Death Note Season 2 Should Adapt The Sequel Comic: How It Could Work

The Death Note sequel comic, which was recently released by Shonen Jump, is the perfect source material for a possible second season of Death Note.

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The Death Note Special one-shot comic, which was recently released in English for free by Shonen Jump, would make the perfect source material for a second season of the Japanese anime series, Death Note. Written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, the sequel comic returns to the Death Note universe ten years post-Kira in the modern age of 2019, revisiting some of the tried-and-true concepts from the original while unpacking a whole new story.

The first season of Death Note follows the model student and mastermind Light Yagami as he happens upon a Death Note, a notebook owned by the Shinigami (death god) Ryuk that gives him the preternatural ability to kill anyone whose name is written within the notebook. As Light begins to alter society by ridding the world of people he deems immoral under the alias Kira, he’s pursued by the genius detective L who attempts to serve him justice for his crimes. While twelve years have passed since the first season of Death Note, the Japanese series still has a following in America and experienced a recent resurgence after Netflix created a live-action Death Note film in 2017.

While the series’ second season has been highly anticipated by fans, for years it’s seemed highly unlikely given that the main storyline of Death Note was wrapped up pretty cleanly by the end of the first season, with the end of Kira’s reign and the child prodigy Near taking up the mantle of L. Beyond the non-canonical spinoff novels, Nisio Isin’s Death Note Another Note: The Los Angelos BB Murder Cases and M’s Death Note: L- Change the World, no new source material by the original creators followed the Death Note manga series – that is, until now.

The Death Note special one-shot acts as an epilogue to the original series, taking place ten years after Light Yagami used the Death Note to reduce the world’s crime rate as Kira, whom history now regards as a mass murderer. The comic follows a new protagonist, Minoru Tanaka, an equally intelligent and ambitious student who receives the Death Note from Ryuk and attempts to sell it to the highest bidder. While the one-shot manga is rather short, the sequel comic has enough original material to establish a second season as thrilling as the first. Here’s how it could work.

The Death Note Sequel Comic Reflects Modern Times

Since the first season of Death Note took place during the year 2006, the sequel comic allows fans to reenter the Death Note universe during the year 2019, updating the franchise to modern times. Within season 1, Kira reigned over a less technologically advanced age. As Minoru Tanaka points out in the comic, there were a lot of things that Light did as Kira that he wouldn’t be able to get away with today thanks to the advancements of technology – including the murder of the FBI agent Raye Penber now that all buses are equipped with cameras. With the considerable amount of advancements made in police procedure from additional surveillance to facial recognition technology, the stakes are certainly raised for Tanaka as a secondary Death Note owner following Kira’s legacy.

When Near is first shown beginning his investigation into “A-Kira”, he’s attempting to develop facial recognition technology for the Shinigami Ryuk, since Near can still see him after making contact with the “god of death” during season 1. Following Ryuk on the surveillance cameras, Near initially tries to locate “A-Kira” by tracking Ryuk’s movements back to the Death Note owner, but Tanaka thought one step-ahead and had Ryuk travel back to him underground where he’d be out of sight of any surveillance cameras. It’s little details like these that are not only reminiscent of the original series, but that have the potential of bringing something new to the same old story. Adapting the sequel comic into a second season that takes place in modern times would put the characters in a whole new playing field that hasn’t been seen before in the Death Note universe.

Death Note Season 2 Could Have A Completely Different Main Character

To avoid redundancy, a second season of Death Note would only work if it had a completely different protagonist, and a more stark opposite to Light Yagami couldn’t be found in anyone other than Minoru Tanaka. In comparison to Light, Tanaka is an average middle school student who doesn’t appear to be much of a genius. While he may have received the top scores in an IQ aptitude test three years in a row, he’s currently failing his English class and is considered a below average student. However, there is one thing that Tanaka has that Light doesn’t: a sense of humility. Lacking Light’s hubris, Tanaka acts more intelligently by staying under the radar and avoiding the same small mistakes Light made in the pursuit of recognition as the god-like figure Kira.

In season 1 of Death Note, Light Yagami was a model student and citizen, but once he begins to use the Death Note to kill criminals, it corrupts his values and further inflates his sense of self-importance as the brightest student of his generation. Because Light wants recognition under the alias Kira, his ego gets in the way of him creating the perfect Utopian society. He could have easily used the Death Note to kill in unsuspecting ways that would have subtly removed the most dangerous criminals from the world without attracting too much attention.

Part of what makes Tanaka such a compelling protagonist post-Light is the fact that his values are so different. When given the god-like power of choosing who lives and who dies, Tanaka instead opts to use the Death Note in a way that doesn’t involve killing other people. Tanaka uses the Death Note for self-gain in a more altruistic manner, which involves selling the Death Note to America for $10 trillion dollars and sharing that wealth with every person who has a Yotsuba bank account. While Light acted only for himself, Tanaka ingeniously achieved both goals of earning enough money to live a comfortable life and making the world a better place by improving Japan’s economy – all while remaining undetected.

The Death Note Comic Could Make Season 2 Just As Good As The Original

It’s hard to imagine Death Note continuing with a second season without revisiting some of the concepts that made the first season such a success, including the cat-and-mouse dynamic that was originally between the idealist Light Yagami and the detective hunting him, L Lawliet. While both characters were among the many causalities of the first season that aren’t expected to return, the second season could instead focus on the conflict between Tanaka as the Death Note seller and Near as L’s successor as he tries to catch Tanaka in the act.

In the original Death Note, the dynamic between Light and L was so captivating because it was never entirely clear which character fit into the role of hero or villain. The Death Note sequel comic presents a similar ethical dilemma, since Tanaka technically hasn’t done anything illegal when he attempts to sell the Death Note. Near states in the comic, “I would assume that killing someone with the notebook is a crime, but it doesn’t seem like selling one would be,” which limits Near’s options when it comes to apprehending Tanaka as a criminal. While the storyline is considerably less action-packed than the original, the one-shot comic still maintains the battle of wits between the detective and the Death Note owner.

While the sequel comic is no replacement for the original Death Note series, the one-shot manga has plenty of similar qualities to satiate fans of the original Death Note while still being varied enough to warrant a second season. The two leading characters present in the one-shot could represent the next generation of Death Note updated into modern times. While Near acts as the successor to L, Tanaka is essentially a mentor of Light having learned from Light’s past mistakes and referring to Kira’s history as his guide. In the advent that the Death Note anime series ever moves forward with a second season, adapting the sequel comic seems like the most logical route for the franchise to take.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/death-note-season-2-sequel-comic-best-story-adapt-how/