Just to let you know that we are aware that He Moves Me Differently - MRS Jeevas and other Mello/Matt fan-fiction authors' site - is currently not loading. This is occurring our end, not yours.

Obviously I'm working on fixing it. But I also believe it's not an issue here either. It's further up the line with the hosts of my server.

Their website is also down.  I've Tweeted them for more info.  You'll get it as soon as I do.

Hopefully all will be back up and running soon, so we can gabble away as usual on the forum.

UPDATE:  And there it is fixed.  The company hosting my server reported a small issue affecting the DNS. It's now resolved and we're up and running again.

They thanked us for our patience.

Imagine how short the story would be if Kira's Death Note wasn't bound by so many rules, or if the shinigami eyes came without a cost. 

Moreover, contemplate how utterly tedious that telling might be.

These are the considerations occupying Kinetic Literature's Kuiper in a thought provoking article entitled Death Note and Sanderson’s Second Law of Magic.

Running with Bruce Sanderson's assertion that 'limitations are more important than powers' in magical fantasy tales, Kuiper takes another look at Death Note.  The adage holds up to scrutiny when applied to its supernatural elements - magic as represented here by the notebook(s) and shinigami deals.

Not their awesome power, but their fatally corruptive powerlessness is more than merely important. It's fundamental to the plot.

Musing upon that 2nd Law, I'm struck by how often its true beyond successful story-weaving of magical universes.  The most compelling characterisation (or inanimate objects) frequently comes in what is missed, lost or otherwise undermining the efforts of protagonists. 

Just think MacBeth in his mindless ambition, manipulated by his missus and misinterpreting the clues set out by the Wyrd Sisters; Heathcliff in his damaged mind and sensibilities, his suffering of abuse transforming him into a bully; or Jane Eyre's 'plainness' blinding people to the fact that she was actually quite radical in her Feminism for her Victorian era.

Where would those stories be if Jane Eyre was pretty enough to be snapped up by the first passing fancy, long before Rochester ever clapped eyes on her?  Or if MacBeth had common sense enough to say, 'Hold on! Wtf am I doing?'  Or if Heathcliff had just punched Hareton in the gob within days of being brought to Wuthering Heights, disdained Cathy as being a bit too shallow and selfish for his love-starved psyche and grown up accordingly as a well-adjusted member of society?

Short. That's what.  And boring.  Tales not worth the classic tags and endless reprint editions.

That same fascinating propensity towards fatal flaws can also be seen in the personalities of Death Note: 

• Soichiro Yagami is a kick ass police officer, stately with moral integrity and persistent in his bid to bring in the bad guys.  But his blind spot for his son, born of paternal love, means that his otherwise great attributes cannot succeed.
• Misa Amane has so much love to give, but its direction leaves her open to its exploitation.  Halving her life and pressed into ever more murderous pursuits.
• Matt's powers of observation are said - in Death Note 13: How to Read - to be truly amazing. But his proneness to boredom, when 'looking at the same thing, which never changes', denied his ability to utilize such skills, as Kira and crew escaped their hideout over the road.
• Light's megalomania curtailed his chances to slip under the radar, writing on without detection, as much as the magical constrictions inherent in his Death Note.  As soon as he began to believe his own hype, clues were scattered in his wake, rendering his eventual downfall inevitable.

In such insertions come the brilliant hooks of story-telling.  They carry the plot-line into creating a manga classic, standing the test of time and providing endless subject for discussion amongst its on-going fandom.

Such I think was recognized by Tsugumi Ohba.  The power of limitation in personality is pretty much spelled out by Near at the end there.  He acknowledged that he was flawed and so was Mello.  But together they made good each other's deficiencies. 

Thus embracing their individual powerlessness - and rejecting the crippling restriction imposed by Wammy's House in solving cases competitively - they were able to surpass L in bringing down Kira.

I'm with Sanderson and Kuiper alike.  The story is in the limitation and that truly is its magic at its most elementary.

I was a little quicker off the mark in watching Death Note (2015) episode two.

