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Fabulous Quillsh Wammy Cosplay by Guess Greenleaf from CupofSquirrel

29/4/2016

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US cosplay collective CupofSquirrel have turned their attention to Death Note characters in costume.

And that includes Watari cosplay courtesy of Guess Greenleaf - pictured right with fellow group member Rhyme Lawliet as, well, L.

Moreover, Guess has popped in to explain to us how we can create a Wammy costume of our very own. 

All the win!
Discover more from CupofSquirrel cosplayers on their YouTube channel.

CupofSquirrel's Guess Greenleaf on How to Cosplay Quillsh Wammy

Have you cosplayed Quillsh Wammy now or in the past?
Yes - currently.

Any anecdotes about your experiences cosplaying Mr Wammy?
I was Watari for a video that my L was making for their YouTube channel. Even though I was only in a few scenes, it was a joy to be Watari.

His personality is special to me--he is caring, kind, and intelligent.

What clothing and/or props do you feel are essential Watari costume items?
I collected a second-hand suit for Watari to wear. His outfit is very simple, which makes him easy to cosplay for people just beginning.

His hair is swept back, so I purchased a lace front wig. Watari is defined by his glorious moustache, so I purchased a nice one from a local theatre store.

I feel that it is nice for Watari cosplayers to have a similar hat, so on occasion I use a vintage fedora my mom found at a garage sale.

To complete the cosplay, simple ageing make-up was important for me, because I am a young woman instead of an old man.

Is there more to cosplaying Wammy than the outfit? (Look/behaviour etc.)
More important than the quality of your Watari cosplay is his demeanour. People will know you are Watari if you carry yourself with pride and are deliberate in your actions. He has a serious kindness about him that is essential to his character.
CupofSquirrel Cosplay Death Note Watari and L

CupofSquirrel cosplay Watari and L

Watch CupofSquirrel in Action Cosplaying Death Note Characters

What's your professional opinion about ready-made Death Note costumes, such as those in our Cosplay Store? Any pieces in there decent enough for a Mr Wammy cosplay? (Be honest!)
I didn't see any Watari cosplay items in your store, so I don't think these would work out!  [Ooops! ~ Matti]  Ready-made cosplay items are nice for people who do not have the skills to make things themselves.

When I started cosplaying Watari, I did not have the skills to make a suit coat, which is why I bought one from a thrift store. When buying ready-made items, the most important thing is how they fit you. If you want it to look like it was made specifically for you, you should probably go with a site that takes your measurements to make sure you have a nice fitting costume.

If not anything there, where would YOU source items to cosplay Quillsh Wammy?
I would go to a local thrift store and try on the nicest looking men's suits there.

Any last tips for anyone reading, who wishes to create their Watari cosplay from scratch?
Spend extra time on make-up and wig/moustaches. These parts of your costume will give a recognizable face to your cosplay.

Cosplayers!

Would you like to have a go at answering these questions yourself? 

A different Death Note character forms the focus each month.

If you cosplay Death Note - or indeed a cosplayer of any tale - and you're willing to share your tips, thoughts and advice with the fandom, then visit our cosplayer's questionnaire page to fill in the form.

Thank you in advance!

Death Note Wammy month
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On This Day in Death Note: April 29th

29/4/2016

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April 29th 1939: Roger Ruvie born (Death Note character)
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Watari Letters: Death Note Canon Alphabet of Wammy Kids: A-K

28/4/2016

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Quillsh Wammy, the genius inventor who founded Wammy's House... looking at L's incredible talents from
the perspective of an inventor - of course he wanted to make a copy, of course he wanted to create a backup.
Anyone would feel the same.

~ Mello, Another Note, p104
Little is known about Quillsh Wammy the man, nor what he truly intended for the children in his care. Though intriguing clues litter the canon sources with enough material to keep the fan-fiction writers going for an age.  Often, if you can't see the thing itself, then observing the ripple effect provides a proxy view enough to hazard a guess at what lies beyond.

What remains mysterious about the benefactor of that strange chain of orphanages established in Death Note manga, anime, novels, movies, TV drama and games, might just show in the Fate of orphans raised within their alpha home - The Wammy House for Gifted and Talented Orphans.
The Wammy's House Death Note
Wammy takes L to Wammy's House, Winchester
Death Note Wammy's House
Each child within the Wammy system assigned a single letter. A calling code.  Something by which they could identify each other, if no other code-name was available.

Genius minds afforded specialised training; then sent out into the world, apparently to change it.  Though what precisely that means never is quite explained, beyond a vague pandering to the word justice.

As defined by the Wammys, especially L.

More often leaving the House to engage in petty rivalry and combat with each other; and woe betide any who get in their way - for to destroy the world is just another way to change it.
... what if they could copy (L)? What if they could make a backup?
That was us.
L's children, gathered from all corners of the world.
Children gathered together, never told each other's names....
~ Another Note, p105

List of Wammy House Letters Discussed in General Terms

Wammy Letters Alphabet
We cannot reconstruct the whole canon alphabet of Death Note letters, even via our current ploy below of amalgamating disparate versions as if they were one cohesive and extant source.  However, it's not bad how few Wammy letters exist without a known correspondence or link in any canon Death Note universe.

There's just a handful assigned without furnishing the fandom with clues pertaining to the person here represented. Even then they may be discussed in general terms, applicable across the board.  Not least the assumption might be made that someone raised or based at Wammy's House in Winchester was, is or will be in possession of the code required to utilize all that this letter represents.

Not anonymity in public communication - no matter how much it's used for that, such usage is just a bonus - but access to The Wammy Foundation, its administration, resources and infrastructure.

Doors don't open because someone sat in GIMP messing around with Cloister fonts and single letters centred in Old English.  If they did then I'd be L by now.  Government offices allow access to restricted lines; military manoeuvres are initiated by request;  Interpol meetings are infiltrated; and intelligence agencies are directed or else willing to share classified information, because that Wammy letter alphabet gets used set within a certain context.

Further codewords or numbers may allow verification of its user's authenticity.
Death Note B TV Drama
Near with POTUS Death Note
B infiltrates Yotsuba corporation; N elicits the US President's help; F directs a child into calling Watari to get lifted from Thailand.
Death Note F authenticity code
A call from a Death Note Letter to Wammy Headquarters (i.e. the Winchester orphanage in which they were raised) could summon the word spoken into an ear, heavies, intel or finance to oil passage into a myriad of locations, ways, clubs or meetings, as necessary to solve the mystery at hand.

It could rescue that clever detective from dangerous places, or let him/her secure whatever was uncovered that now needs safeguarding.  Sensitivity in no questions asked, efficient fixing; unlimited funds able to be wired wherever a masked voice asks for such to be.  Plus so much more besides.

It's not each iconic initial that's key in those calls.  It's the apparently boundless support and open doors that such icons represent.

