Takeshi Obata

My opinion of this manga has been tainted by the anime. How does one regain the initial suspense and wonder they have when they encounter a work for the first time? Besides that, it can be hard to maintain a fresh look on the first work in a series when you've seen the ending of the last. Still, I'll try because I think Death note is worth reading.

Death Note constantly questions ones moral compass, which is quite profound for a comic strip geared towards 17 year-olds about a magical notebook show more of murder. Besides asking the obvious "what would you do?" question that this book poses, the question that kept surfacing in my mind was "Why am a rooting for the bad guy?" and there is no helping it. By the end of this book I found myself vested. I may have set myself apart from the Light Yugami, the protagonist, and proclaimed up and down that I would never make the choices he did, but like it or not, I reveled in his successes.

You could argue that real genius was afoot when Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata thought this one up. If Light had been an adult, the reader would have called foul play. By making him young though, his flaws in moral judgment seem forgivable, and it stirs up the raw emotion everyone once had as an adolescent. It is also interesting that the death note itself, although fantastical in nature, parallels the weapons in our day, being able to strike people down from far away without getting one's hands dirty. That right there is where the age of Light really matters most, its hard to sympathize or even relate to nations and governments deciding they must purge the world of evil, but one can wrap their head around such feelings in a high school student.

I was able to forgive the few shortcomings interspersed throughout the manga rather quickly. Personally, I wanted more buildup in the beginning. It would have been interesting to me to see what kind of person Light was before he found the Death Note. Also, Light's declarations of righteousness throughout the comic can be over the top, but in some ways this hyperbole echoes back to the fact that Light is representing people and powers that must feel that they are so correct in their actions that they border on godliness.

The fantastical nature of this work also speaks to how delusional the idea of cleansing the world of evil is... or getting rid of all the terrorists, or I dare say the united states epic war on drugs. This idea, that through sheer willpower and determination we can succeed in removing that which we find repugnant. I think that is where Death Note shines, in showing us how desirable such things can be, while reminding us how unrealistic such goals are.

Attribution: http://gestclarinetist.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/death-note-volume-1-tsugumi-ohba... show less

In volume 2, Kira and L seem to be getting closer to finding each other as the hunt for the mass murderer continues. The tension grows as each one waits for the other to make a fatal mistake...

I'm really enjoying this manga. I'm always impressed with an author who can make me both dislike a character but also feel compelled to root for him at the same time.

A death god drops his notebook in the human world, and when a super-intelligent high school student finds it and realizes he can kill people at will with it, he (the kid) decides to use this new-found power to rid the world of criminals. The police aren't exactly happy about the strange mass deaths of inmates and start a hunt for the mysterious mass murderer, spearheaded by an equally mysterious and smart detective-type guy. Oh, and the death god hangs out with the kid to see how all this show more plays out.

So far so very cool in this first manga volume. I love the story, especially the idea that the main character isn't exactly morally sound or even very likable. But he is intriguing and I just *have* to see what happens next. show less

Contact is the ninth volume in the ever popular manga series Death Note, written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The book was initially published in Japan in 2005 before being released in an English translation by Viz Media in 2007. Death Note is complete at twelve volumes. Generally, the books have been well received although as with any series Death Note has its detractors as well. I really enjoyed the earlier volumes, had some misgivings about a few of the middle books, show more but have by now had my confidence mostly restored in the series. Overall, at least so far, I would recommend Death Note. It’s definitely more of a series for people interested in mind games rather than action, although there's certainly some of that to be found in the books as well.

After the first attempt to take down Mello and his crew fails, Light is more determined than ever to regain the notebook Mello holds. Mello and his counterpart Near are much greater adversaries than Light first realized and now he has another Shinigami to deal with on top of them. Devising a plan in which the Japanese taskforce investigating Kira will raid Mello’s hideout, Light feels completely in control of the situation. But he didn’t count on Mello’s willingness to use unusual, unsavory, and drastic means to reach his goals. Outside of this violent battle of will, society has begun to accept and admire Kira and his work to make the world a better place. Even the members of the taskforce are no longer convinced that Kira is entirely evil even if he is a murderer. It looks as though the tide may be turning in Kira’s favor, but there is no way that Mello or Near are willing to allow that to happen.

It is Light that continues to fascinate me the most in Death Note. He is trying to balance three different personas--Kira, Light, and the new L--and does so mostly successfully, although the strain is starting to show. He’s beginning to slip up and make small mistakes and some of his previous machinations are proving to be problematic. While Light is still very confident in his own capabilities, he is no longer able to anticipate the results of his and others’ actions as well as he once could. Mello’s unpredictability in particular has thrown him off. Light remains very calculating and it is difficult to determine which of his reactions are simply for show and which are authentic, and even if he knows himself. There is a superbly executed scene between Light and his father that exemplifies this. He has shown repeatedly that he is willing to sacrifice those closest to him in order to protect himself. His true feelings and how these decisions are affecting him as a person are slowly being revealed.

Because Contact is one of the later collections in the series it relies heavily on the volumes that precede it, so understandably it doesn’t make a very good entry point for a new reader to the series. The first half of the volume is very quickly paced as Light and the remainder of the Japanese taskforce confront Mello and his gang head on. Even when there’s not a lot of action going on, Obata’s artwork captures the tension in the story. The emotional intensity and character’s stress is readily apparent just by looking at their faces. The second half of Contact, while still interesting, unfortunately bogs down a bit. Although, I do get the feeling that something big is going to happen, and soon. I want to be there when it does, so I’ll certainly be picking up Death Note, Volume 10: Deletion.

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