Episode: 144
Title: HPR0144: Death Note
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0144/hpr0144.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 12:24:49

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Hey, it's Steve Geek. Welcome to a short episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Today I want to give a review for you. I want to review Death Note for you.
Death Note is this wonderful Japanese anime. It was so good it became so popular
that they also made it into an action film, a live action film, which is unusual.
And something I really like in this Japanese animation was that it deals with an incredibly adult thing.
I'm a fan of Japanese anime, but I don't like the ones that are really obviously made for children.
I don't like childish plots. But the really wonderful thing about the animation industry in Japan is that they make both,
they make some for children, some for adults. They have a history.
I mean, one animation I watched was about war orphans from a fire bombing raid,
raids, performed, ordered by Le Maze and World War II, not for kids.
But back to Death Note, it deals with an incredibly adult thing.
It's a psychological and supernatural thriller.
I'm not going to give you any spoilers, but I have to give you some kind of plot synopsis.
And the story centers around a character named Leto Yagami.
And he finds a dropped death note, and the death he finds his note and picks it up.
And it says, whoever's name is written here, he sells, he sell, shall die.
And now, you know, this prep school kid is like, yeah, sure.
But Kiriyoshi gets the best. He tests it on a pretty bad guy.
And it works, guy croaks.
So he decides to try to use this death note, this power of death he was given,
the supernatural power of death, to build a perfect world, a world of justice without crime.
And, you know, it deals with vigilanteism, so he becomes naturally hunted by the police.
But they can't catch him because all these murders are done remotely.
You know, there's no physical evidence left.
They can't use normal police methods.
Now, I've talked about this note, this supernatural note, but it's a supernatural as well as a psychological thriller.
So let me give you a little example, again, without a spoiler of a plot twist.
We're kind of plots evolved from this.
In one case, in one of several things that happened, you know, a lone retired FBI agent suspects Lido
and begins pursuit of him, of course, trying to interrogate him.
But suspecting that the names, my people's names might be a factor, uses an alias.
And, you know, Lido can't defend himself by writing the name of the death note because he's got a fake name.
So the cat and mouse game begins and they go through generations of trying to, of him trying to find out
the retired FBI agent's name.
And the retired FBI agent trying to prove to himself that it is indeed Lido who is doing these things.
So let me tell you a little about quality.
I was very impressed with the quality.
The anime series, some of the scenes were rotoscoped to give it that realistic look.
And the main characters, you know, looked like they had real life miles to me.
I mean, I saw them and they weren't just like drawn out of imagination.
They looked like they actually were drawn after real people, which really was fantastic.
Now, like I said, death note is both an anime and a movie.
So the movie, I saw, the dubbing was perfect.
You know, you remember the old Kung Fu movies and the mouse would move and then later on the English force would come out?
Well, no, it looked like they were really saying their parts in English.
It's very impressive.
Now, while we're talking about the quality of some of the characterizations, I have to tell you about two characters.
And his name is Ryuk. He is a death god.
And he begins having relationships like him.
And so, you know, he's a very fearsome looking character.
And in the anime, he's fantastic.
He has a very warped sense of humor as some great lines and moves the plot along wonderfully.
But what's really amazing is that when they made the real life action movie counterpart,
you know, all the characters became human actors and actresses.
But Ryuk became a CGI character.
And so, you see real people and the CGI death god next to them, fantastic, fantastic.
And, you know, I also have to tell you about, you know, we all had a whole herd of the stereotypical anime babe, you know, the big eyes, the figure, etc.
Well, the anime series has what has to be the quintessential anime babe.
Misa Misa Amani, a teen model in Japan.
Absolutely gorgeous.
As a matter of fact, the anime character Misa Misa, the actress for the real, for the action movie counterpart, does not do justice to the animated girl.
It's fascinating, fascinating characters.
So, if you get a chance to take in the death note series, I highly recommend it.
I hope you've enjoyed today's episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Hacker Public Radio is, of course, community radio.
So, please do consider recording your own episodes and sending them in.
We'd love to get them out there.
Thank you and have a wonderful day.
Thank you for listening to Hacker Public Radio.
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Thank you.
