Juan You - Death Note (Reading Blog #1)

So this might not be a post that includes a huge pop-culture reference, but it's relatively popular to people of the Japanese animation persuasion. What I'm talking about is the Japanese comic book series, or manga, Death Note, and it's connections to Christianity and the Bible.
This might be a long shot, but here is the summary of this cat-and-mouse story. It follows the character of Light Yagami, a elite high-school student whose intellect puts him far above all of his classmate, and even his family. One day, he finds a black notebook on the ground and picks it up. Little does he know that this notebook has the power to kill. All the writer has to do is picture the victim's face and write his or her victim's name. The book even goes as far as to explain elaborate rules and the such. But we're not getting into that.
The main character, Light, at first approaches the Death Note in disbelief and tries it out on a few criminals he sees. After realizing that the Death Note works, he is shocked and traumatized, even scared. However, after a week of having it to himself and doing heavy thinking, he rationalizes his actions and does a complete 180.
He assumes a God-like role, in which he uses this notebook to rid the world of criminals and proceeds to “be the god of the new world”.
Not only does Light suddenly assume a God-like persona, he is also overcome with a sense of superiority, which ultimately transforms him into a power-hungry figure. The power he has over human life consumes him, and just as God's idea are written in the Ten Commandments, Light uses his rationality and reason to justify his actions, and even support and acknowledge them as “the right thing to do”. In this case, Morality and Justice are strong themes in the series. The Ten Commandments by Moses answers the ultimate question on what is right and what is wrong.
His archnemisis, the detective that goes by the codename 'L', is in contrast representative of Atheism because he believes that it is impossible for a single figure to determine the value and fate of humanity.
Religious symbols occur everywhere within Deathnote, and throughout the black and white cover is a singular color – red. Red from apples. This a reference to the Death God Light is often seen with, Ryuk, who was the original owner of the Death Note before Light picked it up. Ryuk is Death God bored of the life that he has in the upper realm with all his other Death God associates. He claims that the reason he dropped the Death Note was because he “was bored. That's all.” He wanted to see what would happen if a Death Note was picked up by a human out of curiosity.
The apples are the favorite fruit of Ryuk's that he gobbles up. In the book, he even claims that he is addicted to them because they are “juicy” compared to the apples he eats in his upper realm. Apples, as anyone would know, are symbolic of the forbidden fruit in Christianity. This may symbolize the temptation, and simultaneously knowledge. After eating the fruit, the consumer would become smarter in a sense, and they would be brought into a new reality where they are more self-aware, more conscious. In this respect, Ryuk's consumption of the fruit can symbolize his growing attachment to the human realm, because he becomes more and more involved with Light's schemes.
In short, the Death Note take is about a battle of morality, and a battle of righteousness, reason vs. faith. While Light's ideas are not inherently evil, what he does is evil. This story really intrigues the reader into thinking about what good and evil are, and the boundaries of faith and reason, because both can be taken to extremes.