I hate to say this: What’s so hard with saving money for a book? What’s wrong with searching on Google yourself?

If it really bothers you that much, then I would suggest reading the original story. None of those questions actually apply to the original – they are all add-on stuff in the anime.

I still don’t understand completely the ending…if the woman was the civilization and man the nature, why by “killing” the civilization, the bandit, hence nature or a primitive lifestyle died?
Plus why is the city woman associated with the cherry tries? The bandit says after killing his ex wives that this feels like under the sakura…And why is he scared of woman? Plus when the woman asked him to go to the city he said in three days when the sakura bloom. Did he want to test his courage?

I also wonder about that note the woman left to her maid about returning…what can it imply for the story? that she was an oni and wanted to kill the man all along? for what purpose? that she knew that she would make him return in the end?

Yes, the humour made you wonder what was it about, but I still liked it. I think that I couldn’t be able to watch the massacre if there wasn’t the song and the humour in the middle.

Sorry for the many questions, but I’m tortured by them.

Personally, I think the adaptation of “No Longer Human” was more of less right in line with the original in plot and atmosphere.

Thanks for the summary of that episode from “Jigoku Shoujo”. That sounds very interesting indeed. I will remember to check it out at some point.

It meant I plan to read it, once I get my hands on it. (Through I have yet to decide, whether I’ll read a translation or in original. My poor Japanese might be just not enough…)
Has the adaption of “ningen shikkaku” also deiverted so much from the original story?

>But were people explicitly killed for that purpose, as it would seem to be the case in this story? (ie. They don’t just happen to pick up a skull somewhere from someone who is already long dead.)

The plot of this episode ran somehow like this: There is a family of Ikenaba masters and there is one female heir, who actually doesn’t want to be heir and one other woman, who wants to be. I don’t know the details anymore, but the latter set up some occasion in which the former would drink some sort of strong poison and die by it.
The victim however has a fiancee (or husband) who overheard. But instead of calling the police, he drank the poison in her stead.
It was then described that the highest art of Ikebana in this family was decorating skulls and he knew that and wanted to be with her in her art forever, when he dies. (Which he did some days later.) She then went and sent that person who killed him into hell, while decorating the skull of him, ending up continuing the Ikebana tradition she actually wanted to get free of.
This episode was one of the above average episodes of the series.

1) The man did not kill himself in the original story. I personally like this ending better as it seems to hint at his return to simplicity/innocence – that death should come to him in the course of nature (instead of induced by some abstraction).

2) I seriously doubt that there had been any sexual intercourse taking place between the two. The man is in awe of her beauty the same way he is in awe of the beauty of sakura flowers, and unless one is really strange in the head indeed, one does not develop erotic feelings per se for sakura flowers. Her hold on him is aesthetic rather than sexual. In any case, I doubt that she would have allowed him.

>I have not (yet) read the original story, but I somehow have a better overall impression from the ”Ningen Shikaku” arc.

I take the ”yet” to mean that you will read it soon? ^_^

I agree that ”Ningen Shikaku” was the more accomplished adaptation of the two.

> You explanation as to why the woman wants the men to kill his previous wives was a bit enlightening. Watching it I had the impression that she was rather spoiled and simply wanted to have them out of her way, since they seemed disgusting and would be bad for her convenience.

The film showed the woman as more ”commanding” and ”forceful”. She commands rather than whines. So the balance of power was very interesting – the moment he made her his captive by killing her husband and servant, she also made a slave of him, and throughout the relationship she orders and he obeys. Somehow the anime just made her out to be like a whining little girl.

> The scenes with her decorating the heads reminded me of one episode in the Jigoku Shoujo series, wherein there was a family of ikebana masters and it was said that the highest sort of ikebana there was to decorate skull, because the skull represents some sort of the death’ beauty and contrasts the flowers.

I have not seen ”Jigoku Shoujo” but I guess I see your point.

> I don’t really think this is very much related at all, but the idea of taking heads as decorations seems not to be unique in just this story.

But were people explicitly killed for that purpose, as it would seem to be the case in this story? (ie. They don’t just happen to pick up a skull somewhere from someone who is already long dead.)

> As for the humourous scenes I agree with you, they seemed out of the place. Especially when she was attacking him trying to kill her. At first her movements looked quite elegantly to me, but then the SD scene totally ruined the impression.

That scene was an original addition in the anime. I don’t even know what kind of point they were trying to make with that. I guess they just wanted to throw in a fight scene somewhere. It was a well-animated sequence, but also just added more confusion to the audience. (ie. If she is that good a fighter, why didn’t she defend her husband and servant?)

