moonlight & righteousness (death note & the killer egregore)
L and Light from "Death Note,"
designs by Takeshi Obata,
background by me.
Twenty years later and Death Note (originally conceived by Tsugumi Ōba and Takeshi Obata) was made into a musical, not only in Japanese in 2015 and performed in Tokyo, Taiwan, Seoul, Moscow and Rio, but also in English last year performing on London's West End. Will it come to the US? Wikipedia says it's coming to Texas.
Texas!?
Given my publishing "Knight Stalker" deconstructing a crazed killer and his bond with a mischievous devil, and given almost twenty-one years of Desu Nōto, I'll address some themes within this much-adapted series which are relevant today. Even Grimes released an edgy single "Shinigami Eyes" back in '22 just before Elon acquired X. Figure that one out.
Credits // Links & References // aka There's a Lot of Death Note
Here we go. Deep breath in.
Death Note began as a manga series first published in Japan in December 2003 till May 2006 by the aforementioned Ōba and Obata. It was then animated into a 37-episode series by Madhouse Inc. directed by Tetsurō Araki and released in Japan and the US in 2006-07.
Two films equaling one story -- based on the manga, but with a radically different ending -- were also released in 2006 and '07 respectively and were directed by Shusuke Kaneko: "Death Note" and "Death Note: the Last Name", with a third spin-off from that storyline called "L: Change the WorLd" released in 2008 and directed by Hideo Nakata. There are two other sequels to this film trilogy which feature new characters as well as old ones, both released in 2016: the three-episode web series called "Death Note: New Generation" and that series' sequel film called "Death Note: Light up the New World" both directed by Shinsuke Sato.
In 2015, "Death Note: the Musical" premiered in Japan and So. Korea and for several years even till now has toured globally, with a book by Ivan Menchell, a score by Frank Wildhorn and with lyrics by Jack Murphy, featuring an English-language concept album of the music. An entirely-English-spoken adaptation premiered in London, as I mentioned, in late 2023.
Also in summer of 2015, Nippon Television released an eleven-episode series resembling a soap opera called "Death Note" directed by Ryūichi Inomata, Ryō Nishimura and Marie Iwasaki. I'll talk about this one.
In 2017, Netflix released a film adapted for an American audience set mostly in Seattle called, again, merely "Death Note" and directed by Adam Wingard. There are rumors of either a sequel or a separate Netflix-created live-action series altogether.
There are video games, and there are light novels about L in Los Angeles, and there are two films ("Death Note Relight (Rewrite): Visions of a God" and "Death Note Relight (Rewrite): L's Successors") which are condensations of the anime with added scenes, and what else can I say?
...Exhale.
Names // Quicker than a Ray of Raito
Death Note refuses to die. Now, credits out of the way, let's begin. There's no talking about Death Note without talking about names.
1. Light Yagami, anglicized with the given name first and the surname last, is the protagonist antihero of the story. His name is complex and really genius for his character.
In kanji, it's written 夜神 月 which should read Yagami Tsuki. That would mean night god of the moon. However, the moon kanji is not spoken like tsuki but is rather spoken like raito (ライト) as per the English word light. It was a definitive choice on the part of author Ōba (whose name is also a pseudonym) to associate the moon with the English light, rather than just name the character Hikari 光, Japanese for light. No, (s)he chose moon with the English pronunciation of light. So, 夜神 月 translates to night god of the moonlight.
Lunatic, originally meaning epileptic and/or mad, comes from the Latin luna which means moon. It's where we associate the term moonstruck with insanity. The cold moon merely reflects the sun and may be looked at eternally. The sun can't ever be directly looked at; despite this, it's lifegiving although blinding, rendering itself black. A person gets moonstruck, or goes insane, when he stares at an object for too long without mental reference to the object's source. You can't imagine the moon's light doesn't have its source in the sun; where else would light come from? Matter points away from itself, always. And, that which it points to may not be disposed to scrutiny or staring.
