In a dreary grey Limbo realm, gruesome angels of death — “Shinigami” — each possess a notebook in which they pen the names of humans destined to die as a result. To alleviate his boredom, one of these grim reapers called Ryuk not-so-accidentally drops his notebook into the mortal world where it is randomly discovered by an exceptionally clever 17-year-old Japanese high school student named Light Yagami, who opens it to find inscribed the following rule:

“The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die.”

Light assumes that this must be someone’s morbid prank but nonetheless takes the book home out of curiosity, soon testing it to confirm its lethal claim. He is initially horrified at the outcome but then decides he can secretly employ this fatal power to change the world “for the better” with the stroke of a pen. Hundreds of reported criminals soon begin dying under eerily similar circumstances, executed from afar by Light’s dark justice. The unnaturally synchronized nature of these deaths does not go unnoticed by authorities; they commence a hunt for this mystery killer, whom the media dubs “Kira”. Along with a special Japanese police task force and the FBI, a reclusive master detective known only as “L” is enlisted in the investigation.

But Light’s deadly design does indeed begin to effect a transformation in the world as intended. The terrifying threat of punishment by Kira’s invisible hand soon acts to discourage sinful behaviour, with a merciless end awaiting all those who defy Kira’s will: words written in Light’s book are final. Remaining unseen, Kira is feared by some, worshipped by others, and televangelists shortly spring up to preach in His name…

Sleuthing past the psychological thriller played at the story’s surface, thematic parallels to the Judeo-Christian mythos reveal themselves explicitly enough in imagery of the show’s opening sequence (first version). There’s little symbolic subtlety in the name “Light”: substituting with “God” wherever heard in lines from Ryuk or others lends a sharpened dual-meaning to “the search for Kira”. (…Head toward the Light!) One Biblical allusion taunts, “L – do you know that gods of death love apples?” referring to the Shinigami’s comically depicted dietary fetish, but by proxy may simultaneously characterize the wrathful Gardener of Eden as an infantile apple-hoarder: “We’re dealing with an individual who has a very childish concept of right and wrong,” observes L early on.

If a criminal is defined by the law maker, then the Death Note becomes an analog to the Bible — a blacklisting book in which the sinner’s damning epithet is framed by the author’s prescribed Commandments. “No matter what world [religion], the god of that world creates the rules,” Light unapologetically muses in internal monologue. The storyline then indirectly raises the question, if a human really were somehow endowed with supernatural power and was to act in exactly the same vindictive capacity Biblically attributed to God, why is only the human surrogate deemed a despicably immoral character? (…The familiar “God as a mass murderer” analogy, re: global flooding and other Bible calamity.)

Loathesomely deceitful, Light Yagami doesn’t even qualify as an anti-hero. His remorseless, scheming betrayal of trust educed from a slain investigator’s grieving fiancée is utterly heartbreaking. His self-serving manipulation of two endlessly loyal girlfriends, both of whose lives he treats as disposable, elicits raw contempt. Along his slide to the Dark Side, he casually contemplates executing entire crowds of bystanders if necessary to protecting his identity: “In the worst case, I may have to kill everyone there,” he indifferently calculates of a busy shopping district. When Ryuk suggests that Light’s murderous social engineering masterplan will render Light alone the grandest practitioner of worldly evil — a veritable death god — Light’s oblivious reply echoes the special pleading of religious apologists with a flat ontological declaration of his own alleged goodness: if ‘might makes right’, then surely the almighty can do no wrong. Maniacally egotistical, Light envisions himself not as a mass murderer but as the morally justified “god of the new world” despite behaving wickedly as a devil; Kira’s most crazed admirers, meanwhile, openly regard him as God incarnate.

