Helpful Score: 1
The tension increases between Light and his mysterious foil L in this, the second volume of Tsugumi Ohba's series.
The first volume laid out the rules of the Death Note: Light, who has found a notebook belonging to a death god, can kill anyone he wants by writing that person's name in the book. He decides to improve the world by using the notebook to pass final judgment on the worst criminals of the world, eventually drawing the attention of police agencies around the world.
Volume 2 sees the stakes raised for Light as he uses the notebook to eliminate an entire team of FBI agents who had been sent to catch him. Predictably this action drives off most of the police who had been intent on capturing him, except for a dedicated crew in Japan, led by the mysterious L, and the grieving fiancee of one of the FBI agents killed.
There are a couple dangers in this sort of story, one of which is to become completely consumed by the moral and ethical nature of what Light is doing, so that the story becomes lost. The other is to ignore it completely, which unfortunately is what happens here.
As possessor of the Death Note, Light is completely convinced of the rightness of his actions, even when it involves killing police officers who might pose a threat to him. As a behind-the-scenes police investigator, L is completely convinced of the rightness of his actions, even when it means putting police officers in harm's way. There are no real heroes here, nor any morality being served; it is simply a battle between two equally matched foes with little to no regard for the others who perish in course of their private feud.
A few hundred years ago, this battle would have been fought with swords and armor, and the reader would have been treated to endless and tedious feats of strength, similar to the boasting of Beowulf in Heorot. Because this is a battle of intellects, we're treated instead to endless and inconceivable leaps in logic meant to show us how incredibly brilliant Light and L are.
It gets old fast.
Because of how evenly matched Light and L are, the series would not be able to continue in this vein indefinitely, and the first volume was fast-paced enough that I am confident the third volume will be better, but Vol. 2 was a marked disappointment on its own merits. Hopefully it will act as decent bridging material to the third volume.
The first volume laid out the rules of the Death Note: Light, who has found a notebook belonging to a death god, can kill anyone he wants by writing that person's name in the book. He decides to improve the world by using the notebook to pass final judgment on the worst criminals of the world, eventually drawing the attention of police agencies around the world.
Volume 2 sees the stakes raised for Light as he uses the notebook to eliminate an entire team of FBI agents who had been sent to catch him. Predictably this action drives off most of the police who had been intent on capturing him, except for a dedicated crew in Japan, led by the mysterious L, and the grieving fiancee of one of the FBI agents killed.
There are a couple dangers in this sort of story, one of which is to become completely consumed by the moral and ethical nature of what Light is doing, so that the story becomes lost. The other is to ignore it completely, which unfortunately is what happens here.
As possessor of the Death Note, Light is completely convinced of the rightness of his actions, even when it involves killing police officers who might pose a threat to him. As a behind-the-scenes police investigator, L is completely convinced of the rightness of his actions, even when it means putting police officers in harm's way. There are no real heroes here, nor any morality being served; it is simply a battle between two equally matched foes with little to no regard for the others who perish in course of their private feud.
A few hundred years ago, this battle would have been fought with swords and armor, and the reader would have been treated to endless and tedious feats of strength, similar to the boasting of Beowulf in Heorot. Because this is a battle of intellects, we're treated instead to endless and inconceivable leaps in logic meant to show us how incredibly brilliant Light and L are.
It gets old fast.
Because of how evenly matched Light and L are, the series would not be able to continue in this vein indefinitely, and the first volume was fast-paced enough that I am confident the third volume will be better, but Vol. 2 was a marked disappointment on its own merits. Hopefully it will act as decent bridging material to the third volume.
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