Category: Real World Influence

Viz at Hyderabad Comic Con: Hindi Death Note Paved the Way for More Manga into India

18/9/2015

More manga will be coming to India, Viz Media top exec. Kevin Hamric confirmed during his recent talk at Hyderabad Comic Con.

Anime like Death Note has made it possible, simply by proving to be so popular.

Death Note Misa Cosplayer at Comic Con Hyderabad 2015

Death Note Misa cosplay at Comic Con Hyderabad September 2015
(Courtesy of MKM Communications/Comic Con India)

Japanese manga and anime has struggled to make much headway into the vast Indian market. Despite a growing number of aficionados, like those packing out Hitex Exhibiton, September 12-13, for Comic Con Hyderabad 2015.

Not to mention those thronging into Bangalore Comic Con last April, or the hordes expected to descend upon Mumbai Film & Comics Convention and Comic Con Delhi, both in December 2015.

The fact that so many events are now teeming with Indian fans of anime and manga is only the visual face of how the genre is gathering pace in the country. But it's been slow going.

Two factors have been credited with making such headway as exists.

The first being first day guest speaker at the Hyderabad gathering - Kevin Hamric, Senior Director of Sales and Marketing at Viz Media. He might be merely the human face for a company increasingly making manga available in India, but he's quite a active one.

Returning time and time again to the sub-continent determined to make manga appear approachable to Indian readers.

<br>Viz's Kevin Hamric Hyderabad Comic Con 2015 talk

Viz Media Kevin Hamric as Hyderabad Comic Con guest speaker

His session at Comic Con Hyderabad was described in the schedule as 'get a behind the scenes look in to your favourite anime & manga series', then went on to name-check Death Note, amongst the other usual suspects - Naruto, Bleach and Dragon Ball Z.

These are the fore-runners forging a route into the Indian entertainment industry on behalf of all other Japanese manga to follow.

Hamric himself highlighted the second major factor, in an interview with Hans India newspaper (We are Bringing More of Manga to India: Kevin Hamric, Sept 14th 2015).

“One of the reasons why there are more takers to manga is because, most of the time when these animes were screened on TV, it was dubbed in Hindi and even Telugu. This helped a lot.”

In short, more manga is now being introduced to the country - plus being printed there, as demand grows to justify it - because Hindi dubbed Death Note et al made the genre popular enough. Through the anime laying the groundwork, Hamric was able to build a market for manga too.

Thus does the Death Note fandom grow, and all others too, eventually.

Subbed Hindi: Death Note Opening Theme

2 Comments

Death Note and the Death Penalty

7/9/2015

0 Comments

An opinion piece in a British broadsheet prompted one fan to laud the anti-death penalty message hammered home in Death Note.

The editorial by Clive Stafford Smith (The death penalty is in its final throes, but too many are still being executed) took a world wide view of capital punishment in its current state. Only 37 of the 195 countries recognized by the UN retains the death penalty on its statute books, including Japan.

Stafford Smith opined that those nations are out of step within a modern world and that history will judge them harshly. Soon no state will seek to execute those it deems criminal according to its laws. The arguments have already been lost.

The death penalty is no deterrent and its continued usage seems more and more like political expediency.

Naomi Misora approaches the gallows in Death Note

In response to the editorial, Death Note fan jameshogg commented:

In Death Note, no doubt one of Japan's greatest ever parables against the death penalty, Light Yagami comes across a supernatural notebook that allows him to kill anyone by writing their names. Instead of accepting responsibility for his first killing by testing the truthfulness of the notebook on a street gang member, he rationalises his murder by insisting that the criminals of the planet must perish in the name of deterrence in his "new world", something he's been long dreaming of. Ryuk, the Death God that watches over Light, remarks that at the end of this plan he will be "the only bastard left". Light replies:

"What, me? I'm just a straight-A student. A law-abiding citizen."

It is remarkable how death-penalty advocates are convinced they themselves won't fall into corruption, or self-righteousness... or even mistake. I am reminded of that immortal quote from Robert Bolt's play "A Man For All Seasons":

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Light's story sees him adopt a God complex, which is rather fitting since God himself is also a tyrannical judge, jury and executioner. Political readers and journalists of totalitarian regimes will no doubt be very impressed with the manga/anime upon seeing it for the first time.

One thing that is so striking about the story is how well it attacks the totalitarian impulse of those who think human sacrifice is their way to civil salvation. Crowds flock to praise Light (who is hidden under the alias "Kira") and attack those who defy his anarchy and disorder. The police even start to collude. It seems as long as there are enough people who insist that Light will never become corrupt, even as he executes innocents, he is always seemingly in the right.

I wouldn't be surprised if Death Note proved to be the end of the death penalty in Japan entirely. And I hope even more that the influence will spread into China, where the battle will be far harder.

And of course, by definition you cannot deter a religious fascist who is willing to kill himself. And if your intent is to deter emotion instead of to educate and reason, do not be surprised when that emotion explodes when there is no safety net of reason.

And for goodness sake, stop assuming there is such a thing as an incorruptible state.
- James Hogg, comment 58297474, The Guardian (August 27th 2015)

What do you think? Is the climate for capital punishment changing in Japan? And will Death Note's central message factor into that? If indeed you agree that fundamentally Death Note is an anti-death penalty story. Is it?

0 Comments

Cosplay Flasher Ryuk Exposes Himself to Worldwide Sneering and Censure

27/8/2015

0 Comments

It seems that a gentleman in Kita-Ku, Sapporo has not been a credit to his mother.

Though he has been flashing what she gave him to unsuspecting ladies in the Tonden district of Japan's fourth largest city.

So far, so sad. But the truly bizarre element - and the part which makes it relevant here - is that he did this while cosplaying Ryuk.

That's right. A wannabe Ryuk revealed himself to a rightly disdainful woman, who promptly reported him to Sapporo's Kita-ku constabulary.

全身タイツ男が下半身露出きのう午前4時50分頃、札幌・北区屯田7条7丁目付近で、女性が下半身を露出した男を目撃しました。男は35~40歳位、やせ型、身長170~175cm位、黒色の全身タイツ、背中に黒色の羽のようなものがついていました。札幌北署 #不審者
— UHBニュース公式アカウント (@uhbnews_uhb) August 21, 2015

Man in Full Body Tights Exposes Himself

At 4.50 am yesterday morning, in 7-7 Tonden area of Kita-ku, Sapporo, a woman witnessed a man exposing his lower half. The man was around 35-40 years old, slim and roughly 170-175cm tall. He wore full body black tights and what appeared to be black feathered wings on his back. Sapporo Kita-ku Police #SuspiciousPerson
- UHBNews (Hokkaido news channel), August 21st 2015

Sapporo police are appealing for any information that will help their inquiries into the incident. (Or should that be APPLE-ing?)

I shouldn't laugh, but the notion of a Ryuk cosplayer exposing himself is so ridiculously pathetic that pointing and laughing seems the only recourse.

Though not, of course, for the lady who had to witness this. That really couldn't have been pleasant, and good fight her for reporting him. Too many incidents like this pass without any response at all, which allows idiots like our erstwhile Shinigami Ryuk flasher to continue without consequence.

Now it's not just police officers seeking to track this offender down.

Police Hunt Death Note Shinigami Flasher - and So Does Everyone Else

In choosing to don a Death God costume to flash at strangers, this dodgy individual now knows what exposure truly means. UHB's news report became an instant internet sensation.

Far from lurking in Tonden back-alleys - where his sordid actions might conceivably remain concealed - they're talking about him all over the city; and across the rest of Hokkaido, throughout Japan and around the world.

I'm sitting in Great Britain telling folk about his shameful actions.

Closer to home, you can be sure that everyone is watching out for a flasher in a shinigami costume, or indeed anyone cosplaying Ryuk, now or at any time in the past. If they seem to be the sort to act suspiciously, then a tip off to police could be coming any time soon.

His poor mother must be so proud.

0 Comments

Chinese Death Note Fans Dodge the Censor

17/8/2015

0 Comments

Coincidence or not, there seems to have been quite a run on news reports about Death Note fans in China just recently.

More specifically about how Chinese fans of Death Note and other banned media
access their favourite manga/anime, despite state censorship of the same in their country.

