There seems to be a touch of the Mikami about this new Death Note character - a Kira aping Supreme Judge to be introduced in the fourth of the movies, out in Japan this October.

Eiichiro Funakoshi has been cast as Kenichi Mikuriya, one of the owners of a shinigami notebook in the movie Death Note: Light Up the NEW World.  He picks up his Death Note after six of them fall to Earth on Kozuki Night and chaos reigns a whole lot harder.

As a high-ranking judge, it might expected that Mikuriya would hand his notebook immediately over to the appropriate legal authority for them (in this case, Tsukuru Mishima and his Death Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team). However, the Supreme Judge as better ideas.  Rankled with the slow progress of the law, and with the occasional iniquity and unfairness of it too, Mikuriya determines the way forward to be embracing a more 'sophisticated' brand of arbitrating justice, i.e. him using the Death Note where the courtroom fails.

We can't help feeling that we've heard rhetoric like this before.  You know, from Light, L, every Wammy ever, Mikami...

And ok! Mikami was a mere prosecutor, not a Supreme Judge, nor was the lawyer technically a Death Note owner.  But the distinction would have been lost on any of those many thousand of names that old Teru over-dramatically scribbled into his own (borrowed/bequeathed) Death Note pages. We've had an L clone and a Kira imitator announced (plus the originals back in the forms of Misa and Matsuda), so why not Mikami. 

Now bigger and better and much, much darker. Deleting along with his forerunner and the best of them.

Death Note: Light Up the NEW World will be out on October 29th 2016.

Loud and over-emotional, Death Note's Misa-Misa appears not to have been blessed with much in the brain department.

Which is a shame, when she's up against the likes of Light, L and Kiyomi Takada and playing a deathly game as Second Kira. Yet she has one up on all of them, not to mention a splattering of NPA police officers and nearly all attendant Wammy House geniuses. Misa Amane survives. Moreover, she's never positively identified as Second Kira; let alone officially arrested, tried and punished for her crimes in mass murderer.

Which is more than Light Yagami manages.

Unlike both him and super-smart Teru Mikami, Misa contrives as well to be missing from the killing line-up in the Yellow Box Warehouse.

Though twice captured by Wammy detectives, and stalked by two others, she also sidesteps being murdered (directly or inadvertently) by them. Which again is more than can be said for top of her class Ms Grace herself, Kiyomi Takada, as well as usual suspects Yagami and Mikami, and their sometime stand-in Kyosuke Higuichi.

Alone of all the Kiras, Misa Amane gets to walk free at the end.

What happens next is all of her own doing, within her own control. Whether that's the dramatic suicide of the anime or the continuing on to world stardom as an actress and model, as per the live-action Death Note movies.

Not so stupid after all then.

Whether its in retribution, career, love, favours or contribution to the Kira case, Misa Amane rarely fails to achieve any goal for which she reaches.

Nobody who ever attacked her survives long enough to gloat in their assault. Her street assailant is taken out by a Death God (Gelus); her family's murderer is initially sentenced through due legal process then killed by Kira while in prison; Soichiro Yagami threatens her with a gun - he doesn't survive a Mafia bullet later on in the tale; her torturous captor L and his carer Watari are both slaughtered by a second shinigami Rem, again on Misa's behalf; Mello and Matt both stalk her, and they are killed within weeks by Kira and/or Kira supporters; while Takada tries to take Misa's man and ends up incinerated in a lorry.

Even Light Yagami, who exploited her constantly for years, finishes the epic crawling in sobbing indignity upon the floor, crying out for Misa in his death throes.

Not all of those were of Misa's doing, nor even at her instigation, but she's certainly left with nobody alive who so much at looked at her with ill intent.

Then you get her career. As anyone who has ever set out with a dream of fame and fortune may attest, it's not easy to achieve stardom, yet Misa Amane is utterly in demand for both acting roles and modelling assignments

In the Death Note live-action movies, Misa Amane's fame is ever-growing. By the fourth, Death Note: Light Up the NEW World - to be released in October 2016 - she is at the top of her career, a Japanese idol with a firm presence in the entertainment industry; a famous name known worldwide as an actress.

During the week that Misa's introduced into Death Note manga and anime, she's on the cover of Eighteen Magazine, apparently a popular journal for the Japanese fashionatas (presumably the youthful ones).

Misa-Misa set out for fame and fortune, and got it. On her terms too, as her demands that she not kiss the main romantic male lead in one of her movies demonstrates.

In fact, as the corporate arc unfolds, Misa's work on that film shoot close by Yotsuba Tower certainly helps with the rescue of Matsuda, then later the capture of Yotsuba Kira himself.

And let's not forget that it was Misa acting unilaterally that managed to force a confession from Higuichi. That was her contribution to the Kira case. No fuss; simply done; back within an hour or two with the evidence that the men had been searching for months to secure.

