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What does Misa-Misa's Name Mean? How does the Kanji for Misa Amane REALLY translate into English?  (Guest Post by Amaryllis)

8/6/2016

376 Comments

 
The kanji for Misa Amane should be quite straight-forward. But its not.

Both are reasonably common names in Japan.  Enough that none would blink at encountering  an individual bearing the surname Amane, though it's not one of the topmost family names.  More a marginal, decently sized minority.

Amane is actually more often found as a first name, applicable for males and females alike.

They certainly wouldn't fain surprise at bumping into a Japanese lady or girl named Misa.  There's a lot of them about!

All adding up to it being not beyond the realms of possibility for there to be real life females called Misa Amane dotted about Japan.

They must have loved it when Death Note came out! Living for every update, with ten years worth of practiced responses under their belt - tried and tested in readiness to meet all those quips about shinigami eyes, ditzy dorks and Genki Girls, Light Yagami, Death Notes and referring to oneself in the third person.

Are you one?  Or do you know Misa Amane in real life? 

Do please come and share with us your anecdotes!  We're dying to know.

(As you can probably already tell, just by looking at the dates above our heads!  Sorry.  I'll see myself out.)
I strove hard to create names that seemed real, but could not exist in the real world. ~ Tsugumi Ohba, How to Read, p59

If the family name Amane and given names Misa AND Amane are fairly unremarkable - taken in isolation, beyond the tedium and taint of Death Note mass killing psychos - then what's so complicated about interpreting the meaning of the kanji for Misa Amane?


Everything.  Misa Amane's kanji is not like all the rest.

Death Note Misa Amane kanji
Most frequently used kanji for Misa in Japan:
(Translation: Beautiful Assistant)

Other variants in Misa kanji, with their meanings below:
美砂
Beautiful Sand
美佐
Rare Beauty/Beauty like Gold Dust
美沙
Golden Light/Glittering Sand/Silver Glow/Sparkling Beach/Star Light
光沙
(Lit: No Gauze) Virginal/Honesty/
Guileless/Without Strings

未紗
Chastity
操
Kanji for Death Note's Misa:
(Translation: Looks like 'wet sand' to me,  author's explanation notwithstanding)
海砂

Meaning Behind Misa Amane's Given Name According to Tsugumi Ohba

Misa Amane Death Note cover
Katakana Misa-Misa Japanese spelling of her name in Death Note
Word of God moment now, as the true translation of Death Note Misa's first name isn't mentioned in the manga, anime, movies nor anywhere else. 

It's in the manual, of course.

Please open your books to page 60, for in the Beginning the Death Note Creator made the Shinigami Realm and human world, and named all the characters within. Then gave them kanji to spell and shape this new reality.
The Origin of Misa's Name
It was kind of random but I think it was from "kuromisa" [Black Mass].  It must have been based on something.
~ Tsugumi Ohba, How to Think, Death Note 13: How to Read, p60

It's actually most blatantly seen in the spelling of Misa's self-referential nickname.  The Second Kira always name-checks herself in the third person as Misa-Misa.

As it's rendered in katakana, there's no wriggle room for dissent here.  It says Misa Misa and that's that.  However, as Ohba already pointed out, 'misa' is the Japanese word for 'mass' in the Catholic liturgy meaning.

Which itself, in Catholicism's native Latin, is called 'missa solemnis' (High Mass), 'missa lecta' (Low Mass) or 'missa cantata' (Sung Mass, minus an ordained minister). 

Opening up an interesting notion that Misa is really calling herself 'Mass Mass', or 'the blessing and the benediction'.  In which the objectifying lack of a pronoun is quite correct.
At a really quite minor stretch, it could be dismissal, as in 'Ite, missa est' (Go, the congregation is dismissed) - the words which close a Catholic mass - and/or its implied action point thereon, 'Go be a missionary; you have your mission'.

And you thought she was just being cute and Genki Girl childlike!  (Not yet ruled out.)

Translation of the Amane Kanji for Death Note's Misa Misa

However, it's not just her given name that's attached to strange kanji and multi-faceted katakana.  

Misa's family name is equally like no kanji that's ever been associated with Amane prior to Death Note.  Nor can it be translated the same.

The usual kanji for Amane as a surname can be multiple and quite diverse, but within a certain theme of numinous incantations and the aural divine, plus pathetic fallacy.  The two most common Amane kanji are:
天音 meaning Heavenly Sound
雨音 meaning The Sound of Rain
For Misa Amane's family name the kanji is thus, and quite unlike the others:
弥
This rare usage of Amane kanji means something like 'increasingly' or 'more and more'.  Though where Tsugumi Ohba's mind was there, who can tell?   He never explained it, but left it to us.
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Death Note Tarot Tales V: Kira's Magician Versus the Wammy's Magi - Divine Wisdom and Poetic Justice in Death Note

8/5/2016

1 Comment

 

Every epic journey must begin
with a step upon its routes, roads and Ryuk directed by-ways.

Every great destiny must have a destination.

Explored against
the back-drop of Death Note,
the Major Arcana Tarot cards
feature the realm of The Magician

~ written by our guide into
all things esoteric
Tarot Mikami

Death Note Tarot Tales on Death Note News
Welcome seekers after sama, kana and qi!  You won't be the first to want to reverse your life's fortunes; otherwise embrace words to change the world; take steps to transform yourself into a hero; divert humanity away from its current perverse course; perfect its core that all may sing together - refraining from discordance, aligned in peace and harmony; gain insight into the working of the universe; realize your dreams; reach for the stars; sail across the cosmos and converse with the divine; enchant and charm Kannon at the gates of wisdom; seize manna from the Gods; invoke matter from the kether; traverse the mysteries and become God of this New World.

It's not unknown.

But no matter what foolish idea inflames your passion and ignites your will.  Before you take your first steps onto the path of making it real, you will need some guidance.  Sound the intro, maestro!  And enter The Magician.

The Many Roles of the Tarot Magician

The Magician Tarot Card
The second card of the Major Arcana starts the story proper.  It stands at number one, as The Fool is zero.  Without meeting or becoming The Magician, the Fool is merely a broiling mess of notions, running around like a headless chicken with no direction in which to pursue them. 

If nothing else, the Magician is a doorkeeper - providing access to another (or the wider) world, opening a gateway onto an appropriate path, or acting as a way-marker signing the route to take.  Usually this role contextualizes the bigger picture and sets out the destination.  The Wise Man is concerned with destiny.  Though the advice should be taken indiscriminately.

The Magician isn't necessarily on your side.  The guidance given or the way forward illuminated might be a service provided in all innocence and altruism. Nevertheless, he/she has an agenda of their own and the knowledge to manipulate others too. 

They may play a dual role - making Mafia profits sky-rocket, whilst diverting its resources into capturing a Death Note - and could as easily be trickster instead of consigliere. 

Or a charlatan.  This all-knowing being may present themselves as God, then turn out to merely be a man and a murderer at that.  Worse still, a serial killer implicating you in the guise of the great detective L. 

But the differentiation isn't always that clear cut either.  Nothing so black and white.

The Magician juggles many roles, generally playing all the same time; multi-tasking meaning depending upon who is being addressed.  One person's terrorist being another's freedom fighter and all that, while the manipulation might be to save yourself from yourself, or to aid a greater cause.

Either way, The Magician will certainly give our hero something to ponder and a route (or twelve) to take next.  There's the potential for destiny-laden adventure and opportunities lessons to be learned here, if only never to be that gullible again.

The Meaning of Magician in the Major Arcana

Christians are most familiar with The Magician as the Magi - Three Wise Men in modern versions of the Bible; twelve Pharisee priests in the closest we have to the original - who visited the newborn Christ with gifts. 

For everyone else, the name has largely denigrated to the level of sleight-of-hand illusionists and tricksters on stage, or grown fantastical in figures from stage or literature like Gandalf, Merlin and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

It used to mean so much more.  The hints of it permeate our lexicon.  We glimpse their greatness in words sharing the same root, like magnate, mega, magnitude, magnus, magus and majesty.  That last also containing a hint of their skill as spokespeople, mediators, lecturers, teachers and orators - 'gest', as in 'jester', 'gesticulate', 'gesture' and the 'gist' of a story.  It comes from Middle English 'to recite a tale', originating in Latin 'geste' or 'gesta' 'to perform deeds; to act'.  By the time it hit 13th century France, 'geste' meant to 'narrate an heroic tale'.

Stories could (and often still do) command the will of a people.  Which is why governments today are so keen to pressure the press into toeing the party line.  In Medieval Italy and France, which is where our earliest extant tarot cards were made, the majesty of magicians led to them adjudicating in delicate matters, acting as counsellors or speaking on behalf of less learned individuals.

