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Last Yagami Standing Pt 2: Meeting the Subtly Stated Sachiko Yagami

16/12/2015

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Even the author who created Death Note's Sachiko Yagami seems to underestimate her.  If Tsugumi Ohba's words, in Death Note 13: How to Read, are anything to go by, then he's totally misunderstood the character that he's writing.  His description of her there includes adjectives like 'verbose', which simply do not translate into what we're reading on the page in the actual manga.

All of this was explored in more detail in part on of Last Yagami Standing.  Now here's the proof from the narrative.

Our first sighting of Sachiko Yagami, in the Death Note manga, comes as Light returns home after finding the shinigami notebook.  This supposedly verbose lady hears his key in the front door and calls out, "Light, is that you?"  Then hurries out to intercept him.  Not saying a word, just standing there smiling.  In fact the kanji in the background reads 'smile, smile'; her aspect glowing out in anticipation and pride.
First sight of Light Yagami's mother Sachiko Yagami in Death Note

Sachiko Yagami, first panel, in Death Note: Boredom
It's obviously an important test result for her son, yet Sachiko doesn't gabble at him.  She radiates pride - anticipating that he's done well - but there's none of the verbosity that we would expect from her listing in How to Read.  Light couldn't care less. Just like the title of the chapter itself, he's apathetic with boredom. Yet his results stun even his mother, and look at her reaction.
Light's mother reads his exam results in Death Note
I want you to imagine for just a moment what your own mother's reaction would be if that was you.  Your child has just ranked NUMBER ONE in the entire country for scholarly achievement.  Ok, he's being an obnoxious brat about it, but he's just ranked first in THE WHOLE NATION.  Yet, he patently wants no fuss about it.  He just wants to hand it over out of duty and get his mother out of his face.

And Sachiko lets him
This isn't how she usually greets her son after school.  She's not generally rushing to intercept him with unspoken expectations of information about his progress.

We see that in later panels, when Light returns home from an ordinary school day with no examination results in it.

Then it's all a warm welcome home, called through from the settee, where Sachiko is enjoying a nice sit down, reading her magazine in her spotless home.  Enjoying a lovely cup of tea.  I think.

What is going on in Sachiko Yagami's lap there?  I can't work out if she's stroking a strangely pointed nosed puppy (or cat), or else holding a tea-towel beneath a white cup in her hand.  Or polishing something. Knitting?  Either way, she doesn't get up.
Sachiko Yagami Light Death Note welcome home
Sachiko Yagami Death Note calling Light to cram school
Though peeping around the bannister at the foot of the stairs is a common position for Sachiko to be standing, during interactions with her son.  She ends her first scene there and returns to the spot for her second.

Here we see Mother Yagami's qualities as a human alarm clock.  Not trusting her son to keep an eye on the time himself, she calls up when it's 6.25pm, thus he has to be leaving for cram school.

Which is a bit of a good job, as Light was busy serial killing at the time, thus not at all watching the clock.

Still no fuss, and certainly none of that aforementioned 'verbosity'.  Just a simple heads up and she's gone again.  A mother doing her best by her boy, but not in some pressure driven 'soccer mum' way.

She doesn't need to. Light's more than enough pressure on himself, having already informed Ryuk that he 'has' to be the best, hence studying, cram school and all that, undertaken of his own volition.

So there's Sachiko - quietly supportive, not pushy and certainly not babbling.
Part Three:  More Than Just Light's Mother - the Humour and the Worry of Sachiko Yagami in Death Note coming soon.
As an aside, part way through writing the above, Orangepunch called to say that she'd just passed her Masters degree.  I absolutely wasn't as low key in my reaction as Mrs Yagami.  I wooted, cheered, cooed and congratulated like a lunatic.  And I repeat it again here.  Well done, Orangepunch!
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Death Note Event Reminder: Death Note Ladies Appreciation Weeks on Tumblr

14/12/2015

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Female characters in Death Note

Can you name these Death Note female characters? (Answers at the end)
Just a reminder about a Death Note event on Tumblr, which began yesterday and continues over the Christmas period to finish on December 26th 2015.

