Review: Death Note Vol. 2: Confluence by Tsugumi Ohba

Title: Death Note Vol. 2: Confluence
Author: Tsugumi Ohba
Artist: Takeshi Obata
Series: Death Note Vol. 2
Genre: Supernatural thriller manga
Format: Paperback
Source:  Public Library
Pub. Year: 2003
Purchase: Amz/ B&N/ TBD

Blurb from Amazon:

Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects – and he’s bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal…or his life? Light thinks he’s put an end to his troubles with the FBI – by using the Death Note to kill off the FBI agents working the case in Japan! But one of the agents has a fiancee who used to work in the Bureau, and now she’s uncovered information that could lead to Light’s capture. To make matters worse, L has emerged from the shadows to work directly with the task force headed by Light’s father. With people pursuing him from every direction, will Light get caught in the conflux?

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Random: I love how I know what is going to happen yet it still as exciting as the first time I saw the anime.

An excellent continuation of the first volume and more intense than the last one. It is not as philosophical as the first because the manga is moving forward with the investigation into Kira.

The character cast is still the same with the added addition of Naomi Misora, the fiancé of Raye Penber. Raye and Naomi played an interesting part in this volume because Light ends up using both of them.

There are three main events in this volume. The first deals with Raye Penber and the FBI. The previous volume allowed Light to gain access to Raye’s name which is crucial if he wants to kills someone. Raye introduces the reader to Naomi whom he has a condescending attitude for. He is like “Be a housewife only, you can’t be a housewife and agent and don’t intervene with my case.” What a little chauvinistic man. We learn through a flashback how Light tricks Raye into writing down the names of the agents and later kills all of them. Light made sure that L could not track him to a specific agent but Light dealing with Naomi gave him away in the end.

Naomi comes into the picture because she is a former FBI agent and believes that Kira killed Raye so she wants to try to bring him down as well. She is a very smart person who figures out more about Kira’s methods of killing which places Light in danger if she can get the information to Kira Task Force. This leads to the most intense cat-and-mouse game ever… at least on Light’s part. It is so intense because he is desperately trying to gain access to her real name and how he convinces her, it’s pretty awesome. At the same time, I feel like Naomi was underused. She is a smart and strong woman and Light just kills her because she is a threat (which I understand) but there is no strong women in this series. I wish she had a longer or a more important role other than to make Light feel threatened. I really liked her character.

L or Ryuzaki as he would like to be called by the Kira Task Force is now dealing face to face with the task force. He is extremely logical and is well-prepared with neat gadgets like GPS belts for the task force. Naomi’s disappearance tips L that Kira had contact with Raye Penber because he believes that Naomi would never have committed suicide over Raye’s death. It leads to Ryuzaki placing cameras on the two families that Penber was investigating; the Deputy Director General and Detective Superintendent Yagami (Light’s father and head of the Kira Task Force). The cameras showed just how paranoid (or cautious, take your pick) Light truly is. Having little tricks that show if anyone enters his room.

The artwork is fantastic. It’s the same as in the previous manga. Light still has a somewhat innocence face. Ryuzaki looks childish in certain pages which hides his real age.

My favorite part of the volume is Ryuk panicking over the loss of his apples because apples are like cigarettes, very addicting. He is like “I’m not on your side but I will help you because I need apples.” Best source of motivation.  I also did not know that he likes to play Mario Golf, that is so random that it is awesome.

Overall, this is a 5 Black Butterfly rating because it continues the excitement of the first manga and it is just as intense. Ryuk and Light are still my favorite characters.

5 BB- Total Keeper

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79th in the 150+ Reading Challenge
Also qualifies for: Serial Killer, TV Addict, Second in a Series, M/GN/VG

Review: Death Note Vol. 1: Boredom by Tsugimi Ohba

Title: Death Note Vol. 1: Boredom
Author: Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata
Series: Death Note Vol. 1
Genre: Manga
Format: Paperback
Source: Personal Purchase
Pub. Year: 2005
Purchase: Amz/B&N/TBD

Blurb from Amazon:
Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects – and bored out of his mind! But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, and notebook dropped by a rougue shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal… or his life?

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I love the Death Note anime so I had to read the manga that inspired it. I have to say, the anime stuck fairly close to the first volume of the manga.

Light Yagami finds a death note and starts using it to kill criminals of the world. He believes the world is “rotten place” so why not clean it up by getting rid of people who are guilty of committing crimes. His logic makes sense (at least it did to me). It also makes sense that he would do start killing people. His father is the commissioner of the NPA which is similar to the FBI so he is knowledgeable of the criminal system and how faulty it can be at times. In Light’s mind, he is not doing anything wrong; rather he is fighting for justice.

Light is an intelligent teenager. It shows in how gains access to his father’s computer, hence, why he knows the privileged information that only the NPA knows. He changes his tactics (not the method of killing) in order to get L to suspect the NPA of leaking information and L falls for it. Light goes out of his way to create a safe place for the death note. He creates a safe that will light up on fire if anyone tries to force their way in. He is calculating in how he outsmarts Raye in order to obtain his name because a name and a face are necessary to kill someone. If you don’t have one or the other, that person will not die. This fact was proven when L confronted Kira in the televised event.

The manga is fast paced. I think it cover about 4 episodes of the anime in one volume. Light wants the world to know that there is someone out there judging people for their crimes so he just kills people by heart attacks. The heart attacks become his signature move. The world ends up calling him “Kira” which is “killer” (that is not translation, Kira doesn’t mean killer, it just sounds like killer). Kira ends up confronting “L”, the world greatest detective who figures out Kira in Japan by broadcasting specific television events. It’s intense in the anime and in the manga (even if I knew what was coming). Raye Penber of the FBI is also introduced in the manga. Kira plants the seed of suspicion between the NPA and L so L has the FBI investigate the families of the officers.

Let’s talk art style because when it comes to manga, art is crucial. It was so strange to see Light as innocent face teenager when he first started using the death note. (In my head, he is always appears as he did in the final episode of the anime; manic and egoistical). I didn’t really care for the art. It wasn’t as dark as I expected it to be considering the subject matter. It was fairly light and soft except when it came to Ryuk, he was drawn with hard edges. It was still pretty good in bringing detail in to the pages. I like the fact that the rules of the death note are used as dividers between chapters. The basic rule is that a person whose name is written down will die of a heart attack in 40 seconds.

5 butterflies it receives from me. The concept if fantastic, the ideas spouted by Light and L make sense, and the storyline is pretty great.

5 BB- Total Keeper

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26 in the 150+ Reading Challenge
Also qualifies for: First in a Series, M/G/V Challenge, Serial Killer, TV Addict,