This show is so good. Every scene has a new twist and it makes you immersed into the story every episode. I like how quickly Light Yagami, a self righteous person, a person who wants the world to be good, fair and turned out to be having his own moral flaws being questioned.
The show starts with a Death note belogs to a shinigami 'Ryuk' falling into the human realm which grabs the attention of our protogonist Light Yagami, Japan's top student. Then he anonymously starts using the note to eradicate all the criminals in the world. Police starts to notice the sudden deaths of criminals. A great detective L comes into the picture to solve the mystery behind the sudden deaths. From then the show starts taking its course.
The show revolves around the concept of “ Justice ”. “ What is Justice?” From the minute Light proposes his vision of a new world, the question of justice will be brought into play. While he does struggle with himself for a second, his first real challenge is Ryuk. Ryuk is motivated by boredom rather than any senses of moral duty, but he notices the contradiction in Light's argument of creating a new world by killing every injust person he encounter. Well thats gonna make Light the biggest criminal ever right?
“Even if I have to sacrifice my own mind and soul, it's worth it.” was the words said by Light even before he hands on deathnote. From the beginning Light was ready to sacrifice himself to create a new world. He eventually sacrifice himself to become Kira, the god of the new world, by slowly killing Light Yagami. It also means that in exchange for cleaning a rotten world, he would have to contend with a rotten self, something that he aknowledges. This is Light's conception of Justice.
In order to correct injustices in society, we first need to have an Idea of what “Justice” is. Here come the part of L. L doesn't seems to be directed by a belief in a definition of Justice but rather by the recognition that Kira's new world is unjst. He sees justice as the response to injustice and tries to correct injustice as they appear.
The struggle and resulting dialogues between these beliefs charterizes much of the philosophical method in the show. Although other charecters like Matsuda, a police man, complicate the conversation and prevent it from being only two ideas of Justice. He makes clear that he does not believe in Kira's vision or actions but he is also skeptical of the hard line taken by L. Matsuda help to organize a jumble a competing ideas into a somewhat intelligible convesation.
Death Note is an addiciting detective procedural, but it never abandons its original question of "What makes a just world?" and most importantly it never gives an answer. By the end of the show, Kira gets defeated and L's brand of justice seems to prevail. But It leaves us with a feelings that things might have been very different if Kira had survived the warehouse. For the world inside the show, defeating Kira was justice. But for us, the audience, it's not quiet clear. On the concept of Justice, Death Note opens more doors than it closes.
