Bungaku Shojo

I don't know why I'm going off to read a bunch of Light Novels lately, but at least the ones I've read recently are rather entertaining. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of translations of novels available on baka-tsuki (or anywhere for that matter). Not that I blame them since they ARE translating entire novels. However, sometimes I wish they would redirect their translators from some of the more popular novels to others. In particular, Toradora (kind of shallow, mildly entertaining to read but it looks like others might be better) and Zero no Tsukima (Very shallow, about the same content as the anime, plus the translations are terrible) should get less attention than others. :(

But the title of this post obviously suggests I'm not here to rant on the rate of translations of light novels. Its just that this novel is a nice read so I thought I should say random thoughts on it. Consequently the front page for this series boasts that it won a series of awards from 2007 to 2009, with 2009 being the #1 best series and other details. So I don't think it really needs any more words of praise from me when there are those much more noteworthy that gave the series their appreciation. Considering how many allusions to other great novel works this author uses, I think he's pretty sophisticated in writing literature as well (in contrast to other light novelists, who can apparently be lawyers (Haruhi), businessmen (Spice and Wolf?), or other people who probably don't have much of an idea of what they're doing... not that that's a bad thing :V).

So, a few comments. First, I like the concept of eating literature. Somehow, I can relate very easily with this "eating literature" to concepts like me plowing through manga and anime (and, more recently, light novels). The "flavors" she likes to boast about I can very much imagine through the variety of anime series I've watched; indeed there are many times where I'm watching a series, and I can be like "this is so sweet~~!!! I can't handle much more!!" (Moe types), or "ah that was refreshing, a good wash down the throat" (Slice of Life, think Aria), to maybe "so savory, so savory, I want more!!" (Suspense, like Code Geass). And of course there are the bitter types, some more entertaining to eat than others. For the record 07-Ghost "tasted" quite horrible, it was like eating a vegetable salad where I hated all the ingredients except for the croutons on top.

My second comment will contain spoilers. (More spoilerish than a girl eating a book anyway)

I think Takeda-san and Shuuji-kun's characters are, rather than being directly linked to any type of personality, are more of representations, or extremes, of people's general concept of loneliness and misunderstanding. Some people indeed do not understand it, and feel a lot for others (I think my sister is very much like this). Some people can relate a little more to it, perhaps not being able to understand some emotions as well as others (I'm more in this range). And some people come very close to Takeda-san and Shuuji-kun, where they do not truly understand empathy at all.
However one of the issues that arises from this is the fact that these people still feel guilty for what they've done. They do not necessarily feel the sadness for having killed someone, yet they feel the guilt that they did so and even more so, without feeling any sadness after doing so. But wouldn't people who can't feel for others, have no sense of guilt as well? Perhaps this means that Takeda-san and Shuuji-kun are NOT farfetched extreme examples of emotionless people (I know there is a science term out there but I don't know what it is :V) but only missing a few pieces.
So I guess in that respect I just disproved myself. Those two are not the most extreme examples of (emo, or emotionless?) people out there, though they are pretty extreme in themselves. The world is a big place with a lot of people. It's hard to understand everyone.

The last comment I like to make is, Takeda-san reminds me of a person in anime club. Perhaps not as extreme as the character in the book though.