“No Longer Human,” tells the story of Oba Yozo, a man who feels alienated from social life. This movie base on one of the best-selling Japanese novels by Dazai Osamu.
Here Oba tells the story of his life as a child and how from the beginning he felt himself alienated. In the fifth part the character of I who is reunited with the note taker (who is one of the important figures in the Oba note) and does the closing reflection.
Honestly, at the beginning, the Oba character feels a little strange. A character who fears social life and covers it by becoming a “clown” in his family and social life. Oba successfully played this role and gained a reputation, but in the end, she still had that fear.
His mental state was made worse by one of his friends at the university, Hiroki, who introduced Oba to the world of liquor, cigarettes, and prostitution. In this addiction, Oba finally committed suicide with one of his women. Oba survived, but the woman’s death caused her guilt. In addition, his father decided to break the family relationship with him because Oba was considered to have embarrassed the family.
Oba’s own life was finally tossed around between liquor, women, and ultimately, morphine. He was eventually admitted to a mental hospital and after his father’s death, he was exiled in an area.
There are many things explored in this novel. One of them is a feeling of fear in the social and human environment. The other is the effect of using liquor. Here alcohol is the main key to the destruction of Oba.
Interesting novel. No wonder why this novel became the second best-selling novel in Japan after Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro.
In the end, Oba can be concluded with two sentences which is the opening of his first notebook. “Mine has been a life of much shame. I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being”