Featured at the front end of this Vol.2 box set is the standout best episode of the series, “Silence”. A scene crystalizing the title subject has ‘L’ standing solitary on a rainy skyscraper rooftop listening for the faint sound of… something elusively distant, flanked by dish antennae aimed toward the crying heavens which all seem likewise poised to listen intently. Under the downpour, L has difficulty hearing Light’s summoning voice, while Light is unable to discern any distant sound… Is there a god in cosmic attendance, or only silence?

Later, there’s an orchestral scene where Light decides to exercise no further restraint in creating his proclaimed “perfect world”, executing an offensive multitude in a single ruthless penmanship performance from atop the nighted tower, as if divinely conducting the “rotten”-apple world below. In the aftermath of his savagely realized Judgement Day, the closing stretch of the series would then seem to offer that if God exists, He is the Devil (or else insane), to be ultimately defeated by reason (per Near’s insistence) rather than violence.

I’ve shown this anime to several friends who happen to be Catholic. They sort of smirked at the first few episodes, dismissing the power-fantasy premise as mildly preposterous. “Ah, so you agree it’s absurd to imagine that an ominous supernatural entity would drop a Book filled with arbitrary damnation rules onto the Earth,” I said, dropping a black leather-bound Bible in front of them — it even has a cross on the cover, not unlike the “DEATH + NOTE” title screen. This was predictably answered with… Silence.

As far as the detective work of the main plot goes, there are some questionable moments where prophetic deductions by the young prodigy characters are managed from mere scraps of information, approaching uncomfortably close to clairvoyance; where rules for using the Death Note seem to multiply innumerably via intricate caveats for Light’s exploiting convenience, surpassing even the Shinigamis’ own expressed knowledge of their notebooks’ functional capabilities; where this teenaged killer is able to spontaneously spin complex lies and then elaborates in voiceover mode on their far-reaching foolproof facets; where the stacking of suspicion seems too easily forgiven despite independent evidence repeatedly pointing to the same guilty conclusion; and where the otherwise meticulously composed serial killer seems to suddenly behave desperately out of character when cornered.

Regardless of those scattered quibbles, this remains the most logically exacting, intelligently scripted, philosophically weighty anime I’ve seen yet (perhaps cerebrally besting even “Ghost In The Shell”), twisting with brilliant flashes of dagger-edged suspense, and also shines with spectacular English dubbing (outdoing the original Japanese), presented here in a darkly elegant DVD package that together with Death Note box set Vol.1 earns my most enthusiastic recommendation.

(Rated “T+” for older teens. Bloody violence and disturbing content. May provoke thinking.)

~ G.

I really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes features on each disc of this set with the English voice cast, who were all very well cast. There is an extra disc with the Japanese voice cast that I didn’t watch because I wasn’t interested, but FYI, it is there.

I had already read the manga series before watching the anime, so I am aware how great their source material was and was really curious to see what they would do with it. I liked the use of color to demonstrate emotional intensity in Kira-related moments: Light is red, L is blue, etc. Ryuk looked amazing in color, too.

*SPOILERS* Ninety-five percent of the time, the anime stays incredibly close to the manga, except for that weird foot-rubbing scene between L and Light in the pivotal episode in the first box set, “Silence.” So after staying so close to the original for the whole story, WHY did they totally ruin the ending, when the original version handed them a great ending on a plate? The ending in the manga has jaw-dropping art, a final “conversation” between Ryuk and Light where Light finally has to face some real consequences, and a follow-up with the Kira task force and Kira’s deluded followers. There is a real, satisfying resolution. In the anime, Near lets Light get away (?!), and he goes running off through the fading sunlight for some inexplicable reason. Then we have to look at Misa again, and she is totally redundant by this point in the story. And Ryuk just sort of explains a couple things in a voice-over. This fell so flat compared to the manga. At least they left in the line where Near tells Light he’s not a god, just a crazy serial killer. I’m very sick of anime series that are wrecked by bad endings.

Death note is one of the good anime shows that does not lose your interest in the second season And it ends like it should.Some new people show up some are very short lived If you watched the first season you got to get this one.