The retailer website for the Japanese publisher Shueisha lists the new anime adaptation of four Japanese literary works as a 12-episode Aoi Bungaku (Blue Literature) television series. The anime series will premiere on October 10.

Manga artist Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Hikaru no Go, Bakuman.) is involved with the anime versions of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human (Ningen Shikkaku) and Soseki Natsume's Kokoro. No Longer Human recounts a person's deepening alienation from the rest of the world, while Kokoro follows a narrator's revelations of his sensei's life. A footnote in the latest installment of the Bakuman. manga has already announced on Monday that Obata is creating the designs for an anime adaptation of a number of unnamed "literary masterpieces." Obata had drawn the illustrations for the recent reprintings of No Longer Human and Kokoro.

Usamaru Furuya (51 Ways to Save Her) just launched a manga version of No Longer Human in Shinchosha's Comic Bunch magazine in February. Nariko Enomoto (Lost Girl, Get Boy) adapted Kokoro into a manga in Shogakukan's Big Comic Superior magazine in 2005.

Obata also drew the illustrations of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's Hell Screen (Jigoku Hen), but Bleach manga creator Tite Kubo will be involved with the anime version of that novel. Manga creator Takeshi Konomi (The Prince of Tennis) will be involved with Dazai's Run, Melos! (Hashire Melos), which was already made into a 1981 animated television special and a 1992 animated film. Konomi drew the illustrations for a reprinting of Run, Melos! Hell Screen describes the violent creation of artist's screen painting of hell, and Run, Melos! follows a Greek shepherd as he travels to visit his sister's wedding before his execution.

All four literary works have been published in English without these manga creators' illustrations. Viz Media publishes Obata's Death Note, Hikaru no Go, and Ral Ω Grad manga, as well as Kubo's Bleach and Konomi's Prince of Tennis.

Date of birth: 1909-06-19
Hometown: Kanagi, Aomori, Japan
Chronology:
(1930) Enters Tokyo University
(1930-11-28) Attempts double suicide with Tabe Shimeko
(1933) First short stories published in magazines
(1935-03) Attempts suicide in Kamakura
(1937-04) Attempts double suicide with Oyama Hatsuya at the Tanigawa onsen
(1939) Marries Ishihara Michiko
(1947) Novel "Shayo" {The Setting Sun} published.
(1947) Short story "Biyon no tsuma" {Villon's Wife} published
(1948) Novel "Ningen Shikkaku" {No Longer Human} published
(1948-06-13) Commits double suicide by drowning, with Yamazaki Tomie, in Tokyo
(1948-06-19) Body found, on his 39th birthday
Date of death: 1948-06-13

We are in Sicilia at the times of Magna Grecia. Melos is a good boy from Messina and has come to Siracusa, the magnificent city of temples, to buy a ritual sword for his sister's marriage ceremony. He meets a very talented sculptor and they become friends. After a while king's guardians arrest Melos, while he was having a walk in the castle's gardens and Siracusa's king, obsessed by the idea of anybody willing to kill him, sentence him to death. Melos is desperate, but most of all he wants to be present at his sister's ceremony, so he asks the king three more days to go to Messina for the celebration and then turning back to Siracusa where he will accept the death penalty. The king does not trust him, but, trying to demonstrate that nobody could trust him, asks him to find a volunteer substitute in case he'd escaped. The sculptor friend accept to be Melos' substitute in this case...

Base on novel, i guess it would be something like Ayakashi anime (the one with few story without any connection), which consist few story. though its a wonder to see mangaka to be involve with anime. Hard to tell how thing will be, but the world literature, most of the people here wont survive few eps of it. especially Bleach creator, its aint bleach, so dun expect bankai'ish stuff in Hell Screen.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-...ting-next-month

here something bout Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, the author himself.
n some info bout Hasire Melos's story.