Death Makes Us Human
- Episodes : 112 Minutes
- Genre : Psychological, Historical, Drama, Seinen
- Airing Date : October 22, 2019
- Producers : Polygon Pictures
Contains Spoilers
Human Lost Introduction and Story
Human Lost—based loosely on Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human auto biological novel—tells a tale of a future where humanity has changed into something incredible. Thanks to the power of nanomachines and the SHELL system, humans have surpassed the need for conventional medicines and doctors. Now, most humans have begun to live well beyond the typical age of death entering the realm of beyond 120 years of age. As a byproduct of this evolution of mankind, Japan has begun to struggle internally with various problems from economic falls and high crime. However, the more grave issues come from humans becoming “Lost”. Those who enter this Human Lost state become frenzied monster-like beings that attack without discretion. SHELL has tried to mitigate those who turn Lost but worry there will be bigger outbreaks as time goes on. From this intro, we then follow our main protagonist Youzou Oba who is a struggling orphaned artist. Oba ends up getting involved with a strange man named Masao Horiki who gives Oba and his friend a strange drug to induce the state of Human Lost. Oba’s friend transforms as they try to stage a rush to enter SHELL’s headquarters and Oba also transforms during the fight. While Oba begins to get consumed by his former friend, he ends up becoming an altered Lost and gains the attention of SHELL and HILAM or the Anti Lost Agency. From here Oba begins to get dragged around by HILAM, SHELL, and Masao as they try to use his powers to change the very existence of the world. Oba continues to struggle throughout the movie with his existence now being both a human but also a monster that his thoughts quickly spiral out of control. Luckily, Yoshiko Hiiragi—a girl we meet earlier in the movie who has powers like Oba—tries to keep his mind sane. As the movie progresses—we won’t go into full spoilers so you can enjoy the major moments for yourself—Masao unleashes his grand plans alongside several others who cause the fate of the world to be up to Oba’s power. With little choice, Oba is forced to make decisions that can affect his own sanity and affect humanity in unprecedented ways. In the end, Oba will indeed be No Longer Human but the path to that will be one you’ll need to see to believe.
1. Deep Narrative with Intriguing Themes
No Longer Human intrigued readers with an interesting take on how a man could examine their world in an almost kaleidoscope way. Human Lost captures this strange thought process by putting our main “hero” Oba into a situation where every action he takes can be seen in not just one way. You’ll begin to wonder if living forever—as great as that might sound—could be a truly terrifying reality even for those who wish to.
2. Intriguing Sci-Fi Elements
Human Lost tries to be a psychological thriller first and foremost but what we noticed more than anything else was the deep sci-fi themes. Humanity has always balanced between the advancement of technology and how that could help—and hinder—us as a race. Human Lost examines the possibilities of humans going too far in their pursuit of longevity better than some anime films we’ve seen before. Sci-fi fans will love the perfect mix of drama, psychological themes and futuristic technologies found in Human Lost.
3. Incredible Soundtrack
Any good anime film can live or die based on its soundtrack. Each scene needs to have strong accompanying tunes or songs to increase the impact of the visuals on screen. Human Lost immediately shows that it understands this concept and provides some truck incredible music that makes every drama-filled moment or action-packed fight just that much more powerful! We hope Human Lost eventually has a soundtrack release to the public, we’d buy it day one if it did!
1. CGI Visuals
While Polygon Pictures is well known for its great works like Ajin and Knights of Sidonia, their use of CGI still turns off many anime fans. If you’re one of those who hate CGI—even when it’s done quite well—then you’re going to dislike Human Lost’s visual aesthetics. There are some truly incredible CGI moments in Human Lost but we still don’t believe it will make people love CGI if they hate it already.
2. Don’t Expect No Longer Human
Earlier on in our review, we said Human Lost loosely follows the theme/premise of No Longer Human by Dazai. That statement is very true as Human Lost barely captures the concepts of No Longer Human and instead strives to use the concepts from that book but in a different way. Oba’s character struggles with his own weakness/past/actions but unlike Dazai, his thoughts of becoming a monster are based on those choices and not on a psychological depression. Though there will be some mentions of double suicides, we just won’t say when…
3. Occasionally Boring Scenes
Like Dazai’s No Longer Human, Human Lost tries to be very metaphorical in its approach to looking at the weakness of man and the thoughts of what freedom means. On paper, this works quite well for an autobiography like No Longer Human but for a sci-fi themed psychological thriller, it can be a double-edged sword. There are some scenes in Human Lost that can almost be painfully boring. Please note though that of the issues found in Human Lost, this isn’t a big problem seeing as how we like occasional slow moments like these for pacing/plot purposes.
Final Thoughts
Human Lost is a very unique anime film. We can see many viewers loving the way it handles the various themes of death, mortality, life, sci-fi, and drama but we can also see people hating it for those same reasons. Human Lost is a film that will divide viewers not because it’s a poor movie—it’s far from poor—but because it’s so strange and thought-provoking. We highly recommend watching Human Lost as we loved our time with it and think it could be considered a truly unique anime film. Are you guys going to check out Human Lost in theaters or have you already? Comment below to let us know! For even more anime film reviews and anime-related articles be sure to keep stuck to our hive here at Honey’s Anime!
Author: Aaron