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No Longer Human

Junji Ito,

Osamu Dazai (Creator),

Jocelyne Allen (Translator)

4.20 · Rating details · 2,431 ratings · 420 reviews

Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.
Plagued by a maddening anxiety, the terrible disconnect between his own concept of happiness and the joy of the rest of the world, Yozo Oba plays the clown in his dissolute life, holding up a mask for those around him as he spirals ever downward, locked arm-in-ar ...more

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Hardcover, 616 pages

Published December 17th 2019 by VIZ Media

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Jun 02, 2020 Kat rated it liked it

mixed feelings...rtc

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Apr 12, 2020 Chloe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-reads, gifted, manga

wow what a wild ride... this was a truly haunting tale

tw: rape, bullying, suicide, murder, alcoholism, addiction, cheating

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Dec 19, 2019 Sam Quixote rated it it was ok

What a bizarre and boring book! Horror manga artist Junji Ito adapts Osamu Dazai’s 1948 novel No Longer Human into comic form with mixed results. Ito’s art is fantastic as always but the story, etc.? Yeah, all of that is utter rubbish!

Apparently Dazai’s style was autobiographical fiction and I’ve never read the original book (nor ever will) so I can’t say how much of this is directly taken from the book or whether Ito added in biographical elements from Dazai’s life. But the book opens with an What a bizarre and boring book! Horror manga artist Junji Ito adapts Osamu Dazai’s 1948 novel No Longer Human into comic form with mixed results. Ito’s art is fantastic as always but the story, etc.? Yeah, all of that is utter rubbish!

Apparently Dazai’s style was autobiographical fiction and I’ve never read the original book (nor ever will) so I can’t say how much of this is directly taken from the book or whether Ito added in biographical elements from Dazai’s life. But the book opens with an alcoholic writer and his young girlfriend committing suicide by drowning, which is really how Dazai died.

So the story as far as I can tell is that a boy from a wealthy family called Yozo Oba doesn’t feel like he’s human, for no reason, and that causes him great anxiety. Being sexually abused by male and female servants probably also has something to do with it! Anyway, tragedy follows him as an extremely ugly school friend kills himself and a girl he knocks up kills her sister after he has an affair with her. He’s slightly responsible for both so he’s a bit of a shitty guy but still their actions are absurdly over the top!

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.

It didn’t help that almost nothing that happened was remotely interesting. In addition to being tedious, some episodes were simply baffling. Like when Oba, as a defence mechanism, becomes the class clown, purposely making an ass of himself for the amusement of his classmates. But the grotesque friend Takeichi says that he knows Oba is making a fool of himself on purpose, which is apparently a terrible secret that sends Oba on a mental spiral where he contemplates murdering Takeichi to protect this “secret” - what?!? Yeah, he’s being an ass on purpose - so what?! Maybe it’s a cultural thing or has something to do with the era but I totally failed to grasp the significance of this.

Ito’s art though is wonderfully gruesome. I may never have understood what Oba’s problem was but I definitely felt his fear with Ito’s parade of bloated talking corpses, vengeful ghosts and insect people. The nightmare imagery from the suicide attempt on the beach in Chapter 7 (which also really happened to Dazai) was really terrifying.

It’s worth flicking through No Longer Human for the art but don’t torture yourself reading the dull, go-nowhere, overlong story. As far as I can tell it’s about a wretched, cowardly failure, who happens to be blessed with good looks, wandering through a directionless life, being miserable for the sake of being miserable until he finally makes a suicide attempt work. If this is the best thing Osamu Dazai wrote, it’s no wonder he’s unknown outside of Japan. ...more

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Apr 17, 2020 Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: gn-psych, gn-lit-based, books-loved-2020, manga-seinen

"Hell is other people"--Sartre

I just happened to read this profound and depressing book during the Covid 19 crisis, with tens of thousands of people already dead. What is sometimes described as Osamu Dazai's suicide note, this autobiographical novel, seen as one of the great Japanese literary feats, No Longer Human (1948) is the story of Oba Yozo, a literary doppleganger of the author; the manga, over 600 pages long, is a terrific feat in itself, what I have read to be a pretty faithful adaptati "Hell is other people"--Sartre

I just happened to read this profound and depressing book during the Covid 19 crisis, with tens of thousands of people already dead. What is sometimes described as Osamu Dazai's suicide note, this autobiographical novel, seen as one of the great Japanese literary feats, No Longer Human (1948) is the story of Oba Yozo, a literary doppleganger of the author; the manga, over 600 pages long, is a terrific feat in itself, what I have read to be a pretty faithful adaptation of the original by horror manga-ka Junji Ito.

