Whoever thought that the L look would constitute the height of fashion?  Though granted it took a Korean pop idol turned Death Note Musical actor to adapt the detective's scruffy style into something more palatable to Vogue readers.

On August 15th 2015, Kim Junsu gives his final performance as L in Seoul's theatrical staging of Death Note. To honour his role, Vogue shot a series of images based (rather loosely) around a theme of the habitually barefoot investigator.

The L Code dictating the shoot included lots of stark, urban backgrounds, with the actor all in white, staring broodily at the camera. No shoes, of course, but with the occasional addition of (fallen) angel wings.

Sounds a lot like Near or Rem to me!

In the interview that accompanied his Vogue Death Note photographic spread, Kim Junsu discussed playing L in the Musical.

The actor - who shot to fame as Junsu (aka Xiah) in KPop boy band JYJ - worried that Death Note fans would disdain him as L. "I knew it would be a lot of work." Junsu told the fashionable magazine. "There was a lot of pressure to meet expectations."

He estimated that at least half of the original Death Note fans in the audience disliked how he subtly changed L's clothing and overall look.  Meanwhile his attempt to capture L's iconic canon posture took all his thigh muscle strength to pull off. It certainly wasn't comfortable to hold the position for 40 minutes every night on stage.

Junsu found L's quirky nomming of all things sweet to be a bit of a bind too. "L is a bit difficult because I'm always biting into candy. Each time, I'm eating at least two pieces per scene. Afterwards, I discard them immediately."

This apparently passed muster, as the interviewer didn't ask why.  Teeth? Figure? Diabetes?  Perhaps there's an implicit understanding that it's ok to waste food, as long as its candy, for reasons that only KPopstars and the Vogue readership could know.

As for me, I'm with L. My currently half-licked lollipop is convivially boosting my mental capacity to write this blog.

You may find the full article (entitled 'Xia in the Game') and Death Note L photo shoot in the August 2015 edition of Vogue Korea. Or read their on-line version.

For the past three episodes, we've been teased with the notion that a prone, or otherwise blind-to-the-puppet-of-himself, Mello has been out of shot in that room. I suspected he was sitting on one of those chairs.

Near always looks over the head of the puppet, whenever (s)he addresses Mello. His voice is heard, projected without so much as a twitch of Near's lips.

In the second episode it seemed that a shoulder could be glimpsed in the shadows of the fireplace chair alongside Near. Right at the spot where his/her eyes kept being drawn, roughly consistent with where a head might be on the individual seated there.

L addressed Mello directly, as someone external to Near in that same instalment.  He subtly did it again just moments prior to the wide-shot scene above.  Watari approached to say that Near was on the line.  L answered, "I'll call them back."  Implying that there was more than one person to be called back.

However L's delay wasn't being well received at the other end of that line. Focused fully upon Near and his Mello puppet, we were privy to a disturbing exchange.

Mello: He's disrespecting you!
Near: Calm down.
Mello: Hey, call Kira! We can work with Kira to erase L!
Near: We can't do that.
Mello: Help him out.
Near: No.

It's at this point that Near shifted to physically align position with the puppet.

Before both voices sounded simultaneously seeming to confirm that Mello was indeed a separate entity.

Near and Mello: You're so stuck-up, Near.
Near: You talk too much Mello.
Near and Mello: Dummy! Dummy!

The laughter which sounds over the wide shot that follows could be either Near or Mello, or both become one again. We're expecting to see Mello as live action figure sitting in that seat, but the beautiful room is empty beyond Near, his Mello puppet and the Christian iconography in stained glass and huge artwork.

What Near was looking at - in lieu of referring to an actual Mello there - was the canvas depicting the Fall of the Rebel Angels.

Yet two voices were heard and they were both Near.  So yep. That's the major gossip. Near is in fact Mello.  And a whole section of the fandom freezes. While also admitting that it makes for an intriguing storyline.

I know that half of the Mello/Matt fandom are here.  What do you make of it?  Personally I'm quite fascinated. I'm sticking around to see where they go with this, whilst holding out for a real Mello to turn up later in the series.

