Confessions by Kanae Minato
(2014) 240 pages

Confessions by Kanae Minato is a vengeance story that examines morality, justice, and child crime while taking place at a middle school in a tiny town. It’s an exciting tale of adolescence gone awry, full of shocking turns and terrible consequences. The central idea is about a distraught teacher named Yuko Moriguchi, who addresses her class on the last day of her teaching career. She has decided to retire as a result of the sudden death of her cherished daughter, a four-year-old who was discovered drowned in the school pool. A comparatively cheerful farewell speech quickly turns sour as she accuses two of her students of killing her daughter. She doesn’t mention them by name, but her words make it quite clear who they are. Because the accused are just 13 years old and the legal age of criminal culpability in Japan is 14, Moriguchi intends to impose her own brand of justice. It turns out to be an unusually harsh penalty; in fact, it’s horrifyingly horrible. Things start out as one act of vengeance, but they quickly spiral out of hand. Ultimately, the book ends with at least one additional person murdered and another person imprisoned in an asylum, which begs the question: Would the outcomes have been any better within the conventional channels of justice?