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TV Death Note Episode 8: Chess Games, Watchfulness and Villainy in Yellow  Pt 1

12/9/2015

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Yes, I know I'm lagging behind the whole world here.  I'm on it. I'm on it.

We're up to episode eight of the Death Note live-action television adaptation, wherein Light has his memories back; Kira has his Death Note in his Golem-esque clutches; and the Wammys are pursuing new leads, whilst telling everyone to witness, watch and don't avert their eyes.

Don't blink. Whatever you do. Don't blink.  And now, how about a nice game of chess?  White moves first...

Great Acting in Death Note TV Drama

Shugo Oshinari as Teru Mikami in Death Note 2015
Teru Mikami in
Death Note (2015)
I know I've said it before, but I think it's worth the reiteration.  There are some truly wonderful performances from the actors in Death Note (2015).

After this episode, we were discussing Shugo Oshinari's portrayal of Teru Mikami. He seems born to play him!

Fitting the role so perfectly that I can't imagine anyone else doing so. 

Even physically, there's a resemblance between the actor and the manga/anime depiction of Mikami.  It makes you wonder if the cast were chosen as much for their looks in comparison to the characters, as anything else. Or if the actors are just so good, that they draw that likeness down onto themselves.

Then there's Matsuda. Anyone else feel like Gouki Maeda has brought our bubbly hero Tota to life so completely, that it appears nothing short of preternatural?

I could highlight several more fabulous actors from this series, but those pair are the current stand-outs from Death Note episode eight.

Light Up Kira in his Shinigami Gaze

Talking about great Death Note actors, some are perennial and none more so than Masataka Kubota as Kira.  He can eject Light with a look; bring Kira slithering in on a glance.

Light Yagami quite notably never got the shinigami eyes. But that isn't to say that the Death God can't been seen in his gaze.

As Light, he can seem quite wide-eyed and innocent, self-effacing even, nevertheless able to focus straight on. Head high, facing the world, though internally he may be scheming.
Light Yagami in Death Note TV live action drama 2015
Then see him turn to Kira in a sudden sidewards shifting of his vision.  Like the killer stands alongside him, stepping in.
TV Death Note Light becomes Kira
From now on, that stare will rarely meet any sight head on. Kira's gaze slides like a snake has control of each orb, weaving, winding, coiling in their sockets, taking his head on a nodding, sinking, roller-coaster orbit too.

Just as it always will, when Kira presence is known.
Kira looks at L in Death Note episode 8
Kira in Death Note 2015 television live action
In the sequence above, Light - as Kira - is captured in stills taken from the midst of a sweeping gaze. The second part with L following hard on the first in his room, as a continuation of the same internal dialogue.

His sidewards glance from the initial couplet carrying straight into that smug perusal of L. Then onwards; his vision moving across the floor, defocusing upon a spot beside him and up finally in smirking contemplation.

Shifting, sliding, crooked; just like Light's suddenly hooked index finger in the second of the four images, snapped at the instant that Kira fully comes to the fore.

Or Light Yagami gets a plan worked out to fruition. Which is pretty much the same thing.
Death Note Kira Just as Planned
But there's much more to see here, and I'm having fun revisiting my Uni housemate's Film Studies degree (which I might as well have added to my own CV, the amount of times I was in the actual study part of it...).

So let's head on into the nitty-gritty.

TV Death Note's Kira on the Left Hand Path

Look again at those four screenshot images and note how often Light and/or his Kira persona are filmed on the left hand side of the frame. Even in close up, you get a lot of background scenery seen on the right.

In fact, his Kira gaze first looks left, then settles into whichever way it'll slither.

All over the world, the left has historically been denigrated as a cultural no-no. Some societies reserve the left hand for unsavoury necessities, like using it for cleaning oneself after using the toilet. Others have considered left handed folk to be luckless, awkward, stupid or downright criminal.

Language too, on a global scale, routinely disdains the left - 'the left hand path' is used in Abrahamic religions (and some Pagan ones) to describe selfish, sinful or destructive practices in worship and/or magic; from ancient Mesopotamia, through the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and into modern times, 'left' has been inserted into phrases meaning evil, wrong or otherwise not quite what should be done.

Nor is Japan exempt from this left disdaining social etiquette.

It's considered impolite - and bad luck - to eat with your chopsticks in your left hand there. The majority of left-handed children are still forced to use their right hands to write.

However, given the prevalence of Christian imagery in this adaptation of Death Note (and indeed the original too), it's worth noting that the Archangel Gabriel sat at God's left hand. And he was the Angel of Judgement.

Judgement Incarnate or possibly Satanic (in the traditional modern sense) evil doer?  You decide.

Though I will say that imagery in previous episodes has suggested Light aligning more with Lucifer the Light Bringer, than Gabriel the Bringer of Life from the baby spirit banks of Sheol.  I haven't seen Kira raise a trumpet to his lips once.

'We All Fall Down Like Toy Soldiers'

Noticing what's in the background is generally quite worthwhile in Death Note's television adaptation.  There's no exception here.

While Light ponders strategy, we clearly see his troops lined up against the wall behind him.  Symbolically, at least, in the form of toy soldiers. 
Light Yagami's toy soldiers
We're meant to spot them. They fill half of the screen, in perfect clarity, vividly green against a white background.  Apparently green means 'freshness; eternal life; youthfulness' in Japan's colour coding.  Innocent then, in the prime of their lives, individually placed so each stands out.

Yet overlooked, thus dominated by the antlered head of a Japanese Kirin - as already discussed in my review of episode two - positioned like Light to the left.  
This mythological being is representative of vengeful judgement and justice. Its placement making it almost seem like a sheepdog herding those toy soldiers into their orderly rows. Like sheep corralled into the fold.

And below there is a human skeleton, not unlike Rem in aspect, standing slightly off the ground, aping Misa's stance whilst captured by L and the Japanese police. It's flanked by the skeletal reproductions of two dinosaurs - both extinct.

Does anyone know what purple creature features prominently in that bottom corner?  It's staring straight at Light. 

Possibly a mythological Japanese totem for luck or protection?  Most of those pertaining to Light generally fall into that category, unless they're representing Kira in murderous reckoning.  It looks like a horse to me. Please do shout up, if you can identify it.

Now keep your attention on Light's carefully placed pawns - those plastic troops - as he switches persona more noticeably into Kira.
Kira's toy soldiers Death Note 2015
He fades in. They fade out.  Still commanding half of the screen, but utterly out of focus. Kira's looking away and our eyes naturally follows his direction.

No-one cares now what happens to the once vivid and innocent, penned and ignored toy soldiers. Losing their individuality as they fade from view. Just pieces to be played on Kira's personal battlefield. Deployed in dialogue, and already moving out of sight. Out of mind to follow suit quite swiftly.

Like any other war really.

White Knight L Upon a Death Note Chessboard

Of course, if you're going to create a combat driven gaming board of your surroundings, then nobody does it better than L. 

His entire inner sanctum seems fashioned upon a gigantic Wammy House chessboard - a game which was invented to equate a theatre of war, requiring tactical moves not unlike those found upon real life battle-fields.
L and Light chessboard imagery in Death Note 2015
I know it's been highlighted before, but look at that colour scheme and ceiling squares. Everything square or rectangular really, even the paper that L is holding up.  The whole theme suggestive of a chequered board in chess.

Kira's biggest problem being the white knight sitting one step before him and two beside.  That's an L shape and knight can own any piece from there, not least the black king currently held in check.

And is that a giant white king chess-piece looming alongside Light?  Bit dangerous.  It can only move one square, but that's enough to take him completely should he get too close.

Luckily it's only a pillar.  Randomly ornate in a room full of squares, mostly  in black and white with a nice blue border.  (Cloudlike patterns for blue sky thinking.) 

See the double row of identical shirts, white pawns awaiting play upon their white squares.  With an option on snakes and ladders, as an option at the back.
Picture
No, no, I'm sorry, I'm a noob.  Double row, stacked squares - bricks in a castle, spiral staircase leading up into the tower. Besieged by a darker ladder with the potential to breach.  Sky above.  Placed in a corner of the chessboard, precisely where one would expect to find a white side's rook.

(Black rook sits opposite. The entrance way into the room, all dark steel cages and stairs to descend within.)

The pawns are the white computer chairs standing all in a row.  Presumably that's a bishop disguised as a triangle shaped meditation tent over to the side. Spiritual and triangular to imply diagonal.

Ignore the flowing curves of L's desk.  A little fancy, but still L shaped. Positioning the White Knight, who has so often got his feet up; astride his table - equine in its stead - as befits a rider.

That L is the White Knight in a giant chessboard also accounts for his choice of lucky ring.  The horseshoe signet which had me so befuddled back at the beginning of Death Note's television series run, when I thought it was actually a crescent moon.

Perhaps this explains too the purple horselike creature surveying Kira in that last picture from his own room.  Black gets a knight too, though I'm not sure purple counts as black.

Nevertheless, Light's better off now than he was two episodes back, when white captured the black queen and took her clean off the table.   A move which forced black king Kira to play repeatedly in check, relying upon stalemate to remain in the game.
Misa captured in Death Note TV 2015

White Knight takes Black Queen
Light imprisoned in Death Note TV 2015

CHECK!
Kira captured in TV Death Note 2015

CHECK!
A desperate recourse to hope that he lasted long enough to win freedom by default.  But it all worked out as planned.

