Reviews with content warning for Death - The Tattoo Murder

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi

8 reviews

celina246's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

this had an old classic mystery feel, which i always love & find comforting and in the beginning i was hooked, even though the murder itself was slow to play out. the Japanese setting & traditions mixed in with the story gave it a cool edge too. the only thing that stopped me giving it a higher rating was that i didn't looove how the story ended up playing out - and i wanted to throttle the main characters often.

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james1star's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Haven’t done a bullet point review in ages so here’s one:

The limbs of heavily tattooed woman, Kinue, are found by the young doctor Kenzo in her bathroom but the door and window is locked… from the inside
What ensures is the investigation by Kenzo as he assists his detective brother into who, why and how she was murdered and also why her torso was taken
It’s a classic murder mystery but that’s not all…
Akimitsu weaves in a lot of Japanese culture too, it’s set post-WW2 with a country still coming to terms with being on the loosing side and having been hit with 2 nuclear bombs and so the country and her people are trying to rebuild and return to normal with many doing things they don’t want but need to do for survival which was probably the book’s best part
He also places a lot of love and admiration for traditional Japanese tattoos which was good, the contrasts and meaning in the different designs, mentioning folk and heritage elements too and this I really liked
BUT it’s not supposed to be focus of the book… the mystery/investigation is and this part I did not like
It’s very boring, convoluted and drags on and on, it’s like Akimitsu enjoys pulling the reader on this red herring-filled, long-winded and SLOW ride thought all the various people who might have killed Kinue and their reasons why
The characters are all annoying tbh, I didn’t really like them and because of the dragging nature of the plot I was just wishing for it to end
Overall it was a mid book, I found the ending alright but not worth all the time it took to get there
I wouldn’t really recommend it but at the same time I do appreciate it so yh…

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snowwhitehatesapples's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Also on Snow White Hates Apples.

As someone who has completely fallen in love with 20th-century Japanese mysteries, I was really looking forward to The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi. But, sadly, it didn’t meet my expectations…

While I found the views on traditional Japanese tattoos, the intertwining Japanese folklore and the historical contexts of the setting interesting, they also took over too much of the book. Many times, it felt as though the murder mystery was placed on the back burner just so those views could be further explored. This, in return, made the mystery too drawn out, resulting it in being incredibly underwhelming despite how clever the crime was.

Moreover, Kyosuke Kamizu, the boy wonder mentioned in the summary entered the picture much too late. Instead of being present around the beginning and solving the mystery with us, he comes in only at the final quarter of the book which makes all the revelations too convenient. It felt like he was merely inserted just so a major plot point could be concluded. In fact, the entire crime aspect felt like it was just there as an excuse to talk more about the art of traditional Japanese tattoos.

I think it’s such a shame because the crime itself is clever — a little predictable but still, clever. You have pieces of a gorgeous woman’s corpse found in a locked room. Her torso is missing and it’s the exact location of her equally gorgeous Orochimaru tattoo which she had only just revealed to a crowd of spectators days ago. There are several suspects but instead of a tense race to unveil the truth before the next victim appears, we end up with an incredibly slow and cumbersome investigation. Sure, this may mimic reality where not all cases can be solved and closed quickly but I think in a book, there should be a little leeway for the pace to be sped up so that the story becomes less exhausting and more of a page-turner.

All things considered, The Tattoo Murder reads more like a historical fiction with a side of crime than a thriller mystery set in 1947 Japan. It’d be best to read this with the expectation that it’s more focused on the beauty of traditional Japanese tattoos instead of the murder mystery.

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alychee's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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uranaishi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

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candiemarsh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked the short and concise chapters. Story has a strong and fast-paced development, and is consistently exciting. Well-written plot with a great conclusion. I enjoyed it!

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mal_eficent's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This is an incredibly detailed murder mystery, with a wealth of discussion about the culture of post war Japan and tattoo culture, and meticulous about how the crime was committed...Which made it almost too dry to be interesting at times. Listening to lists of information looses its charm after a while and Kinue was a...strong choice of perspective character. If not for the introduction of Kyosuke quite late in the book, it would have taken me a lot longer to finish. I still found a lot of the story very interesting, and was hooked again once things sped up later in the narrative.

I'd definitely recommend this to any fans of a good old fashioned murder mystery, with a single third person perspective and an amateur detective that can hold his own against any Poirot or Sherlock. If you're squeamish about gore or not into lots of discussion about women in a sexual manner, though, this might not be one for you.

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yii_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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