11/11/2007

 

Deathnote – Thoughts on Episodes 1-17

Lately, I have been watching the anime series Death Note obsessively on youtube. Here is the premise, in my own words (you can also check out Wikipedia etc):

Light Yagami, the smartest kid in school, one day finds the “Death Note,” a magical notebook that gives its owner the supernatural ability to kill anyone by merely writing the victim’s name in the pages of the book, while thinking clearly of the victim’s face. without both the name and the face of the victim, the owner of the Death Note cannot complete the killing. Light decides to create a “perfect world” by killing all criminals. Eventually the most powerful political institutions of the world appoint a mysterious genius detective, known only as “L”, to solve the mystery of why all the world’s criminals (that make it onto the nightly news) are dropping dead.
(To find Death Note episodes free on youtube, look for “DN ep 1” or some other variation. If it’s overly obvious, the people who hold the rights to the DVD will pull it off the internet, therefore people who are posting it as fans are doing so under non-obvious titles. These will eventually get caught and pulled off but until then you can watch as much as you want.)

This is a totally addicting series to me because:

• it is fast-paced (so much so that if I need to wake up for my 9am shift at Beard Papa’s I just watch an episode of Death Note and I am instantly awake),
• beautifully laid-out and animated, with amazingly dramatic sequences of images, the “camera”-angling is extremely dramatic (obviously there is no camera, but … the animation is framed in a way that catches some of the most extreme changes in emotions in the characters.)
• it is extremely clever and somewhat self-conscious
• the voice-actors are extremely skilled at delivering emotion-packed dialog (Japanese version only – can’t vouch for the dubbed versions out there)
• the characters are amazingly well designed – I particularly think “L” and Yagami Light’s father are well-thought out (“L” sits in the same wierd posture as me when he needs to concentrate – which is all the time. He also has quircky habbits – like he never eats anything but sweets and coffee with a lot of sugar. The father is very flawed and very believable as a chief of police and family-man.)
• the series poses some very interesting philosophical questions (as well as many stupid ones) and its interesting to watch which versions of “justice” are valued/de-valued.

This series is very frustrating, too. I often finish an episode thinking in my head – I should do a better job. Here are some major flaws that really bother me:

• The concept is so Eurocentric as to be for the most part white supremacist. I have found very little evidence to the contrary, as of episode 17. For example: The whole premise of the series is that Light Yagami randomly picks up the Death Note, which fell to the ground outside the school and was able to read it because it was written in English – we later find out that its instructions were written in English because, as one of the gods of death says: “English is the most popular language.” This is a common fallacy in places where most international contact occurs through English as a medium, ie: tourist hotspots, big cities where the effects of American Globalization are most strong, etc. If you do a quick search on the internet, there are twice as many speakers of Mandarin as there are of English. I guess the Chinese Empire reached more people more effectively than has the American one …. so far.
• There is so much Christian symbolism in this series. Light’s name, for example. But even beyond the symbolism of the characters’ names, there is a lot of Christian (mostly Catholic) imagery of Good vs. Evil. If you watch this series, keep an eye out for images of the mural on the Sistine Chapel, the Virgin Mary, the Pieta, and stained glass, crosses, etc. There is some attempt at cross-cultural reference, too of course: but all of these are very half-ass, for example, one of the gods of death from the underworld wears a Plains Indian feather head-dress.
• Most “criminals” killed by Light Yagami so far (as of episode 17 of 35) seem to be 2-dimensional, stereotypical scums-of-society, with bad teeth and/or mild insanity and deserve to die. Since Light is the son of a police chief, it makes sense that he is on the side of the pigs in his philosophy, but there could be more perspective…
• All the people who appear on the series are either white American or European, or light-skinned Japanese. Where is the diversity? The series is set in Tokyo, the impact of the Death Note is supposed to be global, and the manga on which this anime is based has been translated into English, German, Chinese, and Spanish.
• Finally, the torture methods and rights-violations committed by the detectives (led by “L”) in this series are Guantanamo-level, though not Abu-Graib level. (it’s hard to say but I think that there is also a critique of the torture methodology towards the end of episode 16.)

On the other hand, there is a healthy criticism of for-profit television companies – in one episode, the chief executive of a major news channel instructs his team of news reporters and writers to construct a story in order to boost ratings. Still, the critique is frustratingly bereft of bias-analysis, ideology-analysis, etc.

At the end of episode 17, the series embarks on a new chapter in which the next target of societal commentary appears to be aimed at corporate leaders – Japanese businessmen.
A note on the pop-culture context of Death Note:
I’m starting to see a trend in popular and highly-acclaimed literature (including manga) coming out of Japan these days. It seems that many high-quality works of literature and anime are showing the impact of suspense/mysteries. Suspense (SASUPENSU) and mysteries (MISTERI-) are a genre of lit/TV programming that has been extremely popular in Japan since WWII (possibly even before). In any case, I’ve seen the influence of the mystery genre (which I characterize as featuring a. detectives, b. human drama, and c. some kind of social commentary or existential question) in works such as The Wind-up Bird Chronicles, Paranoia Agent, and now Death Note. It’s really amazing. These are only the most recent manifestations, and the most genre-bending. Previously we also had the Meitantei Conan series and Kindaichi Hajime series.
My final comment on the Death Note series is that the creator of the Death Note franchise is – and this is no surprise – so totally Japan-centric as to be almost painful sometimes. But isn’t that true of cultural products originating in the U.S.? Totally ethnocentric. Totally oblivious to the scope and depth of ignorance. What is interesting, though, is that this hugely successful and highly disseminated series – Death Note – is not coming from an American perspective… it’s coming from a Japanese team of writers and producers. Yet it is so white supremacist, with a Japanese twist.

