Death Note

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Each era of anime is marked by its own trends, its own conventions, its own shows that dominate the conversation and shape public perception of the medium among fans and non-fans alike. For the 2000's, Death Note was one of the biggest, and a good argument could be made that it WAS the biggest. It achieved a seemingly omnipresent level of saturation, you could not go to a forum on any given nerd hobby without people filled with avatars and signatures from the series, and its famous lines are parroted even now. Its anime adaptation was immensely popular and reached a level of pop cultural ... osmosis that was thorough enough that even people who don't care about anime obtained a passing familiarity with at least the eponymous concept. As of this writing, it is even getting a westernized adaptation on Netflix with Willem Dafoe of all people as Ryuuk.


Unfortunately, I can't really hold the series in an especially high regard for a number of reasons despite all the critical acclaim and praise that has been lavished upon it.

To get the good out of the way, it certainly has a pretty fascinating hook. The ability to easily kill anyone without leaving any proof, thoroughly avoiding any consequences, merely by writing their names in a notebook, is a pretty interesting and memorable concept. It has immense potential for all kinds of storytelling possibilities, such as the development and psychological effects that this would have on the person using the Death Note, the wider sociological repercussions of a mass series of killings that seem to be divine punishment, whether it's morally justifiable to kill criminals given that any justice system is heavily skewed in certain ways, etc.

Secondly, it has very good artwork. While Obata is not among my favorite manga artists, it would be disingenuous to not recognize his draftsmanship as arguably the strongest point of Death Note. It is not by any means easy to create polished and detailed art on a weekly basis for manga even with assistants, and yet Obata pulls it off with aplomb and a very strong aesthetic. My favorite part are probably his fantastical shinigami designs, which have a very "demon punk monster" vibe to them.

Finally, the actual focus of the plot, the cat and mouse games between Light and the investigators (whether they be L or someone else) are pretty entertaining to watch. I don't think I was ever BORED reading the series since there was almost always something going on, some zany scheme or gambit at play that kept things moving. This was by Ohba's own admission what he was writing the manga around, and I can understand that decision since Death Note must have pulled in a strong readership when it was running in Jump due to its suspense on a week to week basis.

But unfortunately, even with all those things going for it, it can't make up for what I consider Ohba's crippling flaw, which is generally that I think his characters are very lackluster for the most part.

Light CAN be a fun character to watch, but I ultimately feel that he is a detriment to the series because he isn't especially nuanced or interesting. Everything related to his "development" is handled in an extremely underwhelming manner. Any scruples that he has are quite quickly tossed aside in a manner that makes later developments to paint him as a good person prior to the Death Note as completely unconvincing. He is little more than a petulant, arrogant sociopath with a god complex who only becomes more and more unlikable and pathetic as the series goes on. He has very little in the way of humanizing traits or moments, which just renders him completely impossible to like or get behind. This may have been the point, but I don't feel that it made for a good character because you can still have a complex and nuanced villain who is still someone to hate, but who also has layers and where you understand why he became the person they did and perhaps connect with them on some level against your wishes. Light does not achieve any of that, so as it stands I just don't find him to be that great.

L is probably the best character in the series, a fun character to watch with enough bizarre quirks to make him feel more human than the other characters, even if it's an exaggerated animu way. I would honestly say that he is one of the series' biggest assets, every scene he is in is one where he has your attention. I don't think that I can hold him up as one of my favorite characters in anime and manga, but among the ones in the series, he stands supreme.

The thing about this though, is that it makes the conflict in place have a pretty clear right and wrong. I have heard a few times about the supposed moral ambiguity of the story and the idea that people debate on who to root for, but with all due respect I just find that to be malarky. Light is such a horrendous, sanctimonious individual that it is impossible to suggest that he is in the right with a straight face. His entire worldview and methodology to using the Death Note is fundamentally and horrendously flawed and likely led to many innocents being killed, he simply cannot be trusted with that kind of power. This is someone who killed a man entirely because he insulted his ego, that is his defining character moment at the very beginning of the series. He isn't even the kind of charismatic villain who you want to see triumph. The idea that anyone should root for him or want him to win is completely laughable.

I don't think most of the other characters really have that much going for them, honestly. Almost all of them are defined by very superficial characteristics that make it hard to really care about them in any meaningful way. IIt feels like Ohba only really cared about them as pawns on a chessboard to move his thriller plot along, without bothering to put some effort into humanizing them and making them compelling characters to be invested in.

There was one moment in the story where one character leaves the investigation due to anger at how he is being treated, and is greeted by his daughter who asks him what's going on, leading him to burst into tears and hug her. This was one of the few instances of warmth and actual humanity in the story where I actually cared somewhat about what was happening on an emotional level, but there was never any other time where that happened. Overall, Death Note is quite an impersonal and cold story as the characters aren't really people you connect with all that deeply.

Now, it is not necessarily true that you need super great and complex characters in order to have a worthwhile story. Some people may say that, but I don't think it's true, per se. If your story is more theme and idea-driven, then it is ok for the characters to be a bit more flat or to be more representative of ideas and philosophies, or be more timeless archetypes in order to make a point. The story need not be super emotional either, as long as it is interesting.

But for that, your ideas need to be actually interesting and you have to deal with them in a meaningful and insightful way.

