Death Note: Anime Series
A friend of mine badgered me about watching this for a few years. I always said I would, but never got around to it. He insisted I would love it, but I never prioritized it. Then a coworker, a person whose taste in media was VERY questionable, boasted about its excellence and that made me even more hesitant. I wasn’t super into dedicating time to things I wasn’t very personally interested in, so I was going to get to it… eventually. I hadn’t even bothered to read reviews or anything about it.
It took another friend, who I consider my personal anime guru to just put it on with me in the room. From that moment until it was over, I didn’t want to watch anything else. Everything became about changing my schedule to make time for Death Note.
Young genius Light Yagami finds a mysterious notebook labeled “Death Note” on the ground. Upon picking it up and taking it home, he meets a shinigami (god of death) named Ryuk who tells him about what he has found. All shinigami keep these special notebooks and write the names of those who are going to die in them. In the hands of a human, writing another person’s name will kill them with a heart attack in 30 seconds, unless a time or other death method is written. There are a lot more rules, enough to pretty much fill this entire post actually, so I’ll just move along.
Once Light tests the notebook and realizes the truth of the power in his hands he decides to bring justice to the world by killing criminals with it. Throughout the beginning of the series he does various experiments with the notebook’s power and learns every aspect of it. He now has the power of God and will use it to remake the world in his own image as the supernatural serial killer “Kira.” This pleases Ryuk, who came to Earth from his own dimension out of boredom.
Eventually his showboating and abuse of power attract the attention of the authorities. Seeing so many criminals die of heart attacks make them suspicious so they hire a specialist named L. L is the ultimate cold and emotionless detective. He is extremely rich and eccentric and cares about nothing other than solving his cases. This one is particularly difficult, so he is particularly interested.
Two geniuses have the ultimate battle of strategy and wits. The planning and scheming is of such an amazing level that anyone with enough brains to follow will be left speechless. It gets even better when Light starts to gain followers: The insanely in love actress Misa Amane and fanatical criminal prosecutor Teru Mikami. He even gets media spokespeople to publicly support his cause. He uses them all as tools with no regard for them, to further his own goals.
I can’t express the amount of genius in the writing for this series. It is fully engaging and attention holding. I would have to say that the only downfall is the death of L, which symbolizes Light’s ascendance to godhood. Since the suspicion was lifted from him during L’s death, he manages to usurp control of the task-force that was put together to catch his Kira alter ego.
L of course has contingencies in place in the event of his own death. He has set up two possible successors in the form of Near and Mello, both of whom are brilliant detectives in their own right. Near however, is virtually a clone of L and takes his place as Kira investigator with a separate set of resources. He eventually figures everything out and Light and his entire crew fall in the end. Ryuk expresses his appreciation for the entertainment and departs with his note, leaving Light to his fate.
The entire series is magic, just pure brilliant strategic battling that pushes anime past the usual expectations of action and exaggeration. The only way I can describe the game between Light and L is “Mega Chess.” It is simply amazing and one has to pay attention in order to properly follow the characters’ brilliance.
My only complaint, as I’m sure is the complaint of most people, is how much weaker the series gets after L dies. Near and Mello are decent enemies, but it’s very clear that the show was only continued so Light doesn’t win. He is some strange unique blend of protagonist and antagonist that you will care about, but understand that his victory will not be good for the world. He is a completely sociopathic, god complex sporting psycho, but you will still find yourself rooting for him. That is the greatness of this character.
Those are the kind of characters I love, like Zaheer from “Avatar: The Legend of Korra” or even Magneto from “X-Men.” Villains with motivations grounded in justice, freedom and righteousness are the best kind. Sometimes you want a villain to just smash things, but every so often, you find a villain you love and secretly want to win. That’s what Light Yagami is.
Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.
