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Death Note Overview

Mar 24, 2012 17:25



Introduction

Death Note is one of the more famous manga/anime series for a reason. It is a complex, exciting ride through many plot twists and mind games. To me, it has a feeling like one of the better-quality original Sherlock Holmes stories, a sense of various mysteries and schemes coming together in intellectually beautiful ways, all building up to a definitive and highly climactic ending, with very little filler along the way.

It is extremely plot-dense, with almost everything connecting, and the storyline has a tendency to skip over or summarize anything that doesn't directly advance the plot.

Before I begin describing the plot and themes, I need to say that Death Note has many surprise twists and, because of that, it is one of the most spoiler-heavy series out there. Almost everything concrete that I could say about the series will be a spoiler. There are even some major characters for which I cannot give a one-sentence description of their role in the plot without spoiling something important for you.

Because of this, I will need to be vague and generalize quite a bit, but the below overview will be safe from spoilers except for some basic facts, mostly ones revealed in the first few episodes, without which it would be nearly impossible to say anything at all.

I also want to warn you against reading Death Note fan fiction or looking up information about Death Note before reading/watching the series. No Death Note fanfic is better than the series, so it isn't a reasonable trade-off to spoil yourself with fan fiction and thereby reduce your enjoyment of the canon series.

The internet is filled to the brim with Death Note spoilers, and there are actual memes out there that have been created just to spoil people.

Even looking up a basic official summary on amazon.com will generally spoil you for at least one plot twist. If you buy the DVDs, do not read the back before watching; just watch! An unspoiled experience of Death Note is much more satisfying than a spoiled experience, since so much of the enjoyment is contained in the thriller aspects of it.

One thing you do not have to worry about being spoiled by is the opening sequence and closing sequence of the anime, because they lie. The vast majority of events shown in those never happen at all, so even though it seems like you're being spoiled, you aren't.

Death Note is relatively short, the manga being 108 chapters (collected in 12 volumes) and the anime being 37 episodes, so it's not that difficult to read/watch all of it during the time when you're avoiding the spoilers.

If you're completely new to the series and you decide that you want more information than is in this spoiler-free overview before you decide, I would highly recommend three reviews that only contain the smallest of minor spoilers.

One is a written review here in Anime Planet, focusing on the anime, another written review is here in Forbidden Planet, focusing more on the manga, and the third is a video review by JesuOtaku that can currently be found here, however it moves frequently, and if the video is no longer there, just google, or search YouTube, for JO Anime Review "Death Note" and you should be able to find a copy.

Plot & Characters

The basic plot is fairly simple. Light Yagami, a genius high school student in Japan, finds the death note, a magic notebook that kills anyone if you write their name in it while picturing their face. At first he doesn't think it is real, but his experiments quickly prove him wrong and set him on the path to insanity.

Bored with life and convinced that the world is rotten, Light begins giving supernatural heart attacks to all the world's major criminals in an attempt to create the utopia he envisions. The public nicknames this unknown killer "Kira" which is Engrish for killer, but it also means "sparkles" in Japanese, a name Light is not thrilled with because he is very vain, but he comes to grudgingly accept it.

World governments are baffled by the seemingly inexplicable heart attacks that kill off all the world's major criminals within five days, and then continue for new criminals who've committed major crimes, as soon as those criminals appear in the media. Interpol calls in the trump card they've always used on especially difficult cases: the best detective in the world, a reclusive genius known by the alias L. L only communicates through a computer and has never been seen by law enforcement, so he is at first completely inaccessible and invulnerable to Kira's power.

The rest of the manga/anime is a struggle between L and Light, as L tries to uncover Kira's real identity and Light tries to investigate L and lure him into a situation where he could be killed. It is heavily implied from the beginning of this struggle that things will end with one of them dead, as Light will be executed if he's proven as Kira, while it is clear that L is willing to risk his life and is going to keep making progress against Kira unless Kira can manage to kill him before he accumulates too much evidence.

