Hailing as a Shonen Jump Advanced title, Death Note, with story and art by Tsugumi Ohba (the artist of the Hikaru no Go manga), is one of the darker titles out there on the shelves. Considering its popularity with most manga fans, I found this to be quite the treat to read considering I am somewhat inclined to the more morbid artworks and the Shinigami Ryuk has proven to be, for me, a likable demon god.

Story

It’s pretty much a standard story at the start. Your typical top-notch student is bored with life. and humanity. Meet Light Yagami, the one who just so happens to pick up Ryuk’s “Death Note” book. Of course, he’s skeptical at first, and then decides to test it out, not once but twice. Sure enough, he gets results within 40 seconds. Five days later, Ryuk appears before him. This of course causes Light to yell, and rather loudly at that… however, his mother downstairs doesn’t hear it. How quaint. He must have sound proofing on his room. Either that or his mother is deaf.

After an initial introduction and explanation phase, where Ryuk tells Light a few key points about the book, and that nobody else can see the Shinigami save Light himself, things are detailed to show that Light has been a busy guy. He has in fact been writing names of convicted criminals in the book. His main cause, they deserved it, and by doing so people will begin to shape up or risk the wrath of death itself.

Of course, the police aren’t taking this lying down, and things escalate to the point that there is fear for their lives, and mystery behind the famed L, a private investigator. From this point on, Light and L pit themselves against each other, and things only go from bad to worse… which of course kept me turning the pages.

I found it a far better read then Vampire Night; there was no need to gloss over the narration, and there was plenty of irony in the fact that Light was able to hold conversations with Ryuk quite easily, even if it annoyed him that Ryuk often attempted to talk to him in public. It was simple fact, that pointed out that while people couldn’t see Ryuk, they could still see Light talking to himself. I found that little bit of irony pleasing given the situation between the Demon God, and Light.

The pacing of the story starts out slow, but soon picks up, which is good considering that Light has pretty much been on a killing spree in the first five days of owning the Death Note. There is further irony in this as well; Mr. Yagami, Lights father, is part of the police force, and Light has been studying to become part of it as well in some form, but he was bored, and decided to go on a killing spree, making him no better then the murderers he killed. Sure, the effects of this had made an incredible decrease in crimes, but that’s due to the fear of being killed by heart attack, at the whim of “Kira,” which is Light’s identity the people have given him.

Art:

The art is what really pulled me in. Granted, the first few pages are dark, and I attribute that to the fact that Shonen Jump is well known for having special issues with colored pages. After the initial darkness of a page changed from color to heavy inks of black it goes into the standard black and white format all manga fans are used to.

The artist doesn’t bother with comedic art here either, considering its genre. Given my previous reviews, it’s a pleasant change in style, and makes the reading much better in comparison.

Other information:

* Volumes 1-12 are currently available.

* A 37-episode Death Note anime has been licensed by Viz Media, and was until recently available as a direct download from IGN’s Direct2Drive service. The series has also aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim in the US, and in Canada on YTV’s Bionix block. The first DVD was released commercially on November 20th of this year.

* There is also a live-action Death Note movie (produced in two parts) and a novel based on the series.

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