I'm into this new Death Note drama now. Drawn in hook, line and sinker. No longer dutifully checking out - for the purpose of this blog - something which the armchair critics already panned. They were wrong and I'm excited to find another episode ready to air.

After all these years obsessed with the same story, it's a beautiful thing to have new twists to entangle; a fresh take to embrace.

And for those bored with seeing the same old storyline retold with no obvious deviation from norm, then there is a whole world of background iconology and themes to explore.  I know that I'm having fun with that!

For episode two of the Death Note TV drama, it seemed to me to be all about reflections/mirror images and/or projection.  Even of itself.

Take Light.  The Kira we all know and love - from previous canon versions - had a God complex. At the very least, he was arrogant and self-assured. He enjoyed absolute confidence in his own intellect and abilities. He was certain he could do whatever he set out to do, and his personality became increasingly saturated with megalomania.

This 2015 Death Note Light Yagami has an inferiority complex underpinning his actions in episode two. For example, when he learns that Misa's life is in danger, he comments, "I can save her without Kira's power. Even I can do that." (Though ultimately he can't and has to fall back upon that preternatural scribbling.)

He's become his own polar opposite; a fundamental trope turned on its head.

Sometimes it seems like the whole adaptation is showing through a glass darkly that original telling. There was a genius Light, who here is merely average intelligence. Yet their strategies are mostly the same. 

It always appeared as a plot-hole to me that Death Note's geniuses weren't precisely genius in tactic, deed nor thought. This version reflects that right back at canon, while ironing out said plot-hole by making Light smart, but not to the point of hyperbole. It adds another layer of realism over a quite fantastical tale.

Mirror images tend to be upside down and turned around.  Those appearing as polar opposite spokes on a wheel of fortune would merely be upside down. The letter L becomes a number 7.

I noted in the first episode that Light owns a trash bin sporting a Lucky Seven design. Like many cultures around the world, Japan regards this number as fortuitous - a tradition with its origin there in Buddhism.  The implication is clear - rubbishing L is lucky for Light. Fair enough.

Episode two saw a profusion of iterations of the number seven. It turned up everywhere!  Some that I caught:

• Misa's life was to have ended at 7pm;
• There were 7 people on the bus;
• The bus was hijacked on 7/7 (July 7th - actually celebrated as Tanabata (Evening of the Seventh), a national holiday in Japan; though as a Briton, the hijacking of public transport on that day seemed a little in bad taste).

Did you spot any others?

I'm still reading this as Kira in the ascendency, as represented by Light's 7, while L's fortunes continue to flounder beneath. Though that situation seems poised to change.  The last scene saw Light's luck finally running dry.

Moreover, L's world seems fixed within the colour scheme of white, red and black - the hues of the Triple Goddess in Wicca (white = Maiden, waxing moon; red = Mother, full moon; black = Crone, waning moon). A palette apparently picked up by Misa too for the closing scenes, in her black and white striped dress and her red Death Note.

Though she's been 'red' from day one. It's her Ichigo Berry colour. Interesting to see how, or if, this theme continues.

A slightly more blatant juxtaposition came in the positioning of Light with the sun and L with the moon. 

Our protagonist's solar credentials are right there in his name - Light. But also in some of the random articles dotted around his room: two depictions of the solar system (one cylindrical, the other a poster) for a start, and, more tenuously, various sources of energy, like the propeller/windmill and transistor.  Then there was a whole scene with Light standing before a box labelled Sun Flower (in English and written as separate words).

L for lunar now, is it?  When I first spotted his signet ring, I thought the design was a horseshoe - something also thought to be lucky here. His answer to Light's seven. 

Then I saw his night-time desktop avatar screen. His trademark L against a midnight sky, alongside a brightly waxing crescent moon. The 'horseshoe' suddenly clicked as a crescent too. Smooth out a corner and the letter L could be a crescent, but only if it's waning. Otherwise it's that 7 again.

Light is still dissociating himself from Kira, talking of both as if they are two separate entities. This is despite Ryuk categorically telling them that they are one and the same.

Meanwhile, I was taking another long look at the items dotted around his room and wondering if Light's subconscious knows about his inferiority complex.  There are so many references there to dominion, empire or Godhead. 

