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Archive for October 2015
Hey guys, kanna here! I can't believe it...not only is this blog almost a year old, but we reached double digits for Anime Mondays in that one year! Here's to the next ten!
So, to make up for the sucky review I gave for my double-digits special, I've decided to...ask you guys a few questions! Haha! I can be evil sometimes, can't I?
*crickets*
OK. Anyway, onto the questions!
1. Are you a bored, top of the class student?
2. Do you hate all things evil?
3. Have you found a strange black notebook recently?
4. If you said yes to question 3, did you write someone's name in the book?
5. If you said yes to question 4, was the person's name someone you utterly despised?
6. If you said yes to question 5, did you imagine this person's death? Things like date, time, cause, location, etc.?
7. If you said yes to question 6, did you write all that information in the book?
8. If you said yes to question 7, did that person turn up dead in the exact way you wrote it in the notebook?
If you said yes to all of these questions, you:
a) are a coldblooded killer
b) are a psychopath
c) both a and b
or
d) figured out what anime I'm getting at
If you chose d, and you figured out what anime I was getting at, then congratulations! You get bragging rights! And cookies (tee hee...cookies...and it's the internet...get it?)!
The anime for Anime Monday #11 is...Death Note.
Anyway, a little background.
Death Note (and yes, that's also the Japanese title, it's just pronounced differently, because the 'th' sound doesn't exist in Japanese, so it's pronounced as Desu Notō in Japanese) was originally a manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The manga had 108 chapters, which were collected into twelve volumes, and ran from December 2003 to May 2006 in Weekly Shonen Jump.
On October 3, 2006, an anime adaptation premiered in Japan and ran for 37 episodes, until June 26, 2007. It aired every Tuesday at (I swear, I couldn't make this up if I tried) 22:34 (Japanese Standard Time; the equivalent of which is 10:34 PM).
Why so peculiar about the time? No idea. I mean it. I looked up the significance of the time and everything. I even thought it was a date, like 2/23/04. But I couldn't find anything. I guess because all the episodes were a little over twenty minutes each, but that would have to mean the show before it ran for a little over thirty minutes, with commercials and credits...I'm overthinking this. For any of my readers who live or lived in Japan during the time of the anime, or during the year 2004, if anyone knows ANYTHING about the significance of 22:34 or 22304 or any form of those numbers, PLEASE tell me so I can edit this!
Apparently, this anime was so popular that it got THREE live action movies, multiple video games, a light novel, a drama series, AND TWO musicals (no, I don't get it, either, but I listened to some of the songs, and they're pretty good). One in Japan and another in South Korea.
So, plot.
The story revolves around Light Yagami, a bored, young genius who despises anything and everything evil. He finds a black notebook with the words "DEATH NOTE" written on the cover, and some...pretty detailed instructions inside.
I'm not exaggerating. There are NINETY-ONE RULES ON HOW TO USE THIS NOTEBOOK. Forget the fact that it has all these powers and stuff; WHY THE FRICK DO YOU NEED NINETY-ONE RULES ON HOW TO USE A NOTEBOOK?! IT'S LIKE WRITING SUPER DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE INSTANT RAMEN! UNNECESSARY!
Anyway, Light thinks that this is a pretty bad prank and abandons the book, before thinking about what sick mind he must have and going back for the book. He takes the book back to his house and decides to take a look at it. We learn the first FIVE of our NINETY-ONE RULES. It's going to get overwhelming later on, but here we go with the first five:
1. The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
2. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
3. If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
4. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
5. After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
OK...a little detailed, but keep in mind that this book has NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES.
Anyway, Light has the news on the TV in his room when he decides to test the book out. Apparently, there was a kidnapping, and the news released a name and face of the kidnapper. So Light wrote the name down and waited for 40 seconds. At first, nothing happened. But then, the people who were kidnapped ran outside, and it was revealed that the kidnapper seemed to have died from a heart attack.
Light thinks it's a coincidence. After all, there's no way in the world a notebook could have magical powers, right? RIGHT? So he decides to test it out again and picks someone else. He picks a criminal, on the off chance that the notebook is, in fact, legit. Although he does consider killing someone who has been nothing but a bully, but he rethinks killing someone he knows and decides against it. Not that it makes a difference to him. Kinda hypocritical for a guy who hates everything evil, but whatever.
