Aoi Bungaku Part 2

  So after a year of searching I finally found Ango Sakaguchi's short story "In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom" （『桜の森の満開の下』）and I was able to read it. I actually found it in Amazon.co.jp's free ebook download section and was the first story I read fully in Japanese (I'm so proud of myself ^^).

　"In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom"　is the second story that is presented in the anime "Aoi Bungaku" （『青い文学』）and takes place in episodes 5 and 6. It is the story of a bandit who sees a beautiful woman and decides to make her his new wife. The anime follows the plot line of the original short story, but also adds a lot of unnecessary content.

  The original short story has darker atmosphere and was really interesting to read. You could see the struggle of the main character and his confusion by woman's actions. Throughout the story he tries to figure out why are cherry trees in full bloom so scary and to understand what's going on in the woman's head.

  The anime seems to be more like a parody of the short story than anything else. You can see a lot of comic relief, singing and even modern objects like headphones. There was even a foreign girl who talked in English and a talking boar. Also, in all of this craziness you can even see Takarazuka theater and Kabuki theater elements. Most of the time I was watching the anime and was thinking "Anime, what the hell are you doing and why?"

  I actually liked the short story, although there were somethings I didn't quite understand, but I guess I will have to do a little bit more research. As for the anime, it was weird. I don't want to say that it was awful, because the animation was really pretty, but it sucked as an interpretation of Ango Sakaguchi's work and I definitely did not like it. 

For part of the "Aoi Bungaku" review visit the following link:
Aoi Bungaki part 1