Addicted « Ramblings of a Whiny Teenager

{April 10, 2009} Addicted

I believe I have taken a baby step into the realm of True Nerd-dom.

I’ve never before had any interest in anime or manga. The closest I ever came to that world was Pokemon, which I never considered “true anime” anyway, because it was so wildly popular that everyone was into it, not just the hardcore anime fans. It was cool, back in the day. And so was Ash, he was “so cool!”

Two days ago–no wait, was it really only yesterday? I came across a Harry Potter fan animation and thought it was freaking hilarious, especially the sequel. So I decided to find out what this Death Note was [watch the animations to understand].

And I am HOOKED.

Death Note is an anime/manga [not too sure of the difference at this point] series. Started as a comic, which I attempted to download, but my torrent makes the internet run impossibly slow, so instead I searched the TV series on YouTube. Eureka! As of now I am only on episode 14, but considering that they are twenty minute episodes and I started only yesterday with a holiday in between [yay for one-day Yom Tovs], that’s pretty good.

A summary. I’ll try my best to explain what exactly this series is about.

The main protagonist is a 17 year old high-school senior named Light Yagami. In addition to being sexy as hell [as most anime main characters are], he is also a brilliant student. Top of his class. But he’s bored with it all. One day he sees something falling out of the sky, and goes out to see what it is. It’s a notebook, titled “Death Note”. Inside are the instructions: “The human whose name is written in this notebook will die.” Something along those lines. Light is stunned, but decides to try it out. You have to have the person’s face in mind when you write their name, in case two or more people share the same name, only one of them will die. He writes the name of a petty criminal reported on the news. Forty seconds later, that person has a heart attack.

Light decides to use this Death Note for the “good of mankind” etc. You know, the general good guy motive. Use something evil for good causes.

Every Death Note belongs to a “Death God” [as you saw in the HP cartoon *giggle*]. When a Death Note falls into the possession of a human, that Death God ["Shinigami", as they're called] has to shadow that person until they [the human] die. Or until they give the Death Note to someone else. Light’s Death Note belonged to a shinigami named Ryuk, who is SO freaky looking but absolutely awesome and addicted to apples.

After a few days, the police get more and more suspicious of someone being behind all the criminals’ murders. They enlist the help of legendary detective “L” to find out who this killer, whom the public have named “Kira” is.

Blah blah blah summary.

What I love about this series is that the “good guy” is actually pretty much a psychopath. This Death Note ability has completely warped his mind, and however much he keeps tells himself he’s doing it for the good of humanity by eliminating criminals, he becomes completely ruthless. In the episode I’m on, he’s using this girl, Misa, who has also acquired her own shinigami and Death Note [and is ridiculously obsessed with Light]. He’s using her to get to L, so he can kill him and then the entire task force investigating his case. Light’s father is the chief of the case. He might be willing to kill his own father to continue with this serial killing.

So it’s like liking Artemis Fowl at the height of his criminal career. Because even though what he’s doing is wrong, the way he’s doing it is so brilliant and he’s so strangely likable that you forgive him for it, in a way, and end up loving him. And hating his opposers. Even though I don’t hate L. L is pretty cool. Except thanks to the YouTube commenters, I already know the fates of every character.

*sigh*

And that is why I am awake at 1:57 AM on Thursday night. Because I have to find out what Light does! Does Misa get jealous of him “going out” with other people? WHY WON’T L SUSPECT LIGHT. L was so smart at the beginning, but now his suspicions of Light are going down and it makes you angry inside.

Light will never be caught, not until the very end.

He’s a genius.

Evil genius.

Here’s some pictures, to give you an idea of what it is: