"Bungaku Shoujo" Movie

Bungaku Shoujo (Book Girl) is a rather meandering tale about no particular character in general. Reading the synopsis on MAL here gives one the impression that this anime is about mystery, drama and intense emotions. Sadly, the story is anything but.

The Book Girl franchise consists of (for now) a movie, and a quartet of OVAs. The first OVA, Bungaku Shoujo: Kyou no Oyatsu - Hatsukoi was released in 2009 and was followed by the trio named Bungaku Shoujo: Memoire a year later. These OVAs pretty much serve as a run-up to the movie which came out right after the OVAs in 2010. The OVAs explore ... and set up the story for the main movie.

With a running time of one hour and forty minutes, team Bungaku Shoujo had ample opportunity to try and craft a story that is not only visually appealing but also meaningful. The problem with Bungaku Shoujo is that it is a story that has absolutely no particular reason as to why it should be told. The plot attempts to follow several strands parallely and tie them up together in the end. Each storyline involves Konoha Inoue (who is not the main character; serving to confuse things even further) and, ten points to Gryffindor, a girl. Skipping over the -dere nature of the girls, this just comes across as more of a pathetic attempt to make the story look complex and mysterious than an attempt at creating a deep and rich storytelling atmosphere.

The presence of most other characters makes no strategic sense. For example, there is this one character who's only purpose in life seems to be to blush and act awkward in the presence of Inoue. She does don the mantle of purpose for a brief moment some time later in the movie (she slaps another character in a hospital) but this could have easily been accomplished by a far more relevant and important character. Then there is Miu Asakura, who is seemingly in love with Inoue but also wants to hurt him. Why? It's all (apparently) because she had a bad childhood and because of a small misunderstanding. Asakura wanted to become an author and she sends in a story to a contest. To her chagrin, some other person wins the contest and this winner turns out to be none other than Inoue. Unable to bear this travesty (because Inoue never told her he was entering the contest), she commits suicide by jumping off a roof (but turns up alive later anyway). It is learned at the end of the movie that Inoue did this only to "impress" her. It is all rather headdesk worthy considering the fact that all the ensuing drama could have been avoided had Inoue not acted like an idiot and explained things to his friend. This was definitely the most grating and annoying part of the anime.

This brings up the titular character of the movie - the Book Girl. Tooko Amano is a girl who eats books. That's pretty much it. She consumes pages with prose on them (and also poems) instead of normal food. The nutritional implications of such an escapade are many but those shall not be discussed here. Thankful to say, there are no scenes exploring the nature of her bowel movements. If there is one thing this movie had going for it, it doesn't have any crass scenes. Plenty of useless scenes yes, but nothing crass. On the other hand, one must wonder where and how the Book Girl actually fits in into the plot. She doesn't. Her presence (like most other characters) is very weak and she ends up as a mere plot device in the end. A plot device that the writers then try and prop up as a central character in the last few moments of the movie. Her main connection to Inoue is that he is her main source of stories for consumption. Inoue and Amano are the only members of their school's book club. The two spend the evenings (respectively) writing and, in Amano's case, eating stories. Apparently, she is supposed to be this wise, oddball character but she comes off quite silly and pretentious with her totally unconvincing descriptions about the 'taste' of the stories she eats and her general demeanour.

All the different plotlines (there are only three really) are brought together in the middle of the movie when suddenly all the characters run into one another because of a mysterious note left in a 'Submit your love' box (or something like that) belonging to the book club. This quickly unravels into everybody meeting everybody else and Asakura staking claim on Inoue. By this point, if one isn't really enchanted by something in this debacle of an anime, most will be wondering why this story was ever written in the first place.

The ending is spectacularly unconvincing, and much like the anime itself, unnecessary. This is the ending in one single sentence - book girl invites all characters to a planetarium and causes psychological scenes and a resolution. In the end everybody simply walks away, with Inoue chasing after his Senpai (Amano). It is terribly underwhelming and unsatisfying. The lovers never get united, Amano just leaves for university and Inoue is left standing. If this were a harem anime (by all rights it should be one), it would be rated among the worst harem ever.

In the end, it all boils down to a general feeling of unease and boredom while watching Book Girl. It is also a sad fact that the prequel OVAs are much more fun to watch than the main movie itself. A terrible shame that such a well-produced piece of animation (indeed the artwork and the sound production are quite good) is let down by the absence of a meaningful and strong storyline.