Not bad for someone supposedly without any wit or two brain cells to rub together.

Nor was that the only moment wherein Misa Amane proves more resourceful and calmly able to get what she wants than all else within the Death Note plot-line.

Half a dozen chapters pass before L narrows down his hunt for Kira to a single major suspect - Light Yagami.

Misa Amane manages the same in about a week and that's only because a few days pass between the broadcast of her tapes and the proposed meeting in Otaka.

Even unto the moment of L's death and, in passing his legacy to his Wammy House successors, through to the end of Death Note - at the staging of the Yellow Box confrontation seven years on - none of the Wammys succeed in positively gaining a confession from Light that he was indeed Kira. Nor the smoking gun evidence that would convict him of the crimes enacted in that persona.

Misa Amane pulled that one off within the same aforementioned week.

Granted she had foreknowledge of the Death Note and the handy boon of shinigami eyes at her disposal; but L and the Wammys had the entire world's political, military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, plus experts in every field and academic discipline, ready to do their bidding, and/or the Mafia. L could also call upon criminal expertise in the shape of Aiber the Conman and Wedy the top cat burglar.

Misa Amane didn't have any of that. Therefore it was perhaps quid pro quo on such scores.

Moreover, Misa not only located Light, tracked him down to his home and got a confession to being Kira out of him, she did it all without a) Light finding out who she was and b) L knowing of her existence until she began repeatedly to be seen with Light himself.

In fact, we could go as far as to say it was only her association with Light Yagami which put Misa in the frame as Second Kira. But then again, she was only there because she insisted upon being Light's girlfriend and being openly known as such in public. The latter orchestrated entirely by Misa herself in a succession of surprise meetings outside his home, at his university and wherever else she could insert herself into his presence.

Outgunned utterly by his enforced beau, Light had neither choice nor say in the matter.

In this way - however exploitative, unfair and downright psychotic it is - Misa cannot easily be cast aside. She might present herself as utterly dependent upon Light, but in reality, it's the other way around. He cannot act in some quite key situations without her Shinigami eyes; or without the usage of her Death Note and the fact of her ownership of the same.

While ostensibly Light calls all the shots, Misa gets precisely what she requires at any given time.

She wants retribution for the killing of her family, she gets it; she wants to meet Kira, she engineers it; she demands to be Light Yagami's girlfriend, she gives him no choice in the matter; she wants him to move in with her, that occurs circa the beginning of the second arc; she decides it's time to get engaged, and Misa doesn't even bother to consult with Light on that one, she tells Kiyomi Takada first instead.

Financially, Misa was a woman of independent means for years before Light Yagami secured the Kira Task Force position to consider himself the same. She was the one with the money, the prestige, the social standing and the sole occupancy of an apartment. She bought her own furniture, clothes, make-up and every other possession with her own funds, including the phone and its network charges that she presents to Light and pays for on his behalf.

Even when Light gets a job and asks Misa to stop working as per social expectation, she could (and does in the Death Note movies) return to her career at any time.

In most fan imaginings, Misa-Misa is Death Note's very energetic answer to that stalwart of anime character archetypes - the Genki Girl. She shouts, screams, rushes about, glomps, squees and generally acts like the average three year old on a profusion of E numbers. Or, indeed, E.

There's plenty of scenes to throw into the mix in support of this designation. Yet look more closely. Shouldn't that be every scene?

In reality, Misa seems to switch Genki Girl on or off, or applies attributes to a precise level, depending upon the situation and who's watching. She's like someone who's read all about Genki Girl and figured that she can pull it off, so goes for it whenever the persona will cover a multitude of personal sins and/or throw people off the scent of her actual intelligence.

Take for example her meeting the Yagami women, whilst visiting Light at home. There Misa is the epitome of maturity; a demure Japanese lady full of politeness and decorum, give or take the length of her skirt. Yet outside, alone with Light on another occasion, she glomps him with all the enthusiastic screaming passion of the Genki Girl personified, now that his mother isn't watching.

Nor does she bamboozle Yotsuba Kira Hidechi with a steady stream of relentless words. Those she chooses are articulate and leading, with adequate gaps in between for him to speak enough to condemn himself.

Meanwhile, there's absolutely nothing of the motormouth, highly animated and over-emotional Genki Girl in Misa when she's detained by L as suspected Second Kira. To be fair, she's also in a full-body straitjacket, so none of that excessively expressive movement is physically able to be on show.

Yet you get the impression it wouldn't be either.

That prolonged scene in a straitjacket, effectively being tortured into submission by L, tells a lot about Misa Amane's true strength of character.

With his arms handcuffed behind his back, Light plays the game in full knowledge of his Kira-hood for a week, then gives that contextual understanding up. Within three days, he's pleading, begging, demanding to be set free, sure that he's not Kira and adamant that he's going to say so repeatedly.

