BUTTER（2017）／柚木麻子 "Butter" (2017) by Asako Yuzuki

Asako Yuzuki's "Butter" has been crazily successful in the UK since the English translation came out, winning Waterstone's "Book of the Year" in 2024 and "Debut Book of the Year" from The British Book Awards in 2025, and it has been all over social media. Interestingly, if it wasn't for the overseas success, it was relatively unnoticed in the East. Yuzuki herself pointed out in interviews that it is marketed as a "feminist" novel in the West and, judging from online commentaries, the theme of "Japanese women fighting for emancipation from repressive social expectations" resonates with a lot of Western readers and is the major driving force behind the massive boom of Japanese literature by female authors in recent years. From the opening chapters, it is indeed interesting to notice that Yuzuki writes with a very direct, powerful and outright polemic language which is not a very typically Japanese way of communication. The story is about a female reporter trying to get an exclusive interview with an "unattractive" female prisoner alleged to have killed three men. It is less concerned about the case itself but an extensive examination on (Japanese) social standards. It covers everything from biased media representation of women (including anime), toxic online communities, idol worshipping, sexless marriages, parental relationships, to acceptance of foreign cultures (e.g. struggle to cook turkey for thanksgiving and understand fasting for Ramadan). "Butter" is used as a metaphor for authenticity ("There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine"), an agent of fattening leading to discussions on body image, a subliminal image for bodily fluids with regards to the female body, erotic relationships and motherhood and an indicator of variable economic values (price of butter fluctuates with scarcity in the book). As social commentary, it is very comprehensive; but as a work of fiction, it goes on for way too long. 2/3 of the book have no real development and overall it feels like a generic J-drama. The east-west disparity in reception becomes clear: if commentaries on Japanese society is an exotic novelty for you, there is much to offer in "Butter". Otherwise, those looking for hard literature, there are alternatives.