Death Note Ladies Appreciation Weeks looks to redress the balance in focus given to Death Note's women and girl characters.  Let's face it, the fandom really does relish its male personae over the female cohort.  Yet there are some extremely kick-ass and/or fascinating ladies in this universe.  Explore their stories in canon pics; elaborate upon them in fan-fiction and fan-art; discover that they even exist, if you blinked and missed their cameo.

This is the second year running for the Tumblr event for Death Note fans.  Anyone can join in. You just tag your update with #dn ladies appreciation and post away, preferably on the day scheduled for your yuri pairing and/or each individual female Death Note character's bespoke date:
Week One
December 13th: Misa/Takada
                                Halle/Misa
December 14th: Naomi/Halle
                                Halle/Takada
December 15th: Misa/Sayu
                                Rem/Misa
December 16th: Wedy/Naomi
                               Wedy/Misa
December 17th: Sayu/Yuri
                                Yuri/Misa
December 18th: Sachiko Yagami/Eriko Aizawa
                                Sachiko Yagami/Mrs. Mikami
December 19th: WILD CARD (Any yuri Death Note pairing)
Week Two
December 20th: Halle
                                Wedy
December 21st: Naomi
                                Takada
December 22nd: Sachiko
                                 Sayu
December 23rd: Misa
                                Rem
December 24th: Yuri
                                Shoko Himura (from Death Note TV drama)
December 25th: Shiori Akino
                               Maki Nikaido
December 26th: WILD CARD (Any Death Note lady)
For more details, check out our original head's up about the event; where you'll also find a slightly easier collage of Death Note women to test your knowledge of characters in the Death Note universe.  For answers to the much more difficult one posted at the top here, see below:
Characters from Death Note who are female


Clockwise ( l-r from top):
Wammy's House aide and two female Wammy kids; Dr Kimiko Kujo; Sayu Yagami; Yumi Aizawa; Akiko Himura; Nori (Misa's friend); Unnamed Kira Worshipper; Yuri; Ami Hamazaki; and Shiori Akino

And if you're looking for inspiration and/or something to post on each day, then our sidebar has all of these ladies listed under Death Note News Categories - archives full of things about them!  Feel free to post links to what you will.
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In Recognition of Sachiko, the Last Yagami Left Standing Pt 1

11/12/2015

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It's quite sobering to stop and consider the situations met head on by Death Note's grand matriarch, Sachiko Yagami.

What was great drama for us was fundamentally the story of her entire family's destruction.  Yet she is last seen standing strong, mothering in the ruins of shinigami boredom and all it wrought upon her home, kith and kin.  Pushing her traumatized daughter Sayu in her wheelchair through a park.
Death Note's Sachiko Yagami pushing traumatised daughter Sayu Yagami

Sachiko Yagami as we left her, attempting to reinvigorate
shocked daughter Sayu after the latter's Mafia abduction
Seen from above, like a Death God watching; sharing its view with us - the voyeurs in a series of personal tragedies. Should the sympathetic perspective ever switch to that of Sachiko. But we were rapt.

We too watched only until we were bored. Or the instalments ended and there was no protagonist left to kill. Then like shinigami ourselves, we flew away to manga and anime pastures new.  Finding other sources of entertainment, leaving the character to continue on with her strolls in the park.  Caring, because what else was there for her to do?  Scream?  Sob?  Collapse under the grief and sorrow for the cards that life dealt her?

Frankly, she doesn't seem the sort.

Sachiko Yagami, Strong Woman of Death Note

My copy of Death Note 13: How to Read says of Sachiko that she's a 'strong woman who stays by Soichiro's side and supports him through thick and thin. She's a dutiful wife and does her best to keep her family from falling apart during the Kira investigations.'

Alongside it a caption to a manga panel reads, 'worn out by the stressful fight with Kira, Soichiro receives encouragement from Sachiko until the very end'.

