Now the dust appears to have finally settled on the Death Note bonanza, I thought it would be useful to have a quick check through all that was on offer.

Death Note's 10th Anniversary was celebrated, with much hype, on March 3rd 2014. The fandom received the following goodies and event notifications:

• Death Note Real Escape Game. This is what the much-vaunted website counted down towards. But it's only available in two Japanese cities.
• Online Mini-Story. Playing out over Facebook and on the website, this was just a promotional event for the above. It didn't affect the canon.
• Reissue of the Death Note Manga. 10th Anniversary editions of all seven volumes will be in the shops on March 18th 2014.
• Digital Death Note Manga. Two online (and downloadable) versions of the full story are available. One is in full colour from start to finish.
• Death Note Facebook page launched. This social networking portal is in Japanese. It keeps folk abreast of all new developments in the Death Note franchise.
• Smartphone App for Death Note fans. Play the Real Escape Game on the move.
• Death Note as a Musical Stageshow. Now Kira et all really will be all singing and dancing.

There was quite a lot there, particularly for fans in Death Note's home country Japan.  Yet I can't help concluding that there was a lot of fuss over really not very much at all.

What do you think?

The hype was immense. A website with  counter raising expectations around the world; an online plot with cryptic clues suggesting that Kira is alive.

But it pretty much turned into a damp squib, as far as the vast majority of Death Note fans are concerned.

Matsuda MomoFutoshi's 10th Anniversary Death Note storyline - which played on Facebook and the official website - led him straight into a real world event that we've known about for days. The whole 'Kira is resurrected' clue trail didn't hint at all to new chapters of the manga, nor even a live action movie. It was revealed to be merely a publicity stunt for the Real Escape Games being held in Tokyo and Osaka.

What was the use of a website countdown, when that had already been announced a week prior?

The biggest news in the Death Note fandom for years turned out to benefit only the few people willing to fork out for a staged local event.

I'm not going to lie. This is the most exciting up-date for me so far.

All of the Death Note manga have been officially digitalized and free previews placed online. We get to see the Jump Comic volumes in a choice of two formats: as published, or in full colour.

FULL COLOUR! That doesn't mean a few pages at the beginning and the end. That means every single solitary panel of each and every page.  Colourings just got canon.

Which further means that after nearly a decade of the entire Death Note fandom depicting Matt with red hair and green eyes, he's just officially become a brunette. With a red and black striped shirt.

As yet, the digital editions of the Death Note manga are only in Japanese. But that's never taken very long to sort out. Plus, let's face it, we've all got enough copies by now in our own languages, that the teams of scanlation angels hardly need to rush themselves on our account.

Anyone going to rush to get their cyber paws on these versions?  I'm counting myself as a yes there.

What scenes and/or characters are you most looking forward to seeing in colour?  And Matt fans (of which we are legion, expect us), will you be altering ten years of mental images to match his now canon black hair?

For the record, no, I am not going through ten fan-fiction novels to change his tresses. Feel free to copy them onto your own computers and run through with an editing program, if you really wish that to conform to canon. (We all ignored the anime sludge-green-brown hair colouring anyway.)

In probably the most widely foreseen up-date of the day, Shueisha has announced a reissuing of Death Note manga in 10th anniversary editions.

Whole new legions of Death Note fans will be created (and decade old ones persuaded to part with their money to maintain their collections) with the same story told over seven volumes.

As an added incentive, the books will include limited edition goodies like a 'Kira Card' (similar to that of L in How To Read Volume 13), and apparently a composite pull out poster too.

Readers will have to purchase all seven volumes in order to complete their montage poster of Death Note characters.

To my mind, this is highly unnecessary given that we've already got the original Death Note manga, plus the Black Editions, plus the limited edition reissues which came out with the collectors' items figures... need I go on?

But if you're tempted anyway, the first two 10th Anniversary Edition Death Note manga volumes will be in Japanese stores on March 18th 2014.

No doubt they will then swiftly be translated into every other language, shortly to be on international bookshelves too.

Want to pit your wits against puzzles produced by Near? Then you'll get your chance on April 7th 2014.

Shueisha is launching a Death Note Smartphone app., as part of the avalanche of goodies available to fans marking the 10th anniversary of the manga's release.

The scant information on offer suggests that the SPK in Japan is looking for volunteers to think like Kira. That means genius deduction and following clues. I'm assuming that Near wrote them, considering the source. (Unless it was one of his staff members, in which case we won't have had to graduate from Wammy's House to solve the riddles.)

Upon downloading the Death Note smartphone game, you will be presented with a cipher. You won't be able to progress until you've decoded it, then you'll venture deeper through the levels.

The whole package is framed like the crowd participation Death Note Real Escape games, which will be held in Japan from May 30th.

Unfortunately for non-Japanese speakers, there's no indication - as yet - that the Death Note Real Escape App will be translated into any other languages.

It's noon in Britain, which means that I've finally been able to see what that intriguing Death Note announcement will be.

Kira is being resurrected from the dead!
At least, that's what is implied.

In an on-going plot, running throughout March 3rd 2014, Matsuda has heard rumours concerning the fact that Light Yagami has returned from the grave. He's investigating it on behalf of the SPK. (Because, you know, Near probably has better things to do...)

The information seems to have originated with Hitoshi Demegawa, the anchorman from Sakura TV, who played such a large part in bringing Light and Misa together. As Kira's erstwhile spokesperson, Demegawa may also have been considered a great source of information.

I say 'have been', because I have a distinct recollection of this same nasty media man writing in fatal agony on the floor. Didn't Mikami kill him with a Death Note?

In the online Death Note 10th Anniversary extravaganza, actors are playing Matsuda and Demegawa. I've grabbed some screen-shots above, while the actual film can be found on Shueisha's website.

Updates will be made there, and on the simultaneously launched 10th Anniversary Death Note Facebook page.  Further information is being announced via an official Twitter stream @deathnote10th.

What do you make of it?   A publicity stunt, or the precursor to a whole new saga of the Death Note story?  There's certainly scope here. The original story finished with a strange cult meeting on a mountain top, performing some kind of ritual. It was certainly to venerate Kira, but could it have been much more than that?

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

The whole point of Death Note was that the stakes were very high. Those who touched the Death Note went to nothingness - to Mu - when they died.  Tsugami Ohba made it quite clear at the time that there was no coming back. If this is a promotional vehicle leading to a brand, new arc of the Death Note story, then it would seem to negate the principles of the previous ones.

On the other hand, these are new canon chapters for Death Note. What's not to love about that prospect?!

And, if Kira can be revived, then why not all of the others too?  Demegawa certainly seems to have made it back into the realm of the living.

Will we see a charred and steaming Mello arising from the ruins of a burnt-out barn? Perhaps Near looking startled as a giant Old English L fills his screen, and a familiar electronic voice thanks him for his custodianship of the title and code. 

Maybe a ghostly Camero running roughshod through Tokyo streets, with a bloody Matt lighting a cigarette at the wheel. Or the television screens suddenly coming alive with the half-naked figure of Kiyomi Takada, smiling mystically at the cameras.

Will we hear the creaky tones of Noami Misora, as she addresses her former FBI colleagues with a terrible rope burn etched into her neck?  And the approaching tingle of a sweets trolley, pushed by the gangling figure of Mr Wammy?

What do you think?

UPDATE:  It's been brought to my attention that a FAQ on the official site makes it clear that there will be NO new Death Note manga series.  Also Matsuda ISN'T the one we already know and love, but Matsuda MomoFutoshi, a new character created especially for the 10th Anniversary.

Why? I don't know. Matsuda Touta survived the original, so he could just as easily been used.

UPDATE TWO:  It's not at all what we thought it might be...

Death Note news is really pouring in today! Not least because we're all waiting for the official website countdown to lead us to a grand announcement later on today.

The latest is that Japanese fans can now enjoy an official Death Note Facebook page. It's been launched by Shueisha, in order to relay Death Note's 10th Anniversary news and events.

Unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese, so my best efforts with reading its promotional entries will necessarily involve Google Translate. Having seen what that program does to Welsh, I'm not filled with confidence.

If you CAN read those entries, please do report back. We'd all love you forever.

