Invisible Replicating Out Of Control Golem, one of the Archmagi Pani's creations and the Dazzling Corps, a elite unit of magical laser wielders.
- Marshmallow Hell:
- Misaki pulls the Corpse God's head into her chest so she can check his heartbeat and temperature, confirming he's alive. Lisa later pulls the same move on Misaki, confirming she's dead due to no heartbeat or body heat.
- Misaki hugs the real Polka in this way, since his current body is a small shark doll, which fits between her cleavage.
- MegaCorp: The Shinoyama family is at the heart of a business empire worth trillions.
- Missing Mom: Gaku's mate and the mother of Takeru Shinoyama is never shown.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: One can't get much more menacing than The Corpse God.
- Offing the Offspring: Corpse God's father assassinated him after being paid by an enemy nation, with even his employeers disgusted at how far he would go to secure a fix of drugs.
- The Paragon: From what was shown of Emperor Framrodia Byandilaz, he was this. The Byandy empire under him increased in wealth and power to the point Corpse God casually mentions that items such as precious gems, and other such rare materials could be bought by children with pocket money. His assassination was one of the most prominent causes of the Empire's decline, as it was his personal connections to most of the sorcerers and great warriors of the empire that kept a lot of things running—without him to lead the helm things fell apart in a day with his uncles scrambling for power, his wife and child being spirited away while his reliance on Arius meant no one was actually invested in the empire or cared about what Arius was plotting. They were invested in Framrodia
- Possessing a Dead Body: The Corpse God is inhabiting the freshly-killed body of a boy named Polka Shinoyama.
- Reincarnation: The Corpse God spent a significant part of his hermitage developing a spell that caused his soul to reincarnate in a different world after he died.
- Thanatos Gambit: The Corpse God was incapable of dying a normal death, so he used Calamity Crusher's attack as an opportunity to die and activate his reincarnation spell.
- Time Dissonance: Corpse God's master warns him that his supernaturally long life will eventually lead to him perceiving the passage of time differently than mortals.
- Tragic Bromance: This is what happened to the Emperor, Corpse God's friend who he looked up to, it is reciprocated on the Emperor's part, as he tells corpse god that they were truly friends, even though there were other necromancers he could have gone to he still stuck with Corpse God and tells his friend that he'll take on his revenge as he did for him many years ago. Fram will always follow Riz, in penance for binding him to live a long and lonely life all those years ago.
- Trapped in Another World: A given, since the Corpse God was reincarnated to Earth from his homeworld. Notably, he has no desire to go home and very much prefers staying in Shinjuku since it's much more peaceful than his war-torn homeworld. It turns out that the Bastard Children of Sabramond, remnants of the Byandy empire he used to serve, have been also been trapped on Earth for at least a hundred years. Unlike him, they are very interested in going back and The Conspiracy is willing to manipulate governments to do so. The Gorgeous unit(an imperial knight squad composed of the most beautiful and strongest men and women in the world) along with Riddhe Malcougar came along for the ride as well,
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A boy walks out of an alley with his throat cut and blood all over him, but no one in a heavily populated street seems to notice or care for quite some time until a couple of cops take notice.
- Webcomic Time: Despite taking multiple years in real life, Takumi mentions that it's only really been at most a month from the start to the current chapter. Justified as everyone has their own viewpoints, along with the fact that the former Urban Noir setting is slowly being replaced with a Gambit Pileup and a Fantasy Conspiracy.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: A variant of Drained After Deathnote is used by The Corpse god to fuel his spells, especially since the world below the sky has little in the way of 'free-floating' mana because the world beyond the sky (Corpse God's original world) hogs it all after the Destructive Wyrm Ordom sucked it all away in his travels back and forth