Death Note

My precious Tee and my go to app for Mangas

Hello reader! I MUST tell you something about me before I proceed with my post. I am more otaku (A person who is consumed by mangas, animes and video games based on them.) than I let people know. I have been this way for most of my life. I have tried to get my friends to watch anime and read mangas but I haven’t quite succeeded. I believe this is partly because I don’t really want them to delve into this universe. I enjoy my space, my little source of joy but most importantly to me it is a world where I actually feel. I love Japan and most of the things it has to offer. Their acceptance, their culture, their art forms, their history, their relentless ability to rise every time they fall and how! I know they are often perceived as a xenophobic nation butif that were the case I don’t see how J-Pop, Mangas and anime could have made out of the country. Let’s not forget their technology and their constant pursuit in being innovative to opt for sustainable development and keeping their automobiles more eco-friendly.

The Death Note has Rules

I remember reading my first manga as a teenager and loving it and I haven’t stopped since. If anything, my love for them has grown even more. I wasn’t as vocal about this as I am now but with mangas finally breaking into mainstream, us smug otakus, “virtually” have a lot to talk about.

Death Note – The Manga

Ryuk - The bored shinigami.

The manga is well drawn and takes place in two worlds – the earth and that place where the gods are. The plot begins with a bored Shinigami (Death God) who throws his death note into the mortal world hoping a human picks it. Light Yagami a 17 year old high school student chances on the notebook and picks it up. When he gets home and starts reading it he dismisses the book as an elaborate prank but at the same time he realises it might have more to it. Light gets drawn to the book and he sets out to ‘test’ it. Before he knows it he has managed to write on more than 4 pages of the book. 7 days after he first picked up the book, Light sees the apple loving Ryuk. Ryuk is the Shinigami who threw his death note in the human realm. Only the person who has the notebook can see him. The Death Note is a book in which the owner of the book writes the name of a person and the said person dies within 40 seconds, of a heart attack. If the owner so chooses to opt for his own method in which to see the person die, he/she can describe the mode in which the person meets his/her end by writing the same in the book along with the name of the person. If the owner of the book chooses to disown it, the owner on doing so will lose all memory of the Death Note. This is pretty much what the first few chapters summarise. The plot seems simple and not really something that is gripping but just get on with the series and as you read further the plot expands and you get drawn into a world where you are forced to make judgments, question your morals and most importantly define what justice means to you.

With the story’s flow, the plot becomes more complex. We are introduced to Light’s family and friends. We get a better understanding of who and what sort of person Light is. With that background we also witness how Light, a bright young teenager molds his life around the powers of the book and gets drawn more into it when he makes a deal with the Shinigami. Light takes the Death Note as his chance to make the world a better place. He begins with cleansing the world of criminals and by and by gets around to bringing down crime rates mostly because, deaths of prison inmates and hard core criminals suddenly becomes daily news and the world starts noticing how the death of evil doers is preventing the rise of new criminals. Years pass and Light has pretty much made the most of the book, but will such mysterious deaths around the world go unnoticed for too long? Nah ah…

When we are in the thick of the plot cheering Kira (Light’s alter ego) we are met with L. L is a bright young lad who has helped in several investigations around the world and is famous for his ability in working around difficult cases. With a love for sweets, this young man proves to be Kira’s formidable opponent. How L figures out Light. How Light manages to stall and leap over hurdles being sent his way. How, without the aid of a Shinigami, L comes to his conclusion is all told in this beautiful story written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

This will make you question a lot about life but like Tsugumi Obha said, “No human has the right to pass judgment on another’s actions. No one should play God.”

The manga has a total of 109 chapters, that are divided into 12 volumes of some amazing story telling and illustration skills. The manga was originally released in 2003 and ended in 2006.

My Rating: 4.8/5

Recommend:Definitely recommend this manga to anyone who has never read one because those who read mangas will have already read this!

Death Note – The Anime

If you like a fast paced story that you can binge watch in a day, I’d recommend you start with Death Note because it is amazing! The series aired between 2006 – 2007 and has 37 episodes and is beautifully edited to accommodate the entire manga. The anime doesn’t fail the manga. If you can’t get your hands on the book, click this link for the series on YouTube.

My Rating: 5/5

Recommend:Like I said earlier if you can’t read, then watch! But do watch it! You’ll be glad you did.

Death Note - The movie (2017)

Willem Dafoe as Ryuk

Personally I don’t watch live action movies based on Mangas, yet as it happened I was bored and at home and Netflix kept popping the movie in my ‘recommendations’ list. I thought, “Oh… well… why not?” I am never going to get those 101 minutes of my life ever again. I wasted my time. The movie was so boring I had to pause every 15 minutes and ask myself if I needed to subject myself to such self-inflicted mental agony. I kept on watching it anyway.

I hate how Americans take something beautiful and manage to touch it and make complete trash out of it. It is at times like this, that I understand the cultural differences. Our way of praying and looking up to gods is reverent not just in prayer but also in action but with them it’s just ‘supernatural’. When a theme is so Asian, one needs to either adapt the story to suit the westerners or stick with the origins. The movie was a ‘Na ghar ka, na ghat ka’ genre.

My Rating: 0/5

Recommend:Please either watch the anime or read the manga.