One of the most interesting manga titles to come around for some time, Deathnote presents the reader with some very heady subjects you might not expect, such as morality, the nature of good and evil and some great social commentary.
Light Yagami is an ace student that is bored out of his mind. Finding the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami Death God, Ryuk, who is equally bored of his own existence, Light decides to use that power of the Death Note to rid the world of all evil. Any human that happens have their name in the book dies so Light starts using the book to take out the world's criminals. This obviously catches the attention of the police and the crime figures that haven't shuffled off this mortal coil just yet. The police send the legendary detective L to track down the killer and it isn't long before he's hot on Light's trail. As Light slowly discovers more of the powers held within the Death Note, he decides to try and use it to eliminate L, the only thing standing between him and a "perfect world".
Light gets some unexpected help from his father, the head of Japanese National Police Agency who leaves his files about the case lying about the house. Using the files, Light can stay one step ahead of the Police but now he's picked up a strange person following him. The conflict between Light and his adversary, L, sets up an interesting contest between two different views of morality and man's obligations to use whatever means necessary to effect change in the world. There is obviously a great deal of manga style action that helps display these conflicts and the artwork by Takeshi Obata (Hikaru No Go) suits the actions here. Clean and easy to follow but suitably dark and somewhat gothic enough to help convey the mood of a suspense story.
Tsugumi Ohba's script is tense but not without some appropriately dark humor that will satisfy the fans of light horror in a Buffy or Angel vein. Since our main character is essentially a mass murderer, Ohba walks a fine line of morality that keeps you rooting for Light even though the way he's trying to bring about his evil-less utopia is essentially making him the most evil being walking the Earth. Thanks.
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