Anime Retrospective: Death Note

Ah, the wonderful world of Japanese anime. A genre I have never really gotten into and still really haven’t. Still a friend of mine drew me to this series. And... Well let’s take a look 

Spoilers to follow

Based on a story from a manga series, the story focuses on a character named Light Yagami, a brilliant high school student who by chance stumbles across a book called the Death note (roll credits) a book belonging to a Shinigami (god of death) named Ryuk (or whoever he stole the book from) the book allows the user to kill anyone whose name is written in the book providing that person’s face is in their mind as they write the name. Light wants to use it to kill criminals and make the world a better place (and become a god) he begins killing people in their prison cells using the book

It soon becomes apparent to people that these deaths are more than just coincidental (somehow.) The public begin to call him Kira, derived from the Japanese pronunciation of ‘killer.’ When the police are unable to find Kira, they call in an investigator known for never having failed to solve a case: L. L is Light’s major antagonist for most of the the series and he strikes a serious blow early on by tricking him to revealing his location within a single move.

The local police force begin an investigation, the head is Soichiro, Light’s father. Initially, Light uses this to his advantage, using information from the case in order to sabotage their efforts but in the process it leads L to suspect a leak in the police department and he has FBI agents investigate. Light notices and devises a plan to take care of them. He first tests how much control he would have over the victim’s deaths, discovering that he can make them do anything within the realms of practicality and within their nature (he can’t have someone in Japan, die in Paris whilst in a jail cell for instance) he then uses this ability to coerce a situation where the FBI agent tracking him, Raye Penber, is forced to reveal himself.

He uses this to kill him and every other FBI agent in the city, resulting in the FBI withdrawing their support of the engagement. L meets with the few detectives that stayed on the task-force in light of this development sparking fear that they'd also become targets and mistrust of L since he was having them followed. L reveals his true self to the select few who stay behind.

Penber’s fiancé, herself a former FBI agent swears vengeance on Kira for killing her husband. She meets with Light briefly, who claims to be working on the Kira case with L, she reveals her true name, after which he reveals his identity as Kira; she walks off to her inevitable fate. Her body is never found.

L begins to suspect that Light may be Kira and despite several attempts to prove this failing he never stands off that theory. Hoping to get close, L invites Light to be a part of the investigation, not hiding his suspicions from him. L uses this opportunity to his advantage, finding ways to derail their investigation but another problem soon arises. A second Kira seems to be killing people and this one does not need to know their names.

Turns out there’s a trade for what’s known as the Shinigami eyes, a technique where you can see people’s names and life-span (unless they have possession of another Death Note) but the trade-off is you lose half your life-span if you choose to obtain these. Light had refused this offer, wanting to live a full life as a God.

This second Kira is Misa, a fashion model who I can safely say is the most annoying character in the show. Her parents were killed and Light killed their murderer, making her obsessed with finding him. She has her own Death Note and a Shinigami named Rem. But she’s more sloppy with her planning than Light and is soon caught out by L.

She relinquishes ownership of the Death Note to avoid confession, relinquishing ownership of the book erases her memories of her time with it. But this isn’t enough to secure her release. Light comes up with a plan. He turns himself in, claiming he might be Kira without knowing it; he waits in cell to see if the killings continue. He relinquishes ownership of his Death Note whilst one (Misa’s) falls into the hands of a businessman named Kyosuke Higuchi. He uses the Death Note to kill criminals as Kira did but only to mask his own agenda, furthering his business by eliminating the competition.

He tries to kill a member of the task force but fails, with all task force members having been given an alias in case they encounter Kira. When that guy comes out on television to reveal his identity he gets paranoid and the trap is sprung. He is caught and the Death Note comes into the hands of the task force. Light touches the book and his memories temporarily return, everything had gone as planned. Inside the book is rule, written in by Light saying that once the killing starts, a user must write a name in it every 13 days or die. This frees both Light and Misa from suspicion.

Misa recovers the death note Ryuk had hidden and begins killing criminals again, rousing L’s suspicions once more. Rem suddenly realises the horrific nature of Light’s plan. He intentionally put Misa in danger so she’d kill L and Watari (his butler figure) sacrificing her own life in the process (Shinigami cannot intervene to increase a human's life span, or else be turned to dust) The plan works successfully and L is killed

We jump ahead 5 years where Light is now L’s replacement as the head of the task force, purposely slowing the investigation to a crawl. The death of L is not public knowledge but thanks to some trickery, L’s true successors are alerted. Their names are Mello and Near, each possess a different trait of L. Mello has a more ruthless streak, Near is more cunning and detached. They decide to go their separate paths in order to catch Kira. Mello joins forces with the mafia, whilst Mello sets up the SPK, an organisation determined to hunt Kira down. (Yes, another one)

Mello makes the first move, kidnapping Light’s sister, Sayu, wanting the Death Note in the task force’s possession in exchange for her life. Soichiro takes the Death Note, preparing to make the exchange. He arrives and trades for Shinigami eyes to kill Mello but takes a gunshot wound and dies in the hospital bed, he’s happy that he can see Light’s life force (he couldn’t if he had possession of a Death Note, which he didn’t at the time) because to him it means he cannot be Kira.