Also, let's not get too much away from the obvious and remember: Light can easily be "Right," and his calling to manifest others' destinies toward death is to "Write."
2. L Lawliet (aliases include Ryūga Hideki, Eraldo Coil Deneuve, and for a large majority in the manga/anime Ryūzaki) is Light's foil. Yes, L is a full first name in the world of Death Note. It's written in katakana, which is the Japanese phonetic alphabet, as Eru Rōraito. This name is trickier than Light's.
It can mean several different things, and have several different subtleties. El is the Semitic word for a paternal god. It is the root of the Hebrew Elohim which is the one god of the Jews and later Christians. Like Christ's cry of "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?" from the Cross. Since ancient times Jews, and this continues to now, cannot say Y-H-V-H which is the true name of their god. And, so, they say El or Elohim which is means supreme god of gods. And, in Death Note, Light can't defeat L unless he learns his full and true name. L's logo is his letter in gothic lettering, and it forms a right angle. So, he represents a Semitic god in phonetics, and even the way L is written has a metaphysical implication of Cartesian measurement.
His surname is even more mysterious, as its English spelling has law as the first syllable of his surname, and the Japanese spelling ends it with raito. So, lawful light/right/write. That goes with the right-angle L symbol: righteous (or principled/measured) god who is lawfully enlightened. Or, another interpretation is that Lawliet is pronounced like laureate. Laureates we associate with honor and esteem, like when we say someone is a Nobel prize laureate. The root of the word, however, means crowned one. As in ancient Greek mythology when Apollo is crowned with laurel flowers. You know who else is crowned with flowers? Spiked roses during an excruciating death, and is victorious as a God? Jesus Christ. I'll get to L's being a Christ-figure as well as a Buddha-figure soon.
Two last things: 1. L's surname could also be as easy of a wordplay as lowlight implying darkness or infrared versus ultraviolet; 2. Ryūzaki, which is the alias that his task force often calls him, means dragon.
Despite Variations in Adaptations, the Worldbuilding Remains (except for the Netflix film)
Light is a student, either in high school or fresh into college, and he has good intentions. The world is filled with injustice, rotted to the core, he feels. People get away with murder and continue to live. Selfish people live well. Politicians and armies and police and corporations are corrupt. Honest and sincere people lose out. Fate has it that there's nothing anyone can do about this chaos even though righteous people would intend to enact true justice if they could. Light would intend to, if he had the means. Light believes himself righteous and good. But, hey, now, reader. What paves a path to hell? Good intentions from people desiring to take fate into their hands.
L'enfer est plein de bonne volontés et désirs.
(Hell is filled with good wishes and desires.)
--St. Bernard of Clairvaux
A bored and mischievous god of death, called in Japanese Shintō mythology a shinigami, drops a notebook with rules in it written in English. Some variations, particularly in the original manga and anime, demonstrate that the shinigami Ryūku drops it randomly and that Light happens to find it. Others demonstrate that Ryūku picks Light out specifically. In the book a given shinigami writes humans' names down so they may die, and if a human dies before his appointed time the shinigami who punishes the human by striking him dead will acquire his remaining lifespan. Shinigami are like reapers. Ryūku is exceptional, straying from the decaying shinigami realm, tired of century after century of watching humans flail around avoiding death while others of his kind have given up doling out punishment. Ryūku wants to see a human possess a Death Note. To see what said human would do with one.
Light decides he is going to change humankind for the better and become the "god of the new world." Ryūku, who's there for the entertainment and fresh apples, finds this hilarious. Light is going to kill criminals who in his mind deserve the death sentence. The Death Note requires that the owner have a person's name and appearance in his mind while writing in order to kill said person by means of a heart attack. Light uses media to gather data on hardened criminals. Further rules of the Note stipulate that if the time of death is written within forty seconds of writing the name, it will occur at the written time. Also, if after writing the person's name the details of the death are written within the next six minutes and forty seconds, as long as it's feasible, the person will die under said circumstances like a puppet. Light uses this in creative, cringey ways.