Above the aforementioned Sun Flowers, there was another small box simply bearing the word 'imperial'; those globes could be interpreted as owning the world (several times over), ditto the universe/solar system references; plus the emperor penguin.

Then there's his perceived link with the Otherworld, often projecting his fear as pieces of decoration or memorabilia. A quick internet search with regard to those animals ornamenting his desk and shelves, and their place in Japanese tradition, proved most illuminating.

• Panda - prominently adorning Light's desk this episode. In Japan, pandas are believed to ward off evil spirits;
• Unicorn - on the wall beside Light's bedroom door. The Japanese unicorn is called a Kirin. It's the most powerful of all mythological creatures, signifying the arrival of a sage or ruler. They are seen as being pets of the deities. Kirin have the ability to discern guilt from innocence, punishing the former and bringing peace and serenity to the latter. Kirin sounds VERY close to Kira, as well as performing a similar kind of murderous/judgemental function;
• Stag - on the wall beside his bookcase. This isn't actually a stag, as we in the West have been incorrectly identifying it.  It's an older representation of the Kirin (antlered dragon). So see above.
• Giraffe - on the shelving unit beside Light's desk. The Japanese word for 'giraffe' is 'kirin' - see above again.  Ditto the zebra on the bookcase, also associated with kirin;
• Polar Bear - standing at the back of his desk.  Bears are viewed as gods in some parts of Japan;
• Owl - on a shelf in the centre of Light's room. The animal form of one of the seven Gods of Luck in Japan.

In short, even before Ryuk threw a Death Note in Light's general direction, a little part of the student was already thinking Kira type thoughts. It just emerged harmlessly projected onto surrounding himself with Kirin.

Then we get the whole enigmatic scenario that is the Wammy House segment. Here the notion of projecting is downright blatant (but might it not quite be blatant enough?).

To all extent and purposes, it seems like this whole scene involves someone projecting their thoughts/opinions/personality onto another. Whether it's Near's ventriloquism (we see that his lips don't move when Mello speaks) onto his puppet, or Mello's accusation, followed by Near's counter-accusation.

Here's the dialogue for you to judge for yourself:

Scene:  Camera pans down from the ceiling (which seems in a state of disrepair), lingering upon Luca Giordano's painting The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1660-1665), before which Near has twice appeared with her Mello puppet. She's heard, then the camera continues down to find her below the artwork talking into a 'phone with L.

NEAR:     The victims all died of a heart attack. It's almost like their souls are being stolen by a shinigami.
L:           Shinigami? If they exist, I'd love to meet one.
MELLO:    If you met one, you'd die.
L:           Shut up! Listen to me. Don't get in Near's way.
MELLO:    Shut up, dummy! 
NEAR:      Don't worry. I'll be fine. Goodnight, L.  *disconnects the call*
MELLO:    *sniggers* I know all about it. Deep down inside, you think you're better than L.
NEAR:      I think you're projecting, Mello.
MELLO:    *close up on puppet's smiling face*

So far, so apparently straight forward.  Near is a brilliant ventriloquist, whose rebellious thoughts are projected onto her puppet. L humours this by addressing the puppet as if it's real, but bans it from expression.  Near may only comply. She may not even protest in a dislocated fashion.

But I'm not sure that's what is going on at all.  I'm not convinced its the puppet (or its owner) actually talking.

We've seen that Near's lips don't move, but neither do Mello's.  The mechanism is patently there, yet never once has that puppet mouth moved. Near is only working the eyes. 

Moreover, Near doesn't look at the puppet when addressing Mello. In both this scene and that in episode one, she peers over towards the only wall left unseen in all those tight, claustrophobic camera angles.  (Why are we always creeping up to Near?  Or seeing her through the bars of chairs?  Whose POV IS that?) In this episode, Near appeared to be looking towards the half-glimpsed padded chair adjacent to her own.

Is the real Mello over there, in some way, shape or form?  Presumably electronically and without a camera, else he'd be kicking off about the puppet.

