Death Note, Volume 12: Finis

(Review is for all 12 volumes) I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this manga. It was recommended to me by a friend who wasn't sure I'd like it, but thought I might. She was right! I found it really interesting how effective the manga was at character development and manipulating my opinions -- not just with pictures, that's obviously, but with words. A lot of manga I've read have short pieces of dialogue, no internal thoughts of any kind and no exposition. But Death Note has all three of those things, which makes it into a surprisingly richer series than some non-manga I've read. I completely enjoyed this series and I'm very glad my friend recommended it to me.

This 12 volume series got off to a great start and was pretty fascinating but it started to collapse under its own weight about halfway through.

The moral dilemma in the first few books regarding the Death Note ability and how to use it was fascinating and I liked how they slowly fed you the rules of how the book worked. Eventually it turned into a cat-and-mouse spy story for the bulk of the series.

There were too many pages of characters working their way through the logic of a situation and that got tiresome….. Also, the rules of the Death Note became convoluted and I couldn’t keep up with any of it and stopped trying to. It almost felt as if they wrote themselves into a corner then invented some rule to allow them to get out of show more the corner.

As I came to the close of the series, I felt like I wanted to know more about the Shingami and their world and I was also intrigued by how the world reacted at the end where TV stations became evangelical about Kira and viewed him as a god. That was an intriguing concept that was not explored.

Not a terrible series. Maybe a good idea that got bloated and couldn't be sustained? It could have worked better at half it's length. show less

Oh Death Note - so you do have an ending! Well, sort of. Because, as we all know, there must be spin-offs. I'm not sure that I'll be flocking to those right away. This was such an intriguing story, but I feel bogged down by it after finishing. Normally, when I really enjoy a book or a series, once I finish with it, I have to do crazy amounts of research on it, find tie-ins, watch and/or read them, and obsess. Not so with Death Note. At least, not right now.

So back on to the topic... and yes, of course there are spoilers in this. You'd be foolish to read a review of the last book and expect to come away without them! This is the final showdown between Light and L's heirs, Near and Mello. One of them doesn't make it to the actual show more face-off, and for that, I was sad. It's an incredibly tense moment, where readers feel somewhat smug about who will win, but not safe enough to crow about it. Unfortunately, all that tension, the moment of the big reveal, once again comes to a screeching stop as the Encyclopedia Brown-style explanation goes on and on and on.

What I really did enjoy was getting to see Light's fall, as he realizes that things have gone wrong for him. He loses his composure, his dignity, his wit... it's all wiped out in the moment of panic, when he's been caught. Finally Matsuda got his head out of his ass and tried to stop Light! And then, we got to see Ryuk in full-Death God mode! I thought that we should've seen more of this throughout the series, that Ryuk was not just a comical figure, but something very dangerous that was always waiting for Light.

The final scenes show the world, returned to the way it was, a little more easily than we expected. Hooray for Aizawa coming out of this whole ordeal! That was a character that grew on me over time. We never found out exactly what happened to Misa. I thought that the girl at the end looked exactly like Misa, but I've read that that is NOT her... oh well, guess I'll see when I read the "How to Read" volume.

Okay, this was a meandering review. Overall, for the entire series, this is worth reading, if only for the moral issues that it raises. The art is incredible, the characters are interesting, though not always likeable. But sometimes the series gets so caught up in explaining the how of its little tricks that it gets distracted. show less

2014 Review:



This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.com by express permission of this reviewer Synopsis Near and Light finish up their end games and it all comes down to one meeting with all the members of both the Japanese and American Kira hunters for the showdown. And Ryuk shows his true Shinigami colors. My Thoughts This was awesome. At the end of Book 11 Mello took action on his own, only it was calculated by Near and miscalculated by Light. And that is what this final battle of wits comes down too. Who was one show more step ahead? Near proves that HE is the true successor to L and Light/Kira's superior. But Kira almost makes it. He asks Ryuk, the shinigami, to help him out right at the end. But Ryuk refuses and thus Light/Kira perishes. And the manga ends with showing the world almost back to how it is today. Which was the point the manga-ka was trying to make. Kira changed the world for the better, but that didn't make it right. And Kira being brought to justice didn't necessarily make the world a better place. Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Author: Tsugumi Ohba Artist:Takeshi Obata



2007 Review:

a satisfying conclusion. Melo dies, but Near is Triumphant over Light/Kira/NewL. Light was simply over the edge, a psycho mass murderer. But in the end, I was hoping that Kira would win, to create a better world. I REALLY liked this series. Confusing, and forcing you to read VERY carefully, but oh so worth it in the end. This series is one that I am looking forward to enjoying reading again. And quite possibly again :-) " show less

I have to say, this is in fact my favorite manga series. I was sad when certain characters died but I know that their deaths were necessary for the plot to move forward. I quite enjoyed the intelligence showed in this series, what with several main characters being geniuses. I also like how the author had several different genres, i.e. mystery, horror, fantasy, etc., and made it almost believable. The spin-offs are good as well, though none are as good as the actual series. I hope to see more spin-offs and also more books from this author.

More of a 3.5

Not sure what to think of this last volume. It was good but I'm not completely satisfied with Light's death. It was kind of ridiculous. There's also a load of dialogue filling the pages which made my eyes glaze over. And I'm still not convinced that Mello and Near combined surpass L. L's theories and deductions were more intelligent and made more sense than Near's. Overall, this was actually a good volume, just not completely satisfied with the death. And what was up with that last chapter? I think the anime is better.

Questo è decisamente il mio volume preferito, l'ho riletto varie volte ( ho guardato l'anime) e ogni volta mi sono ritrovata a piangiucchiare (?) come una scema.. Lo rileggerei un altro milione di volte, indubbiamente!