Too bad Light loses his conscience and falls into the trap of perceiving anyone who stands in his way as being just as much a criminal -- of not more -- than hardened murderers, thieves and rapists. The anyone mostly meaning L.
L is a genius detective in his early twenties who is reclusive and heartwarmingly idiosyncratic. L's also probably autistic, due to his obvious poor social skills as well as some other telling traits and quirks. In many versions, he is addicted to cake and sweets. The detective remains mostly anonymous, where no one except his handler and father-figure Watari knows his true name, nor have many people seen him. However, L breaks his own rule for the seemingly unsolvable Kira case. Kira is who the world knows Light as, based on the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "killer." L carefully identifies Kira as living in Tokyo, teasing Light out by using a death row inmate as a stand-in on Kanto-region-only-television and driving Light to kill the inmate using the de facto method of the heart attack. This successfully proves that Kira can kill from a distance needing only a face and a name, and that he's in the Kanto region of Japan. Light is livid. L recruits a Kira Taskforce based upon members of Tokyo's police, which includes Light's father Sōichirō and eventually Light himself, to work alongside him in person.
Sōichirō also stands in the antihero's way. Sōichirō just happens to be chief of police of Tokyo and becomes one of L's most trusted aides against Kira. The convenience of Light being the son of the chief of police sometimes seems like a contrivance, at least in my view. However, I believe it works best in the 2015 live action series, which I'll get to.
So, the majority of Death Note's plot plays out in what can best be described as a large-scale chess game. Light and L play each other and use slip-ups as advantages to get closer to exposing the other's identity. Much of the drama features intense dialogue, between characters as well as by means of interior monologue. Ordinary every-day actions are highly dramaticized. For example, at one point, Light while studying in his bedroom and under audio and visual surveillance hides a streaming device and a piece of the Note in a potato-chip bag and manages to kill a few criminals reaching for the snack while seeming to have no access to the broadcast of their identities, misleading L and the Taskforce; without context, it's a young man being watched by detectives eating and studying, but within context it's filled with tension and high-stakes drama. Light needs to see L, which he ends up achieving even though L makes the first move, and to know L's full name so as to kill him with the Death Note before he's caught as Kira. L needs proof that Light is Kira, for he's had a hunch about Sōichirō's son from very early on when he secretly deploys FBI agents to track the Kira Taskforce's families after it's obvious Kira has access to the investigation. But, L lacks irrefutable proof, especially without knowing exactly how Kira kills people with just a face and a name.
Meanwhile, the world's crime rate decreases significantly. There are less wars. Nations experience peace and prosperity. Because everyone's afraid of Kira.
A deal that becomes important to the plot and introduces a character who's a third-wheel in L's and Light's fatal duel, is one in which the owner of a Death Note may renounce half of his remaining life-span to a shinigami in exchange for the ability to see people's names and remaining life-spans above their heads: the shinigami-eye-contract. It's what Grimes sings about, Kira only knows why.
Misa Amane, a pop-star and model, is rescued from death by a shinigami named Jealous and then picks up his Death Note. Another shinigami, Rem, explains to Misa the rules as well as the deal and vows to remain by the human girl's side. Misa, eager to meet Kira whom she now realizes also possesses a Note and to work with him as a favor for him having recently killed the man who murdered her family, makes the eye-contract. To find Kira's identity, she makes a series of reckless moves which inadvertently further implicates Light to L. Upon learning that the young and attractive Light is Kira, Misa falls instantly in love with him. Light, however, is only interested in killing L and continuing being the serial-killing but crime-cleansing god of the new world. The antihero finds Misa's killing of "innocents" (people who weren't criminals, or who were pettier criminals than the ones Light believes deserve death) in order to reach him, appalling. But, Misa's eyes are invaluable. Light figures he's won the whole game as long as Misa can see L and see his true name above his head.
Too bad L catches on to the whole thing and manages to obtain irrefutable evidence that Misa is a second Kira who can kill just by seeing a face, before Misa ever sees him.
