Ric: Late again, late again.

Anyway, this week we have more from Aoi Bungaku for you all (Sorry about missing last week’s episode), this time with a little more mindfuck, what with the blob-monster popping up here and there.

Okay, last week Youzou was taken in from hospital and since has started living with [Name I have forgotten] and her daughter.

Everything seems fine, as if he had lived there for years until he goes to do the dishes, somehow making him see flashbacks of Mayumi’s death again.

After this, we go over to Youzou and [Name's] daughter drawing a rabbit…thing; Anyway, the little girl calls Youzou “Dad”, in a rather cute scene that near establishes them as something of a family for good ol’ Light-a-like.

Of course, if this series has taught us anything, it’s that touching moments shall not be allowed to last, with Youzou being once again toyed with by blobman’s reappearance on the back of an already bizarre looking sign. (Seriously, it looks like an upside-down Troll doll.)

This leads to a flashback of his dad in a mask belittling him again and generally being an asshat for (yet again) no real reason.

After this, Youzou comes to the conclusion that he wants to earn his own money, so with a clever suggestion from [Name], he decides to start drawing manga.

[Name] takes his drawings to an editor, who agrees to use the manga while allowing Youzou to remain anonymous at [Name's] request.

Anyway, it seems that Youzou is better than we may have thought, his work actually turning out to sell rather well, going by the fact that his “daughter” picked it up in a shop (Which, as anime logic dictates, makes it a bestseller.)

As Youzou and [Name] discuss his paycheck, we get this little gem.

For a while, Youzou seems to be living quite happily, even being able to tell blobman to go away when he appears in the mirror (Somehow the incredibly creepy blob from last episode is now scared of a ball of paper?). Makes me feel sorry for the poor thing. :’[

 

Anyway, Youzou’s theatrically adept friend reappears at the door, scaring [Daughter] (Not that I’m surprised) a little. [T.A.F] notes that she called Youzou “dad” and makes jokes about society not accepting Youzou fooling around with women.

Youzou being Youzou of course, takes this in a bizarre sort of way, but doesn’t get to act on it before [T.A.F] tells him that there’s a journalist looking for him.

Youzou angry face GET.

Anyway, Youzou’s “friend” manages to get money out of Youzou, his way of cashing in on what happened, I suppose.

Unfortunately, Youzou breaks down after this, becoming obsessed with “Society”, this made worse by what his editor tries to convince him to do.

Asshole editor guy tries to get poor Youzou to write what happened on the night of the attempted double suicide because “society wants to hear about it” (Pretty piss-poor reasoning if you ask me, but oh well.), causing our protagonist to fall deeper into his own insanity.

When he leaves, Youzou sees a young woman sitting in a shop, and for some reason runs away, terrified of her and ends up in front of a bar.

As a result of this, he goes inside and has a drunken one-night stand with a random barmaid.

Anyway, after his little drunken trip, Youzou buys some matches and then goes home.

Also, the daughter now has a name (Shigeko), which we learn after she adorably hugs “daddy” when he arrives home.

Unfortunately, Shigeko has heard about what happened with Youzou, causing the poor man to see his blob coming down the stairs.

Youzou then runs off and ends up at the bar again. Wonderful, right back where we started.

Anyway, it turns out that Youzou’s father has collapsed. Youzou’s “friend” gives him some money that was supposedly from Youzou’s brother, but Youzou decides that he can’t go back until he’s “A good enough artist to impress his father”.

So he uses the money to go out drinking. Again.

Finally reaching the end of his tether after a night of drinking, Youzou collapses in the snow…somewhere.

Anyway, while stuck in his own despair, Youzou is “visited” by three ghosts the woman that who sold him the matches earlier.

Youzou asks if she recognises him, calling himself a monster; She does not agree, saying that he doesn’t look like a monster.

So, Youzou tells the woman that he killed a woman, that he has no right to live.

She doesn’t believe him, recognising him only as the author of a child’s manga; thinking that he’s just making up stories, or that she’s just misunderstanding; Youzou replies, saying that the people of society all say that he killed a woman.

This seems to give Youzou some confidence back for now, although at the cost of his “family”.