But speaking of her husband and servant, it was a kind of deliberate blank in the original story that no great detail about them was mentioned. So assuming that the woman was human and not an ”oni” to begin with, one wonders what sort of life she used to live. Was she ”normal” before and merely went funny in the head after their deaths?

kuromitsu:

Long time no hear! How are you doing lately?

> Maybe this is my more shallow personality talking but I didn’t mind the humor, it even made me chuckle a few times. Apparently this adaptation didn’t take itself very seriously, but I liked the lighter mood, especially after Ningen shikkaku.

Of course I never meant that humour must be ”shallow” – my problem is that some of the humour throws confusing signals to the audience. The scene where he listens to music through some sort of mp3 player is an example. It just made it more confusing to see that he was meant to be antithesis to ”civilization”.

> My problem was with the writing – to me it seemed the nature of the relationship between Shigemaru and the woman wasn’t made very clear. I haven’t read the original story but the anime didn’t really emphasize neither her hold on him, nor his submission (if we can call it that) to her. It was clear that he she captivated and confused him but it was more like an inferred knowledge… er, I hope I’m being clear. In short, something was missing.

If I remember correctly, the film made it clear that she is his master with great economy. I believe when they show the man and woman having lived together at his mountain hut for some time, the hut was full of products of Kyoto-style refinement, so the audience can immediately infer that man must have slaved day in day out, combing every inch of the mountains to rob all these goods for her. I wish they had done the same to make this more clear in the anime. It would have only taken a few seconds of screentime.

> Aside of that, my biggest problem was actually Sakai Masato as Shigemaru. I really like his voice (I first took notice of it in Sentou yousei Yukikaze where he played Rei) and I think he added a lot to Ningen shikkaku, but here he was utterly unconvincing as a rough mountain man. It’s obvious that he tried very hard but his voice is just not cut out for roles like this, and sometimes it was downright jarring. I really wonder why they chose to cast him in this role. (However, I loved Mizuki Nana as the woman.)

Oh yeah, that was my complaint too. Thanks for bringing it up here.

> Other than these I had no real problems – sure, it could have been better, maybe as a more straightfoward/serious or faithful adaptation, but it was stylish, it entertained me and made me want to read the original story so I guess it has served its purpose. :)

Please come back and let me know what you think about the original story once you have read it.

Overall, I think the anime did a good job showing the dissonance between the two: one is a simple man content with a simple life, the other is a sophisticated and decadent woman who needs to be surrounded by beauty. That said, without your explanation I probably wouldn’t have thought of the nature-civilization parallels, but I think the story (as presented in the anime) works well on a less symbolic level, too.

My problem was with the writing – to me it seemed the nature of the relationship between Shigemaru and the woman wasn’t made very clear. I haven’t read the original story but the anime didn’t really emphasize neither her hold on him, nor his submission (if we can call it that) to her. It was clear that he she captivated and confused him but it was more like an inferred knowledge… er, I hope I’m being clear. In short, something was missing.

Aside of that, my biggest problem was actually Sakai Masato as Shigemaru. I really like his voice (I first took notice of it in Sentou yousei Yukikaze where he played Rei) and I think he added a lot to Ningen shikkaku, but here he was utterly unconvincing as a rough mountain man. It’s obvious that he tried very hard but his voice is just not cut out for roles like this, and sometimes it was downright jarring. I really wonder why they chose to cast him in this role. (However, I loved Mizuki Nana as the woman.)

Other than these I had no real problems – sure, it could have been better, maybe as a more straightfoward/serious or faithful adaptation, but it was stylish, it entertained me and made me want to read the original story so I guess it has served its purpose. :)

You explanation as to why the woman wants the men to kill his previous wives was a bit enlightening. Watching it I had the impression that she was rather spoiled and simply wanted to have them out of her way, since they seemed disgusting and would be bad for her convenience.

The scenes with her decorating the heads reminded me of one episode in the Jigoku Shoujo series, wherein there was a family of ikebana masters and it was said that the highest sort of ikebana there was to decorate skull, because the skull represents some sort of the death’ beauty and contrasts the flowers.
I don’t really think this is very much related at all, but the idea of taking heads as decorations seems not to be unique in just this story.

As for the humourous scenes I agree with you, they seemed out of the place. Especially when she was attacking him trying to kill her. At first her movements looked quite elegantly to me, but then the SD scene totally ruined the impression.