But! Too bad Light uses this to his advantage. The killer pulls an impressive move so that he and Misa renounce their Notes and lose their memories of Death Notes and shinigami. Therefore, he convinces L that though he and Misa both may have been Kiras, they had no control over their compulsions to kill. If they weren't conscious of being Kiras and had no control, neither he nor Misa can be held responsible for the murders. Anyway, now, as per Light's plan, the power of Kira falls into someone else's hands. A member of an assets corporation called the Yotsuba Group, a man named Higuchi, obtains one of the Notes through Rem. Light aides L in catching him, and in the process gains the detective's trust.
Too bad that when Higuchi's caught, Light touches the Death Note. The villain regains his memories, just as planned, and moves once again to kill L. From here, except in the 2006/07 films and the musical, in which L's death comes at the very end, the story tends stylistically to tumble downhill. As in all versions except the Netflix film, L does indeed die. In the original manga and anime, it's in the cruelest way, by Light manipulating Rem to kill L so as to protect Misa from being charged for being the second Kira and to maintain his innocent façade.
I say the story tumbles because L's successors, Near and Mello, don't ever while on their own or together achieve the level of cat-and-mouse with Light. They're also not as loveable.
Nevertheless, Light is eventually always caught -- usually by the Kira Taskforce under Near -- and is killed by the ever-aloof apple-loving Ryūku who thanks the young killer for the great albeit brief entertainment while in the human realm.
The Lawful Laureate's Death at the Hands of the Possessed
Obviously, shinigami and supernatural notebooks are just symbols -- but they're real symbols! For the means and the mentality of what it's like to easily manipulate and kill others because you believe it's a matter of their getting their just deserts. Human beings, as a rule, are fallen. We get swept up in ideals which compromise our conscience and delude us away from true justice. The truth is hard: killing detained criminals does nothing to heal the damage they've inflicted; killing soldiers and "enemy civilians" does nothing but prove that the more vicious of armies gets to have what it wants, usually land and resources; killing criminals in shoot-outs does nothing but terrorize; killing masses of people based on presumptions about their intentions to kill you is insane. Unless there is not a shred of doubt that killing a person or a group of people at a specific time and under specific circumstances will prevent innocent people dying, you really can't kill people and think it's just. And, it's rarer than we think that people really and truly want to kill for the hell of it, and even those people didn't start out that way. If there is no other way to save yourself at a criminal's hands than by killing, don't do it. With courage, tempt and lure killers and criminals and thieves and corrupt people out of sin. But, don't kill them unless they won't be convinced out of killing, and don't sin against them.
Yet, here we are today. Hundreds of billions and more hundreds of billions of dollars pour into the war machine, and police shots ring out like church bells just as much as criminals' shots do.
L's death in most of the adaptations of Death Note is a martyrdom. L acting in good faith that Light would not return to being Kira, that it wasn't part of Light's plan to renounce being Kira with the intention of recovering the identity, makes him the truly just character of the story. L dies. But, L dies having been right (ba-dum-ching). Believing in the goodness of people brings the reward of happiness and peace, even if you lose your life for it and are sad for the person or people who kill you. At least you died with honor, and you did good by others. You lived sincerely.
By L dying, he did win over the Killer. In that sense, then, I see him as a Christ-figure. In the anime, just before his death, he actually cleans Light's feet the way Christ washes the feet of his apostles including Judas the night before his death. In the film "Death Note: The Last Name," L Lawliet writes his own name and his time of death before Light can force Rem to. This is to leave proof to Sōichirō and the task force that Light is Kira, knowing there is no other way. L lives out his last twenty-three days honorably, solving yet another huge case as seen in the film "L: Change the WorLd," before dying peacefully beside a photo of Watari.