Near puts the suspicion of Light being Kira back in the minds of the task force, so Light comes up with a new plan. He tells Misa to give her Death Note (Rem’s was in the possession of the task force, Light’s was taken by the Shinigami who originally owned it) to someone who would use it in the same way he would. In this case it was Teru Mikami, a Kira worshipper who believed that God wanted him to pass righteous judgement on criminals.

When a Kira spokesperson on TV begins to use this position to demand money, a disgusted Light orders Teru to kill him. Needing a new spokesperson, he goes to Kiyomi Takada, his former girlfriend. Misa gets jealous leading to hijinks that ultimately amount to nothing. He gets Kiyomi to pass messages to Teru. He instructs Teru to tear some pages out of the death note and mail them to Kiyomi, whilst writing names in as a public a way as possible in a fake book.

Near has Teru tailed and discovers he keeps a regular schedule, they find a copy of the notebook in his gym locker and take photographs of all its pages. Mello makes his final move by kidnapping Kiyomi, under Light's instructions she hides a piece of the Death Note on her person and manages to kill Mello. Light then uses a piece of Death Note in his watch to make her commit suicide, eliminating any evidence of the Death Note.

Near and Light arrange a meeting of their task forces in an abandoned warehouse. Light's intention was that Teru would uses his Shinigami eyes to kill everyone in the room. Near says that her plan was that since Teru was so methodical in how many pages he filled out every day, she managed to replace the pages he’d fill that day with fakes. Light is pleased, seeing as the fake Death note was the one that had been tampered with and the real one was what Teru had bought today.

When none of the people in the room die, Light is caught out. His name had not been written in the pages and Teru had addressed him as God. On the day of Kiyomi’s kidnapping, Teru had made an unusual move and tried to write Kiyomi’s name in the real Death Note, this gave an opportunity for Near to replace it with a fake, using inscriptions copied from the photographs they’d taken. Caught out and with no-where to go. Ryuk fulfils his promise and writes Light’s name in the Death Note, killing him.

I know this is a lot of plot detail and a lot of story but the nature of the show is highly serialised and there are few plot details that are unimportant. It’ll also highlight the main differences with the film adaptations I’m reviewing over the next few weeks and why I don’t think they work that well.

Death Note is the ultimate illustration of absolute power corrupting absolutely. What started as a only killing the guilty quickly lead to killing anyone who stood in his way, by the end his actions had driven Light mad. The tragedy of it is, that without the memories of the Death Note he was more than a little willing to act against Kira.

The battle of wits between L and Light was always intriguing to watch; both play mind games with each other and it’s clear that they’re worthy opponents. Near and Mello are not given as much time to develop as L but they’re by no means less of an effective force. It’s actually fitting that while Near delivered the final blow, it was their combined efforts that eventually led to Light being exposed.

Also worth noting that Light himself partly brought about his own destruction. In relying on others to carry out a plan as precisely as was necessary for him to succeed, he was practically inviting something to go wrong. Kiyomi died was because his hand was forced (and from what I can tell, she knew what was going to happen) but he could not have foreseen that Teru would try something similar and ruin his plan.

But it does have its issues, some of which I will moan about in the film reviews too, so expect this. Light is an unusual antagonist in that they really don’t do much to make him likeable. He pretty quickly says he wants to become God, you’re rooting against him from there, and by the time he acts against the FBI agents, you’ve lost most if not all sympathy for him, making the episodes that follow drag a bit. This is something they try to correct in the movie,s but (spoilers) what they do with it is my main issue with the film. 

I’ve already stated that I find Misa exceptionally annoying in almost every scene she’s in but I will add that she adds levity to what is a very dark series. This is not a show for children, a common trait amongst anime from what I hear. I suppose really from its concept it could never be a family show.

The we come to the issue with Near and Mello, they’re assigned as L’s replacements pretty late in the game, giving us little opportunity to properly to get to know them, especially as the show enters its final act. Mello is deliberately not played as a likeable character. He joins forces with the Mafia, kills some of Near’s task-force after gaining possession of the Death Note and kidnaps Light’s girlfriend. Near’s lack of emotional connection makes it difficult to connect with the character, which makes it less satisfying when he finally lays the finishing blows on Light.

But nonetheless I enjoyed this series but the movies on the other hand, well, join me in the coming weeks as I do reviews for both movies.

Rating 80/100

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Images used in this review are from Death Note and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.