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.

Oba is himself haunted by ghosts in his daily life, so he draws mostly ghosts, so you can see the attraction to the supernatural for Ito. Oba/Dasai was derided by his father throughout his life. He was told he was a failure for doing manga and told the honorable thing he should do would be to commit suicide, which in fact he/Dasai attempted a few times.

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 am not recommending that in a time of profound mental health challenges that one should read this book. I'm a fan of Ito, I like probing psychological portraits, and this one seems in a family of Kafka's "Metamorphosis," Melville's "Bartelby the Scivener," Hamlet, all manner of tortured, (male) suicidal souls. Not easy to read. Not for young people. Sexually explicit. Yet beautifully, masterfully rendered by one of the world's greatest artists of an anguished literary classic. A great adaptation of a great book about the complexity of the human soul.

...more

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Jan 19, 2020 The Artisan Geek added it

------------------VIDEO REVIEW------------------

12/2/20
Did a video on Osamu Dazai, the novel and the manga adaptation :)

20/1/20
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 re ...more

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Mar 31, 2020 L.S. Popovich rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror, manga, 4-star

Oddly, this is not the only manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel. It is the only adaptation you will need, but it is not necessarily easier to read than the original. It is 600 pages of interrelated scenes, and masterful, atmospheric artwork, which require just as much concentration as any piece of Japanese literature. Junji Ito tackled heavy, mature themes for this one, and departed from his usual scare tactics to introduce us to the deep storytelling and psychological strain characteristic Oddly, this is not the only manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel. It is the only adaptation you will need, but it is not necessarily easier to read than the original. It is 600 pages of interrelated scenes, and masterful, atmospheric artwork, which require just as much concentration as any piece of Japanese literature. Junji Ito tackled heavy, mature themes for this one, and departed from his usual scare tactics to introduce us to the deep storytelling and psychological strain characteristic of the important novelist.

Far denser and more consistent than Ito's other long works (Tomie, Uzumaki, and Gyo) it resembles his adaptation of Frankenstein in some ways. It is of course dark and somber, creepy and lurid, demented and nightmarish. Only by reading thousands of pages of his work was I able to come to a decision on how I felt about Junji Ito's method. In short, I grew to love it over time. The subject matter of No Longer Human is some of the most difficult imaginable. We are faced with the demons of the human heart over and over, through the reprehensible actions of one of the least likable main characters of all time. I've read other Dazai works, and from what I can tell, his themes are not always quite this pessimistic. It is about the loss of what makes us human - our compassion for others. Only by subsuming the selfish urge to constantly fulfill our unreasonable desires can we become truly human. It takes effort to look past the horrid behavior of the characters and see the underlying message.

Using the text from the translation of the novel by Donald Richie, this is a fairly faithful adaptation. And a literary one. Junji Ito appears to have taken the subject seriously and set out to craft a nuanced, complex portrait of a man, surrounded by the mostly well-meaning women, through which he discovers the appetites and weaknesses in himself, that lead to his ruin. It is a painful story at times, but human weakness, death, anger and jealousy are all profoundly important aspects of our species. Dazai posits that humans cannot define themselves except in relation to other people. Many of his views might be considered old-fashioned today, but the deep understanding of some of the fundamental aspects of humanity can still be widely appreciated. This is not a work for children, and perhaps young adults will also have to struggle to detach themselves from the surface level lust, grit and angst of the graphic novel. Being an adult offers experience, in my opinion, which at least in my case, allows me to regard a work of art as a product of a life lived and transposed. It wasn't until I aged that I felt experience entering into art. Talent is one thing, experience is another. There is a wide range of experience here, even if the emotions verge on the animalistic. ...more

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Mar 01, 2020 Kate rated it really liked it

Shelves: manga-comics-and-graphic-novels, read-in-2020

4/5stars

Same rating as I gave the original novel, but for VERY different reasons.

This was an incredibly interesting adaptation, where Ito was not only transforming the original literature into a new medium (manga aka a visual medium) but also into a new literary genre (from lit fic to horror). I thought Ito did a wonderful job of both adaptations, EXCEPT that I found the pacing very odd. The entirety of the novel was almost completely done in the first half of this manga, and then Ito zeroed in ...more

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Oct 19, 2019 Harry Jahnke rated it it was amazing

I feel like you could teach an entire college course on this book. This was...good. Good and sad and horrifying and terrible and just so damn good. I want to make this a book club pick just so I can have a group to discuss it with. I loved the rawness of this book, the unforgiving sharp edges of it. Highly recommend.

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Jul 19, 2020 Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) rated it it was ok

Shelves: horror, manga

2.5 Stars
It kills me to rate a Junji Ito book this low, but I really disliked the story that he adapted. His artwork was strong, but the story didn’t lend itself well to his weird style. This is a story of depressed, mentally ill man with a troubled past full of sexual abuse. Sadly, I cannot recommend it.

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Dec 21, 2019 Orrin Grey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: manga

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.

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 te ...more

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Feb 07, 2020 Christopher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: manga, horror, sad, alcoholism, drugs, graphic-novel, fiction

Well then.

Once there was a horrible man. Growing up in an oppressive household, experiencing sexual trauma at a young age, a boy becomes a clown as a means of hiding all that is within him. This becomes a shield but a sword too, for his incessant hiding evolves into compulsive lying. He never wants to rock the boat, but he instead punctures the hull. This trait, this defense mechanism becomes his driving force, leading to a life of choiceless indecision. There is a purpose inside him, but he nev Well then.

Once there was a horrible man. Growing up in an oppressive household, experiencing sexual trauma at a young age, a boy becomes a clown as a means of hiding all that is within him. This becomes a shield but a sword too, for his incessant hiding evolves into compulsive lying. He never wants to rock the boat, but he instead punctures the hull. This trait, this defense mechanism becomes his driving force, leading to a life of choiceless indecision. There is a purpose inside him, but he never realizes it because he never lets himself... be. He is too easily swayed by others. Too easily caught up in mischief. Too easily seduced.

This story chronicles this sad man's life. His spineless nature leads him from one tragedy to another. As the title suggests, the ultimate realization of all of this is that he is no longer human. My interpretation is that he lacks humanity because he lacks that which makes humans human. I've heard it argued (I believe it was Sartre) that what differentiates humans from the animals is that we humans have direct agency over ourselves. We can will ourselves to accomplish things, both large and small. Animals, on the other hand, are forever driven by base survival instincts. They do not create for the sake of creation. They do not purposefully plan. They don't set goals. They exist purely in the moment, feeding whatever base desire is the most pressing.

That is Yozo Oba in this story. He is tragic because he lacks agency over himself. There is a conversation in the book about whether human life is comic or tragic. They decide that it is ultimately comedy. If he were truly human, then his misfortunes could be seen as a collection of mishaps, of accidents, and comedy could be one means of understanding such a life of misfortune. But instead, our protagonist lacks humanity. He is tragic through and through. Nothing is accidental, but it is instead directly caused by his lack of direction and agency. If he had only made choices, if he had only followed through with anything, so much of his troubled life would have been better, and those moments of misfortune could be reflected upon through a lens of comedy. But no. Not here. Not for this man.

I didn't like the character. I despised him. I felt sorry for him, though. I continuously hoped he would change, but eventually I realized he couldn't.

There is a lot to take away from a book like this. ...more

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Nov 23, 2020 Hayley rated it it was amazing

This was a very dark, very hard read. Junji Ito's illustrations are brilliant as always. This is going to be another one that I have trouble recommending but it really is great. ...more

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Mar 11, 2020 Armand rated it really liked it

Shelves: graphic-novel, transgressive, read-2020

This graphic novel is a departure from Ito's trademark narratives, interpreting as it does a Dazai classic that stands as one of the best-ever selling books in Japan. While the original seems to have focused on the sadness and pathos that marked the existential crisis that our lead (who seems to have been patterned after Dazai himself) labored under, true to Ito's style this book lets the horrors and absurdities of his experiences take the limelight.

I can't help but feel for Yozo. As a kid, he h This graphic novel is a departure from Ito's trademark narratives, interpreting as it does a Dazai classic that stands as one of the best-ever selling books in Japan. While the original seems to have focused on the sadness and pathos that marked the existential crisis that our lead (who seems to have been patterned after Dazai himself) labored under, true to Ito's style this book lets the horrors and absurdities of his experiences take the limelight.

I can't help but feel for Yozo. As a kid, he had an uneasy, pessimistic streak that he tried to hide under a buffoonish exterior, a mask that he soon regarded as tiresome but which he felt he can never take off. The abuse he suffered from lecherous servants must have cemented in his mind how untrustworthy and scary people generally are.

It's a good thing he didn't end up a twisted sociopath, though there were instances when he was teetering on the edge of that abyss. He did become dissipated, profligate, and keen to keep bad company - vices that only worsened as time went by.

He inadvertently(?) caused the demise of a few people, whose ghosts haunt him at the most inopportune times. It seemed like death and the love of women came to him easily, like a song that broke the monotonous buzz of despair and dread that continually consumed him. With such a fair face, he can't help being a lady's man. It may have served his women better if they took a more critical peek at his art, if only to see the demons he was harboring within. This is one of the exceedingly few works I've read that deal with a Grade A homme fatal.

Still I can't help but root for him. If you've undergone a spiritual malaise just like our lead, you'd understand the prodigious effort it takes to rise from all that weakness and pain. There's one point where it seems like he really had a chance. Question is - will his Beatrice be able to save her Dante?

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.

I'm rating this 8/10 or 4 stars out of 5. ...more

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Feb 05, 2020 Vincenzo Bilof rated it it was amazing

A masterpiece. Period.

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Dec 16, 2019 Helen rated it did not like it

Shelves: manga

I'm a fan of Ito's previous works but this adaption just felt so obtuse and strange for him. The content was completely gross sometimes (and not in his usual horror way!). It prominently features child sexual abuse. The main character is an awful person who made me want to shut the book and walk away from it. I would not suggest this work to others. ...more

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Jan 04, 2021 Mindi rated it really liked it

Review to follow...

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Sep 29, 2020 Rachel rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020, comics

Well, I had the same reaction to this as I do to all Ito: why the fuck did I read that, NEVER AGAIN, thank god it's over and simultaneously omg I love it I cannot WAIT to reread I need to own this and put it on a very tall shelf jk my Ito collection is front and center OMG it's brilliant MOAR PLZ.

However! Let the record show that this is a book that demands some form of self-blitzing (read: weed) to be even bearable, especially if you're a queerdo with complicated lady feelings, because Ito lov ...more

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Jan 16, 2020 Nore rated it it was ok

Shelves: manga

While I appreciated Ito's ability to make this spooky without any monsters, I found that this reflected the source material a little too closely, so to speak - my god, the misogyny! Why take responsibility when you can blame a woman, right?

On top of that, I couldn't help but have flashbacks to the first time I read The Great Gatsby and reeled at how deeply unlikable the main character was, how little I could identify with his struggles when most of them were made by his own hand and were easily ...more

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Mar 16, 2020 Sam rated it liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels, japanese-writers

This is my first encounter with Junji Ito and Osamu Dazai. I have not read Dazai's No Longer Human prior to this, but it is still on my list to read after completing this adaptation.

What I appreciated:
- The full circle with the Tamagawa Canal
- Artwork

What I disliked:
- Fairly pornographic (not sure if the original is written this way)
- Repetitive

The beginning and most of the end were very good, but pieces that I would believe to be important to understanding someone's anxiety, depression, ...more

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Dec 07, 2020 Rachel Kathryn Wright rated it really liked it

3.5/5 ⭐️
•
I have recently started loving Junji Ito’s works starting with Gyo and then Frankenstein. This one confused me a bit. His art style is so beautiful and horrifying that it is great. And I generally love his storytelling but this one didn’t do the same for me. I was often very confused and it didn’t help when another character came in that looked similar to the main character. Another problem was that this book was that this book was a wild ride for so much happened, it was almost nonstop ...more

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Jul 28, 2020 Katelyn rated it it was amazing

This was astoundingly amazing.

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Jan 21, 2020 Doug rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-on-dead-trees, graphic-novel, literature-with-a-lowercase-l

A manga adaptation/expansion of a classic Japanese novel in the "diseased liver" genre [to riff upon Dostoevsky's Notes from the Undeground], perhaps best associated with A Catcher in the Rye or The Bell-Jar here in the States, though neither of those really hit upon the degree of depression and depravity suffered here in this take on the tale. Think more Hubert Selby Jr, maybe, only moreso, since Ito takes Osamu Dazai's fairly short novel and dives deeper and further into diseased livers than D A manga adaptation/expansion of a classic Japanese novel in the "diseased liver" genre [to riff upon Dostoevsky's Notes from the Undeground], perhaps best associated with A Catcher in the Rye or The Bell-Jar here in the States, though neither of those really hit upon the degree of depression and depravity suffered here in this take on the tale. Think more Hubert Selby Jr, maybe, only moreso, since Ito takes Osamu Dazai's fairly short novel and dives deeper and further into diseased livers than Dazai ever did: including many additions of death, violence, weirdness, and so forth. Then he draws strange tongues and odd faces to drive it home.

A man from a well-to-do family in Japan—Yozo Oba—handles familial duties/expectations, and the trauma of being sexually molested by servants when just a kid, by acting the part of the joker: hiding his trauma and notable talents under the guise of a silly class-clown and overall ineffectual person. This joker persona degrades over time into drinking, drugs, bad decisions, and tons of sex (and tons of bad decisions about sex and relationships in general). Oba occasionally reaches a point where self-preservation or self-awareness kick in, but they tend to barely scratch the general decline and user/abuser personality. Questionable decisions about friends top off this terrible sex-filled life-of-errors. Which culminates in...well, no spoilers, but do not begin reading if you expect it will feature a Dickensian turn-around and blossoming.

To what degree you can tolerate such "diseased liver" protagonists will determine largely how well you can take this graphic novel. There is very little retribution for Oba, and very little respite for the reader. If this anti-Gump, a feckless man who stumbles upon a series of mis/fortunes with very little in the way of active agency except at the worst times, sounds like something that would irritate you, this novel as a whole will irritate you.

Itos's addition of Oba meeting Osamu Dazai in a mental institution and the two of them discussing their own various failures and dreams (and since Oba is basically a stand-in for Dazai, it is largely the concept of meeting the self) is perhaps the high point of the adaptation, since it provides a rare glimpse of sanity. Some of Ito's other additions/changes are more mixed. Ito's highly influential horror-stylings bleed through in some hallucinations, as well as in other scenes (generally representing Oba's failing grasp on reality in his lesser moments). While this helps to establish a mood, it has a way of imposing on the reader/viewer. The addition of several deaths, some quite "horror"-styled, and additional relationships alter the overall flow and meaning of the novel. For example, the romance with the pharmacist alludes to something barely addressed in the original novel (and implied to be there mostly as a way to get drugs) but adds a bittersweet moment of further self-destruction to the graphic novel. It changes the path of Oba's downfall and what it ultimately means (turning it more into a longing for a kindred spirit, rather than a seeking of self-dissolution), though both end with the same sort of anti-epiphany.

Ito's work stands well its own, but it is not really Dazai's novel anymore (possibly some of these elements are from other novels by Dazai, or reference to Dazai's life, I am not sure).

Furthermore, in some scenes, the additions add some unnecessary "ick". In a scene where Oba's wife is being raped, Ito draws the scene as much more consensual with Ito-esque squelch, which is off-putting (it is perhaps meant as an explanation as to why Oba did not intervene to help her, and later blames her). Since the unreliable nature of Oba's take on reality is central to Ito's version, this is arguably at play, but it is a poor addition. As is the use of a female antagonist at the end of the novel no matter how justified in context. Since there was a distinct turning point about personal responsibility (going beyond the source novel), this feels like a relapse as much as anything. For Ito as well as Oba.

This graphic novel is good and makes an intriguing take/rewrite of the original No Longer Human, including going deeper with some of the concepts/themes than the original. It is a nice change of pace for Ito, as much as it is a change of pace, and I'd be up for seeing more. Fans of Ito might be put off by the not-pure-horror aspect, while fans of the source might be put off by the not-not-horror. It is something sort of new, but not quite new. Enjoyed, but I'm not sure to whom I would wholeheartedly recommend. ...more

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Dec 14, 2019 Samuel Edme rated it it was amazing

Shelves: auto-biography, philosophical-literature, favorites

Note: I haven't read the original 1948 novel by Osamu Dazai. Therefore, I cannot draw any comparisons between it and this manga adaptation.

Synopsis: No Longer Human is a semi-autobiographical work chronicling the harrowing life and times of Oba Yozo, a literary facsimile of the author himself.

