I recently wrote about how large publishers often market books with little regard for their actual content. This might create hype and boost sales but leaves behind a trail of disappointed and frustrated readers. Asako Yuzuki’s acclaimed novel Butter strikes me as a textbook example of this. While I have little patience for negative reviews that criticise an author for not having written an entirely different book – often going on to describe the hypothetical novel they wish to read instead – I can empathise with the frustration expressed by many readers online. While reading Butter, I came across an advertisement for another novel by a Japanese author. I won’t name the bookshop or the novel itself, but it went like this:
Move over Butter, there’s a twisty new Japanese mystery novel on the scene… and this one’s interactive!
That puzzled me, as I was still gathering my thoughts on Butter – not yet having finished it – and was baffled by the idea that it could be described as a twisty mystery novel. Surely, aside from an attempt to market all Japanese works together, only a failure to actually read Yuzuki’s book could explain such a description. While the UK edition avoided the atrocious American subtitle “A Novel of Food and Murder” and remained close to the original Japanese title, バター, it was still marketed under the categories of Crime, Thrillers & True Crime and Crime & Thrillers. Its description opens like this:
The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.
All of these factors, of course, would lead a reader to expect: a) a mystery; b) a thriller; and c) something skimming close to true crime. Butter, my dear friend, is none of the above. The novel’s popularity in Japan, I suspect, stems from its ambition and success in sparking a conversation about how viciously women are treated. This novel is not even about the supposed serial killer or her real-life inspiration. It is more interested in shedding light on the problematic way people perceive her. While Manako Kajii is often fascinating and the source of conflict – a catalyst for change in the actual protagonist – she serves merely as an excuse for the broader conversation to take place. The relationship that truly matters is the one between Rika – the journalist whose perspective we follow – and Reiko, her longtime best friend. So, what is Butter actually about?
The premise is deceptively straightforward: Manako Kajii, a foodie blogger, has become a public sensation. She is in prison, convicted of murdering several men, all of whom were understood to be older businessmen who are somewhat isolated. These men basked in her attention in relationships centred on her cooking home-made meals for them. The novel addresses the fast-paced lives of professional men and women, who often survive on convenience store food and have little time to prepare or even eat proper meals.
It also explores the gendered implications of this lifestyle: while men are admired for their ambition, women are expected to balance their personal and professional lives seamlessly. They are also held accountable when men feel neglected. Many women give up their careers or change paths to accommodate domestic responsibilities – a reality reflected in the lives of some of the novel’s characters, including Mizushima, “formerly a well-regarded journalist at the Shūmei Weekly” who transferred to the sales department, her best friend Reiko, who quits her job, and Rika’s own mother. Rika herself carries guilt over her father’s early death, believing she failed to care – and cook – for him during a period of vulnerability and poor health. Although she was only a teenager at the time, the trauma of finding him dead has stayed with her, igniting a fascination with the publicly vilified Kajii and her cast of older men.
Despite Kajii’s refusal to grant interviews, Rika finds an opening by following Reiko’s suggestion: she asks Kajii for a recipe. This leads to a kind of friendship – or as close as one can come to that with someone as manipulative as Kajii. Rika, ambitious and driven, hopes that securing an exclusive interview ahead of Kajii’s retrial will earn her a position on the Shūmei Weekly’s prestigious editorial desk. If successful, she would become the first woman to achieve that. Currently, she isn’t even allowed to sign or write the final version of the pieces she investigates. Kajii agrees to speak to Rika but sets a condition: no interviews. She will only discuss food. As part of this peculiar arrangement, Kajii assigns Rika a series of culinary tasks, starting with giving up margarine for butter. There are several dishes Rika must prepare, restaurants she must visit, and soon her tasks grow more complex, from eating ramen in the middle of the night after having sex to visiting Manako Kajii’s hometown.
In a lot of ways, the novel is a sort of coming-of-age story: though Rika is decidedly already an adult when we begin, she is still deeply entangled in the traumas and expectations of her adolescence. She conforms to rigid societal standards and is quite plainly unhappy. She is extremely thin, rarely eats anything she enjoys, and dates a man she feels no real affection for. Rika moves through life on autopilot, having shaped herself to fit other people’s expectations and an unyielding personal discipline. While her primary goal in accepting Kajii’s peculiar culinary assignments is to gain her trust and eventually secure an interview, Rika begins to untether herself from the life she once led. This transformation is, for me, the most compelling part of the novel. Severely undernourished without even realising it, Rika embarks on a journey of rediscovering the sensual pleasure of food. As she gains weight, others around her immediately take notice – and not always kindly. Her boyfriend, Makoto, remarks that gaining weight implies a lack of self-care and might damage her professional reputation. He joins her co-workers in only accepting her transformation when it is framed as part of her larger strategy to connect with Kajii and secure an interview.
As Rika becomes increasingly fascinated with Kajii and her lifestyle during her research, the journalist’s relationship with Reiko begins to strain. Reiko grows resentful of Rika’s seemingly non-judgmental and even admiring attitude towards a convicted murderer. At the same time, Reiko struggles with her own frustrations over societal expectations of femininity: she desperately wants to have a baby but is unable to conceive, and her husband refuses to undergo fertility testing. Reiko also begrudges Rika’s transformation – her newfound indifference to societal expectations – and their friendship temporarily fractures. The dynamic between the two women is complicated and ambiguous. There is a subtle but persistent suggestion of a platonic romantic love between them, and I often wondered whether their relationship might develop into something more. Alas, it never does and by the end Reiko has reconciled with her bland husband.
Rika’s bisexuality is hinted at throughout the novel but is never fully explored. At her all-girls school, she was nicknamed a “prince” by her classmates, a nod to her charisma and the romantic/erotic admiration she inspired. When Reiko eventually reconciles with her friend, she confesses that her frustration with Rika’s weight gain was less about societal expectations and more rooted in her own desire:
I’m sorry for telling you before that you should diet. Seeing you becoming softer and rounder and more relaxed made me anxious. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I felt like you were moving away from being the prince you used to be, whom I’d loved.
Butter – Asako Yusuki
Rika does not perform femininity to the same degree as most of the women who surround her, her thinness being the only thing that shielded her from the kind of derision Manako Kajii faced. The erotic pull she had on Reiko was not exclusive to her friend either:
A memory surfaced. Back when she’d been at an all-girls’ school, a classmate had begged Rika, tearfully, to let her kiss her. ‘Please, just once,’ she’d entreated. Rika had politely refused, fighting back her surprise. When Rika had re-encountered the girl many years later at a class reunion, she had transformed into a cheerful, good-natured woman, married with two children, and had said nonchalantly to Rika, ‘I was so desperate back then to fall in love, but there were no boys around, and since you were the most boyishly handsome person in sight, I had no choice but to become obsessed with you. I went a bit funny in the head.’ It was clear she was attempting to write the whole thing off as an amusing anecdote from the past, but Rika could remember the episode with an almost cruel level of detail. There was no doubting it – in that moment, the girl had desired Rika. Her eyes and her lips had grown moist, just like Kajii’s were now, and she stared at Rika fixedly with a gaze hot enough to burn right through her. She’d known back then that lots of girls wanted her. Even though she’d understood that she was desired as a substitute for a man, Rika had felt as though she was being validated in her entirety, in a way that made her special.
The narrative excels in its moments of unsettling interiority far more than in its twists. At one point, Reiko takes over the narrative voice in an episode that feels a bit too much like a TV drama, detracting somewhat from the otherwise nuanced character study. Another – albeit unsurprising – twist has Manako Kajii turning against Rika with the help of a man she later marries (!), publicly shaming her after the journalist’s article on her is published to rave reviews. Their relationship is slippery and complex, but while some of these episodes do not shine as brightly as the rest of the narrative, they do not diminish the impact of the novel’s final act.
In the conclusion, Rika embraces the reality of her new life, free from the pull Kajii once had on her but never reverting to her earlier repressed self. The killer is neither a monster nor a star; she is merely a sad, fragile person whose insecurities caused great deal of pain for herself, and everyone caught in her destructive path. By the end, the reader realises that the story was never about the murders or Kajii’s guilt or innocence – it was about Rika’s need for self-reinvention.
The novel also illuminates other stories that echo Rika’s, unfolding quietly on the margins. From Rika’s mother, who endures verbal abuse from her elderly father while still being his caregiver, to Mr Shinoi’s teenage daughter, bullied for weight fluctuations but overcoming an eating disorder, and a girl-band idol publicly ridiculed for gaining weight, the narrative calmly exposes the relentless violence women face in their daily lives. Ultimately, Reiko, as well as Rika, come to understand that all of this is about control.
The novel concludes with togetherness. Rika decides to prepare the one dish Manako Kajii never managed to cook, having been imprisoned before she had the chance and lacking both company and skill to do it earlier: a roast turkey. In a final act of collective joy, the journalist invites all her friends to share in the meal and successfully prepares the dish. Kajii, who once claimed to dislike women, is finally understood by Rika in all her vulnerability. The journalist learns that Kajii had attempted a similar gesture with the women from her cooking school. She tried to make amends after a violent meltdown by inviting them to a gathering that mirrored the one Rika hosts. However, Kajii’s attempt ended in failure – the turkey left to rot, the invitations torn and discarded. Manako Kajii is revealed not as a criminal mastermind or a mysterious monster, but as a deeply flawed and vulnerable person who lashed out in destructive ways. With this understanding, Rika finds freedom from that episode of her life. She begins to live on her own terms, embracing the knowledge that she is not alone. In her darkest moment, she learns to reach out to a community eager to support her and share in her joys.
Butter is neither a murder mystery nor a crime novel. While Kajii’s alleged crimes are an important thread, the story is ultimately about community and the ways in which food – and well-prepared meals – can bring people together. It is a novel about friendship, a critique of the treatment of women in Japanese society, and a story of self-growth and liberation. So, yes, Butter is worth the hype – but also, no, it isn’t, because the hype should be framed in entirely different terms.
If you are curious about the case that inspired Manako Kajii, this review goes into it.