Wammy's Foundation has an incredible reach throughout the planet and into the hidden powerhouses unknown to most. Where global movers and shakers meet with their identities gleaned incrementally on a need to know basis.  Where influence is strong and disagreements could potentially cause or avert World War III.  Yet none more able to direct the flow of world affairs than Quillsh Wammy himself.
Death Note Watari representing L
Watari sniper Death Note
Death Note Watari

The many powerful faces of Wammy
Death Note TV Drama Watari and L
Death of Quillsh Wammy reported in Death Note
Then if all else fails, those clever and dangerous Wammy Letters - living so far beyond any laws to proscribe their actions - probably know where to find and press the requisite levers to get blockages removed.

No doubt such reminders prompt the machinery of co-operation into instant, unfettered movement by any given government and their agencies, accompanied by renewed guarantees that this status quo will remain so indefinitely.  Uttered upon expensive, elite lips belonging to those who know they can keep their promises.

Just as Mello did in the Death Note manga, compelling an American President into acting in accordance with that Mafioso Wammy's will.  Threatening to use a Death Note to gain US compliance anyway, with  its President's actions subject to unstoppable remote control, until his inevitable death a few days on. 

That wasn't the Mafia man talking, however close the sentiment might seem.  It was the Wammy speaking as Mello this time.  Another day it could have been L or Near, as also happened in canon, outlined as dialogue in the novel L: Change the World.  And THAT has to be how they were raised for President Hoope seemed to expect it.  Evidently he's dealt with Mr Wammy and his alumni many times before.
Lind L Taylor dies in Death Note
K in L Change the World
Death Note manga Near money over NYC
Death Note Mello and Mafia
Death Note L torturing Misa
Death Note US President David Hoope suicide manga chapter 70 Tremble
Wammy Letters seemingly above the law: (Clockwise l-r) Televised death of Lind L Taylor (L); NYC stampede for $10m (N); Misa Amane tortured (L); US President David Hoope driven to suicide (M); NPA President Takimura abducted and tortured (M); lethal pathogen unleashed onto colleague, then the world (K).
Which makes you wonder what else we can see in the stories of the rest; to illuminate the inner workings of Quillsh Wammy's mind and the processes underpinning the ways in which his Winchester institution is run.

A great man, as Matsuda once said, or the monstrous child-thief - as he's intimated to be by L, Mello, B and Near's testimonies?  Hinted in separate instances, dotted about various canon sources - Watari brainwashing proto-detectives, from kids raised in his care, to enter into deadly games of rivalry and puzzle-solving, all for fun.

More of those children's stories might provide some insight into the manner of this man, whom even Tsugumi Ohba his creator called 'terrible'.

Death Note Wammy Letters Alphabet

Death Note Mello and Near wait to see who will be L
The designation of a letter in Wammy's alphabet held a special significance for those who graduated Wammy's House. It signified that they were charged with changing the world. There were only twenty-six letters to exist every generation, and these young people were part of an illustrious list of past letters who had time and again been instrumental in saving the world from catastrophe. Above all, the designation signified Watari's trust.
~ L: Change the World (novel), p 176-177
Watari's Character?  He's a guy who cultivates detectives for fun.  That's kind of terrible, isn't it? (laughs)
~ Tsugumi Ohba, Death Note author, How to Read: Death Note 13 p 60

A - Wammy Kid Pseudonym and True Name Unknown

... even for a genius like Watari, creating a fake L was easier said than done... I hardly need to tell you what it was like when Wammy's House was first founded, when he was still experimenting.  The first child, A, was unable to handle the pressure of living up to L and took his own life...
~ Another Note, p105
Wammy Letter A - Death Note
When Quillsh Wammy determined that he needed to 'copy' or 'back up' L, he chose a live child to mould into aping his prototype model.

Imagine that for just a moment - someone, anyone, being taken into strange premises and told that all you are and were no longer matters.  You have no name, or purpose beyond becoming somebody else.  Not in the military we-will-make-you-action-man sense, nor in any manner of self-improvement, like going off to university, or training to run a marathon. This isn't even the refining of a Swiss finishing school.

This is taking a presumably orphan child and stripping him of all form of self-identity.  Not a name to call himself, just a letter.  No personality traits that can't also be found in L.  No lesser intelligence than what that incredibly once-in-a-lifetime type genius mind than attain.  Telling a boy that everything about  himself is so worthless that nothing will do but to reject it all and become the clone of another boy deemed more valuable.

And they wonder why he committed suicide.

B - Wammy Kid Beyond Birthday - True Name Unknown

... the second child, Beyond Birthday, was brilliant and deviant. B stood for Backup...
As long as there was L, B would never be L. As
long as the original existed, the copy was always a copy.
~ Another Note, p105
That B had been a candidate to succeed L, and that the pressure of that had driven him off track... Beyond Birthday's quest to surpass L. It mattered more to him than his own life. Perhaps he was less intent than desperate. Nobody could have stopped him.
~ Another Note, p171
Wammy Letter B - Death Note
After attempting to imprint L's whole being cookie cutter style upon poor A's flayed psyche, Quillsh Wammy then turned his attention onto a second child for experimentation.  He was seeking the same result.  He got it.

By which is meant that Watari's zest to 'copy' L drove another orphan in his care to conclude that the only way out was suicide.

Only Beyond Birthday didn't attempt his own end with the supposed quiet lack of drama that beset the tragedy of A.  (At least Mello didn't deem it worth gossiping about the fine detail later.)  B opted for self-slaughter in perhaps the most dramatic, loud and all encompassing manner he could stage manage. Downright theatrical in fact, in that he performed it in costume, caked in thick make-up, complete with props. Assuming a role in scenes orchestrated and arranged by himself.

The part that Wammy had always wanted him to play.  Indivisible from L; a carbon copy.  Albeit with a few heart-breaking, pointed and rather grisly differences in the reality that played out.  Not least that Beyond knew that L could count on the support of Wammy's House, and he could not.

... he had always disguised himself with heavy make-up while he was with Misora, and he had never left a picture behind.
~ Another Note, p162
He knew that the moment he took action Wammy's House and Watari would alert L, so he did not even bother trying to stop them.
~ Another Note, p159
Our mental image of B - repeated endlessly in fan-art and fiction - depicts him fixed in cosplaying L.  Cosmetics to recreate the sleep deprived pallor, hunched over in walking and folded, knees up in sitting.

There's no telling whether the crawling on all fours isn't just a parody of L's burden bent back, nor if the jam eaten with his fingers straight from the jar might not be a clown-like standing for L's endless array of sweet confectionery.  He even quotes L's habitual lines, about how hot beverages brimmed into slush with sugar boost his energy and awaken his brain, while sitting in that famous stance raises his mental faculties by 40%.

Beyond Birthday copies L, just as Mr Wammy demanded of him, but only to break him in a desperate challenge - choosing death in order to commit an unsolvable crime.  Viewing serial killing and his own horrifically agonizing mode of ending himself as reasonable prices to pay if he ultimately got to beat L.  It didn't matter that B wouldn't be there to see it happen.  The victory was all.

Well, in theory, give or take Naomi Misora being more intelligent than any Wammy credited those outside the institution as having any right to be.

Hence B ended up terribly mutilated, surviving in the knowledge that L's proxy - a civilian! - had bested him even when he threw in such extremes.  Serving a life sentence inside an LA prison for the murders of three people pretty much used as props to destroy L's mind, pride and reputation.  Until Kira killed Beyond randomly (so it's implied) during one of his Death Note purges of evil-doers inside.

