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Asako Yuzuki (author), Polly Barton (translator), Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder, Fourth Estate, 2024. 464 pgs.

Butter is inspired by the true story of a Japanese woman dubbed the “Konkatsu Killer”—the so-called “marriage-hunting” murderer charged with killing three men via carbon monoxide poisoning in 2009. In this fictional reimagining, Rika, a journalist assigned to cover the case, becomes increasingly entangled in the woman’s peculiar fascination with butter and decadent cuisine—a narrative that deftly exposes fatphobia and misogyny within Japanese society. In a bid to understand the motives behind the alleged crimes, Rika begins to emulate the killer’s rituals surrounding food and cookery. Through this immersion, she embarks on a journey of transformation—ultimately uncovering a more authentic version of herself.

In the novel, Manako Kajii stands convicted of murdering three men she encountered on an online dating site. Although there is no definitive evidence linking her to their deaths—one succumbs to a sleeping pill overdose, another drowns in a bathtub, and the third is struck by a train—she remains the sole individual connected to all three. Crucially, she is also the only person known to have prepared elaborate meals for each of them.

From the outset, much of the media coverage fixated on the defendant’s appearance: “She wasn’t young, and she certainly wasn’t stunningly beautiful, but her appearance was very ordinary”—rather than on the nature of the crimes themselves. The underlying question posed by the press was a repeated variation on a single theme: how could a woman described as “ugly and fat” possibly attract these men? Could it have been her “homely” qualities—the stereotype of the cheerful, overweight woman as nurturing and a gifted cook? It was even suggested that some men might prefer such “home-oriented” women to the supposedly aloof, stylish career woman with her “air of superiority” and lack of domestic aptitude. Kajii, writing from prison, pushed back forcefully in her communications with the outside world—sharply criticising the media’s preoccupation with her appearance and gender, rather than the glaring absence of concrete evidence.

Butter—a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream—is both a literal and symbolic element central to the novel, encompassing appetite in its many forms: taste, sexual desire, longing. To me, this substance represents the “richness” of living authentically and unapologetically as oneself. There appears to be a notable butter shortage in Tokyo: “Due to product shortages, purchases of butter are currently limited to one per customer”—a line repeated throughout the novel like a haunting refrain. Margarine, by contrast, simply will not suffice—perhaps a quiet metaphor for the difficulty, and the rarity, of embracing one’s true self.

Early in the book, Kajii tells Rika about the transformative act of preparing a bowl of rice for herself—topped with a drop of soy sauce and generous lashings of butter. She describes the sensation of eating it as akin to freefall: “The same feeling as when the lift plunges towards the ground floor. The body plummets, starting from the very tip of the tongue.” A lengthy passage follows, elaborating on the precise temperature contrast required between the rice and the butter to achieve the desired effect.

Kajii urges Rika to prepare such a bowl of rice with soy sauce and butter—it is, she insists, a transformative experience. Rika begins to follow Kajii’s culinary instructions meticulously—the what and the how of various dishes, many of which call for butter in abundant, almost excessive, measure. Rika believes that by cooking and eating as Kajii does, she will come to understand Kajii’s character—her motivations, her worldview, and perhaps even her actions in relation to the men she stands accused of killing.

As for the simple rice, soy, and butter combination, Kajii maintains that there can be no substitute: a specific brand of salted French butter, sourced from a specialist shop, is essential:

So, this was the butter that Manako Kajii loved so much—the symbol of all the delicious food she’d eaten with the money she’s extracted from her men. It was the same cruel, bright yellow as the butter that the tigers had melted into in The Story of Little Babaji.

The Story of Little Babaji is referenced repeatedly throughout the novel, indicating its clear symbolic significance. In the tale, Little Babaji, while out walking, encounters four ravenous tigers. To avoid being eaten, he relinquishes his colourful new clothes, shoes, and umbrella. The tigers, consumed by vanity, each believe themselves to be better dressed than the others. A quarrel ensues, escalating until they chase one another in circles around a tree—spinning faster and faster—until they are reduced to a pool of ghee (clarified butter). Little Babaji recovers his belongings and returns home, while his father collects the ghee, which his mother then uses to make pancakes.

It is Rika who first introduces The Story of Little Babaji into the narrative. One might interpret her as one of the tigers—“Rika had to give herself up completely—to become a tiger and go whirling round and round until she melted into golden butter that Kajii could slather over her lips”—so overwhelming is Kajii’s force of personality. Perhaps it was the “tigers’ fault” that the men in the story “brought about their own death by turning into butter”—suggesting they ultimately desired too much from her.

