Confessions

“I [Moriguchi] have to say that I’m less interested in catering to your adolescent whims and more concerned that you grow up someday to be people who are capable of considering the feelings of others.”

Moriguchi is a teacher who sets clear boundaries with her students and treats them like adults, thereby showing them respect. This statement is a rebuke to students who cause trouble for others while Failing to Consider Consequences that might stem from their actions. It also serves to make her a foil for Werther, whose oblivious and careless behavior as a teacher contrasts with her teaching.

“If you’re so sympathetic to people with AIDS, why did you move away when you found out that the teacher standing in front of you had sex with someone infected with HIV?”

Here, Moriguchi calls out the obvious stigma and prejudice that the students hold regarding HIV/AIDS. While having read a novel about someone living with HIV and expressing concern and sympathy at that time, the students are unable to access this sympathy when Moriguchi discloses Sakuranomi’s diagnosis and, thus, her exposure. This stems mainly from ignorance—as evidenced by their behavior later in the book.

“As a mother, I’d had to learn that there was a clear difference between loving your child and spoiling her.”

Just as Moriguchi sets clear boundaries as a teacher, so, too, does she maintain similar rules as a mother. Moriguchi clearly loves her daughter and showers her with gifts, but only in moderation. In this way, she is juxtaposed with Naoki’s and Shūya’s mothers—the former is both coddling and withholding of affection, and the latter is physically abusive.

“If we choose instead to coddle them and make a fuss over them, aren’t we just fueling their narcissism? And won’t there be even more foolish kids out there to idolize them?”

Moriguchi makes her cynicism for the juvenile penal code and media broadcasts clear here. Her mistrust of the juvenile justice system motivates her acts of vengeance in the novel. Having suffered at the hands of juvenile offenders who were inspired by other juvenile offenders, she makes a strong point regarding the flaws in the system. Her opinion also sets her at odds with Sakuranomi, who supports the rehabilitation of troubled youths.

“I do not want to be a saint.

I am not being noble by keeping the identity of A and B a secret. I haven’t told the police because I simply don’t trust the law to punish them. […] I wanted them to understand the value, the terrible weight, of human life, and once they’d understood, I wanted them to fully realize the consequences of what they’d done—and to live with that realization.”

Continuing after Quote #5, Moriguchi introduces her revenge plot. Although she doesn’t trust the law to enact her desired punishment, by refusing media coverage of the crime, she also punishes Shūya by denying him the attention he craves. At the same time, while Moriguchi doesn’t directly reveal their names, the murderers’ identities are still recognized by their class, negating the effect of the privacy laws. In this way, Moriguchi teaches the class to consider the consequences of their actions.

“That was pretty thoughtless, I think. If you were going to do that to them, then you should at least stay and face the consequences. You should be here to see what happens to them.”

While Moriguchi is aware of the consequences of her revenge, due to her manipulations of and communication with Werther, Mizuki is unaware of this. Instead, she serves as the witness who informs Moriguchi of the results of her punishment, suggesting that she is behaving hypocritically, as Moriguchi incites consequences for Shūya and Naoki during her retirement speech. In both scenarios, the instigators are called upon to take responsibility for the chaos they incite, with varying outcomes.

“I’ve realized that you have to have a trial, no matter how terrible the crime is. Not for the criminal but for average people, to make sure they understand what’s happened and to keep them from taking the law into their own hands.”

Mizuki opposes the bullying her class enacts, but as she is sympathetic to Moriguchi, she initially believes that victim(s) should be allowed to take revenge on the perpetrator who injured them. Over the course of Shūya’s bullying by his classmates and his own threats toward them, however, she changes her mind, suggesting it is the role of the law to oversee a trial if only to educate the public and prevent similar crimes from happening again. In other words, the bullying must be controlled, and Shūya cannot be allowed to murder again.

“It’s much easier to condemn people for doing the wrong thing than it is to do the right thing yourself. But even then, it takes a certain amount of courage to be the first one to come out and blame someone else.”

While Mizuki opposes the bullying, she is unable to speak out against it, fearful that she, too, will become a victim. Her fears do eventually come true, as the brave anonymous plea for help backfires and she is blamed. While Mizuki does not realize it, her statement is an indictment of Moriguchi as much as it gives her credit for the “courage” she shows in Chapter 1: Moriguchi is the architect of the bullying. At the same time, this quote is applicable to both Naoki and Shūya, who both seek vengeance for their perceived injuries but can’t rise above their grudges or admit the real people at fault—themselves and, to a lesser degree, their mothers.

“Moriguchi-sensei, I know that Naoki and Shūya are murderers, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive kids who would do something like this.”

As the bullying escalates, dragging her into it, Mizuki begins to question whether the class’s behavior is justified. She doesn’t condone Naoki and Shūya’s crime, but she also knows that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” In this way, Mizuki’s perception once again changes as the situation shifts.

“‘That’s all I really wanted,’ he said. ‘Just somebody to notice me.’”

Shūya’s main motivation for most of what he does—criminal or not—is attention. While he primarily desires his mother’s attention, Mizuki is one of the few other people he deigns to notice because she notices and appreciates him and is impressed by his inventions. This is a rare moment of vulnerability on Shūya’s part, and Mizuki holds him as he cries later in this scene.

“I’m not really sure how you feel about this, but I’ve been thinking about what it really takes to admit you can’t do something when you really can’t do it.”

While much of the book focuses on success or enduring unwanted circumstances (such as bullying), less attention is focused on the opposite: failure. Mizuki notices this primarily with Werther, who fails to bring Naoki back to school (and instead pushes him away) but won’t admit his incompetence. At the same time, this quote is applicable to Naoki, who quits at the first sign of failure, rather than pushing through obstacles. Rather than acknowledge his potential to do something, he gives up and walks away, compounding his fear of failure and acceptance of his perceived mediocrity.

“But he isn’t ever thinking about what’s best for us anyway. We’re just a mirror he used to stare at his own reflection.”

Werther, Mizuki notes, is a hypocritical teacher. He seeks to emulate Sakuranomi but fails, he wants to befriend his students but only turns them against him, and he says he cares for everyone but actually plays favorites. Even Naoki’s home visits are not truly for Naoki; rather, Werther uses them to stoke his own ego and buff his career, much to Mizuki’s disdain. Mizuki does not realize, however, that Werther’s actions are based upon misleading advice from Moriguchi.

“They’re determined to blame the child’s condition on the school or on society, on anything and everything except the situation in their own home.”

Mrs. Shitamura’s condescending comment about the parents of hikikomori children is ironic because she does exactly what she disdains—she blames Naoki’s failures on his school and his teachers (especially Moriguchi) but refuses to acknowledge the dysfunction within their family or Naoki’s personal shortcomings. Obsessed with public image and creating the “perfect” family, Mrs. Shitamura pressures Naoki, leading to his crime and deteriorating mental state. At the same time, she refuses to take responsibility for her influence, instead deciding to erase them both via murder-suicide, rather than admitting her mistakes.

“Naoki seems to see himself as a warrior of some sort—his armor is the filthiness of his body, and his room is his besieged castle.”

Mrs. Shitamura is partially correct about the armor but oblivious to the cause. While Naoki is obsessed with his presumed HIV acquisition, by staying at home, he also has no respite from his mother. His armor of filth, then, is as much a barrier against her as it is a psychological reassurance that he is alive.

“To be frank, as a mother, I feel as though I want to kill both your son and Watanabe. But I am also a teacher, and that leaves me with a dilemma.”

Moriguchi is, in turns, straightforward and a puppeteer in the shadows. She prefers to be direct but is limited in her options due to her opposing teacher duties and maternal desires. She solves this dilemma by retiring—no longer a teacher, she can focus wholeheartedly on perpetuating her own Cycle of Blame and Revenge.

“I’m alive! Alive! Alive!

I had the proof—my long hair and fingernails, the grime on my skin. My hair covers my eyes and ears and hides my face; it protects me and lets me know I’m still alive.”