Plot twists tend to shift the balance of power from L's side to Light's side or vice versa, so that it often seems as if one side must be defeated very soon. These flip-flops in power are some of the high-suspense moments that truly make Death Note exciting for fans. Even if you think to yourself that one side or the other can't logically be defeated yet because there is plenty of the anime/manga left, it is still exciting to see just how badly L or Light can get into trouble, and the truly ingenious things that each will come up with in order to extricate themselves.

L and Light are definitely the two main characters, with everything either revolving around them or around their allies and minions. Whenever L and Light aren't clashing directly, they are clashing indirectly through other people that they manipulate. Sometimes this even happens with each of them using the same person for different purposes, as they are both masters at manipulation.



Light Yagami is an unusual serial killer, in that his motivations and personality are not what you ordinarily see in serial killer fictional characters. It's easy to sympathize with his ideals and attitude, if not his methods.

I think that what Light felt in the beginning is a kind of universal experience for everyone: to wish that particular criminals would just die and stop plaguing society. All of us have probably been in that mood at some point, and it's difficult to say whether any of us might have given in to the temptation to kill if we'd had an anonymous, clean and long-distance way of doing it.

So, Light's a vigilante. What makes him that different from other vigilantes in fiction? Light isn't just a serial killer with an agenda and a sense of righteousness. He's a particularly complex character and provokes a lot of interest from the audience. It is difficult to explain exactly why, especially in such short space, but there is just something about the way Light approaches his quest. Watching him creates an infectious kind of enthusiasm, a desire to see what he'll do next.

He is infused with the idealism typical of the young (he's 17 when things start, and turns 18 shortly after), he's surprisingly determined and resourceful to the extent that he's worked so hard for it that you kind of don't want to see him fail, and there's also something very innocent and child-like buried deep inside him, even during times when the narrative is obviously presenting him as insane.

The beginning of Death Note is a tragedy. As part of Light's initial characteristics, he's very determined to stand up for what is right. It is clear that if he'd never picked up his magic notebook, he would have been a force working for the side of good, not the side of evil.

Despite this devotion, he is flawed even from the beginning, and it is these flaws that form cracks in his personality and allow the evil and the insanity to seep inside him.

If he had never found the death note, he wouldn't have been a villain but he wouldn't have been a paragon of virtue and altruism either. For example, his devotion to what he sees as good seems to derive more from duty, loyalty, self-image and admiration for his father than from any empathy for others. Light is often shown thinking about how criminals are scum, but never once about the suffering of the victims of crime.

Is is obvious, though, that Light rapidly becomes both evil and crazy, and he degenerates further morally and mentally as time goes on. He thinks of himself as a god, and his quest seems to have more to do with his tendency to look down on people, and his need to find a challenge in life worthy of his intelligence, than any desire to help people.

And yet, despite this, and despite Light treating the Kira case like a game, killing innocent people who get in his way, and habitually killing, betraying or trying to betray his allies, he is surprisingly charismatic.

Even fans who sincerely wish for Light to die often find themselves rooting for him at times; maybe not rooting for him to win, but for him to not get caught a little bit longer, and perhaps to realize what a tragedy his plan has become and redeem himself.



L is the most beloved character in the series, and also one of the most popular characters in anime, to the extent that many people who've never read/watched Death Note have hype aversion to him.

He's not attractive right away, though. Readers/viewers are introduced to him more slowly than to Light, and at first we know little about his personality or quirks, and we don't even clearly see his face. He's just some guy who hides in a darkened room communicating to the police and media through a computer and an assistant, and his earliest deductions aren't particularly intelligent, either. You may find yourself wondering why the police needed L to tell certain things to them, why they weren't able to figure it out themselves.

As L becomes more directly involved in the storyline, starts making truly genius deductions, and we learn more about him, he emerges as a very complex character with a lot in common with Sherlock Holmes. Like the original Sherlock Holmes, he tends to see patterns in evidence that seem like bizarre fixations when he first points them out, but then he explains all the steps of his logic and does more investigation to dig up any additional evidence to prove his theory, and everything falls neatly into place.