L's response means that Mello's voice can be heard in real life - not as a figment of Near's imagination - though L's 'shut up... don't get in Near's way' is downright cruel, if he is addressing his real heir.  The only other explanation being that BOTH Near and Mello exist solely inside L's head.  He's the one projecting them, as a dualist approach - good cop, bad cop; or angel and demon sitting on his shoulder.

He certainly looks suddenly quite shaken, scared even, when Mello speaks. L pauses for a beat or two before snapping 'Shut up!'  And what precisely is that reflected in the light of L's eyes?

I'm fascinated to see how this one will pan out.

What's your take on it all so far?  It's invigorated my interest in a way I really didn't see coming, as you can probably tell!

Whether I agree with the viewpoint or not, it's always interesting to approach a familiar tale from a brand new angle. 

Over on her eponymous blog, Lady Theresa Christina has assessed Light Yagami's morality from the point of view of her Christian faith. 

Naturally he doesn't do well under such a microscope. Kira might think himself God of this New World, but the Christian God has his own Views on the worship of deities other than Himself and they didn't include any mention of young Mr Yagami.

Lady Theresa Christina doesn't just state the obvious here. She digs down into why Kira's hubris is unacceptable within a Christian world-view.  A short and sweet article, but worth a glance, if you're as fascinated as I am by the theology, philosophy and/or ethical standpoint of the stories.

Coming from a similar place - theologically speaking - The Eternal Optimist blogger Anna Streetman also explores the Christian values in Death Note. Her piece (Death Note: An Anti-Religion Anime?) broadens the scope a bit to include many different themes running as an undercurrent through the story.

Most of all, she discerns a thread warning of the dangers of blind faith. Particularly when your deity is a serial killer.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading that one.

After all the early exposure to TV Death Note's reviews, I didn't expect to be telling you now that I loved it.

It took me a while to actually get there (life keeps happening), but I'm so glad that I did. It's not the Death Note that we've all come to life, breathe and quote excessively at each other. It's fascinating for all that.

I started watching it in the early hours of the morning. I was already yawning, ready for bed. My vow to myself was simple - I'd watch until the moment I said, 'WTF?!' or got bored, whichever happened first. I was there until the end, staring stunned at the screen. Then lay awake for a while later, pondering certain scenes that I'd seen.

Particularly the ending, when our missing Mello turned up.

My advice?  Go in with an open mind, forgetting all that you know of the manga, anime or live action movie versions. Treat it as a brand, new story. You won't be disappointed.

The fact is that we're engaging with a a different story entirely. Not merely a different version of the same old tale.  To my mind, the realism just edged up a gear or three.

Light is an Everyman kind of person. He's the bloke you meet on the street. He's not the top student in all of Japan, but a young man with hang-ups and a life not without its problems.  He's us from the get-go and that changes everything.  He's not there to be the God of this New World Order, but to change the world.

He's a nice person. Sympathetic. Without the hubris and arrogance of the original character upon which he's based. 

That alters irreparably the dynamic between himself and L - the latter displaying all the arrogance that his manga source did too, only much more noticeably here without Light's megalomania to over-shadow it. 

At first, I thought L's characterisation had shifted too. It took a second watching to discern that wasn't true. He's wearing shoes and devoid of endless strawberries and cup-cakes, but everything else pings off lesser played aspects of the canon character.

It's only Light who's shifted so much. As any Physicist may tell you, when the source of illumination alters, shadows and hues cast upon others changes utterly too. Hence Soichiro seems grave without gravitas, and Sayu appears whiny without reason.

Then you get to Near.  Oh wow!  Do we get to Near!  He was never so interesting to me in the original. Only a brief scene shows him/her at the end and it raises far more questions than it answers.  Wammy's House was always sinister (which is why I focus so much of my fan-fiction upon it), but this telling makes that abundantly clear.

And there, right alongside Near, is Mello.  We didn't think he'd been so much as acknowledged. But he's there.

Let me put the rest beneath a Read More break, so those not wishing to be spoiled don't have to see.

I'll admit that this one surprised me a little. Purporting to be the 'largest online streaming site' for anime in Japan, D Animestore has just announced its latest acquisition - Death Note.