Things are really hotting up for the 10th Anniversary celebrations of Death Note. This is what we get for living long enough to see a decade come around! Lots of good stuff to rekindle our obsession with the manga.

The latest official surprise is this:

Your Japanese not up to the job?  No, neither is mine. But fortunately the good folk of Anime News Network have provided the salient details for us.

The poster is advertising officially sanctioned Death Note Real Escape Games, at the 'Secret Base' of SCRAP in Kyoto and a second, undisclosed location in Osaka, to be held between May 30th and July 27th 2014.

Participants will be locked inside Death Note themed rooms, wherein they will pit their collective ingenuity against a series of puzzles and clues. The object of the game is to unlock the door and escape, for which individuals will be looking to the crowd around them for assistance.

But lurking in that crowd will be an actor playing a 'second Kira'. He, or she, is tasked with the job of 'killing' those remaining in their rooms, once the timer has run out. 

Presumably - seeing as this appears to be a very Wammy's House kind of construct and the actor is apparently anonymous (as in unknown, not the hacktivists) - the 'second Kira' will also be thwarting players in their attempts to escape the rooms. If crowd sourcing information is required, then it wouldn't take much to sabotage escape plans.

Tickets go on sale on March 21st for the twin 10th Anniversary Death Note events. They cost between 2,200 yen to 3,300 yen. (I wonder what the difference means - do those in the cheap 'seats' get less time? Or does 'second Kira' target them first?)

One thing worth noting, if you're reading from the USA, is that SCRAP Entertainment Inc also has headquarters in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Maybe if Death Note fans really kick up there, you might get your own Real Escape Games complete with a pen-wielding Kira.

If you do, please report back.

This is the Death Note 10th Anniversary poster in English, as snapped by Redditor UnicornCupCakes and posted on r/DeathNote.

Is the anticipation killing anyone else?  Any more guesses on what it might all mean?

By now the whole Death Note fandom is agog at the notion that something new is coming. But what is it?

The first hint was posted in Shueisha's Jump Remix of the Death Note manga. In the fifth edition, an advertisement was posted on the underside of the fly cover. It stated that there was a 'special project' coming soon to mark Death Note's 10th Anniversary.

That was followed up quite sharply by the appearance of an intriguing website.

The site displayed a countdown towards March 3rd 2014 - the same date heralded in the manga advert as the launch date of the 'special project'. The Death Note website featured a familiar black notebook, with the legend warning us that ' 'If you touch this note, your memory will revive''.

Naturally every Death Note fan in the known universe touched it. It would take more than the cautionary tale exhibited by Raito Yagami to see us off.

Yet all we got for our troubles was an image of Ryuk flashing into view. All...

Mmm... so what it's all about?  The main buzz on the internet seems to be that a new edition of the original manga will be issued. But that's been done several times during the intervening ten years. It's already happening with the Jump Remix right now.

Others have guessed that the Death Note anime will be remade. Does it really warrant that? The extant one isn't very old, and it's hardly dated. It's just about perfect as it is.

Could it be a new story being written as we muse in anxious anticipation? Perhaps a stand-alone tale updating us on the fortunes of those left alive, or following through on ambiguous clues that Light himself is now a shinigami. Maybe even a whole follow on series, wherein another person picks up a Death Note and Near scrambles a squad to hunt that new Kira down.

Or another live action movie following another tangent not covered in canon?

The most potentially disappointing scenario I've heard is that it's merely a countdown to an official announcement of Death Note the Musical. But we already know about that. It wouldn't be any surprise at all.

How about you? Have you any major guesses that haven't already been covered here? There's surely little that it could be!

Ten years ago, the first chapters of Death Note were only just being published.

Light Yagami had picked up that fallen black book, 
but hadn't yet worked out precisely what it could do.

We hadn't even heard of L, let alone Mello and Near. 

We'd barely glimpsed Ryuk. We had no idea that Rem, Sidoh and a whole shadow universe of Shinigami were watching our world so closely.

With the saga yet to play out, there was no indication that Death Note would go on to sell over 30 million copies of the manga world-wide, nor that it would be adapted into a 37 episode anime. The three live action movies probably weren't even in the dreams of its creators. They were too busy worrying about chapters two and three.

Funny how time flies, isn't it?