DEATH NOTE
One of the biggest hit manga in 2000’s would be this: DEATH NOTE. It’s about a notebook you can kill anyone you write down his/her name on. It was made into anime and live-action movie in Japan, and both have achieved great success too. What on earth made it very, crazily popular in the world?
(C) Tsugumi Ohba, Ken Obata/Shueisha
PLOT & CHARACTERS
When a brilliant high school student accidentally picks up the notebook, the story begins…
In Tokyo, Japan. There is a male student in high school, who is good-looking, extremely talented, but bored of his life. His name is LIGHT. He has a strong sense of justice and has longed for a “peaceful, crimeless” world.
One day, Light coincidentally finds a notebook, written “DEATH NOTE” on the top page, and brings it home. It turns out that if you write someone’s name on it, you can kill the person. Suddenly, a death god RYUK appears in front of Light. Ryuk used to be a previous owner of DEATH NOTE, but he intentionally dropped it in the human world for his excitement. Light starts to use the notebook to create his utopia without evil or crime, killing criminals all over the world.
There are countless rules in how to use it. “The human whose name is written in this note shall die.” “This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.” Besides, thousands of rules, sometimes not verbalized – about the cause of death, the time related to death, and so on – do exist.
Light continues to kill a number of criminals with the power of Note. All of a sudden, however, he encounters a huge opponent. His name is “L” – his real name is anonymous – who is a genius and a detective who has solved a lot of difficult cases. The police starts to chase “KILA,” in other words Light actually, as a serial killer of criminals. L immediately focuses on Light with his remarkable reasoning power and approaches him.
But Light is not so easy as well. Making full use of Note’s ability and rules, Light tries to escape from monitoring and approach L. He has to kill everyone who opposes his ideal – first, L – in order to realize his utopian world.
Light wants to kill L and L wants to catch KILA, Light. Each of them believes what he’s doing is right. This is a battle between two opposed justice.
APPEAL POINT
Well-structured setting and story
First and foremost, Tsugumi Ohba, the original author, is a GENIUS. The setting is simple. The notebook which kills people – sounds clear, fresh, and interesting. In addition, though the basic setting is pretty easy to understand, details are well considered so that we cannot (almost) find contradiction in the story. (If you were smarter than Ohba, you could find something.) One of the examples is the rules of the note. You will be overwhelmed if you google “death note rule” – you’ll see this manga is not something helped by only one big concept.
Skilled mind battle
The most interesting point is the battle between Light and L – but it isn’t physical. It is a fight between their brains. Strategy after strategy, counter after counter. L narrows down suspects and tries to get a proof that Light is KIRA in a beautiful way. On the other hand, Light hides his true self and continues to murder not only criminals but someone who suspects Light, really elegantly.
Some people say that Light should stop murdering with the note if he doesn’t want to be caught. However, it doesn’t make the point. Strictly, this is not a story that Light runs away from L. Light instead approaches L to kill him paying attention not to reveal some decisive proof. It’s because he has a strong purpose, which is mentioned next paragraph.
Difficult theme
I expressed the story as a “battle between two opposed justice.” In other words, it can be said that there is no villain in this manga. Of course, murder is crime and shouldn’t be allowed for anyone. However, if I try to agree with Light, I say he just seeks to make his ideal world. As describe in the series, because of Kira’s murder, the number of crimes in the world decreases more and more so that some of the public admire Kira as the God. It’s really hard to conclude perfectly if Light’s choice is right or not.
Also, that’s why Light doesn’t stop murdering. His goal is to realize his utopia – the peaceful, crimeless world without evil. To achieve it, he has to continue to remove criminals and intruders. If he quitted, it means he is against his will.
Like this, the story can drive – actually, has driven – a storm of controversy about a big, difficult issue. In Japan, people are still arguing which is justice on the online chat. And it seems to be never-ending. Since this manga has such a deep topic, we are impressed, can’t help thinking of it, and get involved in this world.
I discussed Death Note’s attractiveness in this post, but do you know actually that the manga/anime was turned into Hollywood movie in Netflix? And do you know how that is…? In the next post, I would love to pick up its Hollywood version Death Note. I will introduce my opinion whether it was good or not and why.
