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Aoi Bungaku: No Longer Human
Oct. 15th, 2010 09:30 pmSo, I finished the book, watched the anime, it's time for my report on part one of Aoi Bungaku, the adaptation of "No Longer Human" by Dazai Osamu, consisting of episodes 1-4 (of 12). This is the longest of the Aoi Bungaku pieces; Wikipedia reports that it was also repackaged for theatrical release, and indeed it looks like it was made for the silver screen---they really went for broke on the visuals and atmosphere. I watched the first two episodes before I read the book and was impressed, but afterward, well... On its own terms, it is impressive, but as an adaptation, it's a little like Bram Stoker's Dracula (with apologies to anyone who doesn't share my inimical relationship with that movie): the broad strokes of the original plot are in place, but the details and characterizations have been tarted up and fitted into a mold in a way that deeply alters the meaning.
Some of this I'm sure was necessary, because the novel is very internal/psychological. It takes the form of a chronological first person account by Oba Yozo of his tragically mis-spent life. Yozo as the narrator is intelligent, sensitive, and profoundly alienated, and for me at least these qualities keep him relatable (and the novel enjoyable) even though he's also utterly solipsistic, increasingly debased and pathetic.
So the original played to the strengths of prose, not cinema. The adaptation made I think a strong decision to start the action in the thick of things and fill in Yozo's childhood incidents through flashbacks, and it uses this structure to connect the different parts of Yozo's story and bring out their interdependence, something the novel didn't spend time on. I also appreciated that the sense of place and period---Japan circa 1930 with the rise of Imperialism and the Great Depression happening meanwhile---which is barely visible in the book lends a rich texture to the anime. From there, however, they seemingly tried to trick this out as a psychological horror story of some kind; events and characterizations got, as I said, tarted up, and the over-arching narrative is reduced to something pat in places where the novel offered no answers.
To take examples from the first episode or so: while in the book Yozo was involved with anti-government leftists and did attempt a lovers' suicide with Tsuneko, the scam, the police chase, the hiding under the skirt that kick off the anime---none of that happened. In the anime, Yozo at some point testifies to an urge to kill Tsuneko, and the double suicide is treated as an ambiguously-veiled murder on Yozo's part, while in the book, the act is rendered simply as "We entered the water together;" he says in another context that it never occurred to him to kill anyone and just after the incident that he felt for Tsuneko the admittedly-stunted love of which he was capable. The anime transforms his "friend" Horiki from an ironically smug, perniciously-bad influence into a truly evil extortionist. Yozo's "obake" (monster/ghost) self image, limited in the book to youthful "ghost-picture" self-portraits he took an uncommon degree of pride in, in the anime becomes a frightening, almost supernatural presence, which does make his psychological issues visual, but also severely flattens and dehumanizes them. The total effect is that, while the Yozo of the book doesn't have much to be proud of and seriously can't keep his shit together, the Yozo of the anime comes off as more of an outright scoundrel and psychotic. The tone becomes more subdued in the second half, but this part is most guilty of offering easy explanations that the book would never deal in---notably of what "No Longer Human" (literally "disqualified from being human") means and where he got it. Throughout, his narrative voice in the anime is dull and flat, which, unlike in the book, leaves us viewing his more outrageous moments more from the outside, just watching him without hearing the inner voice that keeps him sympathetic at such moments in the book. I will also simply note that the ending is different.
That said, the anime version does work pretty well on its own terms (better than Bram Stoker's Dracula did anyway); it probably is true that I "ruined" it by reading the book. Its edgy, gritty, amoral quality isn't for everyone---of course, neither was the original 200-page angst fic. The anime version isn't bad, but since I did go to the trouble to compare them, I'd say it's a different and, in my opinion, lesser animal than the book.
The next Aoi Bungaku piece is "In the Woods beneath Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom" by Sakaguchi Ango. It's a short story, so once the book I ordered gets here, it shouldn't take too long...