However, it seems there are different editions and translations of this tome. Another one is reproduced left.  Here the wording slightly, and very subtly, differs.
Sachiko Yagami Death Note 13 How to Read
Now we are told that Sachiko 'is Light's mother and as the wife of a policeman, she has been quietly supportive of Soichiro. Despite being an ordinary housewife, she fiercely upholds her trust in Soichiro and kept the family together during the most troubled times of the Kira case.'   Because you know, 'ordinary housewives' are generally distrustful of their husbands and live to scatter the family in times of trouble.  But at least she's not 'dutiful' anymore, a word which doesn't sit well in the Western mind, whatever the etymology.

The panel caption is now worded, 'when Soichiro had his doubts about his decisions in the Kira's case (sic), Sachiko was at his side, urging him to see it to the end.'  Which makes her sound a bit bad-ass and the rock in the family.   Until you put the panel into context, then you have to wonder if there was a touch of psychopathy there for Light to inherit.  Soichiro has, after all, just announced to his family that he's prepared to die to bring this evil to justice.

Which is all very well and noble for society at large, but not much good to her.  Nevertheless, Sachiko pretty much says, 'Yeah, go on, martyr yourself for the cause then.  I support your decision to die a hero.'   Like one of those fabled wives of Sparta, who purportedly told their spouses to return with their shield (victorious) or upon it (dead). 

Supportive, dutiful or 'as long as you get from under my feet and stop whining, dear'.  Apparently the former, given the emphasis placed upon her support of husband Soichiro Yagami in both translations of the original Japanese penned by Death Note author Tsugumi Ohba.

Charting the Personality of Sachiko Yagami from Death Note

Sachiko Yagami Light's mother waiting for him to return with his results
There are also some small differences in the personal data between my own copy of How to Read, and that found elsewhere on-line.

Sachiko's birthday - October 10th 1962 - and the blankness of her death day (because she didn't die; she survived Death Note) remain the same.  As does her blood type, liking for TV drama (the reproduction adds 'serials') and dislike of salesmen.   Perhaps some hint of a story lies in that last entry.  It does to any self-respecting fan-fiction writer anyway.  Leave it with me.

My version says that she's 5' 2" in height and weighs 110lbs.  The other 158cm/50kg. Same thing, different units of measurement.  (And for the benefit of any British reading, that's 7 stone 86lbs, on the off-chance that anyone cares for such things.)  So far so pretty standard, but then we get to the personality chart and the wording changes significantly.

Both are agreed on 'intelligence' and 'creativity'.  The above version's 'willingness to act' aligns with mine own 'initiative'.  Then this alternative translation has 'motivation', where my copy of How to Read states 'emotional strength'.  Two rather different concepts. In all so far, Sachiko ranks rather low.  She does just a little better in the next point charted. 'Social life' says that recreated above.  My book goes for 'social skills'.  Same ball-park, different sport.  Finally there's the section in which Sachiko Yagami actually excels.  Above it lists 'housewifeness'.  Whatever that is.  In my Shonen Jump Advanced published edition, that reads 'verbosity'.

Verbosity.  An excess of words; long-windedness; the propensity to never shut up.  Describing the Queen of Understatement in Death Note.

Maybe something got lost in translation - twice - because nothing thus told matches the personality exhibited in the manga panels (nor anime scenes) themselves.  Therein a very underrated, quietly fabulous Sachiko Yagami emerges.

Go to Part Two:  Meeting the Subtly Stated Sachiko Yagami
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Death Note Summed Up in a Single Panel

10/12/2015

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Isn't this pretty much Death Note in a nutshell?  All that's missing is the fine detail.
Death Note Ryuk 'Because I was bored'
Can you think of any Death Note manga panel that more perfectly encapsulates the whole damn story? 
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Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note:  The Friendship Between L and Light

4/12/2015

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Death Note News logo - Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note
The second article in a column taking a look at Death Note
through a philosophical frame of mind
by Nathaniel

A question has been bothering me lately; I mean really bothering me in the way such frivolous things can bother fanboys and fangirls.  Were Light and L friends? What was their relationship with one another?

At the heart of Death Note (in my opinion) is this dynamic. That’s not to discount the second season, far from it.  But most adaptations of Death Note have focused on the game of cat and mouse between our favourite sociopaths*.

Death Note's Compelling Cat and Mouse Dynamic

Death Note L and Light
L and Light from the
Death Note manga
Once again I go back to the wise and venerable Ohba in search of answers and once again he disappoints. In an interview he was asked, “Did L have any friends?”  We are told, “No. When he told Light that Light was his first friend, it was a lie. L could never have a friend, as he found humans to be a very cunning species.”

I find this a very disappointing answer, as it removes the ambiguity from the relationship that makes it so compelling.

As humans, we find uncertainty far more interesting than simply being told the answer. It’s why the ending of Inception - where we don’t know if the protagonist is in a dream world or not - is so frequently discussed. We don’t like being told all the answers. Characters like Hamlet stay with us because we don’t know whether or not he’s mad; that’s what makes him interesting. It allows us to continue engaging with our favourite series after we’ve watched them.

The series that captures this best is the original Death Note manga and anime. Sometimes I wonder if Ohba (like George Lucas) actually understands what made his series so brilliant.

I also wonder if this is what makes the Yotsuba slightly less popular than earlier parts of the series - because it removed the cat and mouse aspect of their relationship. With Light no longer an evil monster, we’re deprived of seeing him monologue about how he’s going to become 'God of the New World', as well as amazing scenes like the death of Lind. L Tailor.

I’m of the opinion that the author can’t determine every reading of their work. They can give their interpretation, but it’s not the only one that’s valid. A work connects and engages with its reader on an individual level, and everyone takes something different away from it.

With that in mind I want to give a brief overview of how I interpret their relationship. I reject the homosexual readings of the series. This isn’t because it bothers me in anyway (one of my favourite TV shows is Hannibal, which has extremely obvious homoerotic undertones) but simply because I view Light as asexual. To me, Light represents a single minded determination towards one goal.

That’s not to say there isn’t some platonic admiration in their relationship, probably even a perverse friendship.

How did Light Yagami Regard his Relationship with L?

Death Note Near wearing L mask
Near wearing an L mask
in Death Note anime
Light clearly has some respect for L. He’s actually angry when he sees Near wearing his mask, “You are far inferior to L. You have no right to be wearing a mask of L”. The last thing Light sees in the anime is L standing over him, a powerful physical representation of the influence L has over Light.

Light is shown throughout the series to be someone who had spent a solitary seventeen years of life. He seems detached from his friends and never once in the series shows interest in someone outside his family, unless it benefits his goals (such as in the instances of Misa and Takeda) with one exception - L.

Light is someone who has been deprived of an intellectual equal his entire life. The existence of L, someone who can keep up with him would be extremely significant to him; some form of validation that he isn’t alone.

On a purely mental level Light has probably understood that there are people as smart as him out there, but I doubt he truly comprehended it before he met L. To Light, I think he viewed L as the perfect obstacle towards his ascension to 'God of the New World'.

Light wanted a challenge, something to make his success more satisfying. L provided that.

How did L View Light Yagami in Death Note?

Death Note anime L washing Light's feet
L washes and massaging Light's
feet in the Death Note anime
Did L view Light as a friend?  It’s hard to say. It’s probably wise to differentiate between the manga and anime at this point. In the anime it seems to imply some form of affection towards Light, mostly during the scene where L washes Light’s feet, a fairly homoerotic action.

Outside of that?  Well, L is a liar and it seems probable that his comments about being Light’s 'friend' were designed to throw him off guard.  But that doesn’t preclude there being some truth in them as well.

A lot of what I have said about Light probably applies to L. This was undoubtedly L’s toughest case, he did lose after all. Like Light, he probably had met few people as intelligent as himself, and never interacted with them on the level he interacted with Light (Near never spoke personally to L).

