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A review by moondust_96
Death Note: Black Edition, Vol. 5 by Tsugumi Ohba
3.0
Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note’s might be the worlds most popular manga series. Even if you don’t read manga, chances are you’ve heard of or watched Death Note. Totalling of twelve books (not including extra editions featuring more information about Ohba’s world) we follow Light Yagami try to change the world to a better place through the murders of criminals and deviants. We quickly see his character change and the immense power the death notes hold change his character for the worse, suggesting that even with the best intentions, this type of power can quickly corrupt someone. At times you don’t know who the good guys are, you want Light to succeed as we’ve followed his story from the beginning, but L, M and N are trying to prevent him from killing more people as Light quickly becomes who he hates, in the name of trying to make the world a better place.
The best characters are Misa and Rem, they’re both funny and creative. The scenes featuring them are the most memorable and I’m glad they both feature throughout the series. Unfortunately, the incredibly limited female characters featured are all shallow and none of them drive the plot forward, they’re simply romance obsessed background characters. The male characters are sexist and misogynistic, sometimes shockingly so. These books were published in 2003, which would explain an undertone (thankfully a lot has changed in the last 20 years), but a lot of the scenes involving female characters are really uncomfortable to read. This is disappointing, and the lack of diversity seems very prominent reading them now. Sadly, this series is now outdated and can be disappointing to read because of it.
Although the Death Note series is one I’m happy to reread, at times I found it really confusing keeping up with the detectives investigations, trying to remember who knew what, who was on who’s side, and I could never figure out how police and detectives characters discovered each other’s plans. There was plenty of moments throughout the series that I found myself flipping back through pages trying to figure these things out, but ultimately I’d just read on knowing in a few chapters there would be another event which would confuse me!
Takeshi Obata’s illustrations are brilliant, the Shinigami’s are so creatively designed, and their drawings and their world are some of the best images include. Even though they’re the true antagonists, everyone loves their characters, showing how well Obata and Ohba have done to create these villains. Overall I’d give the entire series 3 stars, but 4 for the first book.
The best characters are Misa and Rem, they’re both funny and creative. The scenes featuring them are the most memorable and I’m glad they both feature throughout the series. Unfortunately, the incredibly limited female characters featured are all shallow and none of them drive the plot forward, they’re simply romance obsessed background characters. The male characters are sexist and misogynistic, sometimes shockingly so. These books were published in 2003, which would explain an undertone (thankfully a lot has changed in the last 20 years), but a lot of the scenes involving female characters are really uncomfortable to read. This is disappointing, and the lack of diversity seems very prominent reading them now. Sadly, this series is now outdated and can be disappointing to read because of it.
Although the Death Note series is one I’m happy to reread, at times I found it really confusing keeping up with the detectives investigations, trying to remember who knew what, who was on who’s side, and I could never figure out how police and detectives characters discovered each other’s plans. There was plenty of moments throughout the series that I found myself flipping back through pages trying to figure these things out, but ultimately I’d just read on knowing in a few chapters there would be another event which would confuse me!
Takeshi Obata’s illustrations are brilliant, the Shinigami’s are so creatively designed, and their drawings and their world are some of the best images include. Even though they’re the true antagonists, everyone loves their characters, showing how well Obata and Ohba have done to create these villains. Overall I’d give the entire series 3 stars, but 4 for the first book.