Without further ado, Death Note: A Review
Let's start with an admission-- I haven't watched all of Death Note. My first experience with Death Note came with the suggestion that I stop when something big happened that would change the dynamic of the show. I got to that point and stopped. Call it peer pressure. I am now considering finishing. I'll explain more later.
My husband watched the first few episodes ahead of me, but quickly went back so that I could watch it with him. Most of my Death Note watching experience took place on a couch in a basement in Massachusetts during one of the coldest winters on record with swine flu and a God-send stove keeping me nice and toasty. It was impossible just to watch one episode and stop. Even with an exhausting fever and a wet cough, I was fighting sleep for just one more episode each time.
The characters are all incredibly intelligent and manipulative people. Even Misa Amane, the ditsy model, is clever enough to track down the protagonist so she can prove her devotion. What makes each and every one of them so interesting, putting fashion design and snacking habits aside, are the stakes. The stakes are so high for each character that comes on-screen in Death Note. Every character potentially has his life on the line and that makes every moment very interesting.
Death Note is a metaphorical game of chess between two main characters: Light Yagami, a genius college student who gets the ability to kill with a notebook and decides to become the God of a new world, and L, a famous anonymous detective who wants to bring Kira (Light's alter ego) to justice (and even more, to solve the puzzle.)
It's a game of logic and psychology. Each man is making moves based on predictions seven steps ahead, founded in highly informed psychology. Because Light and L each know that their enemy is their mental-match, the jumps are large and the outcome is always surprising.
The audience has to make the same moral decision that every character in the show must make-- is it okay for Kira to be justice? Should Light be playing God? Even if you agree with L, that Light has no right and that his kind of blind justice is dangerous, Light is so wickedly fun to watch that you still root for him anyway.
One of the most fascinating things in this high stakes game is that even though Light and L are enemies, they are also friends. They are intellectual equals, a rarity at their level, and so they respect, if not admire each other. L knows for the entire series that Light is Kira, but cannot prove it. They each know that the other is their enemy, but for one to win they would lose their best friend.
Trapped between them is Misa Amane, a tragic character, a beautiful actress who loves Light and knowingly lets him manipulate her because she believes so strongly in his righteousness.
The show is beautifully animated with cohesive color palettes and unified character designs. It is dark and desaturated with a focus on red, the symbolic color of temptation, desire, passion, and blood. The music is also perfect. The opening theme for the second half of the series is black, heavy, and epic. It's a dark blend of System of a Down with speed metal. “Hey, hey, human sucker. Ah, humans... human F*#$er!”
The choice between the Japanese subtitled and the American subbed is another thing to consider. My preference is to the subtitles in this case, even though I am usually a lazy girl who wants to sit back and watch the Dub. In some series, like Beck, I think Dubs are better. I've watched Death Note both ways, so I'll explain why I prefer the Japanese audio track.
Light, in the American, seems cool, stable, and relaxed. In this way, he seems almost sociopathic. While it works well for the character, the Japanese voices gives you a bit more suspense. The Japanese is much more expressive. As part of the natural cadence of the Japanese language, with short, sharp syllables, his dialogue sounds more determined and passionate. When he gets into his emotional speeches he seems more unstable. That makes him unpredictable.
L is an American hero, whether he's meant to be a westerner or not. He's cool. Everything is casual, thoughtful, and without passion. He's the quiet Clint Eastwood character who strolls in to the western amidst panic and never breaks a sweat as he sizes up the bad-guys. To the Japanese, though, L is weird and his voice reflects this. He is more quiet and disconnected. When L speaks he is in a world of his own. His voice always seems to drift to some far off place, which makes it more understandable why the police in Japan react adversely to his presence.
The biggest difference is found in Misa. Misa Amane in the American Dub is pushing her voice through her nose. She is loud and energetic. It is clear that she is meant to be whiny, hyper, and obnoxious. In the Japanese her voice is high and girlish. The cutesy, fast paced manner of speech fits her character as a model who plays on her looks and femininity to get her way. When Misa slows it down, however, her voice is far more breathy and sexual than the American version. Despite being youthful, she is a sex symbol and adds more interesting tension to her relationship with Light. In the American Dub you don't see the potential for any physical relationship because you understand why Light would find her annoying. In the Japanese Sub, if you close your eyes during the big hug scene at her earliest appearance, you would swear the gasps and breaths were sex noises.
Death Note is dark, but it knows how to balance its darkness with humor. The jokes are in the little moments. Ryuk, the God of Death, loves apples and there are quite a few chuckles involved in his obsession. L's odd nature and inappropriate, almost autistic social behavior, can also be humorous at times. The character Matsuda, one of the investigators on the police force who also takes it upon himself to act as Misa's manager, is almost completely endearing comic relief. The biggest running gag, the one fans have taken to the most, is L's constant consumption of sugary treats.
As for the story, the plot makes many wonderful twists and turns in the struggle between Kira (Light) and L. Just the simple challenge of trying to discover each other's identities leads to the loss of thousands of lives. We start to see how ambitious and ruthless Light really is, how willing he is to use people for his cause. The other most important characters, Rem and Ryuk, the Gods of Death for Misa and Light respectively, have their own distinct personalities and motives that also become tools for Light to use in his quest.
I stopped at episode 25. Something big happens in the Light/L struggle that felt like an ending to me and so I took my friend's advice and stopped. However, another friend has urged me to finish and lately the curiosity of how things play out for Misa has lead me to the decision to finish it. The camp that stops at Episode 25 is quite large, however, and so either choice is a valid one. Some claim that the new characters introduced to continue the series after that point are just derivative of other characters. I haven't seen them, so I really can't weigh in on this debate. Either way, watch Death Note. Just a few episodes is all it will take to leave you hooked.
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