Nor do we see any evidence that Watari intervened, though with his connections it's probable that Beyond could have been released into Wammy's House custody.  There's not even a hint that those who drove B into such desperation and madness so much as visited him behind bars.  Then he was dead before Mello moved into the same city.

Wammy's experimentation went on.
Beyond Birthday and L: L is After Beyond Birthday

C - Wammy Letter Not Assigned in Canon

Although nothing is known about this individual at the present time, it doesn't necessarily follow that we do not know them.   Some characters associated with Wammy's House never had their call code letters made public.   This covers Matt, Linda and Ryūzaki from the forthcoming movie too.

D - Wammy Kid Pseudonym and True Name Unknown

L's Wammy Group mail from L Change the World
D is known only from an entry within the Wammy Members' Group Mail, glimpsed upon L's computer screen in the live-action movie L: Change the World.

However, it might be surmised that D has been in possession of his or her letter for quite some time, as those listed aren't alphabetical and D is at the top.

That may be a false premise nevertheless, as L himself only appears halfway down the list and he was the first Wammy in possession of a letter.

L doesn't hesitate in sending the communication to D, nor indeed anyone else on the list, with the exception of K who gives him pause.  For all else, its implied that they are trusted, worthy recipients with no bad blood between themselves and the Watari Foundation, as represented here by L.

Beyond that, nothing else is known.  Nor is every letter displayed, as the scrollbar alongside the list of Wammy letters hints at more unseen before the camera drifts away to focus upon the e-mail's sender instead.

E - Wammy Kid Pseudonym and True Name Unknown

E is another Wammy letter assignation known only from L's mailing group in L: Change the World.  (See above)

F - Wammy Kid F1225 - True Name Unknown

Wammy letter F is known to us entirely from the movie L: Change the World.  He doesn't even turn up in the book of the same name.  In the movie, he is portrayed by actor Kakuzi Namioka.  Wammy F's character name in the credits is displayed as エフ Romanised as Efu.
F Wammy Kid L Change the World
We first see F peering through the slats into a rural home in Bangnum Village, Thailand.  He is observing a whole population stricken by some unknown pathogen, all dying horribly and in agony with sores, blisters and frothing mouths.  It appears to have been quite a sudden onset with a 100% mortality rate, and the scientists have just turned up to investigate. 

They are exempt in theory from contagion, clad from head to foot in bright yellow protective clothing.  They speak with American accents and seem unsympathetic to the suffering of victims all around them.  Moreover, brutal in their dehumanising pronouns - 'deal with that', one says, indicating a man nearby.  Another pushes a mother surrounded by four dead children roughly away from him. 

F flees.  There is no explanation as to why he was there. Nor why he's so certain of his immunity from contracting the unspecified pathogen, that he's willing to risk exposure to it.

The only clues come from a future scene, wherein we're told he was working undercover for the Watari Foundation near Bangnum Village, and that the biometers aren't responding. Though whether that fact pertains to F's presence isn't clear from the context.  He was certainly there 'in the line of duty'.

However, he's presumably on some kind of Wammy House directed rescue mission, as the child waiting at the location F flees to - in the ruins of ancient architecture just beyond the village - is Near.  Though evidently Thai, Near does not appear native to Bangum.  "This village is over for us."  F tells the child, interrupting him mid-mathematical flow, with formulae chalked all over the mossy stone walls.

They have perhaps gained sanctuary there with Near seemingly unperturbed by events.  Abandoning his calculus without fear nor apparent regard for the destruction down below, in order to join F in flight via the older Wammy's Land Rover.
F driving with Near
The instructions F gives to the boy focus upon how to contact Watari.  This transpires into a moment of sheer delight and wonder for Team Wammy Death Note fans everywhere - F gives us the Watari phone number:  0105928147218.  Whereupon we are directed to tell them F1225 told us to ring it.

So, has anyone done so yet?  To whom does it connect?  Are they very sick of random people calling from all over the world, demanding to speak with Watari?

"Watari will protect you," F informs his young charge, wearing an ethereal kind of smile as he says so.  The future Near, it has to be said, surveys him right back with the world's most dubious expression over a long, drawn out stare.  Already too clever for his own good, that one.

But a look which surely seems like presentiment when, in the next instant, an American military helicopter arises from the bushland track behind them and starts shooting holes from the road in front.

F steps on the accelerator of the Land Rover he has weaving all over this Thai dustroad-turned-Formula-1-racetrack.  Yet a close look at him reveals the sudden appearance of lesions on the side of this face.  Not so immune to disease after all, though Near is in the clear and remains so.  F knows that he's personally not going to survive this flight through the bushes, thus in a poignant moment takes the necklace bearing his Watari letter F from around his neck and places it around Near's instead.
F bequeaths his necklace to Near - L Change the World
L Change the World Wammy F wishing Near luck
Back behind the wheel, with an expression of sheer determination, F hurtles along the road in his Land Rover, leading the military away from the spot where he abandoned Near.  But he knows he can't out-drive them.  He has to have known he was due to die as soon as he couldn't shake them off before. 

This race away from Near is deliberate though. Himself less important than the child left behind, despite F's presumably high intelligence and top class education rendering him a supposed benefit to the whole world as a Wammy letter.  Surely more so in that horrible choice between himself and an untutored youngster with much potential.  Because whatever Near is, or may become, right now the boy is an unknown quantity.

Yet somebody somewhere within the Watari Foundation judged it worth risking F's life to send him into that dangerous situation in order to extract the kid.  By his actions, F certainly concurs.

The helicopter descends before the Land Rover, blocking all egress.  F stops the vehicle and surveys in horror what waits ahead.  There's momentary horror and fright for F. Not ready to die.  Then he is, eyes closing and a tiny smile touching the corner of his lips.  Like this is acceptable. 
L Change the World - Wammy Letter F
Death Note F smiles at death
We watch the Watari prodigy F die by proxy - a close up on the missile emerging from the helicopter's launcher, then a long shot of Near witnessing the blast from around the corner, expressionless and wearing F's letter necklace.   Another Wammy kid dead.  Another left knowing from the onset what the far future has in store for him, though also still lost in the immediate sense.
Near in L Change the World
What's interesting about F's reaction to all of this is that undying faith in Wammy and the Watari Foundation.  Adamant to the end that Watari protects his wards, a sentiment spoken even as the patently unprotected F remains trapped in an environment rife with pestilence and bombs.

He's not going to survive this, yet surely it was Watari - or a representative thereof - who sent him there.  Nevertheless, F will ensure another child follows in his footsteps and smiles as he dies. Some inner conviction sated in the certainty that his premature demise was worth it.

Perhaps the ethos wherein this genius Wammy House orphan was raised.  One we'll return to time and again in the biographies of Wammy kids.  Dulce et decorum est pro Watari mori...

G - Wammy Kid Pseudonym and True Name Unknown

The Wammy letter G is another whose canon existence consists solely of an entry on L's email list in the movie L: Change the World.  (See D.)