After all, Near's puppet was based on someone in the manga. It might still be here too.

Elsewhere, there are more mind games being pursued throughout episode 4 of Death Note. 

Item one is a wilful disregard for human life on the part of all three main protagonists.  Four, if we include Near/Mello's avowed compulsion to kill L. 

There's Light scribbling down names a week in advance, so Kira's body count may continue, even as Light himself is under surveillance.  He contemplates the fact that he can only get five names onto his scrap of paper, not with any remorse for murder, nor any avowed sense of justice, but as a personal smoke screen. He's a very different young man from the sobbing one seen in the earlier episodes.  Kira cold and plotting, already consumed by the need to succeed whatever the cost.

There's Misa blithely noting that a cameraman only has a year to live, even as she's smiling and posing for pictures. It doesn't seem to penetrate emotionally at all. She doesn't know him and he appears to be a bit of a creep. Nevertheless, you'd expect a flicker of human feeling at the realisation of his imminent demise.

Later, she's downright gleeful, as she joins spectators at the scene where two criminals lie dead. They've been killed by herself, with her own Death Note, at the urging of Rem. There's none of the angst that beset Light at his first Kira kills playing upon her face. She's even dressed appropriately as the Black Widow incarnate.

Then there's L, dispassionately announcing that he used Mark Dwellton (Ray Penbar) as bait in order to catch Kira - effectively sending him to his death without any back up.  He didn't seem to spot any incongruity in the fact that he 'didn't get around' to asking who Kira was, though Mark/Ray patently knew by now. Yet L did find time to plant a transmitter upon him.

It was more important for L to be the one to find Kira, than it was to catch Kira per se, or save a man's life.

L's mindset paved the way for one of the most thought-provoking sequences within Death Note television show episode four. 

The phenomenon of compliance exists all too easily in real life too - which is how concentration camps are built and harsh laws enacted without much more than a murmur on the streets - and L knows very well how to invoke such behaviour.

Human beings basically want to follow the herd. No matter how heinous the action, most will first look around to see if anyone else is speaking out. We second guess ourselves, if all our peers appear readily accepting of the situation. If someone in authority assures us that it's alright, then it's pretty much game over. We're socially programmed to not only keep silent, but actually join in that which ordinarily we'd call an outrage.

Matsuda protests against L's deadly usage of Ray Penbar for bait. L sneeringly dismisses the condemnation, assured in his personal immunity because Matsuda can't file an official complaint without exposing his real name and face to Kira.

The police officer instantly backs down. Personal safety, the silence of his peers and L's scathing tone reduce his concerns to nothing, despite the clarity of his duty here.

It's the introduction of security cameras, enacting secret surveillance within the homes of police officers which fires Mogi's indignation. "This is a human rights violation!" He rails at L, who merely smirks.  It's the usually upright and morally exact Soichiro who loses sight of all ethical conduct here, reassuring Mogi and ordering his people to follow L's orders.

The compliance is complete, when all officers not only cease their protest, but join in with what they previously found so reprehensible.  It's only several days hence that Mogi has an insight to level at L, "You're the same way (as Kira)!"

Then they're all sent home. L no longer needs to manipulate them into compliance, he was about to switch tactics anyway.

Mind you, that's a philosophy soon twisted in Light's mind through a filter of Kira, until its finally subverted into, "I think Kira, who was born by acquiring this power, is the most blessed person on Earth."

Other techniques of manipulation were middling, such as Watari - acting upon L's orders - broadcasting fake news bulletins about 1500 FBI agents entering Japan to search for Kira.

More yet were downright blatant. Light came on like a bulldozer in manipulating Ryuk by force of apple abstinence into helping him find the surveillance devices in his bedroom.

While the heaviest of all came from Misa and her threatening letter, designed to manipulate Japan's government and its media. She didn't want much, just their open support and assistance for Kira, and L dragged onto television for a public execution. 