Chinese Twitter and Torrents - Death Note Fans Evade State Censorship in China

First up was an article for Forbes by Lauren Orsini - a writer who focuses upon fandom and fan phenomena around the world - entitled How Fans Embrace Japanese Cartoons Over the Great Firewall of China (Forbes, July 10th 2015).

Prompted by the previous month's blacklisting of 38 Japanese anime/manga in China, as per a directive issued by its Ministry of Culture, Orsini's piece investigated how fans still manage to gain access to all that was banned.

Not to mention staging anime conventions (100,000 attendees last year) and enjoying a thriving cosplay culture. There is no prohibition in place for cosplay.

It seems that Sina Weibo - China's answer to Twitter - is a key source of information on where to locate Japanese entertainment, either on-line or in one of the many Anime Viewing Clubs now springing up everywhere. There are also forums dedicated to keeping fans informed, many of which have been around for over a decade.

It's mostly Chinese dubbed anime which is being wiped from the nation's easily accessed web channels. But the Japanese language is so close to Chinese, that many fans simply find a 'raw' (undubbed) version streamed in a plethora of places online, and watch them instead.

Otherwise, it's BitTorrent to download Japanese anime or manga, like Death Note, which has a huge fanbase in China.

All this is a summary of the fascinating fine detail in Orsini's article. I recommend that you check it out for more information and photographs.

Why Does the Chinese Government Hate Death Note ? An Anime Historian Spells it Out

Next up was Manga Series Banned in China, a radio broadcast from the BBC World Service - initially aired on July 25th 2015, at 17.32; since repeated several times over varying hours.

BBC Trending's Mike Wendling played host to Lulu Ning (who became a Death Note fan whilst still a student in China), Kerry Allen (China Analyst with BBC Monitoring) and Dr Jonathan Clements (author of The History of Anime amongst other related books).

The chat about Death Note censorship in China begins at 2.15 mins and ends around 8.37. Yet manages to cram a lot of informative insight during that short span.

Ning merely contextualized the popularity of Death Note for Chinese fans. Her brother introduced her to the anime, and it quickly became a talking point amongst her friends. It felt very different to the normal fare on offer, particularly because it discussed death - a topic avoided so often in mainstream society, that it almost felt taboo.

The picture was broadened by Allen, who explained why China banned certain anime and manga on June 8th 2015 - the official line was that these stories were too violent or pornographic.

However the restriction had not been received meekly by fans of the 'wildly popular' Death Note.

Image: Luo Shugang China's Minister for Culture

China's Culture Minister Luo Shugang

On Sina, 33,000 of them had passed on news about the ban - itself a form of protest - while another 4,000 openly commented in disparaging terms about it. She quoted one Chinese fan, who railed against his government as acting in 'fear of youth violence' and using censorship to '(promote) Communist cartoons)'.

Yet the hashtag #DeathNote goes on with 10,000 people currently using it.

Image: Anime A History by Jonathan Clements

Anime: A History - one of Jonathan Clements's books on the subject

Finally we heard from Clements - an historian penning books on many aspects of East Asia besides anime - who qualified all the statistics and subjective experience before into an on-going time-line.

He described how this latest suppression of Death Note and other manga is indicative of a much wider trade war with Japan. Which hits the hearts and minds of Chinese citizens, simply because the stakes are so high on both sides.

For the Japanese, the goal is simple - there are 1.3 billion consumers in China, with a language and culture close enough for entertainment exports from Japan to be quite easily embraced. Breaking that market would be highly profitable.

Moreover, there's a precedent for how popular Japanese anime may be in China. Back in 2004, a survey found that six of China's top ten cartoons were actually Japanese imports.

This downright freaked the Chinese authorities out.

They saw only the possible undermining of their Communism ideals, with Death Note one of the greatest culprits of all.

Chinese television has little in the way of detective stories, because officials want to promote the notion that China has a low crime rate. Death Note is not only swamped with detectives, but it seems to validate the criminal. At least in the early stages, wherein Light is such a sympathetic character.

It's a tale which hinges upon supernatural and/or superstitious elements, both of which are suppressed in China. They are elements which could encourage religion, also not part of the Chinese Communist Manifesto.

