Bungaku Shoujo

[thelastguardian]

Great reading. Looking forward to more chapters.

The only thing that's been bugging my mind is that how they translate the novel title of '人間失格' as 'No Longer Human', while the most direct translation would be 'Human Failure'. 'No Longer Human' requires someone was a human before then turning into something else, while the actual character has never possess human value from the very beginning, thus he is never a human. On the other side, 'Human Failure' would gives us better perception that something has failed to be entitled as human. 'No Longer Human' seemed like a result from a machine translation instead.

I had the same reaction as well. I decided to stick with the this name as this is the official name for the English edition.

I believe the book can be found in Google Book (or one of the anime series in this season).

[Puiu]

TNX for the new chapter! I can't wait to read the epilogue. I'm very impressed on how much character development we've seen in just 1 volume. And there are so many volumes that i haven't read (why GOD, why can't i read japanese/chinese?).

[ShadowZeroHeart]

8 volumes, some short stories, an illustration book(that comes with a notebook that tempts you to write to feed someone...)

And you would rather learn japanese... Chinese isnt translated as fast, and originality always taste best!! (No censorship etc etc)

[Puiu]

8 volumes, some short stories, an illustration book(that comes with a notebook that tempts you to write to feed someone...)

And you would rather learn japanese... Chinese isnt translated as fast, and originality always taste best!! (No censorship etc etc)

Tnx for the exact number of volumes.
And i already plan on learning japanese at collage next year (i couldn't this year because of various reasons). I can understand enough in anime to not be focused on the subs. I read them for more complicated stuff. But i still can't write/read a single character. I plan on changing this in the near future. (a few years tops)

[shade424]

Thanks so much for translating this! This is my favorite book by far now. I can definitely re-read this easily. I loved it so much that I felt like I should create an account here to thank you.
Thank you!

[Rhiow]

Please keep up the good work on this, it's easily my favorite project here. And I still don't understand why it's so obscure, I hadn't even heard of it until I saw it here. So thank you for introducing me to it as well.

[onizuka-gto]

...And I still don't understand why it's so obscure, I hadn't even heard of it until I saw it here....

...and I think you have just answered your own question there.

We realyl wish we could advertise all of the great novels we translate here, but our budge for PR is woefully short. (i.e. NONE! )

Really need to find myself a PR-Czar one day.....

[ShadowZeroHeart]

...And I still don't understand why it's so obscure, I hadn't even heard of it until I saw it here....

...and I think you have just answered your own question there.

We realyl wish we could advertise all of the great novels we translate here, but our budge for PR is woefully short. (i.e. NONE! )

Really need to find myself a PR-Czar one day.....

I am surprised by how hidden it is... It is a way better novel than most novels out there, and it was known as the best for quite some time, yet the information and details are too hidden... Is someone manipulating something against Bungaku Shoujo somewhere?

[onizuka-gto]

I am surprised by how hidden it is... It is a way better novel than most novels out there, and it was known as the best for quite some time, yet the information and details are too hidden... Is someone manipulating something against Bungaku Shoujo somewhere?

CONSPIRACY!!!



*dons tin foil hat*

[thelastguardian]

Most light novels are like that

Examples that I can remember are Haruhi, Toradora, Shana, maybe Zero no Tsukaima

To further confuse matter, people seemed to be divided into two camps when they talk about Bungaku Shoujo- you either think the series is excellent due to its masterful use of suspense. the characters are too dramatic and Tooko is too 'out of the blue'.

Also, having an OVA instead of a full blown TV series probably hurts somewhat as well. Even Index, with its rather mediocre writing style(you ain't gonna find many people who disagree with me on this), became popular after the TV show.

Finally, this is one of the 'slower' series- it doesn't have many sterotypical anime characters (except for the tsundere), nor does it have many character or attribute that 'stands out' from the rest. From my observation, for a modern series to become well known, you must have a 'mascot' character.

Shana - the red eye loli
Tsukaima - Louise
Haruhi - who else
Toradora - Taiga
Index - railgun

(At this point I would comment on Japanese' fascination with violent self-centered yet secretly insecure loli, but that's a topic for another day)

Spice and Wolf is a prime counter example of it. No matter how well thought out the story is, by not having a 'handle' for people to talk about, it just doesn't gain traction
among general anime viewers.

[Puiu]

I just finished reading the entire first volume and i must say that it was one of the best light novel that i've ever read. I'm debating on if it is my fav one here (since i like most of them a lot!). I also like the way it is translated. I don't know how the original is but the translation was really solid (fluid, easy to read - a really enjoyable read), better than some official translations that i've read.

Thank you very much for your hard work!

[random guy]

Long time lurker, long time fan. Bungaku Shoujo is hands down the best novel I read from Baka Tsuki. The pacing and the unique characters are absolutely amazing. Cheers for introducing this novel to us and hope for more to come. Thanks.

[Kinny Riddle]

Out of impulse, I bought all 8 volumes of the main story in one go. (Plus volume 1 of the side story volumes, which has yet to be completely released. )

Volume 1 is a good read, reads like a detective novel. I can see why this beat Toradora in the Best Light Novel awards.

Nanase must be the first tsundere who has what I call a "well-balanced" tsundereness, and what's amazing is it's well-expressed in just words, she doesn't have a lot of illustrations for this volume.

When I meant "well-balanced", I mean she doesn't go trigger-happy tsun and dere like Louise, or being so tsun you can hardly feel the dere without the help of illustrations (Haruhi), or the "traditional definition", as in going from tsun to dere over time, but never both at the same time, like Taiga. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out from the dialogue alone that Nanase likes Konoha.

(Nanase is to be voiced by Mizuki Nana in the coming movie. What is it with Mizuki and characters with names similar to hers? First there's the Windows 7 OS-tan, Madobe Nanami, now Nanase. )

Konoha is your average feminine-looking (and romantically dense) protagonist. Though the reason he's dense is because like Ayasaki Hayate, he has a broken heart, which adds to his three dimensionality. (Konoha will be voiced by Irina Jiyuu, AKA Syaoran from Tsubasa. Though I was expecting him to be voiced by a female, due to his feminine looking face. Someone like Inoue Marina would have been preferred)

Tooko is your average paper-eating flat-chested girl who likes to get into all sorts of strange situations. I'm gonna need time to get to "know" her more, as I'm still struggling to find my opinion of her, but I don't dislike her, that's for sure. (Voiced by Hanazawa Kana, a newcomer with recent prominent roles including Clamp's Kobato, Mikan in To-Love-Ru, Zange-chan in Kannagi, and Sengoku in Bakemonogatari).

[Rhiow]

I agree on the tsundere, it seems much more realistic rather than the almost bipolar normal play of the character. Or the rather extreme portrayal of the tsun traits making the girl even seem more sociopathic than anything. It's also nice because we don't really see anything from her viewpoint, only Konoha's because it makes it much easier to see why he would assume she hates him. After all, we're all savvy about the character type and can spot it a mile off, whereas he reacts like a normal person to someone being such a jerk to them and saying they hate them. For such a minor (right now, anyway?) character without much different about her to make her stand out from the run of the mill, she's quite well written.

[n3wgrass]

Thanks for the translation! It's a lot of work to do, and I really appreciate it. Please keep them coming!