His mind works in a similar way to Light's, and he is also very determined and has some craziness in him. However, he is not as arrogant as Light. L is arrogant, but he actually says things like "I'm sorry" and "I'm wrong" and he thanks people for their help and admits that he can't do certain things without help, which would all be extremely out of character for Light.

L is quirky and socially awkward, and he is also cold and dabbles in morally gray areas to some extent.

This moral grayness is a recurring theme in Death Note. Nearly all the characters in Death Note are a mix of good and evil. Characters who behave in a way that is too good tend to obstruct things and endanger their allies through their moral rigidity, while characters who are too evil tend to be killed by Light. Death Note very much comes out in favor of some moral flexibility, neither too good nor too evil, and L is the most prominent character to display moral flaws.

Don't get me wrong, however, L is not on the same level as Light. He is so poor at expressing his feelings and socializing that his emotions often go unacknowledged by others, but he does care. One of the reasons he risks himself is to protect his underlings, he warns them to be careful and is shown worrying about them, at times he forgoes clues to extract them from dangerous circumstances, and he's shocked when his allies are killed (even to the point of shaking at one time).

L is slightly evil and very childish, but he simply doesn't have the callous disregard for human life that Light has.

If there is a third main character, that would be Ryuk, the shinigami (a "god of death" or grim reaper) that Light's death note really belongs to, but Ryuk keeps to the sidelines enough that I consider him a major character rather than a main character.

Beyond the two main characters, there is a medium-sized cast of major characters and a large cast of minor characters, some of which recur frequently despite remaining minor characters.

The storyline of Death Note is roughly divided into two halves, with each half having a different narrative style and focusing on different major characters (more on these two halves later). In the first half, there are roughly five to nine major characters, depending on how you define the difference between major and minor. In the second half, about four to eight additional major characters are added, some of them being minor characters from the first half who take on major roles in the second half, and others being wholly new.



First Half Major Characters:

Misa Amane: a model and actress

Soichiro Yagami: Light's father

Touta Matsuda: a detective

Ryuk: the shinigami who is the real owner of Light's notebook

Rem: a female shinigami

Watari: L's assistant

Second Half Additional Major Characters:

Sayu Yagami: Light's sister, used to be a minor character

Shuichi Aizawa: a detective, used to be a minor character

Mello: a crime boss and detective, completely new

Near: a detective, completely new

Teru Mikami: a lawyer, completely new

Kiyomi Takada: a newscaster, used to be a minor character

I also need to mention that there are some characters who are undoubtedly minor characters in the canon who have become fan favorites and are elevated to major characters in the fandom, most notably Matt. I didn't include any of these in my above list of major characters because they aren't canon major characters, but it is impossible to circulate in the fandom without knowing about at least one of these elevated minor characters.

General Summary

Death Note stands out from other anime and manga because it makes many unexpected choices and goes against traditional anime clichés and trends. In some ways it is very much anti-anime in tone, a rare anime series that unfolds more like a thriller novel and is typically enjoyed by people who hate all other anime.

Yes, I have heard about many people who cannot stand anime who've gotten into Death Note in a major way, and now have it as the only anime they like. Death Note really is that different from everything else.

How is it different? There are a bunch of ways. It's far more realistic than any other supernaturally-themed anime I've ever seen. The supernatural aspect is central to the plot, but the effects are stable and there's none of that "beyond the impossible" nonsense of constantly growing powers that plagues so many supernaturally-themed anime.

In some ways, both of the main characters actually become less powerful as the series progresses, with L getting less trust and help from the police, and Light needing to be more limited in how he uses his magic notebook (in order to avoid proving himself as Kira).

This series isn't about getting more powers. It's about using the power you do have intelligently, and since the two main characters are geniuses, this plays out in some exciting and surprising ways.

Death Note is not full of the typical anime big-eyed rainbow-haired people. The only two characters with big eyes both have weird-looking eyes, not super-cute eyes. Nearly everyone has hair colors and eye colors that are plausible for their ethnicities and/or roles (for example, artificial blond hair is a known characteristic of the Gothic Lolita style that a certain character sports).

Furthermore, there is a fair percentage of unattractive characters, sometimes even major characters. In general, the people in Death Note seem more real.

This impression of reality is particularly helped because Death Note has a wide variety of faces. Unlike the typical manga/anime, where there is often either just one face (characters can only be distinguished by hair style/color and clothing) or perhaps only six faces, Death Note has a unique face for almost every single character.

It is true that Misa and Sayu have nearly the same face, and that they both look very similar to almost every nameless female background character (which actually created a lot of fan confusion in the very last scene in the manga), but, other than this issue, Death Note is highly distinctive as to faces.

It's not a fan service anime either. Death Note has only a few mild instances of fan service, and almost no romance to speak of (it's all one-sided). It isn't stuffed with filler or flashbacks or backstory, and most of the story-telling is unusually straightforward and well-explained instead of the symbolic weirdness and ambiguity that tends to prevail in some anime.

Altogether, the Death Note universe is an urban fantasy world that is nearly identical to the world we live in, having a gritty realism that is quite rare in anime. Except for the existence of a magic notebook and shinigami, the series could very easily be a normal police/mystery series.

Canon Materials

The Death Note franchise is based around the main anime/manga series. This overview will mostly have to do with the main series, but the canon also includes a guidebook (called Volume 13: How to Read), a one-shot prequel (often called The Pilot Chapter or Chapter 00) a one-shot sequel (no official name, but it is sometimes called Chapter 109, since the main manga series has 108 chapters), a light novel prequel, three live-action movies, a novel based on the third live-action movie, various video games, a few humorous yonkoma 4-panel comics, a collection of art, photos and short comics titled L File No. 15, a 2-part special rewritten version of the anime called Death Note Relight, and assorted other merchandise.

Some of these items are definitely not in the same continuity as the others. For example the live-action films are a separate canon from the manga/anime canon. Additionally, some of these items are slightly incompatible with each other in a way that leads fans to debate as to whether they are in the same continuity or not, for example the light novel Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases creates some inconsistencies when considered to be in the same continuity as the main anime/manga series, but the consistency problems are minor enough that they can probably be resolved by considering that the book has an unreliable narrator.

Between all these items, there are at least four different canon endings to the series (1.manga, 2.anime, 3."Relight" and 4.live-action), so if you do not like a particular ending, you might like one of the others.

The main anime/manga series is what most people mean when they refer to Death Note, and it is what most of the fandom is centered around. It is generally considered to be higher quality than all the other items produced by the franchise, and it is definitely what you should read/watch first, both to avoid spoilers and because some of the additional canon items make no sense unless you've already read or watched the main series.

The anime and manga series are almost the same canon, since they are identical scene-by-scene and word-for-word in many places. Added scenes in the anime are rare and often consist of only one line of dialogue, such as L giving a strawberry to Mogi. Likewise, subtracted scenes in the anime are rare (except for during the condensed second half) and usually consist of only one line or one panel being omitted.

This means that it does not matter very much whether you decide to read the manga first or watch the anime first. The only place it will make much difference is in the second half of the series, where the manga and anime cover roughly the same events, but the anime summarizes them and speeds through them quickly, until slowing down for the final showdown, while the manga moves through the same events in great detail and slowness. Scenes subtracted from the anime in order to condense the second half can often be surmised to have happened.

Fans generally feel that the manga spent too much time on these second-half events while the anime spent too little time, so that there's no perfect way to experience the second half.

Personally, I would recommend watching the anime first, since it adds a lot to see the same events in color and motion, with various suspenseful revelations delivered with perfect timing and with excellent background music. It is also one of the best dub jobs I've seen, so it's great unless you're a real stickler for subs.

The storytelling of the anime during the first half is superior in some ways, such as taking some events where the manga flashed back and forward over the course of a few days, and putting them in chronological order, and also getting rid of the manga's short-lived attempt to have Ryuk as a narrator, spouting nonsense about the "chosen ones."

If you start with the anime and then get confused during the rushed second half, switch to the manga to see roughly the same events in lots of detail. Then, choose either the manga ending or anime ending, or both. After that, you can read/watch any of the rest of the media, in any order you please.