At least he's got a queen.  Stop looking at Near, no white queen there despite the actress playing them.   Weren't you paying attention last week with the Tower of Babel and all?  Or the week before that, with Near positioned up above in surveillance from a camera?  Or a few weeks back with that big, red monument beckoning them on to the field of play. 

Dude's playing rook right now.

Meanwhile L's having to pretend white has a queen too. Played psychologically - to be subtly intimidating, standing right alongside him - and introduced by dint of installing a suitably regal chess-piece pillar halfway across the board.
L's white queen pillar in Death Note 2015

The white queen was a pillar of strength for L, and difficult to remove from play

Divergent Plotline for Death Note (2015)

Just when I thought that television's Death Note plot was firmly back in the canon groove, it goes and changes things around again.

The glee in this household was palpable.  After years of knowing the same old story inside and out, it's wonderfully exciting to have something new to enjoy within the same broad contours of this fascinating, familiar tale.

So Misa goes into the forest to collect her Death Note, finds it, digs it up and reads the title. All in red, like a woman on the brink of powerful ascension, as per long established colour coding in imagery for this Death Note television adaptation.  Power right there in her grasp, with all due regard to those scarlet fingernails, which with she raked a manicured touch right across the cellophane.

Then in lieu of regaining her memories, she gets smacked around the head with a spade instead.

Talk about shock!  And good fight with this show's propensity to surprise.  Now us old timers can watch without knowing what is about to happen next.

And It was All Yellow - Colour Coding Villainy & Violence in Death Note Television Show

Death Note TV show Yudagawa
Meet Mikami's new friend Hiroki Yudagawa.  Misa's assailant in the woods; temporary conveyor of the Death Note; quickly sought and identified by L; and an unwelcome distraction for Light.

Yudagawa was brought to us today by the colour yellow.

I'm not kidding.  Look, it follows him around.
Mikami and Yudagawa in tv's Death Note 2015
Death Note Light and Matsuda in Yudagawa's house
He was yellow, Light.  Everything about him yellow, from the random hook on his front door to the children's slide outside his house and about a trillion other things besides.

Including the fact that Near is part way through completion of a plain yellow jigsaw (in place of the usual white one), whilst discussing Yudagawa with L.

You'd think it was just his colour, but then yellow crops up again and again.  Like in the childhood bullying scene reminisced by Mikami, wherein a much more junior thug was indeed wearing yellow.
School bullies in Death Note drama 2015
Hence yellow is slowly being introduced as the Death Note TV series hue of violence.  It's the colour associated with villainy of a much more bog standard level than hitherto encountered in murderous notebook owners, or authority figures advocating torture, and proclaimed geniuses applying the same in blatant disregard of its ineffectiveness as a vehicle for truth.

Yellow applies to the kind of physical violence you'd find in any dodgy pub on a Friday night. Plus the sort of villains who might live in your street.

Like Near.

They Call Me Mello Yellow (Quite Rightly)

Death Note episode 8 Wammy's kids
Soft glow illuminating from Wammy's desk, drawing the eye at the centre of the screen. Casting yellow shadows that bounce from the white and fade into black, showing us Near, sitting there staring back.

Except its not Near, is it?   And I think we all know whose persona watches from the sidelines there.

Lamp like a spotlight, picking out just one figure to be fully lit in this scene: the Mello marionette.  Glow bouncing blond like a halo around the top of its head; its shadow reaching out in the pool of yellow light before it.

Near hasn't twirled a single lock in ages.  The same lamplight shades that white hair in hues of blond and grey. The puppet lies abandoned a few feet away.  To my mind, that's already Mello staring back at us.

So does yellow also mean Mello in this show's internal colour coding?  He'd certainly factor into the Man of Violence designation, vis-a-vis the Mafia. 

Not to mention the more obvious link with the colour of his hair.
Near with Mello Death Note

Except when he's Mello

So We're Going to Ignore Murder in Death Note Then?

We've already had a definite glimpse of Mello in episode eight of Death Note (2015) and there was certainly much violence involved, and a profusion of the colour yellow. 

It makes the scene above downright weird.

Basically we have to accept that Wammy and L are blithely welcoming Near into their midst - introducing them to high-ranking police officers as L's highly intelligent 'right hand man' (despite looking like a child) - and calmly hanging out playing jigsaws. 

All without mentioning this:
Death Note Kudagawa killed by Mello
I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that my parents would have freaked.  I think I would have at least been grounded. 

What I'm 100% certain about is that my Mum and Dad would not have plonked me in front of the Meditation Tent equivalent of a naughty step, then not mentioned the sodding great corpse I created with my own bare hands, while helping me complete pretty puzzles and complimenting me in front of their friends.

But then again, my parents aren't child traffickers in pursuit of detective dollars (unlike Watari) nor enthusiastic torturers (like, say, L).  So perhaps this behaviour is normal in Wammy circles.  The evidence seems to point towards as much (yes, we're all looking at you, Beyond Birthday).

Nevertheless, let's just review what the Wammy House massive are overlooking in their child today:

First their little cherub broke into the home of a known violent assailant.
Picture
With inevitable results, when their ward was violently assaulted. Thus accounting for the split lip sported in later scenes. (Then mysteriously healing in order to disappear for scenes set just hours later.)
Picture
However, this triggered some kind of honour code within the mindset of the emerging Mello persona.  No longer smirking from a puppet's face, Mello sneered, "You've done it now." 

And whatever showed upon his expression - turned away from the camera, thus hidden to us - was enough to cause panic to pass across a grown thug's face.

Mello continued, "Remember, you're the one who laid a hand on me first."  Thus proving that he was raised right, in the correct and sane values that it's ok to commit cold-blooded murder, as long as they hit you first.
Death Note Mello emerging
Death Note live action Mello fighting back
Mello and/or Near - in the pursuit of evidence to support their theory that viciously killed Kudagawa was in receipt of the missing Death Note - then completely trashed the place.
Near and Mello Death Note drama
Before calling home to report upon their investigative breaking, entering and criminal damage;' 'fess up to murder; and get invited around for a nice evening eating cake and doing jigsaws.

Kids today, eh?!
Death Note Near confessing to murder

Near had read about remorse once in a book, but didn't see
how it pertained to the situation in hand.

Shedding Light on Community Policing in Death Note's Japan

Imagine the scene. A young lady has been viciously attacked.  A police officer arrives in her hospital room to take her statement.

Just on it, her boyfriend turns up.  He gabbles stuff about them being friends and asks the constable to go away, so that the couple could talk. 

The officer does not know if this is actually the assailant, as he has no verification nor yet a statement. But he is aware that there's a dangerous woman battering thug out there in his city today.  He needs information fast, so the next female digging in woods might do so without a spade across the head.

So the policeman says, "Yes, no trouble. I'll just leave you to it and take yet more time out of my busy schedule to come back at a time more convenient you to, Mr Random Stranger."  Or words to that effect.

Actually, you don't need to imagine it.  That's precisely what happened in Death Note this week, and the police officer wasn't even being sarcastic in his polite agreement before leaving.

Bizarre.
Death Note TV drama Misa, Light and police officer

"Sorry, Ms Amane, I know you're concussed and confused, but I'm going to leave you to this
strange man for the asking. I'm sure he won't turn out to be a homicidal maniac. "
"That's quite alright, officer."

Dodgy Scriptwriting and Police Procedure in Death Note Television Drama (2015)

Yet not even close to being the most bizarre moment.

That's when the Kira Countermeasures task force hears about the attack upon Misa, and L basically hacks the city's CCTV cameras to find out who did it.

Armed with a name and address, the assembled police officers pretty much discuss whether they can be bothered to investigate further.  The conclusion being that they're too busy with the (largely stagnant) Kira case to nip over and arrest the spade-wielding psycho.

Not even with all that circumstantial evidence linking Kudagawa WITH the Kira case.  Nor does anybody check with head office that Misa's assault is on somebody's else's desk as a case file. 

After all the police officer originally tasked with collecting her statement was too busy being polite to actually do his job. (See above.)
New Death Note episode 8 Misa, Light and police officer
So far, so sadly indicative of many police force attitudes around the world. 

Though perhaps not the message that Death Note's scriptwriter and director intended to convey in this scene.  That would have been - show the caring, supportive presence of nice law enforcement agencies, then get him the Hell out of here ASAP, so we can move the plot along with an anxious exchange of words between Misa and Light.

THEN the bizarrest moment of all kicks in. 

Matsuda decides that actually, he CAN be moved to check out the assailant. But he would like to take his boss's son along with him, perhaps for work experience or something. 

Moreover, Mogi supports Matsuda's suggestion.  Telling their gaffer that Matsuda is so crap at his job that he can only be trusted to investigate if Light is with him.
Death Note Matsuda taking Light on work experience
In lieu of, say, any trained police officer, who's sworn an oath to uphold the law and thus given a mandate by the people of Japan, to act on their behalf in the protection of civilians, pursuit of criminals and preservation of the peace.

After all, the victim was Light's girlfriend, so taking him into the home of her supposed assailant is fine.  I mean, what could possibly go wrong there?  It's not like there's any potential for an emotional reaction, like avenging his missus with swift and bloody retribution, and/or leaving something nasty inside Kudagawa's home.

