Death Note is a manga created by writer Tsugumi Ohba and manga artist Takeshi Obata. The main character is Yagami Light, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the “Death Note”, dropped on Earth by a god of death, or a shinigami, named Ryuk. The Death Note grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose name and face they know, by writing the name in the notebook while picturing their face. The series centers around Light’s attempt to create and rule a world “cleansed of evil” as “God” using the notebook, and the efforts of a detective known as L to stop him.
The anime is interesting because it can spark a debate very easily between those who are for Light and those for L/the police. I sometimes find myself identifying with Light’s desire to just kill everyone “evil”, but then I remember the world isn’t black and white and no one should have that much power, especially a narcissistic teenager. One weakness of the series is the fact that Light is pretty one-dimensional. He never feels the slightest bit of remorse at what he does or stops to question the ethical implications. It’s like he’s been waiting for the chance to wield power over others all his life.
I also think it would have been interesting to show something about the criminals he kills. Maybe one of them had a reason to steal, or killed because he was mentally deficient. Giving the criminals a sense of humanity for the viewers would have made the experience and the ethical back-and-forth more enriching. One more weakness was all the “replacement” characters the series had to add once L died. They were pretty weak copies of him and couldn’t capture his strange brilliance.
Yeah, there are a lot of flaws but I think it’s pretty interesting and powerful overall. Have you seen the live action movies? They’re actually fairly good.
That was my problem with it. I also didn’t think the show was as clever as it thought it was. It introduced me to Hideki Taniuchi though, so yay for discovering new music.
My problem was with the book’s rules. Their random, arbitrary nature allowed the writers to simply pen in another helpful rule whenever the situation called for it.
Other than that, despite having been more or less compelled into watching it by a girlfriend, I thought it was pretty decent. I actually have a physical Death Note that a friend got for me from a convention. I’ve yet to write anyone’s name in it, though.
One of my favourite animes. I love it for its “I Robot”-rule-implication-extrapolations and for its cat-and-mouse interplay. Similar in some (but certainly not all) ways is “Code Geass: Lelouch of the Revolution”, which I also recommend.
The anime was excellent, and a near-perfect adaptation of the manga (which only had a little more to it which helped me understand some things that happened in the second half a bit better), and the first 2 of the 3 live action movies were also excellent. What I particularly liked about the live action movies was that the exact same rules were in play, but it illustrated another loophole that the manga and the anime didn’t even consider (in order to end it without needing a 6 part film series). Impressive.
It has some of the best examples of some of my favourite tv tropes too, I won’t list them due to possible spoilers but it is great.
My #1 anime is def “The Irresponsible Captain Tylor” but this is easily #2.
I’ve never heard anyone else say this so it could just be me. I think that the Death Note anime is one of the greatest black humor comedies ever produced. While the thing you’ve mentioned might have made the series more 3 dimensional, it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny.
Forgive me for reviving this zombie-ish thread, but my 14-year-old son and I just found Death Note on Netflix and enjoyed it. We liked its interesting premise and characters, hard-boiled, chess-match intensity, the relatively low use of “extreme anime facial expressions.”*
If we liked it for those reasons, what other anime would you recommend we check out? Bonus points if it is available on Netflix!
Thanks in advance for any ideas!
*extreme anime facial expressions: I assume you will know what I mean, but those situations where a character experiences a new strong emotion, and the action stops and the character gets an extra-cartoony, almost emoticon version of whatever emotion, and then the plot picks up again. Not a fan.
I totally agree. I watched it and at first I was for Light, I totally understood him, I being one of the black sheep of society and seeing the world as the horrible mess that it is. However as I watched it, the more I grew to dislike and even hate Light. When it all comes down to it, Light becomes the thing he hates the most. When is it right, in his world, to kill innocent people to reach the ends means? It just becomes contradictory. He ended up becoming worse than those criminals he punished. Too wrongs don’t make a right. Obviously I was team L! In the end I believe no one should have that kind of power and that is why no one does, despite many trying. With out chaos, there can be no order. It is a very good series however. I never read the manga either, just watched the anime.
::ducks and runs due to awful punnery with bad accent stereotypes invoked::
I liked the fact that Light was an anti-hero - he started off as someone I thought were expected to like and it became clear quickly that he got corrupted. But he was the lead character - the one who’s arc really defined the whole 37-ep series. Watching him do a total meltdown after all of that back-and-forth, cat-and-mouse maneuvering with L and then Near was a great climax…
…so - any other series out there that delivers like Death Note?
The first half of the anime is one of the best, most tightly plotted shows I’ve seen. The second half is a mess. Still worth watching for the first half though.
Another anime that’s on the realistic/gritty end of the scale is Wolf’s Rain. It does mix in elements of fantasy and sci-fi but feels very real for all that.
Short synopsis (from Anime News Network): “Hundreds of years from now, most of the Earth is a ruined wasteland and people live in a few domed cities. Legends speak of how wolves know where Paradise lies at the end of the world. But wolves, along with most wild animals, have been extinct for 200 years…or so everyone believes. In fact, a few wolves still survive, disguised as humans, eking out a living in the alleyways and gutters of human cities. All this changes when a strange new wolf named Kiba arrives from the wilderness, drawn by the scent of the Flower Daughter, a mysterious girl held captive by human scientists.”
The ending is very ambiguous, which can be frustrating, but it’s definitely worth a watch.
It was mentioned upthread by infinitii, but Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (not Revolution) is very similar to *Death Note *. I highly recommend you check this one out.
