Platinum End - the new manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, Death Note's creators - launched today with its first chapter simultaneously appearing in Japanese and English translations on opposite sides of the Pacific.

Readers in Japan may find it serialized in Jump Square magazine's December 2015 issue 12 (Nov. 4th 2015), while English readers can download a digital version from Viz Media's Weekly Shonen Jump website.

Naturally a copy of the first chapter of Platinum End has been grabbed here, so we can see what it's all about and how the Death Note fandom might possibly receive this latest manga by Ohba and Obata.

However, sensible of spoilers, all thoughts in review of the chapter will be hidden behind a read more mask.

Tickets are being sold for the 2015 Japanese Film Festival, which will tour Australia and New Zealand over the next two months.

Though Death Note isn't on the programme, creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata still get a showing. Bakuman will play for the Japanese culture loving Antipodean hordes.

Their semi-autobiographical tale chronicles the adventures of author Akito and artist Moritaka, as they attempt to break into the Japanese manga industry.

This was Ohba and Obata's second collaboration, which came after Death Note had completed its run.  Their live action movie Bakuman will be the version screened during the 2015 Japanese Film Festival.

Bakuman will open in Brisbane on October 21st 2015, at 7pm, in the Event Cinemas, Brisbane City Myer Centre. Further showings there will be:

It then moves to Perth, where showings will be at Hoyts Carousel, Westfield Carousel, 1382 Albany Highway, Carousel. Those dates and times are:

In the meantime, Bakuman is off to Adelaide, where the movie will be shown at the Mercury Cinema, 13 Morphett Street, on:

Next it's off to Sydney, where the venue is the Event Cinemas in George Street. There Bakuman will be screened on:

In the midst of that, the Japanese Film Festival 2015 also squeezes in an airing of the movie at another Event Cinemas, in Church Street, Parramatta. That happens on:

Then it's the ACMI Cinema in Federation Square, Melbourne, for a showing on:

Before Bakuman's final Film Festival screening location at Hoyts Melbourne Central, at Melbourne Central Shopping Centre. They occur on:

Not much going on there for Bakuman in New Zealand then. Though, by necessity of staying on topic here, the focus has only been on Ohba and Obata's work. There's plenty more going on in the schedule of the 2015 Japanese Film Festival in both Australia and New Zealand.

Check out the Japanese Film Festival 2015 website for more details about what is going on in the Antipodes, and where you might purchase tickets to join in.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How that encounter plays out is yet to be seen.

Jump SQ have Tweeted a preview of the Platinum End artwork to adorn its 8th anniversary edition centrefold.

The third collaboration between author Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata - which began with Death Note - appears to be about a suicidal human visited by an angel.

Platinum End follows the fortunes of Mirai Kakehashi, a young boy without any 'hope in living'. The fact that an angel also features prominently in the story would suggest that Heavenly forces have his back. Presumably to help on a quest to acquire some aforementioned hope.

Find more information about the release and publication of Ohba and Obata's new manga in last week's piece announcing it.

And in the meantime, help me work out why translators are suddenly calling Takeshi Ken Obata. Has he gone and changed his first name? Or has some strange algorithm tweak left Takeshi lost in translation?

This should be of interest to Death Note fans - Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata are teaming up again, and the bare hint from the tag-line implies the plot will be right up our alley.

Well, we all seemed quite taken last time, when it was a human and a shinigami!

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

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

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

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

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

Only tenuously Death Note related, it's all about Bakuman in their creators' world this week.

While we might consider Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata in terms of OUR manga, they have collaborated much more recently than that on the semi-autobiographical Bakuman.

It's a series which chronicles the rise of an author and writer within the manga industry.

The current edition of Weekly Shonen Jump (September 21st 2015) includes the first in a special two-parter prequel to the main Bakuman chapters.

It tells what happened with main characters Moritaka Mashiro - pen name Saikō - and Akito Takagi - later known as Shūjin - before the pair joined forces to produce a wildly popular manga series. Like, you know, Ohba and Obata did in real life with Death Note.

Spanning 23 chapters, the first part of this Bakuman prequel has boosted the manga magazine to a hefty 315 pages!  Featured as an added bonus is a full colour Bakuman centrespread.

The original Bakuman manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2008-2012.  Those chapters were collected into twenty volumes published by Shueisha, which have sold over 15 million copies worldwide. An anime based upon the story was televised over three seasons, aired in Japanese television between 2010-2013.

Viz Media and Media Blasters reproduced English language versions of the manga and anime respectively, primarily for North American audiences.

A live action Bakuman movie is due to be released on October 3rd 2015, hence the two part prequel beginning in Weekly Shonen Jump this week. It acts as a tie-in special event and incidentally helps boost publicity for the film.

In the story, Muto Ashirogi's third manga is entitled PCP -Kanzen Hanzaitō- (trans. PCP - Perfect Crime Party). Now that fictional manga is due for release as a real world novel.

It will bear Ashirogi's name as the first author, though his co-author Sei Hatsuno (HaruChika) probably did much of the work here.

Another blatant tie-in, the novel will hit bookshelves on October 2nd 2015, one day ahead on the Bakuman movie.

A new live-action Bakuman film means an original soundtrack to accompany it. For fans of Takeshi Obata's art, this is an unexpected avenue in which to discover some.

Obata has created the artwork for the Bakuman CD soundtrack, including that for a CD single Shin Takarajima (pictured above) lifted from the OST. Due to be released in a limited edition format, the song has been recorded by rock band Sakanaction and features in the movie.

A DVD of the Bakuman OST is also scheduled.

For the past three episodes, we've been teased with the notion that a prone, or otherwise blind-to-the-puppet-of-himself, Mello has been out of shot in that room. I suspected he was sitting on one of those chairs.

Near always looks over the head of the puppet, whenever (s)he addresses Mello. His voice is heard, projected without so much as a twitch of Near's lips.

In the second episode it seemed that a shoulder could be glimpsed in the shadows of the fireplace chair alongside Near. Right at the spot where his/her eyes kept being drawn, roughly consistent with where a head might be on the individual seated there.

L addressed Mello directly, as someone external to Near in that same instalment.  He subtly did it again just moments prior to the wide-shot scene above.  Watari approached to say that Near was on the line.  L answered, "I'll call them back."  Implying that there was more than one person to be called back.

However L's delay wasn't being well received at the other end of that line. Focused fully upon Near and his Mello puppet, we were privy to a disturbing exchange.

Mello: He's disrespecting you!
Near: Calm down.
Mello: Hey, call Kira! We can work with Kira to erase L!
Near: We can't do that.
Mello: Help him out.
Near: No.

It's at this point that Near shifted to physically align position with the puppet.

Before both voices sounded simultaneously seeming to confirm that Mello was indeed a separate entity.

Near and Mello: You're so stuck-up, Near.
Near: You talk too much Mello.
Near and Mello: Dummy! Dummy!

The laughter which sounds over the wide shot that follows could be either Near or Mello, or both become one again. We're expecting to see Mello as live action figure sitting in that seat, but the beautiful room is empty beyond Near, his Mello puppet and the Christian iconography in stained glass and huge artwork.

What Near was looking at - in lieu of referring to an actual Mello there - was the canvas depicting the Fall of the Rebel Angels.

Yet two voices were heard and they were both Near.  So yep. That's the major gossip. Near is in fact Mello.  And a whole section of the fandom freezes. While also admitting that it makes for an intriguing storyline.

I know that half of the Mello/Matt fandom are here.  What do you make of it?  Personally I'm quite fascinated. I'm sticking around to see where they go with this, whilst holding out for a real Mello to turn up later in the series.

After all, Near's puppet was based on someone in the manga. It might still be here too.

Elsewhere, there are more mind games being pursued throughout episode 4 of Death Note. 

Item one is a wilful disregard for human life on the part of all three main protagonists.  Four, if we include Near/Mello's avowed compulsion to kill L. 

There's Light scribbling down names a week in advance, so Kira's body count may continue, even as Light himself is under surveillance.  He contemplates the fact that he can only get five names onto his scrap of paper, not with any remorse for murder, nor any avowed sense of justice, but as a personal smoke screen. He's a very different young man from the sobbing one seen in the earlier episodes.  Kira cold and plotting, already consumed by the need to succeed whatever the cost.

There's Misa blithely noting that a cameraman only has a year to live, even as she's smiling and posing for pictures. It doesn't seem to penetrate emotionally at all. She doesn't know him and he appears to be a bit of a creep. Nevertheless, you'd expect a flicker of human feeling at the realisation of his imminent demise.

Later, she's downright gleeful, as she joins spectators at the scene where two criminals lie dead. They've been killed by herself, with her own Death Note, at the urging of Rem. There's none of the angst that beset Light at his first Kira kills playing upon her face. She's even dressed appropriately as the Black Widow incarnate.

Then there's L, dispassionately announcing that he used Mark Dwellton (Ray Penbar) as bait in order to catch Kira - effectively sending him to his death without any back up.  He didn't seem to spot any incongruity in the fact that he 'didn't get around' to asking who Kira was, though Mark/Ray patently knew by now. Yet L did find time to plant a transmitter upon him.

It was more important for L to be the one to find Kira, than it was to catch Kira per se, or save a man's life.

L's mindset paved the way for one of the most thought-provoking sequences within Death Note television show episode four. 

The phenomenon of compliance exists all too easily in real life too - which is how concentration camps are built and harsh laws enacted without much more than a murmur on the streets - and L knows very well how to invoke such behaviour.

Human beings basically want to follow the herd. No matter how heinous the action, most will first look around to see if anyone else is speaking out. We second guess ourselves, if all our peers appear readily accepting of the situation. If someone in authority assures us that it's alright, then it's pretty much game over. We're socially programmed to not only keep silent, but actually join in that which ordinarily we'd call an outrage.

Matsuda protests against L's deadly usage of Ray Penbar for bait. L sneeringly dismisses the condemnation, assured in his personal immunity because Matsuda can't file an official complaint without exposing his real name and face to Kira.

The police officer instantly backs down. Personal safety, the silence of his peers and L's scathing tone reduce his concerns to nothing, despite the clarity of his duty here.

It's the introduction of security cameras, enacting secret surveillance within the homes of police officers which fires Mogi's indignation. "This is a human rights violation!" He rails at L, who merely smirks.  It's the usually upright and morally exact Soichiro who loses sight of all ethical conduct here, reassuring Mogi and ordering his people to follow L's orders.

The compliance is complete, when all officers not only cease their protest, but join in with what they previously found so reprehensible.  It's only several days hence that Mogi has an insight to level at L, "You're the same way (as Kira)!"

Then they're all sent home. L no longer needs to manipulate them into compliance, he was about to switch tactics anyway.

Mind you, that's a philosophy soon twisted in Light's mind through a filter of Kira, until its finally subverted into, "I think Kira, who was born by acquiring this power, is the most blessed person on Earth."

Other techniques of manipulation were middling, such as Watari - acting upon L's orders - broadcasting fake news bulletins about 1500 FBI agents entering Japan to search for Kira.

More yet were downright blatant. Light came on like a bulldozer in manipulating Ryuk by force of apple abstinence into helping him find the surveillance devices in his bedroom.

While the heaviest of all came from Misa and her threatening letter, designed to manipulate Japan's government and its media. She didn't want much, just their open support and assistance for Kira, and L dragged onto television for a public execution. 

Given that the police authorities had already 'lost their nerve', it's probably a blessing for L that its chiefs didn't know his location. Else Misa might have won that round.

Incidentally, did you spot the hidden nod in that scene towards Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata? 

The stricken Chief of Police was called Ogiso Takeshi.  That he shared the same name as Death Note's canon artist was obvious. Less so was the link between Ohba and Ogiso. 

We have to slip back a few centuries and relocate to Africa. There you'll find the biggest Benin dynasties. Firstly the Ogiso, which was succeeded by *drum roll* the Oba.  Different spelling, same pronunciation.  Tenuous?  I think not.

Finally we get the most pervasive theme of all in this TV Death Note episode, that of paranoia. 

Particularly in the sense of that old adage:  'just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not watching you'.

Light Yagami is downright paranoid from the off. 

Though, to be fair, it's with good reason, what with FBI agents following him, Japanese agents watching his every move at home, Misa stalking him and L turning up at his school to challenge him in front of all his friends. 

He begins the episode with statements like, 'if anything happens to me, Kira's judgements must still go on', thus implying that he believes something might happen to him. He then has a good long paranoid moment in class, trying to guess the identity of the second Kira - is it someone he knows?  It is somebody famous?  It could be anybody!

His paranoia also shows in his behaviour.  Booby-trapping his bedroom door is a big one, though again that actually tipped him off that his room had been entered by professionals. 

By partway through, his self-commentary is coming out with things like, "If I make one false move, (L will) find out." Not the musings of a sane boy, however correct his presumptions transpired to be.

Mind you, he did manage to traverse the potato chip scene without any of the iconic bellowing of his English dub anime counterpart.

Then you get Misa's big moment, wherein Rem warns her that using any Death Note causes its owner to become highly paranoid.  (A new aspect created for this telling of the tale?)  Until now, Misa has appeared relatively intelligent and capable.  Suddenly she's beaming blankly at Rem, asking airily, "What does paranoid mean?"

Before setting out to manipulate Light by triggering his own Death Note incurred paranoia.  It all felt a little jarring from where I was sitting.

Mostly though, Death Note (2015) episode 4 is going to be remembered for its blatant and gratuitous fan-service for the legions within the Light/L fandom.