Episode 4:

Well, for some reason before this episode, we get treated to an appearance from…”Announcer Guy”, telling us what this story was really based on, which is kinda cool, really. He also tells us that this is the last part of the No Longer Human storyline.

 

 

Anyway, it seems that Youzou has married the woman with the umbrella from the last episode, as you would expect with a timeskip.

Also, the guy at the door is Horiki, Youzou’s friend from earlier who now has a name. (So he is a salesman~<3)

Youzou appears after hearing what was going on and happily welcomes Horiki inside.

 

Horiki has cut his hair. This…can’t be good news.

Horiki and Youzou go upstairs to discuss things (Easy, fangirls, it’s not that kind of “discussion”.), almost immediately Horiki notices the drawings of blobman on the table; shocking him somewhat. Before Horiki can ask about Youzou’s manga, Youzou interupts, asking his wife to bring up some sake for the two of them.

Horiki and Youzou get onto the subject of Youzou’s new wife, Youzou calling her his “Goddess” because she’s able to trust a man like him.

 

We’re treated to a quick flashback of Youzou proposing in…what may be the most bizarre way I’ve ever seen that didn’t involve ropes. (Don’t ask.)

Naturally, she slaps him for asking such a question. (1936 or not, I would be worried if she didn’t.)

Youzou tells her that he’ll stop drinking if she marries him, although how this gets her to agree is anyone’s guess, all things considered.

As it turns out, to get the money needed to rent their home, Youzou decided to make a manga out of the double suicide.

Of course, this being Youzou, we’re treated to the arrival of all the women he slept with over the years in ghost form.

During this particular scene, Youzou and the blob-man finally appear as the same person, his editor urging him on from behind saying that “Society really wants to hear about this!”. Youzou apparently thinks that this is true happiness.

Horiki raises the excellent point that the readers will eventually want more and that work will not keep up forever. Youzou being Youzou of course says that it’s all mostly lies and that he can just write whatever he likes.

Yoshiko brings up the sake, telling Youzou that his boss is downstairs. Happy!Youzou of course tells Yoshiko to get the man to wait. That can’t end well.

Oh, the boss loosened his tie, now it really can’t end well.

Yes, that was Horiki dropping a bomb onto Youzou, telling him that his father, who, asshole as he was, Youzou had done everything to try to impress.

From this scene, I can only assume that Youzou has finally died, being united with “himself” finally in the end and leaving his misery behind.

Anyway, in conclusion, I have to say that despite how much I poked fun at it, I really enjoyed this arc, it was fantastically written, the characters were engaging and it envoked genuine emotion when I watched it, something that most shows are unable to do nowadays; and the music, damn, was it good! Hopefully, this keeps up for the next arc of this series keeps up this quality.

Overall Rating for Episode 3: 8/10
Overall Rating for Episode 4: 9/10
Overall Rating for “No Longer Human”: 9/10

Until next time; Goodnight, and may your God go with you.

-The Lean, Green Tangerine  

Ric: For all those wondering why this is probably so late a review, t’is because I had no idea what the series was called until Minmin told me (I spent weeks being told it was something called “Blue Lit”.), so I spent ages looking for a series with a name that didn’t exist!

So yeah, blame Minmin for the lateness this time~!

Anyway, the episode begins with a very surreal sort of narration from the protagonist, speaking as if the events of this episode had already happened while appearing as what can only be described as Mr. Game and Watch if he was made out of jelly.

After the reverse-exposition, we’re treated to a nice little jazz track (which is really, really nice as an opener) as a woman rushes to her job at a bar, being late after having searched for her husband.

The narrator introduces her as Tsuneko, and then tells us that he will one day be called the murderer of this woman. He then leaves her behind, now talking about how he joined the “anti-social movement”.

This of course, leads us to finally meeting our protagonist, as he proves himself to be a pretty good actor/recruiter, pulling out a sob story faster than you can say “Wah”, recruiting a room of people to his movement.

Of course, this is all a scam, as bowl-cut and Light-a-like reveal to us while on a toilet break.

Of course, this being anime, Light-a-like can’t be just some random con-artist. Noooo, he’s actually the disowned (Due to wanting to be an artist?) son of a congressman.

