“You’re not a judge but if you’re gonna judge me
Well sentence me to another life.
Don’t wanna hear your sad songs
I don’t wanna feel your pain
When you swear it’s all my fault
‘Cause you know we’re not the same,
Oh we’re not the same
Yeah, the friends who stuck together
We wrote our names in blood
But I guess you can’t accept that the change is good”
-Paramore (‘Ignorance’)
WARNING:
**THIS POST CONTAINS A LOT OF SPOILERS. DO NOT READ IT IF YOU WANT TO READ THE SERIES FIRST**
Okay, I’ve tried to read a couple of manga series, but none of them have really spoke to me. They’re all either too young, too girly, or too violent for my taste*. But Death Note is different; the plot is intense, the characters are interesting, and the drawings are lovely.
The story is unlike any story I’ve ever heard before. First of all, the main character is the bad guy. More interesting yet, he doesn’t start out as the bad guy, but rather becomes a villain over time. One of the ‘good guys’ has the last word in the manga, making his views seem like the ones the author was trying to get across in throughout the entire series. However, the ending forces the reader to consider that this ‘good guy’ was corrupt in some ways. The ‘dumb’, obsessive girl in this series can actually think and plan ahead more efficiently than most people, and the comic relief shows a deeper and edgier side towards the end.
There’s no such thing as black and white.
Because I am a creepy and obsessive person, I have decided to dedicate a really long post to this series. Within this post I want to show you guys the covers (since they give you a minor sense of the story at a glance and you won’t feel obligated to read the whole post and/or series…they’re also pretty), discuss the content and plot line of the series, and talk about all of the really intense and somewhat controversial themes in the manga.
(For the record, I have not watched the anime.)
Covers
Boredom
Confluence
Hard Run
Love
Whiteout
Give-and-Take
Zero
Target
Contact
Deletion
Kindred Spirits
Finis
Love, Zero, and Finis are my favourites (books, not covers).
Content
Okay, this is where some major spoilers are going to come in.
Light Yagami is an extremely intelligent and very popular high school student. His father works with the Japanese police and sometimes Light helps them solve cases (because he’s cool like that).
One day, Light receives an unexpected visit from a Shinigami Death God. The Shinigami, Ryuk, gives Light a Death Note; a notebook that kills any person who’s name is written in it provided that the writer knows what the person looks like. Light decides to use this Death Note to rid the world of evil. The Death Note can control how people die, so Light begins killing convicted criminals using heart attacks, hoping that people will notice the deaths and start treating each other better to avoid being killed.
People do notice that criminals are dropping like flies due to heart attacks. Unfortunately for Light, one of those people happens to be the mysterious L.
I adore whoever made this poster
L is a famous and brilliant detective who is always anonymous; he only speaks to the public through a computer and never shows his face or reveals his name. He has sworn to catch the criminal known as Kira (AKA Light).
L begins working with the Japanese police, despite multiple members quitting for they fear Kira will kill those who gets in his way (he’s done it before). L works closely with Mr. Yagami, and begins to suspect his son, Light, of being Kira.
And so it begins. L and Light are constantly trying to outsmart each other; L wants to prove Light is Kira and Light wants to fool L. Both are surprised when the Kira killings start developing new patterns. That’s when L and Light both realize that there is a second Kira.
Misa Amane (the second Kira) is a young model/actress who worships Kira because he killed the murderer who killed her parents. A female Shinigami named Rem gave Misa a Death Note that a dead Shinigami used to own. Misa also trades half of her life span for the ability to see a person’s name as soon as she sees their face (Shinigami eyes). Once Misa meets Light, she falls in love with him.
But the love is brought to a screeching halt when L finds evidence suggesting that Misa is the second Kira (which helps his theory that Light is the first Kira). When Misa is captured, Light realizes that the only way to prove their innocence is to give up the Death Notes and all of their memories involving the Death Notes. L has both Light and Misa in captivity when they start going insane. After 50 days, they are released since the killings went on even when they were captured.
The reason the killings continued is because Light got Rem to deliver a Death Note to someone else and ask them to kill criminals. Kyosuke Higuchi, who now possesses the Death Note, is a business man, so he also uses the book to kill his competitors.
After Misa and Light are released, L is still skeptical, so he has Light and himself chained together and has constant surveillance on Misa’s room. Since Light has no memories of being Kira, he desperately wants to help L catch the new Kira.
L is upset. He practically has proof the Light is not Kira, but he was so sure of his suspicion that he wanted Light to be Kira. Despite this want, L considers Light to be his one and only friend.
L and Light end up catching Higuchi, and when they take the notebook in for evidence, Light touches it and regains his memories of being Kira. He has Misa touch the notebook. She obeys, regains her memories, and trades half of her remaining life span for the Shinigami eyes. Light asks her to kill L since before they lost their memories she had seen his name, but it was such a long time ago that she forgot.
Light takes advantage of the situation, forcing Misa into a position of danger that tempts Rem (who cares for Misa) to kill L.
The plan succeeds. L dies knowing that his suspicion was correct; Light is Kira.
Years pass, and by this time Light has achieved a high rank in the Kira Investigation Team and has become the new L. The world is beginning to accept Kira and Light is on top of the world…
Sketches of Near and Mello
But Near and Mello won’t have any of that.
Near and Mello were both raised in a centre in the U.S.A. that was created to train people to be the next L. They were the top students at the centre, but Near was always one step ahead of Mello. Mello desperately wants to show Near that he can catch Kira first. To pursue this goal, Mello joins the mafia. Near takes on the role of L’s true heir and starts the Special Provision for Kira (SPK). One of the people in the SPK, Halle Lidner, is passing on information to Mello.
Near and Mello are aware of L’s death and know that the new L is an impostor.
