Death Note: Manga Review and Discussion

I just finished reading the Death Note Manga by Tsugumi Ohba, which is almost a decade after watching the anime several times through, so I was actually quite familiar with the story going in. This was one of those life changing stories that shattered my understanding of storytelling, so I wanted to go back and revisit the story to see if the merit still held up after writing my own books, and reading countless others since.

What we have in this story is a game of cat and mouse. It starts when a high school student finds a Death Note that allows him to kill people when he writes their name down inside, while thinking of their face. He starts killing people in the name of justice in order to create a new world where only kind and good people live. L, the world's greatest detective, recognizes this pattern of deaths and understands that someone is behind this. What follows is the investigation, as the two track each other down in an attempt to capture the other.

Scheming

I was particularly interested in revisiting this story because I have begun to realize that battles of wit, especially stories like Sherlock Holmes, are often incompetently written. What you have are two apparently smart characters using big words, enacting schemes against one another, but the whole time you have no idea what the hell is going on. The confusion makes them look smart. But, upon reflection, the confusion is not really a result of their intelligence so much as it is a result of the author's ability to hurl obfuscation and rapid fire information at you. You become so overwhelmed that you aren't able to follow the reasoning process and are simply chasing after the characters, hoping that they are making sense.

This is something that is quite obvious in both the Sherlock Holmes movies and the BBC tv series. Sherlock makes massive leaps in logic, and the story is contrived to fit around it. He talks fast, Robert Downey Junior has charisma, and movies have charm in general. Same for the show.

Was this the case for Death Note?

Well, nothing is realistic, but in terms of believability with regards to intelligence and the reasoning abilities of the characters in the series, Death Note is probably the most competently written story with scheming characters in it that I have ever read. I am not including literary fiction, as I am sure there are less dramatic styles of storytelling out there, but for the styles of storytelling that involve investigation and mind games, Death Note stands out.

It all comes down to execution. For Death Note, what we get is the ability to follow the actual reasoning of the characters. The series in both the anime and the manga is very cerebral, so it focuses a lot on the thought processes of the characters involved. More often than not, you understand what they are thinking just as they are thinking it, for the same reasons they are thinking it.

But at the same time, Ohba knows when to withhold the thought processes as well. He holds this delicate balance of showing enough reasoning to let you know he's competent as a writer, but is also willing to withhold the information at key moments in order to build up tension at key points in the story.

And this works far better than the stereotypical scene with the charismatic eyeroll and the "well, obviously he would have done X, Y, and Z, because of A, B, and C!" You know the scene I'm talking about. The one where you pause and wonder whether their conclusion actually makes sense or not. Which leads to another brief point, which is how Death Note’s characters are willing to acknowledge assumptions. They state that they are making an assumption, they then draw out the implications of the assumption, and then they see where that leads them. How does that predict the data?

Overall, the tension in the story was on point. I remember being on the edge of my seat the entire way, even though I was already familiar with the whole story. There is just something about these kinds of stories.

Chef’s Kiss (Spoilers)

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I think there is one part of the story that is particularly standout when it comes to Death Note. I think that anyone who is already familiar with the story knows the part that I am referring to. Basically, it's the chef's kiss moment of the story. And at this point, I am just going to start discussing the story and spoiling it as well, so keep that in mind.

I think the major turning point is when Misa is captured by L on suspicion that she is the second Kira. She has basically just connected herself to Light because he cannot control her, and he realizes that there is nothing that he can do to stop the association from being drawn. He had already taken the risk in getting closer by killing the FBI agents, and now with Misa present, all of the circumstantial evidence makes him the prime suspect, even if there is no direct evidence that can actually be acted upon. Worse yet, with Misa in confinement, there is Rem, a god of death, taken to her, who is now threatening to kill him if she is not freed from confinement.