First to say, i liked Bungaku Shoujo 1st OVA. i liked the idea of a cute, pure love between a (yokai???) girl who eats the stories and a boy who writes stories for girls.
But, despite of the name of the movie and despite of our expectations, the movie isn't about this love. It is even not about that Literature Girl, but about an insane, egoistic bitch who blames every person in her troubles, and during the whole movie all the characters try to calm her, but they fail. The most bad thing is that the protagonist believes her and thereby doesn't notice other people's feelings. ... He is like a milksop.
Normal girl's reaction on that would be jelousness, but the Literature Girl behaves like Jesus Christ and helps the characters. That pisses me off.
The story has good art, innoticable music and really annoying yet bishie characters. Some of them need to go to a psychologst, not to make us listen to their confessions. That's all.
And in the end, it looks like "Ah, we almost forgot it!! This movie had to be about that Bungaku Shoujo...but it's almost finished already(( well let's make some flashbacks and a brief parting scene and finish our job here. And don't forget mysterious woman's legs in the very end!!"

I do not even know what to say to make a convincing argument since people just like things sometimes, and it seems completely incompatible with everything good about anime. The manga had a bit of a cute appeal with an okay story, but all of that is buried in this movie.

The art, average to slightly good in the manga, is replaced with triangle faced characters whose eyes may or may not pop out of their heads depending on the moment. The shading is completely random, often covering exactly one half of the face, which might make sense (and still be incompatible with how shading works ... in real life) in a horror anime, but this is a drama. Movement is usually incredibly minimal, since no one involved knew how to animate. After being a weird warped round shape, suddenly the eyes turn into Skip Beat eyes in one scene. The roof that you get shown over and over is glossy, since clearly that is how this author thinks roofs actually are.

While nothing about this could be worse than the art already is, none of the angst involved is intelligent, the voice acting is feeble, the book references make far less sense than the manga, and everything crawls at an ant's pace. Without a doubt this is the worst anime film I have ever watched.

(This has been adapted from my reddit thread)

There's this saying that goes, "it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." And there's a lot of truth in that; feeling or experiencing what love has to offer is infinitely more worthwhile than not having done so in one's life whatsoever. It can be difficult, not only in trying to gain that love but also in dealing with the aftereffects it may bring with it. But love itself doesn't have to be some imaginary force that attracts two people. In fact, it can be something as simple as words on a ... page. For Bungaku Shoujo, while this idea is prevalent, the execution is not.

STORY

Bungaku Shoujo (or "Literature Girl") begins when a girl with the same nickname, Touko, is caught eating a page from a book by a boy named Konoha. After being brought into the Book Club, one day, they happen upon a strange letter in their personalized mailbox.

One of the major problems that Bungaku Shoujo causes entirely on its own is in its inability to properly follow through or expand upon certain plot points. While the main arc is largely segmented and filled with flashbacks, there are particular story elements that never seem to truly matter. Or at the very least, aren't used to their full extent. One of the smaller examples comes from Konoha's and Kotobuki's "relationship." The passiveness shown by Kotobuki, combined with the obliviousness or carelessness of Konoha, not only provided nothing of significance between the two of them but also only served one purpose -- "awaking" Asakura -- throughout the entirety of the film. A much larger example is in Touko's eating of a book's pages. Her strange habit gave her the ability to comprehend and understand a novel just by eating the paper that comprised it. But once again, outside of a single, solitary purpose -- letting her know just how good Konoha's writing is -- it means nothing to anyone else, let alone the story at large, despite being an allure used by the movie in the first place.

This is strange, because the movie also goes to the opposite end as well. That is to say, everything else is explained too much. A lot of the dialogue that is spouted by the cast takes one of two forms: describing what just happened or overly-detailing exactly how one is feeling. These scenarios are seen all over the place: Konoha's revelation on Asakura's plagiarism, Asakura spilling everything during a rooftop encounter, Akutagawa saying what is happening right in front of them, etc. It comes off as clumsy, as if the audience needs aid in understanding the scenes. This issue is largely attributed to the pacing of the film itself. It jumps ahead in time at random and inconsistent intervals while still juggling the flashbacks required to give pertinent information. In other words, the dialogue is used to "make up for lost time;" instead of letting the scenarios unfold, the writing does most of the heavy-lifting.

