You know what? I hated this.

I'm a fan (if you can call it that) of the Osamu Dazai novella. This manga doesn't do it justice. Much about this adaptation is unbearable, uncomfortable, and misogynistic, but what makes it worse is how unsympathetic it is to its titular character. It recontextualizes a lot, sure, but needlessly expands on subtext and subtle references, and, in doing so, it dissipates sympathy for its character.

We rarely see the physical horrors that Ōba Yōzō encounters in the original novel, but Dazai wrote it in such a way that we can empathize with Yōzō's response and thought processes around them — he's so detached and de-personalized from other people, his reality is unnervingly severe isolation, compounded with extreme depression and mental illness, and, eventually, made even worse through drug abuse, sex, and alcohol. But seeing the world's ills illustrated with the added unnecessary flair of ghosts, murder, suicide, odd (and extremely misogynistic and, at one point, soft-incestual) sexual encounters, and I can't help but hate every single character we encounter. Yōzō is an asshole, sure, but he's not willingly one in the novel — he's aware that he's hurt others around him, which further depletes his self-worth, and is sympathetic to others, and, yes, even women. This manga makes him out to be a jester, surrounded by the worst people on earth who have every intention of ruining his life, even though it's clear that he has it out to ruin his own.

I don't know, man... A subtle two or three sentences in the original Dazai story allude to subjects such as childhood sexual abuse and rape, but here, Ito shows us everything, leaving nothing unsubtle and dragging elements of horror manga that feel less psychological and more supernatural, which I hate.

I don't know. Maybe it's because I read the original book first, but this was god-awful.

And no, Junji Ito is not immune to criticism.