The Magicians as magisters, in fact, or magistrates.  That 'gist' sometimes turning into its other form of 'iurare' to bring us to jury, and conjurer; or 'joculate' as joker or juggler.  Wise counsellor or trickster indeed.  Furthermore, the French word grammairien referred to 'learned men; magicians', whose ability to know the power and perfect usage of words gave us 'grammar'.

But akin to magician is also master, maestro, mahatma, maharaji, maharishi, yogi, guru, the one who knows.  The Japanese would call them dai-sensai, or O-sensai, doshi, Rōshi, or know them as sifi.  In addition to great wisdom and skill, The Magician brings into play the tools that the Fool might need t0 embark upon their journey.
Major Arcana Magician card
In ancient Persia, the Magos were the learned members of the priestly caste, adept at astrology.  They could give you the overview of your life and destiny, as it was written in the stars, taking in the knowledge of what constellation was on the ascendency or ruling within a certain house. It was up to you what you did with that information and how you let it guide your lives.

Over the centuries, their spiritual descendants have been known as the adepts in a variety of other fortune-telling, mind expanding, soul perfecting or perception enhancing skills.  For example, those magnificent seekers delving into the Kabbalah/Cabala/Qabala as scholars, scryers, practitioners, occultists, alchemists, diviners, philosophers, Hermetic code-breakers and ceremonial magicians.

Enlightened beings who know The Way and what it might mean for you.  But if it's shared - and done so entirely, selectively or else strewn with misinformation - and how that translates into relevancy for your own life's destiny, only a Fool can know in passing through the realm of the Magi.

The Magi In All Their Guises: Major Arcana Death Note's The Magician Card

Death Note: The Magician Tarot Card
Tarot Magician Death Note Rules
Death Note Enlightenment The Magican
The Death Note itself can be seen as falling right into the realm of The Magician.  In fact, it's practically the Three Magi represented here in the notebook, as its role is considered in relation to Light Yagami.

Firstly Light has to find the shinigami's notebook, which serves the dual purpose of opening his eyes to the existence of a world beyond his own and highlighting its possibilities. Hitherto unconsidered (or disbelieved) realities are presented as a pathway upon which to forge his own destiny.  It's the Tarot Magician as gatekeeper, signpost and luminary of higher knowledge.

However, its also the Trickster, or Charlatan, insofar as the falling Death Note serves Ryuk's agenda first and foremost. Its presence on Earth is set to alleviate the shinigami's boredom.  Light will pick it up and, primarily believing it an elaborate prank, use it to the detriment of his own future.  Not only will it curse his living years, but condemn his eternal being into the dissolution of Mu.  This ultimate destination for Death Note users means that a destiny is foisted upon Light Yagami, manipulated by ignorance and curiosity into foolishly using it without fully translating all of the rules beforehand.

The Death Note wasn't on his side, nor against him.  It's an item; a thing without judgement nor partiality.  It serves an agenda encapsulated by itself.  ('I am that I am' is the So'ham Sanskrit manta; also viewed as the Word of God in Christian mysticism; or 'As above, so below; so below, as above' in Hermetic teachings.  All very much part of The Magician's inner knowledge, and here beautifully descriptive of the Death Note too.)

Secondly, Light actually reads the rules written inside the Death Note.  Here the shinigami notebook becomes The Magician as a teacher; illuminating the arcane knowledge needed to utilize this supernatural tool.  The rules themselves inspire possible ways in which Light may now traverse in order to fulfil his projected destiny.

Even more dramatically comes that third moment of the notebook of death as The Magician in Death Note.  That's when the touch of it allows Light's mind to access his memories, previously locked away through rejection of the artefact.  Perhaps it's not quite what the ancient Magos would view as accessing the higher self, but it serves the same purpose within the storyline.  In an instant, Light Yagami's ignorance is dissolved, when the doors of perception are well and truly opened upon his past.  His destination now reached, just as planned.

The Magician as Death Note's Gatekeepers and Arbiters of Destiny

Ryuk as The Magician Death Note Tarot
Ryuk is another obvious contender for The Magician's Death Note tarot representative.  His appearance directs the plot in a myriad of ways, not least because it clarifies Light Yagami's overview and destiny.

Just like his notebook, the shinigami confirms the existence of previously unknown layers to reality, broadening Light's horizons and information base. 

Ryuk stands as guide and gatekeeper to the shinigami realm.  Not only can he speak for and translate the Gods, he is one.

Whilst denying Light access to any such services, unless the whim of the moment takes him.  Because he can.

The shinigami also acts as arbiter of knowledge concerning eternity and deals available to human users of Death Notes, which he does deign to share.  Albeit selective in his choice of snippets to pass on, and deliberately obtuse in the timing of all such communication.

It's too amusing for him not to cause maximum frustration in thus trolling his human Death Note user. 

Which all fits in completely with the reason for him being there, performing his role as Earthly sage and sometime mentor. Openly not on anyone's side - but that of his own amusement - Ryuk is the Trickster Mage personified. 

His entire performance is dedicated to his own agenda, aligning with those of others only where each party's motives/tactics run in tandem. Or he's persuaded that the potential for entertainment is strong.

The Death God is, after all, quite bored and he's here to alleviate said tedium. Everything that occurs must factor that in first, as top priority, because it's certainly the only reason Ryuk is acting in any capacity right now.

L's Messenger Mage Watari: Herald, Spokesperson and Point of Contact

Tarot Death Note Watari as The Magician

As gatekeeper to L, Watari's intervention at the Interpol meeting is pure Magician territory.

Not only does it alert all present to the avenue of inquiry now opening up due to the detective's interest in the Kira case, but it allows Matsuda - thus us too - to discover L's existence in the first place.

Thus the Fool takes the first step out of innocence, ignorance and a lack of context for the world.

For the veteran law enforcement agents there, Watari represents destiny in a very practical sense.  They don't need to discuss the way forward in their investigation now, because L is involved.   He IS the way forward; an option for the situation to be passed up to a higher authority. 

(Sneak preview for a later major arcana card - The Hierophant describes L for those with knowledge and experience of his work.)

For Soichiro and Matsuda, Watari's position is doorkeeper to destiny in a much more ethereal way.

To one it will prove downright Fateful, while the other will reach the proposed destination (catching Kira) changed beyond recall.

Destiny's Magister: Roger Ruvie, The Wammy House Ringmaster Tolls Part Two

Roger Ruvie as the Magician in Death Note tarot
One day, Wammy House warden Roger Ruvie will be Watari too.  His role will encapsulate The Magician in just the same way as Quillsh Wammy, as described above.

Nevertheless, in that Fateful moment imaged as tarot arcana (left), Roger already illustrates several aspects of The Magican card.  Each face or facet exhibited simultaneously.

For a start, he's a messenger, delivering the news that the children's idol and surrogate father are both dead.  Divining correctly the information received from a transmission's ending.  Liaison, wisdom, enlightenment, all wrapped up in that single act.

He's doing so as Wammy's House administrator - which has its root in 'ministry/minister' and from there becomes entrenched in symbolism linked with The Magician.  Minister meaning to 'act on behalf of a higher authority', hence a minister of the state in politics or the church (it literally meant 'priest' in Medieval Latin). It gets its secretarial sense from the French, where it became 'servant; overseer; watcher; manager'.

But may also relate to inspiration of a more tuneful note, hence minstrel and musician are both cognitive words. Each obviously pertaining to The Fool, yet The Magician too, as the latter can be former in receipt of self-awareness, context or knowledge, thus driving their own actions.

It all becomes much more blatant, when another cognate is brought into the mix - magistrate or magister.  One who directs or adjudicates; making decisions; laying down the law.

Roger is authorized to tell a twelve and fourteen year old that their idolized foster sibling and beloved guardian are dead. Yet nothing of sentimentality here. His job is to collect children from around the world, bring them to The Wammy House and train them as potential successors to L.

His results are majestic. After coldly dismissing Mello's emotional outburst, the first question asked was which of them was chosen as heir. No querying the fact that kids are about to be sent into an arena which killed two adults, one purportedly the world's most genius detective.  No options considered.

This Wammy Ringmaster magisterially sends both kids to fight round two; their destination seeming less destined than Fated, with such news extolled like passing bells, louder than ever tonight.

Mello the Consigliere: Death Note Mafia Mage with a Dual Agenda

Mello exemplifies The Magician with a dual agenda, while acting as consigliere within the Mafia family headed by Rod Ross.

It's similar to the previously examined outlook of that other magnate Ryuk, but Mello's motivational duality holds some important differences.

