| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and longer
works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have some psds for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides some scans for you to download and use
in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here.
I also have pages on devart here
and urbis here. |
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| details |
The Genre: Horror |
| The Format: 12 regular volumes of Manga from
??? and a making off 13th volume |
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| The plot: Light Yagami is an ace student with
great prospects - and he's bored out of his mind.
But all that changes when he finds the Death Note,
a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god.
Any human whose name is written in the notebook
dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of
the Death Note to rid the world of evil.
But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities
send the legendary detective L to track down the
killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose
sight of his noble goal...or his life?
Light tests the boundaries of the Death Note's
powers as L and the police begin to close in. Luckily
Light's father is the head of the Japanese National
Police Agency and leaves vital information about
the case lying around the house. With access to
his father's files, Light can keep one step ahead
of the authorities. But who is the strange man following
him, and how can Light guard against enemies whose
names he doesn't know?
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| opinion |
| Wow - I don't think I've ever struggled so much
to fill in the 'genre' bit up the top there. I went
with horror in the end because Death Note is about
killing people, though it's not particularly scary.
But then that's the problem. It's quite intense,
like an action type series, but for volumes in a
row people just stand around talking. It's got a
strong element of combat between the "good
guys" and "bad guys" like a fighting
manga, but they only rarely get fisticuffs with
each other.
Death Note kinda defies genre conventions. Not
least of all in its protagonist, Light. Light is
the super-intelligent teenager who gets hold of
the Death Note. Now, why he's genre breaking is
because it's never really properly clear if he's
good or bad.
I mean, if you got hold of the Death Note with
its power to kill anybody, what would you do with
it? Use it to dispose of the people you don't like?
Use it for personal gain? Or would you set about
doing something more noble?
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Well light manages to do all of these at
once. He has a noble goal to eliminate evil
and create a new, better world. He sets about
doing this by killing the worst criminals
in the world. But equally, he's intending
to make himself the God of this new world.
But, fundamentally, he's murdering people
- he himself is the worst mass murderer the
world has ever know. But you can argue that
the people he kills are people who deserve
to die. Except, anyone who opposes him or
tries to stop him also gets killed.
And its there we probably see the true nature
of Light... except later on we get to encounter
Light without the Death Note and he's a decent,
good person.
Which is actually one of the slight cracks
in the narrative - is it really believable
that Light has such a big personality change
between owning the Death Note and not? But
more on those later.
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The other thing I need to mention is Light's
nemesis, L. L is also a super-intelligent teenager,
like Light, but he's ostensibly a good guy. I say
ostensibly good, because like Light there's some
moral ambiguity. L is all about solving mysteries
- that's what drives him. The fact he's on the side
of right is almost irrelevant - on several occasions
he makes it clear he will use any means at his disposal
to win against Light.
So you have the main character who has what seems
like a noble goal, but is doing evil thing. And
you have his adversary who's on the side of justice,
but will use any means to achieve his goal.
It's a brilliant dynamic... and unfortunately here
we run up against the cracks again.
I should warn you this review is now going to consist
of a gigantic collection of spoilers. It's almost
impossible to review Death Note without giving stuff
away, so just be warned.
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They kill L at just over the half way point,
ending the first 'arc'.
L is the best character in Death Note and they
kill him off. Worse, he gets replaced by two slightly
inferior characters, one of whom is a bit like "L:
The Next Generation" and is not quite as good.
The reason they kill L is because Death Note is
all about the big plot twist. In every volume there
is at least one huge plot-twist, with sometimes
as many as one every chapter.
This makes for an exciting narrative, and while
it's L and Light, the dynamic between them is so
good, so compelling that you forgive the slight
unreliability of some of them. When L goes, the
dodgyness becomes more apparent.
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Another similar problem is that Death Note
has the typical manga problem of not being
realistic. I mean, I know it's a manga, but
there are blatant inaccuracies, like with
how the FBI operates or the Japanese police
operate that are just daft.
A particularly obvious example of this is
that they don't really broadcast that many
details about crimes outside of a given country,
unless it's truly appalling like a serial
killer. And yet, television is the primary
means of gathering info (the internet would
have been a more obvious choice).
Also, they don't stop broadcasting this info
as soon as it become apparent what's happening.
And Light would actually run out pretty quickly
- there aren't enough really evil people in
jails for him to keep going for the length
of time the manga covers. He'd have to drop
down to, like, people who got speeding fines...
which is almost everybody :/.
Now, as I say, while it's Light and L, you
don't really bother too much about those,
but as soon as L is gone they become overpowering
and annoying. Especially since they try to
open the story up and make it more global
- these issues become hugely wrong.
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Now there is a slight caveat to that, which I
didn't initially realise. Death Note actually appeared
in a young boy's manga. In Japan, manga are generally
aimed squarely at a particular markets (as all media
is), that's broken down by age and gender. So you
have young boy's manga, and older women's manga,
etc.
Death Note was aimed at young boys, so these inaccuracies
are maybe more okay, because the audiences doesn't
have any expectation that they'll be accurate.
Anyway, there are other problems too. Female characters
are generally not well rounded. They mostly tend
to be quite squarely fitted into particular moulds.
And unfortunately, the best female character who
doesn't fit a mould gets killed off pretty sharpish.
The last, "13th" volume is a bit odd.
For the most part it's a long story recap, but there
are good bits in there too - interviews with the
writer and artist and the pilot manga, for example.
It's also nice to get such significant 'extras'
for a manga, though it's clearly more about cashing
in on the series popularity. |
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| back
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| summary |
| The Summary: The first arc is masterful, hinging
on one of the best character relationships in comics,
but the second arc lets it down. |
| The Score: 4/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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