Death
Note is a popular manga by Tsugumi Ohba from Japan. The
comic starts out a shinigami, a god of
Death, named Ryuk who wishes for some excitement in his life. Looking to solve his problems, he drops one of his note books into the
human world and
goes to retrieve it hoping that some human has picked it up. The manga than goes to Light Yagmi, a 17-year-old student also dying of boredom in class and life in general. He is a strong willed student with a strong sense of justice. So when he sees a notebook randomly fall from the sky, he goes to inspect it. A black notebook with the word''s "Death Note" written in English, he picks it up to see what''s it all about. And what are the first words he reads?
"The human whose name is written in this book shall die". That''s right. A book of death. Thinking that the book is some kind of sick joke written by some psycho, he puts it down and keeps walking. However, curiosity
gets to him and he brings the book home to try it out. The book comes with several rules and one of them is that he has to not only write the name but also think of that person''s face at the same time and they will die. Kurou Otoharoda, a man responsible for killing several people finds his way into a nursery home and has taking several hostages. Not willing to let such injustice fly, Light writes down the name and watches with disbelief as Kurou dies of a heart attack. Surprised by this, Light decides to put his tool of justice to good use by killing every criminal known to man in order to make a new world for good people.
Oh but Ryuk isn''t forgotten yet. He tracks the alarming rate of deaths and finds Light. Light is quite dedicated to getting rid of criminals and has already written over a hundred names. Ryuk laughs at the information and lets Light keep the book while he follows the boy, happy that his boredom has finally come to an end. The book gets more
interesting because police start coming in to try and find this mysterious killer. Criminals fear him and people praise him for doing what the police can not and have dubbed him "Kira" (a name similar to "Killer" in Japanese).
This is an entertaining read because Light is basically an antagonist and his enemies who try to pursue him are the protagonists. Light is also a smart person and is able to throw off anybody, who gets close to finding what he doing with, his brains. If the art looks simialr then it does because the art is done by Takeshi Obata who also did the art for Hikaru no Go.
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