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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fantastic volume ending, although I didn't quite understand the last few pages.
Y final. El narcisismo desatado de L acorralado es brutal. Near me ha gustado mucho, tanto como L, sobre todo su faceta tramposa. El panelazo final es digno de mención, muy acorde a lo que ha mostrado de la sociedad durante el manga, la imaginería religiosa católicocristiana que ha impregnado todas las ilustraciones (es, literalmente, una Pietà), deja muy bien abierto e insinuado qué ocurre con ese sector de la sociedad y qué será Kira en el futuro como concepto. Creo que es una obra que releería con gusto dentro de unos años, sabiendo el final exacto (hay partes que sí me esperaba, como lo que ocurre con Light, no había otro remedio, pero otras que no sabía cómo iban a articular y que sí tiene sus foreshadowings bien marcados), para ver y recrearme en otros detalles. Y, si la nota discordante es la misoginia que impregna los escasos personajes femeninos de la obra, la extraordinaria es la apabullante y bellísima representación simbólica de las ilustraciones, sobre todo en portadas y portadillas.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS]
I’ve been a fan of the Death Note anime for years, and after my re-watch a couple months ago, I decided it was finally time to dive into the source material. By no means does this review summarize all of my thoughts on this very complex series, but it’s certainly a few of them.
Like my Haikyu!! review, I’m going to organize this into sections so I keep my sanity and don’t go on a thousand different disorganized rants. Here we go!
Plot:
17-year-old Light Yagami looks out the window of his high school classroom and sees an ordinary black notebook on the ground. It’s still there when he leaves school later, so he goes to investigate. The notebook claims to be a Death Note—a book that has the power to kill anyone whose name is written in it. Skeptical, Light decides to test its power by writing the name of a criminal on the local news. To his shock, the notebook works—the criminal dies! Light soon learns that this Death Note was purposely dropped into the human world by Ryuk, a bored Shinigami (god of death) who wanted to alleviate his boredom by causing some drama for the humans. Although Light is horrified at first that this power has come to him, he quickly rationalizes that the Death Note can be used as the ultimate weapon for good. There are many evil people that the world would be better without, and Light has the power to get rid of them! He’ll cleanse the world of criminals and create a new world in the image of his own morality. He will be the god of this new world—all hail Kira!!
Needless to say, police all around the world take notice when hundreds of death-row criminals start dying of heart attacks all of a sudden. The world’s greatest detective—the mysterious L—also takes notice. L recruits Chief of Police Soichiro Yagami, Light’s father, to lead a Japanese police task force to hunt down Kira and stop this horrific mass murder spree. What follows is an epic battle of wits between Light and L, who are perfectly matched in intelligence and tenacity. Who will out-think the other first? The push and pull of their relationship is what drives the plot forward and makes this story so exciting! And then L is killed, replaced by his successor Near, and things get a bit less exciting from there… This battle of wits drags on for six years. Hundreds of thousands of criminals and innocent people have died because of Kira. Until Near finally manages to bring it all to an end…
Writing:
It’s hard for me to assess the writing in Death Note because I feel like the series’ quality is so distinctly divided by story arc. The first four volumes are fantastic—some of the best psychological thriller writing I’ve ever read. Author Tsugumi Ohba perfectly balances the dark subject matter and tone with the excitement of watching L and Light’s minds work against each other, all intermixed with the perfect amount of humor.
But once we get to the Yotsuba arc, the plot really slows down. There’s a marked shift in how it feels to read the story. It was during this arc that it became very noticeable how many of the scenes are just men sitting around talking. And there is SO much dialogue! Sometimes panels are so full of words they almost overwhelm the art. It’s just too much. This arc does have the excitement of L finally getting his hands on the notebook, and Light’s subsequent victory over him. But the in-between time feels hollow.
And after L dies… Oh boy, things slow down even more. Even though I think Mello and Near, L’s successors, are interesting characters, they can’t fill the void left by such a dynamic character. And Light just has the Japanese task force in his back pocket at this point, so all we’re seeing is these poor guys being manipulated over and over. And I literally felt nothing when Light’s father was killed. I, who cry at everything even remotely emotional in media, felt nothing. That really says something.
The saving grace for this series was the introduction of Teru Mikami, a prosecutor and Kira worshipper whom Light recruits to write names in the Death Note while he’s under the task force’s surveillance and can’t do it himself. We finally get a new character with a full backstory and valid reason for worshipping Kira! Light’s manipulation of public opinion through news anchor Kiyomi Takada is also fascinating. And the dynamic between the three of them as they struggle to communicate and do what Kira would want. It really adds some spice to the story!
