"Bungaku Shoujo" Movie

A good piece of literature can be food for the soul. Or so they say.

For one particular schoolgirl, this has a whole new meaning to it. Amano Touko, a self-proclaimed “Literature Girl”, loves her stories. Not just reading them, she also eats them. This is not done on a whim as Touko practically depends on literary pieces as her main source of sustenance.

What a novel idea! Or so I thought.

Well, this newly discovered diet has little to do with the real story here. There’s also no explanation given as to why eating books are sufficient nourishment for the body. But that doesn’t matter anyway. ... Enough procrastination and let’s get on with the real story.

Inoue Konoha is just another normal schoolboy. However, little do people know, he actually used to be a popular romance author. Konoha even won a competition when he was 14, but that was also when the tragedy began. His childhood sweetheart, Asakura Miu, was also an aspiring writer. After discovering that Konoha had dashed her hopes of becoming a professional writer in the same competition, she attempted suicide. Bungaku Shoujo is about how this pair of lovers overcome the rift between them and get back on the same track in their lives.

Even though I’m not a romanticist, I find it a simple, yet beautifully crafted story. The conflict to the resolution was well panned out. It stirs your curiosity by leading you bit by bit to the truth behind the two lovers. The manner in which their fates are tied to a novel is simply poetic. However, the promise of a wonderful story was totally let down by poor characters. The side characters hold practically no importance to the story, and the relationship among the all the characters was underdeveloped. This made the struggles of the main characters, especially Konoha, seemed superficial. Miu is also a very annoying and unlikable character. You simply do not care about them.

The animation and soundtrack are very well done, as one would expect from Production I.G. The background music provides a very good ambience, which is necessary for a romance story. Overall, this has very good production values.

If you can look past the disappointment that the story-eating “Literature Girl” is nothing more than a convenient plot device, this is actually a nice story to be savored. With better execution and handling of the characters, it could have become a memorable piece of work.

For whatever interest Bungaku Shoujo's premise had for me, this movie proved to be quite the mixed bag. The movie is focused on male lead Konoha meeting with the titular heroine of the movie, Touko, who has an unusual interest in eating pages from books with the girl helping out Konoha in dealing with the strained relationship he has with former girlfriend, Miu, related to his past in submitting for a writer's contest. The strained relationship negatively effected Konoha's interest in writing and much of the movie is focused on trying to have the young man regain his confidence to write by moving past whatever ... problems he had with Miu. It is this element to Bungaku Shoujo's storyline that is the mixed bag for me. The movie makes comparisons of the relationship with Miu and Konoha to Kenji Miyazawa's classic literary work, Night on the Galactic Railroad, with Konoha trying to figure out some cryptic hints about the ending to the movie alluded to by Miu. While this dramatic parallel has its potential, the movie suffers from the fact that it has some genuinely shallow and unlikeable characters that kill ones interest in this exploration. Nanase and Kazushi don't get much in the way of depth nor do they have any major relevance within the story and Miu made for the worst and unlikeable character in the movie because of her hateful and irrational behavior in her actions, even with the tragic backstory presented on her character. Why Konoha continued to be committed to Miu despite the girl's self-destructive, cruel and unlikeable character was baffling to me.

Genuinely, I was more interested in the relationship of Touko and Konoha's characters as it helped save this movie from complete mediocrity for me. Touko's character was the most interesting of the lot for me with her unusual penchant for eating pages from books and obsessive interest in literature, yet was also able to keep calm and remain genuinely likeable throughout the dramatics of this movie. Konoha even came to see her as a major companion to help him through the mess he goes through with Miu throughout the majority of the movie. The chemistry between these two made for the fun and heartwarming moments to this otherwise subpar movie. Only major issue I have is that the movie never provides any depth to Touko's background as it seems the makers of Bungaku Shoujo made the film under the assumption you would have already read the light novel source material for the movie.

Visually, Bungaku Shoujo was quite beautiful on the eyes as it sported vivid scenery with vibrant colors and plenty of detail. Vast camera shots of night skies and the city landscape are quite the sight to behold in this film, especially a later scene when the characters are in a planetarium. Character designs get similar treatment with their details and while not the prominent element of the movie, animation is still quite fluid for the movie as characters and vehicles move about at a natural pace and moving camera shots move about rather nicely as well.

Overall, Bungaku Shoujo was a bit of a mixed bag for me. While I enjoyed the chemistry between Touko and Konoha and some of the literary parallels it established with the movie's main plot, the movie suffers from having limited depth on some major characters and Miu being too unlikeable of a character for me to genuinely care about. I think your mileage will vary on whether or not you will enjoy this movie to its fullest.