May 2010

If there's one thing all cultures have in common regardless of any stylistic idiosyncrasies is that they're all willing to run something popular into the ground with a complete lack of shame. Much like Twilight is currently consuming every facet of culture in America, the years of 2003 through 2008 in Japan were dominated by all things Death Note. Tsugumi Ohba's wildly popular manga series has been subject to more redundant adaptations than practically any other property in the history of the medium. It got the requisite anime treatment, which makes sense, but it also found its way into a light novel, no fewer than three feature-length, live-action films and a smattering of video games. Most of these items have found their way to the United States, though not surprisingly the handheld Nintendo DS game about plotting the excruciating details of a person's death failed to find its way to our shores where the target demographic for video games tends to age in direct proportion to the income of those who can afford the hardware to run them, i.e. a game requiring a $2000 PC might actually have interesting writing and adult themes, while $300 consoles aim entirely for violence-obsessed teenage boys and $100 handheld systems are almost exclusively the realm of children who must be tricked into receiving an education. Because Death Note was so ubiquitous it only stands to reason that I've been urged to watch the TV series by everyone, everyone's mother and everyone's mother's hair dresser ever since I started, then finished the recurring Anime Friday feature on this blog a year ago.

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