Surely that should have been the first title on the list?  IS there any other anime out there?

Oh well! If you're in Japan and you've lived under a rock since 2003, then I recommend taking your 400 yen to the D Animestore and finding out what the fuss has been about for the past decade. 

I quite liked Death Note.  A personal favourite in fact...

This will be old news to many of you, but I thought I'd better mention it again. Just in case someone was hiding under a rock, or otherwise out of the loop the first time around.

There is a sequel to Walls Came Tumbling Down currently being posted to my website's forum. 

Chapters are appearing on a daily basis, as per usual, giving a buzzing group of readers ample time to discuss each titbit and new development. Truly great conversations are inspiring me in turn to write the final part.

Those chapters are very raw - generally without titles as yet and without any proof-reading.  Around two years after the opening part was penned, things happened very fast.  I went from about twenty chapters to closing in on seventy in about three weeks solid.  (Then stopped dead, because of moving house.) 

We haven't even got to the bit where Sareyva ensures the continuity is kept, but forum readers are getting the full preview anyway. They seem to be enjoying it.

Ghosting the Street is set nearly two years after Walls.  It comes in the aftermath of a long, long battle to kick Seroxat for Matt, with recurring attempts at cold turkey having finally taken hold.  Mello is downright worn out with supporting him and things are more than a little desperate.

If this sounds like the most depressive novel I've ever written then ha ha!  My cunning feight worked.  In truth, it's probably the most feel good story of them all. Because when you're so far down that your toes are grazing against rock bottom, there's only one way to go.

What Ghosting the Street does do is tie together many loose ends, which you might not have even guessed were flapping.  I've left a lot of breadcrumbs throughout the previous ten novels, all of them leading to this.

In other news, the Wiki for my fan-fiction is back up and running again. The lovely Bubbles basically bought us a year's subscription, so all are currently rushing to update it.  You not only may, in the words of Uncle Walt, 'contribute a verse' - or add your own pages/references/amendments/edits to the Wiki, but you'll be loved to the very core of your soul for doing it.

Please do feel free to come and join us on the forum.  There's a lot of the old MangaBullet gang there already - if you were once part of the Guns and Games posse - in addition to newcomers to our circle.

All are welcome.  All are doubly welcome if you bring cake.

To my mind, the latter is automatically the more accurate, insofar as Light's birthday was February 28th 1986.  That makes his sun-sign Pisces.

If you're of an astrological bent, then what do you think of Erwin's thoughts on the matter thus far?  You can chat with him about it - or answer with your own ideas - over on one of his two threads on Yahoo:
 

• Death Note Anime astrology? What do you think?
• Death Note Anime astrology? Is this Accurate?

So far, he's charted the zodiacal charts of L and Misa too.  Presumably more to come!

This particular telling of the story has spent six weeks in the charts, creeping up into the top ten.  That's a fearsome amount of volumes shifted in stores across the USA.

Naturally, it's right here too, in the manga section of Death Note News merchandise. (Just skip past the colourful versions to find the black ones.)  But I'll reproduce that entry here for your convenience and pleasure. :)

The big question now is why that edition, above all others, continues to soar ahead?   Do you think it's the better design and story-telling?  And if so, why?

It's because it's black, isn't it?

Admit it, you've never watched beyond the final credits in L: Change the World. I'll admit it.  It never occurred to me to continue on.

For some, it's painful enough to get to the credits, let alone sit through them. Particularly when they're not subject to subtitles translating the beautiful kanji sailing past.

Which means that we all missed the semi-secret poignant scene sneaked in there - beyond all acknowledgements, but one.

It depicts L sitting before a desk, upon which lies a lever arch folder, closed over a pile of tidy case-notes.  L stares at a photograph of Mr Wammy for long seconds, before stepping from his crouch upon the chair and walking off camera.  The scene ends with a black screen, upon which white words form: L Lawliet, Rest in Peace.

He's gone back to Watari. At least that's the only interpretation which salves the heart of onlookers.