If Bungaku Shoujo does anything right, it would be in the overall theme it attempted to convey. Here, it tried to demonstrate that happiness isn't something that is won or lost. Rather, it is all around; it just takes a little bit of searching to find it. And this is evident in the three most important characters -- Konoha, Touko, and Asakura. Konoha finds happiness not through the girl he admired as a child, but through the girl who admired him as a teenager. Touko's happiness is a product of Konoha's, both the "snacks" he made for her and the gift he was able to give to everyone else. As for Asakura, she finds happiness by discovering not only the meaning behind the book "Just Like the Sky," but also that she was able to bring joy to at least one other person. Happiness is a fickle creature that is often hard to find, as is shown through the film. But once it is found, one's soul begins to sparkle like the twinkling stars of the nighttime sky.

ANIMATION

Bungaku Shoujo sees some improvement when it comes to its art and animation.

Much of the proceedings take place in rather common locations. A local hospital, the school grounds, the club room, and in the suburbs, to name a few. The areas themselves often contain nice lighting effects but an overall average amount of detail. Nothing particularly stands out as striking besides the more fantastical moments, such as the final train ride or the all-encompassing star dome.

The character designs are quite poor. The cast look "normal," but many of their faces seem too spread out to be considered realistic. On top of this, everyone suffers extremely pointy chins that look quite unsettling from the beginning, with this feeling persisting for the whole ride.

Beyond this, actual animation is usually above average. The ripping of pages, the falling, tumbling, or running of characters, facial expressions, and other objects moving fluidly are the norm. This was nice to see, given that most of the film is drama done through dialogue.

CHARACTERS

Bungaku Shoujo only has three prominent characters. They are, in order of strength: Konoha, Touko, and Asakura

Konoha, as the lead, sits in a rather precarious spot. Seemingly good at writing but harboring some dark secret, he really acts and seems like a normal, everyday high school kid. And that's a compliment; his normalcy comes off quite natural, due to acting quite natural. At least mostly; literally trying double-suicide isn't psychologically sound. However, the wracking guilt he feels for Asakura is. And what the viewer sees is someone incapable of dealing with such past trauma, to the point that his life begins to revolve around her alone. Sadly, the development of the story doesn't lead to development of Konoha's character; besides picking up the pen once more, there is no reversal in how he acts. He remains the same nice, normal, teenager from start to (pretty much) finish.

Sitting between the strong and the weak, Touko is a strange girl with an even stranger habit: eating books. More specifically, she literally eats pieces of the pages she reads in order to "taste" and "fully digest" what is written. She's bubbly, optimistic, and insightful; contrasting the plain Konoha and the despondent Asakura quite nicely. And in this context, it is more than just characterization. For her, she acts as the catalyst to guide Konoha and Asakura on paths right for them. Her reading and eating of the countless novels supposedly has given her extensive knowledge when it comes to understanding people. Due to this, not only does she see the true value in Konoha's gift but also she is able to give Asakura the outlook needed to see that her initial goal has, in some small part, come to fruition. Again, as with Konoha, she sees little in terms of development, but here at least, her character holds greater meaning outside of just being along for the ride.

The most interesting character of the bunch is definitely Asakura. Her outward kindness masks a seething hatred and burning anger that not even death could extinguish. Her rage-filled emotions are broiled by Konoha; not by what he did to her but what he did for himself. Maintaining terrible relational dependencies due to a hectic household, she wanted to give joy to people despite never experiencing joy herself. But after realizing that she didn't have the talent that her best friend had, she broke, fell, and nearly never recovered. She starts high and hopeful, becomes mentally unstable, but ultimately obtains the comfort she has wanted all along. And with that comfort brought peace of mind, finally grounding her to reality.

There's actually a fascinating connection that can be seen quite evidently within Bungaku Shoujo, but requires a bit of foreknowledge (which is summarized ahead, if you'll indulge me).

The most referenced tale throughout the movie is one known as "Night On the Galactic Railroad." The story consists of three people, Campanella, Giovanni, and Zanelli. Campanella is Giovanni's best friend and all-around helper; Giovanni is the outcast; and Zanelli is the bully. Over the course of the short story, Campanella saves Zanelli from drowning, but dies doing so. At the same time, Campanella and Giovanni meet on a fantastical train in Giovanni's dream; Campanella rides the train to its completion, but Giovanni does not. After waking up, and upon learning of his best friend's death, he vows that "no matter where I [Giovanni] go, we'll always be together."