One of the strongest arguments in favour of their platonic (or romantic) attraction is that other versions of the story portray as it as such. In the drama they have a heart to heart where they basically scream their love for one another (whilst trying to murder each other no less). In the musical there is a similar ending I hear (though it’s more from L than Light).

*  Disclaimer: No respected psychiatrist or psychologist has used the term sociopath or psychopath in many years. I just like it.

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First Time Ever I Saw Your Face... Death Note Blogger Collates Initial Manga Appearance for Each Major Character

20/11/2015

 
You think you'd know how L looked in his first Death Note panel, or Light, or Ryuk.

If you're anything like me - self-proclaimed obsessive in my attention to detail, coupled with a great memory, thus believing I knew it all - then you'd be wrong.

I even guessed Mello's introduction incorrectly.  Got the scene, just not the shot.  Mine was the next one on.

For us prospective Death Note know-it-alls, Japanese blogger Kyoko Kikuchi has painstakingly trawled through the manga and sifted out all those first appearances for every main Death Note character.
It's actually more fascinating than it initially sounds.  I thought it would be a thing of passing interest, but I'm struck by how many times we meet individuals without ever seeing their face.  Takeshi Obata has his readership creep up on characters, like stalkers or shinigami.

Ryuk, Misa, Mello and Near are all introduced to their soon-to-be fan-base with their backs to the 'camera' peering into the panel.  L is turned towards us, but the top of his head is missing.  Too tall for his own scene.  Our perspective comes from above and focuses upon his groin area, albeit strategically shielded from view by the droop off his hand resting on his knee.
First appearance of Misa Amane in the Death Note manga

Misa Amane's first Death Note appearance
Death Note L's first appearance in the manga

How the Death Note world first met L
Light  and Soichiro Yagami are both first viewed head on, but from a few feet away, framed by their environment and with the reader positioned above left. Father and son are each sitting behind desks - one at school, the other at Interpol - with their arms crossed before them.  They are in rows, surrounded by others all seated the same, facing towards a single frontal focus point.
Death Note manga Light's first appearance mirrored by Soichiro's first appearance

Like father, like son - our first sight of the Yagami men in Death Note manga panels
Even the shapes of things on their tables mirror, in polar opposite colours, objects on the surface before the other. 

A microphone bisects our view of Soichiro's  desk.  A pen apes its short straight line and direction on that of his son.  What is that black rectangle in front of Light Yagami?  Is it a pencil case with a white pattern upon it?   Its contours and colour is mimicked in the white name-plate identifying his father and colleague as representatives of Japan.  Complete with their nation's flag - seen without hues as fundamentally a white square with a black sun.

Practically Ying Yang - black with white for Light; white with black for Soirchiro.

See what I mean?  Much more to look into, while inspecting the first Death Note manga panels for major characters, than might be supposed.  Perhaps hidden bits of sub-plot in where Tsugumi Ohba directed, or Takeshi Obata just draw, correlations between certain individuals.

As Neil Gaiman wrote in Sandman (and I'm fond of repeating to readers of my fan fiction) - Always trust the story, never the storyteller.  There's always more to see in the subtleties and the little things, the links and what's left out. 

And today I learned that artists are just as bad.

Discover more first sightings in the manga of Death Note personae in Kyoko Kikuchi's Death Note blog. Then keep on reading, because also found and ready for the analysing are the panels wherein we see each character's face for the first time.  Plus, if they survived the time jump, then Kyoko also digs out the picture introducing us to that individual's older self in the second arc.

We could be here for hours.

However, the collection did miss out Matt's first Death Note manga appearance, in chapter 83, page 10.  Let me make good that omission.  And oh!  Look!  Just like Mello, Near, L, Ryuk and Misa, he's looking away with his face concealed.  Interesting.
First manga panel Matt Death Note

The fandom's first glimpse of Death Note's Matt

Platinum End: Death Note Creators' New Manga Available in USA Same Day as Japan

6/10/2015

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Takeshi Obata's artwork for Platinum EndPlatinum End artwork
by Takeshi Obata
An English language version of Platinum End - the new manga by Death Note writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata - will be released in the US, Viz Media have announced.

Not only that, but it will keep pace with the Japanese Jump SQ serialisation of the manga.

The US Platinum End manga series will run in Viz Media's digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, matching each new edition with English translations available on-line at the same time.

However, chapters are going to be individually published, with readers paying 99c a time to follow the unfolding tale.

Platinum End appears to be closer to Death Note's plot than the creative duo's interim collaboration Bakuman. 

Ohba and Obata's new manga follows the fortunes of a boy named Mirai Kakehashi, who 'does not seek hope in order to keep on living'.  While Light Yagami's worldly frustrations found vent in a shinigami's deadly notebook, we don't yet know what happens to Mirai.

But a supernatural entity is also lurking, as may be assumed by the tale being about 'a human and an angel'.

How that encounter plays out is yet to be seen.

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Viz Makes Takeshi Obata's Hikaru no Go Anime English Dub Free to View Online

30/9/2015

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Hikarau no Go
Takeshi Obata had only just finished working on Hikaru no Go, when he received the call to say he'd been hired as Death Note's artist.  Working with author Yumi Hotta, the manga ran to 23 volumes and inevitably spawned an anime adaptation.  Including a version dubbed into English.

Now Viz Media has made its Hikaru no Go English dub anime available on-line, as free viewing on its own Neon Alley, plus Hulu.  Previously it could only be legally seen on DVD.

Hikaru no Go tells the story of a Japanese six grader, who finds an old, bloodstained Go board and is possessed by the ghost of an ancient game-master. The phantom Fujiwara-no-Sai cannot rest until he's played the Divine Move.

Much top class competitive playing commences against players who have devoted their entire existence to being the best Go strategist around. Can a mere High School boy beat them all?
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Platinum End - New Angelic Collaboration Between Death Note's Ohba and Obata!

24/9/2015

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Platinum End Announcement in Weekly Shonen Jump
Platinum End manga announcement
in Weekly Shonen Jump No 44
This should be of interest to Death Note fans - Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata are teaming up again, and the bare hint from the tag-line implies the plot will be right up our alley.
PLATINUM END
This is the story of a human and an angel.
Well, we all seemed quite taken last time, when it was a human and a shinigami!

The announcement will appear in the next edition of Weekly Shonen Jump, issue 44, due out on September 28th 2015.  It will be followed by a Platinum End première feature the following week, in the October 5th Weekly Shonen Jump No 45.

However, it will be another Shueisha title - Jump Square - wherein the actual serialisation will begin.

Our Death Note creators' brand new manga Platinum End launches on November 4th 2015, dated the Jump SQ December 2015 edition - thus is the way of the world.

Tsugumi Ohba: Angels and Humans

Mello Death Note

Angels featured subtly in Death Note too
I don't know about you, but I'm quite excited about this! Given Ohba's propensity to mess around with angels - vis-a-vis Light's lifting of Lucifer quotations from Paradise Lost and Mello's alignment (made explicit in the recent televised Death Note drama) with the archangel Michael - I feel that the groundwork has already been forged.  And that was quite fabulous.

What are your thoughts on the matter?  Please do leave your comments below in the usual manner, but I'm also going to insert a poll about this.  Mostly because I've only just noticed I've got a pre-coded poll module that I can insert, and I want to find out what it does.
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Death Note Near's  21st Birthday & Variations

24/8/2015

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Near on the cover of the Death Note One-Shot Special

August 24th 2015 is Death Note Near's 21st birthday
According to the dates given in the anime, Death Note Near's 21st birthday will be celebrated today - both in its canon!universe and throughout the Near fandom too.

Created any Near cosplay, fan-art or fan-fiction to mark his milestone birthday?  Leave links in the comments below, so that all might find them.

We know precisely what our new L looks like now - and what will happen to him this year - as Near was twenty-one when we revisited him in the Death Note One-Shot Special (Weekly Shonen Jump, 2008). 

