Takeichi tells him he will be a great artist someday. As a result he takes up painting himself in order to express his true thoughts on people, and paints a self-portrait so hideous he refuses to show it to anyone except Takeichi, whose approval of Modigliani's work was what inspired him. Art Reflects Personality: Yozo becomes enamored with the eerie paintings of artist Amedeo Modigliani, feeling that they communicate the underlying evil of humanity by portraying ordinary people with distorted proportions.Addled Addict: Yozo becomes a heavy morphine user toward the end of the story, which takes a serious toll on his health and results in his confinement to a mental hospital.

Adaptation Expansion: The manga version also continues for another 12 years after the book, albeit with a timeskip between him leaving the hospital and the part afterwards.Adaptational Villainy: In the manga version by Junji Ito, Yozo is much more actively malevolent and his antics indirectly get multiple people killed who survive in the book.Bungo Stray Dogs takes considerable inspiration from it, with one of the main protagonists bearing Dazai's name and wielding a supernatural power named after the book.

The book has been adapted into many mediums such film, anime and manga, including as the first four episodes of the series Blue Literature and a manga adaptation by Junji Ito which alters the story to incorporate elements of horror. Considered a national classic in Japan, it is the nation's second-best selling novel of all time and has been translated into many foreign languages, including an English translation in 1958 by Donald Keene. Though ostensibly fictional, much of it is based on Dazai's own life. Profoundly pessimistic but deeply insightful, it was the final and most famous work by Japanese writer Osamu Dazai, who committed suicide shortly after its publication in 1948. As he grows older, he is unable to overcome his feelings of alienation and trauma, leading him down a path of inevitable self-destruction. Perpetually resentful of humanity since childhood, he adopts a comical persona early on in life in order to disguise his true feelings. No Longer Human ( Ningen Shikkaku in Japanese, translating literally to 'Disqualified From Being Human') tells the story of Ōba Yōzō, a man who is incapable of relating to other people.

I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.

No longer human ito