The Magician acts by manipulating an individual's lack of essential knowledge or wisdom.  However this doesn't necessary occur every time, only when it suits our canny counsellor's alternate agenda to do so.

Sometimes the concerns will align for both advisor and their directed individual; sometimes not. Regardless, the interests of the latter do not factor into the guidance given by this Mage - whether in counsellor mode, or as councillor representing their client's views and speech to others.

Consigliere (or consigliori) - Mello's position in the Mafia - meant both by the way.  Though technically describing solely the counsel given to the Don, consiglieri (in manga and in life) also fulfil many other roles ruled by The Magician.  Including, but not limited to, mediating in conflict; liaising on the Don's behalf with important contacts and/or authority figures (judges, police etc.); and keeper/archivist of secrets for the entire Family's, so to retain an overview and warn if trouble may be caused, for example, by a capo acting rashly through ignorance of matters concerning another.

Mello seems to be a good consigliere.  At one point Rod Ross is moved to comment that the genius teen has never been wrong in any decision made since joining their Family.

However, no-one should lose sight of reality. Mello was just using the Mafia to achieve his own goals.  

The wisdom imparted by Mello as consigliere causes Rod Ross's profits to sky-rocket.  Yet those and all other available resources are soon diverted into serving Mello's ambition to secure a Death Note. 

After Mello achieves his goal, thus placing a shinigami notebook in the hands of his Mafia family, all agendas probably fell in line, shared and indivisible. For a moment, indeed it seemed to Ross et al that they had absolute power.

And then, in the next moment, they ended up dead.  Mello using the lives of the last ones standing to make good his own escape.
Mafia Mello Death Note Magician

Sakura TV as the Charlatan: Showmanship Masquerading as Wisdom

Death Note Tarot The Magician Sakura TV Charlatan
When Sakura TV appoints itself as the voice of Kira, it's an attempt to appear as The Divinely Ordained or Enlightened Magician.  

As studio boss and anchor-man, Demegawa's overall aim is to trick unsuspecting individuals into believing the station has some conferred higher knowledge. Therefore attempting to gain the same trust or power given to The Magician.

Or in this case, boost ratings.

The Magician can well act as spokesperson for the people/individuals in dealings with authority, or magistrate dilemmas and/or direct juries.  They can certainly translate the divine for those less versed in the sacred mysteries.  However, its beholden upon us all to beware false prophets.

In its more negative (or domineering/pompous) aspect, our spokesperson Mage might not say what we wished them to convey.  

Think politicians declaiming sentiments which make us cringe or cry, all in our name; or the journalist who twists your words, yet 'quotes' you all the same, in pursuit of a sensational story bearing no relation to what actually occurs; or the parent/guardian/teacher expressing their own views as if they were automatically shared by yourself, ignoring or over-riding any attempt at dissent.

While Kira may experience Sakura TV's antics (in the persona of Demegawa) as the above, every other viewer is watching a charlatan or mountebank in action.  A pseudo-priest or trickster mantis preying upon the gullibility of their television audience turned congregation.

On the flip side, even the False Magician may inadvertently act as teacher.  The lesson today from Sakura being not to believe everything you hear on TV.  

(Particularly when tabled as a Trump; donkey imagery warns us off, as seen below The Magician's board in some ancient tarot decks.  Mistake the babbling showmanship of this charlatan for wisdom, and your only sure destiny is to be made feel like an ass.)

Kiyomi Takada: Enlightened Divine Messenger of Death Note

I don't remember who said it, but the quotation snagged in my mind.

Someone was told that David Icke - the footballer turned commentator and write - was now telling all and sundry that he was the Son of God.  There was a pause in which the informant gleefully awaited  the witty put-down that was sure to follow concerning the subject of their gossip.

"Well?" The other slowly asked.  "Has anyone checked if he is?"

And therein lies the rub.  How does one verify such a claim?  And if we can't, then how do we know for sure whether they're a mounteback babbling lies, or insane, or someone Cassandra cursed to be disbelieved in all the divine truth they tell?

The Magi would know.   It tends to be them. Whether reading the portents in divination; searching arcane knowledge to uncover higher truths; or acting as intermediaries between the Gods and us, as the priestly caste or ministering on career paths.

Just occasionally, we get the real thing.  Magos aglow with the numen nod - enchanters, prophets, seers, the chosen and invokers; attuned to the Great Music and entrancing with utterances lifted from source; merely mediums through which the universe flows.

Or television anchor woman/newscaster, who just happens to be the right person, at the right time, with a matching warped sense of morality and all the right contacts to be the Messiah. 

The divine intermediary aspect of The Magician is represented quite literally by Death Note's Kiyomi Takada, twofold.

She performs her role as Messenger of the God(s) in that Takada is the actual, publicly appointed spokesperson for Kira; while also being the conduit that allows both Kiras - Light Yagami and Teru Mikami - to communicate in open conversation.

No charlatan this.  Blessed Takada performs with gravitas; notably refined before this even began.  Now perceived by the ever-growing faithful as gentle, radiant, the real thing and absolutely full of grace. Buying into and believing all Light says; mind mired and amazed beyond all rationality. 

But then it was always thus:
Death Note Tarot The Magician Takada
Quem Deus perdere vult, dementat prius; quem di diligunt, adolescens moritu.
Those the Gods will destroy, they first make mad; and whom the Gods love dies young.

Le Bateleur Matsuda: Sleight of Hand Illusionist in Death Note

The Magician Matsuda - Death Note's Le Bateleur
Le Bateleur is the aspect of The Magician most familiar to us in the modern world; give or take a few fantasy movie mages, and their counterpart skills offered as an option for gamers.

This is the stage magician; the conjurer; the sleight-of-hand trickster; the illusionist; the abracadabra, now you see it, now you don't, bateleur drawing in crowds and thrilling them with misdirection, misinformation, smoke and mirrors distraction, before delivering all enrapt and gasping with awe to that climatic moment of The Prestige.

Le Bateleur - and its cognates Il Bagatto, El Bagatella, Bateleuse - refers to this tarot figure's stick, rod or, ta-daaaa, wand.

This aspect of The Magician appears throughout the Death Note series. There's even a whole chapter, in Death Note 13: How to Read, devoted to explaining all of the tricks inserted into the storyline by Tsugumi Ohba.

The Death Note Magician tarot card we've chosen to depict Il Bagatto in action features Matsuda faking his own death.  Before a stunned crowd of Yotsuba corporate executives, he pulls off The Prestige in garnering their belief that the dressed up Aiber far below on the ground is Matsuda's mangled corpse.  Meanwhile, Touta sits safely on a mattress a mere one floor below.

However, we could just as easily picked any of the dozens of scenarios, whereby Death Note's conjurers wash over truth with a new reality, attested by witnesses swearing on oath that they watched throughout.

Like when Light becomes aware he is being watched by surveillance cameras. He quickly acts to manipulate the evidence by a tricky sleight-of-hand illusion.

To the onlooker, it would appear as though he was only studying, while taking those potato chips and eating them. The reality being that Kira was killing criminals with a piece of the Death Note hidden, alongside a miniature TV, inside the chip bag.

Even L was fooled by that one.

So what's your favourite showing for the tarot Death Note Bagatella?   Just to check that you kept observing, through all there was to see.

The Three Wise Men (Wam-Magi?)

Picture
Picture
Picture
In the time of Watari, after Kira was born in Japan, wise men from the Wammy's House in Winchester came to Kanto, asking, "Where is the murderer who has been born God of the New World? For we observed his kill count at its rising, and have come to take him down."

When Takimura heard this, he was frightened and all world leaders with him; and calling together all the Kira Task Force and NPA public relations officers, he inquired of them when the Kira was to be arrested. They told him, "In the Yellow Box Warehouse; for so it has been written by Near: 'And you, Takimura, in the land of Japan, are by no means going to know a thing about it, because Mello would have got you killed by then.'"

Then US President David Hoope secretly called - via Watari - for the wise men and begged each in turn to stop threatening to control him into doing worse than Kira, whenever any of them get hold of a Death Note. Then he sent them to Kanto, saying, "Go and search diligently for Kira; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."

When they had heard the POTUS, they got him killed and replaced with George Sairas; and there, ahead of them, went the star Misa Amane that they had seen rising as Second Kira, until she stopped because L had her tortured. When they saw that the Japanese idol had started begging to have her life ended, they were overwhelmed with joy.

On entering the Warehouse, they saw the megalomaniac with Mikami his worshipper; and Near knelt down (the other two forced to too, as they were now dead and puppets). Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of cake, Transformers, and chocolate.

