Rashaka: Amen to pretty much everything you just said about the sexism. It’s subtle and insiduous, which is further reflected by the lack of women in “power” positions for no good reason; granted, the lack of background women can probably be attributed at least somewhat to the fact that the artist doesn’t enjoy drawing women. And yes, the first half of the series of Death Note is the strongest, so plot problems and the sexism will only increase as time goes on. I still recommend following the series through to the end at least once, though. And the manga is the best version (and at $8 a pop, 12 volumes max isn’t much of an investment).

I do, however, think L and Light are believably brilliant. The first time L tricks Light to discover Light’s location in Volume 1 still gives me shivers, it’s so damn clever.

I have some issues with the plot that have made my interest lessen (mostly that neither L nor Light seem to act as smart as we the audience are supposed to believe them to be, and some boredom with the business industry group pay-for-murder plot), my main objection with the series, and the reason I’m trying to decide to quit or continue, is the sexism.

I’d like to say that I appreciated your comments in the discussion about about how women are portrayed on the series– I agree with you all your points, and I could see those patterns even though I’ve only seen 20 episodes.

My biggest complaint was the lack of female characters–of female populace– in the “world” that Death Note creates. It seems like there’s just less women present than you would normally see. Especially after L moves into the high-rise building and so many scenes are in a closed setting where the only female character of note is Misa (plus that one thief that gets only a couple lines). And Misa seems like a Bratz doll come to life, though I do appreciate her resourcefulness at least. Even with the idea that there’s less women in the police force, and less women in the business world, there are *some*, and I felt often like the author kept forgetting that women existed, at least in a professional environment. He remembered they existed at Light’s home (because a mother is an accessory to a good little police chief’s household) and they existed in the shape of sexual objects like Misa (who is not only defined by sexual context but epitomizes the “emotional/crazy/irrational” stereotype of feminine behavior), and then every once in a while you get the FBI agent’s fiancee in the beginning, who would have been amazing if she hadn’t been eliminated for reasons directly related to her male counterpart. Even looking past the fact that the ambitions of the women were tied in with the male characters (happens a lot in anime) I felt the general absence of women in the overall cast was disturbing, and much more noteworthy than in other anime series. Instead of being around half of the cast, it seems like in the world of DN there’s only 20% women to 80% men.

Like I said, that was my impression of the first half of the series. I have been told “it only gets worse” by others, though.

-Rashaka

I agree with your assessment of this awesome show/manga (the movie opens shortly here). I joke pretty often that it rocks because Madhouse was the studio who animated it, but honestly, the manga is pretty amazing.

The central conflict is easy to grasp; what makes it work plotwise is the cleverness of the rules-lawyering and resource management that Light and L engage in. But what makes it resonate is that horrible yet tantalizing worry that we’d do better…or worse…than Light at carrying that burden. Only the naive believe that they’d never be tempted to use the book. Most of us would hope to use it as carefully as Light does at first, without falling victim to the allure of that power.

I will have to get back into reading your very insightful blog!

I think the sexism answer is a little less complicated than that. Simply, both the writer and the artist are men. It’s easier for them to relate to male characters, not because they have any kind of low opinion of women.

I’ve heard that justification for mild sexism before, and I just don’t buy it. Feminism is the idea that men and women were created equal. No one’s asking a male writer to accurately represent the female experience in order to be a feminist writer - if you write a female character whom the writer and reader can take seriously, you’re good to go. Look at One Piece. Nami and Robin aren’t particularly admirable people, but they’re important members of the team, and other characters and/or the reader would only look down on them for their flaws - Nami’s greed, Robin’s apathy, whatever. Nobody’s looking down on them because they’re the girls, because them being “the girls” isn’t an issue - they’re members of the team. Period.

