Death Note

• 1. A Notebook and a Name

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  A plain black notebook sits at the center of Death Note, a Japanese manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. Anyone who writes a person's name in its pages ends that person's life within seconds. In Tokyo, a brilliant and restless high school student named Light Yagami finds the notebook and decides to use it. Against him stands a mysterious detective who is known only as L. This documentary asks how a handful of simple rules can power a duel of wits. It asks how two creators built the series while almost never meeting face to face. And it asks why schools in Asia, Europe, Australia and North America ended up confiscating homemade copies of the notebook.

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• 2. The Rules of the Book

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  Two pieces of knowledge, a true name and a face, are all the notebook demands from its user. The writer must have both. That condition turns every killing into a puzzle about identity, because staying hidden matters as much as finding a victim.

  Ryuk, a supernatural being called a shinigami, is the notebook's original owner. He dropped it into the human world out of boredom. Ryuk cannot be seen by anyone who has not touched the notebook, so he can drift beside Light while investigators notice nothing.

  Director Shusuke Kaneko, who made the first two live-action films, saw deep roots in the premise. He said: "The idea of spirits living in words is an ancient Japanese concept... in a way, it's a very Japanese story".

  Obata's first instinct for the notebook was a design that anyone would instantly recognize as a Death Note. He decided that look would be cumbersome and chose an ordinary college notebook instead. An earlier concept had the Death Notes change with time and place, like scrolls in ancient Japan or the Old Testament in medieval Europe. That idea was never used.

  Ohba had no particular theme in mind for the series. When pushed, Ohba offered this: "Humans will all eventually die, so let's give it our all while we're alive". A 2012 paper by Jolyon Baraka Thomas read the series as a psychological thriller released after the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. Thomas argued that it examines the human tendency to express itself through "horrific" cults. Inside the story, that tendency appears as groups who gather around the god-like vigilante persona Light adopts.

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• 3. Light Against L

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  In Tokyo, Light Yagami begins by using the notebook on high-profile criminals, and Ryuk watches with amusement. Global media soon decide that a single mastermind is behind the deaths, and the killer becomes known as Kira. Interpol asks the enigmatic detective L for help. L manipulates Light into killing a decoy, and that reveals the killer is somewhere in the Kanto region of Japan. Light vows to kill L, whom he sees as an obstacle.

  L next reasons that Kira has inside knowledge of the Japanese police investigation. That investigation is led by Soichiro Yagami, who is Light's father. L assigns a team of FBI agents to watch the families of people connected to the case, and he names Light as his prime suspect. Light graduates from high school and starts college. L then recruits him into the Kira Task Force.

  Misa Amane, an actress and model, receives a second Death Note from a shinigami named Rem. She bargains for shinigami eyes, which show the name of anyone whose face she sees. The price is half of her remaining lifespan. Misa deeply admires Kira and hopes he will become her boyfriend, and she discovers that he is Light. Light exploits her devotion, planning to use her eyes to learn L's true name. L suspects that Misa is a second Kira and detains her. Rem threatens to kill Light unless he finds a way to save Misa.

  Light's answer is a scheme in which he and Misa temporarily lose their memories of the Death Note. Rem passes the notebook to Kyosuke Higuchi of the Yotsuba Group. With his memories erased, Light joins the investigation, and together with L he works out Higuchi's identity and has him arrested. Light then regains his memories, kills Higuchi with the notebook, and takes the book back.

  Light restores Misa's memories and tells her to start killing as Kira, which draws L's suspicion toward her. Rem realizes that Light intends Misa to sacrifice herself in order to kill L. Rem kills L and then disintegrates, and Light obtains her Death Note. The task force agrees to let Light operate as the new L. Crime rates keep dropping even though the investigation stalls.

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• 4. Near and Mello

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  Near and Mello, introduced as L's potential successors, head in opposite directions five years later. Mello joins the mafia, while Near joins forces with the American government. By then, cults that worship Kira have risen.

  Mello kidnaps Director Takimura, and Light kills him. Mello then kidnaps Light's sister and trades her for the Death Note. He uses it to kill almost all of Near's team. A shinigami named Sidoh comes to Earth to reclaim his own notebook and ends up helping Mello. Light uses the notebook to locate Mello's hideout, but Soichiro is killed during the mission.

  Mello and Near trade information, and Mello kidnaps a task force member named Mogi and hands him to Near. Kira's supporters attack Near's group, which escapes. Shuichi Aizawa, a task force member, grows suspicious of Light and meets with Near. When suspicion falls on Misa again, Light passes her Death Note to Teru Mikami, a fervent Kira supporter. Light also appoints the newscaster Kiyomi Takada as Kira's public spokesperson.

  Near has Mikami followed. Mello realizes that Takada is connected to Kira and kidnaps her. Takada kills Mello, and Light then kills Takada. Near arranges a meeting between Light and the remaining task force members. Light tries to have Mikami kill Near and everyone else present, but Mikami's Death Note does nothing, because it has been swapped for a decoy. Near proves that Light is Kira by pointing out that Mikami never wrote Light's name down.