Given that the police authorities had already 'lost their nerve', it's probably a blessing for L that its chiefs didn't know his location. Else Misa might have won that round.

Incidentally, did you spot the hidden nod in that scene towards Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata? 

The stricken Chief of Police was called Ogiso Takeshi.  That he shared the same name as Death Note's canon artist was obvious. Less so was the link between Ohba and Ogiso. 

We have to slip back a few centuries and relocate to Africa. There you'll find the biggest Benin dynasties. Firstly the Ogiso, which was succeeded by *drum roll* the Oba.  Different spelling, same pronunciation.  Tenuous?  I think not.

Finally we get the most pervasive theme of all in this TV Death Note episode, that of paranoia. 

Particularly in the sense of that old adage:  'just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not watching you'.

Light Yagami is downright paranoid from the off. 

Though, to be fair, it's with good reason, what with FBI agents following him, Japanese agents watching his every move at home, Misa stalking him and L turning up at his school to challenge him in front of all his friends. 

He begins the episode with statements like, 'if anything happens to me, Kira's judgements must still go on', thus implying that he believes something might happen to him. He then has a good long paranoid moment in class, trying to guess the identity of the second Kira - is it someone he knows?  It is somebody famous?  It could be anybody!

His paranoia also shows in his behaviour.  Booby-trapping his bedroom door is a big one, though again that actually tipped him off that his room had been entered by professionals. 

By partway through, his self-commentary is coming out with things like, "If I make one false move, (L will) find out." Not the musings of a sane boy, however correct his presumptions transpired to be.

Mind you, he did manage to traverse the potato chip scene without any of the iconic bellowing of his English dub anime counterpart.

Then you get Misa's big moment, wherein Rem warns her that using any Death Note causes its owner to become highly paranoid.  (A new aspect created for this telling of the tale?)  Until now, Misa has appeared relatively intelligent and capable.  Suddenly she's beaming blankly at Rem, asking airily, "What does paranoid mean?"

Before setting out to manipulate Light by triggering his own Death Note incurred paranoia.  It all felt a little jarring from where I was sitting.

Mostly though, Death Note (2015) episode 4 is going to be remembered for its blatant and gratuitous fan-service for the legions within the Light/L fandom.

Until now, Kento Yamazaki taking his shirt off every episode has been the biggest fare on offer for his fans.  Now a good ten minutes was taken up with nothing much beyond Light and L flirting incessantly and posing with little to no clothes on.  There was a whole scene in a communal shower for Kami's sake!

Let's just have a little picture show and let the images speak for themselves.

I rest my case. 

So! Kanji is copied from Chinese, basically. However, Chinese and Japanese have different pronunciations. One example I can think of is the Kanji for suki. In Japanese, the translation is "to like", and is pronounced "suki". In Chinese, however, it means "good" and is pronounced "hao".

Kanji has many different pronunciations depending on the Kanji and what it is paired with. In anime, they are allowed to play with this a bit in order to create fictional names. Tsugumi Ohba, the creator of Death Note, was quite careful in this regard, both with the criminals Light killed, and Light himself. He did not want to "hurt anyone's feelings" by using their name.

A lot of different anime do this, actually. There's a well known example from Naruto, the character of Haruno Sakura. While Sakura is a common name, if you put her name together, it translates to "haru no sakura", or "the spring's cherry blossom".

How does this tie into Yagami Light? Well, his name is spelled night god moon. The first Kanji is the sign for "night" or "yoru", the second is God or "kami", and the last one is for "moon" or "tsuki".

How does kami become gami? Without going too far into linguistics, Kanji change letters depending on what they are paired with. So kami becomes gami. Namely, Yagami.

It is really just a case of "oooh, look, I can make these sounds by pairing these Kanji together!" Most people would pronounce moon as "tsuki", but the creator chose to say it is pronounced as Light. This follows a trend my sensei says as "kira kira" (ironically this translates to sparkle) names, where you choose random Kanji and say what they mean.

This bit is total guesswork on my part, but having light, dark, and God kind of shows Light's duality as a character.