Moreover, Death Note is viewed as pandering to a feeling of 'entitlement' amongst the youth of China. It's fundamentally a 'teenage power trip', whereby Light Yagami takes on all authority because he can. You have to wade through dozens of episodes before he seems to attract any kind of comeuppance.

Again not themes embraced by China's ruling officials.

They all had much more to say than I've crammed in here, so that segment of the broadcast is worth a quick listen.

The Anime Encyclopedia by Jonathan Clements

schoolgirl Milky Crisis by Jonathan Clements

More books about anime by Jonathan Clements: The Anime Encyclopedia and Schoolgirl Milky Crisis - Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade.

China's Death Note Ban Seeks to Restrict Casual Access

Two days later, BBC Trending followed through with an editorial (kerry Allen and colleague Barney Rowntree) and blog (Mike Wendling), which expanded upon many of the themes touched upon in their programme.

It was (snappily) entitled Japanese comics that are too racy for Chinese censors... but still popular online (July 27th 2015) and featured much more from Dr Jonathan Clements, as well as examples of some of the comments being posted onto Sina Weibo.

An extra snippet that I found particularly interesting came from Clements:

The issue with a lot of Chinese censorship isn't about a blanket ban that keeps 100% of material out. It's about making life as difficult as possible for people who actually want it. A ban like this is about restricting casual access. (Dr J Clements, BBC Trending, July 27th 2015)

And there we have it, as I've discovered that the other blogs and articles I'd got prepared were basically reporting upon or rehashing the BBC commentary.

Pretty much like this one really!

0 Comments

Lucknow Police to Blame Death Note 'Code' for Teenager's Apparent Suicide

13/8/2015

0 Comments

Rahul Sridhar Facebook Death Note banner

Death Note cover picture alert
from Rahul Sridhar's Facebook profile

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

Nope, neither was I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's not, nor should it ever be.

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

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

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

0 Comments

Chinese Cyber Authority Cracks Down on Death Note

6/5/2015

0 Comments

From June 1st, internet providers in China risk executives summoned to answer for their crimes, if Death Note is allowed to stream in the country.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has tightened its control over what may or may not be legally browsed online. On April 28th 2015, it released its 'Ten Clause Directive' aimed at creating a 'clean' internet.

Amongst the casualties are Japanese anime sites with Death Note topping the list of undesirable subject matter.

The action is part of a long-running campaign directed at any cyber content which the authorities deem 'inappropriate'.

That includes anything judged to be vulgar, violence, pornographic or promoting terrorism.

Death Note is seen as particularly damaging for young audiences, along with titles like Parasyte and Attack on Titan. Earlier in April 2015, the Ministry of Culture closed down a huge number of websites streaming such anime.

CAC has already called in officials from China's biggest internet providers, who have reacted by issuing in-house directives in line with the tightened regulations. They each have until the end of the month to remove all prohibited content from their portion of cyberspace.

Beyond June 1st, all violations will incur at least a fine - and the suspension or closure of whole websites, even if only a segment is judged criminal. For repeat or mass offenders, a summoning into a court of law is threatened.

Tens of thousands of columns, websites, personal accounts and message forums have already been removed from Chinese cyberspace. I guess my little blog won't be seen in the country any time soon.

No Light in China

0 Comments

Rahul Sridhar: Lucknow Teen Suicide Linked to Death Note

18/4/2015

0 Comments

Man Down: Rahul Sridhar (15)

Rahul Sridhar - a fifteen year old Death Note fan from Lucknow, India - jumped to his death from his school building this week.

At least two newspapers are linking that to his love of the manga.

Rahul came from Lucknow - the capital city of India's Upper Pradesh district - where he attended the prestigious La Martiniere school.

On April 10th 2015, at 11.15am, he leapt from a fourth floor ledge of its Constantia building. Rahul was rushed to hospital with horrific head injuries, where he died shortly later. His suicide was witnessed by several horrified students, some of whom have penned blogs to express their traumatised reactions.

Rahul's elder brother Rohit has hit out at school authorities. They didn't act fast enough to curb the bullying to which his brother was subjected at the school. Rohit believes it wasn't even suicide. He's lodged a complaint with the police stating that Rahul may have been pushed by those same bullies.