Plus you know, getting a warrant to search the property is too much paperwork.  So Matsuda will just call the suspect's landlady instead and get her to open his front door. 
Death Note's Matsuda, Light and landlady in Death Note television show 2015

... surely a consideration before they entered a citizen's home?
Anyhow, much waffling done and much more to continue, so I'm going to call this another two parter.  Be back soon with the other half.
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TV Death Note Episode 7: Babble, Beyond & Paradise Lost - One Notebook to Bind Them All

26/8/2015

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Near about to turn into Mello
Near Watch is pretty much concluded. After episode 7 of television's Death Note drama, it's undoubtedly proved to be Mello Watch too. Though the jury is still out on Matt there as well.
Live action Mello in Death Note 2015

Finally! Death Note live action Mello on our screens! Man and puppet!
Death Note Mello live-action actor
We so called it.  Back in my review of the very first episode of Death Note's TV drama, I wrote:
Is Near hearing voices?  Are we witnessing a schizophrenic future L?  Or is (s)he merely dissociating him/herself from the dodgier thoughts passing through consideration?
- Death Note News: Review of TV Death Note Episode 1
Watching and piecing together the clues from week to week, my SO and I have increasingly been talking about Near with Multiple Personality Disorder (though I understand that psychologists would prefer us to discuss this as Near's Dissociative Identity Disorder, because they renamed it again).

By episode seven, all speculation was confirmed as fact. We saw Near's persona physically switch into Mello.  We witnessed a re-emerging Near beg Mello, "Don't come out."
Death Note's Near begs Mello not to come out
Thus paving the way for a million future Death Note memes on the subject of Mello coming out.

Death Note's Babel in the Tower:  Multiple Voices Seeking to be Heard at the Same Time

There was a hint, in the scenes immediately prior to the great reveal, that split identities - or the divisive babble of too many voices simultaneously sounding - was going to factor into this story.

Our clue was in the pseudonym taken by Near: Babel.
Yotsuba Group discuss Babel in Death Note 2015
Death Note's Babel asks for hush money
With all the Judeo-Christian imagery surrounding Near in this series, it's not too difficult to guess from whence they lifted this new moniker.  Genesis 11:1-9 tells - within a Biblical context- the story of the City of Babel.

Its people decided to build a tower, those top reaches would allow them to climb into Heaven itself. God wasn't best pleased about this imminent invasion of human beings, so set out to thwart them. 

Until then, everyone on Earth had been united. They spoke just one language and all understood each other. God did a bit of smiting, or cursing, whatever you call it, whereby their mother tongue suddenly splintered into all the various languages heard around the globe, then and since.

Hence Babel being the root of babble. Multiple voices. No-one able to understand the other.

Additionally, God 'scattered them abroad', so that none were congregated in the city anymore, but its population exiled all over the planet.  The people divided from one into many.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language...
- Genesis 11:6
Oh look! Near and Mello are one! And possibly Matt makes three, though the evidence is tenuous and not yet confirmed by canon. But they can be - and are about to be - separate entities.  Just like the people of Babel.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
- Genesis 11:7
Plus it doesn't hurt that Babel looks a bit like Babe L, as befits L's successor or, as Near is described in the TV adaptation of Death Note, 'consultant'.

Nor does the Babel imagery end there.

Kiras Meeting in the Yotsuba Tower of Babel

The whole Yotsuba group could be seen as acting akin to the citizens of that Biblical city.  They band together at the top of a Tower and, as a kind of collective Kira, they seek to steal for themselves that which habitually belongs to deity.  Be that access into Heaven, or writing in a Shinigami's notebook.
Death Note Yotsuba website

Yotsuba Group's website prominently features their tower
The Yotsuba arc continues running parallel to the Tower of Babel tale, insofar as God (well, Light Yagami shorn of his Kira memories) sets out to divide and conquer them, thus snatching back divine power as his sole preserve.

Light doesn't change the Yotsuba executives' language. Despite the nice touch in 'Babel' (aka Near/Mello) asking for 'hush money'.

However L and Babel succeed in causing divisions amongst the group's mindset. When they are no longer working in accord, nor even in the same room, its a simple matter to confound their pseudo-divine plan.

Another Note: Beyond Birthday's Near Nod in Death Note (2015) Episode Seven

Of course, when we first saw that giant B appear upon the screen, none of us were thinking of Mello, Near, Babel nor anyone else inserted into the show.

In the Death Note universe, an Old English font letter B signifies L's original back-up: Beyond Birthday.
B in Death Note's TV drama 2015
I thought we were jamming with L's second. We were, but not in the way that elicited so many gasps from those watching from my house.
Watari: There are three people known as the greatest detectives in the world. L, Eraldo Coil, and Marie Deneuve. Babel is ranked after the three of them.

Makimura: The fourth, then?

L: No, Coil and Deneuve are both me. So Babel is actually the second. Quite the troublesome one.
- Death Note Episode 7 (2015)
We were so being trolled by the writers of this television version of Death Note. Despite the fact that most of us, after our initial shock at seeing Beyond's B, had spent the rest of its occurrences assuming that Yotsuba's detective was Near.

The only major mystery being whether we were hearing Near or Mello, as the dominant personality at the time.

Yet when L introduced B as his second, Beyond's cameo suddenly felt like a distinct possibility again.
It was now common knowledge that the three great post war detectives, L, Eraldo Coil and Danuve were all actually the same person... L engaged in a war with the real Eraldo Coil, and the real Danuve, and emerged victorious, claiming their detective codes... in addition, L possessed many other detective codes... at least three digits worth.
- Mello, Another Note by Nisioisin, p43
He was B.
The second child in Wammy's House.
"If only I could see the death of the world," Beyond Birthday murmured, on August 19th at 6am, just as he woke up.
- Mello, Another Note by Nisioisin, p 95
NB This episode of television's Death Note drama was aired on August 16th 2015.  The 19th was a Wednesday.
Death Note: Another Note cover

Beyond Birthday was L's
antagonist in the novel
Death Note: Another Note
He was B. B stood for Backup. For Babel - the second... OMG! Was Death Note's Beyond Birthday in this show after all?!!

I mean, how fabulous would that have been?!
The first child, A, was unable to handle the pressure of living up to L and took his own life, and the second child, Beyond Birthday, was brilliant and deviant.
B stood for Backup.
But B tried to surpass L, not become him.
Mello, Another Note by Nisiosin, p105
Death Note I Am Babel
Alas, no.  Near has not only merged with Mello, but absorbed Beyond Birthday's background too.  It remains to be seen whether this includes his jam-loving, murderous self, as a separate persona. 

However in that 'I know all about it. Deep down inside, you think you're better than L' line from episode two, we've already seen Mello accuse Near of something more commonly attributed to Beyond.  Did 'deep down inside' hold a more significance than hitherto realised? 

Dissociative Identity Disorder in Death Note

Babel as L's acquaintance in Death Note
Watari and L call him Near
Ok, I'll call it - Near IS Beyond Birthday!  And that's not all.

A could have been the original individual - the first child - whose personality fragmented into the rest, and is now lost beneath them all.  Near is so named, as the persona most closely resembling A.  Or its an acronym: Near Enough A's Replica.

I tell you, Matt's in there too.  Probably Linda and all the Letters from L: Change the World as well. Given enough time, scope and energy, Near's going to turn out to be a walking Wammy's House; all Watari Letters contained within a single form.

Which probably accounts for the outstanding cleverness overall.

A Double Wammy in Death Note's Multiple Personality Plot Twists?

We should never forget the key point about Beyond Birthday - he looked like L.  Enough to fool Naomi Misora into thinking she was dealing with the same man. Practically clones, L and Beyond, physically at least.
Death Note Another Note Fly Cover

Beyond Birthday with Naomi Misora on the fly sheet of Another Note.
A version depicting Beyond Birthday close up adorns the German translation book-cover.
Have we yet discounted the hypothesis given in an earlier blog entry - that it's L with the multiple personalities?  Near et al live solely within his head; with an option on Watari additionally being a dissociated fragment of L's own self.

It would explain why the detective's insistence upon a sterile home environment faded whenever he went outside to play tennis or watch Ichigo Berry in concert.  That wasn't L. It was Mello or somebody wearing L's face.

Less L changing the world, than the world triggering a change in L.

Moreover, L's Dissociative Identity Disorder would fix an anomaly which has been niggling me since the very first episode.  (I am a Death Note fan-fiction writer, finding plot-holes to credibly fill is what breathes life into our tales.)  How could Wammy's House alter architecturally, depending upon whether L or Near sit on that staircase?
L and Watari at Wammy's House - Death Note Episode 1

Wammy's House: Watari opens the door, while L waits on the stairs
Wammy's House with Near and Mello in Death Note TV drama

Wammy's House: Near on the stairs, The Fall of the Rebel Angels replaces L's door
Maybe there is no Wammy's House in the physical world. It exists as a mind palace inside the psyche of a genius detective, acting as the gateway through which dissociated selves become dominant. No accident therefore why it appears as a hallway - the only room ever glimpsed in that house - devoid of creature comforts, stark and stripped, even when highly decorated.  Its main purpose being as a place to leave or be received.

Its secondary purpose to be where personae stand by, acting as consultants in the near consciousness. Communicating fully with the self on public display, seeing upon their screens what that worldly self views with their own eyes.
L calls Near a bit of a personal consultant

L explains Near's relationship to himself. Watari had labelled them 'acquaintances'.
Which is why L and Near's respective monitors once displayed the same page of Kira suspects; why L was able to hear Mello speaking, though the camera showed that Near's lips were not moving.  They were still in the House at that point. L discerned Mello coming to the fore within his own mind.