In the meantime, I finished 12 Kingdoms, which stayed awesome, and have been watching the rest of Kara no Kyoukai, which is so far staying less-than-stellar.
P.S.: The copy of "No Longer Human" (translated by Donald Keene, btw) that I checked out from the library had tucked inside it someone's appointment card from 2005 for the University's Student Mental Health Services. This seemed oddly appropriate.
And BTW, if you can read Japanese (unlike me)...
Some of this I'm sure was necessary, because the novel is very internal/psychological. It takes the form of a chronological first person account by Oba Yozo of his tragically mis-spent life. Yozo as the narrator is intelligent, sensitive, and profoundly alienated, and for me at least these qualities keep him relatable (and the novel enjoyable) even though he's also utterly solipsistic, increasingly debased and pathetic.
So the original played to the strengths of prose, not cinema. The adaptation made I think a strong decision to start the action in the thick of things and fill in Yozo's childhood incidents through flashbacks, and it uses this structure to connect the different parts of Yozo's story and bring out their interdependence, something the novel didn't spend time on. I also appreciated that the sense of place and period---Japan circa 1930 with the rise of Imperialism and the Great Depression happening meanwhile---which is barely visible in the book lends a rich texture to the anime. From there, however, they seemingly tried to trick this out as a psychological horror story of some kind; events and characterizations got, as I said, tarted up, and the over-arching narrative is reduced to something pat in places where the novel offered no answers.
To take examples from the first episode or so: while in the book Yozo was involved with anti-government leftists and did attempt a lovers' suicide with Tsuneko, the scam, the police chase, the hiding under the skirt that kick off the anime---none of that happened. In the anime, Yozo at some point testifies to an urge to kill Tsuneko, and the double suicide is treated as an ambiguously-veiled murder on Yozo's part, while in the book, the act is rendered simply as "We entered the water together;" he says in another context that it never occurred to him to kill anyone and just after the incident that he felt for Tsuneko the admittedly-stunted love of which he was capable. The anime transforms his "friend" Horiki from an ironically smug, perniciously-bad influence into a truly evil extortionist. Yozo's "obake" (monster/ghost) self image, limited in the book to youthful "ghost-picture" self-portraits he took an uncommon degree of pride in, in the anime becomes a frightening, almost supernatural presence, which does make his psychological issues visual, but also severely flattens and dehumanizes them. The total effect is that, while the Yozo of the book doesn't have much to be proud of and seriously can't keep his shit together, the Yozo of the anime comes off as more of an outright scoundrel and psychotic. The tone becomes more subdued in the second half, but this part is most guilty of offering easy explanations that the book would never deal in---notably of what "No Longer Human" (literally "disqualified from being human") means and where he got it. Throughout, his narrative voice in the anime is dull and flat, which, unlike in the book, leaves us viewing his more outrageous moments more from the outside, just watching him without hearing the inner voice that keeps him sympathetic at such moments in the book. I will also simply note that the ending is different.
That said, the anime version does work pretty well on its own terms (better than Bram Stoker's Dracula did anyway); it probably is true that I "ruined" it by reading the book. Its edgy, gritty, amoral quality isn't for everyone---of course, neither was the original 200-page angst fic. The anime version isn't bad, but since I did go to the trouble to compare them, I'd say it's a different and, in my opinion, lesser animal than the book.
The next Aoi Bungaku piece is "In the Woods beneath Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom" by Sakaguchi Ango. It's a short story, so once the book I ordered gets here, it shouldn't take too long...
In the meantime, I finished 12 Kingdoms, which stayed awesome, and have been watching the rest of Kara no Kyoukai, which is so far staying less-than-stellar.
P.S.: The copy of "No Longer Human" (translated by Donald Keene, btw) that I checked out from the library had tucked inside it someone's appointment card from 2005 for the University's Student Mental Health Services. This seemed oddly appropriate.
And BTW, if you can read Japanese (unlike me)...