On the way back from his prep course, he sees a motorcycle gang getting ready to do some...pretty nasty things to a young lady. He overhears the name of the leader of the gang and writes the gang leader's name and a cause of death (a traffic accident) to further test the notebook. Sure enough, the guy gets hit by a truck, causing Light to gasp in realization that the Death Note isn't a prank. It's the real thing.
As all of this is happening, we meet the Shinigami (死神; literally translates to god of death or death god), Ryuk. Ryuk is...interesting, to say the least. Like Light, he's bored. He drops a Death Note into the human world from the Shinigami world. Ryuk meets Light and follows him around as Light learns more about the Death Note and the powers of Shinigami. We later find out a few more of the NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES (I'm sorry, I just...ninety-one rules? Really?), which have a lot to do with the Shinigami.
Now, these are going to be a little out of order. Just letting you know, as the numbers for the rules always start back at one, and I'll only be including the rules relevant to the Shinigami's connection with a human. These are from sections (yeah...I should have mentioned that they had to split NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES into sections) III (three), IV (four), and V (five).
III (Three)
2. The human who touches the Death Note can recognize the image and voice of its original owner, a god of death, even if the human is not the owner of the note.
IV (Four)
1. The person in possession of the Death Note is possessed by a god of death, its original owner, until they die.
2. If a human uses the note, a god of death usually appears in front of him/her within 39 days after he/she uses the note.
3. Gods of death, the original owners of the Death Note, do not do, in principle, anything which will help or prevent the deaths in the note.
4. A god of death has no obligation to completely explain how to use the note or rules which will apply to the human who owns it unless asked.
V (Five)
1. A god of death can extend their own life by putting a name on their own note, but humans cannot.
3. The human who becomes the owner of the Death Note can, in exchange of half his/her remaining life, get the eyeballs of the god of death which will enable him/her to see a human's name and remaining life span when looking through them.
4. A god of death cannot be killed even if stabbed in his heart with a knife or shot in the head with a gun. However, there are ways to kill a god of death, which are not generally known to the god of death.
G-D WHY ARE THERE NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES IN THIS STUPID NOTEBOOK? JUST SOMEONE EXPLAIN THAT! IT'S LIKE-
OK, kanna...calm down. Just calm down...deep breaths...rule #1 of anime is to never bring logic into it.
OK, I'm good. Let's just keep going.
This series wouldn't be that interesting if we didn't have an antagonist, and sure enough, we do. And his name is...L.
L is a world-famous detective working for Interpol, and he comes into the picture when the unexplained deaths of so many criminals gets Interpol's attention. It's also here where we get a pretty clever Japanese/English wordplay. L deduces that the killer is known as "Kira" (similar in pronunciation to the English word, killer, except in Japanese, it's pronounced kee-rah, and you don't really pronounce the r as an r, but it's more like a Spanish r) and that Kira is able to kill people through supernatural means. But when Light realizes that L is on to what's going on, Light quickly begins a game of cat-and-mouse, and our series is in full swing.
So...let's talk characters.
Light Yagami: He's interesting. Normally, his type of character wouldn't be that interesting to me, as he is, in a sense, becoming a "god of a new world." That isn't a type of character I tend to like, as most writers have a tendency to either give this type of character too much power, or not enough. But I actually like his character. The writers didn't give him too much power or not enough power. They gave him flaws, too. These flaws help balance out the power, and we have a nice 50/50 ratio of power and flaws. It's perfect. Granted, he's not my favorite character in the series, but he is an interesting character.
Ryuk: Appearance-wise, I initially FREAKED. I mean...I'm not sure what I was expecting, but when you've seen anime with a Shinigami in it where the Shinigami look more...humanized and less...well...
How would you NOT freak out? Granted, I saw Death Note about a year or two before I saw Bleach, so when I saw Bleach, I didn't freak when I saw the Hollows (if I review Bleach, which probably won't happen, I'll explain what those are). But Ryuk...wow. Just wow.
Anyway, characterization. Ryuk was a lot different from a lot of the other Shinigami in other anime I've seen. Like I said, this was before I saw Bleach, and the other Shinigami that were in different series had personalities that were more...humanized (like their appearances). But this was a different story entirely. They mixed characteristics of a demon-like character and combined it with characteristics of a more human character, and had those characteristics mirror Light's personality. He also wants to cleanse the world of evil and become the "god of a new world." He didn't take Light's side, but he didn't necessarily take the side of the police, either. He was basically a neutral party in everything.