Naoki needs an effective barrier against his mother’s meddling and coddling, hence his comment that his filth “protects” him. However, he is also very focused on instant gratification. His lack of hygiene paradoxically proves this to him, as he can observe his hair and nails grow, indications that he hasn’t died from the virus he worries he has. This also highlights Naoki’s growing sense of detachment from both his body and from reality, foreshadowing his utter detachment by the end of Chapter 4.

“We’ve never been friends. I can’t stand kids like you anyway—completely worthless but full of yourself. Compared to a genius like me, you’re pretty much a complete failure.”

Shūya is contemptuous of his peers because they don’t understand his scientific genius—Naoki is no different, and Shūya is especially triggered by his inferiority, particularly as he needs him to help with his plan and, later, due to Mizuki’s disclosure that Naoki was her first love. At the same time, Shūya could be referencing himself as the “worthless failure”: He ultimately fails at his primary goal, which is reuniting with his mother.

“[H]appiness is as fragile and fleeting as a bubble of soap.

[…]

Water down the last dregs of happiness and turn them into bubbles to fill the void. It may be nothing more than an illusion, but it was still better than the emptiness.”

Deep down, Shūya realizes he is empty. He focuses on the things that make him happy and clings to them because they are so fleeting. What he doesn’t realize, however, is that they are fleeting only because he either actively destroys his happiness through self-sabotage or doesn’t pursue what he desires—such as a relationship with his mother—hard enough out of fear of rejection.

“I understand why murder is considered a crime. But I don’t understand why it’s evil per se.”

Shūya’s moral compass is skewed, as he uses his mother (an abusive character) as his standard for the rest of the world. In this way, he expresses different views of violence and murder than children in happier families. At the same time, he also sees murder as a tool to achieve his desire to reunite with his mother, as he views humans from a detached, scientific perspective. This is connected to his assertion that his mother never read him fairy tales: These stories often impart moral lessons, and his lack of these kinds of interactions in early childhood further highlights the effects his mother’s parenting, and later abandonment, had on Shūya.

“Extraordinary people have the right to violate conventional morals in order to bring something new into the world.”

For Shūya, being extraordinary equates to being superior, and being superior means he can do whatever he wants—namely, finding his mother by any means necessary. His inventions symbolize connections, so he will make whatever it takes to achieve his goal, even if it goes against society’s rules and mores. While such practices can occasionally create positive innovations, for the most part, they only end in tragedy; Shūya, despite his belief otherwise, is not an exception.

“I’d done something wonderful and had my name printed in the newspaper, but my mother didn’t know. But perhaps, just perhaps, if I did something horrible, my mother might come running to be with me again.”

bring his mother back to him, he initially tries to reach her via more conventional strategies, such as the science fair. He does achieve media attention, but it is quickly eclipsed by the Lunacy Incident. Because of this, he believes crime is the most effective strategy to achieve his goal; this decision leads him down a path of no return.

“I could see that she had the smile of someone who had been well-loved—the smile I had lost forever.

That’s when I realized I wanted her to die. I wanted to escape this humiliation, and the murder that would allow me to do it seemed even more precious.”

Shūya is obsessed with both motherhood and death. Ever since childhood, he has harbored suicidal inclinations, but he tries to avoid them by bringing his mother back. He fails consistently; the reminder of a mother’s love, here via Manami, is therefore mocking. While Manami has no quarrel with him, he resents her for having a loving, doting mother when he does not; seeing the proof via her Snuggly Bunny regalia, he resolves to kill her—if he can’t be happy, no one can.

“He said […] that it was wrong to repay evil with evil, and that revenge would never make me feel any better. […] He said I had to believe if I was ever to be whole again myself.”

While Sakuranomi and Moriguchi love each other, they have very different views on people and behavior. Sakuranomi, perhaps due to his own success despite his troubled past, believes in the power of rehabilitation and that good triumphs over evil. Moriguchi, who does not have such experiences—only the trauma of losing her daughter and then her ex—focuses on the dark side of humanity, even if that means losing herself.