Of course, being a con-man, he can’t escape the (ridiculously well-timed) arm of the law, who burst in, forcing Light-a-like and partner to run the hell away.

Light-a-like soon ends up getting ditched by his partner, still being followed by the cops. He comes to an alleyway, bringing exposition along with him in the form of his father’s forcing of “You’re going to Tokyo University!” onto him.

As if to illustrate how horribly things are going for him, we get a visit from the Light laugh.

I call shenanigans on this one. (Yes I know the same guy who made Death Note also worked on this, shush. >:C)

Anyway, Light-a-like realises he’s being followed and runs off, eventually arriving at…

Yep, he arrives at the bar, Mayumi , the woman he’s supposedly going to kill if we are to believe the narrator being nearby.

Mayumi spots Light-a-like, using him as an excuse to get away from one of her more irritating clients.

This leads of course, to the detective from before popping in and Light-a-like ending up hiding inside Mayumi’s skirt (Lucky bastard.). This works surprisingly well actually, the detective leaving immediately after “discovering” that Light-a-like isn’t there.

Mayumi and Light-a-like then leave, L-a-L asking Mayumi why she helped him. Seems that Mr. Detective is quite the asshole (What a surprise…) and she just didn’t like him.

Of course, sod’s law leaves noone alone and the detective just happens to reappear, Mayumi holding him back while L-a-L runs away, giving us another “My life was pitiful” flashback in the process.

He eventually comes back to Mayumi, finding her beaten up in the same place he left her.

…Aaaanyway, Mayumi seems happy that L-a-L (I’ll remember his name eventually, I promise.) came back to her, resulting in one of the most spontaneous sex-scenes I’ve ever seen in a well-written animated format. (These guys work fast, I guess.)

Light-a-like and Mayumi talk to one another about their past after this, L-a-L revealing that he wanted to be an artist, while having no talent and Mayumi revealing that she’s looking for her husband, but has decided to give up.

She decides she’s sick of everything, then asks L-a-L why he doesn’t join “the movement”, L-a-L replying by saying that it’s pointless, just a showoff method that he has no real interest in. (Where he got the cigar though is anyone’s guess.)

He then tries to compare it to art, but well; Mayumi sums up what I was thinking during that scene in one sentence.

Mayumi then analyses L-a-L, saying that she can see that he also sees that the world is fundamentally flawed (OSHI- NOT AGAIN!) causing L-a-L to start musing about women and how they “can’t seem to accept reality”.

As soon as he thinks (/narrates?) this, he tells Mayumi that there’s “No way to live, as I’ve been cut off from my allowance by my parents”.

We then get a flashback of L-a-L’s childhood, specifically showing how scared he was of angering his father (Who seems to be an asshat anyway).

Also, we now know that L-a-L’s name is “Youzou” now. Hooray!

Youzo and Mayumi angst a little more over their lives, Youzou eventually raising the idea of the two of them dying together, with the show giving us this delightful image to stare at.

After a short montage, we rejoin our protagonists at a cliff-side, the two of them planning to double-suicide by jumping to their deaths.

Mayumi at first seems a little afraid, asking Youzou to push her. Before he does, Mayumi says this.

“If I can be reborn, I wish to live more like a human.“

And then Youzou pushes her to her death.

After he pushes her, Youzou immediately has a “WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” moment, before jumpng off the cliff himself.

Anyway, Youzou is found alive by some fishermen, leaving us with a little bit more backstory on his character via his flashbacks before waking up in a hospital bed, listening to a discussion from outside, blaming him for Mayumi’s murder.

And then he leaves us with a smile, cementing him in my mind as “Light-a-like” until proven otherwise.

Overall, this was a very good first episode in terms of setting the tone for the series, and as much as I may have poked fun at it so far, I actually really enjoyed it. Hopefully, they’ll clear up Youzou’s backstory a bit more in episodes to come though, as it’s…confusing right now, to say the very least.

Also, DAMN I loved the music on this one!

Ric’s Overall Rating for Episode 01: 9/10

Ric’s Antici-po-meter: 10/10

As always; Goodnight, and may your God go with you.

-The Lean, Green Tangerine