CONTENT WARNING: NO LONGER HUMAN DEALS WITH VARIOUS DISTURBING AND POTENTIALLY UPSETTING SUBJECTS. AND EVEN PUTTING ALL THAT ASIDE IT IS PURE UNDISTILLED DEPRESSION. LIKE IT IS WITHOUT A DOUBT ONE OF THE BLEAKEST STORIES IVE EVER COME INTO CONTACT WITH. An Introduction https://i.ur.com/wtFXyDC.jpg No Longer Human is a novel by Osamu Dazaihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsamuDazai and it is apparently the second best selling novel ever in Japan. And thus theres no end of adaptations of it. Personally my first exposure to the story was its inclusion in a compilation anime of a bunch of other thingshttps://anilist.co/anime/7193/BlueLiteratureSeries/ and it was like four episodes long. By the end of those four episodes I thought I had experienced enough of No Longer Human for a lifetime. 440https://i.ur.com/5OguBke.png While I wouldnt go quite as far to say I despised it it was a soulcrushingly bleak and pretty much painful and miserable experience from beginning to end. And I hated the protagonist with every fiber of my being because hes just one of those characters who somehow makes the absolute worst decision at every possible move. So to be blunt I probably would have never given this story a second chance if I hadnt learned Junji Itohttps://anilist.co/staff/97410/JunjiItou did an adaptation of it. Usamaru Furuyahttps://anilist.co/staff/96919/UsamaruFuruya also apparently did his own adaptation of ithttps://anilist.co/manga/43290/NoLongerHuman/ which Ill likely read now at some point in the future. So how did I like Junji Itos version of the story? 440https://i.ur.com/89uDAkW.png Well it was a soulcrushingly bleak and pretty much painful and miserable experience from beginning to end. And I hated the protagonist with every fiber of my being because hes just one of those characters who somehow makes the absolute worst decision at every possible move. And I fucking loved it. Junji Itos No Longer Human The horror spin really suits this story. 440https://i.ur.com/Wv8muoo.png Not even to mention I somehow didnt even think about how truly well suited Junji Ito was to adapt this story about a guy who eventually ends up believing all his problems stem from women. Junji Ito being the man whose manga career began via a monstrous female character.https://anilist.co/manga/30912/Tomie/ There are multiple points in the story where Yozo is imagining all of the women from his past coming back in a literal swarm to haunt him. It was at this point when it finally clicked in my head. 440https://i.ur.com/9oFwAnb.png Oh no yeah Junji Ito was actually the perfect person to adapt this story. 440https://i.ur.com/UKgtk0k.png The more and more I think about it it really is perfect. Yozo Oba is literally just male Tomie. Minus the immortality and the ability to spawn alternate selves after being dissected of course. He has a strangely powerful attraction that he seems unable to stop from pulling in women. Yet all of the women who become involved with him either end up dead or just driven to ruin or insanity. 440https://i.ur.com/R9DwLN8.png But no really the Junji Ito horror doesnt even feel the slightest bit out of place in No Longer Human because it just all bleeds right back into exploring the psyche of Yozo Oba our protagonist. 440https://i.ur.com/2NJjPXF.png Who I refuse to believe that anyone who has read No Longer Human continued rooting for the whole way through. 440https://i.ur.com/Mo9qRda.png Yozo Oba the protagonist youre meant to despise with every fiber of your being 440https://i.ur.com/EujXhqV.png I really feel like Yozo Oba is one of the most unlikable protagonists Ive ever encountered in anything. Its not like the thing where a character has some good qualities but hes just going in a bad direction. He has no redeeming qualities. His entire character is that he cannot relate to other human beings. Rather he finds them terrifying. So he hides behind the persona of a clown and thus basically ends up spending almost his entire life lying. 440https://i.ur.com/T6WOKQ3.png As a child hes sexually abused by both a male and female house servant and doesnt report either of them to his family because he feels like itd be useless to do so. 440https://i.ur.com/nNjWHdW.png Which he immediately hypothesizes is part of the root of why he became the sort of person he ended up being. Yet it becomes increasingly harder to even try and sympathize with him. As even when hes a mere teenager he has a moment where he contemplates driving an iron pick into his friends brain merely because he was able to see through the facade that is Yozo Oba the humorous clown of the Oba family. 440https://i.ur.com/j8fzj5E.png And while his hand stayed at the last second he still ended up causing Takeichis death. The first specter that would end up haunting him for the rest of his life. Deservedly so may I add. After all once he was gone Yozo immediately felt relief. The person who had been able to see him for who he truly was was gone. 440https://i.ur.com/ulNTmTN.png Cue a life of drinking debauchery morphine addiction and getting involved with movements you dont actually give a shit about but then suddenly find yourself leading a march against the police. And when the uprising group youre leading clashes with them you kick a woman you were previously involved with in the face so you can get away because youve finally realized youve gotten too deep in this movement. 