By the final volume, it felt like the writing was almost back up to part with the first few volumes. The final face-off between Light and Near is thrilling, and it’s so utterly satisfying to see Light beg for his life while rolling around in a pool of his own blood. This man who inflated his own ego so fucking much and had not a single care in the world for any life except his own, was reduced to this pathetic mess flopping around on the floor of a dirty warehouse. Talk about catharsis.
(I think the “1-year-later” scenes were kind of weird and unnecessary, but I wanted to end this section on a good note.)
Art:
Even at the slowest parts of the story, Death Note’s art is consistently great. There are only so many ways to draw dudes sitting around talking, but artist Takeshi Obata adds interest with unique character designs and viewpoint angles. Even in the panels that just show characters thinking, Obata adds visual interest through their intense facial expressions. And when the story is at it’s best and most exciting, the art follows suit. The tennis match, the raiding of Mello’s hideout, and the final warehouse scenes are visually some of my favorites. Also any panel of L just sitting and being a freaky little guy.
My favorite aspect of Death Note’s art is the character design. Obata excels at showing a character’s personality and mindset through their design—especially through their fashion, and how it evolves over the course of the series. I’m thinking specifically about Light’s transition from the casual clothes of a teenager to wearing fitted black suits 24/7 but the end of the series. I think this reflects his loss of innocence and the suppression of his humanity, showing only the cold and calculating husk of a person he’s become. Anyway, Mello’s character design freaking slaps. And all the different Shinigami?? Fantastic. Great work!
Characters:
Although their designs are great, Death Note otherwise treats its characters very strangely. Some are given tangible motives and deep backstories, and some are given only the shallowest motives and seem to just appear in the story. And these treatments don’t always correlate with the character’s importance to the plot. For example, why do we know basically nothing about any of the members of the Japanese task force even though we’ve been hanging around them for the whole series?? Why are we not given an explanation for why Kiyomi Takada feels so strongly in favor of Kira? Mikami got an entire chapter to show his backstory, so why not Takada? Oh, because she’s just Light’s female plaything? Yeah, got it. And why in god’s name don’t we get to know more about L??? He’s the fucking deuteragonist! Seems like he had a pretty fucked up childhood, I’d love to know about it.
I actually have a lot of feelings about these characters and their relationships but it would take too long to go into detail, and I want to keep things fun, so you'll have to live without that essay.
Mostly I think about all the potential lives these characters could have had if not for the Death Note. Every person in this series has the potential to be good and lead nice, normal lives. But that was all taken away by one bored Shinigami…
Message:
At its core, Death Note asks the question: What is justice? The story itself never answers this question. It pits Light’s view: that it is just for evil people to be killed in order to make the world a better place—against L’s: that murder of any kind is reprehensible, even when there are good intentions behind it. I like that the narrative respects the reader enough to let them come to their own conclusions about this complicated issue.
And it’s fascinating to watch as the characters’ concepts of justice become more skewed, or they stop caring about their initial morals as the story goes on. Light may start out with good intentions and a dream of a kinder, safer world; but his concept of morality is childish, and he stops caring about justice as he grows more egotistical. By the end, all he wants is to pass judgement on humanity as their accepted god—to win this game of cat and mouse he’s been playing with L and Near for six long years. And L…it was kind of all a game to him in the first place.
I truly admire this series for making its morals and characters so complex. It makes for very interesting debates in the fandom, that’s for sure.
Favorite Things:
The intimacy of battle between two minds who are so alike, but forced to compete to the death due to the circumstances they’ve been dealt. What could L and Light’s relationship have been if Light hadn’t picked up the Death Note? What if they had met on a different case and gotten to work towards the same goal? They would be unstoppable. But anyway, that’s enough of my AU premise. I also like Ryuk, just in general. And Matsuda; he’s just happy to be here, and I’m happy to see him. And the autistic representation from L and Near. That’s pretty cool. L means a lot to me in.
Least Favorite Things:
How women are treated like lower than dirt in this series; just vapid tools to be easily manipulated by men. Fucking disgusting. And where did the humor of this series disappear to? Ryuk and L were the main sources of my enjoyment of this series, so after L dies my enjoyment goes way down. And why was Ryuk just chilling in the background the entire Near arc? I know he can’t really talk to Light about Kira stuff, but at least show him hanging out with the boys. And for god’s sake, give him an apple!