The investigation thus far appears to have circled around another angle - Rahul had been spending a lot of time talking and texting with a female friend. He deleted entries from his call log and burned papers upon the ledge, which are suspected to have pertained to her.

When he died, a note in his back pocket read, 'waiting for you Juliet'. He'd painted 'waiting for you' on a wall close to where he jumped.

Rahul Sridhar and Death Note

However, some elements of the press are seizing upon Rahul Sridhar's love of Death Note as a contributory factor in this tragic event.

The front page of the Hindustan Times, on April 12th 2015, ran an editorial noting that Rahul's Facebook cover image was Death Note related.

It was Kira, captioned 'I am the God of this New World'.

Under the headline 'Was 'Death Note' as FB Cover Rahul's distress signal?', it was reported that La Martinere's school management were left 'puzzled' by the picture. They would be looking into what 'drove' the teenager to read the 'thriller'.

It was suggested that reading manga like Death Note would be used in future as an alert. Students enjoying such literature might find it triggering a recommendation to their parents that counseling should be forthcoming.

On the same day, The Times of India scrambled around to find people who would attest that Rahul Sridhar was indeed an introverted, manga obsessed Death Note fan.

Under the headline 'Introvert Who Doodled Death Note', Sawil Khan - who rode on the same school bus as the stricken teen - told reporters that Rahul didn't interact much with other students, preferring to listen to music on his MP3 player. Mihir Kumar - another classroom - called Rahul introverted.

Then Rohit Sridhar described his brother's propensity to draw manga and anime characters that Rahul liked. '(Death Note) was there in every notebook of his. It was his favourite.'

In short, reporters are already reaching to stick this one onto Death Note.

Hindustan Times (April 12th 2015)

Don't Blame Death Note for Teen's Death

Light Yagami in Death Note

There are plenty of armchair psychologists, without full possession of the facts, coming up with speculation on such matters as these. Journalists with copy to sell finding any theory to shift newspapers from their stands.

I can't escape the unsettling feeling that I could be counted amongst them.

But I like to think that I'm writing for pity - my heart breaks when I consider what Rahul's family and friends are going through right now - and awareness. No problem is so vast that time can't move it along, with a little help from communication and working to fix the underlying issues. I didn't know Rahul, but I wish my time machine worked and I could be on that ledge waiting for him.

We had a shared language and frame of reference. We had Death Note.

Tragedy and heartbreak aside, what worries me most about speculation in the wake of Rahul's suicide is this propensity to find a thing - Death Note - and apportion blame. It's too pat, too easy and won't save the next child to stand on a ledge and wish for an end.

The next Rahul will be helped by those investigating with all the known facts. Those who can identify the bullying, the (failed? thwarted?) romance, the depression or whatever else it really was that drove him to despair. Because it sure as Hell wasn't Death Note.

The darkness and moral ambiguity of that story, to my mind, is the sort of thing that appeals to those who think deeply about right and wrong. It's an escape; an avenue for catharsis, which might have saved another mind. If whatever required the escape wasn't so overwhelmingly stacked against him.

I guess that all I'm saying is - don't reach for the easy answer, nor play the blame game on something which causes a moral scare enough to make this go away. Because it won't go away, as long as the real reasons are there.

Tackle them. That's all.

And for now, RIP Rahul Sridhar. I didn't know you, but you were one of our own. We have a man down and for that I'm sorry.

Need to talk about it?

Whatever crap is going down, I can guarantee that you are loved and will be missed by more people than you know. You matter a lot.

Befrienders Worldwide
- International organisation providing local helplines for those feeling like suicide is the only way out. It's not. Please give them a chance to prove it to you.

Stay beautiful.

L calls; Watari waits

0 Comments

Urals Teen Suicide Led to Calls to Ban Death Note in Russia

28/2/2014

9 Comments

Hobo CTN news report about Death Note suicide girl in Russia

HoboCTN news report linking
Russian teen's suicide
with Death Note

It's always tragic when people die young. But when its suicide, then the tragedy, anger and guilt go into overdrive.

That's when the blame games really kick off, and a year ago this week, it was Death Note in the frame.

