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Oh my lord, this manga is messed up. After lamenting on the phone to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
takadainmate that I haven't been really gung-ho about an anime or manga in quite some time, she suggested that I go check Deathnote out, because it wasn't like anything else out there.
Now that last phrase is usually enough to scare me away from the recommendation on principle, because it generally indicates that some corporation is trying to sell me the same trite, tired movie under a different name. But as I had nothing to do last night, I went and bought the first tank. I put it down at three this morning and went to bed. Then I woke up and bought the other two tanks.
This is one messed up series, and it's got its hooks in me bad. Light, the main character, possesses the blank, psychotic detachment of Kubota, only Minekura's depiction falls flat, while Ohba's doesn't. Light is one messed up mofo (as the Inmate told me, 'he starts out mostly normal in the beginning' (that description is actually what convinced me to buy the book)) and it's beautiful.
Take, for instance, the scene where (without spoiling anything beyond the first 10 pages or so for those of you who haven't yet heard about this series) Light discusses the difficulties of dovetailing mass murder into his schedule:
"The time available to me for writing names in the notebook is limited to the period between when I get home from school and when I go to bed. It's important that I maintain the top grades in my class, as well. So it isn't as if I can fall asleep during class, and it won't do to neglect my study schedule at home and at prep school. Insufficient rest is the enemy, as well. I've got to maintain my good health and ability to concentrate."
When Sugiura Shiho Stock Characters Succumb to Psychosis, next on Fox Japan. It's as if Rakan took a dive off the very, very deep end.
The story was cool enough as it was, but then world conspiracy comes in as the plot pits two equally matched geniuses against one another. This is normally the point where one would find me groaning, but it's handled so cleverly I don't mind. The claustrophobic Taxi Driver-esque depiction of the city/technology as the enemy reminds me of the basic premise of Bus Gamers, but again, it works in Deathnote while the former never managed to convince me. One gets the feel that the characters are floating through this world where everything from the Internet to a cell phone could be revealed as a method of attack at any moment.
Like most good series, Deathnote references (intentionally or not) other great series. The images of Ryuk the shinigami reclining on a bed, snacking on an apple are reminiscent of Barbarossa from PotC, and I've already noted the similarites to some of Minekura's stuff. There are the obvious nods to spy thrillers as well, with the faceless 'L' and his agent Watari.
The art is amazing. It reminds me of Skinwalkers, another great graphic novel crime thriller. Unlike many shounen protagonists, Light looks like he really could be seventeen, and his wide eyes are alternately naive and crazed. Ryuk is amazing as well - he's sort of a goth, winged Joker grafted onto Marilyn Manson's body. One of my favorite panels in the manga has Light's family seated at the kitchen table, calmly eating dinner, completely unaware of the nine-foot tall demonclown hulking over them. It's frightening and absurdly humorous.
Ohba's a smart author; by actually writing a deus ex machina as the very catalyst of, and object around which the plot hinges, she can write her characters into and out of binds as she sees fit, which offers endless possibilities for future storylines, but is a little too perfect, at times. (Oh, the deathnote can do that too? How lucky that Light's just now figured that out.)
In the end, the story works best by creating an amazing amount of tension. Light's a certified psychopath. You can't possibly want him to triumph, because he's spiraling out of control. On the other hand, people like for stories like this to have pat, moral endings in which the antihero learns 'something' about the value of life, himself, blah blah blah, but Light does not seem the sort of person who can (or would) be reformed. In any case I find myself rooting for him, because I want to see what lengths he'll go to next (the Herr Starr phenomenon). Light could easily be suffering from schizophrenia, with Ryuk the equivalent of, say Frank in Donnie Darco (echoes of which are also sprinkled throughout Deathnote), but an ending like that would be equally unsatisfying. What's really got me on board for the long haul is that I have no idea how the series could possibly wrap up, and it's extremely fun.
So yeah, awesome series so far. I'm hooked for the foreseeable future.