Okay, I think that’s enough now because this review is more than 1700 words. Bye bye!
I’ve been a fan of the Death Note anime for years, and after my re-watch a couple months ago, I decided it was finally time to dive into the source material. By no means does this review summarize all of my thoughts on this very complex series, but it’s certainly a few of them.
Like my Haikyu!! review, I’m going to organize this into sections so I keep my sanity and don’t go on a thousand different disorganized rants. Here we go!
Plot:
17-year-old Light Yagami looks out the window of his high school classroom and sees an ordinary black notebook on the ground. It’s still there when he leaves school later, so he goes to investigate. The notebook claims to be a Death Note—a book that has the power to kill anyone whose name is written in it. Skeptical, Light decides to test its power by writing the name of a criminal on the local news. To his shock, the notebook works—the criminal dies! Light soon learns that this Death Note was purposely dropped into the human world by Ryuk, a bored Shinigami (god of death) who wanted to alleviate his boredom by causing some drama for the humans. Although Light is horrified at first that this power has come to him, he quickly rationalizes that the Death Note can be used as the ultimate weapon for good. There are many evil people that the world would be better without, and Light has the power to get rid of them! He’ll cleanse the world of criminals and create a new world in the image of his own morality. He will be the god of this new world—all hail Kira!!
Needless to say, police all around the world take notice when hundreds of death-row criminals start dying of heart attacks all of a sudden. The world’s greatest detective—the mysterious L—also takes notice. L recruits Chief of Police Soichiro Yagami, Light’s father, to lead a Japanese police task force to hunt down Kira and stop this horrific mass murder spree. What follows is an epic battle of wits between Light and L, who are perfectly matched in intelligence and tenacity. Who will out-think the other first? The push and pull of their relationship is what drives the plot forward and makes this story so exciting! And then L is killed, replaced by his successor Near, and things get a bit less exciting from there… This battle of wits drags on for six years. Hundreds of thousands of criminals and innocent people have died because of Kira. Until Near finally manages to bring it all to an end…
Writing:
It’s hard for me to assess the writing in Death Note because I feel like the series’ quality is so distinctly divided by story arc. The first four volumes are fantastic—some of the best psychological thriller writing I’ve ever read. Author Tsugumi Ohba perfectly balances the dark subject matter and tone with the excitement of watching L and Light’s minds work against each other, all intermixed with the perfect amount of humor.
But once we get to the Yotsuba arc, the plot really slows down. There’s a marked shift in how it feels to read the story. It was during this arc that it became very noticeable how many of the scenes are just men sitting around talking. And there is SO much dialogue! Sometimes panels are so full of words they almost overwhelm the art. It’s just too much. This arc does have the excitement of L finally getting his hands on the notebook, and Light’s subsequent victory over him. But the in-between time feels hollow.
And after L dies… Oh boy, things slow down even more. Even though I think Mello and Near, L’s successors, are interesting characters, they can’t fill the void left by such a dynamic character. And Light just has the Japanese task force in his back pocket at this point, so all we’re seeing is these poor guys being manipulated over and over. And I literally felt nothing when Light’s father was killed. I, who cry at everything even remotely emotional in media, felt nothing. That really says something.
The saving grace for this series was the introduction of Teru Mikami, a prosecutor and Kira worshipper whom Light recruits to write names in the Death Note while he’s under the task force’s surveillance and can’t do it himself. We finally get a new character with a full backstory and valid reason for worshipping Kira! Light’s manipulation of public opinion through news anchor Kiyomi Takada is also fascinating. And the dynamic between the three of them as they struggle to communicate and do what Kira would want. It really adds some spice to the story!
By the final volume, it felt like the writing was almost back up to part with the first few volumes. The final face-off between Light and Near is thrilling, and it’s so utterly satisfying to see Light beg for his life while rolling around in a pool of his own blood. This man who inflated his own ego so fucking much and had not a single care in the world for any life except his own, was reduced to this pathetic mess flopping around on the floor of a dirty warehouse. Talk about catharsis.
(I think the “1-year-later” scenes were kind of weird and unnecessary, but I wanted to end this section on a good note.)