Bottom line: your female characters have to be human beings with flaws and goals, just like how your male characters are human beings with flaws and goals. If you have trouble writing female characters, either make your story entirely inhabited by men, or develop a male character with all his goals and drives and flaws and then draw boobs on him. If you can only write some sort of sloppy compilation of female stereotypes onto a character who’s only a caricature of a human being, just leave her out - you’re not helping anyone. Oh, and all female characters in a work shouldn’t be inherently driven by, providing, or representations of sex, either, unless there’s a particular reason for that being the case in the work. Are men entirely defined by their sex, even though straight women and gay men are attracted to men? Nope. So women shouldn’t be, either, just because straight men and gay women are attracted to them.

If you want to know why Naomi was killed off so fast, you should go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Death_Note_characters

Scroll down to “Conception and development of Naomi”. That page also has multiple references on Obata(the artist)’s difficulty drawing female characters.

I still believe that the point of Death Note is to not spell out a clear theme about justice. Light kills people he considers “criminals” and anyone who gets in the way of his “just” cause. L believes in the law deciding who lives and who dies. Misa kills in an attempt to protect and please herself and Light. These are all “Kira” dillemmas that each character faces in a different way. CAN the killing of another person ever be justified? I don’t know. The comic doesn’t know. The manga lets each reader decide for him/herself, and that’s the entire point. Each character justifies murder in his or her own way in order to provide example of how people CAN think about the issue. I think Death Note NOT answering those questions clearly and directly is what makes it so good.

Good point about the media. I forgot to mention that - the media ethics in Death Note are another good brainbuster. At what point are they helping Kira, hurting Kira, fulfilling a duty to the public, hurting the public, etc.? The media has a definitive (and oftentimes shifting) role in the story, and again the reader can decide if and when the media is in the wrong.

Yes, a lot of the male side characters are also treated flippantly in Death Note. But there are multiple strong male characters, whereas Misa is only sometimes a strong female character, and all the other female characters are practically throwaway (the FBI agent less so, maybe, because of the post-series novel that includes her). But a broad-minded character like L commenting on the FBI agent being good at her job “even for a woman”? Light claiming he can manipulate everybody, but then failing with certain male characters while NEVER failing at manipulating every woman in his life? And then Matsuda, who the manga always considered a sort of joke, really coming into his own by the end while a major female character’s fate isn’t even revealed until the post-series informational Volume 13 for no good reason (other than the author not caring)? Sorry, but when you try to write a story about the human condition and then you try and cut out your female characters whenever you can for no good reason (other than their being female, I suppose), your story’s sexist. It’s definitely not the most sexist manga you can read, and I still think Death Note is one of the best comics ever written and everyone should read it, but I still think the sexism in the story is worthy of critique.

Thank you for a well written and thought through response! I think you’re making the misstake of staring yourself blind at the fact that theese characters are women, instead of simply side-characters (with the exeption of Misa). The FBI agent’s vendetta seems perfectly understandable to me and she acts on her own accord, I don’t see any problem there really. The family’s passive role would’ve been the same if his sister had been a little brother instead, or is there any reason to think otherwise? The thief and reporter’s bodyguard seemed to driven by their own agenda. Hmm, I’ll admit that the reporter’s actions were strange, but I think that her weak character was one of many in the second half of the series. As for Misa she’s just the typical j-idol sterotype in addition to her sociopathic behaviour.

It’s true that other series beeing sexist doesn’t justify Death Note arguably beeing so. However, my point was that there are series far more suited to be brought up for debate. I think that this is a genuine problem, especially as anime has become more widespread. The sexism in anime and other Japanese culture is commonly accepted and may therefore tint the productions of series such as Death Note.

As for Death Note appealing to the subject of justice and ethics I think that’s where a major flaw in Death Note is. It never portrays any of the interesting dilemmas that ‘Kira’ would have been facing. Like where he should draw the line of judgement? Just murder? Can the killing of another person ever be justified & is every conviction that of someone guilty? I’d also like to think that the Media is to blame when they throughtout the series continue to publish photos and names of criminals.

In any case, I can’t see the sexism that you speak of despite a little effort. If it’s there it’s subtle and I don’t think that it hurts the entertainment value. To me Death Note was just a decent detective fiction drama that lost itself somewhere in the end…

- SajT