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Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

no longer human

Junji Ito’s No Longer Human

January 2, 2020 by Katherine Dacey

Of all the famous works of literature to get the Classics Illustrated treatment, Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is an odd choice. Its protagonist is Oba Yozo, a tortured soul who never figures out how to be his authentic self in a society that places tremendous emphasis on hierarchy, self-restraint, and civility. Over the course of the novel, he binges, gambles, seduces a string of women, joins a Communist cell, attempts suicide, and succumbs to heroin addiction, all while donning the mask of “the farcical eccentric” to conceal his “melancholy” and “agitation” from the very people whose lives he ruins.

Though the novel is filled with incident, its unreliable narrator and relentless interiority make it difficult to effectively retell in a comic format, as Junji Ito’s adaptation demonstrates. Ito’s No Longer Human is largely faithful to the events of Dazai’s novel, but takes Dazai’s spare, haunting narrative and transforms it into a phantasmagoria of sex, drugs, and death. In his efforts to show us how Yozo feels, Ito leans so hard into nightmarish imagery that the true horror of Yozo’s story is overshadowed by Ito’s artwork—a mistake, I think, as Ito’s drawings are too literal to convey the nuance of what it means to exist, in Peter Selgin’s words, in a state of “complete dissociation… yet still capable of feeling.”

In Ito’s defense, it’s not hard to see what attracted him to Dazai’s text; Yozo’s narration is peppered with the kind of vivid analogies that, at first glance, seem ideally suited for a visual medium like comics. But a closer examination of the text reveals the extent to which these analogies are part of the narrator’s efforts to beguile the reader; Yozo is, in effect, trying to convince the reader that his mind is filled with such monstrous ideas that he cannot be expected to function like a normal person. There’s a tension between how Yozo describes his own reactions to the ordinary unpleasantness of interacting with other people, and how Yozo describes the impact of his behavior on other people—a point that Ito overlooks in choosing to flesh out some key events in the novel.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Yozo’s brief affair with Tsuneko, a destitute waitress. After hitting rock bottom financially and emotionally, Yozo persuades her to join him in a double suicide pact. Dazai’s summary of what happens is shocking in its brevity and matter-of-factness:

As I stood there hesitating, she got up and looked inside my wallet. ‘‘Is that all you have?” Her voice was innocent, but it cut me to the quick. It was painful as only the voice of the first woman I had ever loved could be painful. “Is that all?” No, even that suggested more money than I had — three copper coins don’t count as money at all. This was a humiliation more strange than any I had tasted before, a humiliation I could not live with. I suppose I had still not managed to extricate myself from the part of the rich man’s son. It was then I myself determined, this time as a reality, to kill myself.

We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash, saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the cafe, and left it folded neatly on a rock. I removed my coat and put it in the same spot. We entered the water together.

She died. I was saved.

As Ito recounts this event, however, Tsuneko’s death is caused by a poison so painful to ingest that she collapses in a writhing heap, eyes bulging and tongue wagging as if she were in the throes of becoming a monster herself. Yozo’s reaction to the poison, by contrast, is to plunge into a hallucinatory state in which a parade of ghostly women mock and berate him, an artistic choice that suggests Yozo feels shame and guilt for his actions—and a reading of Dazai’s text that makes Yozo seem more deserving of sympathy than he does in Dazai’s novel:

Throughout this vignette, Yozo’s contempt for Tsuneko creeps into the narrative, even as he assures the reader that she was the first woman he truly loved. Yozo’s disdain is palpable, as is evident in the way he off-handedly introduces her to the reader:

I was waiting at a sushi stall back of the Ginza for Tsuneko (that, as I recall, was her name, but the memory is too blurred for me to be sure: I am the sort of person who can forget even the name of the woman with whom he attempted suicide) to get off from work.

Only a few episodes capture the spirit of Dazai’s original novel, as when Yozo’s father gives an inept speech to a gathering of businessmen and community leaders. Ito skillfully cross-cuts between three separate conversations, allowing us to step into Yozo’s shoes as he eavesdrops on the attendees, servants, and family members, all of whom speak disparagingly about each other, and the speech. By pulling back the curtain on these conversations, Ito helps the reader appreciate the class and power differences among these groups, as well as revealing that this episode was a turning point for Yozo: the moment when he first realized that adults maintain certain masks in public that they discard in private. Though such a moment would undoubtedly trouble a more observant child—one need only think of Holden Caulfield’s obsession with adult “phoniness”—this discovery plunges Yozo into a state of despair, as he cannot imagine how anyone reconciles their public and private selves in a truthful way.

Ito also wisely restores material from Dazai’s novel that other adaptors—most notably Usamaru Furuya—trimmed from their versions. In particular, Ito does an excellent job of exploring the dynamic between Yozo and his classmate Takeichi, the first person who sees through Yozo’s carefully orchestrated buffoonery:

Just when I had begun to relax my guard a bit, fairly confident that I had succeeded by now in concealing completely my true identity, I was stabbed in the back, quite unexpectedly. The assailant, like most people who stab in the back, bordered on being a simpleton — the puniest boy in the class, whose scrofulous face and floppy jacket with sleeves too long  for him was complemented by a total lack of proficiency in his studies and by such clumsiness in military drill and physical training that he was perpetually designated as an ‘‘onlooker.” Not surprisingly, I failed to recognize the need to be on my guard against him.

As one might guess from this passage, Yozo’s terror at being discovered is another critical juncture in the novel. “I felt as if I had seen the world before me burst in an instant into the raging flames of hell,” he reports, before embarking on a campaign to win Takeichi’s trust by “cloth[ing his] face in the gentle beguiling smile of the false Christian.” Though Ito can’t resist the temptation to draw an image of Yozo engulfed in hell fire, most of Yozo’s fear is conveyed in subtler ways: a wary glance at Takeichi, an extreme close-up of Yozo’s face, an awkwardly placed arm around Takeichi’s shoulder:

What happens next in Ito’s version of No Longer Human, however, is indicative of another problem with his adaptation: his decision to add new material. In Dazai’s novel, Takeichi simply disappears from the narrative when Yozo moves to Tokyo for college, but in Ito’s version, Yozo cruelly manipulates Takeichi into thinking that Yozo’s cousin Setchan is in love with him—a manipulation that ultimately leads to Takeichi’s humiliation and suicide. That violent death is followed by a gruesome murder, this time prompted by a love triangle involving Yozo, his “auntie,” and Setchan, who becomes pregnant with Yozo’s child. Neither of these episodes deepen our understanding of who Yozo really is; they simply add more examples of how manipulative and callous he can be, thus blunting the impact of the real tragedy that unfolds in the late stages of his story.

Ito’s most problematic addition, however, is Osamu Dazai himself. Ito replaces the novel’s original framing device with the events leading up to Dazai’s 1948 suicide, encouraging us to view No Longer Human as pure autobiography through reinforcing the parallels between Dazai’s life and Yozo’s. And while those parallels are striking, the juxtaposition of the author and his fictional alter ego ultimately distorts the meaning of the novel by suggesting that the story documents Dazai’s own unravelling. That’s certainly one way to interpret No Longer Human, but such an autobiographical reading misses Dazai’s broader themes about the burden of consciousness, the nature of self, and the difficulty of being a full, authentic, feeling person in modern society.

VIZ Media provided a review copy. You can read a brief preview at the VIZ website by clicking here. For additional perspectives on Junji Ito’s adaptation, see Serdar Yegulalp‘s excellent, in-depth review at Ganriki.org, Reuben Barron‘s review at CBR.com, and MinovskyArticle’s review at the VIZ Media website.

JUNJI ITO’S NO LONGER HUMAN • ORIGINAL NOVEL BY OSAMU DAZAI • BASED ON THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY DONALD KEENE • TRANSLATED AND ADAPTED BY JOCELYNE ALLEN • VIZ MEDIA • RATED M, FOR MATURE AUDIENCES • 616 pp.

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Junji Ito, no longer human, Osamu Dazai, VIZ, VIZ Signature

No Longer Human, Vol. 3

January 25, 2014 by Ash Brown

No Longer Human, Volume 3Creator: Usamaru Furuya
Original story: Osamu Dazai

U.S. publisher: Vertical
ISBN: 9781935654377
Released: February 2012
Original release: 2011

Osamu Dazai’s semi-autobiographical novel No Longer Human, originally published in Japan in 1948, has had a least three manga adaptations. Of those, only one is currently available in English–a three-volume series by Usamaru Furuya. I have been interested in Furuya’s work ever since I read Lychee Light Club, and so I was very happy when Vertical licensed his No Longer Human manga series. No Longer Human, Volume 3 was first published in Japan in 2011 while the English-language edition was released in 2012. The original novel was a fairly dark work. While Furuya has taken some liberties with his version of the story–using himself as a framing character and updating the setting to contemporary Japan, among other changes–the No Longer Human manga is also quite dark. Furuya argues in the afterword that his ending is somewhat more uplifting than Dazai’s, but it is still severe. Vertical describes the third volume as “the devastating finale” which is incredibly apt.

Disowned by his family and the survivor of a double suicide, Yozo Oba’s life was falling apart. Getting by on his good looks, he lived for a time as a kept man until he ran away from that situation, too. But then he met and fell in love with Yoshino, a young woman working at the cigarette shop that he frequented. Yoshino and Yozo elope and have now been married for a year. For the first time in his life Yozo is genuinely happy. He has a wonderful trusting wife who loves and accepts him for who he is, the only person with whom he can be completely open and honest. He’s gainfully employed, his manga for children is popular and selling well and with the extra income from his side job drawing erotic illustrations, he and Yoshino are able to live quite comfortably. Yozo still carries some guilt over his past, something that his supposed friend Horiki never lets him forget, but he’s now starting to look forward to his future. And then it all comes crashing down. Yozo’s perfect fantasy life is destroyed and he is destroyed along with it.

Having previously read Dazai’s orignal novel (several times, actually), I was all too aware the direction that Furuya’s No Longer Human was heading. Actually, from the beginning of the manga series alone it is known that Yozo’s story is not a happy one. But knowing what’s in store does not necessarily make it any easier to witness it happen. There is nothing that the reader can do but to watch the events unfold. Yozo is doomed from the very start. Something happens to this young man, seemingly loved by all, to cause his life to completely shatter. He should be in the prime of his youth but becomes so broken that most assume him to be more than twice his age. The third volume of Furuya’s No Longer Human outlines his final and ultimate downfall, the one from which he is never to recover. It’s made even more tragic because he has finally experienced true happiness and contentment only to have it torn from his grasp.

Throughout the No Longer Human manga the tremendous disconnect between how Yozo views himself and how others perceive him has been shown. It’s one of the driving forces behind the story. Up until the very end people insist that Yozo is a good person, but to him it has all been an act. He holds a pessimistic view of the world and recoils from humanity. What many people would consider to be a source of hope and salvation only guarantees Yozo’s undoing. Eventually he becomes a drug addict which only amplifies his fears and anxieties and further damages his precarious state of mind. His increasingly twisted and tormented psyche is reflected quite clearly in Furuya’s artwork. No Longer Human is an unrelenting and even terrifying tale. Even at his worst I can still see a little bit of myself in Yozo. It’s perhaps because of this that I find the series to be so effectively gut-wrenching. Furuya’s adaptation of Dazai’s novel is excellent, bringing his own interpretation to the story while staying true to the dark heart of the original.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: manga, no longer human, Osamu Dazai, Usamaru Furuya, vertical

No Longer Human, Vol. 2

January 22, 2014 by Ash Brown

No Longer Human, Volume 2Creator: Usamaru Furuya
Original story: Osamu Dazai

U.S. publisher: Vertical
ISBN: 9781935654223
Released: December 2011
Original release: 2010

Usamaru Furuya’s manga series No Longer Human is an adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s 1948 semi-autobiographical novel No Longer Human. Furuya’s manga adaptation began serialization in Weekly Comic Bunch in 2009. The second volume of the series was published in Japan in 2010 while the English-language edition was released in 2011 by Vertical. No Longer Human was the second manga by Furuya that was published by Vertical, the first being the one-volume Lychee Light Club. Although Furuya’s No Longer Human is based on Dazai’s novel, he has taken a few liberties with his rendition, one of the most notable changes being that the story is now set in the 2000s instead of the 1920s and ’30s. Furuya has also inserted himself into the manga as a framing character. These changes, as well as others, are actually quite effective. It is not at all necessary to have read the original No Longer Human to appreciate Furuya’s interpretation of the story.

Yozo Oba attempted a double suicide with a club hostess named Ageha, but only she drowned while he survived. He’s come to the realization that although he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to live, either. Yozo has long since been disowned by his family and the one person for whom he held any sort of honest feelings is now gone. He spends his days directionless and in despair, slowly recovering from a torturous situation partly of his one making. He desperately wants some meaning to his life, but has failed to discover what that might be. At one point he thinks he’s found it, only to have it snatched away from him. Yozo was once adored by all and even in his current pitiful state people are drawn to him and dare to care about him. He uses this to his advantage, putting on airs to get what he wants and needs, recognizing all the while how distasteful it is. Yozo uses people and he knows it. To him, life is still an act.

No Longer Human is a dark and troubling manga series. Yozo doesn’t treat himself well and treats those around him even worse. He is extremely manipulative and frankly can be a terrible person. And yet at the same time Yozo is a tragic figure; No Longer Human is heart-wrenching. While I don’t find his portrayal in the manga to be as sympathetic as it is in the novel, there are still points with which I can empathize. Yozo has a fear of people and their expectations of him that prevents him from being authentic. He’s repeatedly told that he is a good, sweet, and kind person, but this is the last thing he wants to hear. Yozo’s extraordinarily anxiety-ridden and conflicted over it because he see the life he is living as one big lie. He is very aware of his dishonesty and how he misleads people, but continues to do so because he is so desperate to be liked and accepted. Occasionally he manages to express some feelings of legitimate remorse and genuine caring, but more often than that it is already too late to undo any of the damage done.

No Longer Human, Volume 2 follow Yozo from the depths of despair to the heights of happiness and back again. Those glimmers of hope that Yozo will be able to turn his life around make his failure to do so even more anguished as he lets chance after chance to slip through his fingers. Furuya’s artwork in No Longer Human suits the story well, capturing Yozo’s internal and emotional turmoil and dragging the readers along for the ride. Furuya provides disconcerting glimpses into Yozo’s psyche, visually expressing his suffering through imagery of suffocation (harkening back to his near-drowning) and showing the ugliness he sees in the world. No Longer Human isn’t necessarily an easy read and it can be emotionally exhausting, but I find it to be incredibly compelling and difficult to turn away from as well. Yozo may not often be particularly likeable, but as with so many of the other characters in the series I can’t help but wish the best for him no matter how doomed he seems.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: manga, no longer human, Osamu Dazai, Usamaru Furuya, vertical

Bookshelf Briefs 3/12/12

March 12, 2012 by Michelle Smith, Sean Gaffney, Katherine Dacey and MJ 1 Comment

This week, Michelle, Kate, MJ, & Sean take a look at new releases from VIZ Media and Vertical, Inc.


Arata: The Legend, Vol. 9 | By Yuu Watase | VIZ Media – By now, I should probably be immune to such shounen staples as “hero’s weapon gets larger to signify an increase in power,” but I still always find it cool, and when it happens in this volume of Arata, it’s no exception. The first half of the book is mostly fighting, with a little bit of heartstring-pulling thrown in that is still affecting, even though it felt like Watase was ticking things off a checklist in a very business-like manner. The relationship angst ramps up a little in the final chapters, as Arata learns that not only is he the successor to a powerful king, but also that he will create a new world with a “chosen woman” by his side. I really like the overall tone of this series, and though it offers few surprises or innovations, it still consistently entertains me. – Michelle Smith

Blue Exorcist, Vol. 6 | By Kazue Kato | VIZ Media – There’s a lot going on in this volume, despite it being mid-arc. The plot regarding the stolen eyes, and the revelation about a traitor in the cast. Shiemi’s inability to get past her knee-jerk reaction to Rin’s background, which is contrasted with a cute short story showing how well the two work together with Yukio, both in exterminating evil and in being his conscience. But mostly this volume is about Bon, and what it means to have a father that you can’t respect. Or rather, Bon *wants* to respect his father, but everyone else’s attitude, plus his father’s own ambiguous attitude, make it next to impossible. This is the meat of the story, and makes the conflict with Rin (who also has father issues) very powerful. This is an excellent manga, even if you aren’t a Jump fan. – Sean Gaffney

GTO: The Early Years, Vol. 11 | By Toru Fujisawa | Vertical, Inc. – The first volume of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan was a pleasant surprise, a raucous comedy about an earnest but slightly dim homeroom teacher who wants to make a difference in his students’ lives. Given how much I enjoyed my introduction to the world of Great Teacher Onizuka, I thought volume 11 of GTO: The Early Years would deliver more of the same. Alas, I found it a crude cousin to the later series, with rough, uneven artwork and jokes that repeatedly fell flat. Vertical, Inc. has done a better job of packaging this series than Tokyopop did back in the mid-2000s, with a snazzy cover and a snappy translation that conveys some of the sexual chemistry between the characters, but even Vertical’s first-rate presentation can’t transform this sow’s ear into a silk purse. -Katherine Dacey

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 8 | By Julietta Suzuki | VIZ Media – I want to like Kamisama Kiss: it’s got a memorable hook, an appealing cast of supporting characters, and enough yokai intrigue for two Shojo Beat series. As I’ve dutifully read each volume, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that Julietta Suzuki has no real plan for how her story will end. Nanami doesn’t seem wiser or stronger than she was in the very first chapters of the book, while her relationship with Tomoe, the crotchety shrine guardian, has fallen into an irritatingly predictable holding pattern that offers few rewards for the loyal reader. Volume eight does little to dispel the sense of futility; even a detour into the underworld seems more a demonstration of how inept Nanami remains than an inspired subplot. Strictly for fans of supernatural romance. -Katherine Dacey

Kimi ni Todoke, Vol. 13 | By Karuho Shiina | VIZ Media – While Kazehaya and Sawako remain the stars – and seeing her meet his family is probably the cutest part of this volume – this focuses more on the group, which I appreciate now that the main romance has moved from ‘will they or won’t they’ to ‘so what now?’. Chizu is dealing with a rather attentive Ryu, who’s becoming more obvious – possibly by design. Meanwhile, Ayane is not only dealing with Kento finding her interesting (something which she seems to be ignoring, possibly as she doesn’t understand him as easily as she does everyone else), but with her own ideas of what love and dating are, which are not as ‘pure and innocent’ as her two friends. She agrees to go out with a guy who confesses to her near the end of the book, but I honestly can’t see it ending well. Also, terrific cover art. – Sean Gaffney

No Longer Human, Vol. 3 | By Usamaru Furuya | Vertical, Inc. – Though it’s no secret that I’ve been a fan of Usamaru Furuya’s inspired adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s classic novel from the beginning, as the rather unrelentingly optimistic type that I am, even I find this a bit surprising. Hopelessness has been assured far before cracking open Furuya’s final volume, yet it’s impossible to resist the need to follow Yozo’s journey to the end. Though this heartbreaking volume is remarkable on both dramatic and artistic levels, what I found perhaps most compelling were Furuya’s own notes at the end, describing his personal connection with Dazai’s work and how he came to write the adapation. Complete in three volumes, this series is a must-read for any grown-up manga fan. Highly recommended. – MJ

Oresama Teacher, Vol. 7 | By Izumi Tsubaki| VIZ Media – Another highly variable volume – I love this series, but the author still has issues with focus and pacing. At its best, we get chapters like the first one, where we learn about Takaomi’s motives. It’s good to see his character gain some depth, and you really begin to see how driven and goal-oriented he is – and how that inspires Mafuyu. Meanwhile, the ‘summer vacation’ chapters get progressively worse, with Mafuyu’s festival with Sakurada being quite funny, but the ‘haunted house’ chapter being possibly the worst we’ve seen this series – so confusing I had trouble telling who was who from panel to panel. Ah well. Hopefully she’ll get that out of her system soon and we’ll be back to school, where Mafuyu fares much better – as does the mangaka. At least we get plenty of silly faces. – Sean Gaffney

Filed Under: Bookshelf Briefs Tagged With: arata: the legend, blue exorcist, gto, kamisama kiss, kimi ni todoke, no longer human, oresama teacher

Pick of the Week: Time Warp

January 30, 2012 by Sean Gaffney, Michelle Smith, Katherine Dacey, Brigid Alverson and MJ 1 Comment

We may have stepped into a wormhole this week at Midtown Comics, whose incoming manga list is comprised mainly of not-quite-fresh releases. Fortunately, this gives the Battle Robot an excuse to recommend some well-loved titles.


MICHELLE: This week’s new manga list at Midtown Comics is comprised mostly of Vertical titles, some of which have been available elsewhere for a while now. Still, this is a good opportunity to recommend No Longer Human, Usumaru Furuya’s intriguing adaptation of the novel by Osamu Dazai. MJand I devoted our most recent Off the Shelf column to the title, which I enjoyed far more than I expected to. Yes, it’s dark and rather depressing, but there’s enough distance and self-analysis from and by the protagonist that one can enjoy it without getting bogged down. I recommend the series heartily and look forward to volume three!

SEAN: I’m not quite sure why the 6th volume of sublime baseball manga Cross Game is three weeks later than it should have been, but that’s okay. It gives me another chance to rave about this very different type of shonen we’re seeing here. Make no mistake, this series is a classic example of everything that doesn’t sell well in North America: subtle character humor, low-key art, no fights, no supernatural content (unless you think Wakaba has reincarnated as Akane), and a bunch of baseball. And that’s what makes it one to cherish. As the market continues to contract and companies keep looking for things that the kids will buy, series like these that take chances will be fewer and farther between. Never mind that Adachi is a household name in Japan: here he’s a cult, and as such, deserves love.

KATE: Since I’m a proud owner of a cat, I feel duty-bound to recommend the seventh volume of Chi’s Sweet Home. It’s totally accessible to the feline-free, of course; I was an unabashed Dog Person at the time I reviewed volume one, and I thought it was utterly charming then. Now that I can compare my cat’s behavior with Chi’s, however, I have a new appreciation of Konami Konata’s artistry. She nails the small details, whether it’s the sound of Chi’s feet on a hard floor or Chi’s tendency to misconstrue everyday objects as “prey.” (So far, I’ve had limited experience with cat barf, though years of dog ownership have prepared me for the worst.) Not much happens in a typical volume of Chi’s Sweet Home, but the scenes are artfully staged, whether the intent is humorous or heart-tugging.

BRIGID: Hmpf. Midtown seems to be well behind the rest of the world, but given the list in front of me, I would go for one of the volumes of Twin Spica. I can’t say enough about how much I like this series, and the characters, and I also like that Vertical is releasing it in double-size volumes so we get a lot of pages for the money. Go Asumi!

MJ: With all these Vertical catch-up releases coming in, it’s tough to know which to choose, but I think I’ll take the opportunity to back up Michelle on this one and recommend No Longer Human. It’s the kind of series that leaves me mulling over it for days after I’ve finished a volume, so despite the fact that it “had me craving cheese puffs” (not so good for my waistline!), I highly recommend it.


Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK Tagged With: chi's sweet home, cross game, no longer human, twin spica

Off the Shelf: No Longer Human

January 27, 2012 by MJ and Michelle Smith 10 Comments

MICHELLE: This month’s Manga Moveable Feast, currently in progress, is devoted to the works of Usamaru Furuya, prompting MJand me to devote this week’s column to the most recent of his series to see publication in English, No Longer Human.

Based on a book by Osamu Dazai that’s described as “a decadent novelist’s autobiographical masterpiece,” No Longer Human depicts the story of Yozo Oba, a young man with no comprehension of what it feels like or how to be an ordinary person. We first meet him as a high school student, where he has learned that being the class clown is the one thing that enables him to connect to his classmates.

Soon he falls in with a group of misfits plotting political rebellion, but he’s more comforted by being among outsiders than he is honestly devoted to their cause. There, he meets the first of several women who will be drawn to him and agree to feed and care for him. This becomes his pattern in life. By the middle of the second volume, he’s twenty and living with a much older woman while drawing a gag manga and helping out at the bar she owns. He realizes that he’s “a genius parasite on women,” but sees that as his only option left to survive.

MJ: As in most “decadent masterpieces,” Oba’s excesses drive him deeper and deeper into tragedy, as he drinks and sleeps his way from one safe haven to another, usually leaving the women who care for him in significantly worse condition than he found them (and in one case, even dead). The narrative lets us know that things are only going to continue to get worse, yet it’s impossible to look away.

Though there have since been at least two other graphic novel adaptations of Dazai’s original, where Furuya goes very much right, in my opinion, is in his decision to move the pre-WWII story into the present, which I think is at least partially responsible for his ability to present such a self-indulgent tragedy in a way that makes it genuinely readable. I realize the original is a classic, but I feel like the novel might suffer more from a contemporary reading than Furuya’s adaptation does.

(click images to enlarge)

Note: No Longer Human reads from left-to-right

MICHELLE: I was surprised by just how readable it was, actually. Just looking at the plot, you’d expect it to be depressing, but it’s so skillfully done that I enjoyed it very much! But yes, you’re absolutely right that updating the story was a smart choice, especially as it enabled a bit of self-insertion on Furuya’s part. Ordinarily, I’m kind of annoyed when mangaka break the fourth wall—particularly if they do so in a silly way—but here, Furuya’s interludes of discovering and being transfixed by Oba’s story are absolutely essential in setting the mood. We feel like he’s captivated right along with us.

MJ: Yes, he’s sort of sharing it with us like a guilty pleasure, and it really works as one. I think the story benefits greatly from being presented as an outrageous internet diary that’s impossible to stop reading. There’s something about this story that makes me feel like I’ve stayed up all night reading, strung out on caffeine and cheese puffs, and, frankly, that really suits it. I kind of wish I’d read it like that for real, actually.

Talking about it like this, it would be easy to gloss over Furuya’s artistry, though, which is put to pretty spectacular use in this series, wouldn’t you agree?

MICHELLE: I can imagine the back cover blurb now. “It had me craving cheese puffs.” – MJ, Manga Bookshelf

As for Furuya’s artistry, I whole-heartedly agree. His talent was on prodigious display in Genkaku Picasso, the only other series of his that I’ve read, but it really suits a darker story like this one.

I was particularly struck by the depictions of Oba as a marionette controlled by his father’s money and/or putting on a show for his peers. It’s such a vivid symbol of someone going through the motions of trying to be normal! And even though Furuya occasionally uses some symbolism that might seem overly obvious—like the surfeit of bugs lurking beneath the petals of the flowers Oba admires with his fiancée (we must return to this point)—it’s done with such finesse that it doesn’t seem trite.

MJ: My previous experience with Furuya has consisted only of Lychee Light Club, which I found visually striking on a nearly theatrical level, but juvenile and kind of emotionally empty. It’s nice to see his gifts utilized so differently here. There was a lot of sexually-charged violence in Lychee Light Club, and certainly there’s no lack of sexual themes in No Longer Human, but it’s approached so differently… it really feels like a much more mature work.

MICHELLE: I did wonder how this compared to Lychee, which I still need to read.

I wanted to ask… did you find the sexual content as supremely unsexy as I did? Beyond not being idealized at all, there are some closeups of things like twirling tongues that look downright disgusting, almost like something drawn by Junji Ito! I wonder if this is Furuya’s way of depicting the impure motives of Oba in these situations. It would be completely out of place to portray what he’s doing as titillating, let alone dreamy.

MJ: I don’t know if I’d say that I found it supremely unsexy, but it definitely does not read as something that’s supposed to be titillating. It’s interesting, too, even though the character confesses early on that his frequent, semi-anonymous sexual encounters are the only things that make him feel good (“When I’m here seems like the only time the smile on my face in genuine”), from the reader’s perspective, he seems just as detached during those trysts as he is the rest of the time. I almost feel like he’s fooling himself when he says that, and that this is reflected in Furuya’s artwork.

MICHELLE: There’s definitely a lot of emphasis on what makes Oba comfortable in a relationship. With the ladies in the “massage parlors,” it’s because he doesn’t have to use any subterfuge. With the members of the political group, it’s because everyone is a misfit in some way. And the two loving/honestly affectionate relationships he has are with women who exhibit a sort of elegant melancholy. Outsiders themselves, in a way.

But speaking of fooling himself, what on earth is going on with the abrupt change in the end of volume two?! Oba has maintained all along that he has no interest in and cannot fathom embarking upon ordinary relationships, and yet here he is, falling in love with and ultimately proposing to a virginal girl who works in a smoke shop. I’m sure he’s got an idealized version of her, but man, I just wanted to shake her and go, “Yoshino, no!” That poor girl is in for a very rude awakening. What will be her price for associating with Oba?

MJ: Yes, disaster is clearly just around the corner, in the same sure way as you’d expect in, say, a Dickens novel. Yoshino is doomed just as it seems Oba is truly doomed, and nobody’s even trying to hide it. Furuya makes the most of this, too. I’m glad you mentioned that last page in the volume, with a swarm of insects seemingly prepared to devour a flower. It’s a melodramatic image, I suppose, but so perfect for the tone of the story.