So, Light is forced to take action and respond in a way that will get him out of the situation and kill L. He puts in action his plan, which involves putting himself into confinement, giving up ownership of the death note, losing his memories, giving the note to another greedy man to kill criminals for him in the meantime, so he can then catch him and find the death note under those new circumstances. This plan, spanning numerous volumes, was never meant to truly convince L that Light was innocent, but to confuse him at first, and then put him in a position to be forced to admit that the evidence is lacking and later exonerating. And when Light finally baits L into testing the exonerating piece of evidence, then L is finally killed by Rem, who wants to protect Misa. As a masterstroke, Light manages to kill L and a literal god of death all at once, and the way it is executed is quite simply brilliant.

One aspect that is so brilliant about it is how Rem is twisted around in the story. In the beginning, Rem (and Misa) is a major threat in that she would just kill Light if Misa ended up dying before her natural lifespan. The prospect of Light having to deal with her after all the problems she had created up to that point was just world shattering. But, Light managed to turn this all around and make it work for him. By having Misa become a suspect again, at least in the mind of L, Light was able to force Rem to take action and kill L in order to save Misa from him—especially downstream of her halving her lifespan a second time.

And one thing that I did like about the manga that was missing in the anime is that there is more clarification for why Rem did not just kill Light instead of L, or just both, at this point in the story. I think the answer is pretty straightforward—Misa loves Light obsessively—but the manga still has her explicitly think about how Light can use Misa's new eyes, and how he is the only one who is capable of protecting her, as well, so there are pragmatic reasons, too. The story even implies that Rem might have killed even more people than Watari and L if she could have managed it; she simply died before she could get more names down.

All of this said, the manga could have been a little less expositiony with her interior monologue in this part, instead showing her entertain the ideas and dismiss them as she considers them in turn. The way it was, it was more to deliver Light's plan to the audience. This is a feature of manga, however, so I imagine that it's something that I easily just take for granted in many cases anyway.

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And while I am talking about the manga differences, I also noticed something that was obvious to me at least, in the manga. L trying to test the fake 13 day rule in the death note was the trigger that led to Rem assassinating L. This is blindingly obvious in the anime, as well, but for some reason, I just did not grasp it. The reason this is relevant is because I think it helps address some criticisms that I have seen levied at the series.

Basically, a video essayist criticized the series because the 13 day rule was so obviously testable. While this is true, this misses the point. The entire point of the rule was for it to be tested. Light wanted L to test the rule, as he knew it would trigger his assassination by Rem's hand. It is important to note a few things. Light's plans were tailored to his situation when Misa was taken into custody and Rem was threatening to kill him. The 13 day rule was used to exonerate himself in that context. L would test it, inevitably, as it would be the sore thumb in the situation—but it is also the bait and it got L killed. Once that happens, Light does not need to worry anymore.

Another point to make here is that the other members of the Kira task force are not like L at all. They are more principled. If you remember the scene where L is killed, they first hear that the 13 day rule is to be tested and you see the members react in outrage, because they think testing the book is immoral on principle. In other words, while the rule is easy to test, moral scruples will get in the way of investigation on the part of the rest of the task force. And if they do want to test it, Light will just kill them all.

The essayist said L could have told the task force before the testing to assume that Light is Kira if he ends up dead, comparing it to when he did the same thing before, but this does not work. The situation has completely changed along so many different dimensions. In the prior instance, Light was not part of the Kira task force. The second, he is, and he was also responsible for finding and catching Higuchi, all without his memories. The act he put on was perfect because he himself believed it. Their willingness to believe him has completely changed, as they all trust him. Not only that, but Light has the perfect alibi in Rem, as the god of death literally does kill L on behalf of Light. Perhaps L could have tried to tell them. But they would have all been killed by Light, as a consequence. From L's perspective, it's simply a question of whether he wants to kill the rest of the task force or not.