Hence the terrified look then, and the horror on L's face, when Watari informed him that Near had left the House.

Watari acts as a kind of internal gatekeeper, or an external carer, able to inform L when personae become dominant without his knowing that time had been missed. 

Watari was telling him that he'd been usurped by Near.  That Near had been dominant, while L unknowingly and unwittingly was shut down, losing time through being stashed somewhere within the unseen chambers of Wammy's House.

Worse still, that Near could act as a conduit, or else has a twin, a counterpoint to his own behaviour - so close in morality to L, that the latter doesn't always mind him coming to the fore - which can too easily flip to control them both. It might be Mello playing maverick with their case-load, and it's impossible to predict his moves or count on tracking them down later. 

They couldn't even trust that he was always on their side, working with L and Near, rather than Kira.
Death Note's Near dismisses L's worries about Mello

Is that a Mafia-esque big, black chair, foreshadowing away, looming in the background? Last seen in the manga Rod Ross's LA penthouse suite.
They could lose the game simply because Mello played by different rules, or entered into another game entirely.  And what would it cost, if Beyond Birthday was ever to wake to discern the death of the world from a Wammy House hallway window?

Oh! There's so much fun to be had speculating on the possibilities inherent in this new Death Note storyline!  But I'd better return to what is, and not what might potentially be.

Creation of a Successor - L and Near's Michelangelo Moment in Death Note (2015)

As primary player in opposition to Kira, L demonstrated his ability to consider the whole team in episode seven of Death Note TV drama.  If he was forced to forfeit his position, then it would be beneficial to assign a successor.  

That way Kira wouldn't gain too much ground, while struggles for dominance divided and conquered those who might stand in his way.

L has already foreseen that his baton could soon need to be passed on.  He cryptically tagged Near, placing him on stand-by as his choice for successor.

The way he did so owed a debt in imagery to Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Wherein God reaches out to touch Adam, gifting the spark of life to one made in His own image.
Michelangelo The Creation of Adam
Death Note's Near takes L's jigsaw piece
Or, as L did it in Death Note (2015), gifting a jigsaw piece to the one who thinks most closely to himself.

All on the off-chance that L should (metaphorically of course) fatally place his own wrong piece in the battle against Kira. Then it would fall to his successor - 'It could be you, Near' - to finish the puzzle, and the war.

Near caught the implication loud and clear, with an expression further seeing significance in L leaving the scene, as soon as his piece was conveyed. It was a gesture laden with pathos. Inherently implying that L expected to die.
Near watches L leave
Though naturally Mello was looking in the opposite direction, when all consideration of L's successor pointed due Near.

He was probably too busy noticing that their surroundings still looked like a Mafia penthouse in Los Angeles.

Nor had it been explained, other than the room wasn't in Wammy's House ("You don't have to go back to the house?" L asked Near not two minutes previously). The furnishings weren't even remotely like those in the hotel, wherein we last saw Near lodged and within the depths of which L had his own hide-out.

Perhaps it would have been too blatant had they gone instead for the zebra striped suite from the other Mafia digs in the desert.
Death Note Near and Mello's Room
Though it begs the question that, if I'm right about where this scene takes place, then why are Near and L there?

Unless I'm also right in my wilder speculation that this room doesn't exist in the real world. It's L visiting a secondary self inside a place located inside his own psyche. 

And that jigsaw piece passing hands is L acknowledging that he's losing his position as dominant personality amidst a multitude of others.
Near and Mello learn of L's death

How this scene is more commonly seen

Light Changes L's Mind: Death Note Winners

Actually, we did watch L's mind wilfully changing, or at least his mindset concerning how winning and losing would be judged in this clash between himself and Kira.

In L's world-view, the challenge has been issued with Light as his opponent, regardless of how they spent episode seven double teaming against an external interloper. The Yotsuba group, headed by Higuchi as the current Death Note owning Kira, were never serious challengers in L's book. They existed as an opportunity to gather clues and ammunition for the proper battle of wills with Light.

But to play an effective game, both sides need to know the rules.  Otherwise how could anyone be declared champion?  It would be a hollow victory without the loser knowing themselves to be beaten.

Thus the conditions for winning were set out by Light and agreed by L.
Even if we learn how he kills people, if a comrade dies that's losing, in my opinion.
- Light Yagami, Death Note (2015), episode 7
A game-changing moment, which saw L immediately switching tactics to take down the Yotsuba group and its Kira with ease.  But for him, this contained a fatal flaw.

A Fatal Flaw for L in new Death Note Drama

Death Note's L observing that Light thinks like Kira
Light couldn't have known that he spoke for Kira too.

But no matter that. L had already observed that Light and Kira's minds worked along the same lines. Light's thoughts would probably fit in with Kira's plans too. Their dual outlook aligning in this duel.

Nor was Light necessarily aware that his definition of winning was meaningful for L. 

It was Kira who entered into the battle of wills with the detective, not Light. If he felt the challenge, then it was in reaction to L's actions now. His memories of the previous cerebral duelling had been wiped.

If L's pride hadn't been so intent upon recognition as the winner, then he wouldn't have altered his game-plan. Perhaps the outcome might have been different. As it was, allowing Light to influence strategy had immediate consequences.

He touched the Death Note. His memories flooded back.  Himself as Kira returned.  Just as planned.

Paradise Lost and Kira - Myself am Hell

There have always been shades of Milton's Paradise Lost running as an undercurrent through Death Note. 

One day, I shall write a whole blog comparing the two, demonstrating how significantly Kira quotes Satan from Milton's epic verse.

To my mind, one of those moments comes in Light's classic line, 'I am Kira'.  I can't help thinking of Satan in Paradise Lost screaming out, 'Myself am Hell!'

It's not word for word - nor even close - but their proclamations hold the same feeling for me.  Not least because both are spoken as each anti-hero assumes their role by mentally and emotionally accepting its inevitability.  Each against a background of isolation, as all relationships become merely instruments through which power may be gained or retained.
Light and L in the light

Light the bringer of L?
If this Death Note live action drama continues along tradition lines, then we can see another link between Milton's Satan and TV's Kira.

Each are now poised to duel with an avenging second. Be it Satan's clash with the Archangel Michael (Champion of El), or Kira's confrontation with Mello, aka Mihael Keehl (Champion of L).

The latter already long since viewed in kinship to St Michael. Ensured by Near's constant visual references to Giordano's The Fall of the Rebel Angels - showing Michael taking down Satan - whenever Mello's potential in play came to the fore.

Plus the obvious parallel in which Satan was Heaven's Light-Bringer, and Kira was Light.  Ignorance is bliss they say.  Light hated Kira. His own paradise lost in the knowledge that he is Kira.

The Return of the King: Kira Finds his Precious

However it wasn't Milton, but Tolkien brought to mind in Masataka Kubota's performance as a re-emerging Kira. 

Watching this Kira clutch his Death Note prompted me to write 'Gollum' on my pad, then circle it several times as the sequence progressed.  I really did expect him to start hissing, 'My Precious!'
Gollum smirking
Gollum grin
Kira regains his Death Note
Kira returns in Death Note

Eat your heart out Andy Serkis! Kira has his Precious back!
The television adaptation of Death Note has pinged off Tolkien's Middle Earth saga several times already.

Not until Death Note 2015 have we heard that the notebook alters personalities to the bad. That using it invokes paranoia and feelings of dread, not to mention causing agony for those writing names.  These are traits more commonly associated with the One Ring to Bind Them All in Tolkien's universe.

The emergence of a secondary personality - split from the owner's primary persona and seemingly built to serve the artefact - is another facet found in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Most notably in Gollum, whose conversations with his other self might have also inspired Mio Yuki's portrayal of Near and Mello in open discussion.

That Gollum with the Ring appears physically transformed is echoed in how TV Death Note's Kira can be discerned, distinct from Light, changed utterly.

In Death Note's Dark Prism Light Splits

Light Yagami denies being Kira

Light Yagami denies being Kira
Light was actually being truthful then, when he emphatically told L that he wasn't Kira. At least in this version of Death Note.

There was none of that in the original manga Death Note, nor its anime, nor even the previous Japanese live-action adaptations. In all of those variants, Kira seemed less Light Yagami's split personality and more an alternative name for the same individual.

Light's nick-name, if you like.

Accepted and assumed during a period when Light's psyche stretched to embrace ownership of the Death Note. A label therefore for his supposed megalomania and increasingly apparent descent into madness. But still fundamentally a single self.

Only by integrating Tolkienesque themes, do we witness Light and Kira separated, as dissociated identities and possibly an emerging secondary self entirely.

By implication, the Death Note dividing his very soul.

Kira Identified in Split Personalities

Let's just say this: you will feel the fear and pain known only to humans who've used the notebook. And when it's your time to die, it will fall on me to write your name in my death note. Be warned any human who's used a death note can neither go to heaven nor hell for eternity... That's all.
- Ryuk, Death Note Anime, Episode 1
Maybe this soul-split is why those who use the Death Note are condemned to Mu when they die? 

Complete souls are required to enter Heaven or Hell, at least as such things are understood by shinigami. Personae fragmenting from the same being dilutes the core identity enough that their passport into the afterlife is denied. With nowhere to go, they are lost to the void and formless. Nothingness ensues.