There he is above, as drawn in that 46 page manga tale, and again on its cover. An adult Near appearing slimmer and more gaunt, with L like bags under his eyes and white hair touching his shoulders.

Then again the manga dates would have him celebrating his 24th birthday today instead. The events told in the one-shot happened nearly three years ago.

They grow so fast...
Death Note's Near at 21 years old

Near aged 21 from the
Death Note One-Shot Special
Though I suppose it all depends who for you wears the face of Near, and which source you favour above all the rest as canon.  It strikes me that stories can fix a character in space and time, stranding them in a certain aspect and at an unchanging age.

Forever eight, thirteen, or sixteen, seventeen or twenty-one.

As today is Near's birthday, here's a run through the different portrayals of him and how old they pertain to be today.

Near in the Death Note Manga

Death Note manga Near
Born:           August 24th 1991
Age then:    13 before the time-slip; 17-18 after it; 21 in the one-shot
Age today:   24

Near in the Death Note Anime

Near in Death Note
Born:           August 24th 1994
Age then:    13 before the time-slip; 17-18 after it
Age today:   21

Near in the Death Note Live-Action Movie

Near in L Change the World
Aka:            Next (L calls him Near in the film; the credits name him Next)
Born:
          Not stated, but Near actor Narushi Fukuda was born in 2000
Age then:    8
Age today:   15

Near in the Death Note TV Drama

Near Death Note TV drama 2015
Born:           Not stated, but Near actress Mio Yuki was born in 1999
Age then:    16
Age today:   16

Which is the definitive Near for you?  And will you be doing/producing anything to mark the day?  Comment and let us know with links, if relevant, so that we may share in the glory.
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Death Note Black Edition Vol I in the New York Times Best Sellers Manga Top Ten (July 5 2015)

10/7/2015

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Image: Death Note on New York Times Best Sellers list

Death Note in NYT Book Review (Manga) July 5th 2015
Under so many different guises and in various formats, Death Note has spent much of the past decade making recurring appearances on the New York Best Seller list. Now it's back again.

The July 5th 2015 update has Death Note Black Edition Vol I right there at number nine - in the New York Book Review for manga - snuggled in between Zelda and Big Hero.

The manga keeps coming in and going out. As popular now as it ever was. 
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. :)
Death Note Black Edition Vol 1 manga
Buy Death Note Black Edition Vol 1:
  • Amazon US
  • Amazon UK
  • Barnes and Noble US
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?
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The Mathematics of Death Note: Hard Science Examination of Realism in the Plot

3/6/2015

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Wammy's House Kids in Death Note
Death Note's gifted and talented
Wammy's House kids
Are you the sort who likes a bit of academia with your Death Note?

One who can make allowances for fictional elements in a fictional world, but otherwise demands that the realism stands up to scrutiny, consistent within the mores of its own universe?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were. There are a lot of us around.
All to be expected when our common denominator is readership of a story wherein intelligence is glorified.

Death Note is all about cleverness, pitting wits against wits, problem solving and staving off boredom with innovative new ways of looking at the world.

Most of the major characters aren't merely smart, they are professed geniuses. Light Yagami is Japan's highest scoring student. L, Near, Mello and Matt - his antagonists - were all raised in Wammy's House for Gifted and Talented Orphans. Whichever team you cheer along, the act you're cheering on is bound to be rooted in high performance brain power.

It's the nature of the game.

So it should also be expected that Death Note itself represents the pinnacle of story-telling at its artistic best, resplendent in tightly crafted plot-lines crammed with a plethora of ideas, solutions, tactics and practices of breath-taking ingenuity. That every reference checks out; the formulae are feasible; the strategies employed are the wisest that the human brain could conceive; and no short cut is ever taken within its own internal structure.

*snort*

I've written 11th fan-fiction novels based upon the plot-holes, inconsistencies and scuffed over leaps of narrative, which I uncovered approaching from Death Note from a humanities perspective. Great central construct; pity about the execution.