Art:
Even at the slowest parts of the story, Death Note’s art is consistently great. There are only so many ways to draw dudes sitting around talking, but artist Takeshi Obata adds interest with unique character designs and viewpoint angles. Even in the panels that just show characters thinking, Obata adds visual interest through their intense facial expressions. And when the story is at it’s best and most exciting, the art follows suit. The tennis match, the raiding of Mello’s hideout, and the final warehouse scenes are visually some of my favorites. Also any panel of L just sitting and being a freaky little guy.
My favorite aspect of Death Note’s art is the character design. Obata excels at showing a character’s personality and mindset through their design—especially through their fashion, and how it evolves over the course of the series. I’m thinking specifically about Light’s transition from the casual clothes of a teenager to wearing fitted black suits 24/7 but the end of the series. I think this reflects his loss of innocence and the suppression of his humanity, showing only the cold and calculating husk of a person he’s become. Anyway, Mello’s character design freaking slaps. And all the different Shinigami?? Fantastic. Great work!
Characters:
Although their designs are great, Death Note otherwise treats its characters very strangely. Some are given tangible motives and deep backstories, and some are given only the shallowest motives and seem to just appear in the story. And these treatments don’t always correlate with the character’s importance to the plot. For example, why do we know basically nothing about any of the members of the Japanese task force even though we’ve been hanging around them for the whole series?? Why are we not given an explanation for why Kiyomi Takada feels so strongly in favor of Kira? Mikami got an entire chapter to show his backstory, so why not Takada? Oh, because she’s just Light’s female plaything? Yeah, got it. And why in god’s name don’t we get to know more about L??? He’s the fucking deuteragonist! Seems like he had a pretty fucked up childhood, I’d love to know about it.
I actually have a lot of feelings about these characters and their relationships but it would take too long to go into detail, and I want to keep things fun, so you'll have to live without that essay.
Mostly I think about all the potential lives these characters could have had if not for the Death Note. Every person in this series has the potential to be good and lead nice, normal lives. But that was all taken away by one bored Shinigami…
Message:
At its core, Death Note asks the question: What is justice? The story itself never answers this question. It pits Light’s view: that it is just for evil people to be killed in order to make the world a better place—against L’s: that murder of any kind is reprehensible, even when there are good intentions behind it. I like that the narrative respects the reader enough to let them come to their own conclusions about this complicated issue.
And it’s fascinating to watch as the characters’ concepts of justice become more skewed, or they stop caring about their initial morals as the story goes on. Light may start out with good intentions and a dream of a kinder, safer world; but his concept of morality is childish, and he stops caring about justice as he grows more egotistical. By the end, all he wants is to pass judgement on humanity as their accepted god—to win this game of cat and mouse he’s been playing with L and Near for six long years. And L…it was kind of all a game to him in the first place.
I truly admire this series for making its morals and characters so complex. It makes for very interesting debates in the fandom, that’s for sure.
Favorite Things:
The intimacy of battle between two minds who are so alike, but forced to compete to the death due to the circumstances they’ve been dealt. What could L and Light’s relationship have been if Light hadn’t picked up the Death Note? What if they had met on a different case and gotten to work towards the same goal? They would be unstoppable. But anyway, that’s enough of my AU premise. I also like Ryuk, just in general. And Matsuda; he’s just happy to be here, and I’m happy to see him. And the autistic representation from L and Near. That’s pretty cool. L means a lot to me in.
Least Favorite Things:
How women are treated like lower than dirt in this series; just vapid tools to be easily manipulated by men. Fucking disgusting. And where did the humor of this series disappear to? Ryuk and L were the main sources of my enjoyment of this series, so after L dies my enjoyment goes way down. And why was Ryuk just chilling in the background the entire Near arc? I know he can’t really talk to Light about Kira stuff, but at least show him hanging out with the boys. And for god’s sake, give him an apple!
Okay, I think that’s enough now because this review is more than 1700 words. Bye bye!
A decently good ending for this series. But the whole thing kinda lost my interest after L died. It just seemed to be the same thing over and over again.
Spoiler
Ich hätte es viel besser gefunden, wenn die Leute an dieser einen Stelle doch alle tot umgefallen wären. =/Eigentlich ist es echt so, wie Patrick Rothfuss gesagt hat, das letzte Drittel wäre nicht mehr nötig gewesen.
wow a satisfying finish, ive been dissapointed with the 2nd half of the manga but this volume was for sure a fitting end, far better than the anime ending from my memory lol(its been like a decade since i watched it)
[4.5 Stars] Not unpredictable but I really enjoyed it. I can't imagine it ending any other way.