All of this said, Light's masterstroke of a plan does come back to bite in the second half when the 13 day rule is questioned by other people, but that is a long term consequence of a rule meant to have the shorter term consequence of killing L. And plans have their shortcomings. If this is enough to make his plan unworkable, then what is the alternative? Think about where Light was when Misa was arrested. What would you have done?

Mistakes

Most people agree that the series takes a dip in the second half, after L dies and his successors come into the story. I agree, though I have to say that it was not as bad as I remembered. I think the beginning of the second half is the weakest part, with this inescapable feeling that something is off. The story just doesn't feel that subtle anymore, in that the author is no longer thinking about the logic of the characters' schemes from every angle. The events might have more spectacle, but they have less substance. Fortunately, the final part picked up and reminded me of the story that I was supposed to be reading. Overall, I have a number of things to say here.

Protagonist

I like the timeskip in the story, though I do not like the execution of it. This allows the reader to grasp the impact that Light has on the world. I actually forgot just how much impact Light had. In my initial notes, I had some critiques mentioning how I wanted to see more of how the external world was affected. I was not expecting a political thriller, of course, but I wanted more than I remembered. And I got more. Whatever I remembered was not the totality of what was there, because the story absolutely does talk about it. I do think it could have talked more about the impact of wars ending and crime levels dropping, but I will touch on that in a later section. What matters is that the reader sees Light almost get there. People's attitudes change because five to six years pass after L dies.

But there is another aspect of this that I did not like, and that is how this impacts Light and the readers' relationship to the character. There are different ideas to take in mind here, and there are trade-offs to consider. I don't think that there are any perfect solutions, but at least one possible idea that Ohba should have considered is shifting the perspective away from Light.

As I suggested, this is controversial. But the idea is that Light seems to no longer be the protagonist of the story, nor is he the underdog. Or, at the very least, he should not be. The idea of shifting to Near's perspective might actually provide an interesting spin on things. One problem with Near is that he was not unique enough, but if he were portrayed in this way, then that might actually give the interesting spin that we need.

Part of what motivates this is also just the annoyance of watching Light making stupid decisions in the beginning of the second part, when he ought to know better. And that is a good segue into the next part.

Idiot

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In some respects, Light is an idiot in this half of the series. Don't get me wrong. Light does stupid things in the first half. Killing Lind L. Taylor is the cream of the crop example. But that was the point. The narrative acknowledges it. In this half, there is one major example where Light comes up with a scheme that hurts him so badly for the rest of the story that I cannot believe he actually did it. And I don't think the story did a good enough job acknowledging it as a stupid decision, even if the author intended it to be thought of as such.

What I am referring to is the scheme by Light to have the Kira task force team up with Kira himself to take down Mello. There are a number of things that are wrong with this. First, it undermines some of the defense that I gave for the 13 day rule in the earlier section of the review. The fact that the Kira task force was willing—no, the fact that Light expected the task force to be willing—to use the note when they thought it was wrong on principle to use it before, is ridiculous. I would understand if they were beginning to fray at the edges, and were willing to sacrifice their principles, but their stance on the note was all over the place even after this event. From a writer's standpoint it was just obvious that Ohba just wanted to contrive a scenario for Light's father to get the Shinigami Eyes and later die. Everything had to bend to fit this.

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But the stupidity did not stop there. In fact, the stupidest thing about this entire plan is that it associates the second L and Kira with one another in such an obvious manner. I get the idea of having Light being complacent, operating as both people, but this was so hamfisted and out of character for Kira that I just could not believe it. If Kira would do this for Mello, why not for Higuchi? And it allows N to conclude that they are the same person, which just made it all the more annoying.

Why didn't Light have the notebook and the proposed plan sent to Near instead? For meta reasons, it is obvious. Light's father needs to take the deal and then die. But put that aside. If using the Kira task force will just tie L and Kira together, then why not propose the deal with Near and his SPK? Is it because they cannot be trusted? Then why can the Kira task force be trusted? This is the obvious question that Near would ask.