So what's this got to do with Mello?   For a start, those case-notes. We're not told which ones they pertain to, but my imagination tells me that there are three cases in there and they'll be referenced or retold in the novel Another Note.  But that's conjecture.

More blatant is the fact that the sequence begins with a loud snapping of chocolate.

We hear it before we see Lawliet perched in situ. For a instant, we suspect we're about to see a blond Mafioso smirking from the shadows. And perhaps we do, at least in nodding acknowledgement towards those who died in the cause of Kira.

Just look at L in this scene.  And smile through your pathos.  It was a hint, but we caught it.

It's reminiscent of our final glimpse of Near, in the manga, nomming chocolate out of respect for Mello. That acknowledgement was admitted by Ohba in How To Read - the official guide to Death Note. However, we haven't finished with Mello and this movie yet.

There was another obscure Mello hint in the previous final scene of L: Change the World. By that, I mean the last one before the credits, wherein L takes the tiny Thai child to Wammy's House and names him Near.

In Lawliet's little speech to his young mathematical genius companion, he advises him, 'There is one thing I want you to remember, no matter how gifted, you alone cannot change the world.'

Is that not a nod towards Near's own Yellow Box denouncement of Light in the manga?  When he said that he alone couldn't surpass L. But with Mello alongside him, they could collectively succeed where L had failed.

The whole scene is reproduced below, though no-one on YouTube - insofar as I can find - has captured that final part beyond the credits with the chocolate.

Is all of this just the rabid ravings of an obsessed fan-girl?  You tell me!

Here's a true story which made headlines while I was busy moving house.  It takes place in Connecticut, USA, where a thirteen year old boy caused chaos, terror and confusion by taking a Death Note to school.

By 'Death Note', I don't mean the standard issue given to shinigamis. I mean one he'd made himself with a staple and some sheets of paper folded in two. Nobody died.

I feel like I'm insulting your intelligence having to clarify that, but apparently its a thing that whole herds of adults - some in positions of authority - wouldn't consider for themselves. Their panic and, dare we say, over-reaction led by example to stir even their Tween children into worrying for their lives.

So to reiterate, the homemade Death Note didn't cause heart-attacks, nor any other mode of fatality, within 40 seconds. 

Nevertheless, the police were called and the seventh grader arrested. He's been suspended from Jewett City's Griswold Middle School until the end of term (actually just a few days in this instance), with his future inclusion dependent upon the result of a police investigation.

The boy had been rumbled by a class-mate, who saw his Death Note and spotted that there were names written inside.

The friend 'phoned home, fearing for his own life. Whereupon his father pretty much lost the plot in panicking and instead of saying, "Son, such notebooks belong to the realm of myth and fantasy, you're quite safe. Do you want me to come anyway?"  Dad 'phoned the school and demanded that they keep his boy safe until he got there.

Apparently the class-mate's name wasn't even amongst those scrawled within.

School Superintendent Paul Smith stated that there was 'less than six' names listed. (So five?  Four?  Why is he the superintendent of a school, if he can't count up to six?)  His office confiscated the notebook on Friday (June 12th 2015), then sat on it all weekend.

The following Monday, the police were called in to deal with the dangerous thirteen year old and his book. The parents or guardians of those children listed within it were privately notified.

Then on Tuesday, a school-wide e-mail went out to every parent. Mass panic ensued forthwith.

I'm the last person to assume that what is written in the papers is unadulterated fact (I lived through the Miners' Strike in Britain), but if even a modicum of truth is reflected here, it's almost hilarious.

Well it would be, if a child's educational future wasn't hanging in the balance.

Let me illustrate with how some parents were quoted in the media:

• “We were petrified, absolutely petrified." - Kim Gauthier (WFSB 3 Eyewitness News, June 16th 2015)
• "What's being done? I made a call to the school. I wanted to be assured that (my son) was safe at the time." - Tony Gauthier (husband of the above) (NBH Connecticut, June 17th 2015)
• “It is concerning (sic) that a young child wrote a letter like that.” - Crystal Littlefield (WTNH Connecticut News 8, June 17th 2015)
• “It is pretty frightening. You never know what goes on in a kid’s mind, at that point." - Tom Buris (Ibid)

At least this one sounds a little more measured in his reaction:

• "I'm more shocked than anything that this stuff is going on in the school. "More information would have helped me understand this situation more." Rodney McCoy (The Bulletin (Norwich), June 16th 2015)

Meanwhile School Superintendent Paul Smith did imply that some parents had been downright rational about it all, asking him if the notebook couldn't be considered an expression of creativity.