The first half seems to be inevitably heading for a final showdown between Light's side and L's side, but instead a much-disliked plot tangent is introduced at that time, and the final showdown is delayed. The second half of the series does have some awesome moments, but it isn't dense with awesome moments like the first half is. In particular, the intense flip-flops in power between L's side and Light's side are gone, until the final showdown.

Instead of those flip-flops, the second half is more of a characterization arc. It is about a number of major characters, and a horde of minor characters, being introduced, slowly learning the same things that old characters learned in the first arc (because old characters don't trust the new characters enough to simply let them have this information) and then everyone, old and new, jostling for good positions to have during the final showdown. I hesitate to call it filler, since there is still a lot of plot and because Death Note has nothing like the filler found in a typical anime series, but it does feel a bit redundant since we've already seen old characters accumulating this same set of facts during the first half.

Fan opinion is almost entirely united about the fact that the second half of the anime/manga is lower in quality than the first half, except for the final showdown at the very end, where the quality improves again. How much lower in quality is a matter of opinion, with the worst detractors pronouncing the second half unwatchable and the better defenders saying the second half is only slightly lower in quality than the first half.

In my opinion, the second half isn't bad. It's just that the first half was so exceptionally high in quality that any drop in quality is going to be deeply felt and resented. There are quite a lot of good anime series that never get any higher in quality than the second half of Death Note is.

However, even people who think the second half is unwatchable often get lured back into watching it after hearing about how badass the ending is. The ending on the manga and the ending on the anime are mostly the same, being word-for-word identical in many places, but there are three major differences (and a few minor ones) that cause fans to vehemently defend one or the other as the best.

Basically, the manga ending is more brutal in tone, while letting a certain character realize something profound about the Kira scheme, and includes a one-year-later epilogue that clears up one potential plot hole and lets us know how most (but not all) of the survivors are doing.

In contrast, the anime ending is more bittersweet and nostalgic in tone, does not let that certain character realize something profound about the Kira scheme, but has a different character suffer from an added hallucination sequence that might be something more, and simply ends when the winning side is determined, but with an implied fate for one character who was left fate-less by the manga.

The only thing I would warn against are the fan-created manga scanlations that are easy to find online at reader sites such as Homeunix, Mangareader, Manga Access, Mangafox, Onemanga, Anime A and many others.

The scanlations include some instances of poor translation that create plot holes that weren't in the original (such as L's deduction in the helicopter), plus I've run across some edited copies that omit key scenes, and the scanlations also misidentify a major female character as male, and they are the driving force behind the Light/Raito debate in fandom (short version: "Light" is the correct way to write his name if using letters, long version: see here).

If you want to watch the anime online, it is much easier to get uncorrupted copies. At present, good places to look are Just Dubs and Anime Top List.

After you've finished either the manga or the anime series, then you can move on to any of the additional canon materials. Probably the next thing to try is the guidebook Volume 13: How to Read, which contains a lot of additional information about the characters and clears up most of the few mysteries left at the end, such as stating the real names of characters who never had their name revealed in the series. It's organized well, is interesting, and contains a lot of insights into the characters and the writing process.



Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases is a light novel that was not written by the original author, and this fact, along with some inconsistencies between it and the main manga/anime canon, cause fans to disagree about whether it is in the same continuity or not.

It is a prequel that is set before the Kira case, but this is not the sort of prequel to read first, for two reasons. One, it has a twist ending that will make no sense if you haven't read/watched the main series first. Two, the first pages contain massive spoilers for the biggest plot twists in Death Note. If you buy it, hide it away so that your friends and family don't accidentally spoil themselves.

The novel has gorgeous artwork and a plot that is fairly good even though it can't compare to the quality plotting in Death Note proper. It follows the progress of a pre-Kira case that is mentioned in the manga/anime, fleshing it out from that brief mention into a full-fledged story.

It's very short, so if you happen to be one of those who doesn't like it, then it doesn't waste much of your time, but I think of it as one of the more worthwhile supplemental canon materials. Why? Several reasons.