Light, in turn, in every adaptation apart from the Netflix one, eventually dies screaming in agony. The antihero turns into that which he hated the most, knowing no peace, recalling no conscience nor any sense of honor. In most adaptations, he's responsible for his own father's death and feels close to nothing about it. People are just pawns. Due to his delusions, or the egregore that's swept him up, the demon of the Death Note, he becomes the basest of all criminals. The serial killer beating out all other serial killers. It's quite horrifying, and very sad.
Feminine Power & Rem's Solidarity
Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. — Gen. 3:16, NIV
That being said, even though I'm not as impressed by the musical as I thought I'd be, I was impressed by the scenes after which Misa (played by Fuka Yuduki) is apprehended as being the Second Kira and tied to a cross and interrogated by L. Although the apprehension and interrogation mimics the original manga and anime, Misa performs songs along with Rem (played by Megumi Hamada) regarding the warped nature of deluded love and sacrifice: what do love and sacrifice mean if they're all for a wicked man? These new scenes add dimension to Misa's character's experience. It's a relief. Death Note can seem misogynistic even from the perspective of the virtuous male characters. It always bothered me that not enough was explored about Misa's sense of being possessed by her own Note.
Culturally this is understandable, as this is a Japanese story. Japan is a masculine and collective culture in which, more often than not, women are not perceived nearly as capable of tempering their passions as men are. Women are therefore, more often, expected to act submissively toward men and compete with each other for men's attention. Listen, I'm Colombian-American. While misogynistic codes aren't exactly the same in my family's culture as in Japan, they're more similar to the Japanese than that of the modern Western women from the US and other individualistic cultures. The US and other individualistic cultures encourage women to assert ourselves, whether we're strong of character or not, and this isn't always a good thing — but it's real, and it makes it difficult for individualistic cultures to understand masculine collective cultures. If you've ever heard the phrase "a woman without her man is nothing," then you can understand how women from these cultures feel. We, and I purposely include myself because I've done this in the past, will put up with anything and everything. And, in the back of our minds, we console ourselves with a warped sense of ego and turn the phrase. "A woman: without her, man is nothing." This reasons out that our inferiority only augments our man's superiority. According to this logic, both parties benefit from this utilitarian approach to bridging the gap between male experience and female experience.
In the musical, Misa and Rem lengthily soliloquy on whether sacrificing for the sake of another's pleasure can bring on happiness. This is exemplary for my argument about Death Note being about possession and compulsion. Misa's compulsivity is based on a feminine quality to submit to a man because she has no self-worth. Misa in all versions makes it clear that she doesn't care about her own life as long as it can be useful to Light as Kira. And, so, forgetting her role as the Second Kira to convince L of hers and Light's innocence, just so long as she remembers her one-sided love for him, seems better than considering that she has become a murderer as well as an accessory to large-scale murder by a lunatic. This memory-loss works for both herself and Light. As mentioned, Light also sets up with Ryūku a plan to give up ownership of the Note so as to forget that he’s Kira and forget everything about the Death Note and shinigami. In the end, however, Light still feels nothing for Misa, even with his Kira-memory gone.
Rem knows and understands and is willing to die for Misa by writing L's name to extend Misa's life when the young woman should really be sentenced to the death penalty for murder once L has the evidence. Misa thanks Rem; they're similar, for they're hopelessly attached to others and willing to die to give that other ego pleasure. Misa only wants to stay obsessed with Light. It's a one-sided idyllic romance and attraction, where Light as Kira is only afraid of Rem killing him for not protecting Misa. As memory-free Light, he's merely guilty that he's romantically involved with a woman he feels nothing for. What ignorance. And yet, it's the type of aloof and arrogant man many women from these cultures are taught to search out and feel gratitude for.
I'm happy that at least the musical sheds light ;) on this tragic part of the plot. It is a powerful symbol for something women must recognize within our cultures and within our own selves. Our energy should redirect towards devotion to people who love and respect us and will accept love and respect back.
