Bungaku Shoujo is a not-particularly-light novel series, written by Nomura Mizuki about a once-a-trap and his book-eating Youkai-sempai. The series is complete, with 8 books having been published in Japanese, and 5 having been published in Chinese. You’d expect an English review to be about something in English, BUT YOU’D BE WRONG.

Synopsis

On entering high school, Inoue Konoha was dragged into the literature club by Amano Tooko, the mysterious, beautiful “Literature Girl” who loves books so much that she eats them. Tooko recruits Konoha to be her “pâtissier”, to write short stories for her to snack on each day after school; however, after suffering the consequences of having his book published at the age of 14, Konoha had vowed to never write again. Slowly, through Tooko’s insistence, Konoha once again picks up the pen and begins to write short stories for Tooko.

One day, in Konoha’s junior year, a strange letter appears in the “Love Consultation Box” set up by Tooko in the school yard. The sender, Takeda Chia, asks the Literature Club to help her write love letters to a Kataoka Shuuji-sempai, but neither Konoha nor Tooko have ever met or heard of this person. As Konoha continues to write letters on behalf of Chia, he is dragged further and further into the mysteries surrounding Shuuji, Chia, and the Archery Club to which Shuuji belonged.

Review

Although set in a high school setting, the structure of the Bungaku Shoujo series is like that of a tradition mystery thriller. Each volume Konoha and Tooko meets new people, each plagued by their own mysteries, problems and ghosts of the past. Something mysterious happens, and Konoha is dragged into their problems by chance or through deliberate machinations. However, instead of finding out who the murderer is, Konoha and Tooko spend each book unearthing the relationships between the major players of each story, their often dark personal histories, their feelings and their motivations. Although it is classified as a light novel, the books are populated by dark, vengeful, and often tragic characters, and the secrets they hide are usually depressing, even horrifying ones.

Despite each character’s fault, the majority of them are good by nature, and often they are led down the wrong path only because they are blinded by misfortune and misunderstanding. Sometimes they are led to do things that are irrevocable, and become surrounded by despair; in spite of this, the characters find hope in Tooko’s “imaginings” of the hidden truth, the goodness underlying the actions that drove them into darkness in the first place. In realising the truth, they seek redemption for the wrong that they themselves committed. These recurring themes in the series – goodness, hope and redemption – are beautiful, positive messages that make the series a heart-warming read. Even though some of the books end in tragedy, and may dampen the hope and redemption aspect, there is always an unerring belief in the goodness and beauty of humanity, the books deal with this in a very convincing way that doesn’t feel trite or patronising.

Bound by these three themes and mystery-thriller convention, the structure of each book becomes set and predictable. Like most light novels, each book start out humorously in the everyday, status quo setting. Then new characters are introduced, and things are shaken up as Konoha discover their secrets. As the mystery unfolds and the negative emotions build up to a climax, Tooko steps forward, uttering her catchphrase “As you can see, I’m a ‘Literature Girl’.”, and reveals the truth behind everything, bringing hope to the ones in despair. While reading the last few books in the series I found it hard to believe that any of the characters currently being demonised are as evil as they appear, so I can’t build up some genuine fear or hatred for them. Characters who are initially hinted at as evil are always revealed to have hidden and good intentions, or are simply misled. This takes away from the impact of the stories somewhat, because I know that they are not truly evil, and kept trying to second guess what are the true intention behind their actions. Yet, the books remain a riveting read because of Nomura’s ability to create convincing and suitable moods for each situation, and her ability to maintain tension by keeping up an amazing, almost relentless pace, as Konoha discovers more and more about the protagonists of each book.

Here are some other things that I would like to note about the series:

- The reference to various classical literature seems gimmicky and unnecessary, as is comparing them to food, and, to a lesser extent, using them as the basis for each plot. This is only a very, very minor complaint, because I admire Nomura’s desire to make people interested in classical literature in an easy to access way, even though I didn’t care for it and skimmed over most of the literary critique passages.
- The characters are sometimes hard to empathise with. A lot of them have experienced extraordinary circumstances that I can’t find parallels with in my own life, but I have been extremely fortunate up to now and I believe there are people out there who are experiencing some of these problems everyday. For them Bungaku Shoujo can be a really uplifting read with its hope-filled message.
- The short, first person blurbs littered through-out each book intensifies the mysteries greatly, and I love them. It’s fun guessing who’s writing the passages for each book and what they’re referring to, and re-reading them after the end of each book reveals a lot more about the characters writing them.

Overall, great series with excellent pacing and mood, filled with melancholic tales and uplifting messages.

4 out of 5 literature girls would love eating this light novel series.

Odds of getting an anime adaptation: Small, seeing as it’s extremely reliant on dialogues and monologues, as well as hiding the identity of the person making the first person blurbs through-out each book. I would love to see it animated – both the manga and the novels’ illustrations look fantastic, and hearing Tooko’s lively speeches about literature and food would be a lot of fun – but it just doesn’t seem like it would work.

EDIT: THIS JUST IN

From Neechin.net: a new Bungaku Shoujo: Project Memoire… thing, was just announced. Unfortunately the singular flash video on the official website is completely and utterly unhelpful, giving us only lines from the original novels and a new line saying “The story of these two is not yet over.” Talk about a teaser… I’m banking on sequel novels, seeing as the the flash seems to suggest new stories for Konoha and Tooko.