Death Note never does that because it is entirely focused on its thriller elements. Ohba himself said that he wanted to leave moral judgments and sociological commentary for the audience to think about. I suppose I can understand that decision, but Death Note completely neglecting this area of the story feels like a bunch of squandered potential. All of the questions that I mentioned above regarding the premise's potential that could have been explored due to the premise are left as footnotes or passing mentions at best.

This means that Death Note only really works as a reasonably entertaining thriller; it cannot to be said to be a strong character-driven drama, nor is it a poignant thoughtpiece that presents interesting concepts and gives insightful answers.

What this basically means is that looking back on Death Note, I am just left feeling that the version of the story that I got from the premise was not at all the kind of story I would have preferred to get from it. I would have done a lot of things quite differently, such as significantly changing Light's character, focusing a lot more on societal effects of Kira, putting more character moments to add complexity to the cast and make you care about them, etc.

But I suppose in the end I can't really be that hard on it, since I was entertained reading it. It just isn't anything more than a 6 out of 10 for me as an experience.

Death Note is a series that will always be held in a high regard but still gets a lot of shit thrown at the second half of the story. For any new readers to the story it is important to note that while it is fast paced and feels really meticulously thought out, the second part of book is kind of slowed down to an extent, at least for Light Yagami. I wasn't the biggest fan of Near but thought that L (Ryuzaki) was a fun arc of the story. Reading this in 2023 or watching is definitely a good idea but there should be ... no shame in stopping about half way. Great story with great characters, however the ending drops off a lot, it definitely has its fans but be cautious when finishing the story.

I'm beginning to notice an unfortunate problem with mangas. No matter how brilliant and imaginative a premise, no matter how creative, authors can never follow through on it or do its idea justice. Either they blow it with a cheap resolution or play the premise out in the most generic, tedious and cliche way possible.

Death Note is one of the worst examples of what I mean. It started off with a great idea--a high school student, Light Yagami, discovers a book that shinigamis (reapers) use to end peoples' lives with. The epitome of self-righteousness and arrogance, he decides he will play "God" and kill evil ... people. A "super detective" named "L" then goes after him.

So far, so good, right? The problem is that after Light and L meet, Death Note becomes one long tedious, repetitive and boring drumbeat of all the characters constantly contemplating what the other characters are thinking (i.e., "brain picking"). I am not exaggerating. 95% of the book is every character going for pages on end, "He thinks I'm about to do Y. But if I do X, he'll figure out that I'm onto him. So I'll do A. But then he will figure out that if I do A, he'll know that I know B, and then he'll try C. In which case..."

This "brain picking" reaches the height of the absurdity in the Yotsuba story arc. In one chapter, almost every line of dialogue contains the word, "if" several times. For example: "If Kira does A, that must mean A is true. But if Kira doesn't do A, then B is true. However, if Kira does C, then neither A or B would be true. But if C is true, doesn't that mean D is also true? No, if D is true, then F is true. But that's if Kira does A first. Otherwise, G is a possibility."


Again, it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but this is the bulk of the dialogue. It's as if the author just learned "Logic" in math class in school and was very excited to show off how much he learned.

Things get even more confusing later on because Light technically stops acting as Kira for awhile and makes other people act as Kira under his direction. So, when he joins his father's investigative team, he contemplates scenarios in front of them by giving false information about what Kira might do to cover his tracks. It then becomes a chore to make sense of what he's saying because while he does have another person acting as Kira, he is still technically Kira the entire time. No, he doesn't have the book at that point but since he's manipulating the fake Kiras, he is still technically "Kira."

This is not the least of the manga's problems. Light is a despicable character, yet we're forced to experience most of the story from his perspective. Takada and Mikami were equally as disgusting as Light, so made reading the manga even more unbearable when the two characters joined in as protagonists.

Most of the side characters were useless wastes of ink and contributed nothing to the story (like Misa and Matsuda, both annoying, stupid clutzy comic relief characters). The Euro male and female crooks who L hires to help him came out of nowhere and didn't fit the story at all. Aizawa was completely wasted as a character.

The story arc involving Mello and his motivations were convoluted. And there was no explanation as to why all the genius kids had an obsession with eating and stacking stuff. (90% of the time, Near, L and and Mello would be eating something or building things with their food.)

Lastly, the idea that teenagers and children would be the center of such a dark story is far-fetched, even for a manga. I don't care how "ingenious" a child is; there's just no way he would become an internationally famous crime fighter or be entrusted with such a difficult case.

Because of all of these issues, I disliked Death Note so much that I was this close to quitting halfway through. I forced my way through it because I hated the Light character so much I wanted to see if he'd get his comeuppance in the end. The ending wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but slogging through so much "if...if...if..." wasn't worth it.

So all in all, a 5/10 for me, the 5 being for the great art work and character designs of the shinigamis.

I still haven't finished Death note but from what I've read so far I'm enjoyed it! I think that the characters are very interesting but sometimes the constant battle of wits can get somewhat boring. You will enjoy this manga if you enjoy crime mysteries and if you occasionally dabble in the fantasy genre I'm sure your will enjoy this. As far as I'm aware the fandom is not as insane as some of the others but if you're looking for a manga and anime with a bustling fandom that's very active then death note is not your fandom as it ended almost 20 years ... ago and most of the fandom has disappeared.