The 2015 Japanese Live Drama Series Emphasizes Slow Compulsory Possession
Unfortunately, the Netflix film starring Nat Wolff, LaKeith Stanfield, Margaret Qualley and an amazing Willem Dafoe as Ryūku (they're all fantastic actors, really) turns the story into a precursor for how AI aims to make sense of human behavior so as to predict it, and while this works in a way there are still holes and contrivances that make me cringe. The musical, while creative, to me ran with a too-out-of-place current of nihilism. I've skimmed the entire manga and own the last of the volumes. I've seen the anime. I remember when it first streamed in the US at a time when anime culture was way more subversive; in fact, it was my first anime and that's probably why I feel attached to it. I remember thinking that all anime was this good just to be disappointed. While I still consider a handful of manga and anime and anime-films as some of my favorite fiction, Death Note is exceptional. I've seen the live-action 2006/07 films and "L: Change the WorLd" with the awesome Kenichi Matsuyama as L.
Anyway, all the other Death Note things I haven't checked out yet, and I'll eventually get to them.
But, I recently I did see for the first time the Nippon TV series "Death Note" from 2015, starring Masataka Kubota as Light and Kento Yamazaki as L. This last one is, from all I've seen, my preferred adaptation besides the original manga and its ending, for a variety of reasons.
It portrays Light as vulnerable, perhaps already an introverted narcissist / or another covert Cluster B personality disorder. This stands in contrast to the clichéd profile of an extroverted narcissist. Rather, Light is traumatized by having lost his mother as a child and witnessing his father choose his responsibility as a law enforcer over his family. He's a wallflower. Not a star student whose flawlessness renders him popular. He doesn't want to be a law enforcer, because his relationship with Sōichirō (played hauntingly by Yutaka Matsushige) is very strained and he reticently resents his father. In this version, Ryūku (CGIed, voiced by Jun Fukushima) chooses to drop the Note where only Light would pick it up. After killing two criminals, one by accident merely indulgently writing his name in the Note and not expecting it to work, and the other in order to save Sōichirō in a hostage crisis in which his father seemed right about to be shot, Light's conscience shreds him to pieces.
The young man doesn't cope. Weeping, he throws the Note off a sky-rise, whispers a goodbye to his father and sister which they'll never hear, and then moves to jump. At that moment, Ryūku appears and plays with Light's head. The shinigami suggests that the sensitive human consider keeping the Note instead of risking it going to a criminal who would use it for selfish purposes. The shinigami zeroes in on Light's weakness: his compulsory sense for justice where the civil laws and law enforcers, particularly his father, fail.
In the anime and manga, as well as in the 2006/07 films, Ryūku is far more passive albeit delighted at the drama. Like how Greek gods would have been amused watching mortals. In these other versions, Light's delusion happens quickly and without too many temptations. For me, it makes the character intriguing but more aloof, than the Light in the 2015 live series version. Light's delusion into thinking himself God is a slow-burn in the 2015 series, and Kubota modulates his body and mannerisms episode to episode really well. I understand the appeal of the 2007/07 films. But, really, this series gives the actors, specifically Kubota and Yamazaki, time to develop their characters. The young antihero specifies that after killing off the world's worst criminals, he really has no choice but to continue: a compulsion due to the lure of the Note. Light becomes smarter against L's traps with the greater the need to think fast: a compulsion due to the lure of the Note. Light becomes cannier and more smug and despicable the more he caves to the convenience of the Note's power over others' actions before they die: once again, compulsions due to the lure. Ryūku taunts him mercilessly, and Light's explicit (rather than implicit and covert) lack of self-esteem causes him to fall for Ryūku's traps. This is a contrast to the original Light who takes center-stage, with a predisposition to extroverted narcissism, to try and prove Ryūku's lethargic supernature inferior to his own zealous human nature. I think covert-narcissist and slow-burning-evil Light is more engaging.
