Youth Literature

I had high hopes going into Aoi Bungaku. It tries to tackle serious subjects, adapting literary classics of Japan. And after seeing the first segment, I thought for certain I was in for something great. "No Longer Human" is a dark, somber, character-driven tale, with no real flaws beyond personal preference.

But then I got into 'In the Forest, Under the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom'. That was a hilarious train-wreck of clashing tones, from typical humor to freaking dark. The same tone existed for "The Spider's Thread", where a story about greed and salvation is also treated as a generic action show. Why is this character, by all means a monster, also treated like some badass?

"Kokoro" and "Hell Screen" weren't awful, but they didn't hit any sweet spots. But, after watching the segments out of order, almost losing hope, I reached "Run, Melos!"...and was kinda amazed by a beautiful segment about friendship. Its at least an 8/10, maybe a 9.

In the end, instead of a beautiful, immersive show, we got a balance of great, average, and bad. If nothing else, watch episodes 1-4 and 9-10 for some great drama. You could watch the rest if you're interested, but I wouldn't recommend it to highly.

Right off the bat i believe the younger you are the less you'll get out of this series, not because you wouldn't be able to understand the stories clearly but because as we age we gain experience & perspective and come to view things in a completely different light than we would have years in the past. Now this is a pretty dark themed show, in 12 episodes the first 4 "I believe" are one story and then about every 2 episodes from that point are their own story. Each one has a very deep meaning to them, I don't think many will enjoy this unless you've been in the deepest darkest parts of your mind and can relate & truly understand the characters point of views. For me that was one thing that kept me interested, being able to completely understand where these people are coming from and knowing that they're all based on the experiences and feelings of people that really existed connected to me. The artwork was very nice and the music matches it well, giving most the eerie dark themed tone to the show. The characters are all kind of forgettable & yet they aren't, its very hard to get to attached to any character when their entire story is over within 2 episodes but that's to be expected, i believe they were all done the best they could be for the time they had. The stories are all Japanese classics. If your a thinker, someone who's inside their own head probably more than they should be i believe these stories will speak louder to you than they will to others. Give them a chance as they are pretty slow moving and might even feel a bit stale if your not entirely in the mood to watch this, they'll certainly make you reflect on your life.

3.8/5. Why not higher? It was a decent series, it had deep meanings and really made you think about your life & everything about it. The artwork was pretty good, the music matched it well and set the tones well. Something just seemed to be lacking. Perhaps because it was a bunch of mini stories inside of one, the lack of depth for each story may make it feel a bit shallow?