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人間失格 #1-3
No Longer Human
Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.
Plagued by a maddening anxiety, the terrible disconnect between his own concept of happiness and the joy of the rest of the world, Yozo Oba plays the clown in his dissolute life, holding up a mask for those around him as he spirals ever downward, locked arm-in-arm with death.
Osamu Dazai’s immortal—and supposedly autobiographical—work of Japanese literature, is perfectly adapted here into a manga by Junji Ito. The imagery wrenches open the text of the novel one line at a time to sublimate Yozo’s mental landscape into something even more delicate and grotesque. This is the ultimate in art by Ito, proof that nothing can surpass the terror of the human psyche.
Plagued by a maddening anxiety, the terrible disconnect between his own concept of happiness and the joy of the rest of the world, Yozo Oba plays the clown in his dissolute life, holding up a mask for those around him as he spirals ever downward, locked arm-in-arm with death.
Osamu Dazai’s immortal—and supposedly autobiographical—work of Japanese literature, is perfectly adapted here into a manga by Junji Ito. The imagery wrenches open the text of the novel one line at a time to sublimate Yozo’s mental landscape into something even more delicate and grotesque. This is the ultimate in art by Ito, proof that nothing can surpass the terror of the human psyche.
616 pages, Hardcover
First published December 17, 2019
About the author
Junji Ito
244 books12.6k followersJunji Itō (伊藤潤二)
Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner of the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.
The most common obsessions are with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, especially in his Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror comic collections. For example: A girl's hair rebels against being cut off and runs off with her head; Girls deliberately catch a disease that makes them beautiful but then murder each other; a woman treats her skin with lotion so she can take it off and look at her muscles, but the skin dissolves and she tries to steal her sister's skin, etc.
Ito's universe is also very cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.
His longest work, the three-volume Uzumaki, is about a town's obsession with spirals: people become variously fascinated with, terrified of, and consumed by the countless occurrences of the spiral in nature. Apart from the ghastly, convincingly-drawn deaths, the book projects an effective atmosphere of creeping fear as the town's inhabitants become less and less human, and more and more bizarre things begin to happen.
Before Uzumaki, Ito was best known for Tomie, a comic series about a beautiful, teasing and eternally youthful high school girl who inspires her stricken admirers to murder each other in fits of jealous rage. Eventually, unable to cope with her coy flirtation and their desire to possess Tomie completely, they are inevitably compelled to kill her — only to discover that, regardless of the method they chose to dispose of her body, her body will always regenerate.
In 1998, during the horror boom that followed the success of Ringu, Tomie was adapted into a movie. Since Tomie, many of his works have been adapted for TV and the cinema.
Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner of the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.
The most common obsessions are with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, especially in his Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror comic collections. For example: A girl's hair rebels against being cut off and runs off with her head; Girls deliberately catch a disease that makes them beautiful but then murder each other; a woman treats her skin with lotion so she can take it off and look at her muscles, but the skin dissolves and she tries to steal her sister's skin, etc.
Ito's universe is also very cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.
His longest work, the three-volume Uzumaki, is about a town's obsession with spirals: people become variously fascinated with, terrified of, and consumed by the countless occurrences of the spiral in nature. Apart from the ghastly, convincingly-drawn deaths, the book projects an effective atmosphere of creeping fear as the town's inhabitants become less and less human, and more and more bizarre things begin to happen.
Before Uzumaki, Ito was best known for Tomie, a comic series about a beautiful, teasing and eternally youthful high school girl who inspires her stricken admirers to murder each other in fits of jealous rage. Eventually, unable to cope with her coy flirtation and their desire to possess Tomie completely, they are inevitably compelled to kill her — only to discover that, regardless of the method they chose to dispose of her body, her body will always regenerate.
In 1998, during the horror boom that followed the success of Ringu, Tomie was adapted into a movie. Since Tomie, many of his works have been adapted for TV and the cinema.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,200 reviews
April 12, 2020
wow what a wild ride... this was a truly haunting tale
tw: rape, bullying, suicide, murder, alcoholism, addiction, cheating
tw: rape, bullying, suicide, murder, alcoholism, addiction, cheating
May 28, 2024
‘The more I feared people the more I was liked, and the more I was liked the more I feared them.’
Junji Ito has created quite the impressive and haunting visual feat with his massive manga adaptation of No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai’s fairly autobiographical novel about the dark impulses that lurk within us. Known for his horror manga-ka artwork,Junji Ito is the perfect artist to helm such a work of darkly introspective intensity, transforming Dazai’s prose of searing anxiety into visceral, surreal and hallucinogenic visual storytelling. At over 600pgs long, this is quite the dense and emotionally arresting work but Ito’s signature art and the seamless storytelling propel the book along as you feel yourself pulled deeper into the unraveling mind of Oba Yozo, the fictional narrator of Dazai’s story who draws much inspiration from the author himself. While Ito has taken a few liberties with the plot, this manga adaptation remains largely faithful to Dazai’s original and explores darkness, guilt and self-degradation in a viscerally chilling new angle through Ito’s incredible artwork.
No Longer Human follows the life of Oba Yozo from childhood into an adulthood marked by womanizing, depression and substance addiction (you can read my review of the novel here, which will give a better idea of the story). As a youth he often played the part of the clown to mask his own insecurities. Eventually, a joke lands wrong and a childhood friend takes his own life in the aftermath, a life cut short that will haunt Yozo for the rest of his own life. ‘I drew with extremely excessively depressed emotions,’ Yozo narrates about his adult life as an artist, ‘deliberately penning each line, only to earn money for drink.’ While Yozo in the novel may have been fairly representative of Dazai, Ito seizes on the aspect of him as a cartoonist in the novel to make him the illustrator of monster manga’s in this version—a character much like Ito himself. I found this a nice touch, though the book still does address the Dazai/Yozo connection with a bit of fantastic fourth-wall breaking near the end.
The art in this book is absolutely stunning, with dark ink illustrations that fluidly shift from reality to viscous interpersonal hellscapes in the span of a single frame. I found there to be a tonal difference in this adaptation, where Yozo’s personal demons become more visual manifestations and more tangible horrors stalking his mind than the slow introspective deterioration into feeble self-hatred and an inability to fight back against it despite knowing he is eviscerating his own existence as it is represented in the book. Here, Yozo’s inner demons are much more physically manifested, from demonic faces on passersby to represent his suffocating aversion to society, and his past quite literally haunting him with visuals of charred remains and other grizzly sights. Essentially, the manga effectively converts into a different style of horror that really benefits the visual storytelling here. This version also addresses his womanizing a bit more, with those who share his bed finding it was a fatal misstep to their well-being. This is covered in the novel as well, but I found Ito’s take on it to feel fresh and rather interesting. While I personally prefer the delivery of Yozo’s inner trauma through Dazai’s prose and found that to take a much more lasting and haunting hold on me, Ito’s art is so horrifically wonderfully and unsettling that both the novel and the manga can be enjoyed equally and independently.
For fans of Dazai, or newcomers to the narrative, Junji Ito’s No Longer Human is a truly engaging and unnerving experience.
4/5
Junji Ito has created quite the impressive and haunting visual feat with his massive manga adaptation of No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai’s fairly autobiographical novel about the dark impulses that lurk within us. Known for his horror manga-ka artwork,Junji Ito is the perfect artist to helm such a work of darkly introspective intensity, transforming Dazai’s prose of searing anxiety into visceral, surreal and hallucinogenic visual storytelling. At over 600pgs long, this is quite the dense and emotionally arresting work but Ito’s signature art and the seamless storytelling propel the book along as you feel yourself pulled deeper into the unraveling mind of Oba Yozo, the fictional narrator of Dazai’s story who draws much inspiration from the author himself. While Ito has taken a few liberties with the plot, this manga adaptation remains largely faithful to Dazai’s original and explores darkness, guilt and self-degradation in a viscerally chilling new angle through Ito’s incredible artwork.
No Longer Human follows the life of Oba Yozo from childhood into an adulthood marked by womanizing, depression and substance addiction (you can read my review of the novel here, which will give a better idea of the story). As a youth he often played the part of the clown to mask his own insecurities. Eventually, a joke lands wrong and a childhood friend takes his own life in the aftermath, a life cut short that will haunt Yozo for the rest of his own life. ‘I drew with extremely excessively depressed emotions,’ Yozo narrates about his adult life as an artist, ‘deliberately penning each line, only to earn money for drink.’ While Yozo in the novel may have been fairly representative of Dazai, Ito seizes on the aspect of him as a cartoonist in the novel to make him the illustrator of monster manga’s in this version—a character much like Ito himself. I found this a nice touch, though the book still does address the Dazai/Yozo connection with a bit of fantastic fourth-wall breaking near the end.
The art in this book is absolutely stunning, with dark ink illustrations that fluidly shift from reality to viscous interpersonal hellscapes in the span of a single frame. I found there to be a tonal difference in this adaptation, where Yozo’s personal demons become more visual manifestations and more tangible horrors stalking his mind than the slow introspective deterioration into feeble self-hatred and an inability to fight back against it despite knowing he is eviscerating his own existence as it is represented in the book. Here, Yozo’s inner demons are much more physically manifested, from demonic faces on passersby to represent his suffocating aversion to society, and his past quite literally haunting him with visuals of charred remains and other grizzly sights. Essentially, the manga effectively converts into a different style of horror that really benefits the visual storytelling here. This version also addresses his womanizing a bit more, with those who share his bed finding it was a fatal misstep to their well-being. This is covered in the novel as well, but I found Ito’s take on it to feel fresh and rather interesting. While I personally prefer the delivery of Yozo’s inner trauma through Dazai’s prose and found that to take a much more lasting and haunting hold on me, Ito’s art is so horrifically wonderfully and unsettling that both the novel and the manga can be enjoyed equally and independently.
For fans of Dazai, or newcomers to the narrative, Junji Ito’s No Longer Human is a truly engaging and unnerving experience.
4/5
April 17, 2020
"Hell is other people"--Sartre
I just happened to read this profound and depressing book during the Covid 19 crisis, with tens of thousands of people already dead. What is sometimes described as Osamu Dazai's suicide note, this autobiographical novel, seen as one of the great Japanese literary feats, No Longer Human (1948) is the story of Oba Yozo, a literary doppleganger of the author; the manga, over 600 pages long, is a terrific feat in itself, what I have read to be a pretty faithful adaptation of the original by horror manga-ka Junji Ito.
I never read the original, so can't say for myself who Dasai is in this work, but the story is of Yozo, an artist, rendering his soul on canvas such as other tortured artists like Van Gogh or Munch, though most of the time Oba draws manga. He plays the clown but is profoundly depressed. He is handsome and popular with many women, but he has fears and social anxiety about people. Oba, like Dasai, was sexually assaulted by male and female servants. He had a childhood friend commit suicide that seems to have haunted him all his life.
Oba is himself haunted by ghosts in his daily life, so he draws mostly ghosts, so you can see the attraction to the supernatural for Ito. Oba/Dasai was derided by his father throughout his life. He was told he was a failure for doing manga and told the honorable thing he should do would be to commit suicide, which in fact he/Dasai attempted a few times.
Early on, a young man and his lover commit suicide by drowning themselves in a river, something Dasai himself did five days after completing this book. Ito is a man driven to creating horror comics, and he here is attracted to every day psychic horror. The books are in translation, too. How are we expected to find the heart and soul of Dasai, or Ito, or ourselves in this hall of mirrors about a man who people find to be a clown, a man wearing a mask of humor as he heads daily into greater and greater darkness? Who is Oba/Sadai/Ito, really?!
I am not recommending that in a time of profound mental health challenges that one should read this book. I'm a fan of Ito, I like probing psychological portraits, and this one seems in a family of Kafka's "Metamorphosis," Melville's "Bartelby the Scivener," Hamlet, all manner of tortured, (male) suicidal souls. Not easy to read. Not for young people. Sexually explicit. Yet beautifully, masterfully rendered by one of the world's greatest artists of an anguished literary classic. A great adaptation of a great book about the complexity of the human soul.
I just happened to read this profound and depressing book during the Covid 19 crisis, with tens of thousands of people already dead. What is sometimes described as Osamu Dazai's suicide note, this autobiographical novel, seen as one of the great Japanese literary feats, No Longer Human (1948) is the story of Oba Yozo, a literary doppleganger of the author; the manga, over 600 pages long, is a terrific feat in itself, what I have read to be a pretty faithful adaptation of the original by horror manga-ka Junji Ito.
I never read the original, so can't say for myself who Dasai is in this work, but the story is of Yozo, an artist, rendering his soul on canvas such as other tortured artists like Van Gogh or Munch, though most of the time Oba draws manga. He plays the clown but is profoundly depressed. He is handsome and popular with many women, but he has fears and social anxiety about people. Oba, like Dasai, was sexually assaulted by male and female servants. He had a childhood friend commit suicide that seems to have haunted him all his life.
Oba is himself haunted by ghosts in his daily life, so he draws mostly ghosts, so you can see the attraction to the supernatural for Ito. Oba/Dasai was derided by his father throughout his life. He was told he was a failure for doing manga and told the honorable thing he should do would be to commit suicide, which in fact he/Dasai attempted a few times.
Early on, a young man and his lover commit suicide by drowning themselves in a river, something Dasai himself did five days after completing this book. Ito is a man driven to creating horror comics, and he here is attracted to every day psychic horror. The books are in translation, too. How are we expected to find the heart and soul of Dasai, or Ito, or ourselves in this hall of mirrors about a man who people find to be a clown, a man wearing a mask of humor as he heads daily into greater and greater darkness? Who is Oba/Sadai/Ito, really?!