And having painted a vivid picture for Ryuk warning of a future bound to a Death Note now stuck in Near's vault - while Light languished in a prison for the criminally insane for life - Near successfully manipulated the Death God into taking out Light before returning to the shinigami realm.  Then the Three Wise Wammys left for their own country, where verily two returned to the toy box and Near took L's Code for himself.  And probably Mello's too.
Hold on!  One missing from this listing of The Wam-Magi as read from the Book of God's New World: 

Bored out of his mind, Il Matto stayed put in Winchester, playing SuperMario and thanking the Gods of the Internet that Kira never came with cyber-terrorism on-line.  Else he'd never have been able to get away with hiding behind his lazy, mad, wise Fool routine; playing Tetris instead of getting himself killed in someone else's war.  So wise he only ever ranked third and remained forever Il Matto.  He probably wouldn't have amounted to much anyway.  Beep, beep, lulwut, nub?
Matt Death Note Il Matto tarot
Ok, I've stopped now.
As if by Magic - More Death Note Tarot Tales

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What Consent the Children of the Wammy House? (Analysis by Lua Cruz)

5/5/2016

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It’s difficult to argue Quillsh Wammy isn’t morally questionable.

We know he is willing to assist with the imprisonment and torture of people that he, at that point of the story, has no evidence of being guilt (which still wouldn’t excuse things like torture but could explain his willingness to comply).

He has L’s word for their guilt and one could say he trusts L to be right. Even if that’s the case, Watari arranged for the death of a criminal to be on television so L could conduct a test.

Just through examples from the Kira case, one cannot say Watari only does what is right and good in the eyes of common sense morality.

Knowing Mr. Wammy established several orphanages, it’s easy to think, like Matsuda says, and say Watari was a great man.  Someone who is a brilliant inventor and who uses their wealth to house orphans around the globe doesn’t sound like a bad person.
Watari watches as L tests the tortured Light Yagami

Death Note TV drama photogaph courtesty of NTV
But what do we know about those orphanages?

If they were like Wammy’s House, they were spacious, barely furnished places. One could argue the children there required rooms with little to no furniture as they would use the space to play like Near does by building card towers. It’s interesting to notice, then, that the rooms don’t have chairs or even cushions for the children to sit in when they are expected to do so (take for example Mello and Near speaking with Roger and the children speaking with L).

The adults responsible for the care of the children seem to care very little for them and Roger allows a fourteen-year-old to leave his care.

The children collected and taken to his orphanages are gifted and they are trained to become the next L. Those children are raised in a competitive environment for no reason other than Mr. Wammy decided they should.
Quillsh Wammy's white gloves

Wammy dons his white gloves to leave no mark
Given how Watari acts in the Kira case, we know he has no issues with doing questionable things in order to accomplish a task.

In this case, could Watari be stealing geniuses for his project? The children at his institutions are supposed to be orphans but it’s clear he isn’t doing this out of kindness in an attempt to provide them a loving home.

If they are orphans, not only they have nowhere to go, no one to reach out to, and are forced to stay, but they have no ties holding them back.

The children are taught to look for what entertains them, but they are also given a fake choice as they grow up. They are raised to compete with each other in order to become L’s successor and, for that to happen, they have to learn to want to become L’s successors.
It doesn’t matter they may choose not to become L as long as they want to have the skills required to still be an option. The objective of the orphanages is not to house orphans but to house gifted children who have the potential to be L’s successors.

The autonomy of those children is denied from a very young age in such a way they grow to believe the way they are guided by beliefs they were manipulated into having are actually an expression of their own independent self.

The system in place to control and raise the gifted children at Wammy’s House does not care for the children’s needs and desires. In fact, it makes it so the children are led to believe their needs and desires are the ones the institution expect them to have, aka to become L’s successor.

If someone looks closely at Watari’s work, he doesn’t seem to be such a great man.

Article by Lua Cruz

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Watari's Indoctrination of Wammy Kids in Death Note (Analysis by Lua Cruz)

4/5/2016

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There is little to no question about the unethical basis of the system behind Wammy’s House.


We are shown a place with barely any adult supervision in which the children are allowed to be aggressive or behave however they please, with a warden who seems to care very little for the children under his care to the point of simply letting one of them walk out and expecting another to do the same.

Not only that but the house itself seems to have almost no furniture.

In the story, it may not seem so odd since, by the time we are introduced to Wammy’s House, we are aware it isn’t just a common orphanage housing children. But that only makes the existence of such place even more disturbing.
Wammy's House Roger with Mello and Near
Here is at least one house for gifted children, assumed to be orphans, who are raised in an unfriendly and competitive environment for no other reason other than Quillsh Wammy thought this was an important thing to do. Those children are taught their skills should be directed to a very specific goal: becoming L. L is a detective so the point of collecting those children is to groom them into becoming detectives. More than that, they are trained to be confident in their own reasoning, their own methods of doing what they enjoy.

If the children are taught to find a hobby and to find their own way of achieving the goals of said hobby, can we talk about indoctrination in Wammy’s House? Considering John White’s definition that indoctrination takes place if the intention of the teacher is to make it so that “(t)he child should believe that ‘p’ is true, in a such way that nothing will shake this belief” (White 1972a, 119 and 1973, 179), it could be said the point behind Wammy’s is to make sure the children believe their goal is worth everything.

If they want to solve a case, anything they do to accomplish that (be it breaking the law or putting themselves at risk or indirectly getting people killed or cheating) is worth it. Their conclusion is absolute to the point their actions are justified as if they are justice.
L - Justice will prevail - Death Note
It’s important to point out that they are not acting for the sake of justice or in the name of justice. They act as if them themselves are the embodiment of justice.

In this sense, they can do no wrong because their actions are just, they are right because they are their actions.

For example, to sacrifice the Mafia in order to get a chance to capture Kira was a selfish action; Mello wasn’t acting in the name of justice. And it was because it was a selfish decision considering his own goals that he acts as if he is justice. Those lives are worth less than capturing this criminal.

This is an educational system Watari established for a reason canon doesn’t explore. Why would he want to indoctrinate children to believe their own conclusions and decisions, even when perceived as selfish ones, were right not only to themselves but to the world?

None of the Wammy’s kids wonder if Kira could possibly be right as we see Matsuda doing. They know he is a criminal; they know they have to stop him.

If we consider they are meant to solve crimes, it could be Watari actually had an altruistic goal in mind such as world peace. But there is no interference from him in the direction those children take, and, in fact, quite a few ex-Wammy’s kids are willing to become criminals in order to achieve a goal or prove a point.
Mello joins the Mafia, K joins a bio-terrorist group, B becomes a serial killer, L himself admits to being a criminal by current laws and is willing to use torture against Misa. Letting them do as they pleased, confident on their own skills and conclusions, seemed to be a pretty chaotic project.

As it is, Watari died before his experiment was complete and we only have bits and pieces of it to try and make sense of his project. But why was it important to Watari to create a group of people with that level of confidence in their own reasoning? Why was it important to let them loose in the world with no guidance or direction?

Article by Lua Cruz

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What Were the Stakes for Watari in Death Note? (Analysis by Lua Cruz)

3/5/2016

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Death Note's Watari with L Code

Quillsh Wammy as L's aide Watari in Death Note
While canon doesn’t linger on Quillsh Wammy on his own, Watari’s existence on itself is implied to occupy a much bigger role than what we actually see.

We are introduced to him as the connection between L and the outside world, and, as the story progresses, we also see Watari is responsible for carrying L’s orders as well as taking care of L himself. We see Watari as the liaison, the butler, the bodyguard and the assistant but we aren’t given a reason to explain this renewed inventor taking on those functions.

We are told, both in the original manga and in the L: The Wammy’s House One-shot, that Quillsh Wammy is a man of wealth.  There is no reason keeping him from paying someone to look after L other than he chose to do it himself. And as we see when L arrives at Wammy’s house, he makes that decision soon after he is introduced to L. That is a choice we are left to explain on our own.
L hoarding toys in L: The Wammy House Death Note one-shot

L hoarding toys in L: The Wammy House Death Note one-shot
It could’ve been boredom. Watari is shown to be an old man; it’s possible he has seen what he wanted to see and has done what he wanted to do. He’s an inventor, a creative mind, and he could be following this unpredictable child to see what he would do. Surely, boredom could be a motivation.

But what does it say for his morality that he allowed a young child to go unpunished for beating up his house-mates and hoarding toys meant to be shared?

More than that, he actually rewarded L’s behavior, showing him attention and giving him whatever he asked for even when that meant taking a monetary risk. 

