Moriarty the Patriot Review: What If Sherlock Holmes's Greatest Enemy Was Actually the Hero?

Quick Take

• The villain-as-protagonist reframe that takes Conan Doyle's greatest creation seriously rather than just inverting him for novelty — Moriarty's ideology is coherent, his methods are horrifying, and the series makes the reader genuinely uncertain about whether he is right
• The eventual introduction of Sherlock Holmes is handled with the care of a series that has spent volumes earning the meeting
• 16 volumes complete; one of the most intellectually interesting historical action manga Viz has published

Who Is This Manga For?

• Readers who enjoy Sherlock Holmes and want a fresh perspective on the canon
• Anyone who appreciates historical fiction that engages seriously with the period's social conditions
• Fans of villain-protagonist manga where the villain's perspective is genuinely compelling
• Readers who want completed mystery/action manga with excellent plotting

Content Warnings & Age Rating

Age Rating: T (Teen) Content Warnings: Moriarty engineers murders — the violence is not graphic but the intent and method are depicted; Victorian class inequality and its specific cruelties are depicted directly; the series asks whether murder for social change is justified and does not answer easily

The T rating is accurate. Dark in theme, not in graphic content.

Yu's Rating

Category	Score
Story Depth	★★★★★
Art Style	★★★★☆
Character Development	★★★★★
Accessibility for Non-Japanese Readers	★★★★★
Reread Value	★★★★★

Story Overview

William James Moriarty is not born a lord. He and his brother Albert are orphans adopted into a noble family — taken in not out of generosity but to provide labor and to satisfy the noble's desire for intellectual company. William watches what the British class system does to people who are not born into privilege. He decides to destroy it.

His method: intelligence. He constructs elaborate scenarios in which the people who exploit others — the nobles who abuse their tenants, the officials who accept bribes, the men whose class protects them from consequence — die in ways that look accidental or that cannot be traced back to him. He calls it justice. He calls himself a servant of society.

The series follows William's rise as an underground figure known as the Lord of Crime, his brother Albert's collaboration and moral conflict, and eventually his meeting with Sherlock Holmes — who arrives in London and immediately perceives that something deliberate is behind the impossible deaths of specific individuals.

Characters

William James Moriarty — His specific quality is that he is right about everything he observes and wrong about at least one fundamental thing. The series lets him be right. It also shows what being right costs. His idealism is genuine and his methods are genuinely murderous and the series refuses to resolve the tension between these two facts.

Sherlock Holmes — When he arrives, the series shifts register. Holmes is depicted as an equal to Moriarty — not a simple hero to Moriarty's villain, but another brilliant man who perceives the same social reality and has chosen a different response to it.

Albert Moriarty — The older brother whose choices enable William's plan carries the series' most uncomfortable moral weight — he knows what William is doing and helps, and his reasons are both understandable and insufficient.

Art Style

Miyoshi's art is clean and detailed — the Victorian London settings are rendered with enough specificity to establish the period without overwhelming the panel composition. Character designs are expressive, and the action sequences in the later volumes (as Holmes and Moriarty operate against each other) are spatially clear.

Cultural Context

Moriarty the Patriot uses the Sherlock Holmes canon as a framework while engaging seriously with the actual social conditions of Victorian England — the rigid class hierarchy, the specific mechanisms of aristocratic privilege, and the reform movements of the period. For readers familiar with the Holmes stories, the series provides the pleasure of seeing familiar characters recontextualized; for readers who are not, it works as an original historical mystery.

What I Love About It

The first meeting between Moriarty and Holmes. The series has spent enough volumes establishing both characters — their intelligence, their specific worldviews, what they observe that others do not — that their meeting has the weight of a genuine confrontation between equals rather than a plot contrivance.

What English-Speaking Fans Say

Western readers who know the Holmes canon describe Moriarty the Patriot as a successful inversion rather than a mere novelty — William is genuinely compelling as a protagonist and the series takes his ideology seriously enough to make the reader uncertain. The Victorian setting is praised as well-researched. The Holmes introduction is consistently cited as one of the series' high points.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The sequence in which Moriarty reveals his ultimate plan for England — what he actually wants to accomplish, what he has been building toward, and the cost he has calculated he will pay for it — is the series' most precise demonstration of how his intelligence and his moral framework operate together and what they produce.

Similar Manga

• Bungou Stray Dogs — Literary figures as action characters, similar premise structure
• 91 Days — Revenge-driven protagonist, moral complexity in historical setting
• Monster — Another series asking whether a villain's perspective is justified
• Case Closed (Detective Conan) — Sherlock Holmes-adjacent, mystery-focused

Reading Order / Where to Start

Volume 1 — William's childhood, the adoption, and the first murder.

Official English Translation Status

Viz Media published the complete 16-volume English edition. All volumes available.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• William Moriarty is one of the most compelling villain-protagonists in recent manga
• The Holmes introduction earns its weight
• The Victorian social critique is genuinely serious
• Complete with a conclusion that addresses the moral questions the series raises

Cons

• Readers expecting Holmes-style mystery solving may find the Moriarty focus unexpected
• The moral ambiguity is intentional and unresolved — not for readers who want clarity
• Some pacing issues in the middle volumes before Holmes arrives

Format Comparison

Format	Notes
Individual Volumes	Viz Media; 16 volumes
Digital	Available

Where to Buy

Get Moriarty the Patriot Vol. 1 on Amazon →

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