Moreover, this might explain why Death Note owners are identifiable by the lack of a name and date above their heads. It could be that shinigami eyes are confounded by the data being multiplied, as more than one person is present inside that head.

If so, then this has obvious implications for Near and Mello too.
Death Note Mihael Keehl Name and Date

How does one view the name and days of a puppet, or two in one personae?
Not least because shinigami eyes are twice used to read Mihael Keehl above Mello's head in the canon rendering. What will happen during those scenes in the story?  Can Mello still be killed, as one self amongst multiples? 

If so, how does that affect Near?  Will he die too?  Or will he seem to make like a gamer or a cat with apparently numerous lives to risk in battling Kira? 

If not, then how might Kira react to the discovery that some - to all practical extent and purpose - possess immunity from the Death Note's deadly reach. And L's successors are amongst their number.

A new twist beckons, as the insertion of split personalities creates diverging plot-lines. It will be interesting to see how this pans out as the story progresses.
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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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TV Death Note Episode 6: Torture and the Switch of a Personality Split - Pt 1

18/8/2015

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Image: Near/Mello Death Note TV drama 2015

Still Near? Mello? Matt? The scene and stance contain elements of them all
Are we watching Near turn into Mello?  Or maybe we just glimpsed Matt?  Or have we missed the point entirely in our house?

Whatever else occurs in a Death Note television drama episode, first and foremost we're watching for Mello here. Mello/Matt's the community whence my partner and I met, moved in and now sit together watching this show.

Which pretty much puts us on Near Watch, give or take a puppet, as we're now quite convinced that multiple personalities is a factor in this character. (S)he's both Near and Mello.

And may now be Matt too.

Near's Split Personality in Death Note (2015)

Near's character has been slowly and subtly changing over the past three episodes.

From a base-line of a clever, serene white-clad figure clutching a Mello puppet, we saw the human and dummy's voices merge (episode 4); then Near leave the house (episode 5) - apparently alarming news for Watari and L - still with a puppet, but one which now sat mute, and the white attire now bisected by grey pinafore trousers.

In episode 6, that transformation is so far advanced that the puppet has gone entirely. The previously unsmiling Near has now donned an elfin smirk. 

That white mop of hair seems messier, more akin to a fringe at the front, slightly longer at the back. The lighting has lessened the white, making his/her barnet appear almost blond, maybe rosy in some scenes. 

The grey pinafore, seen in shade, seems darker, closing in on black.
Image: Near Episode 6 Death Note 2015
Image: TV Death Note's Near
Some kind of personality shift has taken place rendering the character much further away from Near, as he's known from the manga and anime. The toys have gone and, by the end of the episode, (s)he has even stopped twirling a lock of hair.

So let's assume that Near has multiple personalities. Mello has previously existed as a suppressed persona projected onto a puppet by Near's ventriloquism. Heard in the real world, as L responded to Mello's voice in episode 2.

Episode 5 signified the start of the personae changing places. In episode 6, I believe that we're seeing that process gather pace.

Live Action Matt in Death Note TV Drama?

At first sight of Near, my knee-jerk reaction was to turn to my partner and gasp, "So Near's Matt as well now?"  After all, we were viewing a character with a Puckish smirk, who was crowing after having successfully hacked L, undetected for weeks.
Image: Near hacking L
My partner wasn't at all convinced, pointing out the chair upon which this character was perched. Big, ornate, red chair screams Mello from the rafters.

I was reminded that Matt's never been as embraced in canon, as he was by the fandom. The producers probably never considered him important enough to add into the Near/Mello mix.

Flailing around for extra evidence, I alighted on the fact that the camera - towards which a desolate L peers as he realises he's been hacked - bore the codemark F1.3. 
Image: Camera in Death Note
Three in one!  The third in the first (Matt in Near)!  Woot! Game over!

I seemed to be convincing nobody with this line of argument.

Nevertheless, that initial shot still seems to me to have elements of the first three Wammy kids.  Near's still apparent in the white under-shirt and twirled hair; Mello's in the smirk, chair and dark clothes creeping over the top; Matt's in the redness (yes, I know red hair is a fan insertion) and the computer, particularly its usage in hacking.

But the snigger at the end - sans lock twisting - was pure Mello. 

Death Note Drama's Live Action Mello

I'm expecting Near to transform even more fully into Mello as the plot gathers pace. Thus presumably Mello was the figure seen in the scenes flashing over the closing credits, as teasers for episode 7. 

A hand up to his mouth - not seen in any previous Near mannerism - is half cut off by the bottom of the screen. What's the chance that a wider shot will reveal that it grasps a chocolate bar?
Image: Mello/Near in Death Note (2015)

Is that you, Mello? Stop cosplaying Near at once.
And this is how the television adaptation of Death Note will get us through the Mafia!Mello part of the story. Which - if it continues to run this parallel to the canon tale - will be coming up quite soon.

In short, WE'RE ABOUT TO SEE A LIVE ACTION MELLO IN THIS DEATH NOTE TV DRAMA!  At least that's the conclusion in this house. 

On that excitement, I'm going to pause here and look at the rest of the episode in a separate blog entry. I've waffled enough in this one.
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TV Death Note Episode 5: Symbolism, Style and Split Personalities - Plus Mello Nearly

16/8/2015

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Did I just see Mello in a live action Death Note drama? I think I just saw Mello!

I can't be sure, though you'd think you'd spot that smirk coming a mile off, or at least hear chocolate snapping with all the danger trigger signals more generally associated with a tiger prowling or a T-Rex taking out Tokyo.

Nevertheless, I think I just glimpsed Death Note's most dynamic character in shades a little lighter than his usual Mafioso black. Take a look for yourself.
Near and Mello in Death Note 2015 Episode 5

Is that you, Mello? Can you see him too?
No! I'm not talking about the puppet. That's patently a version of Mello, but not a human actor walking, talking, breathing life into Mello. I'm thinking less wooden here. I'm nodding meaningfully towards the individual who - I grant you -  looks a lot like Near.

(S)he's going to turn out to be Mello in disguise over the next few episodes. You mark my words.

Notice how the Mello puppet was mute?  Spot how Near was OUTSIDE without an escort?  See the grey clothing settling over the spotless white.  That's going to be significant. That's Near's 'innocent' morality turning murky with the influx of Mello. Because the great guess in our house is that Near and Mello are one and the same this time.

Potentially Pairing Mello & Near in Death Note

Image: Death Note 13: How to Read bookcover

Death Note 13: How to Read
full of loads of disturbing trivia
Death Note 13: How to Read revealed that Tsugumi Ohba contemplated making Mello and Near twins. Death Note's writer never said if they'd be identical or fraternal.

If the former, then Mello and Near would have looked the same.

Moreover, Takeshi Obata mentioned that his initial drawings of the pair got mixed up somewhere en route to Ohba. The image sketched as Mello actually began Near and vice versa.

It's a story which has had the fandom on both sides staring long and hard into space over many a year in the interim. Imagining a Mello that looked like Near; or a Near with Mello's features.

Now we don't have to picture how that would be. Because all indicators are pointing due Multiple Personality Disorder.  Near has been the dominant persona until now, but the morphing into Mello has already begun.

And if I'm wrong, then I deserve all I get from the Near fandom, and the utter disdain of my very own Mello/Matt community. But I'm not wrong. I can practically hear the chocolate snap just beneath the surface, (re)drawing Near.

Let's follow this one through.

What's the Significance of Near Going Outside?

I'm can't imagine any circumstance in childhood, wherein my brother would look quite so startled as L, if informed by our Dad that I'd left the house.  (He'd more likely be shocked now. After all, my computer is indoors.)

Yet when Near goes out to play in the park, the very fact of it seriously disturbs the folk back home.  Just look how Mr Wammy breaks the news and L's silently fearful expression in reaction.
Watari and L Death Note (2015) TV Drama
Death Note (2015) L hears 'Near has left the house'
L (Death Note TV drama) wary hearing Near has left the house
L doesn't say a word. It's Wammy speaking throughout. Starting with a huge sigh close to the door, striding across the room with shoulders stooped and head bent, the very aspect of one readily to impart something unsavoury.

"L." He curtly begins. "Unpleasant news." Then the barest pause before, "Near has left the house."

Immediately, L's head shoots up, his eyes already swivelling sidewards to stare at Watari while the words are still spilling out. Is he scared or is that disdain? Whatever we're seeing, that look lasts for long seconds in mute regard, until the end of the scene.

The whole exchange couldn't be more laden with significance, if someone stuck a neon light above L's head flashing on and off pink with the word 'SIGNIFICANT'. What is less explicit is why.
It could be L's inconsistent horror of the dangerously dirty outside.

This is a man who lives in a place so sterile that all who visit have to suffer disinfection at the gate.

Yet L played tennis last week and attended a concert in this episode without any apparent trauma at all. Strange, and a little jarring.

Personally I think there's significance because Near never goes outside, but Mello does. Wammy is basically telling L that Mello is the dominant personality now.
Image: Kira disinfected

Disinfecting Kira at L's entrance

Message from a Split Identity in Death Note

Death Note television drama episode 5 is heavier than usual on the symbolism - as we'll come back to later on - and none more so than Near's parkland scene.

Unless, of course, I'm reading way too much into it.  See what you think.