I am not recommending that in a time of profound mental health challenges that one should read this book. I'm a fan of Ito, I like probing psychological portraits, and this one seems in a family of Kafka's "Metamorphosis," Melville's "Bartelby the Scivener," Hamlet, all manner of tortured, (male) suicidal souls. Not easy to read. Not for young people. Sexually explicit. Yet beautifully, masterfully rendered by one of the world's greatest artists of an anguished literary classic. A great adaptation of a great book about the complexity of the human soul.
December 19, 2019
What a bizarre and boring book! Horror manga artist Junji Ito adapts Osamu Dazai’s 1948 novel No Longer Human into comic form with mixed results. Ito’s art is fantastic as always but the story, etc.? Yeah, all of that is utter rubbish!
Apparently Dazai’s style was autobiographical fiction and I’ve never read the original book (nor ever will) so I can’t say how much of this is directly taken from the book or whether Ito added in biographical elements from Dazai’s life. But the book opens with an alcoholic writer and his young girlfriend committing suicide by drowning, which is really how Dazai died.
So the story as far as I can tell is that a boy from a wealthy family called Yozo Oba doesn’t feel like he’s human, for no reason, and that causes him great anxiety. Being sexually abused by male and female servants probably also has something to do with it! Anyway, tragedy follows him as an extremely ugly school friend kills himself and a girl he knocks up kills her sister after he has an affair with her. He’s slightly responsible for both so he’s a bit of a shitty guy but still their actions are absurdly over the top!
Later on he gets involved with the communists, continues to jump from woman to woman, becomes an alcoholic, attempts suicide, and that’s it. I’ve no clue what the point was - all I saw was gratuitously gloomy people being sad over their depressing lives. I didn’t understand why Oba doesn’t feel human or what we were meant to think about that.
It didn’t help that almost nothing that happened was remotely interesting. In addition to being tedious, some episodes were simply baffling. Like when Oba, as a defence mechanism, becomes the class clown, purposely making an ass of himself for the amusement of his classmates. But the grotesque friend Takeichi says that he knows Oba is making a fool of himself on purpose, which is apparently a terrible secret that sends Oba on a mental spiral where he contemplates murdering Takeichi to protect this “secret” - what?!? Yeah, he’s being an ass on purpose - so what?! Maybe it’s a cultural thing or has something to do with the era but I totally failed to grasp the significance of this.
Ito’s art though is wonderfully gruesome. I may never have understood what Oba’s problem was but I definitely felt his fear with Ito’s parade of bloated talking corpses, vengeful ghosts and insect people. The nightmare imagery from the suicide attempt on the beach in Chapter 7 (which also really happened to Dazai) was really terrifying.
It’s worth flicking through No Longer Human for the art but don’t torture yourself reading the dull, go-nowhere, overlong story. As far as I can tell it’s about a wretched, cowardly failure, who happens to be blessed with good looks, wandering through a directionless life, being miserable for the sake of being miserable until he finally makes a suicide attempt work. If this is the best thing Osamu Dazai wrote, it’s no wonder he’s unknown outside of Japan.
Apparently Dazai’s style was autobiographical fiction and I’ve never read the original book (nor ever will) so I can’t say how much of this is directly taken from the book or whether Ito added in biographical elements from Dazai’s life. But the book opens with an alcoholic writer and his young girlfriend committing suicide by drowning, which is really how Dazai died.
So the story as far as I can tell is that a boy from a wealthy family called Yozo Oba doesn’t feel like he’s human, for no reason, and that causes him great anxiety. Being sexually abused by male and female servants probably also has something to do with it! Anyway, tragedy follows him as an extremely ugly school friend kills himself and a girl he knocks up kills her sister after he has an affair with her. He’s slightly responsible for both so he’s a bit of a shitty guy but still their actions are absurdly over the top!
Later on he gets involved with the communists, continues to jump from woman to woman, becomes an alcoholic, attempts suicide, and that’s it. I’ve no clue what the point was - all I saw was gratuitously gloomy people being sad over their depressing lives. I didn’t understand why Oba doesn’t feel human or what we were meant to think about that.
It didn’t help that almost nothing that happened was remotely interesting. In addition to being tedious, some episodes were simply baffling. Like when Oba, as a defence mechanism, becomes the class clown, purposely making an ass of himself for the amusement of his classmates. But the grotesque friend Takeichi says that he knows Oba is making a fool of himself on purpose, which is apparently a terrible secret that sends Oba on a mental spiral where he contemplates murdering Takeichi to protect this “secret” - what?!? Yeah, he’s being an ass on purpose - so what?! Maybe it’s a cultural thing or has something to do with the era but I totally failed to grasp the significance of this.
Ito’s art though is wonderfully gruesome. I may never have understood what Oba’s problem was but I definitely felt his fear with Ito’s parade of bloated talking corpses, vengeful ghosts and insect people. The nightmare imagery from the suicide attempt on the beach in Chapter 7 (which also really happened to Dazai) was really terrifying.
It’s worth flicking through No Longer Human for the art but don’t torture yourself reading the dull, go-nowhere, overlong story. As far as I can tell it’s about a wretched, cowardly failure, who happens to be blessed with good looks, wandering through a directionless life, being miserable for the sake of being miserable until he finally makes a suicide attempt work. If this is the best thing Osamu Dazai wrote, it’s no wonder he’s unknown outside of Japan.
May 28, 2022
tbh I had mixed feelings for the original book as well and for the exactly same reasons, I think I haven't grasped the true meaning of the book yet so I am gonna switch to the movie version. I hope I finally understand everything.
What a boring book honestly, it breaks my heart to say this. But I didn't like this one.
What a boring book honestly, it breaks my heart to say this. But I didn't like this one.
Read
February 12, 2020------------------VIDEO REVIEW------------------
12/2/20
Did a video on Osamu Dazai, the novel and the manga adaptation :)
20/1/20
This manga was a great adaptation of the novel. It's clear that Ito took some risks here. Where Dazai was more elusive, Ito chose to be more explicit. I personally am not a fan of sexual depictions, but thankfully this wasn't the focus of the story - and keeping in mind his usual demographic and the one targeted with this adaptation I do get the choices he made. I was really pleased to see how this manga was able to keep the essence of the story and I enjoyed most of the creative liberties Ito took. No Longer Human is an incredibly story and I don't think it is suitable for everyone. If one does however, I would highly recommend reading the novel beforehand as well as reading up on Dazai (there are a lot of autobiographical elements in the novel). I did so and it definitely payed off - I don't think I would have appreciated this manga as much as I do now. I'm working on a video discussing No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai and this adaptation for my Youtube channel, so stay tuned for that :).