440https://i.ur.com/98q9w8p.png One of the few mercies of No Longer Human is that Yozo spares the single mother he eventually becomes involved with after he survives the attempted double suicide he undergoes with a random waitress he becomes involved with. And by spare I mean he leaves the single mother and his daughter after realizing that despite how shitty of a presence Yozo Oba was the single mother and her daughter were still willing to accept him. Albeit the daughter still missed her real father which is completely understandable but as fragile as Yozo Oba is hes still wounded deeply by the childs words. 440https://i.ur.com/BnhokVM.png Yet while I still consider him leaving them the right thing to do by being unable to accept being chained down and thinking that they were too good for him he basically flushed yet another chance to turn his life around down the toilet. As him leaving those two is when his life really gets bad. And oh yeah I completely skimmed over the part during his teenage years when he got both of his cousins pregnant and one of them stabbed the other to death out of jealousy 440https://i.ur.com/KlOthPb.png ...So anyways when his life gets REALLY bad is when he gets married to a girl who seems completely unwilling to believe that Yozo Oba is a bad person. He promises her that hes gonna quit drinking and then the day after he shows up drunk tells her and then she doesnt believe him. So he just straight up tells her well oh yeah also Ive been sleeping with the madam of the bar. And she doesnt believe that either. 440https://i.ur.com/v9aKeIB.png And then all of a sudden theyre getting married and you as the reader is just going oh for fuck sake theres no way this is going to end well. And of course it doesnt. 440https://i.ur.com/VY6f6Wc.png Because nothing does and thats really the entire moral of the story of No Longer Human. Osamu Dazais Final Story If it hasnt become clear by this point the story of No Longer Human is pretty fucking bleak. 440https://i.ur.com/cYLdaVM.png But then when I read this adaptation and actually looked a bit more into it I realized the actual story itself is just the tip of the iceberg. No Longer Human is in fact the final story Osamu Dazai wrote before his death. How did he die you ask? He committed a double suicide... like... in No Longer Human. And mind you it wasnt even the first time he attempted a double suicide. Or suicide in general for that matter. 440https://i.ur.com/hk0apJ0.png Hell a lot of No Longer Human is apparently just almost an autobiography. Which is what brings me to the major twist of the Junji Ito adaptation that really pushed this manga over the top for me despite previously finding No Longer Human an overall miserable experience. Before I straight up spoil it I will warn right off the bat that it is completely fucked up. Conclusion Its safe to say at this point I have a love/hate relationship with No Longer Human. 440https://i.ur.com/YXUPuoE.png But after having read Junji Itos adaptation of it I at least now feel as if I understand both the appeal and the legacy the story has a bit better. Like I truly do genuinely enjoy bleak and just fucking depressing stories but god damn I need the protagonist to offer something. Like just give me something. Some scrap of likability or hint that they might still be capable of redemption. Like I always thought a story like this would never work for me. A story that is just pure misery with a protagonist that I just feel hate and disgust towards. 440https://i.ur.com/nHCUtv2.png The man swallows an entire box of sleeping pills then suddenly finds that hes descending down into Hell and is just like oh didnt expect that. Guess I better start trying to vomit misfortunes to get myself out of this mess. ...What the fuck were you possibly expecting? 440https://i.ur.com/NOg3MHT.png Horikis a complete asshole pretty much the entire story but goddamn it hes pretty right on about Yozo Obas character. But yet as much as I hated Yozo Oba this version of the story just fucking latched its hooks into me and would just not let go. And I truly and utterly did not expect to be saying this at the end of this review but this is probably one of my favorite Junji Ito manga overall. As much as I love his normal horror the majority of it has way lighter a tone to it. A lot of it youre really just reading for the monsters and the crazy fucked up trademark Junji Ito body horror. But with this he took all of the bleakness of Osamu Dazai and he just fucking ran with it. Theres a whole bunch of traditional Junji Ito horror throughout the whole thing but its never overshadowing the story. Its always in service to it. 440https://i.ur.com/Ht19cLe.png Junji Itos version of No Longer Human infuriated me frustrated me but there are just so many pages and moments of it that will continually fester within my brain forever. And what more can I ask of a horror than that? Osamu Dazais No Longer Human adapted by Junji Ito for me is a 9 out of 10. 440https://i.ur.com/mLQCGdC.png