It gives additional background information on L and some of the other characters, a rare treat since almost nobody in Death Note proper gets a backstory, except for the very small backstories given to Misa and to Mikami. Also, the novel is a way for fans to spend additional time with fan favorite characters L, Naomi and Mello.

Then there is also the fact that the novel introduces a handful of new characters who are about as interesting as major characters from the main canon, including one new character, B, who has become extremely popular in the Death Note fandom. You're likely to run across fanfics depicting B, and these will spoil you for the novel if you haven't read it first.

What is wrong with Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases? Well, there are the slight inconsistencies I mentioned before, plus the fact that the new author can't seem to get L's personality correct (considering that L is one of the most popular characters in anime and manga, it is telling that people who read this novel first often hate L), plus there are some bizarre claims and ludicrous events.

For example, some of the vague claims about L make it sound as if he goes around murdering other detectives in order to steal their identities, World War III is suddenly made a part of the Death Note universe when there were no indications before of Death Note being that different from our world, claims are made about Los Angeles that anyone who'd actually lived there would laugh about, and then there are the problematic names.

Yes, a big piece of the plot revolves around the names of certain people, and deductions made according to those names. Extremely intelligent English-speaking characters living in America are specifically trying to think of whether there is anything odd about names like Blues-harp Babysplit and Backyard Bottomslash, and the only characteristic they can think of is the alliteration!

If you can look past those flaws, though, there is a good story here. Not a great story, in my opinion, but a good one.



There is a series of three live-action Death Note movies, with the first two being more like two halves of the same movie, and the third being a separate adventure about L fighting a bioterrorist.

If you are tempted to watch the third movie first because of it being largely independent plot-wise, don't do it. It contains a bit of material that should have been included in the first two movies, and basically spoils the ending of the second movie. Even an online three-sentence basic plot summary for the third movie will usually include a casual mention of how the second movie ended.

The first two movies cover a changed timeline that roughly corresponds to the manga/anime events of the first half, moving more directly to the final showdown instead of introducing a bunch of second-half major characters and having much of the second half being those characters being brought up to speed and jostling for a good situation.

I say roughly, because truly massive changes have been made, and even the events that do happen in both the live-action canon and the manga/anime canon are generally watered-down, with a lot of arbitrary changes made, and with tons of plot holes introduced. I can't go into a long explanation here, but I can point out a few problems:

1) Live-action L is far more arrogant than manga/anime L and he is stupid; he deduces almost nothing. He just guesses, based on no evidence or on contradictory evidence, and it is correct. He is also very trusting of his hunches and never performs tests of them like manga/anime L was always doing. Yes, live-action L will even bet his life on information that is completely untested!

2) Light seems pretty stupid too. In one scene, he writes in the death note in public while standing in the middle of a crowd, with other people right at his elbows. Some of the plot changes leave L open for easy attacks, but Light never realizes this or takes those opportunities.

3) Massive character changes have happened, often for no reason, and some of these create plot holes. Live-action Light is not actually Light. His backstory and personality is a combination of Light and Mikami. Likewise, another character is a combination of Takada and Higuchi, and the two character's stories have been meshed particularly badly.

4) Few major characters look the way they should, though they are quite distinctive in the manga/anime. For just a few examples, Soichiro's trademark mustache is gone and he almost never wears his glasses, L and Light have exactly the same hairstyle (just look at the movie cover) and Light has bigger eye-bags than L.

5) The added subplots and material are mostly bad. The manga/anime series is already accused of being overly-dramatic at parts, such as the infamous potato-chip-eating scene, but the movie decided to turn the drama up to eleven. For example, Misa's backstory is made far more tragic, and the new scene with Sayu at Sakura TV had me yelling at the screen from the nonsense and drawn-out pathetic attempts at suspense.

6) The manga/anime is sexist, mostly in giving few and small roles to female characters and by having female characters who are established as capable of feats of intelligence act stupid at times, but the movies make this much worse, in my opinion, in a misguided attempt to fix it. An added sexual harassment subplot seems to be putting forth the message that sexual harassment victims are angry, evil women who need to shut up, and the added token female task force member truly seems like nothing more than a token, and she is often angry as well.