Until now, Kento Yamazaki taking his shirt off every episode has been the biggest fare on offer for his fans.  Now a good ten minutes was taken up with nothing much beyond Light and L flirting incessantly and posing with little to no clothes on.  There was a whole scene in a communal shower for Kami's sake!

Let's just have a little picture show and let the images speak for themselves.

I rest my case. 

So! Kanji is copied from Chinese, basically. However, Chinese and Japanese have different pronunciations. One example I can think of is the Kanji for suki. In Japanese, the translation is "to like", and is pronounced "suki". In Chinese, however, it means "good" and is pronounced "hao".

Kanji has many different pronunciations depending on the Kanji and what it is paired with. In anime, they are allowed to play with this a bit in order to create fictional names. Tsugumi Ohba, the creator of Death Note, was quite careful in this regard, both with the criminals Light killed, and Light himself. He did not want to "hurt anyone's feelings" by using their name.

A lot of different anime do this, actually. There's a well known example from Naruto, the character of Haruno Sakura. While Sakura is a common name, if you put her name together, it translates to "haru no sakura", or "the spring's cherry blossom".

How does this tie into Yagami Light? Well, his name is spelled night god moon. The first Kanji is the sign for "night" or "yoru", the second is God or "kami", and the last one is for "moon" or "tsuki".

How does kami become gami? Without going too far into linguistics, Kanji change letters depending on what they are paired with. So kami becomes gami. Namely, Yagami.

It is really just a case of "oooh, look, I can make these sounds by pairing these Kanji together!" Most people would pronounce moon as "tsuki", but the creator chose to say it is pronounced as Light. This follows a trend my sensei says as "kira kira" (ironically this translates to sparkle) names, where you choose random Kanji and say what they mean.

This bit is total guesswork on my part, but having light, dark, and God kind of shows Light's duality as a character.

Imagine how short the story would be if Kira's Death Note wasn't bound by so many rules, or if the shinigami eyes came without a cost. 

Moreover, contemplate how utterly tedious that telling might be.

These are the considerations occupying Kinetic Literature's Kuiper in a thought provoking article entitled Death Note and Sanderson’s Second Law of Magic.

Running with Bruce Sanderson's assertion that 'limitations are more important than powers' in magical fantasy tales, Kuiper takes another look at Death Note.  The adage holds up to scrutiny when applied to its supernatural elements - magic as represented here by the notebook(s) and shinigami deals.

Not their awesome power, but their fatally corruptive powerlessness is more than merely important. It's fundamental to the plot.

Musing upon that 2nd Law, I'm struck by how often its true beyond successful story-weaving of magical universes.  The most compelling characterisation (or inanimate objects) frequently comes in what is missed, lost or otherwise undermining the efforts of protagonists. 

Just think MacBeth in his mindless ambition, manipulated by his missus and misinterpreting the clues set out by the Wyrd Sisters; Heathcliff in his damaged mind and sensibilities, his suffering of abuse transforming him into a bully; or Jane Eyre's 'plainness' blinding people to the fact that she was actually quite radical in her Feminism for her Victorian era.

Where would those stories be if Jane Eyre was pretty enough to be snapped up by the first passing fancy, long before Rochester ever clapped eyes on her?  Or if MacBeth had common sense enough to say, 'Hold on! Wtf am I doing?'  Or if Heathcliff had just punched Hareton in the gob within days of being brought to Wuthering Heights, disdained Cathy as being a bit too shallow and selfish for his love-starved psyche and grown up accordingly as a well-adjusted member of society?

Short. That's what.  And boring.  Tales not worth the classic tags and endless reprint editions.

That same fascinating propensity towards fatal flaws can also be seen in the personalities of Death Note: 

• Soichiro Yagami is a kick ass police officer, stately with moral integrity and persistent in his bid to bring in the bad guys.  But his blind spot for his son, born of paternal love, means that his otherwise great attributes cannot succeed.
• Misa Amane has so much love to give, but its direction leaves her open to its exploitation.  Halving her life and pressed into ever more murderous pursuits.
• Matt's powers of observation are said - in Death Note 13: How to Read - to be truly amazing. But his proneness to boredom, when 'looking at the same thing, which never changes', denied his ability to utilize such skills, as Kira and crew escaped their hideout over the road.
• Light's megalomania curtailed his chances to slip under the radar, writing on without detection, as much as the magical constrictions inherent in his Death Note.  As soon as he began to believe his own hype, clues were scattered in his wake, rendering his eventual downfall inevitable.