Although Ryūku is more harassing and manipulative in 2015, he still doesn't lie. Ryūku doesn't remove our antihero's free will, just like our Abrahamic-faith Satan doesn't remove anybody's free will. The shinigami mocks Light with fragments of truth so as to get an emotional reaction from the volatile young man. Ryūku makes it clear that no human who uses the Note goes to Heaven or Hell nor ever truly feels peace. To this, Light doesn't resignedly concede like the original does, privately thinking himself stoically above those concepts like Nietzsche's übermensch. Rather, he naively challenges the notion by saying "yeah, well, I'm different!" Well, yeah, he is different in that he's an unhealthy young adult with a warped conscience and high compulsivity, and doesn't possess a balanced sense for temperance and other virtues. And so, sadly, the joke's on him through getting the Death Note.
The villain isn't so nihilistic about himself because he doesn't really understand himself. Light's seemingly sweet in his foolish fragility, in his bittersweet spiral into madness. That's what, in my opinion, makes him more relatable and more compelling to watch. You might want to believe he'll renounce Kira. But, people who are so unaware of their vices and compulsions are dangerous. They're more susceptible to exterior influences which would batter them down to animalistic sadists. The killer's bond with L is also more passionate, and there are new twists and new scenes which add dimension to Light's and L's need for each other. The two geniuses motivate each other in their obsession with one another. No, I don't ship them; we can be platonic. The viewer is tempted to believe Light may just realize that the Kira persona is a demon he must be rid of so as to save his soul. L repeatedly tells Light they work well as a team, that they're friends, and that Light just needs an opportunity for his deductive skills to burgeon. In a well-scripted and intense scene he begs Light to go of his delusion, insisting he knows that justice will always win. Kira is the enemy, not the savior.
Yamazaki working with the script and direction plays L as picaresque and petulant and, overall, graceful. The detective's confidence gives him a brotherly-like attitude towards memory-free Light, as though Light would make a great protégé if given the right encouragement and the right challenges. It's a different relationship, a more emotional one. Therefore, it's one whose tragic end feels more devastating. When Light loses his memories, he's sincere and considerate and quite affable, while blossoming into a mature detective (that which he'd swore he'd never be). Light moves to save L from being shot by Higuchi and so unthinkingly almost dies for L. A self-sacrificing compulsion. When he regains his memories, then, he's all the more twisted and crazed, as though possessed. It's the grip and the lure of such an easy achievement of a Manichean-like godhood. I am good; therefore, no matter who I bond with and love, anyone who defies me is bad because the opposite of good is bad. L believes Light is smarter than this dualism, especially during that intense fight, and he appeals to him to see the reasonability of acting in good faith. Justice always wins.
Light admits he's Kira when he receives L's real name through a text from an attorney-ally named Mikami. Because L will not convert, Kira writes L Lawliet in the Note. As they wait the forty seconds, Light sobs that he wished he could have shown L his seemingly-perfect world, and that he would have been his friend forever despite the inevitability of this tragedy in which one or the other had to die. A typical cluster-B type of bond, where the childishly disordered person elects a confident empath to share a reigning kingdom with and who will be despised when caught acting spontaneously.
Regardless, L doesn't die just yet. The Note is a fake. After which, we get this dialogue:
Mikami does kill L from the shadows. I'm not sure whether when L dies Light shows sincere devastation. Perhaps he thought he could truly convert him if given more time, or perhaps it's just an act for the others surrounding them. The same goes with Sōichirō's death, also a tragic scene, one in which the man catches Light red-handed with the Note and insists he's willing to write his own name just so that his son may confess. Light denies being Kira, lying to the end as though he has no choice. Sōichirō writes his own name. Imagine, that knowing his father will die in forty seconds is not what devastates Light as much as Sōichirō's attempt to burn the Note. Light in his compulsion gives not one shit that his father has forty seconds left of life, has no heart to honor his last wish. Rather, the killer wrestles with his father until he dies and then pries the un-burned notebook out of his stiffened hand with that insane expression of personal victory. Then, he looks in horror at the corpse of his father. But, you can't go back.