With this in mind, it's now easy to see: Bungaku Shoujo is a modern and romantic take on "Night On the Galactic Railroad." In the beginning, there are two "Campanella" characters: Asakura and Touko. The former's true wish is to make everyone happy; she fails, and instead manipulates Konoha. The latter's true wish is to have Konoha give his gift to the world; she succeeds in instilling passion within Konoha, and along the way, rescues Asakura. And as for Konoha, after having newfound purpose, he follows through on his true wish by writing a novel based on the very girl who inspired him; a relationship bound by words that will last for eternity.

In short, Campanella, Giovanni, and Zanelli are Touko, Konoha, and Asakura, respectively. And there is even more evidence to support this idea -- the final train ride and subsequent splitting of Touko and Konoha, Asakura being "drowned" in water in the hospital only to be given a helping hand by Touko, and Asakura's bullying starting at the school that marks the beginning of their own "Galactic Railroad." It's all intentional, and it's all done to make this clever take on the classic tale possible.

SOUND

Bungaku Shoujo adheres to about four crucial feelings that are expressed through the music to set the mood. These are: mystical, mysterious, melancholic, and morbid.

During the happier times, where the landscape is either devoid of chaos or filled with adventure, the higher piano sounds, chimes, dainty violin, and occasional choir match it well. The more unknown moments are filled with quicker violins whereas the despair-ridden ones contain many grating and unsettling sounds. And for the sadder scenes, everything slows down, giving the audience the chance to take in much of the drama taking place.

The tracks are nice when attributed to the film, but are not so much meant to be listened to outside of it. They're composed nicely, never reaching purely jubilant or crushingly depressed, but they neither leave much impact nor do they have enough power to stand on their own without the movie's backing.

As far as voice-acting goes, it's somewhere just below average. Miyu Irino as Konoha rarely has the opportunity to show any sort of range, and when he does, it misses the mark. Kana Hanazawa as Touko is okay, but again isn't anything stellar. And Aya Hirano as Asakura provides a solid performance, portraying nicely enough many different feelings throughout the film.

ENJOYMENT

Romance is my favorite genre in anime, which is what enticed me to check this one out in the first place. Unfortunately, the romance itself takes a backseat to the drama that permeates the movie. Feelings of love and longing are too few and far between to make any of the relationships worthwhile. And when those special moments appear onscreen, the "magic" failed to capture my heart in the slightest.

What is weird is how "relevant yet not relevant" Touko's character really is in the grand scheme of things. She hardly ever participates in the story, outside of the ending, and only shows up at very specific moments during it to give aid to whomever it is that needs it. If anything, I would have liked to have seen her more, since her general positive nature and quirks were both interesting and fun to see.

As a movie, Bungaku Shoujo went in with an idea in mind. While the execution in its story, art, and sound is lacking, its take on a classic Japanese novel is not. And while the train of life may separate family, friends, or lovers, this one demonstrates that the feelings that are shared can never truly be broken.

SUMMARY

Story: Bad, underdeveloped plot points, awkward dialogue, pacing issues, okay theme

Animation: Fine, okay art style, bad character designs, good actual animation

Characters: Good, clever, modern, and romantic take on "Night On the Galactic Railroad"

Sound: Fine, okay soundtrack, average VA work

Enjoyment: Bad, not enough romance, needed more Touko

Final Score: 4/10

Disclaimer: I haven't seen/read any OVAs/specials/sequels/prequels/manga/novel related to this movie. Hence I have judged the movie on its own merit.

The most overwhelming feeling throughout the movie was of confusion. I watched it on a streaming site so I had the priviledge of going back 5 seconds everytime I did not get something. But what I felt overall was that this movie is not suitable to be seen in cinema.

The art and sound were fine (maybe good but not according to my taste).

The story was poor. The plot has many moments where I felt that the characters' reactions, dialogues were very contrived. Overall, if we see ... the plot map, it is a very average plot.

The characters are very unrealistic. Escpecially the MC. He doesn't seem to have any sense of right or wrong and is also incapable of thinking for himself. This is very evident and seems to be the intended character trait for him. However it is the only character trait he has and it becomes painfully difficult to like him.

The literature girl is a typical selfless anime angel. That is her only character trait. I suppose the bit about eating stories is to only facilitate writing of deep sounding (albeit nonsensical) dialogues and is not really a character trait.

*spoiler paragraph*
Miu is probably the closest thing to an antagonist this movie has. The problem I have with this movie regarding Miu is not unique to it. It is the problem I have with most anime where villains get redemption. I am all for redemption of villains but I also need repentance and atonement with it. What I felt with this redemption was it was like that of Akito's in Fruits Basket: The Final. There is no repentance let alone atonement.
Speaking of Fruits Basket, I think Hanajima Megumi's (Saki's brother) line, "You musn't assume liking him gives you licence to say whatever you want", with the extension 'and do whatever you want', summarizes the critique of Miu's action and her character [very imp: it is just what i found disagreeable about miu and this is not a criticism of the movie or miu's characterization].
Well bad characters (i mean like villains) do exist but what makes it bad in the movie is unconditional forgiveness for them that other characters are so eager to show.

Overall, I found the characters to be the weakest link in the chain. Even the average overdone plot was better than the characters.

At first you would think that it would be a light high school story but it has a very heavy drama. As the story went by I realized that it was a mystery story after all. Of course, I've gotten so interested because I just love mystery type of stories but I couldn't be so damn wrong. The story became so dramatic and the characters became so damn cheesy. Why is it that people think that in order to create a good story they have to be overly dramatic? The climax was too cliche and as if it wasn't enough the ending was the cliche ... of all cliche, the "Chase". What is it that characters always have to run in the ending to chase the other character? Too much drama!!!!!!!

Story: Ok so the story itself I was conflicted about the rating because its a very original story. You wont find it anywhere else however its so rushed that it doesnt flow together at all. As the story goes on it gets more and more confusing with things like the character backstory, the "romance", and connection between characters.

Art: so the art was pretty good for the time that it was made. It fit the show well and did a good job of making the visuals really stand out from other shows, however the only complaint is the character models feel off. Their not bad by ... any means just off.

Sound: The sound was probably the best part about this movie. There was music playing during the any important scene in the movie which really made the movie feel emotional.

Character: The characters were not done so well. There were 7 "main" characters however only 3 of them had any real screen time. The other 4 had very little involvement on screen and only served purpose for advancing the story between the other 3. In addition there was 1 other person shown in the beginning that hinted at an 8th main character but she only appeared in the intro and the very end of the movie only have a total of about 10-15 seconds of screen time.

Enjoyment: The enjoyment was also a little difficult to rate because some parts of the move drew you in but most didnt.

overall: i would say that the movie wasnt very good, it felt rushed, this should have been made into either a tv show or a series of movies (ie. garden of sinners) there just wasnt enough time to get attached the characters nor was there enough time to develop much of a romance between any of the characters. And to top it all off the movie doesnt once touch on the summary of what, why, how the girl eats books.

Well, this movie sucks. The story is really confusing and hard to follow. The characters are utter garbage and annoying and it becomes boring really fast. It's such a shame that all that work was put in such a piece of garbage. The part of the girl eating the books lasts only 5 seconds long and it's such a shame that it wasn't explored more as an idea. The animation isn't bad at all but it's dragged down by the plot and the characters which are really unlikeable. I found one of the main characters really irritating because she kept making the same mistakes ...
over and over again and the main guy kept forgiving her like it was nothing.
Overall this movie wasn't great and I don't recommend it.

Bungaku Shoujo (“Book girl” / “literature girl”) is a disappointing nothing burger of content.

While it doesn’t do anything explicitly wrong (no obvious plot holes or random points that make no sense), it also doesn’t do anything well enough to warrant any level of praise.

It’s just so…. Bland.

Starting off with a premise about a girl who literally eats words was a great idea, yet the movie fails to do anything noteworthy with that promising concept. Why does she eat the books? How did she start? Does she eat anything else, or is she a magical entity only requiring literature for sustenance?

I’d love to know, but unfortunately, ... we don’t get this information. Yes, I am aware there are OVAs attached to this, but this review is talking solely about the movie on its own, and after being this disappointed I can’t be bothered to watch the other connected media.

So yeah, Bungaku Shoujo is the epitome of mediocre- truly boring, but not so bad that I can justify rating it any lower than a 6.