Check it out if you get a chance and let me know what you think.

11/25/2007

Death Note Notes, Part 2

I finished watching the Death Note series on the internet over Turkey Break. My earlier observations remain with no major modifications. I don’t want to spoil the ending for those of you who are still watching, but I do want to talk a little bit about a few trends that I see in Japanese pop media.

#1 The Thriller.
As I said before, this series masterfully juggles suspense, fantasy, and thriller elements into what I consider to be the epitome of good anime: It does what live-action movies can’t do, it does what novels can’t do, and it has a great soundtrack. So fun.
On another note, I think that many viewers of this anime (myself especially) have been so thoroughly trained to consider the Greek Tragedy to be Good Form that we can’t help but get sucked in. According to Greek Tragedy formula, Light is a Tragic Hero because he comes from a “good,” noble family, is good-looking, smart, attractive, and has a Tragic Flaw : Hubris (in English: Pride). At the end, you definitely see that his pride (or arrogance) is what gives him away.

#2 The Japan/USA/Europe Universe – I’ll call it JUE.
The JUE Universe doesn’t bother to consider the impact of JUSE Universe’s actions on the rest of the world, and doesn’t consider the agency of the non-JUE world to be relevant or meaningful.

If you look at the teams that are fighting Kira, you have:

1. the Japanese police team headed by L/Kira/Light Yagami,
2. the US-based SPK – CIA officials headed by N (Near), and
3. the Europe-based mafia team headed by M (Mello)

Obviously, in terms of where the infrastructures of power are located, it makes sense that the three teams are where/who they are. But just as they don’t explain WHY it’s evil to kill all criminals that appear on the nightly news, they don’t explain why this three-pronged configuration might be problematic.

A blond, blue-eyed version of President Bush thanks Kira in one of the final episodes for ending all wars and major crimes. Speaking for the entire world (not just the U.S.) he publically states that he will not endorse any efforts to stop Kira. While this is clearly a jab at the incompetence of current “world leaders,” it is also an affirmation of the fact that the U.S. is the most powerful nation on the earth. Also, I find it pretty childish to think that just by killing all criminals on the nightly news all wars will come to an end. There are many different kinds of wars, many of which are not recognized by the media. Duh.

#3 the Message

• As usual, there is a pretty strong message about working together to defeat an opponent or pull off some unimagineably hard task (like capturing Kira).
• The usual targets are also attacked: Mega-corporations and Big Media – the propagandistic and ratings-driven media are harshly criticized by Death Note, as is the totally cliche power-hungry corporate heads.
• Incompetent, self-serving politicians are also criticized, as are bullies in schools.

These are all to be expected.
What is totally missing, however, is a critique of the military, of police forces, bosses who bully their workers, etc. unless you want to argue that Light Yagami and his father both represent the best and worst of the police, since it’s their unshaken faith in the system that leads Light to world conquest. But I would argue that what is being criticized is less the police system and more their attitudes of inflexible straight-and-narrowness.

If you liked this series though, and want something a little more well thought out (but a little less wild-entertaining) I highly recommend Paranoia Agent by KON Satoshi, which I mentioned in my last post. This is another suspense-thriller anime series (SASUPENSU/MISTERI-) with social commentary. You get to watch more Japanese neurosis and wonder if it really is all that “Japanese” per se. At least he talks about workers’ rights.

 

12/06/2007

The Second Opening Theme Song

Remember how I talked about the imagery and Christian themes in the first 20 episodes of Death Note? Well now I’m going to talk about the second opening, which has a soundtrack that is much less pop than the first one.

“Hey hey human sucker, Hey human fucker” is a refrain, which, along with “convenience Banzai human” sort of sums up the whole song, I think.

But the imagery! So interesting!

1. Doesn’t the opening reflect more of the international audience of Death Note?
2. Do I detect a compositional reference to the Black Panthers?
3. Does Amane Misa finally turn into a porn star?
4. Is there a Matrix allusion?
5. And is it just me or does Light seem to really lose it in the end?

Below are some frame stop times for you if you want to take a look at what I’m talking about. (Just look up “Death Note 2nd Opening”on youtube and you will probably find a 1min20sec video with corresponding frame-times):

0:00 – 0:08, “Death Note” in a bunch of different languages
0:27 – 0:29, Huey Newton with aviator glasses
0:30 – 0:31, Matrix
0:32 – 0:34, Lolita Porn Star
1:15 – 1:16, Light loses it

Enjoy.