H - Wammy Headquarters Letters - Roger Ruvie (presumed)

Wammy Letter H may be seen representing Wammy Headquarters in a scene from the live-action movie L: Change the World.

That this is also The Wammy's House may be determined by comparing the avatar crest accompanying the moniker Wammy Headquarters with the same already displayed on Watari's desktop underneath the call alert.

As warden of Wammy's House, it must be assumed that Roger Ruvie is the individual in receipt of this letter.   The H reflecting that element of his job description that involves liaison between Watari and the rest of his wards - HQ rather than headmaster.

This would explain why Roger Ruvie sticks around as overseer of an orphanage, when his pet hate (according to How to Read: Death Note 13) is 'children'.

It also chimes nicely with the warden's role within the original manga and anime Death Note stories.  He was the recipient of L's alert pertaining to the detective's own death.

Moreover, Roger was the one to inform Near and Mello of the same, and would have been the one told if Watari/L had chosen which of them was to succeed their idol.  Roger also felt able to make a suggestion regarding the succession himself - the futile interjection that the pair should work together.

In short, Roger had long since been the nexus for internal Watari Foundation communication.  The manga has him eventually becoming Watari, when Near takes the Letter to continue as that detective code.
Watari letter H Wammy House HQ

Death Note's H calls W: Wammy HQ (Roger Ruvie) mails Watari
We see more of what Roger's position at The Wammy's House - Wammy Headquarters - constitutes in this same scene.  Following immediately on from the death of F, Roger calls Wammy to inform him of their ward's death.  Though cut off, his text communication is curt, emotionless and to the point.
Wammy F dead, Watari told by HQ
This isn't a telegram, yet it seems like Roger goes out of his way to conserve characters in his abrasive wording.  F's death is afforded equal precedence to HQ's report about  the biometers being out of commission.  His main concern seems to be who to send out there next.  No waxing lyrical in commiseration and regard for a young man killed, whom both must have known intimately, as a boy raised by themselves and for whom responsibility did not stop in adulthood, as he remained one of their lettered agents.

It's a similar pattern of feeling - or lack thereof - as seen in the manga, whereby Roger's first act upon hearing the news of L and Wammy's demise is to call in Mello and Near, thus to settle the succession.  No question that such a continuation must occur.

Nor apparently did he race after Mello, when the boy announced his attention to leave home and work alone in catching Kira.  This is a fourteen year old stepping out into a frigid December night, in a barely adequate jacket, yet his guardian did not shift in his recall.

Back to F and the news of his death.  It's never clarified who alerted Roger to that particular tragedy, though we do get to see Wammy and L react to the same.  Wammy's look of sadness and shock tips off L, who gently enquires if it is bad news?  His guardian answers in hushed tones that F was killed in Thailand.  There follows a pensive moment, wherein the old man sadly states, 'It was in the line of duty, so it couldn't be helped but...'
Picture
But what?  The sentiment is never answered verbally, nor addressed by the creator of this system at all.  The contemplative silence draws out for both with the sentence never actually finished.  Left lingering in the air as simply that - something which couldn't be helped - while H's missive remains on the screen focused upon who to send in next.

The answer to F's death comes in reality from L's actions.  This is the final piece of information to push the detective into writing his own name into Misa's Death Note, thus effectively committing suicide.  Why?   'To take control over my own Fate is the only way to outwit Death.'
Mello attacking Roger in Death Note
Roger tells Mello and Near about L's death
A reaction echoed in part by Mello's own reaction to the compulsion to take L's place jointly with Near, as Roger's major consideration upon the loss of L.  No doubt feeling similar pressure to surrender all say in his future to those willing to sacrifice it, Mello - like L - had the knee-jerk reaction of yanking control of his own destiny back from Wammy HQ.

"I'll do it my own way!"  He bellowed in retort, a fourteen year old leaving the sanctuary of his childhood home in the dead of winter.
Mello leaves Wammy's House
The only facet not being questioned by anyone was why two boys (Near not even a teenager) suddenly had the burden of stopping a global killer.  Children asked to assume such responsibility as duty, in lieu of, say, any of the world's governments, military, secret services, not to mention their  associated law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

Neither did L feel able to just walk away.  At least in the minds of themselves, as nurtured in Wammy's home by Watari and Ruvie, this was their inevitable duty.  As unfortunate as any death might be in the line of such duty, it couldn't be helped.   An ethos surely carried by the warden, as Roger swapped his letter H (Wammy Headquarters) for a W (Watari in his turn).
Roger Ruvie with computer L
Roger as Watari in Death Note

I - Wammy Letter Not Assigned in Canon

Though again there are candidates, as Matt and Linda remain unassigned letters in canon too.  Ditto Ryūzaki, who will appear in Death Note: Light Up the New World in October 2016, and has already been named an alumni of Wammy's House.

J - Wammy Kid Pseudonym Unknown - True Name Jeffrey Miller

Picture
The Wammy kid known as J is an elusive quantity.

In fact, we're not even 100% certain that he was Watari raised, trained and assigned a letter.  The only clue to that is his name - the letter J - as given in the only canon source in which he turns up.

J is a character in the Konami DS game L: The Prologue to Death Note: Spiralling Trap, which was released in Japan on February 8th 2007.  It's never been translated into any other languages nor made available anywhere else across the globe.

Game-play is text based problem solving, wherein you are a rookie FBI agent knocked unconscious to awaken in a locked room.  Your environment is booby-trapped with explosives, with antagonists presumably out there primed to set them off.
However help is at hand in the shape of a communication device and L at the other end.  The detective will advise on solving puzzles to open the doors, as long as he's adequately provided with sweets, cakes and other confectionery.   You will eventually traverse all of those dangerous rooms in order to encounter the baddies. 

Enter J.  Apparently another Wammy kid turned murderous in pursuit of L.  Now ready to engage you in a boss fight.
Antagonists in L: Prologue to Death Note
Death Note Wammy J from game
Screenshot from L The Prologue to Death Note featuring J
The image (left) is a screenshot from the trailer for L: The Prologue to Death Note (above), which features around the 1 minute 46 mark.
As the game was only issued in Japanese, with no English transcript to be found on-line, it's difficult to analyse the dialogue for further clues to J's identity, motivation or the influence upon him from his supposed Wammy House education.  Beyond what might be surmised by the fact that he's attempting to blow L up.

Though he is wearing a lab coat, hence probably falls within the science spectrum of Wammy alumni specialities.

All that can be said additionally (until our Japanese translators turn up and, of course, assuming any of them have actually played this game) is that our last glimpse of J seems to be aboard a stricken cruise ship, which L has just caused to explode extensively right across its middle section.  Presumably then J is now lost, presumed drowned or else caught in the ensuing inferno. 

About par for the course for a Wammy kid.

K - Wammy Kid Keep Your Way - Dr Kimiko Kujo

"Please understand, Watari. This is the only way I believe I can change the world," she said, as much to convince herself.
L: Change the World, p 121
L Change the World Dr Kujo crying blood
On the subject of serial killing Wammy kids, they don't get more potentially destructive than Watari's own destroyer of worlds - K.

Perhaps Kali might have been a better pseudonym for this lady, rather than the poignant sobriquet Keep Your Way afforded to her by Mr Wammy himself.

