Nopy's Blog

Bungaku Shoujo (Literature Girl) was originally a series of light novels written by Mizuki Nomura about a girl that can only eat paper with stories/poem on it, in other words, literature. I remember seeing the Bungaku Shoujo novels and an artbook around in bookstores when I was in Japan so when I heard that there was an anime OVA for it I thought I’d check it out. Bungaku Shoujo Memoire is a 3-part OVA that focuses on the characters Touko Amano, Asakura Miu, and Nanase Kotobuki.

The first episode focuses on Touko Amano, the “literature girl” of the series. Ever since she was a little girl, the only thing she’s been eating is books. Besides munching on them, Touko also enjoys reading them and when her classmates ask her for help with a literary class, it’s obvous that she’s very passionate about the stories she reads. In fact, she’s so passionate about them that she’ll often go off into her own little world while she explains the merits and “tastes” of a particular work. When she’s not caught up talking about books though, she’s just your regular cheerful high school girl.

It’s obvious to the viewer later on that Touko can’t eat normal foods. Well, she can swallow them, but she tastes absolutely nothing. To thank her for her help, some of Touko’s classmates take her out for parfait, and when Touko comments on how good it is, her classmates totally disagree with her.

Touko gets bailed out of having to finish the parfait when her cousin walks by and sees her through the window. They walk home together and we see that Touko’s cheerful personality isn’t representative of her situation as one might think. Touko was orphaned at a young age when her parents died, and she was taken in by her aunt, who did not seem too happy about it in the flashbacks. While Touko makes an attempt to get closer to her aunt, she refuses to even acknowledge Touko, usually ignoring her completely.

Later that night, Touko reminisces about her parents and flips through an old photo album of them.

For reasons not stated, the next day Touko ends up in the offices of a publishing company. There, she reads some novels which had been rejected and finds one that she absolutely falls in love with. Rather than explaining the story in words, Touko gives us a glimpse of what the novel was like through her imagination.

She begs the editor to give that novel a second chance and runs home in joy to tell her cousin about it and the author, Konoha Inoue.

Soon afterwards, Touko’s wish comes true and the novel written by Konoha Inoue is published.

All is not happy for long though, as tragedy strikes. Whem Touko makes a call to the publisher to find out if Konoha Inoue will be writting another novel soon, she finds out that the author has quit writing. Touko suffers from a bout of depression knowing that she’ll never be able to read another work by Konoha Inoue again.

Fast-forward to springtime and the start of the new semester. Touko is busy putting up signs enticing new students to sign up for the literature club when suddenly she hears the name Konoha Inoue. Taking a peek to see who it is, Touko sees for the first time the person whose work she fell in love with.

Now knowing that Konoha Inoue is a student at her school, Touko is determined to make him into an author again. Later, the two of them actually meet for the first time with Konoha discovering Touko munching on a book under a tree.

And so ends the first episode of Bungaku Shoujo Memoire.

A LOT of stuff happened in this episode, but I thought it helped give a clear picture of what kind of person Touko is. There are too many anime out there where a girl is given a special ability or trait, made super cute, and voila you have an instant character. If this episode is any indication, Bungaku Shoujo is nothing like that. At first glance, Touko seems to be just another cheerful high school girl with an interest in reading. Outward appearances can be deceiving though, as we see that there are many depressing things in her life. Because of her condition, Touko is isolated from her classmates in a way because she can’t share in the fun when they go out for something to eat. Likewise, none of Touko’s classmates could ever experience literature like Touko does. Her literature club also doesn’t have any members except herself so there is no one that Touko can share her passion with. Add to that the fact that she lost both her parents and her aunt won’t speak to her and you start to wonder whether that smile she puts on is just a mask for what she’s really feeling.

If Touko really is suffering deep down inside, it would help explain why she gets so carried away when she reads a novel. Whenever Touko reads or talks about a novel, her imagination takes her to a whole new world where she can experience that novel for herself. To me, this seemed like a form of escapism. The real world is just so difficult that Touko needs a place where she can forget about everything and experience a new world that has nothing to do with her world. This episode was full of similes and metaphors so perhaps eating novels is just a big metaphor for taking in a whole new world.

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but Bungaku Shoujo Memoire has some excellent animation quality. Unlike a lot of animation studios nowadays, Production I.G. didn’t cheap out with the animators. All of the characters looked great and the backgrounds were amazing. Below are just a couple of examples that I wanted to point out.

This screenshot was taken from the opening sequence. I loved how they made the pages of that book move realistically as they were being blown by the wind. The grains in the wood of the desk looks very nice with all of the detail put into it. The different darknesses of the shadows also add to the quality of the animation. It’s such a nice change compared to solid brown desks and single-shade shadows.

I was really impressed with the scene where Touko goes off into her own little world after reading the novel by Konoha Inoue for the first time. In one part, she’s running through the rain on a cloudy day. Once again, they didn’t make a solid grey sky, but you can actually see the clouds in the screenshot below. The rain droplets took me by surprise when I saw them. Rather than the standard blue-coloured water, they went with clear droplets, and not only that, they even got the wate refraction correct. If you look at something through a drop of water, you’ll see it upside down. I’ve seen plenty of examples where artists have forgotten this rule and drawn things right-side up.

Besides the animation itself, the way it was used to set the atmosphere was superb. When Touko first read Konoha’s novel, it was summertime and most of the scenes were bright and the trees were in full bloom. By the time she found out that Konoha had stopped writing, it was fall and it seemed like everything was dying. Not only that, but a lot of the scenes took place around dusk to give it kind of a falling into darkness feel.

Like the animation, the background music was also excellent. Most of the songs were carried by the piano with some other instruments, but the violin played a big part in some songs as well. A lot of the music played in the first half of the episode was really carefree and laid back, while in the second half it was rather slow and sad. I can’t exactly show you how the music sounds like so you’ll just have to watch the show and hear it for yourself.

I’ve been unimpressed with anime lately, so I was glad that I decided to watch Bungaku Shoujo Memoire. It has a well thought out main character, a plot with lots of possibilities, amazing animation and music, and great delivery. I’m hoping that the next two episodes and the movie will be as good as this episode.

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