For a very long time after an incredible experience with “Liar Game”, this is the first time I feel intellectually satisfied by another manga. Death Note is a thrilled, fictional novel which tells a story of Yagami Raito – a genius high school student who accidentally discover a Death Note, a notebook originally owned by a Shinigami Ryuk with the power to kill anyone whose name is written in it. Following the cat-and-mouse chase between Raito and L, readers constantly tested on their judgment of morality of the character. And, like me, they ask themselves: what is justice?

Morality is probably one of the most unfathomable topics in our world. What is right and what is wrong? The mere border line of black and white is sometime inseparable. The way characters are intentionally created is somewhat interesting and sensible. Raito, mispronounced as Light in American adaptation, is a well-rounded boy, athletic, smart, handsome, and kind student, son of a respected chief-of-police, dreaming to enter law school to succeed his father. Dissatisfied with an unjust society consisted of “people the world would be better off without”, he uses the Death Note to practice his own justice. Thanks to him, the criminal rate plummets. Across the world, people are seemingly living in peace. The remainders worship him as the new God. Raito reevaluates his “justice”, while L, he himself has a contradicted definition. L, or Lawliet or sometime pronounced as Low-light, is depicted as an enigmatic, skillful and highly self-esteemed international consulting detective who is also socially inept weirdo with penchant for sweets and habit of cradling himself into a near ball. Except for their intellects, Raito and L are unlikely to have anything in common. Following the battle of Raito and L to figure out each other’s identity, readers are continually intrigued by a clever system of machinations. But what makes Death Note problematic yet engaging is its total lack of moral compass. Interestingly, through the whole storyline, there is no hereon and no villain, instead it has two opposing sides that both believe in and fight for the same thing: justice.

For Raito whose morality is based on his view of solipsism, he is graced with a god complex, which grant him the right to kill criminals and to realize his own delusional noble goal of purging the world of “all that makes it rotten”. However, by killing wrongdoers, he gives them no chance of trial, retribution, cross examination. He claims to rebuild the world, to correct the corrupted society, leaving space for only good people defined by himself. Ryuk then said, “Then the only villain in this world is you (Raito)”. His sense of justice has been just a mere product of his ego. L is also of no totally good. He manipulates prisoners, inflict torture to serve his purpose of capturing Kira. Both of their stances are warped by their own perception of justice.

We simplify the world into a dichotomy of Good and Bad, Right and Wrong to make sense of it to ourselves and our egos. In reality, it is more a blur, and volatile entity that no single mind can comprehend. Then we focus on the small things and separate them into our crafted groupings. The majority of Death Note is seen through these divisions so sharply crafted by two main characters and what they represent. Ultimately, justice is not easily being rendered to children as hero movies in which superman who fights villain and gain victory. Yes, Raito meets his death at the end of the story, but the main theme of the Death Note is not about karma of Raito’s actions, it is about silent moments left for the audience to think about: What is Justice. We live in a world in which Good and Bad are both existing, intersecting and actively engaged in a nonstop constant battle to define Justice. There are atrociousness and virtuousness, anguish and consolation, enmity and amity, retaliation and forgiveness. We can’t achieve a perfect world. The thought of a new world without crime of Raito is just a utopia which he couldn’t achieve in the end. We know that there are still uncounted votes, violated laws, intentional crimes, but if we fail to believe and act for the Rightness, what would the world be like? Like Yagami Soichiro said “Law aren’t perfect, because humans who created laws aren’t perfect. It is impossible to be perfect. However, the laws are evidence of human’s struggle to be righteous”.