Although curiosity born out of boredom could be the reason Watari singles out L, it doesn’t explain the reasoning that created the circumstances that allowed him to find a child like L.
The orphanages weren’t created out of altruism and kindness. When we see one of them, we see a place with barely any furniture and a warden who cares so little for the children he’s responsible for that he doesn’t mind handing over private information he knew could endanger them. It’s not a place for children to grow up happily and safely, neither it is a place for children to be adopted.

After L, the point of, at least, Wammy’s House was to produce a successor and there is no explanation as to why the orphanages were meant to produce something in the first place. In that case, it’s more likely L was what they were looking for and not a random child Watari decided to entertain.

Considering Watari made the decision of establishing several orphanages after World War II, his motivation could’ve been to prevent another war, to find the one mind capable of intervening and putting a stop to such horrors. If L was the answer to the question he was trying to answer with his orphanages, Watari was looking for a kid capable of saying their own methods, their own morals, were just.
The idea behind his orphanages was grooming children who met a certain standard to become the moral compass of the world, and, by choosing this particular child to become the standard the other children should follow, Watari himself chose this child as the ideal one.

To make a choice like that, Quillsh Wammy had to be particularly confident on his own morality, his own sense of justice and his own intelligence. He had to be sure he was right, that was he was doing and the possible grief he would cause was worth it.

If Watari set out to find a child who could become Justice in the world, his resolve was not to raise children nor was it to provide them a loving home.

He established a system that allowed him to find someone he considered capable of being justice and provided this person with all resources required. He modified the system in place just enough to create another person based on the standard is first choice produced.

That being the case, we can say Watari considered the common good to be indubitably more important than personal well-being.
Death Note Near hearing L talk about justice and his cases

Death Note Near hearing L talk about justice and his cases
In fact, we can go beyond that and consider Watari didn’t change his methods after finding L as much as he was lucky enough to find a child who already did and strongly believed what he wanted the children under his care to do and believe.

Watari forced the children under his care to abide by his own moral inclination despite their own desires but to do so believing in their own deductive skills. They were indoctrinated to believe they, too, could be justice, but only if they were the very best. Personal safety, personal happiness, mental health, physical well-being, etc… were not as important as the good of the majority, but the good of the majority was taught to them as a consequence of their own actions, their own inclinations, their own search for answers.

Not only was Watari morally irresponsible as he allowed L to do as he wished (choosing the cases and methods he pleased under the pretence of representing justice), he was also morally wrong on the orphanage system he created. If he thought the world needed a moral compass that he could provide, he, at least, knew his methods were condemnable enough he should keep them hidden.
Article by Lua Cruz

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Why is Matsuda Important to a Story like Death Note? (Analysis by Lua Cruz)

4/4/2016

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It’s always interesting to discuss the motivations or moral inclinations one could read in the characters of Death Note.

In most cases, as one considers how a character’s morality fits into the story, it’s rather easy to see the reasons why the character themselves are important. However, Matsuda doesn’t seem to be remarkable in the same way the other characters of Death Note are.

In fact, thinking about Matsuda made me realize his importance seems to rely mostly on the fact he is actually isn’t remarkable at all.

Matsuda doesn’t hold strong enough convictions to make his moral actions interesting on their own, and that’s what makes his moral actions unique in this context. He is there to show us the difference between the characters involved in the Kira case (the genius detectives as well as the more experienced law enforcement) and the people affected by the Kira case (regular people such as Light’s family).

As a police officer, Matsuda still lacks the resolve the older investigators have, and that, which appears to make him simple-minded or even stupid sounding, puts this character in the position of judging Kira not as law enforcement but as just another person who can see the criminality rates dropping.
Death Note's Matsuda thinks
As a police detective lacking in experience, Matsuda becomes the one character involved in the Kira case that is just an ordinary person. He doesn’t have, yet, the strength of will to do good despite himself and, as we see when Matsuda is confronted by the reveal of Kira’s identity, his personal feelings and his moral views are still pretty much the same. If his importance comes from being the less experienced detective, it also comes from Matsuda being our constant reminder of a common sense point of view among more specific moral inclinations.

That is not to say, in any way, that Matsuda isn’t willing to sacrifice himself. The values Matsuda holds true and that motivate him towards acts of selflessness are not motivated by the greater good, so to say. If we look closely, he acts kindly and in a caring manner not as a police officer but as a friend or an empathetic acquaintance. Matsuda’s acts of bravery don’t hold the same meaning as Soichiro’s or Aizawa’s because their reasoning is presented to us as something done because that’s the right thing to do despite their internal conflicts while Matsuda’s actions are shown to be motivated by a desire to do good but an inability to detach himself from his personal desires and conclusions. For example, to show the contrast between Matsuda and the other investigators, we can take Ide as an example.

Ide disagrees with L and walks away from the investigation, he is still unable to walk away from the case itself as that would be turning a blind eye into a situation considered morally wrong. Ide couldn’t bring himself to choose neutrality when he was faced with the consequences of letting Kira run free; walking away from the investigation becomes a shameful act. When Matsuda is faced with doubts regarding Near as L, he isn’t ready to choose his convictions over his work even when he seems convinced Near did terrible things to be able to end the Kira case.

By the end of the manga, Matsuda has acquired some experience and that’s enough to make him doubt Near’s intentions. Nevertheless, Matsuda is, still, only beginning to abandon the path of an ordinary person and truly becoming an investigator. As he chooses to put aside his worries about Near, he also shows us there is a transition to be made from an ordinary person who is meant to be protect by the law and whose concerns can be perceived as personal ones, an actual investigator who can understand doing the right thing requires more than a good heart.

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Did Kira Fail by Punishing not Preventing Crime? Leila Lawliet M Thinks Not

25/2/2016

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Opinion piece written by Leila Lawliet M for Month of Light Yagami on Death Note News.  The rest of this post is given over to and penned by her.
Not long ago, I watched a video by YouTuber Onision. In this video, Onision basically says that Light Yagami's mistake is not considering PREVENTING crime, as opposed to punishing criminals who've ALREADY done bad things.

And by preventing crime, I mean writing for example, "Anyone who THINKS of committing a crime will be killed by the power of this notebook, before they get to actually fulfil their intentions."

I disagree, because preventing crimes by killing anyone who intends to commit them makes deaths looks like coincidences or normal deaths. In other words, if you were to hear of the death of a certain person of which no one knows the intentions, it would've NEVER occurred to you there's someone out there "passing righteous judgement", which we all know is one of Light's ultimate goals, to make Kira famous and worshipped.
On the other hand, Light's method made people aware of Kira's existence, the existence of an entity playing the role of God, or a really powerful judge, now that the deceased are known to the public as criminals, therefore changing their mentalities and making them think twice before trying to kill/steel/rape...

Another valid argument,is the following: imagine if someone thought really hard about killing another person, even prepared for it and intended it deeply. But, this person has a final wake up from his conscience five seconds before stabbing the victim-to-be, and ends up not killing anyone.

Would Onision's method work here? Wouldn't this method have killed the future-criminal before his conscience stepped in?
Kira - Somebody passing righteous judgement - Death Note manga
I think yes, because all that sentence written in Death Note needs in order to be applied is a strong willingness to kill, which is present in the example.

But then again, that's just my wicked over-analysis and my own point-of-view to which you are free to reply.
Kira's Mistake Opinion piece by Leila Lawliet M

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The Unattainable Perfect World - Excerpt from an Essay about Kantian Ethics and Kira by Andrew Capuano

19/2/2016

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Reproduced with permission from an essay originally, and fully, published at DEATH NOTES: an online source for Death Note Analysis and Discussion
(links at the end)

by Andrew Capuano


If someone intentionally carries out a horrendous deed in an attempt to create a beneficial result, does that make it right?

It's one of those questions that people have pondered over for ages. Some say that it would depend on what the action and result were, though others would argue the means can not simply be forgotten because of the way things happened to turn out. If the goal was the ultimate good imaginable, would it matter what was done to obtain it?

This question is deeply examined in the manga, Death Note, which is written by Tsugumi Ohba, and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.
Kira and Kant

Light Yagami and Immanuel Kant
The character of Light Yagami tries to create a perfect world free from crime by cleansing the world of evil. He plans to use the Death Note, a book owned by a god of death, to murder criminals and other people he deems as evil by writing their names into the Death Note. Light might have had good intentions, especially at first, but a utopian society founded on homicide is unattainable. Regardless of the good that he intended to do, the unthinkable acts that Light commits eradicate the possibility of a perfect world, or any positive outcome for that matter. In other words, it is impossible to meet a noble end by employing such horrific means.