L: Ah, L. Everyone's favorite Interpol detective. He's actually called L Lawliet, but you'd have to read the manga in order to know that, because they don't reveal it in the anime. He's the character that we know so much about, and yet, so little at the same time. And I guess that's why so many people like him. This guy is a freaking GENIUS. He never shows his face in public and even uses a machine to disguise his voice, so hardly anyone knows what he really sounds or looks like. Not only that, but only ONE PERSON in ALL OF INTERPOL is able to get in contact with him.
The music in Death Note is amazing, as well. We have an anime with awesome characters and music. Let's see...the opening is pretty awesome, the ending is pretty awesome, and even the freaking BACKGROUND MUSIC is awesome. Everything just fits perfectly.
The anime actually had two openings and three endings. The first opening was for episodes 1-19, titled, "The WORLD," and performed by a Japanese rock band called Nightmare. The second opening was for episodes 20-36, titled, "What's up, people?!" and it's performed by another Japanese rock band, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE.
The first ending was performed by the same group that performed the first opening, Nightmare, and lasted for the same number of episodes (1-19). This song was called "Alumina." The second song was performed by the same group that performed the second opening and, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE, and lasted for the same number of episodes (20-36). This song was called "Zetsubou Billy." The third ending was performed by someone else entirely AND was only for the last episode of the series. The third ending was performed by Yoshihisa Hirano, and it was called "Coda~Death Note."
So...overall rating?
TEN OUT OF FREAKING TEN
Why: First off, the animation is pretty good. It's not great, but it's definitely pretty good. The character designs are on point, as it's easy to see who's who. Unlike in Claymore where everyone looked basically the same and there's this weird color filter, or UtaPri where there are too many characters to tell apart.
So, to make up for the sucky review I gave for my double-digits special, I've decided to...ask you guys a few questions! Haha! I can be evil sometimes, can't I?
*crickets*
OK. Anyway, onto the questions!
1. Are you a bored, top of the class student?
2. Do you hate all things evil?
3. Have you found a strange black notebook recently?
4. If you said yes to question 3, did you write someone's name in the book?
5. If you said yes to question 4, was the person's name someone you utterly despised?
6. If you said yes to question 5, did you imagine this person's death? Things like date, time, cause, location, etc.?
7. If you said yes to question 6, did you write all that information in the book?
8. If you said yes to question 7, did that person turn up dead in the exact way you wrote it in the notebook?
If you said yes to all of these questions, you:
a) are a coldblooded killer
b) are a psychopath
c) both a and b
or
d) figured out what anime I'm getting at
If you chose d, and you figured out what anime I was getting at, then congratulations! You get bragging rights! And cookies (tee hee...cookies...and it's the internet...get it?)!
The anime for Anime Monday #11 is...Death Note.
Oh, I probably should have mentioned this in advance. Because it's October and it's close to Halloween, we'll mainly be focusing on horror/supernatural anime. I'll try not to pick anything too gory for my squeamish readers, but I can't promise anything.
Anyway, a little background.
Death Note (and yes, that's also the Japanese title, it's just pronounced differently, because the 'th' sound doesn't exist in Japanese, so it's pronounced as Desu Notō in Japanese) was originally a manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The manga had 108 chapters, which were collected into twelve volumes, and ran from December 2003 to May 2006 in Weekly Shonen Jump.
On October 3, 2006, an anime adaptation premiered in Japan and ran for 37 episodes, until June 26, 2007. It aired every Tuesday at (I swear, I couldn't make this up if I tried) 22:34 (Japanese Standard Time; the equivalent of which is 10:34 PM).
Why so peculiar about the time? No idea. I mean it. I looked up the significance of the time and everything. I even thought it was a date, like 2/23/04. But I couldn't find anything. I guess because all the episodes were a little over twenty minutes each, but that would have to mean the show before it ran for a little over thirty minutes, with commercials and credits...I'm overthinking this. For any of my readers who live or lived in Japan during the time of the anime, or during the year 2004, if anyone knows ANYTHING about the significance of 22:34 or 22304 or any form of those numbers, PLEASE tell me so I can edit this!
Apparently, this anime was so popular that it got THREE live action movies, multiple video games, a light novel, a drama series, AND TWO musicals (no, I don't get it, either, but I listened to some of the songs, and they're pretty good). One in Japan and another in South Korea.
So, plot.
The story revolves around Light Yagami, a bored, young genius who despises anything and everything evil. He finds a black notebook with the words "DEATH NOTE" written on the cover, and some...pretty detailed instructions inside.