19/1/20
Just finished reading the novel and it was incredibly interesting to me. I'm so excited to start this manga, Junji Ito is one of my favourite mangakas. I watched the interview he did with Viz about this manga and that honestly excited me even more!
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12/2/20
Did a video on Osamu Dazai, the novel and the manga adaptation :)
20/1/20
This manga was a great adaptation of the novel. It's clear that Ito took some risks here. Where Dazai was more elusive, Ito chose to be more explicit. I personally am not a fan of sexual depictions, but thankfully this wasn't the focus of the story - and keeping in mind his usual demographic and the one targeted with this adaptation I do get the choices he made. I was really pleased to see how this manga was able to keep the essence of the story and I enjoyed most of the creative liberties Ito took. No Longer Human is an incredibly story and I don't think it is suitable for everyone. If one does however, I would highly recommend reading the novel beforehand as well as reading up on Dazai (there are a lot of autobiographical elements in the novel). I did so and it definitely payed off - I don't think I would have appreciated this manga as much as I do now. I'm working on a video discussing No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai and this adaptation for my Youtube channel, so stay tuned for that :).
19/1/20
Just finished reading the novel and it was incredibly interesting to me. I'm so excited to start this manga, Junji Ito is one of my favourite mangakas. I watched the interview he did with Viz about this manga and that honestly excited me even more!
You can find me on
Youtube | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Website
March 31, 2020
Oddly, this is not the only manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel. It is the only adaptation you will need, but it is not necessarily easier to read than the original. It is 600 pages of interrelated scenes, and masterful, atmospheric artwork, which require just as much concentration as any piece of Japanese literature. Junji Ito tackled heavy, mature themes for this one, and departed from his usual scare tactics to introduce us to the deep storytelling and psychological strain characteristic of the important novelist.
Far denser and more consistent than Ito's other long works (Tomie, Uzumaki, and Gyo) it resembles his adaptation of Frankenstein in some ways. It is of course dark and somber, creepy and lurid, demented and nightmarish. Only by reading thousands of pages of his work was I able to come to a decision on how I felt about Junji Ito's method. In short, I grew to love it over time. The subject matter of No Longer Human is some of the most difficult imaginable. We are faced with the demons of the human heart over and over, through the reprehensible actions of one of the least likable main characters of all time. I've read other Dazai works, and from what I can tell, his themes are not always quite this pessimistic. It is about the loss of what makes us human - our compassion for others. Only by subsuming the selfish urge to constantly fulfill our unreasonable desires can we become truly human. It takes effort to look past the horrid behavior of the characters and see the underlying message.
Using the text from the translation of the novel by Donald Richie, this is a fairly faithful adaptation. And a literary one. Junji Ito appears to have taken the subject seriously and set out to craft a nuanced, complex portrait of a man, surrounded by the mostly well-meaning women, through which he discovers the appetites and weaknesses in himself, that lead to his ruin. It is a painful story at times, but human weakness, death, anger and jealousy are all profoundly important aspects of our species. Dazai posits that humans cannot define themselves except in relation to other people. Many of his views might be considered old-fashioned today, but the deep understanding of some of the fundamental aspects of humanity can still be widely appreciated. This is not a work for children, and perhaps young adults will also have to struggle to detach themselves from the surface level lust, grit and angst of the graphic novel. Being an adult offers experience, in my opinion, which at least in my case, allows me to regard a work of art as a product of a life lived and transposed. It wasn't until I aged that I felt experience entering into art. Talent is one thing, experience is another. There is a wide range of experience here, even if the emotions verge on the animalistic.
Far denser and more consistent than Ito's other long works (Tomie, Uzumaki, and Gyo) it resembles his adaptation of Frankenstein in some ways. It is of course dark and somber, creepy and lurid, demented and nightmarish. Only by reading thousands of pages of his work was I able to come to a decision on how I felt about Junji Ito's method. In short, I grew to love it over time. The subject matter of No Longer Human is some of the most difficult imaginable. We are faced with the demons of the human heart over and over, through the reprehensible actions of one of the least likable main characters of all time. I've read other Dazai works, and from what I can tell, his themes are not always quite this pessimistic. It is about the loss of what makes us human - our compassion for others. Only by subsuming the selfish urge to constantly fulfill our unreasonable desires can we become truly human. It takes effort to look past the horrid behavior of the characters and see the underlying message.
Using the text from the translation of the novel by Donald Richie, this is a fairly faithful adaptation. And a literary one. Junji Ito appears to have taken the subject seriously and set out to craft a nuanced, complex portrait of a man, surrounded by the mostly well-meaning women, through which he discovers the appetites and weaknesses in himself, that lead to his ruin. It is a painful story at times, but human weakness, death, anger and jealousy are all profoundly important aspects of our species. Dazai posits that humans cannot define themselves except in relation to other people. Many of his views might be considered old-fashioned today, but the deep understanding of some of the fundamental aspects of humanity can still be widely appreciated. This is not a work for children, and perhaps young adults will also have to struggle to detach themselves from the surface level lust, grit and angst of the graphic novel. Being an adult offers experience, in my opinion, which at least in my case, allows me to regard a work of art as a product of a life lived and transposed. It wasn't until I aged that I felt experience entering into art. Talent is one thing, experience is another. There is a wide range of experience here, even if the emotions verge on the animalistic.
October 28, 2022
Don't let Halloween pass by without a meeting with the real king of horror: Junji Ito. Reading it along with the original novel was a unique experience.
February 7, 2020
Well then.
Once there was a horrible man. Growing up in an oppressive household, experiencing sexual trauma at a young age, a boy becomes a clown as a means of hiding all that is within him. This becomes a shield but a sword too, for his incessant hiding evolves into compulsive lying. He never wants to rock the boat, but he instead punctures the hull. This trait, this defense mechanism becomes his driving force, leading to a life of choiceless indecision. There is a purpose inside him, but he never realizes it because he never lets himself... be. He is too easily swayed by others. Too easily caught up in mischief. Too easily seduced.
This story chronicles this sad man's life. His spineless nature leads him from one tragedy to another. As the title suggests, the ultimate realization of all of this is that he is no longer human. My interpretation is that he lacks humanity because he lacks that which makes humans human. I've heard it argued (I believe it was Sartre) that what differentiates humans from the animals is that we humans have direct agency over ourselves. We can will ourselves to accomplish things, both large and small. Animals, on the other hand, are forever driven by base survival instincts. They do not create for the sake of creation. They do not purposefully plan. They don't set goals. They exist purely in the moment, feeding whatever base desire is the most pressing.