7) The movies are homophobic. A manga/anime female character has been made male for the live-action movies, seemingly in order to eliminate a one-sided same-sex attraction. As additional evidence for this theory, the attraction itself no longer exists in the movies, as if it were so odious that all traces of it had to be removed, even though this creates one of the biggest plot holes in the films.

8) The actor who plays Light cannot act.

With all these issues, can you have an enjoyable experience of these movies? Yes, depending on how you approach them. A lot of fans are very vocal about singing the praises of these movies, so it is obviously possible.

I believe I know why it is possible to enjoy the movies despite the problems, and this is how: watch them after you've finished with the anime and/or manga, and don't stop to think about it. If you're already familiar with the manga/anime canon, your mind will tend to fill in the justifications and evidence from the corresponding manga/anime events as long as you don't think about how things have been changed so much that those reasons no longer work.

If you do this, then you can look past the problems and enjoy the three really great things about these movies that I think fuel most of the fan love for them.

1) The actor who plays L is incredible at his role, and has been widely praised in the media for his performance. He is so good at capturing L's personality that it is easy to forget that he is doing and saying things that manga/anime L wouldn't. His scriptwriters failed him, and his costume/make-up department failed to give him L's trademark hairstyle, but he surmounts these issues. He is simply amazing. Despite the problems, he is L.

2) Because of the lowered quality of the second half of the anime/manga, one of the dearest wishes of Death Note fans is to have a version of Death Note that moves fairly directly from the mid-point climax to the final showdown, without wasting any time with new characters. The first two live-action movies fulfill this wish, and that alone is enough to make many fans feel that any flaws in the live-action films don't matter.

3) The final showdown, at the end of the second live-action film, contains a big twist that many fans wish had been included in the manga/anime endings. This twist alone will make it completely worth it to many fans. I can't tell you what it is, and the twist does have a downside that is widely criticized, but this twist is still the most praised and widely talked-about aspect of the Death Note live-action movies.



The Death Note "Relight" special is great as what it is, but horrible for what it is advertised as. Let me explain.

This 2-part special is advertised as a rewritten version of the anime, with added scenes, some changed events, and the rest of the story being retold from Ryuk's viewpoint.

It does have added scenes, some of which are interesting and poignant (i.e. the graveyard scene), some of which are pure fan candy (i.e. a reference to Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases which has its timeline a little off), and some of which are so baffling and outrageous as to become infamous all over the internet (i.e. the theater scene).

It does have the barest bit of a framing device, added in such a way that it can claim to be telling the story from Ryuk's viewpoint, but most fans consider the "Ryuk's viewpoint" thing to be false advertising, because it is mostly dropped, and because many scenes are shown that Ryuk certainly didn't see.

The "Relight" special is not a rewritten version of the anime. It could have been, if it had shown the clips from the anime in the proper order as to form some kind of coherent narrative along with the new scenes. Instead, these scenes are chaotically out of order.

A genuine rewritten version of the anime would be something that a person who was new to Death Note could watch instead of the regular anime. Someone new who tried to watch this would be just as baffled by the experience as if they'd set up their computer to show them a long sequence of randomly-chosen scenes and partial scenes from the anime.

The "Relight" special is a clip show for fans of the anime, with additional bonus material of the same type as is generally included as DVD extras such as "alternate scenes" and "deleted scenes." Viewed this way, it is an enjoyable and nostalgic experience, if a bit chaotic because of everything being out of order. The added/changed scenes offer alternative explanations for some events, such as making Mello a more moral character while making Takada and Mikami more evil.

There is also the ending, which is not so much a new ending as an alternative interpretation of the ending that is so radical it changes the entire meaning of the ending. This new interpretation is not outright stated, but it is pretty heavily implied and not too difficult to figure out. It makes many fans happy because it gives canon credence (well, in this one continuity) to a widely-held piece of fanon.

So, it's not a rewritten version, it's a clip show with extras, and it offers a fourth canon ending.

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In the spirit of this overview, try to keep any spoilers out of any comments you might leave.

death note, fandom overview

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