I'm not exaggerating. There are NINETY-ONE RULES ON HOW TO USE THIS NOTEBOOK. Forget the fact that it has all these powers and stuff; WHY THE FRICK DO YOU NEED NINETY-ONE RULES ON HOW TO USE A NOTEBOOK?! IT'S LIKE WRITING SUPER DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO MAKE INSTANT RAMEN! UNNECESSARY!
Anyway, Light thinks that this is a pretty bad prank and abandons the book, before thinking about what sick mind he must have and going back for the book. He takes the book back to his house and decides to take a look at it. We learn the first FIVE of our NINETY-ONE RULES. It's going to get overwhelming later on, but here we go with the first five:
1. The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
2. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
3. If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
4. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
5. After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
OK...a little detailed, but keep in mind that this book has NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES.
Anyway, Light has the news on the TV in his room when he decides to test the book out. Apparently, there was a kidnapping, and the news released a name and face of the kidnapper. So Light wrote the name down and waited for 40 seconds. At first, nothing happened. But then, the people who were kidnapped ran outside, and it was revealed that the kidnapper seemed to have died from a heart attack.
Light thinks it's a coincidence. After all, there's no way in the world a notebook could have magical powers, right? RIGHT? So he decides to test it out again and picks someone else. He picks a criminal, on the off chance that the notebook is, in fact, legit. Although he does consider killing someone who has been nothing but a bully, but he rethinks killing someone he knows and decides against it. Not that it makes a difference to him. Kinda hypocritical for a guy who hates everything evil, but whatever.
On the way back from his prep course, he sees a motorcycle gang getting ready to do some...pretty nasty things to a young lady. He overhears the name of the leader of the gang and writes the gang leader's name and a cause of death (a traffic accident) to further test the notebook. Sure enough, the guy gets hit by a truck, causing Light to gasp in realization that the Death Note isn't a prank. It's the real thing.
As all of this is happening, we meet the Shinigami (死神; literally translates to god of death or death god), Ryuk. Ryuk is...interesting, to say the least. Like Light, he's bored. He drops a Death Note into the human world from the Shinigami world. Ryuk meets Light and follows him around as Light learns more about the Death Note and the powers of Shinigami. We later find out a few more of the NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES (I'm sorry, I just...ninety-one rules? Really?), which have a lot to do with the Shinigami.
Now, these are going to be a little out of order. Just letting you know, as the numbers for the rules always start back at one, and I'll only be including the rules relevant to the Shinigami's connection with a human. These are from sections (yeah...I should have mentioned that they had to split NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES into sections) III (three), IV (four), and V (five).
III (Three)
2. The human who touches the Death Note can recognize the image and voice of its original owner, a god of death, even if the human is not the owner of the note.
IV (Four)
1. The person in possession of the Death Note is possessed by a god of death, its original owner, until they die.
2. If a human uses the note, a god of death usually appears in front of him/her within 39 days after he/she uses the note.
3. Gods of death, the original owners of the Death Note, do not do, in principle, anything which will help or prevent the deaths in the note.
4. A god of death has no obligation to completely explain how to use the note or rules which will apply to the human who owns it unless asked.
V (Five)
1. A god of death can extend their own life by putting a name on their own note, but humans cannot.
3. The human who becomes the owner of the Death Note can, in exchange of half his/her remaining life, get the eyeballs of the god of death which will enable him/her to see a human's name and remaining life span when looking through them.
4. A god of death cannot be killed even if stabbed in his heart with a knife or shot in the head with a gun. However, there are ways to kill a god of death, which are not generally known to the god of death.
G-D WHY ARE THERE NINETY-ONE FREAKING RULES IN THIS STUPID NOTEBOOK? JUST SOMEONE EXPLAIN THAT! IT'S LIKE-
OK, kanna...calm down. Just calm down...deep breaths...rule #1 of anime is to never bring logic into it.
OK, I'm good. Let's just keep going.
This series wouldn't be that interesting if we didn't have an antagonist, and sure enough, we do. And his name is...L.
L is a world-famous detective working for Interpol, and he comes into the picture when the unexplained deaths of so many criminals gets Interpol's attention. It's also here where we get a pretty clever Japanese/English wordplay. L deduces that the killer is known as "Kira" (similar in pronunciation to the English word, killer, except in Japanese, it's pronounced kee-rah, and you don't really pronounce the r as an r, but it's more like a Spanish r) and that Kira is able to kill people through supernatural means. But when Light realizes that L is on to what's going on, Light quickly begins a game of cat-and-mouse, and our series is in full swing.
