Yuukoku no Moriarty
Moriarty the Patriot

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

Alright to start this off I enjoy Sherlock Holmes and his stories quite a bit. This may or may not affect how much enjoyment you get out of this manga series. Now that the short disclaimer is out of the way lets get into this. First off this series follows Moriarty for the most part. Instead of a traditional Sherlock Holmes story, this manga explains Moriarty's life and motivations as the villain of the story and it works realllllly well. Sequences with Sherlock in them have never been so interesting in my opinion and I only wish there was more out there for me to ... enjoy. The art is beautiful and each page is a gift for my eyes and the story even without Moriarty in a chapter is compelling enough to keep reading. The side characters make you feel genuine feelings for them and make the chapters all the more flavorful. Plus for a series more focused on seriousness there is surprising humor that has made me laugh out loud and come back to pages in order to reread the gold.

Overall it's a series that isn't super long yet so it's worth a read and the chapters keep getting better. If it had an english release I'll be the first to buy the books! Still crossing my fingers for an anime to come out of it. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!

What do you get when you mix poor man's Death Note with a watered down version of BBC's Sherlock, and a dash of Akame ga Kill?

Answer: you get Yuukoku no Moriarty.

This manga is a re-imagining of the classic story, with Sherlock Holmes's arch-nemesis, the titular Moriarty, as the protagonist. For better or worse, the author didn't have the courage to go all out and keep him a self-serving master of crime. In this version, Moriarty is an underdog who goes from rags to riches, and grows up to become a merciless vigilante on a crusade against corrupt nobles.

Incredibly cheesy, right? Yes, of course, but ... not without potential for some nice, juicy moral ambiguity. Does the story deliver on that front? Well... yes and no. Kinda.

You see, Yuukoku no Moriarty can be split into two distinct parts: the fun one, and the NOT fun one. The manga is at its best when it focuses on Moriarty vs Sherlock mind games, and at its absolute worst when it focuses on our protagonist fighting evil nobles. And they are eeeeeevil, all right. Evil with a capital E. But, first things first, lets start with the good part.

Moriarty and Holmes are both compelling characters. One is a ruthless and brilliant killer, but driven largely by compassion for the oppressed. The other is a likable and eccentric genius detective, who sees solving crimes as the best source of entertainment. The two are good foils for each other, and their budding antagonistic relationship is the manga's strongest point, even at this early stage. It's far from perfect, though, as the manga has an unfortunate tendency to dumb Sherlock down to make our borderline Gary Stu protagonist look smarter.

Other reocurring characters can also be interesting; from Moriarty's cold hearted brother who idolizes him, to Sherlock's upright friend Watson, we have a decent variety of personalities.

So... let's get to the “not fun” part now, shall we?

The chapters that don't deal with Moriarty vs Holmes, follow the monster-of-the-week formula. It usually goes like this:

1. William (Moriarty) learns about some acts of cartoonish villainy committed by an evil noble.

2. He investigates.

3. He and his sidekicks easily kill the evil noble.

4. Rinse, repeat.

Those minor antagonists have exactly three roles to play in the story: being cruel to commoners, gloating evilly, and getting their asses handed to them by our anti-hero. They're completely one-dimensional, they're pathetically weak, and they NEVER pose any threat to the protagonist. Most of the time, they don't even put up a fight before he finishes them off! As a result, the chapters that focus on them have no dramatic tension and no thrill whatsoever. They're about as boring and predictable as it gets, and they're the vast majority.

When you read Yuukoku no Moriarty, you can tell at once if the chapter will be entertaining or not by checking if Sherlock graces it with his presence. If he doesn't, you're in for a snore-fest of the worst kind.

Keep in mind that this is a rather new manga and only 16 chapters are available for the moment, so there's probably a lot of time left to iron out the kinks. But, so far, is it worth the read? Well, if you're bored, have high tolerance for cheese, and don't mind doing a fair bit of skipping to get to the good part... why not? There is some entertainment value to be found here, though definitely diluted by the flaws.

It's very hard for me to find manga that makes me so invested, so I decided to share why it's so worth it to read this.

Firstly, I recommend the manga. The anime is good too, but it's very rushed and doesn't follow the same patterns sometimes. Also, please remember that it contains a lot of violence and other triggers that I suggest you search.

Now, Yuumori is a manga that doesn't make Sherlock Holmes the protagonist, but rather, his genius rival called William James Moriarty. If you're familiar with the topic, W. J. Moriarty is mentioned in Doyle's works and we don't know a lot of ... facts about him, rather than his criminal genius, which is opposing to Sherlock's heroic genius.

What I found most interesting was choosing Moriarty as the protagonist and they've done it wonderfully. I don't want to give details about the story because I want you to read it yourself and find its' charm and create your own view about it.

The art is wonderful, we can also see a change in style and progress, just by comparing a few pages from chapter 1 and chapter 45 for example.
The dynamic between characters is amazing and also, in the Yuumori universe, James Bond is canonically transgender, which has made me extremely happy. A wonderful twist that I would have never predicted and I gladly appreciate the author for this.

Overall, Yuukoku no moriarty has become my top 3 manga and I absolutely adore it. I'm so happy I checked out the anime because of Saito Soma and the fact that the community is so welcoming, kind and funny makes me feel even more invested in such a beautiful creation.

To start off Sherlock, the original Sherlock Holmes stories are held true to my heart. It’s quite difficult to find an adaptation of Sherlock that stays true to the characters while also taking a unique approach, that’s where Yuukoku No Moriarty comes in.

Having a story from Moriarty’s point of view is deeply fascinating, I am fascinated both by this and the concept that accompanies it as the story addresses the fundamental problems with corruption within the upper class and the police enforcement.

For me this concept helps me draw away from my growing frustration of
“really another story in the Victorian Era?”
because the ... author is actually doing something /with/ the setting rather than just have it be that, a setting.

Despite the initial premise of the series it doesn’t get too formulaic, the characters have a deep motivation whether seen as “evil” or “good” the interpersonal relationships between the main cast fuels the story for me, their development away from their characters as we the audience knows them from Conan Doyle’s stories.

Yes, they’re different but they’re also familiar in a way thats inviting.

Along with that is the rivalry between Sherlock and Moriarty which is the most interesting part of the series, this take on the two shows them as flawed people, as humans. We see Sherlock outside his act as the “Master Detective” and Moriarty outside his “Master Manipulator” act.

It’s a refreshing iteration of beloved characters and I’m honestly in awe that this series isn’t more popular.

I like the Sherlock Holmes novels, with the exception of The Sign of the Four.
It is an intriging idea to show it from the perspective of Moriarty. Of course Moriarty is way older in the original and has not that much screentime. But I am not a purist, so who cares?

It would have been way better if they had shown only the perspective of Moriarty. Sherlock's appearances should have been something special that triggers strong emotions, like when Johann appears in Monster: Short but intense. But some chapters have more "Sherly" than "Liam".

The art style is terrible. The characters all look almost ... the same. It is especially a problem when a character, for plot reasons, is supposed to be beautiful. The characters all look beautiful. No one stands out relatively.

I like crime stories with a well defined crowd of people, who could have done the deed, and one can guess while reading. Where, after the conclusion, one will see the foreshadowing that was done from the beginning on. That is so far not the case here. The first time we see the culprits is often when they are caught.

The depiction of the nobility is just absurd. Of course they had contempt for peasants, as moderen Ivy League americans have for average Trump voters. But it is never so direct. The upper class sees itself as noble and just. They beat down on deplorables in a more subtle ways. Paternalize them and so on.They do not go hunting them literally. Atleast not that scale.

I'm going to start off saying that this is an interesting manga. Even though a story like this has been made a thousand times before, killing to change the world is a little different. Even though I don't share the same views, I believed the story to be worth reading.

Around the sixth chapter they meet Sherlock Holmes and the pov changes to him for about two chapters or so. I would say it bounces back and forth between the Sherlock Holmes pov and the brothers. I think it's a little annoying, but I got used to it. Even though I believe that they should've ... focused on the Moriarty brothers because they were more interesting to read about.
Now I haven't read or seen Sherlock Holmes, but I thought this would have been so much better if they got their own characters and not base them on already existing. As you probably know if you base a story on another story, you will most likely be stuck to the source materials. I would personally would have liked it to be it's own thing because they could've done so much more with it. I think that maybe because it was Sherlock Holmes they felt like they needed to show his pov when it would've been much more enjoyable to stick with the brothers. This is my personal opinion, but I think that John and that girl that owns the apartment complex are unnecessary. It would be better to have combined them. Because I see why John is there, but I don't see why he couldn't have been with Sherlock from the begining and we would've had more to their story rather than a useless chapter introducing him to Shelock? If you get what I mean.

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty average story that I will have in the back of my mind. The characters for the most part are likeable because you see where they come from( Except Sherlock's pov ofc ). The art is a standard manga style. Oh, but funny thing. At the begining of the story I thought that the eldest and the youngest noble brothers were the same person, so look out for that. If I see that the story has been updated, I will probably read it.

Overall it was something I wouldn't mind reccomending, though I wouldn't say it's amazing and groundbreaking.

Pobrably my favorite manga, "Moriarty, the Patriot" has a wonderfull story, when you read the first volume, you will be like: "I need to read more!". I read this manga aways thinking how the autor is a genius, like, how one person can have one idea like this and create a so genius plot? Just amazing!

The characters are also REALYYYYY good, and is crazy to think that the main characters(except Holmes), are criminous, but they are good persons that comit crimes for a good cause, this is something that you understand when you read. Another crazy thing about the characters is that the Moriarty's are ... good, and Holmes is also good, but they are enemies, it can sound confuse but you will know what I mean when you read.

I want to give a warning first: THIS MANGA CONTAINS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE.

It's a lot more violent than the anime. I'm a sensitive person myself that despises the coarsening of our society, so I'm not really approving of this. The first chapters aren't that violent, so I didn't expect it to get worse fast, but chapter 10 gets really, really graphic and it made me sick just skimming over it. (And on top of that, it was violence against defenseless kids.) That chapter is pure psychological terror...
Sadly it's also one that has main character bonding in it... I wouldn't be so upset, if this manga had ... a normal amount of violence, but that was really extreme. It can cause mental issues for some people. And I never see warnings for this kind of stuff, thus this review.

Other than that the manga seems to be okay. I haven't read that far yet, I still have to catch up. There are a few more cases that didn't make it into the anime and I enjoy the main characters and the art style. The idea and story is done well, too. Seeing another side of Sherlock Holmes' main enemy and giving him a motive is refreshing. He's way more likeable than in other adaptions, thanks to the Japanese making him an antihero. He's more a Robin Hood of crime than an evil person.

(That being said, if there should be another graphic violence chapter I might drop reading this manga, because it disgusts me personally.)

An astounding waste of potential.

I was rooting for this manga to work, really. I started with the first anime season (that I watched three times in a row), then read the manga because everyone was hyping it up... and everything went downhill from there.
Don't believe people who tell you that it's an "eat the rich" story, because it's not.


The good:
- the art (it's pretty much carrying the manga at this point)
- the first three volumes

...
The bad:
- our protagonists are hypocritical criminals who protect and contribute to colonialism despite claiming to destroy social injustice in the British empire.
- no characters of colour (despite the story taking place mostly in London, and having a whole arc in India).
- sooooo much retconning.
- there is no chemistry between the characters. At all. They completely loose any facial expressions after a few volumes too, so their interactions feel even more flat.
- the author apparently never heard of the common writing advice of "show, don't tell" because he keeps making his characters *say* things instead of showing them more subtly through the story. It's not because a genius like Mycroft is saying things that we are going to believe it.
- conflicts are avoided at all costs. No, seriously. Characters never really disagree. Everyone can be talked out of their bad beliefs (unless they're a mustache twirling villain without any redeeming quality who is just here to get killed off).
- the "main villain" of the series is a complete idiot, which completely ruins any tension the manga had left for its climax arc.
- absurdly unrealistic despite being a crime/mystery story. The number of things you have to ignore to have the plot "make sense" is incredible. And plot holes. So many plot holes.
- The way the female characters are written is just sad. The ACD novels were more progressive towards women than this.
- Incredibly ableist towards all of its disabled characters.
- Queerbaiting lol
- The entirety of the Final Problem arc.

It's so bad that both the stage/musical adaptations *and* the anime adaptations had to change things for them to make more sense (at least on an emotional level, because the plot is screwed no matter how you look at it).

If you want a psychological thriller actually dealing with the complex failures of the system and its violence towards marginalized people (especially in a system as brutal as the Victorian British empire's), then go read something else.