  Light is badly wounded in a scuffle and begs Ryuk to write the names of everyone in the room. Ryuk instead writes Light's name, keeping a promise he made on the day they met, and Light dies. One year later, the world has returned to normal. The task force members are still conflicted over whether they chose rightly, and the cults keep worshiping Kira.

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• 5. Two Artists, One Editor

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  Ohba judged that a conventional fighting manga for Weekly Shōnen Jump was out of reach, so Ohba aimed for a suspense story built on shinigami and specific rules. The pilot chapter was not expected to win approval for serialization. When Ohba learned that it had been approved, with Obata attached as illustrator, Ohba said they "couldn't even believe it". Positive reactions then turned the pilot into a full series.

  The road began when Ohba brought thumbnails for two concepts to the publisher Shueisha. The Death Note pilot was received well by editors and by readers. Keeping its story inside a single chapter was very difficult, and it took over a month before Ohba could begin writing. The plot also had to revive its dead characters with a device called the Death Eraser, which Ohba "didn't really care" for.

  Obata wanted to draw the story after hearing about a "horror story featuring shinigami", and he was drawn to its dark mood. He admitted that he "didn't really get it" when the first rough draft arrived. He noted that the story had little action and that its main character "doesn't really drive the plot", yet he liked the atmosphere. He drew the pilot to please himself. The two did not meet while making it, because their editor said they did not need to. Ohba later said: "I think it worked out all right".

  Every week began with thumbnails that held dialogue, panel layout and basic drawings. An editor reviewed them and sent them on to Obata. Obata then chose the expressions and the camera angles and produced the final artwork. Ohba focused on tempo and kept the text as concise as possible, because "reading too much exposition" would be tiring and would damage the air of suspense. Obata had real freedom with vague instructions such as "abandoned building".

  Ohba's week ran five days of creating and thinking, followed by one day of pencilling dialogue into rough drafts. Those drafts were then faxed to the editor. Obata's assistants usually worked for four days, and Obata spent one day finishing the artwork. Color pages "messed with the schedule", Obata said. Ohba sometimes finished a chapter in three or four days and sometimes took a month.

  Ohba and Obata first met in person at an editorial party in January 2004, and otherwise they communicated through their editor. Obata did not ask the editor about coming plot twists, because he looked forward to the new thumbnails each week. When Ohba asked whether Obata had "said anything" about the story, the editor answered: "No, nothing". The two never discussed the final chapters with each other.

  Ohba says the series ended more or less as intended. Ohba considered having L defeat Light, with Light dying, but chose the "Yellow Box Warehouse" ending instead. According to Ohba, those details had been set from the beginning.

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• 6. The Sequels

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  A one-shot chapter in Weekly Shōnen Jump on the 9th of February 2008 brought back the world of Death Note with a new Kira. In this story, called C-Kira, Near is now acting as the new L. He hears that the new Kira is killing people at random, and he decides the culprit is an attention-seeker. Near calls the new Kira "boring" and says the case is not worth pursuing.

  A shinigami named Midora then gives Ryuk an apple from the human realm. It is a bet on whether an ordinary human could become the next Kira. Midora loses when the human writes his own name in the Death Note after hearing Near's announcement. Ryuk tells Midora that no human will ever surpass Light.

  Part of a second sequel first appeared at an event called the "30th Work Anniversary Takeshi Obata Exhibition: Never Complete", which ran in Tokyo from the 13th of July to the 12th of August 2019. The complete 87-page chapter, a-Kira, ran in Jump Square on the 4th of February 2020. Ten years after the last story, Ryuk gives the notebook to Minoru Tanaka, the top-scoring student in Japan, hoping for another Light. Minoru hands the notebook back and asks Ryuk to return it, along with his memory of the encounter, in two years.

  Two years later, Minoru reveals that he has no plans to use it himself. He will auction it to the governments of the world, advertised as "a-Kira" with Ryuk's help. He waited because he needed to be old enough to have a bank account. Near, again acting as L, is shown developing technology to track shinigami, though it is not yet advanced enough to be useful.

  Minoru sells the Death Note to the American president, Donald Trump, for a sum large enough to leave every Japanese citizen under the age of 60 financially set for life. Minoru then gives up the notebook and his memory of the plan to Ryuk, which protects his anonymity. The King of Death creates a new rule forbidding the sale of Death Notes, so Trump cannot use it, and he secretly returns it to Ryuk. Ryuk longs for a human who will use the notebook for a longer stretch.

  The 2021 volume Death Note: Short Stories gathered C-Kira and a-Kira with the pilot chapter and two L stories titled "L: The Wammy's House" and "L: One Day". Viz Media published it in English on the 10th of May 2022.

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• 7. Beyond the Page

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  Between the 1st of December 2003 and the 15th of May 2006, Weekly Shōnen Jump ran 108 chapters of Death Note. Shueisha collected them into twelve volumes, released from the 2nd of April 2004 to the 4th of July 2006. Viz Media announced its English license in April 2005 and released its twelve volumes from the 10th of October 2005 to the 3rd of July 2007. A guidebook called Death Note 13: How to Read followed on the 13th of October 2006, with character profiles, creator interviews and behind-the-scenes material. In 2016, an All-in-One Edition packed all twelve volumes and the 2008 one-shot into a single book of 2,400 pages.

