![]() ![]() Light and L both have great looks and body language that reflect their character, Light's handsome self control contrasting with L's sloppy, weird appearance and social awkwardness. Obata brings what often can be long scenes of dialogue or internal struggle to life with his expressive characters. Light and L are in some way typical manga protagonists – prodigal young men with high IQs and distinct hair styles – but they're also complicated characters with strong motivation and personal quirks that make them fascinating to read about. The story that unfolds is an ingenious struggle that, in spite of the wildness of the initial premise, plays entirely fair with the reader by sticking to those written rules. As Light and L engage in a battle of wits, Ohba has Light use these rules, and pervert them, to try and protect his identity and eliminate L. ![]() How the Note, the Shinigami and the human characters interact is governed by the set of rules written inside the Death Note's cover. The Death Note is a tool of Shinigami, Japanese gods of death. Instead Death Note is that rarity, a thriller with a fantastical premise that sets down, exploits and works around a set of strange but well-defined rules. Neither is he interested in the human relationships at work: generally the characters' feelings for each other don't develop, and Light's romantic entanglements only exist as a cover for his other motivations. While the moral and social implications of Light's murderous but effective war on crime are discussed, Ohba isn't really interested in having a debate about ethics. ![]() To say any more would be to risk spoiling the twists and developments in the story, and Death Note is a fundamentally plot-driven story. Writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata's manga opens with teenager Light, a brilliant student with a strong sense of justice, finding the Death Note and deciding, after some hesitation and experimentation, to use the note to wipe the criminal and corrupt from the face of the Earth.Īs awareness of Light's actions spread, public opinion is split as to the merits of the war on crime being waged by 'Kira' (a pun on Japanese pronunciation of the English word 'killer'), and a mysterious detective called 'L' decides to bring Kira down. If such a note existed, whose hands could it fall into, and what would they do with it? Inside the cover, a set of rules on 'How to Use It', the first of which sets up the premise of the entire series: 'The human whose name is written in this note shall die'. It's a brilliantly straightforward high concept to open a story. ![]() A student's simple notebook, with 'Death Note' scrawled on the front in English. ![]()
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January 2023
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