And this mistake doesn't happen at the beginning of the story in a way that sets off the plot, like the killing of Lind L. Taylor. We already saw Light get humiliated by Mello when he is forced to hand over the notebook, and Light fails to counteract. From there, the protagonist is supposed to respond, and so forth, but in a way that lets them save face and win the respect of the reader back. The first half of the story handles this well, creating stakes and showing L's competence without making Light seem stupid.

But it changes in the second half. I think one good comparison would be the killing of the FBI agents in the first half of the series. This is arguably a dumb decision by Light, as the story very clearly establishes that there is no suspicion of him. It is only when they all die that Light eventually finds himself in the crosshairs. The situation is rather similar. The difference is that in the story we find out after the fact that Light was using the situation to get himself closer to L so that he could kill him, and it is obvious that he was aware of the consequences of his actions. His actions were profoundly arrogant and risky, no doubt. (Hell, L was taking risks too). But they were tied to his ego, which were in turn tied to his decision to kill Lind L. Taylor. In contrast, after Near makes the L/Kira connection, I was left hoping for a moment where Light would reveal that he wanted Near to make that connection. Where is his competence?

Overall, I think the story could have done a better job having Light expose his L/Kira connection to Near. The story made it out to be something of necessity, given one of their schemes, rather than a character flaw of Light's, which would have made the story more interesting. But even this is a stretch because I think there would need to be a good reason for Light to want to give that information to Near in the first place. There is no reason. If the story simply wants to emphasize Light's arrogance, then I think it's time to go back to the drawing board, honestly. There are better ways to do it than this.

Ending

After the mistake that was discussed prior, a lot of the story that followed seemed to be poisoned accordingly, though I tried to avoid that conclusion. By the end, I was able to enjoy the story for what it was, even if I thought it lost some of the subtlety that the first half of the series had. One thing I did catch was how Light recognized that he, the second L, and Kira were already all connected in Near's mind, that his task force was a lost cause, and his only goal was to distract and delay for the final confrontation. In my memories, I just remember Light floundering, when Light seems to take the circumstances more in stride, here. Maybe this is a feature of the manga. In fact, by the time that I reached the end, I concluded that the ending was nowhere near as bad as I had remembered. Seeing Light finally being brought down low is great for the story.

All of that said, there are still problems with the ending. I think the main issue can be summed up in the idea that Light does not necessarily lose because of his arrogance, nor is Near held back by his shortcomings (implying that his victory would be achieved by overcoming them).

To be clear, Light is arrogant. His arrogance does not help, especially when he declares that he won at the end there. But there is a difference between being arrogant and having the arrogance lead to your downfall. In the end, Mikami is the reason for Light losing. Basically, Mikami decides to break his routine and kill Takada after she is kidnapped, thus giving away the location of the real death note. If this had not happened, then Light would have triumphed and killed everyone. The story muses on how Mikami being too loyal and too perfect was ultimately Light's downfall. This is funny on one level, and even cool, in that the perfect pick was too perfect—but it also has nothing to do with arrogance. All of Light's smug commentary could have remained, and he would still have won, because his arrogance was not the reason he failed in the end. He failed because of Mikami.

And like I mentioned, Near does not win because he realized he had some kind of flaw. He simply made a mistake, and when Mello took action at the very end of the story, Near was able to correct himself. The one saving grace was the fact that the two of them working together were needed to surpass L and defeat Light. Kind of. The idea is nice, but the execution of all of this made the whole thing come off a bit shallow. Partly, it had to do with Mello and Near just happening to work together; it's not like they actually planned things in any meaningful capacity. Partly, Light was defeated by a fluke caused by Mikami, not necessarily by guile, so how profound is this really? Partly, Light was just portrayed like an idiot, as I detailed earlier, so that affects how the whole thing is perceived, as well.

There are a number of other more specific things I could talk about (like Mello being too haphazardly portrayed in the story), but I think this covers the major problems.