So...let's talk characters.
Light Yagami: He's interesting. Normally, his type of character wouldn't be that interesting to me, as he is, in a sense, becoming a "god of a new world." That isn't a type of character I tend to like, as most writers have a tendency to either give this type of character too much power, or not enough. But I actually like his character. The writers didn't give him too much power or not enough power. They gave him flaws, too. These flaws help balance out the power, and we have a nice 50/50 ratio of power and flaws. It's perfect. Granted, he's not my favorite character in the series, but he is an interesting character.
Ryuk: Appearance-wise, I initially FREAKED. I mean...I'm not sure what I was expecting, but when you've seen anime with a Shinigami in it where the Shinigami look more...humanized and less...well...
How would you NOT freak out? Granted, I saw Death Note about a year or two before I saw Bleach, so when I saw Bleach, I didn't freak when I saw the Hollows (if I review Bleach, which probably won't happen, I'll explain what those are). But Ryuk...wow. Just wow.
Anyway, characterization. Ryuk was a lot different from a lot of the other Shinigami in other anime I've seen. Like I said, this was before I saw Bleach, and the other Shinigami that were in different series had personalities that were more...humanized (like their appearances). But this was a different story entirely. They mixed characteristics of a demon-like character and combined it with characteristics of a more human character, and had those characteristics mirror Light's personality. He also wants to cleanse the world of evil and become the "god of a new world." He didn't take Light's side, but he didn't necessarily take the side of the police, either. He was basically a neutral party in everything.
L: Ah, L. Everyone's favorite Interpol detective. He's actually called L Lawliet, but you'd have to read the manga in order to know that, because they don't reveal it in the anime. He's the character that we know so much about, and yet, so little at the same time. And I guess that's why so many people like him. This guy is a freaking GENIUS. He never shows his face in public and even uses a machine to disguise his voice, so hardly anyone knows what he really sounds or looks like. Not only that, but only ONE PERSON in ALL OF INTERPOL is able to get in contact with him.
The music in Death Note is amazing, as well. We have an anime with awesome characters and music. Let's see...the opening is pretty awesome, the ending is pretty awesome, and even the freaking BACKGROUND MUSIC is awesome. Everything just fits perfectly.
The anime actually had two openings and three endings. The first opening was for episodes 1-19, titled, "The WORLD," and performed by a Japanese rock band called Nightmare. The second opening was for episodes 20-36, titled, "What's up, people?!" and it's performed by another Japanese rock band, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE.
The first ending was performed by the same group that performed the first opening, Nightmare, and lasted for the same number of episodes (1-19). This song was called "Alumina." The second song was performed by the same group that performed the second opening and, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE, and lasted for the same number of episodes (20-36). This song was called "Zetsubou Billy." The third ending was performed by someone else entirely AND was only for the last episode of the series. The third ending was performed by Yoshihisa Hirano, and it was called "Coda~Death Note."
So...overall rating?
TEN OUT OF FREAKING TEN
Why: First off, the animation is pretty good. It's not great, but it's definitely pretty good. The character designs are on point, as it's easy to see who's who. Unlike in Claymore where everyone looked basically the same and there's this weird color filter, or UtaPri where there are too many characters to tell apart.
We get a lot of insight into the characters and their motives. Sure, Light and Ryuk don't initially have motives until the Death Note is brought into the picture, but you can still understand them as characters and develop a connection to them. L is amazing; a genius. Just watch the second episode and you'll see what I mean.
For a series as dark as this, they actually did manage to fit some comedy in there. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty hard to find because of how subtle it is. But it's there.
Lastly, I wouldn't normally bring this up, but the ENGLISH DUB is actually pretty awesome. The voices are all on point...except for L's. But that's hardly worth taking points off for. It's just that it's been mentioned that L is English, and not once, voice disguised or not, do we hear any kind of accent.
This anime is FILLED with twists and turns, and there's plenty to keep you guessing as to what the characters will do next. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a supernatural mystery thriller. There's a little bit of gore, but it's not too bad. Even so, if you're squeamish, don't watch it. Most of the death scenes are more implied, but there are a few that they show, and it's not pretty.
Well, that's it for now!
Next Anime Monday (which WILL BE A MONDAY; I AM DETERMINED): Ghost in the Shell
Next Anime Monday (which WILL BE A MONDAY; I AM DETERMINED): Ghost in the Shell
See you next time! ~k