Light is going head to head with Near and is afraid of getting caught, since Near suspects the new L of being Kira and has informed the Kira Investigation Team of his theory. In an attempt to save himself, Light passes on the notebook again. This time, he chooses the person to receive the notebook and he keeps some for himself so he won’t lose his memories. Ryuk gives the Death Note to a Kira worshiper named Teru Mikami.
By sheer luck, Mikami picks Kiyomi Takada as a spokesperson for the now highly worshipped Kira. Takada happens to be an old flame of Light’s.
Light uses Takada, along with Misa and Mikami, to help him kill so he looks as innocent as possible. However, right before Light and Near are about to meet, Misa is kidnapped by Near and Takada is kidnapped by Mello.
Alright, I’ve given you about a million spoilers, but I am not going to tell you how this masterpiece ends.
Controversy
Now, when I say “controversy”, I don’t mean random shiz like abortions and euthanasia. These are some of the topics I found in Death Note that have very specific justice/human rights themes in them.
Unfriendly Competition
I can’t help but wonder if it was right to train people to be the next L. I mean, the world definitely needed one after the original L’s death, but does that justify having kids and young adults compete to be freakishly brilliant?
I’m not sure/can’t remember if the people in training wanted to be there or were forced to be there, all I know is that is was disguised as a regular orphanage. If it was, in fact, a bunch of orphans who were competing against each other, I would call that a little wrong. However, if they were volunteers, I’d say it was a good idea.
Well, there is that one flaw; the competition. The pressure to do well there must be unbearable. Just look at Mello; one of the centre’s best and brightest and what does he do? He joins an illegal organization to ‘win’ against Near. In the end, that did sort of save everyone’s ass, but it could’ve just as easily gone wrong.
Misa’s Confinement
Misa
Okay, it started out alright but then got sort of freaky.
L takes Misa into custody for he has evidence that she is the second Kira. He traps her in the area seen in the picture above. Her eyes are covered so she can’t see any faces, she’s strapped down and in a straitjacket so she can’t move her arms, her ankles are bound to make it harder to escape, and there are video cameras monitoring her every move. A lot of Kira Investigation Team members thought the set-up was a little harsh, but they didn’t do anything about it.
At first, Misa understands what is going on and knows that she is guilty of murder. Unfortunately, once her memories of the Death Note disappear, so does her understanding of the situation. Since she is an actress, she assumes that she’s been kidnapped by a crazy stalker who’s making a video of her and watching her pee (she mentions it, so I assume they were videotaping her every time she went to the bathroom).
She was held captive like that for 50 days…
THAT IS THE SCARIEST SITUATION YOU COULD EVER BE IN!
What really bothered me was that when Light and his father were confined, they both had nice, cozy cells all for themselves. They both had the luxuries of sight and movement. Then I remembered that the Yagamis volunteered to be confined while Misa had to be forced…but still.
The point is that confining dangerous criminals can be a good thing, but sometimes it can turn into something that seems a bit evil.
Testing the Death Note
At one point or another, pretty much every authority figure that held the Death Note wanted to test it out. There was always someone there to stop them, someone to tell them that any death isn’t justified. That’s when I began to wonder…What if it had been replaced with a regular notebook?
Gee, that would sure suck if you were planning on trading it for ransom or examining it for evidence.
Although, I do see why many officials wouldn’t want to test it out; it would feel like an
abuse of power and it might make them feel as if they’re on Kira’s level. But then someone brought up the fact that they could test in on a death-row inmate, since their fate was inevitable. Again, this is where I felt that testing the notebook would be a good idea. Though, I suppose than any officer with a strong moral compass would still feel that the killing is wrong.
The conclusion to this point is a question: How far should we go to solve a mystery?
Light’s Plan
Ah, yes. We’ve have finally arrived at the most important point.
So, what is justice?
I must admit, I sort of agreed with Light’s ideals in the beginning. I mean, I would have never been able to murder all of those people, but I was impressed that he chose to use the Death Note to make the world a better place instead of just using it to wipe out people that he didn’t like.
But, as time went on, Light was forced to take out innocent people in order to keep killing criminals. As Light killed more and more innocent people, I started to like him less and less. By the beginning of the seventh book I started to see him as a villain, and towards the end of the seventh book I thought he was a psychopath! He ends up using Misa and Takada shamelessly and he doesn’t seem to care when his family’s lives are in danger (not even when his father died did he seem upset about anything other than Mello’s escape).
Ignoring Light’s personal qualities, are his ideals still righteous?
Well, not according to Near. I think one of the most powerful moments in the entire series is when Near says…
“You’re just a murderer, Light Yagami. And this notebook is the deadliest weapon in the history of mankind. If you had been a normal person and had used this notebook once out of curiosity, you would have been surprised and scared of what had happened, regretted what you had done, and never used this notebook again. To speak of extremes, I can actually understand those who would use this notebook for their personal interests and kill a couple of people, and even think that they’re normal. But you yielded to the power of the notebook and the Shinigami and have confused yourself with a god. In the end, you’re nothing more than a crazy serial killer. That’s all you are. Nothing more and nothing less.” **
Wow.
Yeah, that’s kind of how I felt about Light near the end. But I am also haunted by the last page of the entire series.
The final pages depict a group of Kira worshipers, including the one seen in the picture above who says…
”Kira is our saviour.”
I guess the message then becomes that there will always be people on both sides of the story, even when the story is over.
(Footnotes)
* For the record, I did not mean to offend anyone’s taste in manga with this sentence. I said that most other manga didn’t match my taste. I didn’t say I had good taste.
** A big thank you to this website for helping me find the exact quote!
Update:
I found this adorable fanart on someone’s DA account. It makes my day!
