The Series:
Already one of the best anime series in current release, Death Note
really kicks it up a notch with volume six. With Light no longer
owning a notebook he and L are working tirelessly to track down the person
who has taken over as Kira. As they close in on the new
killer, Light's plan becomes apparent and his Machiavellian scheme is beautiful
in its design and execution. An excellent series, this is a
must-buy for anime fans.
Series Background:
Light Yagami is a brilliant high school student. He's at the top
of his class, and on the practice college entrance exams he routinely places
first in the nation. One afternoon while staring out the window,
he sees a notebook fall from the sky. After class he picks it up
and finds some odd instructions on the inside front cover, instructions
that tell him how to kill people by simply writing their name down while
picturing their face.
A few days after getting the Death Note, Light is in his room when a
shinigami, (a Japanese demon,) named Ryuk appears. Ryuk was the previous
owner of the Death Note and dropped it in the human world on purpose because
he was bored. He wanted to see what would happen and is quite surprised
by the results: Light has filled up pages and pages with names.
The young man has decided that he'll craft the perfect world, one without
crime. To do that all he needs to do is let people come to the realization
that all criminals will end up dying. After all, who would rob a
gas station if they knew they'd end up dead in a day or two.
With criminals in prison all over the world dropping dead of heart attacks
everyday it's not long before the governing bodies, and the public who
dub the mysterious killer "Kira", start to take notice. Obviously
outside of their league, the multi-national taskforce that's investigating
these crimes agree to let the mysterious figure "L" takes over the investigation.
L communicates only through a laptop computer, and no one knows his real
name or what he looks like. With a razor sharp intellect, L soon
starts to track Light down.
When a second "Kira" appears and starts killing criminals, it seems
that Light is in the clear. L quickly determines that there is a
second killer. This one turns out to be a young attractive girl named
Misa who's not too smart, but has fallen in love with Kira and even discovers
that Light is the other person who possesses a Death Note.
With L closing in and Misa being apprehended by the genius, Light takes
some drastic measures. He hides his notebook, has L imprison him,
then both he and Misa give up ownership of their Death Notes. With
this their memories of everything associated with the object disappear
and Light is just a regular teenager once again.
This volume:
Light and L have discovered that the new Kira is a member of a large
corporation, and have even narrowed it down to one of seven men who meet
to plan their strategy and decide who among their competitors to kill.
But which of the seven is it, and how does he manage to kill at a distance?
Things take an unexpected turn when the shinigami who used to own Misa's
Death Note, and who is in love with the young human, touches her with a
piece of paper from the alien notebook. She now can see and hear
the otherworldly visitor, Rem, and he reveals who the new Kira is and confides
in her that Light was the original one. This all comes as a shock
to her, but a happy one as she's been in love with both Light and the idea
of Kira for a while.
Misa trusts that Light has a plan, so she takes the situation into her
own hands and seduces the new Kira and tricks him into confessing.
Knowing who Kira is and figuring out how they manage to kill are two different
things however and even with the suspect's office and cars bugged L can't
discover how he pulls it off. So a trap is set, one that will force
him to attempt a murder while Light and L are looking on, but even then
will they be able to tell what he's doing?
This was an exciting volume. The pace of the show was a little
slow at the beginning of this disc, but it certainly picked up by the end.
The trap that Light and L set for their prey was nice, but it paled in
comparison to what Light had been planning all along. In this
disc the plans he made before turning himself into L are revealed and they
were pretty impressive. Not only did the plan work, but it didn't
rely on chance or luck, the way a lot of movie and TV schemes do.
That's the strong point of this series: the fact that Light is
super-intelligent and that is demonstrated by his actions. A tightly
scripted series, it follows the manga closely and Light's schemes are intricate
by believable. He's a great anti-hero because viewers can't help
but be impressed with his intellect and ability to out think everyone else
in the series, but at the same time he's a mass murderer. Series
creator Tsugumi Ohba straddles that fine line and manages to make a likeable
killer.
The DVD:
Audio:
This disc comes with both the original Japanese audio track as well
as an English dub, both in stereo. I alternated language tracks with
every episode and found them both equally good. The English voice
actors do a good job and don't ham it up as sometimes happens. Given
the nature of the show, mainly dialog based without any big action sequences,
the mix is adequate. There's some use made of the front sound stage,
but not a lot. The voices are mostly anchored on the screen, but
that's not really a problem. A solid sounding show. One thing
I did notice is that there isn't an option for translations of the signs
only. This was a pain when watching the dubbed version since there
are notes and such that move the plot forward that are never read aloud.
Video:
The 1.78:1 anamorphically enhanced image looks very good. A lot
of the story takes place in Light's dark room, and the image is intentionally
a little soft, but this only serves to enhance the mood of the story.
The colors in the daylight scenes are bright and solid, and the wide range
of grey tones are well defined. There isn't much in the way of aliasing
or banding, making this a very nice looking show.
Extras:
This disc has another behind-the-scenes featurette with one of the English
voice actors. This time it's with the actress who plays Light's father
who talks about the role and the show in general. It wasn't that
exciting, but worth watching.
Then there's also a commentary track to episode 23 with the English
director and English writer. This was okay, but that's about it.
There's also a production art gallery, a trailer to the live action film,
and a clean opening and closing.
Final Thoughts:
One of the best installments so far, and that's saying a lot.
This intricate game of cat and mouse between two exceptionally bright people
is entertaining and engrossing. Highly Recommended.
Buy: