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Death Note
Media: Manga/TV Anime
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Manga-kas: Tsugumi Ohba (story) and Takeshi Obata (art)
Anime Director: Tetsurō Araki
Studio: Madhouse
Number of Volumes: 12
Number of Episodes: 37
Licensed? Yes (manga-Viz, anime-Viz)
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By Vampt Vo (3/25/07)
Death Note is a rare combination of a few different elements.
There is fantasy and gothic themes mixed in with a detective story, a horror, and a psychological thriller.
Light Yagami is a high school genius who one day finds a notebook on the ground near his school.
It is called "Death Note", and Light finds that it has a strange power:
Anyone whose name is written in the notebook will die.
The user can also change how the victim dies.
Light decides to use this to change the world by killing all of the criminals.
This is successful, but he soon finds that this is not without consequences.
For one, the original owner of the Death Note, a shinigami or death god named Ryuk, comes to him and explains that he must stay with Light while he has the Death Note.
Ryuk will remain invisible to all others, making him, for lack of a better term, Light's imaginary friend.
Soon, Interpol begins to notice the strange deaths Light has caused, and the people begin to call him Kira and ask him to kill more bad guys.
A skilled detective simply called L, whose name and face is unknown to anyone, is brought in to discover Kira's identity.
While this plot is not without its cliches, it still manages to keep the viewer interested.
Of course, there's a main character who gains some strange power and tries to change the world with it, and he gets a supernatural helper who only he can see.
Things like this have been done to death in shows like Bleach and Yu Yu Hakusho.
However, the truly dark and gothic atmosphere gives potentially bland characters like Ryuk a very interesting flair.
The most unique feature of Death Note is its intelligence.
LIght and L's fight is not a battle to see who is the best ninja or who can get the secret artifact first.
These are two young men, one who is out to change the world, and the other who is out to keep it stable.
Both want justice, but it is their methods that differ.
This statement about the subjectivity of justice is definitely an interesting theme in Death Note, and I'd like to see where the show takes it.
In addition, LIght and L are both geniuses, as we see with Light's setup to hide his Death Note, and L's way of finding out information about Kira.
Finally, the show uses an unusual concept of confusing the hero and villain. Many would mistake Light for the villain, with all the scheming and maniacal laughing he does, except that we see so much more of him and so assume that he is our hero.
Realistically, L is the hero, while the story writes him as the villain.
This further enhances the concept of justice's subjectivity.
Death Note is shaping up to be a very intelligent show that breaks out of many shonen cliches while staying firmly rooted in those of the supernatural genre.
On a final note, (Do you see what I did there?) the animation is just beautiful in Death Note.
This is understandable for a brand new series like this, but it is still more than I expected.
The characters, especially Ryuk, are drawn with much attention to detail, and the show gives off a definitively dark feeling.
Overall, the combination of character designs and backgrounds makes an atmosphere for Death Note, and that's what this series is really about.
Pre-rating:
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