My Thoughts: Well plowing through this book was an uncanny experience which I would consider similar to riding on a train derailing into a deep abyss where everything seems to keep getting worse for our mai Note: I haven't read the original 1948 novel by Osamu Dazai. Therefore, I cannot draw any comparisons between it and this manga adaptation.

Synopsis: No Longer Human is a semi-autobiographical work chronicling the harrowing life and times of Oba Yozo, a literary facsimile of the author himself.

My Thoughts: Well plowing through this book was an uncanny experience which I would consider similar to riding on a train derailing into a deep abyss where everything seems to keep getting worse for our main character to no end as he becomes more and more entwined in the suffocating, thorny branches of his crippling depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and overflowing orgy of sexual encounters, each of which regresses him steps backward and unfold another aspect of his repressed insecurities and personal moral conflicts. Many of the events depicted here were so shocking that I had to constantly remind myself this was a part-autobiography. Junji Ito's graphically detailed macabre art made it all the more unsettling insofar as to making me gag which was further exacerbated by the fact I went through this right after reading Junji's other work Uzumaki (which was pretty heavy on the body horror) while overindulging on confectionaries. Not to veer off-topic, the artwork especially shined throughout the hallucination sequences where Oba was figuratively fighting his internal demons contributing to his self-destructive lifestyle. Oba's ties with Marxism didn't help and neither did his profession as a manga artist, something which was heavily stigmatized at the time (and still is to an extent to this day much like comics/graphic novels) due to how many people didn't see it as "a real profession". When I finished the story, it left me with a surprisingly bleak impression akin to the bloody hollowness of a bullet to the chest in a good, mature way of speaking.

Final Thoughts: In conclusion, all I can say is well-written gems like this prove that manga can be and is more profound and complex than what you see in shonen or magical girl tales. I would recommend this to anybody looking for a literary manga. A word of warning to the more sensitive readers here, the book does contain quite a handful of graphic sex scenes and violence including an early one involving child molestation (it's only a few panels long but still is heavy-handed). ...more

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Nov 01, 2019 Y.S. Stephen rated it really liked it

Though it doesn't position itself as such, I would still love to describe No Longer Human as a moral tale of some sorts. The work here lays bare some of the less-trodden (at least in fiction) paths on the nature of human interaction - with the world and within ourselves.

Not many fictional works espoused the demerits of self-subjugation and false humility. No Longer Human, through its protagonist, lays bare the downfall of raising other people's opinions above yours, not following your own intui ...more

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Jan 08, 2020 Keith rated it it was amazing

Some of Dazai’s subtler neurotic shadings morph, as one might expect, into grotesque phantasms in Ito’s adaptation. But for the most part the images lend a welcome visceral quality to the narrator’s spiraling spiritual crisis. The central idea—that one can, despite wealth, looks, and talent, nonetheless feel like an imposter; that “being human” isn’t at all a natural or spontaneous act, but something learned and mimicked; that failing to properly perform one’s role effectively disqualifies one a ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 Tokio Myers rated it it was amazing

Shelves: manga-read, favorites

So, I am just going to say it, I love this manga...well I love this in a way that you can when the main topic of the book is about how depression can destroy you and leave you with nothing but misery and death.......but other than that, love this book.

Now this is a perfect example of a literary manga and I would have to say is the best literary manga I have read. This is also not a good example of a Junji Ito manga. If you are a Junji Ito fan you will most likely hate this book, and it has noth So, I am just going to say it, I love this manga...well I love this in a way that you can when the main topic of the book is about how depression can destroy you and leave you with nothing but misery and death.......but other than that, love this book.

Now this is a perfect example of a literary manga and I would have to say is the best literary manga I have read. This is also not a good example of a Junji Ito manga. If you are a Junji Ito fan you will most likely hate this book, and it has nothing to do with Ito himself. This manga is an adaptation of a well known author in Japan who must have had a ton of baggage to write this. I also must read his works now.

I think this is a perfect example of how depression hurts someone who has it all. The main character, Oba, seems to have it all. He is born into wealth, is extremely handsome, and is talented, yet he is consumed by the darkness that overwhelms his mind to the point that eating is something that takes effort for him. He tries to be normal without ever feeling normal. Yes, he is abused in many ways, but he already seemed troubled before the abuse. There is also a sense of Oba being a bad person but unable to see it for himself, and when he does he can't do anything about it. That his own pain is blinding him of what he is doing to others which I felt was powering. I received the same sense of this power in The Catcher in the Rye, when a person is so deep into their mind that they become unaware of their actions. What I also found powerful was the one time Oba does something seemingly good it COMPLETELY BACKFIRES. His decision helped no one in the end and only left him as a husk of everything he was.

