Board Thread:Manga Discussion/@comment-26912075-20161224030557/@comment-4148373-20181112185549

Zodazzle wrote: I don't think vampires or zombies can really qualify as "dead". Vampires are just a person that wore the Stone Mask and was stabbed, nothing about them being dead. Same thing with zombies. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think they might be considered "not alive" in the same way a virus isn't considered "alive": the process that makes them vampires or zombies may remove some trait that would qualify them as alive. I certainly recall sections where they seem to be considered non-living, and the fact that Dio managed to revive two people who had been dead for a few centuries certainly seems to indicate it's not just a transmitted infection or unlocking the "potential" of the living. But I don't think they're exactly "dead", either. Which is probably why they're called "undead", now that I think about it.

Edit: They may not qualify due to the metabolism and growth requirements, since vampires don't decay or grow, but rather maintain a complete stasis until damaged, and their metabolism doesn't seem to be to produce new cells or involve breaking down chemicals, but rather is about absorbing life force. Trying to use science on this is really hard, BTW.