これで以上です。
takadainmate that I haven't been really gung-ho about an anime or manga in quite some time, she suggested that I go check Deathnote out, because it wasn't like anything else out there.Now that last phrase is usually enough to scare me away from the recommendation on principle, because it generally indicates that some corporation is trying to sell me the same trite, tired movie under a different name. But as I had nothing to do last night, I went and bought the first tank. I put it down at three this morning and went to bed. Then I woke up and bought the other two tanks.
This is one messed up series, and it's got its hooks in me bad. Light, the main character, possesses the blank, psychotic detachment of Kubota, only Minekura's depiction falls flat, while Ohba's doesn't. Light is one messed up mofo (as the Inmate told me, 'he starts out mostly normal in the beginning' (that description is actually what convinced me to buy the book)) and it's beautiful.
Take, for instance, the scene where (without spoiling anything beyond the first 10 pages or so for those of you who haven't yet heard about this series) Light discusses the difficulties of dovetailing mass murder into his schedule:
"The time available to me for writing names in the notebook is limited to the period between when I get home from school and when I go to bed. It's important that I maintain the top grades in my class, as well. So it isn't as if I can fall asleep during class, and it won't do to neglect my study schedule at home and at prep school. Insufficient rest is the enemy, as well. I've got to maintain my good health and ability to concentrate."
When Sugiura Shiho Stock Characters Succumb to Psychosis, next on Fox Japan. It's as if Rakan took a dive off the very, very deep end.
The story was cool enough as it was, but then world conspiracy comes in as the plot pits two equally matched geniuses against one another. This is normally the point where one would find me groaning, but it's handled so cleverly I don't mind. The claustrophobic Taxi Driver-esque depiction of the city/technology as the enemy reminds me of the basic premise of Bus Gamers, but again, it works in Deathnote while the former never managed to convince me. One gets the feel that the characters are floating through this world where everything from the Internet to a cell phone could be revealed as a method of attack at any moment.
Like most good series, Deathnote references (intentionally or not) other great series. The images of Ryuk the shinigami reclining on a bed, snacking on an apple are reminiscent of Barbarossa from PotC, and I've already noted the similarites to some of Minekura's stuff. There are the obvious nods to spy thrillers as well, with the faceless 'L' and his agent Watari.
The art is amazing. It reminds me of Skinwalkers, another great graphic novel crime thriller. Unlike many shounen protagonists, Light looks like he really could be seventeen, and his wide eyes are alternately naive and crazed. Ryuk is amazing as well - he's sort of a goth, winged Joker grafted onto Marilyn Manson's body. One of my favorite panels in the manga has Light's family seated at the kitchen table, calmly eating dinner, completely unaware of the nine-foot tall demonclown hulking over them. It's frightening and absurdly humorous.
Ohba's a smart author; by actually writing a deus ex machina as the very catalyst of, and object around which the plot hinges, she can write her characters into and out of binds as she sees fit, which offers endless possibilities for future storylines, but is a little too perfect, at times. (Oh, the deathnote can do that too? How lucky that Light's just now figured that out.)
In the end, the story works best by creating an amazing amount of tension. Light's a certified psychopath. You can't possibly want him to triumph, because he's spiraling out of control. On the other hand, people like for stories like this to have pat, moral endings in which the antihero learns 'something' about the value of life, himself, blah blah blah, but Light does not seem the sort of person who can (or would) be reformed. In any case I find myself rooting for him, because I want to see what lengths he'll go to next (the Herr Starr phenomenon). Light could easily be suffering from schizophrenia, with Ryuk the equivalent of, say Frank in Donnie Darco (echoes of which are also sprinkled throughout Deathnote), but an ending like that would be equally unsatisfying. What's really got me on board for the long haul is that I have no idea how the series could possibly wrap up, and it's extremely fun.
So yeah, awesome series so far. I'm hooked for the foreseeable future.
これで以上です。
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I love how I am written out of the picture...
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Re: I love how I am written out of the picture...
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Re: I love how I am written out of the picture...
post edited because I cannot spell ::le sigh::
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Re: I love how I am written out of the picture...
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And a description of this weekly, please, so that I might
stalk it and read it in the storelook into acquiring it occassionally?From:
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Being easy sucks.From:
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