Also, even if his friend had a heart disease, I stil don’t get what made him break his promise? Or did he lie in order not to see each other, since he knew he’d die?

One question: where the narrator speaks , before the episode begins, how is the correct translation of his saying? “They are evergreen, because they are masterpieces” or “They are masterpieces, because their essense is blue?”

I would call it a “bittersweet” ending.

“Hashire Melos” is my favorite and “Kokoro” is my least favorite. It’s hard for me to rank the rest as they all have different strengths and weaknesses.

I wonder what is Madhouse doing next after “Aoi Bungaku”. It seems that they are working on this:

ttp://noitamina.tv/yojouhan/

And yes, it is indeed the name Yuasa Masaaki [湯浅政明] that you see there!

I think I would cry like that too, given the same situation. ^-^

susperia:

Since it has been a few days since you commented, have you seen it now?

As for “Joujima” or “Joushima”… well, at first I thought it was “Joujima” but I just listened to it again and I think it was actually “Joushima”… At the beginning of the flashback when their friends barge into the room off-screen and a voice calls his name, it sounds more like “Joushima.”

By body language, do you mean the scenes on stage? I think they had to be dramatic because the audience sits too far to be able to see the actors’ facial expressions.

By the way, did you hear “Joujima” or “Joushima” as the friend’s name? 城島 could be read either way, and they seem to be always so emotional when they speak that I cannot hear quite well. On rewatching it, I think it could be “Joushima” too…

I also liked how melodramatic it was, in a good way. The frame story especially reminded me of classic shoujo manga (in fact, I kept imagining Takada and Joujima as girls).

It also reminded me just how dry Shakespeare can be in Japanese, at least to my ears (I don’t claim to hear the nuances…). This little piece of Romeo and Juliet was, well, the original word-by-word, but it was just so plain. (I once read a translation that was much nicer, though maybe I just felt so because the language was more archaic.) And it reminded me of the small culture shock I once had when I read sonnet XVIII. in Japanese… it was just so dry and unpoetic, it didn’t have the grace and elegance of either the original or “native” Japanese sonnets. (Obviously in this case plain translation is not enough, it would need to be adapted to Japanese… I wonder if such adaptations exist.) On the other hand, I think Old English poetry would be absolutely awesome in Japanese. I wish I could get a hold of a Japanese translation of Beowulf or something…

It was however nicely made. From the summary of the original story itself, I was expecting something old-fashionedly “kitschy”, but the story built around it made some really nice parallels. Especially the alternatiting scenes of Melos running and Takada’s hasty return were full of suspense. Through I didn’t really get, what the reason of the “treason” was. There was something mentioned about him having troubles with his father or so I think I caught.

I agree with you, the setting is very reminiscent of Mouryou no Hako. But actually I had this impression in “Ningen Shikkaku” already… And “Kokoro” had a little bit of it, too.

But I think the character design wasn’t all to well chosen. I don’t know, but these Konomi-styled eyes didn’t seem to fit very well for me. I don’t really know why…