The sequence opens upon a huge screen bearing the legends: 'New revelation - there are two Kiras!' and 'A message from the second Kira to the real Kira'.
Image: Death Note (2015) Two Kiras breaking news bulletin
Then that breaking news story becomes pretty much incidental. We know about it already, but its a feight in misdirection, cluing us in to a similar tale hidden in plain view. 

For as the message from the second to the first begins, the camera pans from the back of puppet Mello's head to the figure holding it.  This 'second' (according to the Wammy House rankings) is mute, not even its limited body language to convey. The puppet's face is turned away. It does not move, utterly inanimate.

Instead its Near's voice which drowns out the newscaster's speech. Or at least the individual who looks like Near and is holding the toy.

Yet not playing with it, as Near is wont to do, hence the seeming emptiness of the previously highly animate doll. Nor is this person twirling a lock of hair, wearing all white or anything else that's previously been a quirk or hallmark of the Wammy House number one. 

And this is the person who speaks over the second's message to the first. Because, to my mind, he IS the second (Wammy, persona, whichever you want to call) with his own message to express.
You can practically see the handover taking place between two personae in one form.  Though if this is a split personality, as I highly suspect, then the switch seems more like a slow merging from one to the other, than an instant transformation.

It's not a conversation between Near and Mello, as the people of the world think. It's more a struggle for dominance between their twin personalities, currently running parallel - neither quite one nor the other - though I believe that Mello has a slight advantage.

The camera pans in closer and closer, as the commentary plays out. Making it clear that we should be paying attention to what's being said. Closer still, focusing upon the head or mind, like we're poised to enter inside.

Then this Near does what the earlier incarnations rarely did - looks directly at the puppet, whilst addressing it. Quite fondly in fact, aping that Christian scene so beloved by Near above the Wammy House stairs, complete with clusters of people congregating close by, and a foreground grouping of three children.

Though this particular dummy Messiah sits listlessly still.

Unnamed and unmoved until that second. Only belatedly given clunky expression in the eyes, that suddenly turn upwards to the left.

If this was Wammy's House, then the puppet would be looking directly at that painting, as Near so often ended each scene doing.

For the first time ever, the puppet's operation can be clumsily discerned. Near usually makes it seem so effortless. This seems like a parody to me.

But the puppet is empty. Mello is inside the body and Near is simply fading from view.
Wammy's House Stained Glass window from Death Note episode 1

Near's stained glass window at Wammy's House
from the end of Death Note episode 1

Three in One? Multiple People Grouping Near

Three children in Death Note Episode 5 (2015)
Before any of that, there was a long shot and childish dialogue, which yet may hold some especial significance.

All those people watching the exchange between two Kiras on the screen seem themselves uncommonly grouped. Each gathered into sets of three. Except Near, who seemingly sits alone.  Even the trees in the background were planted in a clump.

Visually, its just another clue to complement the two Kiras broadcast heard over the top. We are being nudged to note that all present belong to a collective. Thus - I'm certain will transpire - Near too constitutes a group, albeit one wherein its harder to count heads than the rest.

Three perchance? I cut one lady off with my screen-shot, but there are three to the side. Three behind. Three in front.

Nor can I help but see Matt, Near and Mello respectively alluded to in the three children at the fore there. But that might just be me. 
Picture

Anyone else see what I'm seeing? Symbolically, not actually. Nope, just me then.
It's these three who discuss what they're seeing, as an introductory commentary over our first proper view of Mello(?) arrving. Or Near on the brink of departure. The grey suitcase prop works as a visual clue for both.

"Who's Kira?" asks the boy I'm calling Matt.  The girlish Near counterpart replies, "Dunno."  Because identities are difficult to perceive, when not all might be as it seems.  Then we hear the news anchor for a final time reading the words of the second, "Therefore, I will cancel L's press conference."

In short, nobody knows who Kira is these days, nor how many Kiras there might turn out to be. And L is no longer required to appear in public.  All anyone grasps for certain is that the second is speaking.

As does the person on the bench. With the symbolism of the scene stating - here are three personalities grouped as one, and it's the one ranked second now being so publicly heard.
Near walking away in 2015 Death Note drama

So Mello now that we've even lost the puppet.
White clad and walking towards the red - Death Note
colour code for ascendancy in the field of play

Colour Coding the Three in One and Death Note

Speak to me ordinarily about the Three-in-One and its not Death Note's Near and possible multiple personalities that comes to mind. I'm a Pagan and a Celt, my mind is with the Triple Goddess.

A relevance only in the fact that the Celtic Three-in-One can identified in the tales of bards by the colours worn in each aspect. White for the Maiden; red for the Mother; black for the Crone.

Not something I should comfortably be considering within the context of a Japanese television dramatization of Death Note. Japan is a long way from Western Europe, where those story-telling traditions hold sway.
Light, L and Soichiro in black, white and red

Black clad Kira, the master of his game; white L slipping back to first base; and Soichiro in red in the middle
keeping the peace. Each a point on the Wheel of Fortune still turning.
Yet it's patently there too. Not even subtly so. Downright laid on with a trowel, all those instances where white, red and black combine to indicate the undercurrents in a plot-line.  In this episode, it was applied so ubiquitously and heavily that it sometimes seemed like style over substance.

Though such overplay did allow us to watch the shift in power between the two Kiras. Watch Misa slip from mistress of her scene through to the mirror image shot at the end, wherein Light has taken it all. 

She shouldn't have gone from black to white. It's too late then to go back to red. Not when Light's completely in black.

Romance in Hues of Black, Red and White


I thought perhaps the director worried that the plot was skirting so close to canon, that we'd all be bored by the familiarity in episode five. Except for the Near segment, there were hardly any twists to stop us settling down secure in the knowledge that we know all that's coming next.
Mikami in Death Note 2015

Someone warn Mikami! As he pledges his support on-line for both Kiras,
his black suit, white shirt and red tie bask in a rosy kind of quite literal foreshadowing.
So we got arty shots with aplomb, in shades of white, red and black. So many that I had to look it up, just to see if each colour had any special meaning in Japanese culture too.

Bizarrely enough, the symbolism behind each hue seems to follow fairly precisely that inherent in my own ancient British legends. Shades of the Three-in-One underwriting Kira and L's battles for sovereignty too.

Like Living in a Chessboard, L and Light Make Their Moves in Black and White

Japanese Symbolism in White, Red & Black

The television Death Note drama seems to rely quite consistently upon its stylistic colour coding, in order to depict the challenges between protagonists, antagonists and all respective hangers on. 

However, those colours don't always mean the same thing. It all depends upon who is donning them, or otherwise saturated in the hue, and what's being linked with those around them.

As a rule of thumb, these are the colour meanings in Japan:

White: Intellect; cold calculation; rationality; divinity; sacred (angelic/Godliness); isolation; snow; impersonal; incorruptible; cleanliness; purity; sterile. However, it's also the colour worn by health professionals, so may simply be a uniform on some.

White and Red:  Seen in Japan as the colours worn when one is in love. Or else celebrating in pure happiness. However, it may also have a religious connotation, implying a wish to reach to the Gods and/or dedicate your life to deity.

Red:  As in so many cultures around the world, this is the shade of fire, passion, danger, losing oneself to powerful emotions, sensuality, vitality, activity, energy, zest or strength, violence, aggression and blood.
Death Note's Rem and Misa

At home with Rem and Misa, in all the shades of red, white and black
Black:  Mystery; power; 'evil'; emptiness; the void or abyss; madness; mourning; sexuality; depth; unhappiness; remorse; sadness; fury; fear.  Unless worn as formal attire - as in a 'black tie' dinner - wherein it denotes sophistication, elegance and/or class; or as a fashionable item - as in a 'little black dress' - which might just mean stylish.

Black and White: Traditionally the colours worn to funerals and left as memento mori.  Signifies loss.  Unless they're worn as opposing colours - as in L in white and Light in black - in which case we're looking at challenge; battle; the yin-yang; a nice game of chess. Or in a temple, as some areas in the Shinto religion are set aside in black and white, dedicated to the kami - Gods or spirits come from Heaven or the sea.

Let's see how informative that is, as we continue on through the artistically shot future scenes in TV's Death Note. Shout up if you spot those colours being used symbolically.

And especially if 'Near' turns up in black or red, snatching a chocolate bar to prove me right. I'm going to look really daft after all that if I'm wrong.
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TV Death Note Episode 4: Manipulation, Paranoia and Compliance

15/8/2015

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As someone coming from the Mello fandom, there's only one thing to know about episode four of Death Note (2015) TV drama.  This!
Death Note (2015) Near and Mello in Wammy's House

Wide shot of Wammy's House: No live action Mello in that big room!

Near and Mello in Death Note TV Drama 2015

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.
Image: L and Watari Death Note 2015
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.
Image: Near and Mello Puppet Death Note 2015
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!
Image: Near and Puppet talking in unison

Near and the Mello puppet talk in unison
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.

Mind Games in TV Death Note Episode Four

Image: Misa as Second Kira in Death Note 2015

Misa as the Second Kira dressed in black
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.

Compliance and the Loss of Human Rights

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.
Image: L and the Japanese Task Squad in Death Note 2015

Compliance stills the complaints of Matsuda and Mogi in the face of L's disdain
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.

Manipulation Tactics in Death Note Episode 4

Image: Light Yagami 'Kira is Evil' scene from Death Note (2015) episode 4
Then again Soichiro Yagami himself was above similar guilt manipulation.