Justice

While the story of Death Note is ultimately a game of wits between two brilliant minds, it is also about justice. The story starts with the protagonist, Light Yagami, proclaiming himself to be justice. He wants to use the death note to kill those he deems to be evil, in order to create a just world, and the end of the story treats the reader to an extended monologue from Light, detailing just how he sees the world. There are good people and bad people. Those who make the place better and those who make it worse, and the latter should be eliminated to make the world a kinder place. This is padded with megalomania to the extent that Light considers himself to be a God who has a Divine Right to exact judgment on these criminals.

Other than this, the story does not do very much with the concept of justice in relation to the death note. Rest assured, as an author myself, I do have plans for a novel of my own to explore similar ideas, except in more depth.

How? In a number of ways. Death Note jumbles together deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics when talking about this topic. Just for clarification: Deontology is rule-based ethics, where the act itself is judged according to a rule. Consequentialism is where the act is judged based on the consequences of the act, rather than the act itself. And virtue ethics is where the character of the person is in focus, talking about which character traits ought to be cultivated over time.

The idea of punishing criminals because they are evil doers can be construed in both deontological terms and in terms of virtue ethics. Evil doers are breaking the rules, and so they must be punished; this is deontic logic. However, the idea that you are killing people can also be emphasized in the context of virtue ethics, as the use of the death note suggests that you don't believe in redemption—at least in the contexts where you use it.

Consequentialist arguments are also used to justify using the death note in the manner that Light does. He manages to lower the levels of crime throughout the world. He eliminates the mafia in the United States. Not only that, but he eliminates war. These are profound consequences, and I do think they are worth considering. And one reason I think this framework I am using here is useful is because it helps separate the different kinds of arguments being made in relation to the death note. While I do think eliminating war is something worth grappling with, I don't think the story actually engages with the question in any meaningful manner. Instead, we just have Near point out that Light is a crazy mass murderer who has confused himself for a God. And that might be true, but from the standpoint of discussing themes, this is unsatisfying because it is responding to a consequentialist argument with a tangential point about virtue ethics. The consequences of Light's actions are the elimination of war. What is the response to that? Nothing. Near just pivots to virtue ethics to show how Light's character has been twisted by the use of the death note.

The story talks about how it is evil to take another person's life, but it also takes for granted that the death penalty is okay. What if the death note was used as a means to that end? What if the death note was not used by a single person but by a government with regulations and accountability? Would war be worth eliminating then? What would Near's argument be if Light wasn't a megalomaniac? If killing people with the death note is evil on principle, then presumably it is wrong regardless of whether you think you are a god or not. One of the characters mentioned that people living under fear is not true peace, but you could compare this to nuclear weapons, which almost certainly ended the total wars that climaxed in the forties, forcing global powers to resort to proxy wars, instead.

Another thought I had while reading: it would be interesting to see the different kinds of ideologies that the death note could be used for. What about a materialist ideology—perhaps even a eugenic one—where they don't see themself as a god, but rather see this strictly as a calculated process of removing people who aren't productive, placing selection pressures on the population, and so forth? By having the death note change hands into different ideologies and by having more arguments about the ethics of killing in relation to these people using it in their varying ways, there could be a wealth of discussion to be had about justice in society. Alas, I wasn't really expecting this, but this is something that I am looking for, at least.

One thing I will give the manga is that it was not as obnoxious as the anime was in the end, when Light finally revealed himself to be Kira. They leaned way too hard on the virtue ethics button of "look how corrupted his character has become!" that just made my eyes roll. Remember how Mikami was literally frothing at the mouth? Lol. In the manga, aspects of this were still there, but I guess it wasn't animated, so there is that.

Conclusion

Overall, I liked the read. The front half of the manga is near perfect, while the second half is unfortunately dead weight, in large part. I will give the front half a 9/10, while I will give the second half a 2/10.

Video: https://youtu.be/2sXtma3VS-g