Now, onto the art. You CANNOT go wrong with Junji Ito. He has a way of encapsulating even the most mundane fears into something real and haunting. In this manga it is no different. He shows the very real fear of abuse at a young age and the danger of losing yourself to drugs and alcohol and eventual death. I have never felt so much fear for so many boobs until this manga.

Now, would I recommend this manga? No, not really. Yes, I loved it, and yes it's now on my favorites list, but its for a very unique crowd of people and that crowd will have very mixed feelings about it. Most would probably say the themes of this manga are too on the nose and there is no plot and the character is a major asshat which to me is kinda the point. Manga has to be on the nose for the most part. Yet, I can see where all the negative reviews are coming from. There is better literature out there that highlights the same things in this manga, but I do not think there is a manga that highlights these seems so well, but I can't really see myself recommending this to anyone. Maybe an art student? I don't know. ...more

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Nov 09, 2020 Chaunceton Bird rated it really liked it

Shelves: terrorize-y-all-s-neighborhood

Can't go wrong with Junji Ito. This had some good creepiness to it, and although it wasn't as horrific as some of his other disturbing works, it definitely pulls the reader into the darkness and devastation of a brutal true story. ...more

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Jan 05, 2020 Kate (Looking Glass Reads) rated it liked it

Shelves: review-copy, horror, manga

The latest manga from Junji Ito is somewhat different from his usual fare. No Longer Human by Junji Ito is Ito’s take on Osamu Dazai’s novel of the same title. A character study more than true horror, this story is filled more with commentary on the human psyche than the monsters and ghosts that frequent Ito’s pages.

The story centers around a character named Yozo Oba, following him from childhood throughout his life. A man of many anxieties, terrible things always happen to him, most often as a The latest manga from Junji Ito is somewhat different from his usual fare. No Longer Human by Junji Ito is Ito’s take on Osamu Dazai’s novel of the same title. A character study more than true horror, this story is filled more with commentary on the human psyche than the monsters and ghosts that frequent Ito’s pages.

The story centers around a character named Yozo Oba, following him from childhood throughout his life. A man of many anxieties, terrible things always happen to him, most often as a consequence of his own misdeeds and poor decision making. He is a man of many faces, an expert at knowing what face others (probably) want to see, but abysmal at being his own person and allowing himself to find true happiness.

Dazai’s tale is one that is semi-autobiographical, making it all the more horrifying. Having the line between fiction and reality blurred in this work makes the tale all the more uncomfortable, and not in the usual ways horror plays on the mind. No Longer Human is the tale of a rather despicable person. This isn’t the sort of main character a reader roots for, but instead someone whose comeuppance you wish to see occur.

Ito’s are style does add to the story. There isn’t any sugar coating here. The psychosis of a broken mind is played out in true horror. The twisting faces and signature style of Ito’s art adds to the elements of wrongness, grotesqueness, and terror of Oba and those he surrounds himself with. It is quite interesting to see how a horror writer interprets the genre of ‘terrible people doing terrible things.’ The line between character study, autobiography, and horror is terrifyingly thin.

Yet, the novel Ito has chosen to depict as manga isn’t quite his normal fare in a genre sense. Some readers aren’t going to have their attention held for the entirety of the 600+ page manga. This is a very slice of life styled story in a genre that touches on but isn’t quite horror, after all. Reading about such a dislikable individual for so many hundreds of pages can grow tedious, no matter how wonderful the art may be. If you aren’t a fan of character studies, slice of life, or ‘terrible people doing terrible things’ this might be a manga you want to borrow from the library first to see if you enjoy it.

While I see more people purchasing this book to complete their Junji Ito collection than for the subject matter, there are some interesting points here. No Longer Human by Junji Ito bears an interesting use of artistic horror in telling the story of a truly despicable person – both in the horrors within his mind and those he comes to perpetrate himself.