Light's actions are considered immoral by the standards of deontological ethics, namely Kantian ethics. Immanuel Kant believed that a person's duty was central to morality, and was more important than simply cultivating pleasure. Kant's main idea was his 'Categorical Imperative,' which states: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." 1 In layman's terms, Kant is saying you should only do something if you would want everybody else to start doing it too. More accurately, you should not act on a general rule (maxim) you would not want everyone else to follow as if it were a law of nature (universal law).  The Categorical Imperative can be employed with ease to prove that Light's conduct is deplorable.


If everybody acted on the general rule that Light is acting on, (If someone judges a person as evil, it is all right to kill that person) the world would not be able to function for very long, and even if it did last, it is exceedingly unlikely that someone could ever want to live in such a world. If everyone acted on the maxim stated above, then all the people would start killing each other and the world would become a bloodbath. People would start killing others that they considered to be evil, and then others still would kill the previously mentioned murderers, since most people believe murder to be wrong. It would proceed in this fashion, until no one was left alive.


The problem with human judgement is that a person may not know all the facts. If someone deems a person to be evil, but that person was framed or the information was false or otherwise incomplete, then an innocent person would be killed, simply because he was incorrectly deemed evil by someone else. Since it is inconceivable to will the world to be that way, judging people as Light does is immoral.


Kant's Categorical imperative can be reworded in order for it to apply to more situations. The second formulation states that we are to "[a]ct in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end." 2 Basically, Kant is saying that people should never be used or manipulated by others. It is morally unacceptable to exploit other people, no matter what ends you are attempting to achieve. Light does this frequently in his doomed quest for a perfect world...


  1. Kant, Immanuel; translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed.. Hackett, p30.
  2. Kant, Immanuel; translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed.. Hackett, p36.

To read more, please visit DEATH NOTES and Andrew Capuano's original posting of his Light Yagami essay: The Unattainable Perfect World.

DEATH NOTES is an invaluable resource for those who like a bit of academia in their reading of the Death Note manga.  Largely inactive now,  its archives nevertheless contain a rich bounty of timeless essays written during the period when Death Note was first coming to the attention of international audiences and readers.  The site's essayists emanate from varying disciplines within the academe, with less formal - sometimes downright flippant - pieces interspersed for flavour.

The excerpt above was republished here with permission from DEATH NOTES' editor Jennifer Fu.

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The Concept of Kira: Can you Really say Light Yagami is the God of the New World? (Guest Post by Lua)

11/2/2016

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Any given name, considered as an abstraction, is a concept. Understanding it in a Fregean sense, a reference isn’t required to give the name – the concept - a meaning. You can think of Medusa and you understand the name has meaning despite being unable to point to the actual being you understand as Medusa. You can also have the same sense applied to different names because their reference is the same; that’s the case of Light Yagami and Kira. As anyone familiar with Death Note will notice, the sense attached to each of those names is completely different and so it’s their importance.

Light Yagami, as a concept, comprehends the exemplar student who wants to follow his father’s footsteps into law enforcement, who helps his younger sister, who dates remarkable girls, who excels at school. A good son, a good student, a good person. That is Light Yagami’s definitional structure, the conditions that need to be sufficed for one to be identified as Light. On the other hand, the necessary conditions for one to be identified as Kira are another set of requirements that does not consider Light’s definition in order to exist. The sense conveyed by Light Yagami and the sense conveyed by Kira can and are understood as different sense with the same referent.

Kira, as an abstraction, means a person with unknown supernatural powers and whose goals, motivations, methods and descriptions may vary. Kira is introduced as a vigilante killer but his definition isn’t restricted to it because the simpler concepts that characterize the abstraction of Kira are not specific enough; the set of characteristics applied to Kira could be those applied to any other name. If we have no concept, what can be said of its use? It’s from this vague definition that the power of being Kira comes from.

What is Kira? What makes one Kira? Could Kira have godly powers? That knowledge is restricted to very few people. There is nothing in the concept of Kira that contradicts most interpretations of to what the name Kira could be applied to.
Death Note anime - I am Kira
Death Note anime - I'm the God of the New World
In fact, one could theorize that something is exactly the sort of thing Kira does due to the lack of a specific and necessary set of conditions that make up the concept of Kira. Kira, as a concept, is not required to necessarily be Light Yagami nor to satisfy the conditions of what one understand as Light Yagami even if Light himself can satisfy the conditions to being Kira.

Kira is allowed to become the God of the New World because there is nothing that disproves that equivalence. Not only that, the God of the New World in itself is a concept that requires a definition and that definition isn’t restricted to being Light Yagami. If its definition is that the God of the New World is the exact same being who behaves exactly like Kira does, to say Kira isn’t the God of the New World would be wrong. But Kira isn’t defined as being Light in the world of the series (we, as an audience, know but the characters are working with a broad concept that has little to no definition). The same issue arises from the equivalence Kira = Justice. If Kira is defined in terms of something or someone who punishes evildoers, one can argue that, in some sense, his actions are just without arguing Light Yagami himself is Justice.

What the detectives of the series do is to take away the vagueness of that definition in order to take away Kira’s power. The more they limit the definition of Kira (it’s a human, it’s a male, it’s a killer, it’s a Japanese person, it’s someone in the task force, it’s the second L), the more they limit the possible equivalences. If the God of the New World means Kira and Kira means a Japanese student who is nothing more than a vigilante killer, it’s quite unlikely there will be an equivalence with abstract ideas such as Justice because it would be to say Justice is a Japanese student who is a vigilante killer. All the Wammy’s detectives recognize the power of the usage of an undefined name and they not only humanize the idea of Kira and give it form but they strip him of his power with each characteristic added as a requirement to fulfil that concept.

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Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note #04: The Utilitarianism of Light Yagami

3/2/2016

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Philosophical Death Note News column - Nathaniel overthinks Death Note



What School of Thought produces Kira?

Taking a philosophical look
at the world of Death Note
is our deep thinking columnist
Nathaniel Brown

The curious thing about the ideology of Light Yagami is that while he shares his father’s passion for justice he seems to be a fundamentally utilitarian thinker.

Utilitarianism revolves around the idea that the worth of an action is the sum of the aggregate pleasure it creates for people. If an actions creates more good for society than it does bad, than it is a decent action. Under this line of thinking the means can justify the ends! During his insane soliloquy at the end of the series Light concedes that 'that killing people in itself is a crime', but that it had to be done.
For him, murdering people was a necessary crime to fix this 'rotten world'.

What strikes me about Light’s character is actually how perversely noble he is (that is not to say I agree with what he did). Of the five people who obtain and use the Death Note in the series: Higuchi, Light, Misa, Jack and Mikami (and possibly Near if Matsuda is to be believed) only Light and Mikami (under Light’s guide) used it for selfless purposes.

Higuchi used it to advance his career and Misa used the Death Note first to get close to Light, then later to impress him.  While Jack Neylon utilized it for purposes of organised crime. Light on the other hand used the Death Note purely to improve the world; and never for personal gain.

It’s hard to overstate just how few people in the World would ever do this. The Death Note represents the perfect opportunity to get away with anything you want for no cost.

Getting back to Light’s particular philosophy, it’s interesting to note that is his conception of using the death penalty as a deterrent is actually extremely successful (its success in reality is dubious at best). Crime rates drop drastically, organised crime and all that entails (slavery and the drug and sex trade) have almost completely ceased to exist and war is a thing of the past. This clearly provides a very real good for society.

This world is rotten - Death Note manga Boredom
While I wouldn’t argue Ohba is arguing that the death penalty is an effective deterrent, he is arguing humans have an innate fear of spirituality and the unknown, and perhaps an intuitive belief in God (hence why people are so willing to accept Kira as God). The reason why Light’s plan is so efficacious is because people perceive a God as infallible, but police officers regularly make mistakes. Hence why people were less likely to commit crimes when Kira was active.

In Yagami’s mind, the pain felt by criminals is nothing compared to the new found safety of innocent men, women and children and therefore his otherwise cruel actions are excusable.

Yagami’s beliefs come in the context of the Japanese legal system. Prosecutors often won’t take on criminals who haven’t confessed or there isn’t overwhelming evidence against in order to maintain a 100% conviction rate. Because of this many criminals walk free in Japanese society. The Japanese films make this element even more explicit than the anime with some of Light Yagami’s fury being actively caused by this absence of justice for the victims after he hacked into police computers and was horrified by the number of people who simply walked free.

