No Longer Human (Junji Ito)

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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. 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.

In February 2019, Viz Media announced they licensed the series for English publication. [5] They released the entire series in one hardcover book. [6] Volumes [ edit ] No. 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 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.The fourth misfortune [of his "ten misfortunes"] was woman. Human women. More than difficult, these incomprehensible, insidious beings. The ones who always drew near and looked after me for some reason. [...] Women have no sense of moderation. They always asked for more of me. Their demands are insatiable. They sap me of all my energy. Once again I am convinced that Mr. Ito has been drawing his home life all along through his career...

To start with an early example (and yes, I am going to start spoiling the story a bit). As a child Oba goes to high school and ends up living with some cousins, including two younger women (slightly older than he). He also meets this classmate, Takeichi, a social outcast, who one infers had some kind of mental illness. Takeichi sees Oba clowning around, purposefully failing at some gym activity to get laughs, and tells Oba that he knows he did it on purpose. Oba is horrified by this (as if he thinks no one else could imagine that his clowning is a put-on), and then tries to win the boy over so he won't expose Oba to their classmates. 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. Even subtle changes in the adaptation seem to shift more blame and awfulness to the women. A box of sleeping pills Oba uses to overdose on, is, in the novel, one he hid from her in case he wanted to use them. In the manga she bought and hid them. 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.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. 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. Ressler, Karen (February 11, 2019). "Viz Licenses Junji Ito's No Longer Human Manga". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on December 25, 2021 . Retrieved December 25, 2021. 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.

In the novel, Takeichi basically serves as a soothsayer. He prophecizes to Oba that women will fall for him and that he will become a great painter. These two statements haunt him. Takeichi disappears from the story when Oba goes to college.By the end, reading this manga was just a slog. Ito is known for his horror work, and I was horrified by this book but I don't think it was in the way he meant. 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. Tantimedh, Ali (December 10, 2019). "Review: Junji Ito Adapts "No Longer Human" into a Masterpiece of Existential Horror". Bleeding Cool. Archived from the original on December 24, 2021 . Retrieved December 25, 2021. 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.

April (April 6, 2018). "Junji Ito's No Longer Human Manga Ends on April 20". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023 . Retrieved December 25, 2021. 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. 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.Then the cousins both fall in love with Oba and sleep with him. The younger one goes crazy upon seeing Oba with the older one (and you know someone has gone crazy in this manga because their face is draw in closeup with their often bloodshot eyes opened wide, their upper face is stroked with hatching), murders the older one, and then has Oba's baby. He later reconnects with that cousin in the mental hospital, where she is still crazy, but he goes to live with her and her son, who is drawn to look like Takeichi. 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 :). a b Douresseaux, Leroy (December 18, 2019). "No Longer Human manga review". Comic Book Bin. Archived from the original on December 24, 2021 . Retrieved December 25, 2021. 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. Ressler, Karen (January 19, 2017). "Junji Ito's No Longer Human Manga Ends on April 20". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on July 27, 2023 . Retrieved December 25, 2021.