I received this manga from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This review originally found on Looking Glass Reads. ...more

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Feb 16, 2020 Delaney Felix rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020-reads, 2020-releases

This was definitely difficult for me to get to, and not just because it's Ito and his art can be very disturbing, but this one dealt with a lot of difficult subjects.
I enjoyed it over all, and the art style will always be one of my favorites. ...more

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Oct 21, 2020 Brian O'Connell rated it it was amazing

Shelves: comics, horror

This exceptionally bleak work, adapted from Osamu Dazai’s 1948 novel-cum-suicide-note (which I am now dying to read), marks a change in subject for Itō, best known for his phenomenally grotesque and lurid horror manga. Upon its announcement, the book elicited much chatter: why this sudden shift at this stage in his career? Was the master of gruesome fantasy really up to adapting a notoriously depressing psychological I-novel ?

Well, I can say I loved it. I think it’s one of his best works—maybe e This exceptionally bleak work, adapted from Osamu Dazai’s 1948 novel-cum-suicide-note (which I am now dying to read), marks a change in subject for Itō, best known for his phenomenally grotesque and lurid horror manga. Upon its announcement, the book elicited much chatter: why this sudden shift at this stage in his career? Was the master of gruesome fantasy really up to adapting a notoriously depressing psychological I-novel ?

Well, I can say I loved it. I think it’s one of his best works—maybe even my favorite—despite several prominent flaws that adversely affect the overall quality. Let’s get these out of the way now. The first is what seems to be Itō’s general discomfort or awkwardness with the subtlety of the material; he evinces, especially in the earlier chapters, an over-reliance on hallucinatory horror imagery to convey his point. While to be expected in the translation of abstract ideas to visual adaptation and certainly beautifully illustrated, it does sometimes feel like Itō is falling back on comfortable territory, as if he’s unsure of how to handle the more nuanced psychological qualities of the story. These sequences, however, become much more natural and integrated in the latter half of the volume, culminating in a truly stunning descent into hell that ranks among the most impressive passages in Itō’s entire oeuvre, so I ultimately didn’t really mind. The second flaw is the introduction of a clumsy plotline, apparently not present in Dazai’s original novel, involving a love triangle (or quadrangle) between the protagonist, two sisters, and his malformed friend: an enormously over-the-top and obviously contrived scenario that jars badly with the more complex and subdued relationships explored in other parts of the volume. I have no idea why this narrative element was introduced. Aside from being tonally wacky compared to everything else, its recurrence near the end brings outright misogyny into the text; while misogyny is a core theme explored across the entire book, the portrayal of women themselves is sympathetic and not misogynistic, except for the women in this particular story thread. This is the graphic novel’s major flaw, and a severely disappointing one at that.

So those are the weaknesses. But what strengths to compensate! The art is some of the most accomplished and expressive of Itō’s career; every face is distinct, memorable, and beautifully delineated. In several remarkable splashes and spreads, he transposes the unsettling technique of his body horror illustrations onto the human visage itself, rendering the mundane surreally terrifying and infusing even calm settings with a sense of existential dread. His renderings of Yozo’s paintings must be seen to be believed. The narrative itself is devastating and haunting, an undiluted shot of absolute despair that is overwhelmingly bitter but compulsively readable. It is nothing short of mesmerizing to watch Yozo’s ceaseless self-destructive spiral into anguish: the way he hurts himself, the way he hurts the women around him, and the non-stop psychic hell he bears with him every day. And there is just something very gratifying about seeing Itō’s approach to more explicitly mature subject matter: sex and sexual violence, drug use, politics, history, and predatory interpersonal relationships (which, to be fair, is already implicit in some of his earlier works). It’s a remarkable book, with a shattering cumulative effect that will linger indelibly in the reader’s mind. I actually hope it marks the start of a new phase in Itō’s career. I can’t wait to see what he does next. ...more

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About Junji Ito

Junji Ito

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Junji Itō (伊藤潤二) Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner o Junji Itō (伊藤潤二) Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner of the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.

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.

Ito's universe is also very cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.

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.

Before Uzumaki, Ito was best known for Tomie, a comic series about a beautiful, teasing and eternally youthful high school girl who inspires her stricken admirers to murder each other in fits of jealous rage. Eventually, unable to cope with her coy flirtation and their desire to possess Tomie completely, they are inevitably compelled to kill her — only to discover that, regardless of the method they chose to dispose of her body, her body will always regenerate.

In 1998, during the horror boom that followed the success of Ringu, Tomie was adapted into a movie. Since Tomie, many of his works have been adapted for TV and the cinema. ...more