Personally, I can’t help but wonder if Light Yagami’s utilitarianism might actually have been prudent within the context of his Universe. One could argue that it was a society based around fear, not justice, and while criminals certainly have a lot to be afraid of, for the common working man or woman I don’t think this holds true. Light Yagami is brilliant, and is unlikely to make errors when it comes to killing criminals, and so won’t kill innocents by mistake. While it’s likely some innocent people who have been arrested for crimes they didn’t commit are killed erroneously, I don’t think this would have been common. Light Yagami being too self-righteous to kill people whose guilt is uncertain. Furthermore, most people (from what we see) actively support Kira which would seem to imply that very few innocent people have been murdered by Kira (with the obvious exceptions of Raye, Naomi and other police officers who attempted to apprehend him).
 
With war and crime being a thing of the past, it’s fair to argue less people die by Light’s metaphorical hand than would have from crime in normal circumstances.

In 2012, the second last year of Light Yagami’s reign in the anime (and the only year I could find data for) over 437,000 people (approximately) were murdered.  In the universe of Death Note, Light says, “Global crime rates have been reduced by over 70%.” So lets apply this number to how many people were murdered under his rule that year, and 437,000 in that one year becomes 131,000; a difference of 306,000. This means 306,000 people were saved from murder in that one, hypothetical year. This number, if you assume it holds true to the four years Light rules after the death of L, becomes 1,024,000.

This naturally excludes lives indirectly saved such as those would no longer die from the drug trade in the absence of major cartels. It also doesn’t factor in the great reductions in other horrific crimes and the beneficial impact that will have on many innocent people’s lives. Light Yagami was in many ways therefore justified, though he killed many, less people died on the whole and so it can be successfully argued that the means justify the ends.
 
 One thing is certain though, even if you don’t agree with what I’ve written, Light Yagami is definitely a supporter of capital punishment.

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Death Note and Holocaust Memorial Day: What if Kira Killed Hitler, or Would They be Hypothetically Akin?

27/1/2016

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Holocaust Memorial Day 2016
All over the world today, people are marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

Set on January 27th because that was the date, in 1945, which saw the liberation of Auschwitz.  It's not just an historical 'woe, woe, that was bad' endeavour - though of course it was - but an awareness raising, bridge building day with one key message and goal. 

Never again.


It will happen again.  No historian, nor human rights campaigner, let alone sociologist or political commentator, is naive enough to think it won't.  All of the elements which gave rise to the Third Reich in the first place, and its horrific Final Solution of death camps, execution squads and gas chambers, exist right now. They swim endlessly in our society, often in the background, with a quite worrying frequency coming back to the fore.
Right now, religious leaders in France are warning Jews to not wear their skullcaps, as it renders them too visible a target.  French Jews are beginning to flee their country - as yet a trickle, in danger of becoming an exodus. All across Europe, borders are being closed to those fleeing war and arbitrary cruelties in Syria.

In Britain, asylum seekers were made to don - and keep on 24/7 - distinctive wristbands in Cardiff, thus ensuring that they were publicly identifiable at a glance. While in the north-east of England, refugees housed by the Home Office found that their front doors had been painted bright red. All the better for local thugs and hoodlums to know were they lived.

Everywhere the Far Right is gaining more ground politically than at any other time since the Holocaust.

The USA has a concentration camp, which its citizens apparently don't deem worth rising in enough numbers to pressure their government to close. Because they haven't. While momentum is gathering beyond presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose views wouldn't have been out of step with Hitler's Nazi Regime, including conceptual support for race based internment camps.
Kira Worshippers

In a culture of supposed danger and fear, people will support anything which makes them feel safe.

Meanwhile, Australia is condemning thousands of people to unaccountable 'detention facilities' on islands off their shores.  Human Rights inspectors have been banned from entering.  Legal processes are done in utmost secrecy (with no evidence that they're being done at all). The reports coming out of places like Manus Island and Nauru are unsettling to say the least.  North Korea undoubtedly has death camps. About which much lip service in shaking head disapproval has been afforded by the outside world. But not enough to do anything about it.

All this makes 'never again' seem like a joke.  'Not on my watch' is about the best we can do, and even then it's a terribly uphill struggle.

We have Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th, not because people forget, but because they forget the specifics and that's what allows the memory to metamorphose into lived experience.

Never again indeed, and certainly not on my watch.

Kira and the Nazi Party: Would our Saviour be Light Yagami in the Holocaust?

Manga Death Note Kira righteous judgment
However, while these sentiments might be very noble and all, it begs the question - why is Holocaust Memorial Day on Death Note News' watch?  It's a little off-topic for a manga (and derivatives) set half a century on from said Auschwitz liberation. 

You got me. Guilty as charged.  Holocaust historian here, ninja-ing an important date in my calendar into the remit of Death Note.

But because it's an important date, and my thoughts are otherwise largely swirling around content for articles here, the two merged in a musing during my commute this morning:  what if Kira had come a couple of generations before?  What if Light Yagami's statement that 'the world is rotten' had taken place against a global back-drop of World War II, the rise of Hitler and the actuality of the Holocaust?

Would the names written in his Death Note have included Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Josef Mengele, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and the rest of their ilk?  What would have happened historically, if Kira took out Rudolf Höss before he'd perfected killing on an industrial scale with Zyklon B and cremations?

An intriguing 'what if' in history, but not one which could be answered easily and definitely not within the scope of this article.

Is Justice Served by Kira if his Death Note Ends Genocide?

What concerned me more was the logical query following on - if Kira single-handedly averted the Holocaust through mass murder, does that make him the good guy?  Or just as bad as those he sought to destroy?

The human rights activist in me wants to say the latter.  The historian is wide-eyed and tight lipped with quivering self-horror at my sensibility's tacit assent for the former.

The philosopher of my first degree mutters on about two wrongs not making a right.

The literary critic snaps that this is precisely the sort of dilemma encountered by all within the canon Death Note universe, during the ascendancy of Kira's New World.

I'm sure we can all very keenly picture Near's sneering reaction in disdain of the question.  For him, Kira is a serial killer no matter what the underlying cause.  There is no justification.  Not even the millions consigned to the gas chambers, starved, exposed to epidemics, subjected to scientific/medical experimentation or shot into mass graves.  Even then, Light Yagami is just a murderer.

Where do you stand on the issue?

Imagining a Nazi Kira and the Death Note's Final Solution

Of course, this is all assuming that Light Yagami morally and actively opposed the Holocaust.  It must be remembered that Japan allied WITH Nazi Germany during the period when the Final Solution was being enacted.

Our sense of right and wrong, just or unfair, moral or corrupt, is shaped by our upbringing, societal pressures and the drip-drop of propaganda as fed by every nation's media on any given day.  More so than any of us would like to admit.  Hence it's reasonable to assume that Light Yagami's chief exposure to the Holocaust would be within a generally supportive cultural back-drop.  His information and resultant position could well be akin to Hitler and his government.

Which leads us to another proposal ranked with horrors:  what if Light's Death Note was used for the Nazis?  How even more widespread might be the Final Solution with the Death Note involved?  (Political dissidents, or fleeing refugees known by name and photograph, reached without resource to a death camp.)
Or more pertinently put, what if the Death Note fell into the hands of Nazis?  Then and now.

How much more terrifying might our watch be?  And would we ever get the chance to say 'never again'?

Or could collusion create yet more greatly amassed clues to Yagami's own identity? To play out with deductive precision in a Wammy House mind, thus rendering Kira's capture a swifter endeavour?

Or don't you think Light Yagami would have involved himself in the Holocaust at all?  Ignoring its reality, just as so many of us continue on apathetically when faced with elements today similar to those once staged by a burgeoning Nazi regime. 

A pointless musing perhaps, but one which pays dividends in awareness on a day like this.

Over to  you.
Death Note shinigami realm Ryuk
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Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note #03: L's Philosophical Materialist Thinking

13/1/2016

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Nathaniel Brown Philosophical Death Note column on Death Note News




If even L can be met in his Philosophy, then
resident Death Note News columnist, our
over-thinking Nathaniel Brown
is the man for the job.

Near (no pun intended) the beginning of Death Note, L famously proclaims “I am justice”, which is funny because he has no such interest in justice.

It’s always been an amusing quirk that the character who heads the task force wasn’t pursing the world’s most prolific serial killer for moral reasons, but rather for his own amusement. In fact, there seems to be a massive juxtaposition between the L at the start of Death Note, and the L we see when the task force finally meets him in person.

Partially I think this is because Ohba didn’t fully know what he wanted to do with the character at the start of the series. The early L looks composed, almost handsome when we see his face. He talks about how Kira is evil to the International Criminal Police Organization with deep passion and seems to truly believe it. However, in the Death Note One Shot L tells the children of Wammy House, “It’s not a sense of justice. Figuring out cases is my hobby. If you measured good and evil by current laws, I would be responsible for many crimes.”