The body remembers love and friendship, even when possessed. I believe the soul remembers that the body is made in the divine image for love. Even the worst criminals, possessed by devils or not, still remember love. As hard as it is to imagine. That's what hell on earth is: still remembering that you were never meant to become a monster.
The series ends with Near catching Light and, as always, Light screaming (the scariest I have seen), shot through a few times, while Ryūk and Rem watch. This time with the warehouse on fire as though Light is already in Hell. And, the biggest punch of the gut is the video L leaves assuming he has been killed by Kira in which he asks forgiveness of Light for having suspected him and encouraging him to work with Near to catch Kira. He loved Light like a brother, like a comrade.
The pink elephant is, really, that flesh-and-blood humans over cartoons. But, even in 2006/07 films, Light quickly became the cruel extroverted narcissist. This version makes it clearer that Kira is a product of the Note's lure and Ryūku's tricks, and that Light feels powerless against that persona.
Philosophy and Godhood
I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the LORD (Elohim) do all these things.
--Is. 45:7 (KJV)
Yowza, that passage from Isaiah complicates things for theologians and philosophers on the Judeo-Christian subject of "the problem of evil."
In the Eastern traditions, however, the concept of divine non-duality is way less of an issue than for Western traditions. It comes down to believing that you wouldn't know good without evil, and you wouldn't know evil without good. Same with light and dark, as the Scripture passage says. But, does that imply that evil has footing in nature, meaning that it's necessary? Well, I could sit and write a 700+ page thesis on something like that. But, I'm not going to do that here. I'm not going to easily answer whether or not evil is necessary for good.
I can propose in this purely-fun blog post about a Japanese manga and its adaptations that divinity supersedes good and evil. Uh oh, I'm going Nietzsche. The English word matter is from the Sanskrit mātā, which means measure and mother. Derived from mātā is māyā, meaning magic and illusion in a game sense. Matter exists ex nihilo, or, out of nothing. Oh, and, now I'm backtracking on Nietzsche by saying, "when I stare into the void, the world stares back" (rather than "the void stares back"). Because God is not matter; God is, rather, this void out of which matter exists. When I acknowledge that nothing is existentially, albeit not essentially, something... well, then, I see God. God and the world. Something, nothing, and then some. Both/and. This concept can be referred to in Western philosophy as the analogy of being (analogia entis).
Shinigami, in the Western mind, wouldn't be considered gods. They're more like demons. Demons are created beings (angels first, before they fell) and not voids, and therefore they're not in any way divine. Although they, like all creations, serve the divine.
Humans, like God, are relational. And, when you get it, if you get it, you don't have to worry about right behavior and right thinking and being right. Nah, you're busy walking on air, light as a feather doing no harm, and that's as right-o as right can be lol.
Back to Death Note
My conclusion is that as archetypes L needed Kira just like Lawliet needed Light, in a Buddhist sense but also in a Christian one. Run with it: God needs a Killer, and law needs a cold subject to receive its luminous rays so as to be rationalized. Divine law, like the sun, can't be directly looked at because it's black. But, luminous speculation, like the white moon, can be observed as a truth which demonstrates its source.
Again, I don't think the relationship between the two characters is romantic or sexual. But, I think Death Note and other kinds of esoteric archetypal stories (see my post about two mahō shōjo destined for each other who become opposing goddesses) represent a kind of mystical truth through two people destined to relate to one another with overwhelming emotion that can turn from hatred to love and back.
Of paradoxes standing together as one and then some.
And, in this way, God is both human and divine in an unrepeatable way. In a way that we can only visibly understand through acting in continual good faith. And, God's dark side? Well, self-emptying into the other is pretty agonizing. Total suspension of belief is total darkness, called the Dark Night of the Soul in Western tradition. But, the darkness, just so you know, "shall never overcome the light" (Jn. 1:5).
So, Most Seriously of All, the Question Changes:
"Cake or potato chips?" No! We go with non-dualism! Serial killers do not have to exist, they would make the best detectives! And, so, we opt for candied apples! 🍭☯️🍎
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