Meanwhile, Misa Amane remains silent and strapped upright to a board, blind-folded, devoid of human contact beyond an electronic voice communicating through a speaker. Not a single word uttered in condemnation nor defense. Nothing whatever to make it worth her torturers' time in detaining her.

When she eventually does feel herself cracking, she finally does speak, but only to ask Rem to kill her. The words enigmatic without context to those listening on. The remainder of her days tortuously attached in that position in a state of near sensory deprivation would have been passed without knowledge of Kira nor her part in the Death Note killings. Yet she still doesn't say much nor beg as Light Yagami did.

Coming to the conclusion that she's been abducted as per her fame, Misa intelligently attempts to humanise herself and make a deal with her abductor.

L eventually has to let her go for the sake of nothing incriminating being divulged to prove her role as Second Kira, nor to use as evidence against Light. How many others could have withstood so much under torture?  Most in that position would be agreeing, admitting or issuing confessions to all and sundry, just to make the torture stop.

Nobody is suggesting for one instant that Death Note's Misa Amane is some unsung genius (though an interesting case might be made for that). However she certainly isn't the dim-witted, unaware character so many make her out to be.

She has drive, intelligence and self-knowledge enough to ensure that she gets what she wants, through a considered application of the attributes and tools in her personal arsenal. She can definitely identify goals, pinpoint way and devise strategies to achieve them, then action those tactics with usually astounding results.

Mostly Misa is fabulous at keeping herself under the radar by ensuring those around her think she's too stupid to understand much that is happening.

However, she proves time and again that she can read situations - and especially people - with a keen accuracy. She can be cute enough to sexually manipulate the men; childish enough to annoy or delight, but never be taken seriously enough for people not to scheme in her vicinity. She sees more than she ever lets on.

She can charm anyone, and uses that to great effect to get people waiting on her hand and foot.

However, when the occasion calls for it, Misa's intelligence shows all the above to be the veneer of an actress. Probably a psychopathic one at that, but certainly not the Genki Girl that she's studiously manufactured her self-image to be.

Do you agree?

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.

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 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.

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.

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?

Ok, I've stopped now.

It turns out that I had way too much to say about this episode.  But I do love dissecting the symbolism and drifting off on a voyage of thematic discovery re Death Note.

You should read part one of my discussion about episode 8 in Death Note's TV drama before carrying on here. This is merely a continuation of that.

The colour yellow seemed to be everywhere in Death Note's episode eight. Particularly in the vicinity of the hapless Kudagawa and/or providing hints towards the emergence of Mello.

Previously, I was speculating that yellow, in television Death Note's colour themes, had something to do with thuggery or violence.

However, there was a very poignant moment with the colour yellow, seemingly teeming with significance, which fell back upon the traditional meaning of yellow in Japanese culture.  Namely the hue of courage or nobility.

This was the moment when Near handed L a yellow jigsaw piece and suggested they might add the final bit of the puzzle together.  And L slotted it perfectly into the partially completed jigsaw on the floor.

It was all in stark contrast to the mirror scene in episode seven, when L distractly tried to force a piece into the wrong position on a white jigsaw.

Then handed Near the errant jigsaw piece with dire warnings that it might not be himself to insert the last one.  Maybe it would be Near.

White is the colour of purity and spirituality.  Yellow is the hue of majesty and bravery.  The photography and direction of both scenes were extremely similar, but bathed in light to match the colours on the jigsaw.

Though they sat in the same relative positions, L faced Near the first time around. He sat sidewards on the second, wherein the personality could well have been Mello.  Or Near under internal barrage from Mello's scathing tones.

Plus the emotions of the major players were at odds.

In the first instance, receipt of the jigsaw piece caused consternation in a hitherto jubilant Near.  It triggered Mello into momentarily coming out, both personae swinging back and forth in domination of their body.

Meanwhile, a despondent L merely left.

In the second, a watchful Near purportedly had control of their body after earlier taking it back from Mello.  Near seemed quite pensive, until L took the jigsaw piece. 

Meanwhile, a determined L simply sat back down.  Then fitted the piece into the puzzle.

To my mind, a whole sub-current in unspoken conversation was going on here. 

In the first iteration, L was unsure if Near (and/or Mello) were even on side regarding the Kira case.  They'd joined in with the whole Babel thing, but then so had Light. 

Previously Near had left Wammy's House without sanction and proceeded to hack L's computer and interfere with his investigation vis-a-vis handing information to the errant Kira Countermeasures police team.

Right now, Near was sitting back in a position of purity, innocence or spirituality. Chaotic neutral at best, but certainly not fully signed up as L's successor in anything, let alone the battle with Light Yagami.

L handed over the white jigsaw piece as a challenge. Pretty much saying, "Who's side are you on, Near?"

