Netflix's 'Death Note': Another Awful American Adaptation

Once upon a time in the scenic but boring Philadelphia suburbs, a girl quietly took notes and waited for her teacher to return as her classmates gossiped and played pranks. The boy in front of her annoyed her especially with his radiant gold hair, light skin that tanned into a crisp Hollywood celebrity glow, and pearl-white teeth. He always sat in front of her, but not by choice; students sat alphabetically in rows for every period from the first day of the school year to the last. A jock and one of the smartest kids in her grade, that boy bragged about his supposedly authentic Italian heritage and basked in attention, adoration, expensive cars, and education awards. He was not the one she hated most in the school, but even if he was moderately attractive, she was physically unable to say a positive thing about him as a human being. She once slammed the back of his head with her history textbook for making an ignorantly sexist comment, shocking the class who never thought the quiet, muted girl living in her own mental dreamscape had a vindictive streak.

Given the right environment with the right people, that girl would rant and debate for hours on anything that she felt passionate about. Instead, she sealed her lips shut, kept only four friends, and navigated through eight years of Catholic schooling. She never knew what group she belonged to - nerds, goths, gamers, or whatever labels were cool in the late 2000s - but she knew herself and her interests enough to not feel completely lost when she was alone. After she graduated high school, she kept her friends and burned the names and faces of her peers from her memory. They never cared for her in school, so why should they ever try to reach out to her now? She feared that if she tried to remember them, hatred for them would fester and manifest into urges too "logical" and compelling to not act on. Instead, she poured her energy into studies and work to live a productive life, and she allowed herself to relax with entertainment to cope with emotions not respected in a post-industrial society.

I am glad Death Notes aren't real, because I would definitely be one of the worst people who could ever have the power to murder at will. If I did have it, I'd be fighting the temptation to get rid of any of my Catholic school peers who dare to try to contact me instead of targeting the politicians that have allowed the political, economic, and cultural capitals of the US to become ideologically cultish cesspools. Imagine Stephen King's Carrie if she was a Myers Briggs INTJ like Augustus Caesar and channeled Rei's stoicism from Evangelion. I still resent the people I went to school with, but I am aware enough of my feelings that I do everything in my power to not allow them to mutate into an uncontrollable monster that consumes me. That is something someone like Light Yagami would completely fail to understand... but at least he's not Light Turner.

Fuck. He looks like that douchebag I sat behind.

Oh yes, people, I watched the Netflix adaptation of Death Note. And I have opinions. Strong opinions.

Spoilers, if anyone cares enough about this predictable dumpster fire.
Oh, and as an added disclaimer, I do get a bit political given some of the ire American adaptations of Japanese fiction tend to stir on the lovely English-speaking side of the interwebs.