ザラ Notes: デスノート Death Note

14 September 2015

デスノート Death Note

Title: デスノート Desu Nōto (Death Note)
English Title: Death Note
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Year: 2015
Episode: 11
Cast:

山﨑賢人 Yamazaki Kento
窪田正孝 Kubota Masataka
佐野ひなこ Sano Hinako
忍成修吾 Oshinari Shugo
関めぐみ Megumi Seki
優希美青 Yuki Mio
松重豊 Matsushige Yutaka
半海一晃 Hankai Kazuaki
佐藤二朗 Sato Jiro
前田公輝 Maeda Goki
弓削智久 Yuge Tomohisa
藤原令子 Fujiwara Reiko

SYNOPSIS
Yagami Light is a college student who is content on being an average person and leading an average life. He thinks that even if you invest your life in something and even if it might earn you money, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will be happy.

Light works part-time at a casual pub, and his friend Kamoda usually hangs out there to eat. One day, their high school classmate Sakota Genbu, who used to bully them, came by to Light's workplace. Genbu approached them only to extort money from Kamoda.

Weary and disillusioned, Light finds a notebook called the Death Note on a street. The Death Note was purposely dropped by Ryuk, a Shinigami or God of Death. Light uses the Death Note to kill the evil bully who is back to torment them.

How to Use the Death Note:
The human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die.
If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person’s name, it will happen.
After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
Even if you do not actually possess the Death Note, the effect will be the same.
The human who touches the Death Note can recognize the image and voice of its original owner, a god of death, even if the human is not the owner of the note.
The human who becomes the owner of the Death Note can, in exchange for half of his remaining life, get the eyes of the god of death which will enable him to see a human's name and remaining lifetime.
The individuals who lose the ownership of the Death Note will also lose their memory of the usage of the Death Note.
But, when regaining ownership of the Death Note, the memories associated with the Death Note will also return.
If you lose the Death Note or it is stolen, you will lose ownership of it unless you retrieve it within 490 days.
Once the victim's name, cause, or situation of death have been written in the Death Note, this death will still take place even if that Death Note or part of the Death Note in which it has been written is destroyed, for example, burned into ashes, before the stated time of death.

REVIEW
Death Note is a drama about an individual exacting a twisted sense of justice by killing criminals and evil people. Yagami Light came to possess the Death Note, a notebook that can kill people by just writing their names in it, and he uses it to create a peaceful world by getting rid of people who commit heinous crimes.

I don't like Light as a character in this adaptation because he seems to be a person without any convictions. He claims that he wants justice to prevail in the world, but he doesn't do anything to make it happen prior to getting the Death Note. It's hard to believe that Light is killing criminals for the sake of humanity when he doesn't seem to care at all for the people around him, such as saving his friend from a bully, for instance.

I think it's frustrating that Light started killing criminals because other people wished it to happen: his friend Kodama, his sister Yagami Sayu, and his idol Akane Misa. Sometimes people say things because of a burst of emotions, and they don't really mean for such things to actually happen.

But more than that, when Light kills criminals because of other people, it sort of takes some control or agency away from him. He says he has no choice but to kill criminals, but that's exactly it -- it was his choice, and he has many options but he chose to do things the way he did. If anything, he should own responsibility for that.

Anyway, the drama is about how different people may react when given an opportunity to kill other people. Who will they kill? How will they do it? How will they see it, in a positive way or in a negative way?