She certainly seemed convinced that the only way to change the world was to wipe the human race from the face of the planet.

In true mad scientist mode, when we first caught up with K - real name Dr Kimiko Kujo - she was busy cultivating a swift-acting, 100% fatal pathogen in readiness to unleash upon all hated humanity.
Her story forms the central backdrop of L: Change the World - movie and book both - with L spending his last twenty days on Earth in a bid to halt her crazy antics in a laboratory.

The premature release of her deadly virus upon test subjects in Thailand had already led directly to the demise of another Wammy letter - F.  She would have taken out Near too, before he even made it to Wammy's House, had the wonder-boy's natural immunity not kept him safe from contagion.
"Dr Kujo, is your time at Wammy's House perhaps a cause of your despair toward mankind?"
"You knew?"
"One can always tell a Wammy's student, even if they do change their face and hide their past," L said.
L and K, L: Change the World, p175-176
So what went so badly wrong with this one that global genocide seemed the only answer?

Surely even Roger couldn't have been so tactless that her natural response was to sequence a virus to push her own species into extinction.  Though granted, it would have constituted one method of stopping Kira, which was what most of her peers were concerning themselves with at the time.
Dr Kimiko Kujo L Change the World
It transpires that K's role within the Wammy Foundation had been to '(mobilize) the law enforcement agencies of the world'.  During an operation, she had successfully rescued a child held hostage by terrorists, only to discover that had been her adversary's plan all along.  The kid was a suicide bomber, who detonated the charges as soon as they were in the other camp.

After witnessing the 'many casualties', K ran from the scene never to return.  It wasn't the failure of the operation per se that was the problem, but the notion that she had betrayed Watari's trust in her capabilities as a Wammy letter.

Nothing to do with the power and influence that comes with that designation either.  It was the personal censure invested within Wammy the man that she most feared evoking.  He'd brought her out of herself and believed in her abilities following the death of her parents. He'd been kind and caring, with a warm smile and sage advice, making K feel like she counted, even amongst all the rest of the clever, little Wammys around her. 

She couldn't stand to see his face again, knowing that she'd let him down.  That he'd be disappointed in her.  It was that personal for the Wammy kids raised to become Letters within the Wammy Foundation.  Away from Wammy's House and the man at its helm, K's 'soul had grown darker than the world around it'.

A darkness that she couldn't hope to assuage without the total destruction of humankind, wiped from the Earth in order to save the planet.
Dr Kujo in L Change the World
Wammys K - Dr Kimiko Kujo
Kujo and posse L Change the World
Not that K had any cause to worry.  As L informed the dangerous Dr Kujo - once he'd located her at the centre of the pathogen outbreak - blowing up her team wasn't any deterrent for her beloved Mr Wammy.   He'd assigned his letter K to her anyway, coded with the last message he'd conveyed to Kimiko Kujo before her flight from the Wammy fold - Keep Your Way.

Astute words in retrospect, though perhaps Watari should have clarified a 'way' amongst the sane options open to her.

Moreover, L continued - breaking her heart in knowing this only now - "Even after you left Wammy's, Watari refused to give that designation to anyone else."  Awwww!  If only she'd grasped that Wammy still loved her, K wouldn't have had to turn Thailand into the vast killing fields of her unleashing viral mass murder.

As it was, L promised that she could resume her place at Wammy's House, letter intact, even now, after whole populations lay dead.  What was a little genocidal slaughter amongst Watari's kids?  When they stood to ensure justice would prevail and the world could be changed.  K vowed to do so, returning to Winchester just as soon as her life sentence was done in prison.

No doubt Watari - whomever that was likely to be forthwith - would soon intervene and get that time served down to, say, a week.  After all, foiled architect of humanity's extinction aside, Kimiko remains a Wammy kid, in receipt of the letter K.
Read On:  Alphabet of Wammy Letters L-Z

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New Trailer for Death Note: Light Up the New World!

27/4/2016

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Warner Bros Japan have released a thirty-second teaser for its upcoming movie -the erstwhile Death Note 2016 trailer, now officially renamed Death Note: Light Up the New World.

The segment depicts one of the new - and purportedly worse ever - Death Note owner Sakura Aoi (Rina Kawaei) in the midst of a mass killing spree.  She has no ideological background, just the will to kill.  She tells Ryuk, "I will show more interesting things than Kira did."   He finally answers, "After all, humans are so interesting!"

Death Note: Light Up the World Trailer


Sensu Death Bonus Gift with Advance Ticket Sales in Japan

Early bird purchasers of tickets to see Death Note: Light Up the New World can look forward to receiving a limited edition sensu in thanks.

The Death Note sensu is not apparently mooted for general release.  It will just be available for advance movie ticket holders in Japan.

A sensu is a folding fan, one of Japan's traditional crafts.  This version - pictured in the Warner Bros advertisement (right) - has been labelled Sensu Death. Each panel replicates the cover of a shinigami notebook.

Death Note: Light Up the World is the fourth in the live-action movie series. Directed by Shinsuke Sato, it goes on general release in Japan on October 29th 2016.

In addition, Indonesian cinema chain CGV Blitz announced on Facebook (see below) that it too will be showing the movie.  Though no date was given for the Death Note movie opening night in Indonesia.
Death Note Sensu - early bird free gift for Death Note: Light Up the World ticket buyers in Japan
Facebook: CGV Blitz to show Death Note movie in Indonesia
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On This Day in Death Note: April 25th

25/4/2016

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April 25th: Death Note Musical Kira actor Andy Kelso born
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Reader Feedback Survey: Cast by our Community into the Limelight, Death Note Topics and Themes Chosen to Figure in Future Month of... Events

23/4/2016

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Death Note cast
Our Death Note character monthly focus is picking up momentum quite strongly now.  Attracting quite a bit of interest from readers, writers and other content makers alike, and swelling our ranks quite considerably.

Every day, several thousand page impressions from varying locations globally are found upon this website.

Our regular readers now number in the three or four thousand on a daily basis.

That sudden boost really did come when this focal concentration upon named topics began on Death Note News.  Folk are inspired - bouncing off each other's ideas to produce new work to contribute to our collection. 

The resultant amassing of character-centric archives have already proven popular, pinging amongst our most visited areas.
Moreover, we've been getting content submitted for Death Note characters not yet assigned a month upon the schedule.  Each author/artist/creator merrily amenable to us withholding their work - kept safely in a folder per subject persona - until its moment for public focus comes. 

Therefore pretty much becoming informal trend-setters, as their vote places an impetus upon schedulers to move their choice onto our short-list for a monthly slot, maybe sooner than planned.

Thus can fans ensure that their favourite character is queued, in readiness to be declared central to the attention of all.  Guaranteeing a month of contributions of fascination and interest to their sponsor, plus the rest co-inhabiting that region within the Death Note fandom's wider realms. (Whole new meaning to 'shipment areas' there.)

However, that's just one way to nudge us towards candidates for a Death Note Month of... feature.  Another is to tell us about them right here.