  Nisio Isin wrote the light novel Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, which Shueisha released on the 1st of August 2006. It is a prequel narrated by Mello, telling how L first met Naomi Misora during the Los Angeles "BB Serial Murder Case". It also looks inside Watari's orphanage and the system that trained geniuses such as L, Mello, Beyond Birthday, Matt and Near.

  Director Tetsurō Araki and the studio Madhouse made a 37-episode anime. It premiered on Nippon TV on the 4th of October 2006 and finished on the 27th of June 2007.

  The first live-action film premiered in Japan on the 17th of June 2006. It topped the Japanese box office for two weeks and pushed The Da Vinci Code into second place. Kaneko directed that film and its sequel, Death Note 2: The Last Name, which premiered on the 3rd of November 2006. Hideo Nakata directed the third film, L: Change the World, released on the 9th of February 2008. It follows the final 23 days of L's life as he faces a bio-terrorist group. A Japanese television drama in 2015 starred Masataka Kubota as Light and Kento Yamazaki as L. A fourth Japanese film in 2016 had a cyber-terrorism setting and six Death Notes in the human world. Adam Wingard directed the American adaptation, released on Netflix on the 25th of August 2017, with Nat Wolff, Lakeith Stanfield and Willem Dafoe in the cast.

  On the 15th of February 2007, Konami released a Nintendo DS strategy game called Kira Game. The player takes the role of Kira or L and moves through phases of investigation, voting, and a final phase of either probing a suspect or forcing someone off the team. On the 5th of November 2024, Bandai Namco Entertainment released Death Note: Killer Within, an online social deduction game for up to ten players. Players split into Kira's team and L's team and are shown as pawns like the ones Near uses in the story.

  In 2015, a musical adaptation ran in both Japan and South Korea. Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn wrote the music, with lyrics by Jack Murphy and a book by Ivan Menchell. An English production played the London Palladium on the 21st and the 22nd of August 2023. In July 2022, the Duffer Brothers' company Upside Down Pictures was announced as producer of a new Netflix series, and Halia Abdel-Meguid joined as writer and executive producer that October.

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• 8. Praise and Panic

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  By April 2015, the Death Note manga had over 30 million copies in circulation. In Japan, it ranked second on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list for 2006 and again for 2007 among male readers. It won the Grand Prize for Best Manga and Best Screenplay at the Japan Expo Awards 2007, and UK fans voted it the Favourite Manga at the 2008 Eagle Awards. A 2007 survey by Japan's ministry of culture placed it tenth among the best manga of all time. The first three volumes also made the American Library Association's 2007 Great Graphic Novels for Teens Top Ten list.

  Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network called it a "surprisingly gripping and original suspense tale that raises a handful of interesting questions about morality". His colleague Briana Lawrence argued that the story has no true villain, only "two opposing sides that both believe in the same thing: justice". Douglas Wolk of Salon noted a rumor that the creators had planned a shorter run and were persuaded to stretch it. He said the rumor made sense, because the story reaches a natural ending about halfway through. In 2006, Japanese fans also pointed to similarities with a 1973 one-shot manga by Shigeru Mizuki.

  Early in 2005, school officials in Shenyang, China, banned the manga after students altered notebooks to resemble Death Notes and wrote the names of acquaintances, enemies and teachers in them. The officials said the ban would protect students' "physical and mental health". The ban spread to Beijing, Shanghai and Lanzhou. On the 12th of June 2015, China's Ministry of Culture listed Death Note among 38 banned anime and manga titles. In 2007, the education bureau in Pingtung County, Taiwan, asked teachers to watch for negative influence on young readers. In May 2010, the school district in Albuquerque, New Mexico, held a hearing on banning the manga and voted it down unanimously.

  After volumes of the manga were found at the February 2013 suicide of a 15-year-old girl in Yekaterinburg, Russia, a local parents' group pushed to regulate media based on the series. In March 2014, investigators concluded that the manga had not caused her death.

  On the 28th of September 2007, two notes reading "Watashi wa Kira dess" were found near partial human remains in Belgium. Belgian media called the case the "Mangamoord", and four people were arrested in 2010. In Richmond, Virginia, a Franklin Military Academy senior was suspended in 2007 for owning a replica notebook listing classmates. In Hartsville, South Carolina, a middle school notebook seized in March 2008 listed seven students. In Gadsden, Alabama, two sixth-grade boys were arrested in April 2008 over a notebook naming staff and classmates. On the 14th of May 2008, a Gig Harbor, Washington, middle school expelled one student and suspended three for a notebook with 50 names, including President George W. Bush.

  Wired magazine said the series had turned Japan's most popular print medium into an internationally controversial topic. Kaneko answered: "If preventing them from seeing this movie is going to make kids better, then why not prevent them from watching all bad news?" The series also reached comedy. In the 2022 episode "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII", The Simpsons parodied it in a segment called "Death Tome", in which Lisa receives the titular book.

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