That is Yozo Oba in this story. He is tragic because he lacks agency over himself. There is a conversation in the book about whether human life is comic or tragic. They decide that it is ultimately comedy. If he were truly human, then his misfortunes could be seen as a collection of mishaps, of accidents, and comedy could be one means of understanding such a life of misfortune. But instead, our protagonist lacks humanity. He is tragic through and through. Nothing is accidental, but it is instead directly caused by his lack of direction and agency. If he had only made choices, if he had only followed through with anything, so much of his troubled life would have been better, and those moments of misfortune could be reflected upon through a lens of comedy. But no. Not here. Not for this man.
I didn't like the character. I despised him. I felt sorry for him, though. I continuously hoped he would change, but eventually I realized he couldn't.
There is a lot to take away from a book like this.
Once there was a horrible man. Growing up in an oppressive household, experiencing sexual trauma at a young age, a boy becomes a clown as a means of hiding all that is within him. This becomes a shield but a sword too, for his incessant hiding evolves into compulsive lying. He never wants to rock the boat, but he instead punctures the hull. This trait, this defense mechanism becomes his driving force, leading to a life of choiceless indecision. There is a purpose inside him, but he never realizes it because he never lets himself... be. He is too easily swayed by others. Too easily caught up in mischief. Too easily seduced.
This story chronicles this sad man's life. His spineless nature leads him from one tragedy to another. As the title suggests, the ultimate realization of all of this is that he is no longer human. My interpretation is that he lacks humanity because he lacks that which makes humans human. I've heard it argued (I believe it was Sartre) that what differentiates humans from the animals is that we humans have direct agency over ourselves. We can will ourselves to accomplish things, both large and small. Animals, on the other hand, are forever driven by base survival instincts. They do not create for the sake of creation. They do not purposefully plan. They don't set goals. They exist purely in the moment, feeding whatever base desire is the most pressing.
That is Yozo Oba in this story. He is tragic because he lacks agency over himself. There is a conversation in the book about whether human life is comic or tragic. They decide that it is ultimately comedy. If he were truly human, then his misfortunes could be seen as a collection of mishaps, of accidents, and comedy could be one means of understanding such a life of misfortune. But instead, our protagonist lacks humanity. He is tragic through and through. Nothing is accidental, but it is instead directly caused by his lack of direction and agency. If he had only made choices, if he had only followed through with anything, so much of his troubled life would have been better, and those moments of misfortune could be reflected upon through a lens of comedy. But no. Not here. Not for this man.
I didn't like the character. I despised him. I felt sorry for him, though. I continuously hoped he would change, but eventually I realized he couldn't.
There is a lot to take away from a book like this.
October 20, 2019
I feel like you could teach an entire college course on this book. This was...good. Good and sad and horrifying and terrible and just so damn good. I want to make this a book club pick just so I can have a group to discuss it with. I loved the rawness of this book, the unforgiving sharp edges of it. Highly recommend.
March 1, 2020
4/5stars
Same rating as I gave the original novel, but for VERY different reasons.
This was an incredibly interesting adaptation, where Ito was not only transforming the original literature into a new medium (manga aka a visual medium) but also into a new literary genre (from lit fic to horror). I thought Ito did a wonderful job of both adaptations, EXCEPT that I found the pacing very odd. The entirety of the novel was almost completely done in the first half of this manga, and then Ito zeroed in on a specific plot arc that lasted barely 10 pages in the original novel, and dragged it out for 300+ pages. I LOVED what he did with the ending, I found it super interesting and unique. But overall, I didn't LOVE this and had a lot of issues of the portrayal of women and the use of women as "demons" and the cause of all men's woes and troubles.
Same rating as I gave the original novel, but for VERY different reasons.
This was an incredibly interesting adaptation, where Ito was not only transforming the original literature into a new medium (manga aka a visual medium) but also into a new literary genre (from lit fic to horror). I thought Ito did a wonderful job of both adaptations, EXCEPT that I found the pacing very odd. The entirety of the novel was almost completely done in the first half of this manga, and then Ito zeroed in on a specific plot arc that lasted barely 10 pages in the original novel, and dragged it out for 300+ pages. I LOVED what he did with the ending, I found it super interesting and unique. But overall, I didn't LOVE this and had a lot of issues of the portrayal of women and the use of women as "demons" and the cause of all men's woes and troubles.
July 19, 2020
2.5 Stars
It kills me to rate a Junji Ito book this low, but I really disliked the story that he adapted. His artwork was strong, but the story didn’t lend itself well to his weird style. This is a story of depressed, mentally ill man with a troubled past full of sexual abuse. Sadly, I cannot recommend it.
It kills me to rate a Junji Ito book this low, but I really disliked the story that he adapted. His artwork was strong, but the story didn’t lend itself well to his weird style. This is a story of depressed, mentally ill man with a troubled past full of sexual abuse. Sadly, I cannot recommend it.
November 30, 2021
This is a massive manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human. I mean it is chunky. And I feel so guilty that this adaptation is… getting 5 stars, while the original got 4. Seriously, Junji Ito has this way of capturing sheer terror in one or two drawings, in his characters’ eyes – they remain with you when you turn the lights off right before you take the five or six steps to your bed.
Why did I enjoy this more? More visceral, for one. One of my “complaints” about Japanese literature (and I put complaints in quotes because I don’t believe it’s a flaw with the actual books) has always been that the emotion is too subtle. Yeah, not here. I have been poking away at this since I finished the original a couple of weeks ago, reading a bit every day. One or two scenes I think about quite literally every single day. What a gut punch. There is also the liberty that Ito takes with the story, adding to it in just the right places. My oh my, it flourishes. I would recommend reading this right after Dazai’s. The experience is second to none.
Why did I enjoy this more? More visceral, for one. One of my “complaints” about Japanese literature (and I put complaints in quotes because I don’t believe it’s a flaw with the actual books) has always been that the emotion is too subtle. Yeah, not here. I have been poking away at this since I finished the original a couple of weeks ago, reading a bit every day. One or two scenes I think about quite literally every single day. What a gut punch. There is also the liberty that Ito takes with the story, adding to it in just the right places. My oh my, it flourishes. I would recommend reading this right after Dazai’s. The experience is second to none.
December 21, 2019
This was my first experience with Osamu Dazai's novel No Longer Human, which has been considered his suicide note and which is, at least in this form, a haunting and painful tale of, well, lots of things, but perhaps mostly misery and the ways in which our own misery leads us to inflict misery on others.
This is not a pleasant story. It is about heartbreak and depression, sexual abuse and addiction, and a whole range of topics that are more raw and human and, sometimes, more grotesque than the terrors conjured by horror fiction.
It's a naturalistic and "literary" story compared to Junji Ito's usual supernatural horror fare - painful and sad where those stories are often shocking and funny and, yes, sometimes painful and sad. What's fascinating about this book is watching Ito adapt his signature style - which is, if anything, just as weird and terrifying and beautiful here as in his horror tales - to this different mode.
But then, one of the themes of No Longer Human is that every story is a ghost story, after all.