How We Pick Our People for the Spotlight of Death Note Month of... Events

Light Yagami Death Note Month
Read Archives
Tota Matsuda Death Note month
Read Archives
Quillish Wammy month
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Misa Month Death Note
Coming May 5th
There's only been four announced thus far.  Those highlighted above.

At first it was all going to be about the month wherein each Death Note character's birthday fell.  But those cloister in certain months, and use up too many major stars too soon.  There were many more rules quietly introduced to determine the order of events.  Then those were refined into nothingness, and chucked out in favour of simplicity.

Now we have just one rule of thumb.  We're merely going for people, items, ideas, themes or anything related that differ notably from the subject of the month before.  That stops the content getting too same-y and keeps the creative juices flowing.

Which is why Mikami still hasn't secured June, despite more than one submission already received for publication when his hour arrives.

Misa has May - long-since announced and the infrastructure already up and waiting for her month to come and fill it.  But Misa Amane is Second Kira and Teru Mikami is too.  Well, he succeeds her role somewhere down the line, whatever numerical we give him.  That's two months side by side wherein we'd be covering much the same ground as we did with the first Kira.

So why not veer off somewhere entirely different to encourage contemplations from a refreshing new angle within the Death Note universe?  Which might amuse themselves out of mental Mu and onto the site as content, where we can all enjoy a fresh view too.

You never know, those introduced notions in their turn might spark ideas, inspiring a whole new take on Kira; to be aired later, when the wheel revolves to deliver us to another mass murder's focal point in our diary.

Potential Candidates for a Date in the Death Note Month Of.. List

Teru Mikami Death Mikami
Top of the list is Teru Mikami, because he's the most popular subject of a priori received content.  He's a definite, the only question is when.

Shall we say July for him then?  Or August perhaps?

Originally, we were thinking of dedicating June to Sachiko and Sayu Yagami both.  However, none here is certain that they each justify an entire calendar month to themselves.

Others consulted disagree, one sarcastically cutting in, 'Why don't you add in Aizawa's missus and her baby too?'  Personally I don't know where we'd stick little Yumi Aizawa - the couple's kindergarten age daughter - if her Mum and baby brother had already been featured without her.

In your opinion, could any of the aforementioned five evoke interest enough amongst the fandom to go alone?
As in should Sachiko, Sayu, Ukita, Yumi and the unnamed baby be considered individually, or separated out into one of several potential groupings, for insertion on the schedule?  Do each, any of them or in groups warrant multiple weeks dedicated to their character(s), situations and circumstances - personal or representative?

As solitary focal points, could either lady and/or their children command a month's worth of inspired, new content - enough to fill the archives and sustain the momentum with a buzz throughout, whilst staving off boredom for our readers?    And for that matter, what of Mrs Mikami; Misa's sister in Osaka; and all those other shadowy figures of family in the background?  Should the answer to the queries posed above measure up equally for them too.

We're not sure.  Call this a consultation with yourself bought in as expert for advice.

Instead, for June, it's currently a toss up between Shinigami - as a concept and a whole; individual Death Gods pencilled in for individual showings on the program for future months - and Naomi Misora.  

Do you have anyone or anything else you'd like to offer to the table for potential gazumping of the slot?

    Death Note News Survey: Month of... Feature

    Death Note Month of... Subjects


    How to Run Death Note News Month of... Events


    Administrating the House in a Time of Monthly Events


    It's ALL About You! 

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Light Up the New World - Death Note 2016 Gains an Official Title for Release

22/4/2016

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Ready to know the name of the movie that we're all going to see in October 2016?  (Or as close as it may be coherently located within our own neck of the globe.)  Ready?  *Drum-roll*  Death Note: Light Up the NEW World.

Until now, this Shinsuke Sato directed Death Note movie has gloried under the working moniker of Death Note 2016.  We always knew it would change with the only bets being about how bad that final title might be, for this live-action sequel to the earlier trilogy of Japanese movies.  All things considered, Death Note: Light Up the New World isn't too bad.  Not when compared to some that we'd contemplated here ourselves.

Perhaps a little cheesy, with the strong potential for disappointment, as we doubt very much that we'll see much of Light Yagami beyond reference or the occasional flashback.  Probably just the former.

Warner Bros Japan announced the film's final and official retitle with a poster featuring its three main cast-members:
Death Note: Light Up the New World first poster
This poster announcing a name-change for Death Note 2016, first appeared in the Japanese press on April 8th 2015, trickling out across the world thereon.

It depicts new characters Yugi Shion, Tsukuru Mishima and Ryūzaki perched on chairs above a scattering of six death notes, topped by that fruity shinigami favourite - a shiny, new, red apple.

(Be still your immortal beating heart, Ryuk.  If we put together to get you a whole basket of the stuff, would you go and be bored somewhere else instead?  Like another planet or plane of existence entirely, please. A few Granny Smiths really aren't worth the wanton destruction of humanity, with a theatre of war on a global scale enacted in genocide; forced rendering of all our civil and human rights; terror; and enslavement.  Do it for oil, like everybody else.)

Reflected within the polished floor-tiles, we see the faded, pixelating visages of their predecessors - Light Yagami and L - both deceased with ten years standing between their stories told in the first movies, and the present day recounted in this.

Death Note: Light Up the New World will open in Japanese cinemas on October 29th 2016.
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Selecta Visión Confirms Spanish Dub Death Note Blu-Ray Box Set - Catalán Too?

19/4/2016

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Selecta Visión (Death Note distributors in Spain)
Hot on the heels of the Omega Edition hitting English language stores, there's a heads up that the Spanish dub Death Note anime is getting its own Blu-Ray formatting - available from July 6th 2016.

Death Note - Box 1 (Episodios 1 A 20) - Edición Coleccionista [Blu-ray], as the box set is entitled, apparently covers only the first twenty episodes of the anime. Presumably Box 2 will finish off with the remaining seventeen.

Selecta Visión - the anime's distributors in Spain - hinted at the fact to fans during their recent tenure at Japan Weekend (Selecta Visión Confirma Las Licencias de Death Note y Assassination Classroom, report by Víctor González Valle, Region PlayStation (Feb 14th 2016)).

However there's been no official announcement as yet, beyond vague references via Twitter.

Like that on March 24th, when a fan asked if Selecta Visión would make available a Catalán version of the Death Note anime, someone from the company responded that the new Blu-Ray edition would be in Catalán. 

Though representatives at the convention suggested that it would appear in May, retailers across the board have since attached a release date of July 6th 2016.  Moreover, their attendant information uniformly names the language as being Español, not Catalán, for this Blu-Ray Spanish Death Note dub. 

Beyond that, all that we know is that Death Note Edición Coleccionista will be spread over four discs with a total running time of 500 minutes.  No word on any special features, additions nor even cover art as yet. We'll keep you posted as soon as we know anything else at all.

See Blu-Ray Death Note - Box 1 (Episodios 1 A 20) - Edición Coleccionista on Amazon Spain.

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Casting Call: Fan-Dub Auditions to Sing Death Note 'The World'

18/4/2016

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The audition site Casting Call has an opening listed for singers amongst the Death Note fandom to flex their tonsils for a cover of The World.

Vocals can be in English or Japanese and the project appears to be some kind of anime cover album or play-list.

Before anyone gets excited thinking they're going to be on an official Death Note music release - otherwise in one of the forthcoming movies - let us reiterate here that this is a fan created project.  Yet no less wonderful for that.

There's scope for another Death Note tune to be covered, if you'd prefer.  As the call out lists the opportunity to record instead the anime track of your choice.  Other tunes requiring singers include:
  • Fight Together from One Piece
  • Super Driver from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
  • Memories of You from Persona 3
  • Never More from Persona 4
  • Irony from Oreimo
  • Yowamushi na Honoo from Yowamushi Pedal
  • Let Me Hear from Parasyte
  • One Reason from Deadman Wonderland

A track from Bleach has already been cast.
Anime singers wanted on Casting Call
Deadline is May 6th 2016.  Anime vocalists may be male or female, but must own a good microphone through which to record their work.  For more information visit audition listing itself - Casting Call Club: Anime Cover Singers Needed!
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On This Day in Death Note: April 18th

18/4/2016

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April 18th 2004: Death Note officer Hirokaku Ukita killed by Second Kira Misa Amane
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Origin of the Name Quillsh Wammy - Nationality and Meaning Behind the Surname Wammy

16/4/2016

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Death Note's Wammy in the frame.
As a historian and genealogist, I've searched for many weird and wonderful names in the past. You should see what some of the Victorians were naming their offspring, not to mention what English monoglot census clerks wrote in lieu of actually recording the names given to them by my Welsh antecedents.

But Quillsh Wammy?

It's the first time that a Month of character focus on Death Note News has fastened upon an individual with a British sounding moniker.  This should be game on.

I have the tools to do it and decades worth of skills to throw into the mix. 

Nevertheless,  I've got to admit, it seems like a quest doomed to failure.

Quillsh Wammy might sound British, particularly when wrapped around such a formal, stiff-upper-lipped gentleman, tuxedo clad and with a known home in Winchester.   However sounds British is the optimum phrase here.

I doubt I've ever met a Wammy in my life, and certainly not encountered a Quillsh.   Hey-ho, let's give it a go.

Hunt for the Origin of the Wammy Surname

It's not in any of my dictionaries nor directories of English surnames, nor the Celtic ones either.  So I take my search for Wammy origins on-line.

The first issue is wading through pages and pages of search engine results relating to Death Note's Wammy and not a lot else. 

Apparently there's a single, solitary individual surnamed Wammy in Tanzania - probably a Death Note fan - and a billion role-players, fan-fiction writers and fan-artists all including the name in their fandom pseudonym.  (I'm just as guilty with my MRSJeevas avatar, which was only ever added for a laugh on a single site right on the eve of my novels taking off...)

Eventually hitting a few 'Wammy Surname Meaning' sites, I draw several large blanks.  The pages are set up, with no historical personages nor current demographical clusters to populate them.

All kind of confirming what instinct said before - Quillsh Wammy has a British feel to it without following through to reality.

Could Wammy Indonesian or from the Nederlands?

Wammy surname demographics
Then pay-dirt - BAM!   A website claims to have a plethora of Wammy families dotted all over the world!

Until you dig in to see and notice that actually it's just one or two individuals hailing from quite disparate regions of the world.  In short, probably Death Note fans, whose pseudonyms have somehow been snapped up in the trawl through genealogical cyber-space.

Name-list.com cannot suggest an origin for the name Wammy, though it does proffer the guess that those bearing it as a family name are probably Dutch or Indonesian.

Why not Russian or Australian, I don't know. They scored just as many.  One apiece for all.  And the USA should have owned it with a mighty haul of three Wammys within its borders.

However, the site did inform me what Wammy spelt backwards is Ymmaw, which seems worth knowing.  Plus the most common misspellings, namely Wsmmy Wammi Vvammy Wammya Wmamy Wamym.  Can't go wrong with that bit of knowledge under my belt.

British Wammy Surnames in the Genealogical Record!

Pretty much ready to call it a day, I nontheless duly typed Quillsh Wammy's name into Ancestry. 

He doesn't exist - naturally, as Tsugumi Ohba made him up for Death Note - but Wammy people do with aplomb, figuring highly in the historical record with Christian names that wouldn't seem out of place in Another Note: The LA BB Murder Cases.

Ok, not a Believe Bridesmaid between them, but a Canada Let Wammy, and a Graphics Wammy.  And a Sammystirred Wammy.  All there on board ships or, well mostly, in US High School Yearbooks.  Real, actual US names!  Name-list.com was right to call it above.

But no, skimming down the line reveals a distinct grouping of folk surnamed Wammy - way before Death Note was conceived into literary being - in 18th century Nunkirschen, Prussia and Marne, France.  Then they all disappear again.

Only to resurface two centuries later as a sole fictional character in Winchester, England, and a fair few Americans filling in Yearbooks.

I'm going to assume misspellings in the past and Death Note fans now.  Nevertheless, for your genealogical pleasure, here is that listing.  Off you go fan-fiction writers!
Wammy family genealogy
Wammy family history
Wammy surname history
Wammy demographics
Wammy ancestry

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Death Note News Wammy Month
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Join a Pinterest Community Group for Wammy and Wammy's House!

15/4/2016

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Death Note Wammy Pinterest board run by Death Note News.
A whole group of us are already pinning our Wammy's House and Mr Wammy related items of interest over on Pinterest.  You can too!
We have a community Pinterest Board for Death Note's Wammy cohort, which anyone may join and contribute what they will.

It's part of a whole collection of character or other subject specific boards created and maintained by Death Note News.

So click away on the follow button, wait for your invitation to be added to the board - prompt us with a comment here* containing your Pinterest name if you want to hurry us up with that, though we will try to be quick with the Wammy additions during this Month of event - then pin, pin, pin all you've got on Watari and his wards.

And once you're in, feel free too to invite your friends along. All our members can add other pinners to the group. That's what community is all about!
* If you wish to be added to other boards too, then list those in your comment as well.  There are so many of you that these things otherwise go in bursts and starts!
Follow Death Note News's board Mr Wammy and Wammy's House on Pinterest.
Latest pins on our Watari Pinterest Community Board
Do you have a group, forum, community, fan-club or other website dedicated to Watari, Wammy's House or anything connected with the Wammys?  Let us know via our submission page and we'll big it up for you during this Month of Watari on Death Note News.  Help us get the community connected with like-minded members of the same fandom!

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Wammy Month on Death Note News
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Death Note 2016: Shinigami Ryuk Gets a Scary Facelift, and Shidou Nakamura is Back to Voice Him!

15/4/2016

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Ryuk Death Note 2016
A new still released for Death Note 2016 reveals the terrifying face of Ryuk - re-imagined for this latest movie.  It's all the shinigami as we know and love him, but darker, sharper and somehow much more gritty.

Death Note's creators did say that this would be the darkest iteration of the on-going story yet.

Further news to make fans cheer is today's announcement that original Ryuk voice actor Shidou Nakamura has signed on to provide the voice for this version too. Nakamura's tones are familiar to the Death Note fandom from the anime through to the earlier movies in the series: Death Note; Death Note II: The Last Name; and L: Change the World.  Jun Fukushima took over for the TV drama.

