Confessions

Mizuki is one of Moriguchi’s students and the class president, as well as the narrator of Chapter 2. Depicted as responsible and empathetic, Mizuki is sympathetic to Moriguchi and disdainful of Werther and opposes her classmates’ bullying. She also has successive crushes on both Naoki and Shūya. Mizuki is perhaps the most logical of her classmates in that she tests the contaminated milk cartons for blood rather than succumbing to fear and prejudice. She is also the only student to attempt to understand all sides of the conflict, expressing grief over Manami’s death, anger at her murder, and empathy for Shūya when he becomes a bullying target. Her capacity for reflection is evident when she changes her mind regarding justice for the killers, saying that trials should be “for the average people, to make sure they understand what’s happened and to keep them from taking the law into their own hands” (69).

However, Mizuki’s strength of perception and strong emotions lead to her demise. Although she likes Shūya and appreciates his inventions, she becomes paranoid that she is the Lunacy killer (she isn’t). Her outsider’s understanding of Shūya’s mother’s abandonment and her ability to equate Shūya with Naoki through her affection for both of them strikes too close to truths that Shūya can’t accept, leading to her murder.

Shūya is a scientific and academic genius who falters in social relationships. His intellectual isolation leads to a fixation on his mother, who abused him but was the only person to understand the science and inventions through which he excels. Unable to accept that his mother abandoned him, he seeks to reunite with her first through science and then through notoriety. However, in his quest to gain her attention, his feelings take on an increasingly dark tone, reflected in the deadly nature of his inventions, such as his “Execution Machine,” which he uses to electrocute Manami.

Shūya’s belief in his own genius and intellect distance him from his peers. Their lack of appreciation for his inventions and fixation on more base interests, such as uncensored adult videos, convince him that he is above them; this is furthered when his father’s family—whom he considers dull—also abandons him. Even Naoki, who desires his friendship, is rejected as a discarded pawn rather than a co-conspirator after Manami’s murder.

The only characters Shūya shows interest in are women, specifically women in science, implying that he desires a surrogate mother for the one he lost. As a science teacher, Moriguchi intrigues him first, but he rejects her when she lectures him about the danger of his shocking coin purse. Mizuki is next, both due to her logic and scientific inclinations and her empathy and support during his bullying. However, when she calls him cowardly for not seeking out his mother through conventional means and notes that he was, in fact, abandoned, he kills her. He never meets his mother—like Mrs. Shitamura, he desires an idealized version of her, rather than the real person. However, the possibility is eliminated entirely due to Moriguchi’s actions. Shūya, thus, never obtains what motivates him all along: His mother’s reaction to his “genius.”

Naoki is a middle school student with low self-esteem. He is easily influenced by people who pay attention to him and sensitive to perceived slights. He is spoiled by his mother, who teaches him that he is entitled to succeed but not what to do if he fails. Although Naoki can accept his own mediocrity, his mother cannot; the pressure of her disappointment motivates his extreme behaviors. In this way, he and Shūya are somewhat foils for each other: The intelligent Shūya succeeds at whatever he tries, except regaining his mother; Naoki tends to give up after failing any first attempt, incurring his mother’s disappointment. Naoki is therefore proud of and unrepentant for murdering Manami because the act represents his first “success”—over Shūya, no less. For the rest of the novel, he will fixate on maintaining his “winning” edge.

Naoki’s highest priority is self-preservation. Unlike Shūya, who welcomes his presumed acquisition of HIV, Naoki fears HIV/AIDS because of social stigma—both bullying and discrimination and his mother’s judgment. He is also concerned about transmission to his family, but not out of concern for their well-being: If they die, he has no support or caregivers. Therefore, his efforts to avoid transmission are motivated by self-preservation. His filth—the opposite of the perfect image his mother desires—becomes his armor and proof of life as he begins to break away from her. When she reasserts her control via a forced haircut, she thus removes what Naoki perceives as proof that he is alive, and he embraces death. Perceiving himself as a zombie, he exhibits a detachment from reality as he contaminates a public place with his blood and then kills his mother.

Mrs. Shitamura, the conventional “good wife, wise mother” trope, is successful in society’s eyes: She is married with two daughters and a son and a husband who works hard to keep his family comfortable. Mrs. Shitamura believes in being strict with her daughters and spoiling her son but also cares greatly about public image. Naoki’s mother is a foil for Moriguchi as a mother. She disdains Moriguchi as a single mother who brings her daughter to work and who allows her child to have a public tantrum when she refuses to buy a toy for her.

Mrs. Shitamura is controlling and judgmental, desiring an idealized, successful version of her son, rather than his true self. She attempts to exert control beyond the household by writing complaints to the school and demanding Werther’s appointment as Moriguchi’s replacement. Her disappointment intensifies Naoki’s extreme behaviors, which she in turn emulates when she gives up on him and intends to arrange a murder-suicide.