On February 20th 2013, a fifteen year old girl leapt from the 13th floor of an apartment building in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Her suicide note simply read, 'I don't want to live anymore'.

What drew the ire of her distraught parents towards Death Note was where the missive was left - on a pile of four volumes of the manga.

There was apparently no other link. She didn't write, nor tell friends, that Light Yagami had told her to do it. Nor did she seem to have any avowed affinity with Naomi Misora. It was just the position of the suicide note that made the link.

However, the teenager's bereft parents quickly blamed Death Note for making suicide seem so enticing.

That fury was channelled into a protest against the manga. Russian parents soon began campaigning for President Vladimir Putin to ban Death Note outright from the country.

Does Death Note Promote Suicide?

No. In my opinion, it really does not.

The parents protesting in the Urals stated that the story 'arouses an interest in death'. But so does living. And I'd argue that this particular manga actually warns against death.

As a Death Note fan, I know that there's nothing in the story to spark any wish to end your life. It's a dark tale, but those who die stay dead.

There's no fantasy Other World to entice the lost and lonely like, say, the Annwn of the Mabinogion or the Tír na nÓg of the Tain. The only supernatural realm present in the narrative is the home of the Shinigami, but mortals don't go there. It's for the Death Gods alone.

For a manga story so concerned with death and destruction, there's not even a single ghost. This isn't Bleach.

On the contrary, the only Fate mentioned for humans beyond death is Mu. That is the nothingness, the loss of all existence, for those who touch a Death Note. As for everyone else, the Death Note universe and its implied philosophy is completely silent on the matter.

If anything, Death Note is all about survival. People do reckless things, but the narrative is ultimately about a lot of individuals going out of their way to stay alive. If life wasn't so precious, then nobody would have cared enough about Kira to try and stop him.

My heart goes out to this girl's parents, and all others who loved her. They all have my profound condolences. But I'm hard pushed to think of anything in Death Note that could have inspired that leap, even if read through the twisted interpretations of extreme distress.

What do you all think?

Was Death Note Banned in Russia?

No, it wasn't.

Death Note was translated into Russian in 2012. It had long since been available on-line in Japanese, English and many other languages besides, so this wasn't the first time that Russians per se had access to it.

(In fact, I had two Russian Death Note fans ask permission to translate my fan-fiction back in 2009. They'd long since got past the point of enjoying the canon and well into the realms of fan produced stories in foreign languages!

Blanket permission was granted for them to translate any and all of my Death Note fan-fiction. They duly did so and added it to an already bustling Russian Death Note fan forum, which was bursting at the seams with stories based on the manga.)

President Putin has hitherto ignored calls for Russia to ban Death Note anime, manga and other related media. Hence the Russian Death Note fandom are still able to hear Nika Lenina's beautiful version of the original ending theme song.

I just wish that the poor girl in Yekaterinburg could too.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Could Death Note have really been a factor in the teenager's death? And do you think Russia should ban the manga, or keep on importing and translating it?

9 Comments

Forward>>

Death Note news articles

Viz at Hyderabad Comic Con: Hindi Death Note Paved the Way for More Manga into India

Subbed Hindi: Death Note Opening Theme

Death Note and the Death Penalty

Cosplay Flasher Ryuk Exposes Himself to Worldwide Sneering and Censure

Police Hunt Death Note Shinigami Flasher - and So Does Everyone Else

Chinese Death Note Fans Dodge the Censor

Chinese Twitter and Torrents - Death Note Fans Evade State Censorship in China

Why Does the Chinese Government Hate Death Note ? An Anime Historian Spells it Out

China's Death Note Ban Seeks to Restrict Casual Access

Lucknow Police to Blame Death Note 'Code' for Teenager's Apparent Suicide

Chinese Cyber Authority Cracks Down on Death Note

Rahul Sridhar: Lucknow Teen Suicide Linked to Death Note

Rahul Sridhar and Death Note

Don't Blame Death Note for Teen's Death

Need to talk about it?

Urals Teen Suicide Led to Calls to Ban Death Note in Russia

Does Death Note Promote Suicide?

Was Death Note Banned in Russia?

Death Note News Categories

Monthly Archives

Where Now?

Death Note News

Support