MICHELLE: Exactly! He just seems so much like a different person here from his behavior, which is emphasized by the drastic haircut Furuya has given him. It really comes out of nowhere, narratively speaking, but I have faith that Furuya is going to make it all make sense in the end. I suppose it helps knowing that, theoretically, all of this did happen to the same protagonist in the original novel (and in the life that it’s based upon?).

MJ: Well, I don’t know if I’d say he feels like a different person, but definitely a different version of a person who keeps reinventing himself over and over, in order to survive. Or perhaps I should say, “in order to survive without having to ever put himself out or curb his own desires,” because really, that’s what his survival is about. So here he is, seemingly falling in love for real for the first time ever, yet in a way, what I see is a guy who has finally figured out how to reinvent himself on the inside–enough to fool even himself. And really, that can’t go well.

MICHELLE: Maybe it’s all the drinking he’s doing that’s enabling him to fool himself to such an extent, to actually believe in one of these personas he’s crafted for himself. And I think there’s a line in there, too, about how living with Mama (do we ever learn her real name?) is so peaceful and great that he starts to believe that all the world is the same. But ultimately, he’s still pursuing the kind of parasite arrangement that’s been sustaining him the past few years, but viewing it through the illusion of love.

MJ: And in a way, maybe that’s the only direction he could really go at this point. After having finally become too disgusted even with himself in his usual arrangements, he’s gotten by with Mama (no, I don’t think we know her real name) because she lets him off the hook so completely. He’s able to be a child, a lover, an employee, whatever, but ultimately she’s just letting him play at those roles without expecting him to be any of them.

He can’t go back to what he was exactly, so what else would he do but move on to something he could play at wholeheartedly with someone who is unlikely to notice? Yoshino’s lack of experience makes her the perfect fit for this phase, because she won’t burst his bubble, at least not for a while.

MICHELLE: And I’m sure she’ll temporarily inspire him to clean up his act—stop drinking, stop blowing the income he makes from his manga—but it just can’t last long. And maybe one could look at that like a good thing, but I kind of hate him for inflicting himself on her. It’s like, what he sees as the best thing that’s ever happened to him, I see as the worst thing he’s ever done.

MJ: Yeah, I agree. Not that the other women have deserved him or anything, but to some extent they’ve enabled him by giving in to their own issues and insecurities. They’ve knowingly let him manipulate them (even if they hid it from themselves as best they could), but Yoshina isn’t worldly enough to grasp what’s happening or what kind of guy he is. And on some level, he knows that, and is taking advantage of it.

I feel almost cruel, not giving him any benefit of the doubt here, but the guy hasn’t given me anything else to work with!

MICHELLE: Whereas I don’t feel cruel at all! He’s been very frank about his own shortcomings and survival tactics throughout.

I rather wish I knew more about the source material or the other adaptations, so as to pinpoint which elements have been introduced by or presented best by Furuya, but on the other hand, I don’t want to muddy my mind with other versions of the story when I like this one so much.

MJ: I admit I suspect I wouldn’t have much patience for the novel at this point in my life. There was a time when I really loved self-indulgent tragedy, but those days are long past. I think Furuya’s wry adaptation may be exactly the thing for me now, and I feel content to leave it at that, at least for the moment. Perhaps I’ll change my mind after I’ve read the end. I’m pretty anxious to read volume three at this point.

MICHELLE: So am I! And I think I’m going to go back and read Lychee soon, too. I was unsure about it, but now I feel confident I could admire it, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of No Longer Human. Too bad CMX folded before they could release any of 51 Ways to Save Her.

MJ: I’m regretful about that now, too. Let’s hope someone else picks it up soon!

For more Furuya talk, be sure to check out this month’s Manga Moveable Feast, hosted by Ash Brown at Experiments in Manga.

All images Copyright © Usamaru Furuya 2009, Translation Copyright © 2011 Vertical, Inc.

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: Manga Moveable Feast, MMF, no longer human

No Longer Human, Vol. 1

November 24, 2011 by Katherine Dacey

First published in 1948, Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human became one of the most widely read books in post-war Japan. The story, modeled on Dazai’s own life, chronicles a dissolute young man’s profound estrangement from his family and peers. The protagonist’s life follows a trajectory similar to Dazai’s: convinced that his life is an empty charade, Yozo drops out of school; joins the Communist Party; enters into a suicide pact with a virtual stranger; and woos lonely women, using them for shelter, emotional comfort, and financial support after his father, a prominent politician, disowns him.

The novel is divided into three sections, or “notebooks,” each corresponding to a period in the protagonist’s life. In the first, Yozo describes his childhood: his uneasy relationship with his father, his clownish behavior at school, and his abuse at the hands of a female servant. In the second and third sections, Yozo documents his troubled adulthood, as he abandons school for a life of drinking and illicit relationships, bouncing from one woman to the next with little regard for the harm he causes them — or himself. Framing Yozo’s story is a second narrative delivered by an unnamed author who has found three photographs of Yozo: as a child of ten, “a small boy surrounded by a great many women”; as a college student, handsome but “strangely unpleasant”; and as man in his later twenties, his hair “streaked with gray,” and his face “devoid of expression.”*

Given the novel’s enduring popularity, it’s no surprise that several manga artists have adapted Dazai’s text as a graphic novel. Their approaches have ranged from reverential — the East Press edition (2007) hews closely to the original novel — to provocative — Yasunori Ninose’s version (2010) uses tentacle-porn imagery to represent the character’s extreme emotional distress. Usamaru Furuya’s 2009 adaptation falls somewhere in between, taking liberties with the setting and structure of Dazai’s work, while preserving the original tone and events of the novel.

As these myriad approaches suggest, one of the biggest challenges of translating No Longer Human into a pictorial form is its interiority: though eventful, Yozo’s story is as much about his state of mind as his behavior. Early in the novel, for example, Yozo describes his inability to understand how other people feel and think. “I have not the remotest clue what the nature or extent of my neighbor’s woes can be,” he tells the reader. “It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people.” In a desperate attempt to camouflage his bewilderment, Yozo constructs a jovial mask, winning approval from his family members and classmates with impish behavior and remarks. “I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed,” he explains. “I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.”

Furuya makes a game effort to find visual analogues for Yozo’s interior states. Whenever Yozo feels emotionally disoriented, for example, Furuya obscures the other characters’ expressions, rendering their faces as blurs. Furuya extends this symbolic approach to Yozo’s social paralysis as well. “I was congenitally unable to refuse anything offered to me by another person, no matter how little it might suit my tastes,” Yozo confesses. “In other words, I hadn’t the strength even to choose between two alternatives.” In these passages, Furuya draws Yozo as a marionette, violently manipulated by an unseen puppeteer; as a drowning victim, disappearing under the water’s surface; and as a man engulfed in flames, so consumed by his fear of disappointing others that he surrenders his own agency.

Though Furuya follows the basic outline of Dazai’s novel, he makes two significant changes to the text. First, he moves the story from pre-war Japan to the present day, replacing the unnamed narrator with a character named Usamaru Furuya, a manga artist who discovers Yozo’s pictures on the internet. Second, Furuya streamlines the script, all but eliminating the first notebook; instead, he depicts Yozo’s childhood through a few brief, suggestive flashbacks.

The first decision makes good sense. By moving the setting from Taisho-era Japan to the present, Furuya sheds the novel’s period trappings in favor of a milieu that readers can intuitively appreciate — a world of blogs, cell-phones, high-rise apartment buildings, and other technologies that promote social isolation.

Less successful is Furuya’s decision to focus on Yozo’s adult life to the exclusion of his childhood. In the original novel, ten-year-old Yozo crosses paths with another outsider, a young boy who immediately detects the effort and strain behind Yozo’s clowning.  Fearful that Takeichi will expose his deceit to the other students, Yozo dons “the gentle beguiling smile of the false Christian,” befriending the odd, unlikeable Takeichi in an effort to buy his silence. The episode is among the most potent and revealing in the book, an early example of Yozo’s ability to manipulate others, and a rare example of him acknowledging his own agency — something he never does in the manga.

Furuya also trims another brief but important scene from the early pages of No Longer Human, in which Yozo implies that he was molested by his wealthy family’s servants. “Already by that time I had been taught a lamentable thing by the maids and menservants; I was being corrupted,” Yozo declares. “I now think that that to perpetrate such a thing on a small child is the ugliest, vilest, cruelest crime a human being can commit.” Yozo’s indifference to others’ suffering, inability to experience romantic love, and passive-aggressive behavior, suggest a pathology rooted in this formative experience. Perhaps Furuya found this passage too neatly Freudian for his purposes, but in choosing to omit it, he makes Yozo seem like just another cad who beds and discards women, rather than a wounded soul incapable of sexual intimacy.

Yet for all its shortcomings — the omissions, the obvious symbolism — Furuya’s adaptation still captures the raw power of Dazai’s original novel. In its best passages, Furuya makes us feel as dazed and lonely as Yozo himself; we appreciate how helpless he feels, though we can see how seductive — and dangerous — he can be. Furuya also manages to document the full extent of Yozo’s debauchery without eroticizing it; we are keenly aware of the emotional distance between Yozo and his sexual conquests, making these scenes feel joyless and awkward, rather than titillating in their explicitness.

In short, Furuya has found a way to transform Dazai’s sharp critique of pre-war Japanese society into a more universal text, one that raises the question, What does it mean to be human right now?

* All quotations taken from Donald Keene’s translation (New York: Penguin Books, 1958).

Review copy provided by Vertical, Inc.

NO LONGER HUMAN, VOL. 1 • NOVEL BY OSAMU DAZAI, ADAPTATION BY USAMARU FURUYA • VERTICAL, INC. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+)

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: no longer human, Osamu Dazai, Usamaru Furuya, Vertical Comics

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