It seems that the hard science of Death Note equally fails under scrutiny too, as Applied Computer Scientist, researcher, programmer, scholar and statistician Gwern has discovered. (S)he has laid it all out in the recently updated essay Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy.

Complete with proper citations, appendices and transparent mathematics (where appropriate), Gwern not only highlights all of the occasions when Light, L et al got it woefully wrong, but follows through with how they might have approached the same problems with a modicum of success. Or, at least, some kind of regard towards real world laws of probability, differentials and other such terms that mere historians like me only barely grasp as a concept.

Moreover, Gwern points out all the noob errors that should have had Light arrested within about the first two chapters.  Better still, the essay includes invaluable tips on anonymizing oneself online and maintaining personal privacy.

Forget Death Note! This is priceless information to take on board ourselves, applicable as good practice regardless of whether we're attempting to cover up mass murder with a notebook.

I thoroughly recommend going to check it out. Thanks, Gwern!
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Paging all Death Note Book Lovers - Manga Store Now Open!

5/4/2015

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Death Note literature
It's only taken me a year to get around to completing, but Death Note News now has a comprehensive selection of literature for your perusal.

You'll find it in our merchandise area, under Death Note Manga and Other Books.

What's surprised me about this whole endeavour are the number of Death Note books that I didn't know existed. Not to mention the reprints ninja-ed out by various publishers.

Did you know that Takeshi Obata had a posh tome of artwork out?  It's pages include a plethora of Death Note images, which never made it into the manga nor anime. Possibly because they look like they should be hanging in a gallery somewhere.

Blanc et Noir is probably the source of all those random canon Death Note pictures that you've been seeing on-line for years, without knowing the source. Like this one - which has caused so much excitement and debate between Light and Mello fans in the past, each claiming him as their own and using it to 'prove' that their man became a shinigami:

Shinigami by Takeshi Obata

Light or Mello? Shinigami from Blanc et Noir by Takeshi Obata
Actually, it's neither. This is Takeshi's original take on the 'rock star' look of shinigamis. You're looking at Ryuk, before he was steered into the skeletal look more familiar to us all.

While collecting together Death Note literature for our store, I was bemused to note that Amazon is now accepting some fan-made doujinshi. Also, it was oddly satisfying to learn that Beyond Birthday has finally made it onto a book cover, in the recent German translations of the Death Note novels.

Though confusingly that was on L: Change the World, not Another Note.

So please do go and take a look.  All proceeds help towards maintaining this site. Any discoveries or items to cause comment for you?

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Call Out for Budding Death Note Voice Actors 

26/1/2015

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Behind the Voice Actors
There's an intriguing development over on Behind the Voice Actors site - a call for Death Note voice actors!

The project appears to be a fan-based audio-visual rendering of the entire Death Note manga.  It's being organized by ShadowMistress, who has the licensing already in the bag.

Characters up for audition are: Light Yagami, L, Mrs Yagami, Ryuuku, two shinigamis, Shibuimaru Takou (biker), news reporter and extras. If you think you have what it takes to bring any of them to life, then you're invited to read prescribed lines in an audio track and submit it.

Deadline is February 23rd 2015.  More details here.

How exciting!
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Death Note Characters - 'Borderline Fully-Fledged Villains' All, According to Obata

23/10/2014

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Light Yagami Death Note
Anime News Network is running an interview with Takeshi Obata, wherein he mentions Death Note.

Reporter Katriel Paige caught up with him at New York Comic Con to ask questions, including one about how difficult it was to capture the 'cat and mouse' thinking processes visually in the Death Note manga.

After an intervention from editor Koji Yoshida to say that was surely more to do with Tsugumi Obha than Takeshi Obata, the artist did answer the question. He replied,
... in Death Note, a lot of the characters are borderline full-fledged villains, so it was important to capture those manipulative facial expressions so it looked like they were thinking diabolically, just because their faces looked manipulative.
Interview: Takeshi Obata, Anime News Network, October 22nd 2014
So many of the Death Note characters are 'borderline fully-fledged villains'.  Anyone got any thoughts on that?  Personally I think it's fair comment!
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