Did I ever share the above official poster from Korea's Death Note Musical stage production?  I've just found it lurking in my 'things to write about' folder.

It was Tweeted on April 12th 2015 by the official channel for JYJ - the KPop band of which L actor Kim Jun-su makes up one third.

Death Note fans, were you aware that we have a code of conduct - enshrined into being by Kira himself - which commands us to destroy all evidence of our own lives, if such could potentially be sought by police?

Nope, neither was I.

Yet that is precisely the conclusion set to be reached by Indian investigators, as they pen their final report into the tragic death of teenager Rahul Sridhar. (For more context, see Rahul Sridhar: Lucknow Teen Suicide Linked to Death Note (April 2015))

Police have devoted three pages to the fifteen year old's obsession with Death Note, including noting that Rahul had updated his Facebook cover picture to depict Light Yagami. Thus proving that Kira was his hero, or at least someone whom he saw as representative of himself.

The official report says that this explains anomalies in the boy's behaviour shortly before his alleged suicide, particularly the burning of certain papers and wiping clean portions of his digital history too.

The boy was patently emulating Kira, prior to the latter being arrested by L. This is the infamous Death Note Code to which we surely all adhere.

In both cases - fact and fiction - the result was a lack of evidence by which the full story may be pieced together by police.

Sorry, investigators, as someone fully entrenched within the Death Note fandom for quite some time, I have never heard of such a code being prevalent amongst us.  In fact, Rahul's death is the first time I've ever encountered even a suggestion that it might be a thing.

It's not, nor should it ever be.

And I do hope that such scaremongering doesn't lead to Indian parents all panic snatching their children's manga from bookshelves, nor petitioning politicians, libraries and stores to ban Death Note as a dangerous influence.

Particularly when it's a conclusion reached through lack of evidence.

In the meantime, RIP Rahul Sridhar, I do wish your own life could have been otherwise.  You were one of us.

In my bid for a major catch up on all the world's Death Note stories, I keep coming across reports concerning Japanese journalist and author Wakako Takō.

It seems that she really doesn't like the television adaptation of Death Note. In particular, she scorns Kento Yamazaki's portrayal of L.

Comparing him unfavourably to Ken’ichi Matsuyama's L (live action movies) - by which criteria everyone would fail - Takō considered Yamazaki's acting to be 'thin at best', then criticized the 'cheap make-up' that he wears for the role.

Surely that's a condemnation of the costume department, rather than the actor?

Across the board, anime, Japanese culture and Death Note bloggers have been dutifully repeating this opinion piece like it matters. Like Wakako Takō's view has great weight, constituting tremendous social and political import. So, with huge interest, I looked her up.

She's an on-line journalist for Excite!Japan - an international franchise generally focusing on items deemed appropriate for women (recipes, celebrities and the like) - plus she wrote a book called Taisetsunakoto wa Min'na Asadora ga Oshiete Kureta (according to Anime News Network) or Taisetsuna Koto wa Minna Asadora ga Oshietekureta (according to Amazon). I'm yet to discover what it's about.

Do you care?  What are YOUR opinions on the above?  They surely carry as much weight as any other point of view, and perhaps even more in these parts, where your comments will be read by all perusing this news blog in the future.

Incidentally, all concerned love Masataka Kubota's portrayal of Light Yagami in the television Death Note drama.  And it's taken as read that Ken’ichi Matsuyama was fabulous as L in the live action movies.  Feel free to consider these things too, as you opine away.

I've been a little late in catching up with the Death Note television drama. Life happened in stress inducing proportions, then I watched two episodes back to back last night.

The first was episode 3 of Death Note (2015) wherein we begin to see Light transforming into a very recognizable and familiar Kira.

During the opening scenes, Light is very frightened; devastated because L is getting too close and gleaning too much from very little information. There's the sense that Light knows he's in over his head, with the horror becoming even more real once it occurs to him that his own father would be the one to arrest him.