This is not a pleasant story. It is about heartbreak and depression, sexual abuse and addiction, and a whole range of topics that are more raw and human and, sometimes, more grotesque than the terrors conjured by horror fiction.
It's a naturalistic and "literary" story compared to Junji Ito's usual supernatural horror fare - painful and sad where those stories are often shocking and funny and, yes, sometimes painful and sad. What's fascinating about this book is watching Ito adapt his signature style - which is, if anything, just as weird and terrifying and beautiful here as in his horror tales - to this different mode.
But then, one of the themes of No Longer Human is that every story is a ghost story, after all.
September 30, 2022
3,5
No fue mi favorito de Junji, aunque tenía grandes expectativas con este. Toma un rumbo completamente distinto al de Dazai, más orientado al horror típico del mangaka. Muchos aspectos de esos cambios que hace me gustaron, pero otros me dejaron un poco indiferente. Las ilustraciones son fabulosas, como siempre. El tema es la parte narrativa, la historia se desmadra mucho y se torna confusa y repetitiva.
No fue mi favorito de Junji, aunque tenía grandes expectativas con este. Toma un rumbo completamente distinto al de Dazai, más orientado al horror típico del mangaka. Muchos aspectos de esos cambios que hace me gustaron, pero otros me dejaron un poco indiferente. Las ilustraciones son fabulosas, como siempre. El tema es la parte narrativa, la historia se desmadra mucho y se torna confusa y repetitiva.
September 14, 2021
Después de leer "Indigno de Ser Humano" de Osamu Dazai, no podía dejar de pasar la oportunidad de leerme la adaptación que hizo Junji Ito a novela gráfica, o en este caso concreto, manga. Junji Ito, un autor que me fascina retoma los elementos esenciales de la novela, y la reconvierte en una obra muy de su estilo. Pensándolo bien, "Indigno de Ser Humano" es una historia muy del estilo de Junji Ito: ese terror existencial por huir del mundo parece el campo donde mejor se pueda desenvolver un autor como él.
Junji Ito lleva a su terreno la obra de Osamu Dazai, le da forma, la desarrolla e incluso añade elementos nuevos, como es usar al mismo Osamu Dazai como un personaje más. El mundo de pesadilla que normalmente desarrolla Junji Ito en sus ilustraciones a través del estado mental de sus personajes, está aquí perfectamente reflejado y de alguna forma y aunque sea una adaptación libre, es muy fiel a la obra de Dazai.
El estilo inquietante y turbador de las ilustraciones de Junji Ito, aunque aquí parece algo más controlado y realista, es en el fondo el de siempre; convierte al protagonista de la novela de Dazai, Yozo Oba, en un artist manga también, y de alguna forma Junji Ito se implica de la misma forma en que lo hizo Dazai en su novela: obras semiautobiográficas donde los autores se retratan si mismos y se se desnudan emocionalmente.
Pesadilla existencial donde el descenso a los infiernos de un autor, está directamente contrapuesto con la propia ansiedad de tener que vivir el día a día cuando realmente apenas es capaz de luchar contra la oscuridad que envuelve su vida. Junji Ito capta a la perfección la esencia de Osamu Dazai.
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2020...
Junji Ito lleva a su terreno la obra de Osamu Dazai, le da forma, la desarrolla e incluso añade elementos nuevos, como es usar al mismo Osamu Dazai como un personaje más. El mundo de pesadilla que normalmente desarrolla Junji Ito en sus ilustraciones a través del estado mental de sus personajes, está aquí perfectamente reflejado y de alguna forma y aunque sea una adaptación libre, es muy fiel a la obra de Dazai.
El estilo inquietante y turbador de las ilustraciones de Junji Ito, aunque aquí parece algo más controlado y realista, es en el fondo el de siempre; convierte al protagonista de la novela de Dazai, Yozo Oba, en un artist manga también, y de alguna forma Junji Ito se implica de la misma forma en que lo hizo Dazai en su novela: obras semiautobiográficas donde los autores se retratan si mismos y se se desnudan emocionalmente.
Pesadilla existencial donde el descenso a los infiernos de un autor, está directamente contrapuesto con la propia ansiedad de tener que vivir el día a día cuando realmente apenas es capaz de luchar contra la oscuridad que envuelve su vida. Junji Ito capta a la perfección la esencia de Osamu Dazai.
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2020...
July 27, 2022
I'm rating this purely on how I feel about it as an adaptation. I understand what Junji Ito was trying to go for here but I honestly hated the creative liberties he took with the book. Yes, the original book has issues with misogyny, but this adaptation is ten times worse, and making everything so explicitly sexual was not it for me. I also am not a fan of how Dazai himself was incorporated into the manga and turned into a bit of a plot twist. While I have very mixed feelings about the original novel, I also feel like one of the things I do love about it is how quiet and introspective it is and how it makes you ask a lot of questions about society and humanity, and I just feel like Ito's adaptation lost a lot of that and was just purely gratuitous violence and trauma.
January 16, 2020
While I appreciated Ito's ability to make this spooky without any monsters, I found that this reflected the source material a little too closely, so to speak - my god, the misogyny! Why take responsibility when you can blame a woman, right?
On top of that, I couldn't help but have flashbacks to the first time I read The Great Gatsby and reeled at how deeply unlikable the main character was, how little I could identify with his struggles when most of them were made by his own hand and were easily fixable, given that he's from a rich, influential family.
It wasn't bad, but I wasn't enthralled like I have been by Ito's original works.
On top of that, I couldn't help but have flashbacks to the first time I read The Great Gatsby and reeled at how deeply unlikable the main character was, how little I could identify with his struggles when most of them were made by his own hand and were easily fixable, given that he's from a rich, influential family.
It wasn't bad, but I wasn't enthralled like I have been by Ito's original works.
December 17, 2019
I'm a fan of Ito's previous works but this adaption just felt so obtuse and strange for him. The content was completely gross sometimes (and not in his usual horror way!). It prominently features child sexual abuse. The main character is an awful person who made me want to shut the book and walk away from it. I would not suggest this work to others.
February 6, 2020
A masterpiece. Period.
July 28, 2023
★★★★½
… and gradually, piece by piece, we lose ourself. each hour, each moment, like a wave washing away a part of the beach, sands dissolve into the water that had come for them, collects them, and takes them away; to the eternal infinite of the sea. suddenly we don’t feel anymore. it’s neither happy nor unhappy. we just wait for it to “pass”. suddenly we are no longer human.
… and gradually, piece by piece, we lose ourself. each hour, each moment, like a wave washing away a part of the beach, sands dissolve into the water that had come for them, collects them, and takes them away; to the eternal infinite of the sea. suddenly we don’t feel anymore. it’s neither happy nor unhappy. we just wait for it to “pass”. suddenly we are no longer human.