L Describes his Morality in the Death Note One Shot

L's Morality in Death Note
Death Note One Shot - L isn't justice
This is true - very early on into the series, an L who views Kira as evil is clearly a hypocrite. He lets Lind. L Tailor die to prove Kira can kill without being there in person. He attempts to let the Yotsuba Group kill criminals in order to prove their guilt and is willing to let a criminal possibly die to test the '13 day Rule'.

Whether or not you agree with these actions is moot, he’s prepared to kill criminals to catch a man who kills criminals. This is morally self-defeating in the worst way possible. The most consistent look at L (at least from the manga and anime) is one who, while not completely without redeeming features, isn’t concerned with higher values.
Death Note L with Skull

Alas poor Yagami, I knew him...
L. Lawliet in Hamlet mode
L, is in many ways the antithesis to Light. Whereas Light is handsome and meticulously dressed, L is dishevelled. Light is charming; L is almost autistic. Light is extremely moral; L doesn’t seem to believe in morals.

The only traits they do seem to share is that they’re both chronic liars and are extremely brilliant.
 
I doubt L ever thought about his Philosophy in these terms; but he is fundamentally a materialist thinker. Materialists believe that there is no objective morality and good and evil are entirely human concepts (think of Hamlet’s famous proclamation, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”) and that existence is entirely physical.

It’s not hard to view L in such terms.
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Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note:  The Friendship Between L and Light

4/12/2015

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

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

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

Death Note's Compelling Cat and Mouse Dynamic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How did Light Yagami Regard his Relationship with L?

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

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

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

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

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

How did L View Light Yagami in Death Note?

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

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

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

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

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

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Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note #01: Kant and Confucius in Death Note via Soichiro Yagami

26/10/2015

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Beginning today, a brand new Philosophy of Death Note column
by Nathaniel Brown for Death Note News.

Death Note News Column: Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note
The morality of Death Note is curious thing, not least because the complex themes Ohba raises in his manga are unintentional.

When examining the themes of Death Note we as a fandom have a lot of input. Death Note is the perfect slate for a variety of interpretations because Ohba himself didn’t have much in mind outside his desire to entertain his readership. When interviewed he said that he saw a magazine article about the themes of the series he stated that it was “too difficult for me to understand”  and the creation of the “deep philosophical themes” of Death Note were a by-product of their desire to entertain, not the other way around.

He’s even on record as saying “some people may have been taking the series too seriously”!  (Which in writing this article I’m probably falling into the category of). He was pressed about this topic and did eventually say “no human has the right to pass judgement on another’s actions. No one should play God”; but this seems to be retrospective analysis rather than something he had in mind while writing the series.
 
Nevertheless, whether Ohba intended to or not his series raises many valid ideas and paves way for multiple readings; not just the one I’m about to offer. The risk in approaching Death Note is to view it with too strong a Western perspective when characters like Soichiro Yagami are so clearly eastern. Nevertheless, it’s through this lens I will (partially) view it because of my greater familiarity with Western philosophy.

The three main ideologies characters could be argued to have in the series are Utilitarianism, Confucianism (with a touch of Kantianism) and Nihilism.  We'll start this month with the middle one.

Death Note's Confucian Soichiro Yagami (and Kant)

Death Note's Soichiro Yagami: Manga, Anime, Takeshi Kaga and Yutaka Matsushige

The Confucian faces of Soichiro Yagami: (clockwise from l) manga, anime, Yutaka Matsushige (TV)
and Takeshi Kaga (live action movies)
Light’s father Soichiro Yagami is a fundamentally eastern character with a highly Confucian mind-set. Confucianism (similar, but not identical to the Western philosophy of Kantianism) emphasises collective duty to the whole of society and that the ends never justifies the means!

Soichiro values his family above all other things, and his duty as a police officer next. He was the first to agree to stay on with L after the police force stopped investigating the Kira case, and his guilt in saving his daughter lead him to accept the Shinigami eyes and ultimately die for his cause. He risks his life numerous times during the Kira investigation and his passion for justice makes him an incredible workaholic (his family often had to deliver clothes to him because he worked such long hours, this caused Light to meet Naomi while he was delivering them to him; too her eternal misfortune).

Ohba has stated that Soichiro Yagami is the only “good” person in Death Note.
 
Despite his dedication to catch Kira, he has his limits of what he perceives as morally permissible to do so and he certainly doesn’t espouse the idea “that the ends justify the means”. This objection is revealed multiple times throughout the investigation; most notably when L wishes to allow criminals mentioned by Yotsuba to die in order to incriminate the organisation. Soichiro opposes on the grounds that “even if they are criminals” it’s unethical to allow them to die even if it is to solve the case.  To make this clear, they arguably stand to gain more by allowing these criminals to die (and to be fair, we aren’t talking about purse snatchers here in most cases) since if they can apprehend the Yotsuba Group, more people will be saved from Kira.

Looking it at it from a more Kantian perspective all humans have an intrinsic value, and can never be a means to an end because their intelligence and sentience makes them an end in of themselves meaning things such as murder and lying (which Light does with impunity) never acceptable.
 
The song sung by Soichiro in Death Note the Musical - Honour Bound and Bound by Honesty - has a distinctly Eastern feeling to it; enhancing his Confucian and Japanese associations.
At the heart of Soichiro Yagami’s character is a man who struggles between his duty to his family and his duty to remain impartial as a police officer. This ultimately leads him to consider committing suicide after he’s forced to hand over the Death Note to Mello to get his daughter, Sayu, back. 

Other versions of Death Note enhance this very Japanese perspective further. In the Death Note  drama, Soichiro Yagami commits suicide with the Death Note after uncovering his son’s identity as Kira. This harkens back to the honour killings that were once common in Japan; most infamously with Kamikaze pilots. Since Soichiro Yagami cannot bring himself to kill his son (that would be a violation of his duty to his family) he kills himself since he failed in his duty to raise a morally upright son.
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Three New Feature Writers for Death Note News

26/10/2015

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A trio of Death Note News columnists are about to come on board, with the first being posted later on today.  Yep, that's right. You wait two years for one, and three of them turn up at once!  It's all very exciting.

So who have we got for you?

Nathaniel Overthinks Death Note

Death Note News: Nathaniel overthinks Death Note Philosophy column banner
The first monthly column will be penned by New Zealander Nathaniel Brown - a man who subscribes to several Schools of Thought.  At least when he's applying them to Death Note.

A thinker and a philosopher, Nathaniel will be leading us through some of the great theories and worldly perspectives across the range of human experience.  But doing it all through the lens of Death Note characters, plot-lines and whatever else from manga, anime or live action might illuminate the angle taken.

It might be Aristotle, Descartes, Confucius or whomever, depending upon the month, but what I can guarantee is that it'll be enjoyable. 

No Philosophy degree needed to read and contribute to the debate. Just a willingness to join with Nathaniel as he over thinks Death Note, all in the name of fun.

Look for his inaugural column in an hour or two from now.

Death Note Musical References with Lucas King

No idea if that's what the column will ultimately be called, as this welcome to the team is very fresh, and we're yet to fine tune the details.

Yet Lucas King himself is no stranger to Death Note News.  He's guest blogged before and orchestrated for himself an instant fan-base, when he composed those missing Death Note themes for Matt.
Lucas will be taking a wider view of the musical array in Death Note tunes - from soundtracks to tributes, across the spectrum of canon, fanon and all the rest. Probably.  Like I said, it's early days yet and anything still is possible.

An original composer of Death Note music himself - albeit from the fandom community - Lucas King's occasional column for Death Note News promises to be insightful, expert and downright entertaining.  Find it in the future and enjoy.

Death Note Tarot Tales with Tarot Mikami

Death Note Near with Tarot Cards
Near makes up stuff
with a tarot deck
Talking about looking to the future, do you recall that moment in the Death Note anime when Near laid out his tarot deck and turned them over to shocking symbolism? 

There was Death staring straight back at us. Chilling in any context but one which habitually has a Shinigami prancing about in full view upon our screens.

Also utterly erroneous in its reading, according to long-time connoisseur of these cards and Death Note fan, Tarot Mikami.  Loving the play on words in that pseudonym there!

'Probably monthly',  her Death Note News column will explore the genre and story through the literary device of the Fool's Journey. Along the way, you'll learn how to read tarot cards, not only with reference to Death Note - though that's how we'll come to understand it - but using any deck you care to handle.

We'll also find out why Near's tarot scene was all about the imagery and nothing to do with the reading (well, who would have thought...?).  Sneaky boy.

Death Note Tarot Tales with Tarot Mikami will appear anon, almost certainly within the next couple of weeks.  Another fabulous new insight into our favourite manga universe.

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