This is all juxtaposed against a flashback scene, wherein we see a very young Light playing at cops and robbers with his father. He obviously idolizes him and wishes to emulate his father further by becoming a police officer. Innocence, love and enjoyment are all there in the bonding, while Mrs Yagami (Light's mother) looks on, fondly, proudly, and an infant Sayu is brought into the game. They were a close-knit, loving family.

The first time Light used the Death Note with any understanding of the consequences, it was to save his father from a dangerous siege situation. His earliest justification for the notebook's continued use was that he could protect his family by creating a better world. Even so, he tore himself apart emotionally, analysing each murder, filling his self-reflections with seemingly endless angst.

Now there's the killer, like a split personality beneath the surface threatening to overwhelm the whole.  Ready to kill his own father - at the barest suggestion from Ryuk that he should - in order to avoid exposing himself as Kira.

Nor does this fact even seem to penetrate. Light merely meditates upon the danger posed by L and strategizes how to defend himself from it.

He's no longer protecting his father, his family or society at large. He's losing all conscience in a bid solely to retain his freedom to act as Kira. Or, at least, protect Kira as a separate entity who just happens to share his own self.

We've had Light dissociating himself from Kira before. Now L is at it too. The detective speaks to Light over the telephone as part of a general trolling of police officers' family members. L tells Light that he will expose 'your, no *pauses* Kira's method of killing'. Like they are distinct personae.

Ryuk several times comments that he can perceive a 'Kira face' upon Light's features. The viewers can see it too, particularly as he constructed his secret cabinet inside a desk drawer and later as he came up with a plan to massacre all Kira assigned FBI agents.

It all puts me in mind of Milton's Paradise Lost and the original Light bearer - Lucifer - bellowing out, 'Evil be thou my good!', even as he is lost to the flames. Twice Light played with fire and both times concepts of good and evil were transplanted beneath the gaze of Kira.

This isn't merely a mental distinction. As Misa - now physically transformed herself with shinigami eyes - peered out across the audience at her concert, she spotted a deep significance in Light Yagami's aspect. He alone, amidst all the crowd, had no death date on display above his head.

He is now quite permanently Kira.

In my musing upon episode two of Death Note (2015), I discussed the dissociation and projecting going on amongst the characters here.  Such things escalated to a downright schizophrenic level in this one, not to mention secrets and misdirection in personal identification aplenty.

We had things practically banal in comparison to the rest - like the Japanese task force all being given IDs with names akin to their own, but slightly misspelled or otherwise minutely changed. Each of their ranks were altered too.

Then there's the ordinary strangeness of this Death Note show's Naomi Misora substitution - Cathy Cambell (or Campbell, in the English subtitles) - choosing to write her full name on the back of a photograph for her fiancée.  Considering they were poised to be married, you'd think that Raye Penbar would recognize the lady in his arms on the other side, and barely require her first name in the caption, let alone her surname too.

It just seemed a little like she was writing on behalf of someone else. (Or else it was an overly contrived plot line to facilitate Kira later.)

None of us yet know what's going on with Near and her Mello puppet. All points to Near projecting her darker musings upon a doll of her peer, but each time she addresses Mello personally, she looks above or beyond the toy.

Like that bit of the room we haven't yet seen has the actual Mello in it, delivering his lines, and somehow never mentioning the sodding great puppet in his image on Near's knee.

There's another very significant deviation from norm in the dynamic between Near and Mello. Now it's Mello wanting them work together, while Near is circumspect, as it won't make L happy.

My partner is convinced that Near and Mello both exist solely inside L's mind. That he's the one with multiple personalities and they are our hint towards it. Eventually we'll find out that L is Kira and no-one in this show existed, except Watari, who's L's carer in a psychiatric ward. 

Whatever the reality of Near, we can know that she identifies firmly with Christ, as depicted in the stained glass above the landing of the stairs. I previously thought this was Mother Mary at the Nativity, but I've since watched the show in high definition. That's Jesus Christ in 'suffer little children to come unto me' mode.

