The dark beauty of DEATH NOTE
… no, not the disappointing Netflix movie.
Most people who’d read the Death Note manga (2003–06), or seen the 37-part anime that followed, hated Netflix’s 2017 movie adaptation. In Japan, Death Note is a huge pop culture phenomenon. There are novels, video games, a live-action movie, even a musical. It also seems to have been a lot of people’s first experience with anime (making it the new Akira), so I quite understand that folk who cherish Death Note were so bitter about Adam Wingard’s movie.
The Netflix movie wasn’t a total abomination. It was just sloppily told and atrociously paced. At the very least it piqued my interest to investigate the 2006 anime series, which is where most people first encountered this property. I don’t watch a lot of anime in my spare time, beyond essentials like Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Studio Ghibli movies like Spirited Away (2001), so there were aspects of the animation style and storytelling structure that took awhile to acclimate to… but I’m glad I invested time into Death Note. It became a daily addiction.
To summarise the concept, for newcomers, Death Note concerns a notebook from another dimension. It’s essentially a ledger the Shinigami (‘gods of death’) write into when it’s a human’s time to die. They’re Japanese folklore’s take on the Grim Reaper. In the series, a bored Shinigama called Ryuk intentionally drops his powerful Death Note into the Human World, which is found by high school student Light Yagami. Unlike most fictional teenagers, Light’s an exceptional young man whom everyone loves. He’s phenomenally clever, at ease in social situations, great at sports (especially tennis), and incredibly handsome. You love him already, right?
A rare kind of teen.
Light Yagami is very different to how adolescents are usually portrayed in western fiction, and the polar opposite of the US version. It’s easy to argue that Light isn’t a very accessible character to ordinary teens, because he doesn’t reflect the majority of them, but that’s a key part of both this story and his personality. And I feel that was major reason the US adaptation failed, because it embraced the tired cliche of an “ordinary guy” being changed for the worse by a godly power.
In Death Note, Light is an overachiever destined for greatness, with hubris his psychological weakness. He’s still a relatively normal teen in some ways, but he’s definitely a cut above his peers. He wants to fix the world’s problems using the Death Note’s power, but mainly because he’s egomaniacal. A methodical person by nature, it’s rare Light isn’t in control of any given situation, or thinking several steps ahead, so the story is about seeing if his ambitious world-changing plan can be achieved.
If you write someone’s name inside the Death Note, while thinking of them, that person will die of a heart attack after 40 seconds.
Further “how to use” instructions explain more of the many rules, which grow surprisingly complex and ridiculous after awhile. But, essentially, you can control people’s behaviour before they croak, within reason — so writing “John Smith” would kill a particular John Smith in 40 seconds of cardiac arrest, but adding “… will die after walking into oncoming traffic” will result in some dangerous street crossing. But you can’t just make crazy shit up that couldn’t feasibly happen, or would kill innocent bystanders in the process.
Rules, rules, RULES!
One of my early concerns was was the abundance and specificity of the Death Note’s rules. They get a little wearisome after awhile, it must be said. It occurred to me that perhaps Japanese culture puts a lot of stock in law and order, so this was reflected in the notebook’s knotted mythology.
A rule always appears onscreen during the show’s commercial break bumpers. They become comically detailed, covering every possible angle of usage. Most worrying, there are times when the writers gets themselves out of tight spots by throwing in a hitherto unmentioned new “rule” at the audience.
Still, by the time you’re about 15 episodes deep, most of the major rules have lodged in your mind and you accept the story will occasionally throw another oddity onto the pile. Most don’t impact the general direction of the story, or cheat their way out of a corner too dishonestly.
Anyway, Death Note is about a sociopath who’s granted deadly supernatural power, and uses it to try and create a peaceful society through vigilantism.
It’s classic anti-hero fare, which is perhaps why Death Note is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as Showtime’s Dexter (2006–13). That drama, about a serial killer who only murders criminals, tackled similar “greater good” and “the ends justify the means” material, because Light’s also a murderer punishing bad people. Only, he has the grand ambition to become “God”.
Inevitably, Light is sometimes forced to break his moral code and kill a few people who might expose his identity, but more often than not he just brings people into his circle of trust if they find out the truth. That said, during the course of the series, one sees how the addictive power of the Death Note corrupts a well-meaning egomaniac.
Many complications muddy the water, which are used to fully explore every inch of the Death Note concept. That’s part of the fun with this show: it leaves no stone unturned in terms of exploring the ramifications of what the existence of a death-dealing jotter would have on civilisation.
In comparison, the Netflix movie barely scratched the surface of the same concept, because it had no time. It’s strange Netflix didn’t pour some of its millions into an Americanised, live-action TV series of the anime. It could have worked remarkably well.