All 0f this follows the previous news that Erika Todd will be returning to play Misa Amane ten years on.
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The Quartermaster Quest: Death Note Wammy Fan-Fiction by MRSJeevas

14/4/2016

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Matti might be Editor-in-Chief of Death Note News, but she's better known elsewhere - writing under the unfortunate moniker of MRSJeevas - as the author of the It Matters series of Death Note fan-fiction novels centring upon Mello and Matt. To encourage other fan-fiction writers to submit their stories for these Month of events, she's been drifting out of her comfort zone to write short stories and drabbles on whatever character is our monthly focus.  This time around, she's finally back on home ground, writing about a Wammy.  In fact, THE Wammy.  Enjoy!

The Quartermaster Quest: A Drabble Upon the Dreams of Quillsh Wammy

Sniper Watari in Death Note anime
Everybody wanted Aston Martins these days; all drinking Martinis, shaken not stirred. But they were missing the point. Seduced by the flash and swagger of James Bond, seeing no further than the bravado and charm. Fleming's character had daring, that much was true. Plucky fellow and all that. But it was born of arrogance and the bankroll to fund it. The protagonist's sense that he was too elite to die; not through any true talent. Bond had just enough intelligence to follow his privileged past into an assumption of immortality. False trail. Shoddy thinking.

His imitators thought hedonism set Bond apart from all those other two-bit classy spies - that seemed everywhere from the pulp fiction piles to the silver screen in these days of escalating Cold War news. Ubiquitous in the background; sparking a backlash frenzy of unimaginative fashionable writers pandering to their half-asleep readership. No, the real thing that elevated Fleming's work wasn't Bond himself, but the gadgetry he carried on him.

And that wasn't Bond, James Bond, at all. That was the truly exciting position held by Q. The inventor(s). Bound by nothing but the outer reaches of his - or their - own imagination; boundless really in its lack of brevity. The creative force behind the flashy tapestry of the spy's rich world. Godlike in that way. So mysterious too, that single letter to denote a being controlling Fate from the background.

Q. Like Quillsh. His own first name. Thrilling to it the first time he read Casino Royale - 'see Q for any equipment you need' - twenty-two and suddenly knowing precisely what he wanted to do. Join the British Secret Service Q-Squad and invent things to save the world.

Only the reality wasn't like that at all. He was in. His family connections saw to that. But there was no Q-Squad in MI6 like the novels promised. Just order requisitions in triplicate; more paperwork than vision could withstand. No figure of Q as strode gloriously withdrawn into the shadows of the movie plots inspired by the books. Merely Quillsh Wammy labouring under the surrender of disappointment with petty bureaucrats (and worse, politicians) dictating his work-life with rigid demands. Tedious in their scope. No room for innovation. No Q. Not even a Bond. Just people who wished they were the latter and thought an Aston Martin purchase, celebrated with a Martini, could cut it for themselves.

The field guys called him Q and thought it funny. Wammy enjoyed the shivery honour of the title, at first; then realised the joke was on him and disdained them for it. People whom Wammy wouldn't trust with the key to the office petty change box given free rein with the treasury of Britain. Most of them raised to start wars, not intercept their onset and divert into harmless channels. Playing at national security as they'd arranged their tin soldiers in childhood. Like it was all a game.

It was the way they were raised. Q mused. Those with the wealth and connections to be here weren't those with the common touch to understand why they should change the world. Improve it. Make it safer. Most of them breed out of brain cells several generations back. Too lacking in much beyond what was and what should always be, in their opinion, immutable; and unfair.

In bitterness, Quillsh tried to tip the balance in his own small ways. Bypassing the limitations of that stack of requisition forms by letting his mind soar into the stratosphere of inventive bliss. Becoming the Creator. Q in actuality, not just name.

That earned him a final warning and quite a few dressings down for wasting public funds. So he did it in his own time. Wasting his hours on wandering through ideas, akin to Da Vinci in their scope, and enjoying them immensely. Then finding and patenting one, then more, that stood out as genuinely useful.

Of all the weird and wonderful, it was a tiny stop-lock that made him rich. In his own right wealthy beyond his uncle's wildest dreams. That sour old man for whom money and its acquisition had always taken the place of feeling or reaching further than himself. Who'd raised Wammy in name only as guardian; the reality being boarding school, held back for the holidays, as his uncle found it too distracting to have a child at home. Except for Christmas break, which was achingly boring and way too formal. Quillsh blocking out droning talk of the stock exchange and investment banking with mechanisms of the imagination, built silently as excitement, or diversion to replace the love lost with his long gone parents.

Uncle William was interested in his nephew now. Fascinated in fact, in his prospects and his bank-account. Lectures on the best stock in which to invest at the present time - naturally brokered through himself - didn't get more alluring with adulthood. Uncle William's interest being solely in the interest that could be due.

While Wammy's remained entirely with the Quartermaster.

The first orphanage founded was to thwart Uncle William, and to teach him something too. A little reaching out in assuage of his childhood; plus amusement. So many startled agents learning that power in riches didn't need to come with Martinis on a yacht; the Aston Martin waiting; an endless supply of fine foods and alcohol; the ladies dripping in all they could grab. Power came best in the adulation of young minds under his control, to cater for and educate according to Wammy's wealth and whim.

Such things confused them. Which suited Quillsh just fine. For he was an orphan and so was James Bond. A fact that seemed to miss them entirely. Maybe one day a young Bond might pass within his warden watch; and he could be Q.
James Bond Quartermaster Q (Desmond Llewelyn)
Death Note Watari screens
James Bond Q (Ben Whitshaw)
Q with cake for James Bond
Watari Death Note movie
For more Death Note fan-fiction by Matti, check out He Moves Me Differently - website for the Mello/Matt It Matters series - and those stories written for earlier Death Note News Month of events: Mu Amongst Fools: A Drabble from the Death of Light Yagami and Matsu's Musing, a Decade on: Death Note Matsuda Fan-Fiction.

Posted as Part of

Death Note News Wammy Month
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Teri Mikami Voice Actor Masaya Matsukaze Announced for CA's FanimeCon 2016

14/4/2016

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Death Note Mikami voice actor Masaya Matsukaze
It's the first time that Masaya Matsukaze has stepped foot out of Asia to meet Death Note fans before. Nevertheless Teru Mikami's original Japanese anime voice actor is going to be in the USA at the end of next month.

The Death Note seiyuu will be at FanimeCon, in San Jose, California, from May 27-30th 2016, organizers have announced.

In addition to providing the voice of Mikami in Death Note, Masaya Matsukaze may also be heard as:
  • Koyoya Ootori (Ouran High School Host Club);
  • Zoisite (Sailor Moon Crystal);
  • Gaelio Bauduin (Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans);
  • Shin Hyuuga Shaingu (Code Geass: Akito the Exiled);
  • Illumi Zoldyck (HUNTER X HUNTER).

Gamers will also know him as:
  • Ryo Hazuki (Shenmue series).

If you're planning to go, please do report back if you meet him and/or catch anything Death Note related.
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