It compares with Mello's Archangel Michael - Fall of the Rebel Angels - on the other side of the room.

Nor are Wammys the only ones linked with deities, there's someone divine standing right alongside Light too.

My current best guess is that it's Bishamon (aka Bishamonten) - Japanese God of War and Punisher of Evil-Doers. Also considered the chief of Japan's Four Kingly deities.

He would fit in very nicely with Kira's self-perception and wouldn't appear out of place amongst the other pieces depicted in that bedroom. Moreover, Bishamon would be invoked to ward away invaders or personal enemies. The focus here occurs while Light is deeply upset because L is onto him. This is mere seconds before his father turns up with a police colleague to investigate Light's association with Misa's (deceased) stalker.

Both circumstances in which Bishamon's good fortune might usefully be evoked by a desperate Light Yagami. 

In addition to a strategically placed item in Light's bedroom, I'm also coming to expect a philosophical soundbite - usually occurring around the first third mark of each episode - which sums up the whole theme.

This time it was our protagonist musing upon aspirations.

By the second third mark of the show, Light was suddenly wearing his Sandman t-shirt again. Contrasting his disdain of dreams with a celebration of Neil Gaiman's ultimate dreamweaver.

All this from the man who, in the first episode, stated that his ambition was to be nothing special. Just a public servant with no excitement in his life.  Where did this 'mission' thing come from?

His morality seems changed utterly. But so does everybody else's too.

A major hallmark of Death Note (2015) episode 3 is how readily murder was mooted as the solution to any given obstacle.

We're not just talking about Kira either. Half the people there appeared on the verge of killing, or actually going ahead and doing it. Particularly as concerned the preservation of self or family.

• Kira (Light) would have murdered his own father to protect himself;
• Raye Penbar was ready to kill Light to save his fiancée Cathy Cambell;
• He actually murdered several colleagues with a Death Note in the same cause;
  
• Misa did kill Raye with her Death Note to stop him pulling the trigger on Light;
• L consistently sends his people out into potentially deadly situations, especially Raye;
• Soichiro seems practically suicidal in his zest to enter the Kira case in the almost certain knowledge that he could be killed. All to protect society, justice and his family;
• Near accuses Mello of wanting to kill Kira.
  

Then you had both Ryuk and Rem urging their respective humans (Light and Misa) to write in their Death Notes. 

In fact, murder was downright normalized in this episode, like we were all transforming into mini-Kiras and losing bits of morality to justify the change.

There's a length of chequered black and white fabric that's seriously serving the Yagami family well in episode three of Death Note's television adaptation.

Sayu's school uniform skirt, Light's shirt and (later on) a bag filled with a change of clothes for Soichiro all seem to have been cut from it.

Of course, black and white checks tend to produce an overall effect varying shades of grey. Pretty much like Light Yagami's moral outlook as he hurtles headlong into his Kira persona.

In the meantime, Misa marks her descent from subject of a Shinigami stalker to a Death Note wielding Kira by switching clothes. She's usually in red (just as L is in white and Light tends towards dark colours), but killing Raye saw her donning red and black chequered clothes.

Later on, she would be seen totally in black.

It's a little stylistic colour coding, which may have deep, profound meaning as the show goes on. Or might just look pretty.

Talking about the newly murderous Misa, have we worked out how she just happened to be in the abandoned Araide Industries factory in order to commit said murder?

One second, she's receiving her Death Note, getting to know Rem and surrendering half of her remaining life span, so she might acquire shinigami eyes as this season's must have accessory.  So far so perfectly normal within the Death Note universe.

Misa is able to identify Light as another Kira, as she can't read his death date with her preternatural vision.  She could grab his name though, which she completely mispronounces in conversation with her Ichigo Berry pals.

Then nothing to explain how she went from that to being on site at the precise moment when Raye Penbar was about to kill Light.

Even if she'd tracked Light down via his name and some fan mailing list, there's no reason for her to know where he is at any given time. Nor for her to turn up on the off-chance that she might be able to save his life.

Did I miss something?