A review by sweetsxrrxw
No Longer Human by Junji Ito

dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

i decided to read the manga right after finishing dazai's book, as there were some things that i couldn't still understand.

horror is not a genre that i really like. in fact, i tend to avoid it. im also super sensitive to blood and im not much into smut (written or drawn) since this is a manga, the author portrayed some of the triggering things in dazai's version in a more detailed way.however, i must admit his artstyle is really good!

i am not going to give a full plot review once again but i'd like to highlight some things:
  • the changes in the plot allowed to give some side characters, such as yozo's wife or his dad in more depth; he also introduced new ones. i am guessing they could have perfect fit in the original story.
  • however some choices left me feeling ??? such as
    making dazai a character himself (he looked a bit too much like yozo btw) or the mc having a kid with his cousin and finally going to live with them? (maybe that was the right thing to do but yeah) and the fact that the kid looked exactly like his classmate who killed himself, partly because of yozo? or killing his wife and the pharmacist by the end???
  • even though the artist kept some important monologues, i feel like turning this story into a manga erased some other relevant ones. despite that, i liked how he added some scenes to recreate in a better way the mc's anxiety.

all in all, i can recognize it was good but it was not my cup of tea. i definitely recommend reading the original book first and then reading the manga!
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