We'd seen that yellow jigsaw previously in episode eight. It was after Near/Mello had been off breaking and entering, then murdering folk, then had popped back to enjoy an afternoon with L and Watari.

The former NOT playing jigsaw puzzles with his younger foster ward.  The latter baking Near's favourite cakes as a lovely treat.

Near anxiously queries L's safety with Mr Wammy, who doesn't do much to alleviate their concern.  Mello, as puppet, gleefully concludes that L is prepared to die to 'finish Kira'.  Near tells him to shut up with such talk.

Thus we get a long shot, the mirror of that above, but with Near and Mello turned 90 degrees from their prior position.

Their allegiance appears already cast with L, if the evidence of the puzzle board is to be believed. Even Mello has his sights set firmly on (the) board.

Internal decision made, all that is left now is to inform L that they will become his successors in the Kira case, if circumstances require it.  Hence the undue significance placed upon Near (or was that Mello; it works best as a combination of the two) handing over that yellow jigsaw piece.

Yellow for courage and/or nobility. 

And note that we're not yet over the hidden chess-piece symbolism either. Near's come from a position of white - spirituality, priesthood, monks - and he's now sitting in L's gigantic chessboard room, occupying the Bishop spot.

Moreover, look at how prominently L's White Queen pillar is displayed, along with all that lighting picking out Near/Mello, in the instant immediately prior to the yellow jigsaw piece being handed over.

Near and Mello may play black or white in this particular, or indeed any, game of chess. But right now they are firmly aligned with the White Queen, in whose defence L is prepared to become over-shadowed. 

In short, the second iteration of this scene is a continuance of the first.  "Who's side are you on, Near?"  "Yours, L."

Light's strategy, early on in episode eight, surrounded setting up matters so that Misa acquired shinigami eyes. 

It didn't quite work out like that, but it set up an on-going theme involving eyes and watchfulness per se, which ran throughout this entire chapter in television's Death Note story-telling.

Here are a few such recurrences:

Only this time, L had pulled off the most delightful twist. Circumventing Near's trick from the Yellow Box scene in canon - swapping the Death Note for a fake, thus surviving.

Thus giving all us old timers watching something unanticipated to enjoy.  No-one's averting their eyes here, I can tell you.  It's aye all round!

There was a bit, quite early on, wherein Light bent over his Death Note was attempting to justify his use of it.  He said something which seemed to me to paraphrase MacBeth's famous line, quoted above from his eponymous play by William Shakespeare.

All this spoken whilst staring down at his clawed fingers in a 'will these hand ne'er be clean?' kind of way.

I wish I could find where I wrote about that, because it was very much mirrored by L's feigned first usage of his own Death Note.  Only with the hooked hands bit substituted for a 'is this a dagger I see before me?' sort of pen-holding stance.

Same MacBeth quote in modern form though.

Oh!  And he had a Tolkeinesque moment too - with L practically recasting himself as Samwise right at the instant when the hobbit realises his best friend Frodo can't escape the fatal pull towards using the Ring.

All in all, it's (patently) left me fascinated, and I can't wait to catch up with the three remaining episodes.  Though writing their analyses in blog entries might take longer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet when Near goes out to play in the park, the very fact of it seriously disturbs the folk back home.  Just look how Mr Wammy breaks the news and L's silently fearful expression in reaction.

L doesn't say a word. It's Wammy speaking throughout. Starting with a huge sigh close to the door, striding across the room with shoulders stooped and head bent, the very aspect of one readily to impart something unsavoury.

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

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

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

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

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

The sequence opens upon a huge screen bearing the legends: 'New revelation - there are two Kiras!' and 'A message from the second Kira to the real Kira'.

Then that breaking news story becomes pretty much incidental. We know about it already, but its a feight in misdirection, cluing us in to a similar tale hidden in plain view. 

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

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

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

And this is the person who speaks over the second's message to the first. Because, to my mind, he IS the second (Wammy, persona, whichever you want to call) with his own message to express.

Before any of that, there was a long shot and childish dialogue, which yet may hold some especial significance.

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

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

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

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

It's these three who discuss what they're seeing, as an introductory commentary over our first proper view of Mello(?) arrving. Or Near on the brink of departure. The grey suitcase prop works as a visual clue for both.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet it's patently there too. Not even subtly so. Downright laid on with a trowel, all those instances where white, red and black combine to indicate the undercurrents in a plot-line.  In this episode, it was applied so ubiquitously and heavily that it sometimes seemed like style over substance.

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

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

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

So we got arty shots with aplomb, in shades of white, red and black. So many that I had to look it up, just to see if each colour had any special meaning in Japanese culture too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And especially if 'Near' turns up in black or red, snatching a chocolate bar to prove me right. I'm going to look really daft after all that if I'm wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you think?

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

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

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