What the Japanese and American versions have in common is that Light decides against slaying criminals from the safety of his bedroom, knowing no sane person will comprehend how the murders are being committed. Instead, he creates a persona — “Kira” — and makes it clear the inexplicable deaths of criminals, gangsters, and terrorists have a supernatural explanation.
Some prison inmates are also compelled by the notebook to scrawl “KIRA” onto cell walls in their own blood, because Light wants the world to know there’s an all-powerful “God” behind everything, so the only way to escape his wrath is to lead a good life and don’t get into trouble.
Light’s father, Soichiro Yagami, also happens to be the chief of police trying to catch Kira with a special task force of brave detectives. That causes some understandable issues for Light, but what really drives the engine of Death Note is Light’s mental battle with the lead investigator assigned to catch Kira: an enigmatic young sleuth with a sweet-tooth known as “L”.
It’s the cat-and-mouse game between L and Light Yagami that truly fuels the series, giving the story fresh impetus once the novelty behind Death Note’s concept dims. What really helps is that the writing does an extraordinarily good job at demonstrating both Light and L’s thought processes and labyrinthine machinations, with each character continually having to outsmart the other. Some of the best moments are when we enter the thoughts of each character, flagged with a sudden shift in colour palette and use of internal monologue. Once L comes to very openly suspect Light is Kira, but needs to prove it while working alongside someone with a similar intellect, Death Note has really hit a sweet spot.
A familiar hero-villain dynamic.
The clear analogue with the opposing forces of Light and L is Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, only in a series where the “protagonist” is Moriarty and the crimes are occult in nature.
Towards the end of the series, we even discover more about L’s backstory growing up in England, which lends further credence to the idea Death Note creator Tsugumi Ohba was inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective when creating his barefooted, enigmatic savant. L always communicates through a voice-changer by laptop, rarely appears in public, never speaks directly to the press, and uses a codename to protect his true identity. All very useful when you’re fighting someone who needs a name and a face to kill!
At the risk of giving too much away for those hopefully considering watching this anime, there are dozens of twists and turns in the story (many of which I didn’t predict) which help keep it fresh and away from any formula.
I’ll just briefly mention Light’s eventual girlfriend, Misa, a beautiful and famous pop star who becomes his closest ally. She’s a character I had some trouble forming an opinion on right till the end, because her personality is hugely exaggerated.
She’s the annoying cliche of a blonde bimbo who becomes obsessed with dating Light, and consequently fails the Bechdel test in almost every scene. Misa’s cleverer than one expects, occasionally, but is often the only source of innocence and fun in the show when it marches into its darker phase. You find yourself coming to enjoy Misa’s sweetness and loyalty, but also wishing the writers had done something that wasn’t such a sexist throwback. And yes, this being anime there are scenes where she’s in her risque underwear. It’s all a bit retrograde and one of the show’s biggest failings.
The character of Mia (Margaret Qualley) in the Netflix movie appears to be the American take on Misa, written in a clear attempt to eliminate the two-dimensional traits the anime character suffered from. They made her a lot tougher, more psychotic than Light, and a bigger problem than L in many ways. I can see why they took this approach to writing her, because it makes the character less of a plaything for Light to keep sweet and use for his own ends, but she represented 50% of Light’s personality from the anime… and it was just more interesting to have that poured into one psyche.
Is Death Note perfect?
No, no. Few things truly are. Most of my issues are creative nitpicks it’s easy to ignore (many likely stemming from cultural differences with Japan), but the anime does go slightly off-the-rails towards the end…
It’s so tempting to dive headfirst into spoilers to fully explore my thoughts (as the anime is 11 years old at time of writing), but I know most people reading this won’t have seen Death Note. Suffice to say the story finds a thrilling and very natural resolution by episode 25… only to continue for a further 12 instalments. I won’t say why the story resolved better earlier, but the continuation made Death Note become its own “unnecessary sequel”. However, miraculously, the writers do manage to bring cohesion to the final arc of Death Note after they gather themselves and find a new direction.
And I was very relieved the last batch of episodes built to a suitably tense and cathartic finale. It would have tarnished the show irrevocably had they not delivered a good ending, and that would definitely have resulted in caveats to newcomers about lowering expectations for the conclusion.
So, while it’s true Death Note drops the ball towards the end, it actually becomes more of a regrettable fumble. Maybe they performed an act of self-sabotage in order to force themselves down a more difficult path, as that can often stoke the creative juices? It doesn’t work immediately, but they do eventually find a new angle that settles the story in a satisfying way.
Fans will be able to decipher that last paragraph. No spoilers below, please!
The upshot? You should definitely watch Death Note, even if you hated the 2017 movie, or have trouble with anime. Its bitesized 24-minute instalments, constantly evolving mythology, complex narrative, and exciting cliffhangers, will leave you breathless and gripping your seat.