Read
July 10, 2022The artwork is impressive but the story is unpleasant and Oba's character is even more unpleasant. I have yet to read Dazai's novel, but this makes me not want to read it. I sort of wish I hadn't gotten involved at all. Can't rate, won't rate...
March 12, 2020
This graphic novel is a departure from Ito's trademark narratives, interpreting as it does a Dazai classic that stands as one of the best-ever selling books in Japan. While the original seems to have focused on the sadness and pathos that marked the existential crisis that our lead (who seems to have been patterned after Dazai himself) labored under, true to Ito's style this book lets the horrors and absurdities of his experiences take the limelight.
I can't help but feel for Yozo. As a kid, he had an uneasy, pessimistic streak that he tried to hide under a buffoonish exterior, a mask that he soon regarded as tiresome but which he felt he can never take off. The abuse he suffered from lecherous servants must have cemented in his mind how untrustworthy and scary people generally are.
It's a good thing he didn't end up a twisted sociopath, though there were instances when he was teetering on the edge of that abyss. He did become dissipated, profligate, and keen to keep bad company - vices that only worsened as time went by.
He inadvertently(?) caused the demise of a few people, whose ghosts haunt him at the most inopportune times. It seemed like death and the love of women came to him easily, like a song that broke the monotonous buzz of despair and dread that continually consumed him. With such a fair face, he can't help being a lady's man. It may have served his women better if they took a more critical peek at his art, if only to see the demons he was harboring within. This is one of the exceedingly few works I've read that deal with a Grade A homme fatal.
Still I can't help but root for him. If you've undergone a spiritual malaise just like our lead, you'd understand the prodigious effort it takes to rise from all that weakness and pain. There's one point where it seems like he really had a chance. Question is - will his Beatrice be able to save her Dante?
That final image though - it's just so apt. Somehow it seems absolutely, painfully inevitable. This all spurred my interest in the Dazai novel, which I shall be reading soon.
I'm rating this 8/10 or 4 stars out of 5.
I can't help but feel for Yozo. As a kid, he had an uneasy, pessimistic streak that he tried to hide under a buffoonish exterior, a mask that he soon regarded as tiresome but which he felt he can never take off. The abuse he suffered from lecherous servants must have cemented in his mind how untrustworthy and scary people generally are.
It's a good thing he didn't end up a twisted sociopath, though there were instances when he was teetering on the edge of that abyss. He did become dissipated, profligate, and keen to keep bad company - vices that only worsened as time went by.
He inadvertently(?) caused the demise of a few people, whose ghosts haunt him at the most inopportune times. It seemed like death and the love of women came to him easily, like a song that broke the monotonous buzz of despair and dread that continually consumed him. With such a fair face, he can't help being a lady's man. It may have served his women better if they took a more critical peek at his art, if only to see the demons he was harboring within. This is one of the exceedingly few works I've read that deal with a Grade A homme fatal.
Still I can't help but root for him. If you've undergone a spiritual malaise just like our lead, you'd understand the prodigious effort it takes to rise from all that weakness and pain. There's one point where it seems like he really had a chance. Question is - will his Beatrice be able to save her Dante?
That final image though - it's just so apt. Somehow it seems absolutely, painfully inevitable. This all spurred my interest in the Dazai novel, which I shall be reading soon.
I'm rating this 8/10 or 4 stars out of 5.
October 16, 2023
Junji Ito is an absolute master when it comes to his artwork and graphic novels. If you pair this with No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, you have the perfect piece.
Originally I read Junji's piece first, not even knowing that it was a version of a Japanese classic book. After finishing it, I decided to read the original and give Dazai his dues. I would also suggest reading into Osamu Dazai's biography as well to get a better picture of what exactly all these pieces mean.
I don't want to say that one piece is better than the other, if anything I think they should be read side by side. What Junji Ito gives to this piece, though, is visuals...and amazing visuals at that. He embellishes the darkness and grotesque within this piece and really adds an element to the sad story at hand. It is more vibrant when you see the artwork attached to the text, and I think that is why this is probably my favorite of all Junji Ito's pieces as well.
I cannot express how much I enjoyed this work. It sticks with me even today, many months later, and I suspect I will come back to it throughout my life and reread it as I age. It is something you can ponder on differently depending on what stage of life you're currently in...I think that's why it's a Classic. Junji Ito did Osamu Dazai justice. I loved it !
Originally I read Junji's piece first, not even knowing that it was a version of a Japanese classic book. After finishing it, I decided to read the original and give Dazai his dues. I would also suggest reading into Osamu Dazai's biography as well to get a better picture of what exactly all these pieces mean.
I don't want to say that one piece is better than the other, if anything I think they should be read side by side. What Junji Ito gives to this piece, though, is visuals...and amazing visuals at that. He embellishes the darkness and grotesque within this piece and really adds an element to the sad story at hand. It is more vibrant when you see the artwork attached to the text, and I think that is why this is probably my favorite of all Junji Ito's pieces as well.
I cannot express how much I enjoyed this work. It sticks with me even today, many months later, and I suspect I will come back to it throughout my life and reread it as I age. It is something you can ponder on differently depending on what stage of life you're currently in...I think that's why it's a Classic. Junji Ito did Osamu Dazai justice. I loved it !
February 28, 2021
An unpleasant and unappealing semi-autobiographical iteration of the artist as a tortured soul is adapted into a quasi-horror manga by Junji Ito filled with dread and supernatural flourishes. I haven't read the original novel, but my understanding is that Ito has taken many liberties, including the insertion of original author Osamu Dazai as an actual character.
Dazai's stand-in, Yozo Oba, seems to suffer from trauma and impostor syndrome due to childhood molestation and daddy issues. To compensate he becomes a class clown and womanizer in attempts fit in with other people -- from whom he feels separate and whom he hates and fears. He carves his way through the lives of others leaving suicide and murder in his wake, periodically attempting suicide himself. He alternates between living off a family allowance, being a kept man, and a life of poverty as a struggling manga artist and aspiring painter. He dabbles in Marxism and relationships but tends to betray everyone, really only committing to alcohol and drugs.
Eventually the narrative is reduced to hallucinations and an extended dream sequence as Oba becomes increasingly unhinged.
But Junji Ito draws the hell out of it with his trademark gore, grossness, and phantasmagoria.
Dazai's stand-in, Yozo Oba, seems to suffer from trauma and impostor syndrome due to childhood molestation and daddy issues. To compensate he becomes a class clown and womanizer in attempts fit in with other people -- from whom he feels separate and whom he hates and fears. He carves his way through the lives of others leaving suicide and murder in his wake, periodically attempting suicide himself. He alternates between living off a family allowance, being a kept man, and a life of poverty as a struggling manga artist and aspiring painter. He dabbles in Marxism and relationships but tends to betray everyone, really only committing to alcohol and drugs.
Eventually the narrative is reduced to hallucinations and an extended dream sequence as Oba becomes increasingly unhinged.
