"Bungaku Shoujo" Movie - Review

Score: 9/10

The review contains spoilers.

"Bungaku Shoujo" Movie, is the movie adaptation from Production I.G, directed and storyboarded by Tada Shunsuke. This movie adapted the fifth volume of the light novel series: "Bungaku Shoujo" to Doukoku no Palmier according to myanimelist.

The series of "Bungaku Shoujo" is broader, having a long-running light novel series and a manga series written by Nomura Mizuki. That saying, this movie is an adaptation of a smart part of a larger story and a lot of things can be explained away with that. However, I don't think that it will take away from the enjoyment of the adaptation to people who had read the original.

Tada Shunsuke had directed World Destruction: Sekai Bokumetsu no Rokunin, an anime that I had watched with the English dub, but one that I hadn't regretted it. This was a pleasant surprise for me since I will definitely talk about that series too in a positive note. This means that as a director Tada is two out of two as far as I am concerned. I am trying to gain a better understanding of the directors and animators of these series as well as the anime itself.

Tada Shunsuke here was the director and storyboard director, Kawasaki Itsurou is credited for storyboard and the sound director was Nakajima Toshihiko. The producer was Kuroki Rui.

I wasn't a fan of the animation, even though when it turns trippy it gets interesting, but that is just a few times. In the ending scene, Touko's departure is the most beautiful scene in the movie. Not to mention the most emotional one too. The atmosphere of the movie feels like reminiscing back of something that already happened.

I am not that excited about the art style and character designs, but they had grown on me.

The plot revolves around a young boy named Inoue Konoha, a 2nd year senior high school student who had written the best selling novel under a pen name, using his friend's name possing as a young girl rather than a boy. The novel had won the competition and the sudden attention, and then his friend's Asakura Miu's suicide traumatizes him and promises to never write again and just live a normal life. However, his senpai, Amano Touko drags him into the literary club, to write stories for her. Since Amano Touko has a strange ability, she is someone who eats stories.

There is a slight magical element that comes with this movie, however the mainline, the relationship between Miu and Konoha is at the forefront and carries the emotional weight of the story. I mentioned before that Konoha and Miu are friends. They were childhood friends who had grown into something more in their junior high. And even though there is an implied romantic interest between Konoha and his sempai, Touko, the movie depicts the incredibly toxic and manipulative relationship.

Touko, in the end, ends up sorting out the relationship, and the movie comes to a bittersweet end were Konoha ends up with neither of the love interests. Her character is not elaborated upon, she has left more of a mystery herself and the fact that she can eat books is never really explained. She is supposed to be a wise and mysterious figure. At that point, the movie falls apart a little bit into something that looks a little bit too exoteric for my liking, but she is

I was impressed with the narrative, that they hadn't let Miu down that easily, and clearly said, as to how they are right now, they can't remain together.

"Miu by far has the biggest impact on the film and really steals the show for herself. [...] While Miu makes for an extremely convincing psychopath, some of the reasons behind her mental break didn’t exactly add up to what she eventually became. This being said, she is the brightest spot in the show character-wise." - Sladi from myanimelist.com.

The other characters appearing in the show do nothing. This doesn't really bother me, the main problem with them comes from the fact that this is the fifth volume in a light novel, for me it doesn't take away from the experience and in a way, it could feel strange if the only people in the story are only those three.

Throughout the movie, they make references to Night on the Galactic Railroad, Miyazawa Kenji's novel. It is poetic and concentrates more on one scene in the novel, and what the correct interpretation is. Both sides, the main character, and the antagonist give an answer to this, and Konoha is kind of made to choose between the two choices. Simplifying down the two questions is easy: 'death' or 'moving on'. I like how both of the characters come to different conclusions about the meaning of the novel in question since that is the point of story writing. The author can only point you in certain directions, but ultimately you need to have been the only one who walks all the way.

The movie ends with a bittersweet goodbye, Touko will go away, graduating and Konoha is left behind. He needs to move on.

"What is true happiness? Everyone sees the land of happiness as if they're on a pilgrimage. They try to walk there. Still, no matter who they are, at times they become tired. Stories exist for those times. If you open the covers, you'll encounter someone else's imagination. If you feel lonely on your own, try reading a book. Try to imagine what the author was thinking, what he wanted to say. Then you might be able to obtain something wonderful." - Amano Touko.

I can tell you, that I had grown attached to this movie in particular even though I had recalled things without watching it again. Right now, I am not in a place where watching this again would help me, since I related too much too Miu.

Trivial: Everyone is telling me, now that I am reading the reviews to gather my thoughts, that there are three love interests, but that is not how it comes through to me. Maybe that was the original intention, seeing the previous 3 OVAs would lead you, but there could be that something had chance midway production or something. Things had been cut. Not to mention that it is an adaptation and maybe the third girl, Nanase was included because it would have been strange not including her. I don't see that there would be three girls after one guy in this movie.

Okay, Nanase has a crush on the main guy, but that doesn't make her a love interest. I need more to declare something like that, intention or not. Above I mentioned that both characters come to a conclusion what that moment in the novel, Night on the Galactic Railroad means. This is my proof that I can present, that Nanase doesn't bring up any points towards this scene that would count. Her being a love interest wouldn't make any sense.