Reviews

Villain by Shūichi Yoshida

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Shuichi Yoshida is an expert at building both sympathy and suspicion for the characters in Villian, and plays an intricate game with the reader with strategic reveals and evidence. The novel is involving and I wanted to gorge myself on it as soon as I was only a few pages in. Yoshida seamlessly moves between characters, expanding his scope around the central murder victim via a game of six degrees of separation. The entire novel questions what it means to be an evil person, a villain, and ends with a chilling question:

"Isn't that what everyone says? That he's the villain in all this? ... Right?"

I highly recommend this novel, it is suspenseful and raw, and parts made me emotional in an unexpected way. This is a novel you will not regret reading, and one of the finest crime novels I have read so far. Yoshida adds another masterpiece proving that Japanese crime fiction is among the finest in a genre that has become world-wide.

zaisgraph's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I love this novel because of the questions it asks and the picture it paints. 3.5 stars.

Villain is not a speedy read. I am sometimes thrown off by how off tangent things become. Like it wants to tell more than one story. It did. It just felt disjointed. However, the powerful endings to the story arc of the victim's father and to the central character, the "villain", saved this book and actually made me reevaluate my 2 star rating.

What is honor? What is love? Who is the victim? And who is the villain? Many questions. Many answers. Like human life, Shuichi Yoshida provides shades of grey and enough talking points to fuel a healthy discussion. Recommended.

sanmeow's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

the one thing i don't want in a mystery / thriller is it being overly predictable. this was exactly that. straight up predictable. not a fan of that. i also really like me a descriptive writing style, yet this was too much. so many details that it kept dragging the story on and on, completely unnecessary. i liked some of the psychological development of the characters and the way the author incorporated a japanese classic into this, the classic being the struggles of an isolated person. otherwise, i liked the concept better than the execution.

ashify's review against another edition

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4.0

An exhilarating read this was! It almost blew my mind off, but I realized that what I was reading was the simple reality of life. The characters portrayed were very human. There is no one villain here. It showed how things relate, how it takes on a butterfly effect, and how a simple action from someone can change a life - for better or worse.

The murdered victim, Yoshino Ishibashi, doesn’t particularly evoke sympathy. She came off as rude and a bit manipulative. She wasn’t a great friend. The murderer, I had hoped, wouldn’t be the murderer. I sympathized with his terrible circumstances. The initial murder suspect, however, treads on balance - neither too great nor too bad but flawed indeed. Now the characters related to these three spread out like a spider web. One tug and it comes tumbling.

But death is a terrible thing. It has a domino effect. And it affected the entire web.

"A person disappearing from this world isn’t like the top stone of a pyramid disappearing. It’s more like one of the foundation stones at the base. You know what I mean?"

The book delves deep into the psyche of its characters, exploring their motivations and inner demons. It also touches on the theme of guilt and how it can consume a person. As it was nearing its end, all characters longed for the salvation they needed.

"The sky seemed close enough to touch."

The plot is well-crafted, with twists and turns that keep the reader engaged until the very end. Overall, Villain is a thought-provoking and gripping read that will stay with you long after you've finished it.

emmmmmmliz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

miniando's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

paul_cornelius's review against another edition

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5.0

Disconnection drives this story. Children disconnected from parents and grandparents. Workers disconnected from their colleagues. Sisters, twins even, disconnected from each other's lives. It reminds me of an Antonioni film. Not only that, but the theme determines the form as well. Shuichi Yoshida creates a modernist masterpiece with this work that shifts its points of view as well as its perspectives in time. Enormously complicated, the character sketches lead into dead ends. Deliberately. For throughout the story evades a centering. Even the final pages turn away from the seemingly sentimental and satisfying ending it looked like the reader was going to enjoy. Instead, everything and everyone is thrown right back into their compartmentalized, separate worlds. Fittingly enough, perhaps the main character (only "perhaps"), Mitsuyo goes back to her job in a department store. Departments. Compartments. What's the difference. The villain here is the disconnection each and every character endures without hope of changing.

egioia's review against another edition

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5.0

This is one of the best books I have read in ages. Told from a variety of viewpoints, it's never clear what is true and what isn't. Motivations are questionable and characters that should be reviled become the object of sympathy.