Sunday, January 13, 2008

Books: Death Note


"Death Note" is a manga series from Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata (of "Hikaru no Go" fame) that has a singularly strong premise - what if you found a notebook that caused anyone whose name was written in it to die? Would you use this power for good, or evil? Could you even tell the difference?

The titular "Death Note" falls into the hands of genius high-school student Light Yagami, a bored young man who soon finds himself with a new purpose - systematically ridding the world of evil by killing criminals he sees on the news. Along the way, though, Light soon finds himself losing his humanity as he is forced to kill the police who are trying to find the mysterious killer behind these deaths. He is also pursued by a genius detective called "L." Each tracks the other - if L finds out who Light is, Light will be killed, and vice versa.

If you like cat-and-mouse games, there's a big one here for readers to follow. The attack, counterattack, and counter-counterattack nature of this battle of wits make it entertaining where it could have been dreary. Light has numerous clever tricks up his sleeve, including hiding a miniature TV in a bag of potato chips, but then, so does L. The series never quite regains its footing after the battle between Light and L is concluded, and the eventual ending is disappointing, but it's still worth a look.

1 Comments:

At 4:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that using an adorable perky goth girl as cover is brilliant, though. I mean, who would take her seriously? Mad bonus for the fact that she's totally obsessed with you, too. Oh, misamisa! You're so silly.
I told Z once that I would make a counterfeit death note to carry around with me, with random names in it. He did better and told me he'd pitch the concept to Hot Topic so that you'd have a bunch of goth kids running around with similar notebooks, so that no one would think anything of your own.
How practical this would be is debatable, but it's ADORABLE to picture. Squee!

-binabina

PS: Ryuk is just so huggable, too!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home