Death Note

I've been having an interesting experience lately, studying classical yoga sutras and meditation with an amazing spiritual lady, and at the same time I've been engrossed with a manga about a psychopathic supernatural serial killer. The manga in question is Death Note, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

Death Note is a story about a super-intelligent boy called Light Yagami who one day finds a Death Note, a notebook dropped by a shinigami (literally Death God). Light finds out that if you write someone's name in the book, that person will die - and immediately sets out on a crusade to kill dangerous criminals. It's a very interesting subject - I think probably pretty much everyone has at one point or another been thinking about what they would do if it would be possible to kill someone without any fear of being caught. What makes Death Note disturbing thought is the way Light approaches this task - just like everyone has probably thought about what they would do in that situation, most people would choose to kill maybe one or two really awful people, you know Hitlers and that sort - whereas Light sets out on a killing spree without even once questioning whether he's doing the right thing. For he thinks he's creating a perfect Utopian world with him as God, and believes that he is indeed righteous.

But soon enough Interpol hires another super-intelligent youngster, a mysterious detective called L to find this serial killer media calls Kira. When L starts closing in on Kira, Light soon realizes that he may have to start killing not only criminals but also the police that are after him - and like everything he does he does this in cold-blood and without a hesitation. However for Light to be able to kill with the Death Note he needs to know what a person looks like as well as their real name, and recluse L not only refuses to show his face but also always works under pseudonyms.

Light is unlike any other protagonist I've ever come across. Sure, he's handsome and intelligent - but he's also completely unemotional and psychopathic with literally no redeeming qualities, yet the reader can't totally put him at fault. On the other hand opposite Light is L, another unemotional and psychopathic boy but this one is dedicated to catching Kira and saving lives instead of destroying them. The intellectual sparring between the two main characters is extremely well written and at times it's so clever takes your breath away - and as you know I'm a total sucker for detective stories.

When I started reading the series I knew that lot of fans had issues with what happens in chapter 58 (in volume 7), and quite a few people think that Death Note from chapter 59 onwards is not worth reading. For myself - I understand what they mean and I too was devastated after chapter 58 - but I think it was also one of the only two logical directions the series could possible go (and I didn't like either of them... this may be better of two evils though). The premise is extremely difficult to handle, and Ohba is a very good writer (in fact so good that it's almost certain that it's not his real name and almost certainly not his first writing job - which would be very fitting indeed for the series) - but it may be impossible to keep the level of writing at such a high level until the end. Obata (of the Hikaru no Go fame) as the illustrator is also doing a superb job, and I especially adore his totally gorgeous cover art.

Still with warts and all, I got a huge intellectual kick out of Death Note and will be reading at least the next volume (number 8) to check out if the series has truly jumped the shark like so many fans claim... I think the series probably jumped around chapter 40 or so, after which there was a little lull - until the action picked up again full speed and rammed head on into a brick wall... but accidents are fascinating too in a morbid way. I think this series is going to be huge in the next few years - the anime of the series has just started showing in Japan, and first of two live action movies is out too. In fact Warner Brothers is rumored to release these live action movies in North America, and have bought the rights to remake them to be better suited for the American audiences - and if done right I think they would be very popular. It's got just the right amount of supernatural and realistic horror and such a compelling universal concept that it's going to be hard to ruin it (possible though... we all know Hollywood). Meanwhile, Viz has published 7 out of 12 volumes in the Shonen Jump Advanced lineup, with the rest to be released I think in the next six months or so.

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