Omega Limited Edition

Death Note: Complete Series Blu-ray Review

The Tibetans aren't the only ones with a Book of the Dead.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 13, 2016

If you had (or were offered) the power to kill people from a distance, with no ostensible link back to you, would you use it? Some might think that that's an "easy" question to answer, for many of us give at least passing energy to thoughts of death for those who haven't treated us particularly kindly. And if onethat power and was confronted with a truly bad person (as opposed to someone who had, for example, simply cut us off in traffic), that kind of power might be seen as a positive blessing. However, some wag once said something along the lines of "absolute power corrupts absolutely," and there is probably no more absolute power than having the control of someone else's existence in one's hands. That's the issue that confronts high school student Light Yagami, who either has the good fortune or bad luck to discover an odd book on the grounds of his school one day. The book contains "instructions" detailing how, if one writes a name in the book while envisioning the appropriate face (to keep "mistakes" revolving around similarly named folks from happening), that person will die within just a few seconds. If no reason for death is posited in the notebook, the victim will simply expire from a heart attack. Light, like any good jaded high school student, initially thinks the whole thing is bunk, but upon further review, decides he might as well keep the book. And that's where his opportunities and problems begin.Light begins "experimenting" with the book and is stunned when some villains quickly expire when he writes their names in it. He's evenstunned when a shinigami (a Japanese spirit who is kind of like the Western scythe wielding Death figure) shows up in his bedroom and introduces himself as Ryuk, the previous "owner" of the book who inadvertently (maybe) dropped it in the human realm. Because Light picked up the book, he has a magical connection to Ryuk now and can see and hear the weird (and kind of funny) spectral entity. Ryuk also announces that there's kind of abond between the two now as well, and that when the time comes, it will be Ryuk who writesname in the "book of the dead".When master criminals start dropping like flies, Interpol gets involved (you'd think they'd be happy, but!). They recruit a mysterious investigator known only as L who doesn't reveal his "real" identity, but who pledges to bring what he claims is a serial killer to justice. That sets up a rather neat little predicament where Light, already showing signs of a kind of megalomania which will ultimately claim the character, knows he's being chased and also knows he has the ability to "kill" his pursuerif only he knew his name and what he looks like. The moral ambiguities begin accruing rather rapidly in, for it's probably inarguable that Light is doinggood by ridding the world of villains, but it's also clear early on that the "at what cost?" question is becoming more and more salient, especially as Light's own character starts to become, well, darker.is a hugely enjoyable anime, one which benefits from an immediately arresting premise, sharply articulated characters and a kind of intriguing overall ambience that segues from natural phenomena like life and death to an obvious and overt reference to the supernatural, especially with regard to Ryuk. The anime may suffer a bit when it tends to veer off track to provide back stories, and it becomes increasingly arcane as it goes along, leading to perhaps a few too many putative twists as things move toward their endgame. The anime is interesting in that some fans may actually end up rooting more for Ryuk, a patently demonic character who could hardly be thought of as heroic, than for Light, the character whose very Nietzschean tendencies makeheroic only in his own mind.