In an interview with Wolverine Radio, Smith explained that he'd been over many quite innocent scenarios as suggested by parents in conversation with him. But his stance was that 'the school really has no reaction but to go all the way to the extreme of this is a credible threat.' (My Griswold, News, date not given)

Though, in fairness, the mass e-mail sent to parents that Tuesday did iterate that the school judged their children to be safe and all end of term events would continue as scheduled.

However, Connecticut State Police Sgt. Shane Hassett told the press, "Those in the book were meant to die."

He doesn't state how.

Am I being too scathing here? 

Perhaps I'm missing the point or prematurely losing patience in the sheer relentless with which these kind of stories keep coming up. Maybe my cynicism and lack of compassion comes from knowing all about the manga. Therefore grasping its preternatural plot-line enough to know that a wouldn't be a credible threat in the real world. 

But I don't think so. A simple internet search, or a question in a book-store or the library would inform those parents just as much.

So where is the common sense?  Where is the touch upon reality?

Just once, I want to hear about a parent, police officer, teacher or educational administrator pausing to think, 'Erm, does this Death Note work as advertised?  Because if not, then it's fundamentally a few bits of paper folded together in a home-made booklet.' 

There's a very easy test to find out.  Place your hand upon the paper. Do you see a shinigami?  Nope?  Then it's probably not going to give anyone a heart attack, give or take those allowing their blood pressure to rise out of sheer paranoia.

In fact, there's an even easier test to discover its authenticity.  Are you a character in a Japanese manga?  No. Then it's not a blasted Death Note!

Between me and you, the object is fictitious. If your child bought a pair of plastic fangs, would you panic that (s)he had become Dracula?  No!  By the same token, a black notebook, however well designed and/or horrifically inscribed, does not make your kid Kira.* 

Now let's address a more pertinent question - why is your child so desperate that to kill - even in fantasy - seems the only way forward?  Or is it that your little one is a bully?  In which case, for the sake of those being psychologically intimidated, parent him/her.

Or better still, why are YOU living in so much fear that a 13 year old with a piece of paper sounds so very threatening?

These are the questions which seem key to me. 

Viz Media is poised to release the whole Death Note anime series in Blu-Ray format.

Remarkably this has never been done before, despite the 15 trillion billion versions of the anime out there, including all of the ones with no discernible difference from those which went before. Except maybe a tweak in the colouring of the cover or something daft.

The live action Death Note movies got the Blu-Ray treatment, but not the anime.

Reps from Viz Media made the announcement during their Anime Expo 2015 panel, on July 2nd at the Los Angeles Convention Center. However, they didn't tag a release date onto the end of that.

Watch this space. As soon as I know, so will you.

Last night the television drama Death Note aired in Japan to much comment on Twitter.  First reactions are in from Japanese fans and they seem utterly underwhelmed.  Give or take the curtains.

Please note that I haven't seen this yet myself. Death Note's TV version won't show in my country until Wednesday.  No doubt I'll add my rants to the rest right about then. Until then I'm left haunting Tweets, looking for the word on the street.

So what's the deal?  Let's start with the positives.  All three of them.

Flooding Twitter were many, many people watching Death Note's première with excitement and glee. 

Nothing to do with the plot, acting nor even its actuality, but everything to do with the drapes seen in the background of an early scene.  They're apparently quite popular curtains to be purchased amongst the Japanese populace. 

Dozens of pictures ensued of televisions showing Death Note - and its floral drapes - alongside the exact same curtains in viewers' homes.

Apparently consumers and set designers alike visited one of the most ubiquitous Japanese home furnishing stores. Those particular drapes were perfect for purses on a budget. Colourful, economical and cheap. Hence so many people owning them.

