Edit: Removed and rewritten to a higher standard of quality!
If you’re looking to read a pulp-like detective thriller that’s only charm is that it will make you feel smarter by the end of it, look no further than Death Note. But if you're expecting a vivid social commentary with a complex plot and characters, then you'll be sorely disappointed.
I read the entire manga (a painstaking effort on my part), watched the anime, and even saw the three live action movies (the first two of which are, admittedly, the best this franchise has to offer). Still, I was unable to relieve the sensation of crushing disappointment this series left me with. The premise is great: Protagonist Light Yagami finds the eponymous Death Note, a supernatural notebook that allows him to kill any individual simply by picturing their face and writing their name within its pages. With this veritable artifact of doom, ol' Light intends to kill criminals and create a "perfect" world, and this inevitably leads to the start of a long game of cat-and-mouse with the mysterious detective known only by the letter L (for some reason). That all seems to check out for a great psych-thriller, right?
Well, maybe it would have been if the characters weren’t so utterly, detestably flat.
So our golden boy Light is introduced to us as a bored genius who really has no passion for life or anything in it. And… that’s it. This is honestly the only look at his initial personality we get before he discovers the Death Note about two pages in. I mention this because this kid legitimately does not receive any further development as a character beyond becoming (within chapters) a flat, black-and-white villain. No, that is not an exaggeration. He tests the Death Note because he’s bored, freaks out for about two panels when he realizes that it works and that he’s now effectively a murderer… and then he’s pretty okay with the whole "axing random criminals because screw the legal system" thing. (And yeah, I'd understand more if it were America, but this is coming out of Japan, which already has the notoriously high ~90% conviction rate and a history of prosecuting and punishing the innocent.)
Okay, so, Light’s a sociopath. It happens. Big whoop, right? But no, that’s not even the problem. The problem here isn’t that he’s a sociopath -- it’s that he’s not even a particularly interesting one. Light kills criminals because he thinks it’s the “just” thing to do. That’s basically all there is to that – the morality, or lack thereof, of his mindset and actions is never discussed, questioned, explored, or otherwise ruminated upon, much to the series’ detriment. The movie at least made him an aspiring LEO, disillusioned with his chosen field of study when he realizes that many criminals escape the law. But in the manga, his remains a very base, very static motive up until the stakes are raised for him – when he starts targeting innocents who threaten his security (which he readily and remorselessly does). This is the singular aforementioned development his character undergoes – and it’s passed over without so much as a, “Gee, I wonder if killing that innocent FBI agent who was just trying to do his job constitutes crossing a moral boundary or two.”
Light’s evilness grows as the series progresses, yet his dimensionality as a character, as a villain, remains grounded in the 2D. Nothing changes in him from then on out, good or bad. He doesn’t descend further into madness, he doesn’t struggle with the shattered remains of what was once a conscience. He just continues on as a pretty-faced force of evil and deceit. And it’s boring. With no redeeming traits at all and no bigger way to crash and burn than to climax the series, he does absolutely nothing for the reader as a character.
And then there’s L – the detective, the rival, the enemy, what-have-you. I can think of quite a few things to say about him, but in the interest of keeping this review as succinct as possible, let me just say this: He’s basically a carbon-copy of Light, only instead of working for Evil, he works for Good. Both boys are petty, childish, and self-righteous. They’re concerned with “winning” their (pardon the crudeness) grand-scale penis-measuring contest for the sole purpose of validating their egos and asserting themselves as the embodiments of the abstract principle of justice. Neither cares about what he has to do or who he has to step on in order to get his way because to them, the end justifies the means. Honestly, they’re like overgrown toddlers holding a turf war on the playground, but instead of throwing sand, they’re throwing around people’s lives. And neither one changes. Aside from a few (albeit rather refreshing and endearing) gimmicks on L’s part, I’m prepared and willing to argue that they’re exactly the same character, only opposite. Suffice to say, L’s quirkiness may hold your interest for a couple of chapters, but his flatness, coupled with Light’s, very soon wears thin.
I really could go on for quite some time about this manga, but there’s no point in beating a dead horse. For what it’s worth, this series really will mess with your head and strain your capacity for logical reasoning, at least until it pushes into the absurd. For example, a lot of the key points in the plot rely on L knowing that Light knows that L found out that Light discovered that L has knowledge of Light’s knowledge that L is fully aware that Light is Kira.
...On second thought, you might benefit more from playing a Phoenix Wright game. (And for an added bonus, Dahlia Hawthorne and Kristoph Gavin are actually interesting and multifaceted sociopaths.)
In the series’ favor, I will say that the art is pleasant and smoothly improves in quality over time, and some of Light’s and L’s schemes really are fun and clever. Still, pretty pictures and a couple of parlor tricks aren’t nearly enough to carry the sheer dead weight of this dismal manga, especially with the inclusion of the entire second half, which tanks even worse than the first, making it a particularly tedious chore to get through. (Thank god the director had the good sense to cut and speed through it in the anime, and the movies don't come near it with a ten-foot pole.) The ending isn’t exactly a reward for all that hard work, either, and it’s so humorlessly nihilistic that it actually made me a little sick to read. There’s no hope, no redemption, and no heart to be found at any point in this series, and because of its promising premise, it really does end up being quite the disappointing read. If you’re insatiably curious, then try the live action movies. Otherwise, leave this one on the shelves because there are so many better crafted shounen series out there that this one really doesn’t deserve the time of day.
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