Friday 24 October 2014

Review : Death Note

Warning!!!! Spoilers will be featured in this review!!!    

Death note is about student Light Yagami who one day notices a
death note falling from the sky and then pick's it up and takes it
home. Light then tests to see if the book works by writing the name of a criminal who's name was featured on the news and currently taking hostages inside a nursery. 40 seconds after the name was written the criminal dies of a heart attack and light makes a revelation in saying that he must cleanse the world of evil and continues killing criminals and acquiring the nickname of the anonymous 'kirararara' from the english word killer. The great detective L then takes notice of the killings and begins an investigation to find the identification of 'kira'. Meanwhile Light gains the shinigami ryuk who owns the death note that light has. L later shows a news broadcast stating that this broadcast will be aired all over the world with Lind.L Tailor stating that he is the great detective L and saying that kira is evil, light then kills lind .L Tailor and believes that he has killed L. Soon after lind.l tailor dies of a heart attack the real l proclaims that he knows that kirarara lives in the conto region of japan and then says that Kira is evil and a childish killer who hates to lose. To which light and L both say at the same time 'i am justice'.

L then begins his detective work with a small group of the Japanese police force with the members being Suichi Aizawa, Touta Matsuda, Kanzo Mogi, Hideki Ide, Hirokazu Ukuta , Watari (who works with L to begin with), Soichiro Yagami (light's father), and later on Light Yagami. After light joins the task force a second kira  also commonly know model and actress Misa Amane  and her shinigami rem appears and finds light and proclaims that she should become light's girlfriend to which light eventually agrees but says that misa should not be around him outside of his house.  Misa is soon arrested after making a few mistakes and light being a bigger suspect as he is currently going out with misa. To save themselves from execution they both relinquish ownership of their death notes and are detained for several days by L under constant surveillance. Whilst they are detained a third kira appears when L now has no proof that light and misasa are kirarara as the killings keep going on they are released into house arrest by L in his headquarters. Soon after the task force identify the third kira as the yotsuba groups Kyosuke Higuchi and arrest him. Light then touches the notebook and regains his memory and kills higuchi stating that this happened exactly as planned. The task force have now confirmed the existance if shinigami upon seeing rem. light then convinces rem to kill L and watari Therefore killing rem herself as she is violating shinigami law. After L's death light becomes the second L and continues pretending to search for kira whilst doing the killing between himself and misa.
The story then continues four years later when two of L's successors (Near, a detective who is a member of the united states government and of the SPK (the special provision for kira) and Mello, a member of the mafia) show up and both begin trying to gain the notebook.
Mello's first attempt of gaining the notebook is kidnapping the director of japans national police agency, but this plan is quickly changed as light makes the director commit suicide. In a second attempt at getting the notebook mello kidnaps light's sister Sayu Yagami, she is rescued but the notebook is lost to mello and his gang. To regain it light's father Soichiro trades half his life span to ryuk for the shinigami eyes and the ability to see peoples names and life span whilst looking at their faces. During an assult on mello's group Soichiro learns mello's real name but dies not kill him, he is shot several times and dies shortly afterwards in hospital.
After this near and some of the SPK begin to suspect light of being kira whilst light persuades misa to give up ownership of her death note and raises another kira known as Teru Mikami a prosecutor and supporter of kira. Mikami kills kira's former spokes person for being greedy and recruits Kiyomi Takada a newscaster and light's former girlfriend. Light reveals himself as kira to takada, knowing that he and the other kira's are under surveillence constucts a plan to conceal tge whereabouts of the real death note. Mello kidnaps takada who kills him with torn pages of the death note, light then proceeds to kill takada by making her commit suicide, but unbeknownst to lught mikami attempted the same thing but a minute later which exposes the location of the real death note, revealing light's last plan at the last minute. At the end of the story the two teams meet up at the 'yellow box warehouse' and are later joined by mikami who writes down the real names of everyone in the warehouse except light . Near then reveals that he replaced the notebook with a fake, and exposes light as kira. In desperation light attempts to kill near with the torn peice of the notebook but is quickly shot in the hand by task force member matsuda. Ryuk realises light has lost and uses his own death note to kill light with a heart attack. After that happens misa is shown heading to a tower to commit suicide. In the manga it shows near continuing L's work and eating chocolate in a homage to mello. A bonus chapter in the manga shows three years after light was killed by shinigami ryuk, another person attampting to be kira and killing old people. Near makes a news broadcast saying that 'he is not going to be involved in this case in anyway' and 'i have no interest in this case' to top it off near says 'you are just an abominable murderer'  to which the person killing freezing up and in a panic writes their own name in the death note.
Death note also made two specials, two live actions and a movie. The first and second special were basically made for people who have not seen the series and contains some scenes that are NOT in the episodes so i recommend watching both. They basically show what happens the same as the series and have the same storyline. The live action death note has the same actors as the movie and have voice overs from the english dub actors which i personally think is pretty good and have a slightly different story in some areas but end in the same way. The movie is a live action film and is called L change the world where a virus that is killing people in thailand spreads and L has written his own name in the death note and given himself 23 days to live, and later burns both the death notes. Only one person is known to have lived through this disease and that is near so he is put under L's care after Watari and F is killed. L also takes another child under his wing who is the daughter of the doctor who created the antidote to the virus. The girl is under an assassination attempt of the group who created the virus and she, near and L escape to recreate the antidote for the virus. L then gives the antidote to everyone who has the virus and ends with L leaving near and giving near his 'real name'. After the end credits L is seen back in his room eating chocolate and then leaves momentarily which could possibly be leading to the events leading to the event of his death in death note the last name. The film ends with the words on a black screen saying 'L Lawliet, Rest In Peace'. I would advise people to watch this film.
Personally i LOVE death note and pretty much everyone who has seen death note does to.
Death note is definitely on of the best anime of all time and has the best storyline ever! Many people agree to this. Some people say that death note is a PG-16 (i saw this somewhere) And i kinda agree with them but i kinda don't. Whilst there is murder and blood featured in death. Note i wouldn't say that it was to gruesome, but i'm not squeamish so i'm not sure. Death note always has perfect deaths storylines and endings for me! The ending and the death of light is definitely something i would say is 'a death worthy of kira'.
Near eating chocolate in a homage to mello.

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