There's one example above, as Tweeted by @ts1_ksdd. There are plenty more on Rocket News 24.

Anyone else concerned that the background curtains were what TV viewers most found to talk about? Doesn't bode well, does it?

Crunchyroll is reporting that Death Note aired with 16.9% of the Kanto population watching. That might sound a little low, but it's actually the highest rating for any new commercial TV drama launched in the country this year.

Then the site pretty much leapt straight into reminding folk that they're streaming the show world-wide on Wednesday. So, like, subscribe to them. kthxbai. 

Even those with a vested interest are struggling to support this one then. 

So what's gone so wrong?  Time to turn our attention to the negatives.

In truth, the highest number of comments translated were simply one word expletives, or a curt condemnation along the lines of 'They ****ed Death Note up'.

Few seemed prepared to follow their thumbs down with a detailed analysis of why they so disliked what they saw. Especially not in 140 characters.  Those who did tended to focus upon the characterisations, which differed hugely from those familiar personalities known from previous canon tellings.

For a start, L is 'too pretty' with none of the quirks and general weirdness known and loved by millions.

Kay, over on Rocket News 24, went much further than that. She disdained the 'newly arrogant personality' in Kento Yamazaki's portrayal of L, considering it close to actual narcissism. (Nor was she alone there. Elsewhere I saw Tweets about him being 'egotistical', or simply just 'boring'.)

Moreover, Sayu (Reiko Fujiwara) has descended into the realms of 'whiny brat'; Soichiro (Yutaka Matsushige) has lost his gravitas; and Light (Masataka Kubota) is simply too ordinary, a regular guy with none of the genius which fuelled the original plot-lines. His characterisation seemed 'under-developed' and his fan-boy antics over Misa's band Ichigo Berry bordered upon Otaku.

Plus the pace was rushed and the screenplay rubbish.

She went into more detail than is easily permissible on Twitter. Nevertheless the Twittosphere seemed in essence to agree with her observations.

Apparently I missed the furore last week, when trailers for the television Death Note reveal how much has altered from the original canon.  Not least some ominous implications for its ending.

Two of the earliest trailers (reproduced on Anime News Network) openly and repeatedly stated that we'll be 'surprised' by the 'final climax'. That there is a 'new resolution', 'new ending'.  None of that sardonic Near narrative in the Yellow Box then. (And still no sign of Mello either.)

Death Note's pilot episode on TV confirmed many of the direst speculations.

Light isn't an especially bright boy in this telling. He's a student of fairly average intelligence at the local university, whose greatest aspiration in life is to be a civil servant.  The main excitement in his life is following girl band Ichigo Berry, those main star is Misa Amane.

Her disparaging comments about Kira will wound Light's sensitive soul in later episodes. She is no Kira fan to start. We're yet to see whether she becomes one as time goes on, or even if she'll continue to be the second Kira as per the norm.

Incidentally, there are going to be new characters. Presumably not cameo ones, if the producers have felt the need to announce them.

All in all, this new Death Note appears to be touching the familiar tale, but only by the lightest fingertip grasp. How we'll ultimately receive it remains to be seen, but the initial reaction doesn't seem too good.

Elsewhere, the Korea Times has despatched not one but TWO theatre critics to watch performances of Death Note the Musical at the Opera House of Seongnam Arts Center. 

While Aoshima waxed lyrical about Mr Jun-su (who apparently even 'controlled his toes in depicting L'), Kwon Mee-yoo noticed that there were other actors in this show. The reviewer wrote that 'the Death Gods literally steal the limelight'. In particular, Kang Hong-seok as Ryuk was singled out for praise.

Mee-yoo's testimony also tells us a little more about the staging of Death Note the Musical.  The two-storey, steel stage is simply set with the actors themselves providing the sense of 'dreary city life' and drama necessary for the story to play out.

This minimalism means that when special effects do appear - notably a revolving stage to signify the duel of wits between Kira and L - they have a much greater impact.

It all seems to be going well then.

And to finish, here's a dreamy picture of Kim Jun-su.