In such insertions come the brilliant hooks of story-telling.  They carry the plot-line into creating a manga classic, standing the test of time and providing endless subject for discussion amongst its on-going fandom.

Such I think was recognized by Tsugumi Ohba.  The power of limitation in personality is pretty much spelled out by Near at the end there.  He acknowledged that he was flawed and so was Mello.  But together they made good each other's deficiencies. 

Thus embracing their individual powerlessness - and rejecting the crippling restriction imposed by Wammy's House in solving cases competitively - they were able to surpass L in bringing down Kira.

I'm with Sanderson and Kuiper alike.  The story is in the limitation and that truly is its magic at its most elementary.

It all began when forum member Ramfield asked r/manga if anyone had found the Skip! Yamada-kun manga by Tsugumi Ohba.

There was some discussion, but no joy in anyone actually reading it, until Redditor 891st jumped in with a tremendous offer. 891st had the raw Japanese manga one-shot from its publication in Weekly Young Jump. (S)he was willing to scan it for everyone else to view it too.

Equal to their word, the OP delivered.  All 55 pages of it! You may read the result on Imgur, also embedded below.

My first thought was 'Oh! Come on! It's so much more than that!', shortly followed by 'Mmm, ok, it's a fair cop.'  I don't even think that she was dismissing Death Note as being particularly crap. The very fact that it factored into her piece shows that it's worthy of comparison with a story that she obviously enjoys. Moreover, it sets Death Note up as the benchmark by which the rest of the genre is judged.

One of the reasons why Death Note so captured my imagination was the 'social thriller' aspect. The notion that power is usually seen as such a distant thing, particularly by teenage schoolboys, coupled with a sudden presentment of absolute power and what happens next, that's what drew me in. The fact that we weren't given a black and white notion of right and wrong was another biggie. So much was left for the reader to determine for themselves.

Those initial dilemmas faced by Light put me in mind of something that Mark Twain said. I haven't got the exact quotation at hand, but the paraphrase is - if we knew for certain that there were no consequences, which of us wouldn't kill? 

I like to think the answer is 'most of us', but then situations and circumstances float through your mind. And if you had a Death Note in your grasp, wouldn't you scribble down a name or two?  If you thought you could avert a war, or end abuse, or... suddenly the list extends into increasingly greyer areas.

That's the appeal of Death Note, to play out our darker fantasies against a what if and maybe world.

Then suddenly it's all about this:

But that's thrilling too!  The clash between Light and L (then Near/Mello/Matt and L) belongs in that category where we also find Sherlock and John Watson. It's about a meeting of minds, clues sought and found, red herrings thrown, geniuses trying to thwart each other at every turn.

Which isn't quite the same story as when it began, is it?

I'm not sure that we have the like of the Wammy kids in real life. At least, I hope we don't, because that institution looked like serious exploitation of vulnerable children to me.  In fact, now it's ALL about the power play! The thing that attracted me to this scenario - the Mark Twain stance on ethics by peer pressure - is no longer part of the plot.

There ARE consequences for Kira. They come in the shape of the Wammy kids with whomever else each side chooses to drag along. As pretty much everyone states time and time again, it's all about winning the competition and solving the puzzle. Matters of morality seem to slip away entirely by the close of the first arc.

So maybe Ms Ekens is right, along with whomever she's quoting. Death Note is a 'power fantasy in social thriller's clothing', and we can only assume that it was Tsugumi Ohba's fantasy, in which we all merely came along for the ride.

What do you think?

Lawliet is being made by Power On Films, a production company based in California, USA. The Death Note inspired movie constitutes its only offering to date.

Both appear to be the brainchild of Ryuk voice actor Ricardo Arechiga, who is billed as writer and director of Lawliet, as well as its cinematographer. His name is down as producer too, though that's a task he'll be sharing with fellow up-and-coming filmmaker Kazuki Abika.

Fans they may be (and aren't we all?), yet there is genuine talent behind this particular collaboration. From their self-penned biographies on IMDb, we learn that Rico and Kazuki are students.  Rico won an excellence award from his Theater Arts class in his final year at High School, while Kazuki is currently attending New York University for Tisch School of the Arts. He is majoring in Film and Television.

They are still teenagers - Rico turns 20 in September and Kazuki in December - but have gained plenty of experience in all aspects of film-making.

Not only from their courses either.  Kazuki has already produced several movie shorts and documentaries (there are seven listed on IMDb, including Lawliet), which has led to some recognition within the Indy Mogul internet-based independent movie-making community.  Meanwhile Rico has established himself, along with L actor Ray Evangelista, as the YouTube channel duo Rico and Ray.