I refer to his whole speech partway through about evil being the ability to kill, and those with such power being truly cursed.  His condemnation of 'Kira is evil' soon wiped the smirk from his son's face.
Strategies involving manipulation were also very much in evidence in this episode of the television live action Death Note drama.

Some were very subtle indeed, like Light Yagami reading girlie magazines in full view of cameras that he knew to be there. Moreover, he discerned that his father was watching. An obvious guilt trip to make it really awkward for Soichiro to be witnessing the scene before all of his staff.
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.
Image: Light and Ryuk Death Note (2015)

.... yet.
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.

Hidden Nod to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

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.

Paranoia in the Watchers and the Watched

Image: Misa and Death Note paranoia
Misa learns all about paranoia
as a concept
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.

Light xL Fanservice in Death Note TV Episode 4

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. 
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TV Death Note Episode 3:  Deities, Dualism and Dreams with Light the Bringer of Kira

11/8/2015

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Death Note television red apple
Death Note red apple -
why do we suddenly have
three scratch marks?
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.

Kira eyes in Death Note television drama

Light-bringer Kira burning plans for mass murder
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.

Split Identities in Death Note Episode 3

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.
Near and Mello Puppet in TV Death Note show

Follow Near's eyes, it's not the puppet she's addressing
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.

Framed Picture on Light Yagami's Wall

Picture on wall behindLight Yagami

The artwork was prominently shown beside Light for a whole scene.
Japanese God?

Who is the figure and what is he holding?

Light's bedroom is filled with interesting knick-knacks, ornaments and posters. Each episode thus far of Death Note (2015) television drama seems to focus upon another piece, that's usually pertinent to the plot at hand.

This time, the camera angle quite blatantly drew our attention to framed artwork on Light Yagami's bedroom wall. For a moment there, we seemed to be zooming in on it, but the close up shifted onto Light's face.

The art is some kind of small tapestry, or embroidery, with tassels at each edge. The figure within appears to be highly stylised and based upon an original woodcut.  But who is it?

My mind, attuned as it is to Western mythology, immediately supplied the fact that I was looking at Satan. But why would a Japanese young man have the Christian anti-Christ on his bedroom wall? 

Instead I'm assuming this depicts a Japanese deity, or mythological creature. However a long perusal through various image searches hasn't produced a contender.

Who is this being displayed so prominently alongside Light? Can you identify them and their context?
Japanese God Picture on Kira's wall in Death Note TV drama

Japanese God? Satan? Can you identify the figure framed on Light's bedroom wall?
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. 

Nightmare of the Dreamweaver in Death Note

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.
Dreams are just about self-satisfaction. Everyone has a mission in life.
~ Light Yagami
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.

Everyone's a Potential Kira Now!

Raye Penbar

Raye Penbar with Death Note pages
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.

Fifty Shades of Yagami Grey (Well... 3)

Light and Sayu in Death Note episode 3Grey plaid all round for the Yagamis
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.

Plot-hole Ahoy! Misa in the Warehouse

Misa Amane in Death Note (2015)

MIsa Amane and her Death Note
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?

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Death Note's Limitations Makes it Interesting

21/7/2015

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Image: Death Note rules
Rules restrict the power
of the Death Note
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.


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Projecting and Reflecting in Episode Two of  the New Death Note TV Series (2015)

17/7/2015

2 Comments

 
Image: Mio Yuki as Near in Death Note TV Series

Near (Mio Yuki) in Death Note (2015) Episode Two
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.

Reflections, Polar Opposites and Mirror Images in Death Note (2015)

Img: Masataka Kubota as Light in 2015 Death Note series

Light Yagami (Masataka Kubota) assumes his Kira persona
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.

Light's Lucky Number Seven in Death Note, or the Letter L Inverted

Img: Light and his Lucky Seven bin in Death Note
Light's Lucky 7 rubbish bin
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.

Light's Sun; L's Cresent Moon

Img: Death Note L's Ring

L shows off his ring in Death Note episode two (2015)
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.
Image: L's Moon Avatar

Soichiro and L with the latter's waxing moon avatar
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.

Dualism and Personas Projected in Death Note (2015) Television Drama Episode Two

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.
Death Note Light and Kirin Head
Death Note Light and Kirin Head
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.

L, Near and Mello: Wammy Boys Projecting in 2015 Death Note Episode Two

Image: Death Note Near captioned I think you're projecting, Mello

Near calls out the whole 'projecting' views thing in Death Note episode two
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.
Image: Wammy's House with Archangel Michael at the Fall of the Rebel Angels artwork.

Featuring prominently at (presumably) Wammy's House is Giordano's artwork depicting the Archangel Michael chasing rebel angels from Heaven
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*
Img: Puppet Mello Death Note 2015 Episode 2

Puppet Mello finds this accusation of projection so amusing
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.
Img: Mello and Near Death Note 2015 Episode 2

Near's still on the 'phone here. But will look towards the next chair to continue the dialogue with Mello. Thus showing her lips aren't moving.
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?
Img: L looking scared Death Note (2015)
Img: L reprimanding Mello
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!
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Finally Watched Death Note TV Drama - And It's Good!  (Plus Mello IS in It... Sort Of)

14/7/2015

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Img: Death Note (2015) Opening Titles
Death Note (2015)
Opening Titles
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.

A Very Different Kind of Death Note

Image: Light Yagami in Death Note 2015

An ordinary Light Yagami in his room in Death Note (2015)
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.

Read More
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Hidden Hint of Mello at the End of L: Change the World (Live Action Death Note Movie)

9/7/2015

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Gif: Death Note's Mello eating chocolate

Mello eating chocolate in the Death Note anime
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.
Image: L eating chocolate like Mello

Chocolate eating L stares at Watari in the
closing scene from L: Change the World
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!
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TV Death Note  Trailer and Updated Cast List

7/6/2015

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Masataka Kubota Death Note

Masataka Kubota as Light Yagami in the TV adaptation of Death Note
More information has emerged about the Japanese television adaptation of Death Note, not least an updated list of the characters and cast.

They are:
  • Light Yagami - Masataka Kubota
  • L - Kento Yamazaki
  • Near - Mio Yuuki
  • Misa Amane - Hinako Sano
  • Sayu Yagami - Reiko Fujiwara
  • Soichiro Yagami - Yutaka Matsusige
  • Akiko Himura - Megumi Seki
  • Touta Matsuda - Gouki Maeda
  • Shuichi Aizawa - Tomohisa Yuge
  • Kanzo Mogi - Jiro Sato
  • Watari - Kazuaki Hankai
So this does look very much like the main Death Note story being retold, yet still with an ominous omission in the form of Mello.

However, there is a shift in the timeline. Light Yagami will be a university student, not at High School at all. Hence my theory regarding Near having flashbacks just got a hit.

We do have some trailers though. Ready for a look?  Yeah, so was I, but for some reason my YouTube unblocker has failed me. The videos are only available in Japan. *sigh*   Here are the links anyway:  First Video  Second Video

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TV Live Action Death Note Cast Revealed - Near Played by an ACTRESS

1/6/2015

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More information has begun trickling out about the Death Note television drama scheduled to begin airing in Japan from July 2015.

Weekly Shonen Jump (issue 26, May 25th 2015) ran with a promo page, in this latest edition, announcing who's been cast in the three main roles. This has raised more than a few eyebrows.

Not the characters in the frame - Nihon TV, the company behind the television Death Note adaption, already revealed that Light, L and Near comprise the core canon personae - but which actors have landed those plum parts.

Or more specifically, the ATTRIBUTES of those actors.
TV Death Note cast

(l-r) Kento Yamazaki as L, Masataka Kubota as Light
and actress Mio Yūki as Near.
Death Note TV promo page in Weekly Shonen Jump

Death Note TV drama cast
Weekly Shonen Jump No 26

In short, Kira's too old; L's too associated with romantic comedies; and Near's too female.
Oh! And they're messing about with the story again.

Kubota Masataka Cast as Death Note TV's Kira

Kubota Masataka
Kubota Masataka will star as Light Yagami, a high school teenager. Yet the actor is twenty-six years old. Mind you a glance at the even more recently released photograph above shows him to be quite baby-faced.

A few disgruntled whispers and quibbles have sounded across the Death Note blogsphere and fandom forums, but nothing too loud. He appears to be passing muster at the moment, with all due judgement reserved until we see actually see him acting in the role.


Those who are familiar with his work - especially his performances as Yuto Kuronaga in the movie series Gachiban or as the troubled Shinji in N no Tame ni -  are quick to reassure the rest of us that Kubota will make a credible Kira. Maybe even an exciting one.

Personally I'm wondering about the assumption that he'll be playing Light as a student.

Death Note didn't end with Mr Yagami Jr's graduation.  He was twenty-four by the time he was head to head with Near in the Yellow Box. Suddenly his actor's age seems not only in accord with his characterisation, but a big clue as to his role within the Death Note television adaptation.

Proposed Plotline of Death Note TV Drama

I think Kira will only be there in flashbacks. I still think this is fundamentally going to be Near's story, continuing pretty much from where the usual canon Death Note tellings fall off.

There's nothing in the latest round of information to contradict my previous musings regarding plot here.

The show's producer has already said that, while the television adaptation of Death Note will ping off the original canon tale, it's a 'totally different story'. NTV want to create a drama which even old school fans will be able to watch without knowing what happens next.

