By Penny Theodorakopoulou,
Everyone has their own beliefs and opinions on a variety of topics, from how we are “supposed” to dress to how society has turned out. Death Note, a Japanese anime (Japanese animated cartoons), contemplates and presents the latter issue. How has society turned out? According to one of the protagonists, Light Yagami, “the world is rotten”, and there needs something to be done in order to change that fact.
The plot of Death Note is plain, yet it ponders over a great philosophical argument, which we will explain further on. The popular anime begins when Light Yagami, a high school prodigy, comes across a notebook named “Death Note”. According to its rules, when you write down the name of a person and you know their face, they instantly die of a heart attack in just 40 seconds. Light seized that opportunity and decided to change the world. As he keeps mentioning in the anime, this world is rotten because of all the criminals that exist, from thieves to rapists and so on. Were they to be killed, then the world would be pure and freed from all the evil; and if he could exterminate every single criminal in the world with the help of Death Note, that would, according to Light, make him a god of a new era. After killing an adequate amount of criminals within just a few days, Light considers himself “just” and “fair”, and a plethora of citizens applaud his actions and give him the nickname “Kira”, which means ‘killer’ in Japanese.
Of course, Death Note would not be of great importance if we did not have an opposing point of view in regard to Light’s actions. The second protagonist, L, is one of the greatest detectives worldwide, having solved many cases that seemed impossible even for the FBI and CIA. As he claims, after he heard Light’s killing spree, murder is murder, no matter who you kill. Those criminals that were imprisoned or about to be executed would have paid for their crimes. Having said that, L and his coworkers try to identify Light’s identity and capture him, as he is a criminal as well, even if he is killing people who have committed numerous crimes. Throughout the 37 episodes of the season, we see L’s attempt to pursue Light as he continues to kill criminals for the sake of a better and safer tomorrow.
In those 37 suspenseful episodes we clearly see both Light and L’s point of view regarding the term “murder”, and both advocate that ‘they are justice’. Both Light and L are right in their own way. Light wishes for a world where evil and crime are no more an issue, a world only worthy for those who are pure and decent people. But for that utopia to happen, sacrifices must be made; and those sacrifices must be made by those who have created an impure world – the criminals. On the contrary, L’s prism is also valid and rational. Killing people, no matter what they have done, makes you a murderer as well – nothing different from those who you take their lives from. The way I see it, I am more of a supporter of Light’s reasoning, and I shall explain why.
Just to make things clear, under no circumstances do I approve of people playing God and going on murdering people for a better world. However, Light’s opinion is not that wrong if we look at it from a different perspective. In my opinion, Light is a good-hearted person; he does not want to harm people or kill intentionally. He is naïve and ambitious though. His desire to create a better world for humanity and his gullibility that he will become its god, make his thinking a tad questionable. The very essence of the way he thinks and how he sees the world are reasonable. It is a fact that more and more hideous and distortional incidents take place almost every day, one worse after the other. From perverted people sexually assaulting other people to parents raping, abusing, and killing their children in horrible and unimaginable ways, makes you rage and really wish those people were dead. Light thinks likewise: a world where such cruel and unscrupulous people exist needs a major change; Light just happened to have found Death Note, as well as be a little bit too passionate with the mission that was “given” to him.
All in all, Death Note is a marvelous anime, with quite an interesting plot and viewpoints. Despite the popularity of the specific anime, we should not downgrade it. As we established above, it presents two different points of view – the one Light has, and the one L has. As we noticed, there is no “good” or “evil”. Everyone has their own beliefs on the subject – that is the point of Death Note, after all.
