Ningen Shikkaku

Don’t read this. Just don’t.

If you want to experience No Longer Human then go and read the novel, watch Aoi Bungaku or read the 2009 version.

Did you ever skim through a summary of a book you had to read for a class but didn't? This is that. This manga is a ridiculously quick run through original novel that doesn't give a shit about anything. It’s rare that I come across manga and anime that comes off this lazy. Needless to say none of the strength of the original are here, you’ll be fine just reading an actual summary of events rather than getting through this garbage fire.

As if this wasn’t enough, the art is just atrocious. There’s no consistency to any element of it aside from maybe backgrounds either not existing or looking like someone vomited them out in Microsoft Paint. There are some visual metaphors like Oba seeing other people as faceless creatures cause he doesn’t understand them and it would’ve been fine if it was just a page or two but this continues throughout the manga with zero consistency or meaning to it. It comes off as nothing more than a laughable attempt to skip out on drawing faces than an actual attempt to make a point.

I sure am glad I spent time on this.

Wow, I have been reading manga for 8 years and no manga has shaken me to this extent other than Gantz. I have read the original novel, Osamu Dazai's novel was great but this adaptation is tremendous and earth shattering and never have I felt the wish that I had never picked up a series that I felt with this series. The manga has this ability to draw you in with just its first panel and it moves so fast that you won't have the time to take a breather when it starts a new arc in the telling of its unholy saga. The art is great, the characters are very very well written, you can't but help but feel bad for all the people the protagonist comes in contact and ultimately for the character himself. Sometimes you do wonder if what he is now is because of his belief that he is no longer compatible with the beliefs of society and humanity as a whole or is it actually true It is a masterpiece and its truths need to be shown to more and more people. But I really don't want people to read this because it put me in a bad and a ponderous mood for the whole day. A+

No Longer Human is a manga adaptation and modernisation of Osamu Dazai’s novel of the same name, following Yozo Oba, a young man who is terrified of other human beings and feels himself alienated from them. I see no problems in adapting the story to a modern setting, as alienation and fear and mistrust of other people exist in any time period. A story with these themes can be told well no matter when or where it is set, as it’s something everyone has likely experienced; but I find Furuya’s manga adaptation to fall short of Dazai’s classic novel in depicting that state of mind. No Longer Human focuses heavily on Yozo’s severely broken perception of the world and how he keeps destroying himself in mind and body (helped in no small part by his environment); and in stories like this, my expectation is that the character’s actions and mindset be clearly understandable. In this pursuit, the manga succeeds partially, but it could have done so much more.

The core of Yozo’s character is evident: he feels alienated and mistrustful towards most people, and he can only connect to them superficially, by behaving like a clown to make his classmates like him, and by having casual sex with women instead of forming fulfilling relationships. He goes through hell as he overreacts to his every failing and misfortune, beginning to abuse drugs and falling into a very dark place psychologically. The disappointing thing about Yozo’s characterisation is the fact that most of the time we’re on the outside looking in at him, instead of on the inside looking out at the world through his eyes, as in the novel. We have an objective view of him, not a subjective one heavily influenced by his self-loathing. Being directly inside Yozo’s head gives a much better idea of who he is than anything the manga does from a third-person perspective: the best examples of this are the passages ripped straight from the novel and displayed between chapters of the manga, which have the unfortunate effect of inviting comparison to the source. Now maybe I’m being unfair here, because novels by nature get inside a character’s head far more easily than manga, but it’s not like manga are useless at it. Solanin and Berserk are examples that prove that manga can express character emotions effectively: they build empathy for their characters through effective use of facial expressions and body language, as well as composition. Unfortunately, No Longer Human doesn’t do this nearly as well.

Occasionally, Yozo’s worldview will leak into the art: he’ll be depicted as a helpless marionette, or the people around him will be depicted as faceless beings incessantly staring at him; and one standout sequence shows Yozo drawing a manga, filling it with grotesque and horrifying images, venting his feelings through his art, clearly expressing exactly what’s going on that we don’t see the rest of the time. Although the manga’s artwork becomes more expressive as the story goes on, it is ordinary for the most part, and the occurrences I’ve mentioned are the exception rather than the rule, and arguably a case of too little too late. The artwork doesn’t do quite enough to communicate Yozo’s thoughts and emotions, leaving the rest of the job up to the writing.

Furthermore, Yozo is only given minimal backstory. His father is implied to be a major part of why he became the way he was before he was introduced at the beginning of the story, but the hinting at what happened is so vague as to be nearly useless. The novel, in addition to describing Yozo’s upbringing and early life, includes a brilliant account of his father offering him a choice between two gifts: a mask or a book. He wants the book but gives in to his father’s expectations and chooses the mask, symbolic of the façade he would put on for the rest of his life. Nothing like this is to be found in the manga, leaving us to guess at what turned him into such a broken person, which is unfortunate, as it makes him that much less understandable and relatable. Showing his childhood and giving more detail regarding how he grew up would have gone a long way in creating a more interesting character, and would have greatly benefited No Longer Human, which is first and foremost an exploration of Yozo’s character.

In conclusion, if you haven’t experienced No Longer Human in any form, then I advise you to read the original novel. While the story of alienation, betrayal, vice and self-destruction shown in this manga is certainly serviceable, and its strengths are hard to dismiss, many of the changes it makes cause it more harm than good, making it a decent manga instead of a great one.

This manga was incredibly sad and depressing. It does a good job at having the reader sympathize with Ooba, which is quite difficult due to the fact that by all account he could be considered a terrible person. Still, it is often the people that are seen as terrible, the good for nothings, that have the worst things happen to them and hence by making such a character one that can be sympathized with the story ends up tremendously depressing. In most of these cases, even if there are external stimuli, the cause of Ooba's despair and depression is usually Ooba himself, and his peculiar way to dealing with the world. He finds chances for happiness again, and again, and again, being set up for success at every opportunity, but he manages to screw each and every one of these up due to his own actions, but in ways that made sense considering who he was, wherein even if the reader could see that what they were doing was completely wrong and would inevitably lead to ruin, that it made sense why they would proceed like that. And in the end, that's what makes it most distressing, in that this isn't some story of someone dumb or someone with terrible luck, but of someone incredibly lucky and intelligent for whom things still end up completely falling apart around. The art is also good in that it is able to seem normal and good looking when necessary, but also feel incredibly dreary when such an atmosphere is called for. 

tl;dr: The tale of someone who fails at life told incredibly well and thus being immensely depressing.

No Longer Human is a tale of despair. It is not heartwarming. There is not a happy ending. It is about the slow descent of a man who breaks and falls. Usamara Furuya updates Osamu Dazai’s novel for modern audiences and does an excellent job in the process. In the afterword of the final volume, Furuya claims that he was not able to truly capture the despair of the original, but I feel as though he has, at the very least, come quite close.

The art is fairly typical for a manga of this sort, though I feel as though Furuya’s talents shine the best as we escape into the head of Yozo Oba, the main character. The clean line style of the rest of the manga is replaced with smudged darkness, doing much to portray Oba’s state of mind. I was also quite pleased with Furuya’s depiction of nudity and sex. Even in situations that are at least somewhat pornographic, every woman is drawn to an appropriate and realistic scale. This, I feel, helped me take the book seriously; had Furuya chosen to depict women as impossibly curvaceous and busty it would have taken away from much of the point of the manga.

The story is intriguing, to say the least. No Longer Human is about a man who does not know what he is, and this is depicted and far better than many things I have seen dealing with the same topic. The book gets very dark, possibly even triggering to people with problems involving rape or suicide, but it is handled frankly, without glamorizing or focusing on the acts beyond what is necessary. These are obviously major plot points and as such are brought up fairly often, but in a very “real” way. I read the Vertical Inc translation and was never taken out of the story by strange syntax or awkward translations. In fact, I finish all three volumes in about an hour and a half, with no breaks between.

No Longer Human is a story that sucks you in and keeps you in, all the while provoking oneself to ask what it means to be human. It is something of a cautionary tale, ending with a sense of urgency that one must in some way find oneself to avoid falling. This is a book I would recommend, but not if you are looking for a light or happy tale.

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What is No Longer Human? First of all it’s widely considered to be Osamu Dezai’s magnum opus, a tragic novel framed as a diary of Yozo Obo who serves as a stand in for the author in his semi-autobiographical work. While it’s hard to call it influential, it is undeniably one of the most popular works of Japanese literature. You don’t even have to look outside the medium of anime and manga to see that. The story of Yozo Oba was adapted into anime as part of Aoi Bungaku series and currently has 4 manga adaptations. However, I can’t say that this one or the 2007 manga do it justice.

So what makes Ningen Shikkaku a bad adaptation? First of all the focus of this manga seems different from the novel. Original work feels like an extremely personal experience. You go through his short and depressing life with plenty of details and insight that makes you understand what made Oba the way he is and at times sympathize with or relate to his despite Oba overall being a person unlike many others, plagued with countless traumas and vices. However despite the depth of insight you get Oba’s recollections are kept rather brief and don’t stay on any one event for longer than necessary.

In the manga Oba is not even half as nuanced. The first part of the book that recounts his childhood is almost entirely ripped out with only short snippets of it appearing later on and interpreted in a way that doesn’t align with how it was presented in a novel. Focus instead lies in shifting the priority towards plot rather than Oba’s character. A lot of effort went into making the progression smoother and fleshing out the side characters just a bit more while vaguely following the story beats and themes of the original.

If you want to experience No Longer Human in a different medium this manga is not a way to go, you will miss out on Oba’s character and his development and that’s pretty much the whole point of it. With how different the manga is I think it’s more fair to say that it’s “based on” No Longer Human rather than an adaptation of it. I think it would be better of as something different because of this, the author obviously has a grasp on the original. otherwise reinterpreting it as well as he did would be impossible. He probably could’ve done something much better if this was an original story that only borrows the themes and characters instead of the story itself.

Despite all this I kinda warmed up to it towards the end. While I think it’s necessary to point out adaptations not fulfilling its premise, when taken on its own Ningen Shikkaku can be a decent short read.

While losing some things it made for a more conventional and slightly more relatable story. It’s a rather dramatic tale of self-ruination brought about by problematic upbringing and personal vices that can stem from it. It doesn’t make a big point out of it, there’s no preaching or grandstanding, just a very predictable but satisfying build up to a cathartic climax.

The art is solid and imaginative. It reminded me a bit of Takeshi Obata. Lines are clean and consistent, there’s not much in terms of shading and the character designs are largely pretty to look at. Big strength of this adaptation are inventive visual metaphors and just a lot of expressive imagery throughout. Strangers with warping features, puppets resembling Yozo smiling and dancing to amuse others, childhood memories appearing as holes in the wall of normal beliefs and morals Oba heard from others. The strongest part though for me was the last chapters where Furuya goes wild with Oba’s hallucinations. It can be over the top but overall very entertaining.

In the end, if you want to experience No Longer Human probably just read the novel, it’s short and captivating. If you want a decent, well paced and cathartic tragedy brought about by very human vices and traumas you can’t go wrong with this.

There are very few manga which leave me speechless fortunately No Longer Human ranks as one of those and as my favourite manga. There have been cases for example Berserk, Gantz and 20th Century Boys but even they pale in comparison to the genius of Osamu Dazai.

It describes the tale of a nilhistic man who finds it difficult to show himself to others thus puts on a facade. It is a story about his life and how is gets to where he is and what occurs on the way.

Based on Ozamu Dazai's famous novel, it hits home and makes you empathise with a sex crazed sociopath. After reading this I guarantee that melancholy will overwhelm you and that you will be glad to have read it.

I would continue trying to persuade you to read this but I shall let you decide as I promise you that you won't regret picking up the 3 volumes.

I did not enjoy "No Longer Human". Why am I giving it a 10? I didn't find a flaw for it. It was perfect. The reason as to why I disliked it is because I have a pretty faint heart. This series is amazing. But I didn't enjoy it at all. I recommend it, but not for the faint of heart.

The story had a lot of depth to it, every single aspect of it was great. The story of a sociopath is always one that has fascinated me; this manga nailed it.

The art is amazing as well, the shading and the linework is really well done, it fits the manga very well, being very dark and gritty.

The characters were perfectly thought out. The spiral to madness of the main character fascinated me and kept me hooked, wondering what would happen next.

So, do I recommend "No Longer Human"? Yes, I certainly do, it's the closest thing to perfection that I have read, but not for the faint of heart. This series will leave you speechless.