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Another Death Note

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 8 months ago
VideoNovelsMangaFeatures

There's a digression at one point early in this spin-off novel about how it has gone out of style for the detective character in a mystery novel to actually deduce anything. NisiOisin's own work falls into the more common pattern, where the 'detective' arrives at the solution in a flash of insight rather than an endless sifting through clues.

I am not a mystery novel fan, and the sections of the Death Note manga that involved endless captions as the characters toyed with one possibility or another tended to make my eyes glaze over, and the faithful reproduction of that in this novel is my least favorite part of it.

Which is fine, since everything else is amazingly good.

Death Note: Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Serial Killings, as the full title goes, is set a few years before the events of the manga, and involves L recruiting Naomi Misora to help him solve a strange serial killing case. While she is inspecting the first murder scene (the victim, in classic NisiOisin style, is named Believe Bridesmaid) a strange man with a curved spine and dark circles under his eyes emerges from underneath the bed and introduces himself as Ryuzaki. Or, as NisiOisin spells it, Luxaky.

Did I mention the book is narrated by Mello?

What made the book an entertaining read for me despite my lack of interest in mysteries was partly the extremely well constructed nature of the story, but mostly how perfectly NisiOisin was able to capture the oddball, dry humor that was present in the first half of Death Note. For example, Ryuzaki's coffee, which is 'less coffee with sugar added to it than sugar moistened by coffee.'

But this is not only a faithful imitation of the manga's style, it is also a NisiOisin novel (and it will be the first of his books translated into English.) All of the trademarks of his books are here; the ornate writing style, the strange names (Backyard Bottomslash is my favorite) and the deep love for exploring the limits of the Japanese language. His mysteries are always beautifully crafted, but I have a tendency to read them in spite of the mystery rather than because of them. Ultimately, that makes this one of his least successful novels, but also an amazingly good Death Note spin-off.

Andrew Cunningham

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