Even after their deaths, Kajii’s discarded lovers remain subject to public scrutiny—still being spoken of, still exposed. They are, perhaps, seen as weak, even emasculated, for having succumbed to Kajii’s unconventional allure and her decadent, often seductive, cuisine.

Kajii confesses, “When they died off, one by one, I felt a weight lifting off my shoulders. That’s one less person to take care of, I thought.” She continues, “If I did kill anybody, it was simply because I stopped making myself available. I withdrew the lavish care that I had been providing up until that point.” In other words, the downfall of each man stemmed not from direct harm, but from the sudden absence of her nurturing ministrations—the emotional labour she had devoted to maintaining and shoring up his sense of masculinity. She says:

The kind of men who want those women are dead themselves. Indeed, it’s because they’re dead that there are so terrified of anyone with a series of life to them. If those men had not met me, if I hadn’t rejected them, they’d quite probably have died anyway.

Rika “stopped believing” that any blame lay with the victims themselves. “It did not matter whether she’d murdered her victims with her own hand—she was a killer,” possibly because these men were simply incapable of coping with someone like Kajii, or indeed with any woman who might confidently reject them.

Kajii is clearly manipulative and comes to exert a profound influence over Rika, who remarks, “The only truly living person is this woman in front of me”—which is precisely why “everyone can’t take their eyes off her.” Kajii is wholly herself—unapologetic, unbound by convention, and uninterested in conforming to society’s expectations. “This woman wanted to eat herself whole” and was “like a self-pollinating plant in full bloom”—it is this self-sufficiency, this vivid autonomy, that renders her so mesmerising. “To drink up a person in their entirety, to chew them up until there is nothing left of them”—this, Rika observes, was Kajii’s mode of communication.

Kajii grows resentful of the way Rika is telling her story—perhaps feeling a loss of control over her own “creation”—and subsequently seizes back the narrative by publishing her own autobiographical exposé in another outlet. Under Kajii’s influence, Rika begins to cultivate a distinct “Rika taste”—one that is “strong and assertive, but delicate, and at the same time the kind of taste you don’t get bored of”—because she has “started to understand her own tastes better”. When Rika prepares a turkey in the Western style, she later repurposes the leftovers, adding her own distinctive Japanese flair—an act that signifies her growing confidence and her willingness to move beyond the tried and tested. She declares, “I have no plans to lose weight. I’m going to stay this way until I’ve understood better what feels right for me.”

The author of Butter interrogates deeply embedded Japanese stereotypes—particularly those surrounding women, cooking, and domesticity. Women who love cooking are frequently labelled as “domestic” or “obedient”—the embodiment of the so-called “ideal woman”. As Kajii herself notes, the modern Japanese woman is expected to be “corpse-like”. “When I make them [men] Boeuf Bourguignon, all they saw was beef stew”—a statement that reveals how her efforts were routinely undervalued and taken for granted.

The author posits that a passion for cooking is far from an indication of submissiveness. On the contrary—cooking is a form of power. A woman proficient in the kitchen possesses the potential not only to nourish, but to harm—poison, perhaps? Women who defy societal norms are frequently cast as dangerous anomalies. Kijima’s depiction as an improbable “femme fatale” illustrates how female criminals are judged not merely for their crimes, but also for transgressing the so-called norms of femininity. She is condemned not solely for murder, but for subverting the expectations placed upon Japanese women—rejecting conventional standards of beauty and behaviour, and, in doing so, challenging the cultural status quo.

How to cite: Eagleton, Jennifer. “Asako Yuzuki’s Butter: Tasting the Essential Self.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 5 Apr. 2025, chajournal.blog/2025/04/05/butter.

Jennifer Eagleton, a Hong Kong resident since October 1997, is a close observer of Hong Kong society and politics. Jennifer has written for Hong Kong Free Press, Mekong Review, and Education about Asia. Her first book is Discursive Change in Hong Kong (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) and she is currently writing another book on Hong Kong political discourse for Palgrave MacMillan. Her poetry has appeared in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, People, Pandemic & ####### (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), and Making Space: A Collection of Writing and Art (Cart Noodles Press, 2023). A past president of the Hong Kong Women in Publishing Society, Jennifer teaches and researches part-time at a number of universities in Hong Kong. [All contributions by Jennifer Eagleton.]

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