But Junji Ito draws the hell out of it with his trademark gore, grossness, and phantasmagoria.
November 24, 2020
This was a very dark, very hard read. Junji Ito's illustrations are brilliant as always. This is going to be another one that I have trouble recommending but it really is great.
Read
July 1, 2024I'm living this one unrated.
This I find good and things I find enjoyable are usually the same thing but there are exceptions. Junji Ito is master of horror mangas and his work is strange, disturbing and usulay very fun to read but here he has done his job little too well. Story is based on a book and has no supernatural elements and Ito has done a great job adapting it.
Illustrations of faces and expressions feel purposely just a bit off, enough to give them uncanny look . That's the case with of Ito's work so far but but it hits differently in more realistic story which also adds more heavy atmosphere to violence and gore. This all makes story disturbing on very human level.
For a horror manga all that seems like a high praise but and it is but it also made this unpleasant read. Fact is that all of that would have sold me this manga few years ago but I guess I gone soft with age.
This I find good and things I find enjoyable are usually the same thing but there are exceptions. Junji Ito is master of horror mangas and his work is strange, disturbing and usulay very fun to read but here he has done his job little too well. Story is based on a book and has no supernatural elements and Ito has done a great job adapting it.
Illustrations of faces and expressions feel purposely just a bit off, enough to give them uncanny look . That's the case with of Ito's work so far but but it hits differently in more realistic story which also adds more heavy atmosphere to violence and gore. This all makes story disturbing on very human level.
For a horror manga all that seems like a high praise but and it is but it also made this unpleasant read. Fact is that all of that would have sold me this manga few years ago but I guess I gone soft with age.
March 2, 2022
4.5 stars
TW: sexual abuse, rape, graphic mature scenes and violence, suicide, depression, alcoholism, substance abuse, parental neglect, domestic cheating
you are probably tired of hearing me talk about dazai but hear me out
This is a hard read. I have an immense affection for the original novel by Dazai particularly for how it made me feel. Junji Ito really shined here with his interpretations of Yozo Oba's demons and fears. They were potrayed in these vivid, cruel horrible, disgusting and disturbing images that came to life so extravagantly. I felt dread creeping all over my body, I was very much uncomfortable with all of the horrific and traumatising visuals. it showed the rawness of human. Rather than the grim, bleak and depressing prose by Dazai, Ito made the story seems more horror than sad.
In a way, the focus lies on horror and visually disturbing images and I like it but sometimes it get exaggerated. There are tons of really graphic scenes that I found overwhelming. I hated Yozo Oba in here more than the novel. In the novel, I felt deep sympathy to him even if i hate him, i still felt so much for him because of his traumas and the way he was treated. In here, he seema terrible from womanizing and his manipulation but that was him, he was not a good man, he was deceptive. It was troubling and sad to see him. But Yozo was the embodiment of human's fear, desires, horrible, weakness and cowardice, that you may relate or hate for how similar he is to us. he is almost a reflection of ourselves we dont want to admit deep down in our heart.
The latter part was different from the novel with the appearance of Dazai as a character, I think its unique. It gave me sadness as i read this part, i was emotional because of it.
no longer human till this day resonated with so many people. its a story that exposed the weakness, self destruction, honesty to the point it hurts, no rationalization for all bad decision and actions and somehow we empathize with the character.
I think its time to have a reread of No longer human the novel.
TW: sexual abuse, rape, graphic mature scenes and violence, suicide, depression, alcoholism, substance abuse, parental neglect, domestic cheating
you are probably tired of hearing me talk about dazai but hear me out
This is a hard read. I have an immense affection for the original novel by Dazai particularly for how it made me feel. Junji Ito really shined here with his interpretations of Yozo Oba's demons and fears. They were potrayed in these vivid, cruel horrible, disgusting and disturbing images that came to life so extravagantly. I felt dread creeping all over my body, I was very much uncomfortable with all of the horrific and traumatising visuals. it showed the rawness of human. Rather than the grim, bleak and depressing prose by Dazai, Ito made the story seems more horror than sad.
In a way, the focus lies on horror and visually disturbing images and I like it but sometimes it get exaggerated. There are tons of really graphic scenes that I found overwhelming. I hated Yozo Oba in here more than the novel. In the novel, I felt deep sympathy to him even if i hate him, i still felt so much for him because of his traumas and the way he was treated. In here, he seema terrible from womanizing and his manipulation but that was him, he was not a good man, he was deceptive. It was troubling and sad to see him. But Yozo was the embodiment of human's fear, desires, horrible, weakness and cowardice, that you may relate or hate for how similar he is to us. he is almost a reflection of ourselves we dont want to admit deep down in our heart.
The latter part was different from the novel with the appearance of Dazai as a character, I think its unique. It gave me sadness as i read this part, i was emotional because of it.
no longer human till this day resonated with so many people. its a story that exposed the weakness, self destruction, honesty to the point it hurts, no rationalization for all bad decision and actions and somehow we empathize with the character.
I think its time to have a reread of No longer human the novel.
June 20, 2023
This made me feel a whole lot of things
April 21, 2023
After a conversation with a GR friend, I decided to read this Junji Ito's adaptation, though I really am not a fan of Dazai Osamu's writing!
I am around 10 pages into the story.......and....fucking hell! What am I reading!? My innocent eyes!!!
Okay...reading 50 pages into the story is enough to give me depression.
Okay...I am on page 107 and I feel ready to commit suicide myself, I mean...if life is like this......then what's the fucking point!? *sobs*
Once again I am convinced that Mr. Ito has been drawing his home life all along through his career...
Around page 200...Okay I gave up, I can't do this to myself anymore and I refuse to read the remaining 400+ pages. Junji Ito continues to be the master of horror and disgust, okay you win again, Mr. Ito. *runs away*
Well and to tell the truth, I started getting myself into all this contemporary Japanese literature stuff after reading the Bungo Stray Dogs manga series. LOL
My review for the Bungo Stray Dogs series: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review for Rashomon and Other Stories
(by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I am around 10 pages into the story.......and....fucking hell! What am I reading!? My innocent eyes!!!
Okay...reading 50 pages into the story is enough to give me depression.
Okay...I am on page 107 and I feel ready to commit suicide myself, I mean...if life is like this......then what's the fucking point!? *sobs*
Once again I am convinced that Mr. Ito has been drawing his home life all along through his career...
Around page 200...Okay I gave up, I can't do this to myself anymore and I refuse to read the remaining 400+ pages. Junji Ito continues to be the master of horror and disgust, okay you win again, Mr. Ito. *runs away*
Well and to tell the truth, I started getting myself into all this contemporary Japanese literature stuff after reading the Bungo Stray Dogs manga series. LOL
My review for the Bungo Stray Dogs series: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review for Rashomon and Other Stories
(by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa) https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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