Worst case scenario is that they start from the same place as the manga, but reinvent the story along another tangent like Ohba's version never existed. If it doesn't mesh, then the fandom refuses to make it canon. (We're all looking at you, live action movies.)

To my mind, the wide open gap left by Mello not appearing on the cast list precludes that. Surely he would appear in a retelling that includes Near? Even if it's only as a young girl. (Still looking at you, Death Note film trilogy.)

I'm still going with Near's memories of Light and L requiring actors for those parts. He's just not having flashbacks involving Mello. Obviously therapy is helping him there then.

Anyway, back to the Death Note TV casting news and gossip.
Death Note TV Drama Banner

Kento Yamazaki as L in Television Death Note

Kento Yamazaki
Kento Yamazaki has been cast as L. At twenty years old, the actor is five years younger than L was during events told in the main Death Note story.

Unless I'm seriously reading too much into this, then flashback scenes could be facilitated here too. Assuming that Near spent most of his childhood at Wammy's House, then five years prior to the Kira case sounds about right for him to have shared those corridors with L.

Insofar as I can recall, there are no recorded canon incidences of Near and Lawliet being in the same place at the same time. But they were both raised at the orphanage. That a seven year old Near met a twenty year old L there doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility to me.

What most in the fandom are discussing isn't Kento's age, but his acting credits to date. Those in the know usually expect him to turn up in romantic comedies.

There's a lot you can say about L, but 'romantic' and 'comic' aren't generally in the top ten associations. Nor perhaps the top fifty. Unless it's Light/L slash fan-fiction, or people mistaking cocoon bondage of an abducted woman for perfectly acceptable courting rituals in the case of L and Misa.

Though I suppose that L's quirky nature - eating habits, dry one-liners and posture - can be quite funny on occasion.

The feeling I'm getting out there is that Kento's roles are normally a little too light-weight and insipid to feasibly pull off L. He's the mushy High School love interest on the other end of
Hibino's first kiss in Kyō; while, in Another's Koichi, his character's on-off-will-they-won't-they High School flirtation with Mei Misaki was half of the storyline's main appeal.

However, the other half was all about curses, supernatural happenings, dark pasts and people dying in solution of a mystery. Much like Death Note then. If Kento can pull that off, then maybe he will make a decent L too. And embrace this as his big chance to step aside from the stereotyping inherent in his roles thus far.

Either way, it won't really matter what he does. He's not Ken'ichi Matsuyama and, as far as most of the Death Note fandom is concerned, that's game over before he's even begun. Poor love.

And Near is a Girl...

Sixteen year old Mio Yūki has been cast to play Near in the live action television Death Note drama. 

He was around 17-18 years old during his confrontation with Light during the manga's grand finale. Sixteen plays straight into my theory that this TV adaptation of Death Note picks up where the rest stop. Hence my glee now, and my utter embarrassment when you all hold it against me later.


But, of course, nobody is talking about Mio Yūki's AGE.


Not when you've got the much more eye-widening, finger pointing, WTFness of her GENDER to take into consideration.

Everything else is present and correct. There's Near's hair - colour, style and finger twirling a lock - exactly right. Pyjamas - baggy, white, buttoned - all as expected. Only with the unexpected addition of chest bumps - two thereof - curving the cut of said pyjamas. 

So Near's now female then.

Unstintingly without explanation, the Death Note television show has given him a sex change - performed by the simple expediency of casting a teen actress to play him.  Perhaps they took one look at Kento's track record and thought, "Ooops! Where can we ninja a High School love interest into this story?!"
Mio Yūki
I'll just pause to let the implications of that settle into your imagination. A retelling of Death Note straight from the pages of L/Near fan-fiction about to become canon.

Sorry, I'm from the Mello/Matt gang and we're in bits. We're returning all that Near fans hurled our way, when the live action movies did precisely this to Mello. At least you lot got to keep the general look, all we retained was the IQ and the bob. 

In fact, glancing around the rest of the Death Note blogosphere, the main reaction is that of amusement coupled with looking on in wry interest to see where the show's makers are taking this.  There's not really anything in Near's canon story which hinges upon his gender - he could take down Kira as a boy or a girl - so the only real worries on that score are what could be added instead.

And just in case anyone's missing plot-lines to worry about, Mello's fandom can be relied upon to churn them out at a rate of knots. You're very welcome.

If you ask nicely, we might even provide the popcorn to nom, as you watch High School Near in first crush mode receive her awakening kiss in the arms of dreamy L. Then spend the rest of the series dripping IQ points, going 'squee' and generally being someone pretty to stand in the background, making L look good. Before greeting him with a cheer and a lingering kawaii embrace for the finale's closing scene.

The adaptation part of it being the omission of chapter 25, thus negating any need for Mello to give up his studies - and thus no casting necessary, as he's still in Winchester doing his PhD - or Near to exhibit possession of a single brain cell. After all, it'll be L leading the showdown in the Yellow Box now. Near just has to keep him in good home baking long enough to get there.

Salted, sweet or buttered?  I'm talking about your popcorn.

The worst of this is that the more I consider it, the more convinced I become that I'm not even joking. And if that's how it plays out, then sod the popcorn, our chocolate bars will be down on the table too.

It would be a travesty. Not merely for Near, but for womanhood and a world in which the most ridiculous scenario, we can concoct in advance for hilarity's sake, turns out to be the cynical truth.

Watching on with interest to see how you play it,
Yūki. I hope they really did give you Near, and that my theory about the continuation of Death Note post-Kira transpires to be the correct one.

TV Death Note L, Light and Near
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New Death Note TV Adaptation Will Focus Upon Near (We Think...)

21/4/2015

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Death Note's Near
Everyone here assumed that the new Death Note television telling would merely dramatize what went before.

We cheered when it was announced that Near would be cast. That meant that the second arc would be included too. We'd finally get a live action Mello strutting his rock star persona, Mafia dark and angry, across our screens.

But it seems that our original presumption was incorrect. This isn't the same story at all.

The TV Death Note series will be a brand new storyline, which we now believe will continue where the last one left off. In short, Near versus some new Kira out in the wilds.

Maybe Ryuk got bored and just threw another stolen Death Note at a random Japanese teenager.  Or the extant Death Notes - that Near had burned - weren't quite as incinerated as he was led to believe.

Though there's also the semi-alternative plot-line that exists as canon, via the novelisation L: Change the World, wherein a young Thai Near survived the Kira case.  There's a strong possibility that the Death Note television show will continue from here instead.

In which case, how old IS little Narushi Fukuda now?  And will he be back to reprise his role as Near?


Narushi Fukuda as Near L Change the World

"Near: Change The World" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia
I've just checked. Narushi was born on January 7th 2000, which makes him fifteen now. Perfect for a Death Note era Near?

Death Note Television Show

With announcements trickling through bit by bit, and speculation running rife through the fandom, it's worth recapping all that we know for certain right now:

  • The television Death Note adaptation was announced via a single forthcoming event strip in Weekly Shonen Jump (April 20th 2015, no 21). It was inserted into that edition's chapter of Gakkyū Hōtei - wherein Takeshi Obata is the artist.
Death Note TV show announcement Weekly Shonen Jump

Weekly Shonen Jump Announcement re Death Note
  • Death Note's TV drama will air on NTV, premiere in July 2015. It will run on Sundays.
  • There will be a brand new cast and storyline. Not a rehash of the manga/movies/novels, as revealed in Japan's AnimeAnime.
  • According to iDigitalTimes, Tatsuya Fujiwara and Kenichi Matsuyama will not be reprising their roles from the Death Note movies.
  • The NTV official announcement featured Ryuk.  His thought bubbles read: 'A serialized drama...'  'Interesting...'
Ryuk Death Note TV adaptation announcement

Ryuk featured on the NTV official announcement
  • An official website and Twitter feed has been launched to keep fans up to date. The former has a central panel making it clear that Kira, L and Near will be cast. But no further details as yet.
Death Note TV cast coming soon

NTV Death Note drama website cast panel
And that's all folks.  Any thoughts?
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Death Note Skins for Minecraft Gamers

10/1/2015

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Here's a lovely one for the Death Note gamers amongst us. Which is pretty much all of the Matt cohort and probably most of the others too.

You can play Minecraft as Death Note characters by downloading bespoke skins.

I've never played Minecraft, though it's top of my list of games to try. I've loved Terraria and the like, so I know I'll enjoy this one.
Nevertheless, I was lured onto Planet Minecraft by the vast number of friends who do play the game. One of them mentioned an L skin, so I went for a shufty. Then made the rash promise - if there's a Matt skin, I'm in.  Yep, there's a Matt skin too.  Guess what I'm going to be playing in 2015...

Here are the Minecraft Death Note skins and other stuff that I've uncovered for your delight and amusement:
Image: Matt Death Note skin for Minecraft

Mail Jeevas Minecraft skin
L (absolutely 100s of them)
Kira (100s of them too)
Ryuk (skin) Ryuk (statue)
Soichiro Yagami
Touta Masuda
Rem
Gelus
Death Note Texture Pack
Matt (white top) Matt (red top)
Mello (version 1) Mello (version 2)
Misa (black dress)
Near
Beyond Birthday
Death Note banner
L Pixel Art
Shinigami Realm
There are plenty more, but frankly you could explore them for yourself.  Off you go! And please report back on any particularly cool things that you think we should know about.
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