Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 1, Chapter 2: “L”! In the previous installment, a teenager named Raito discovers a notebook after school en route to his home. After a few trial runs, he convinces himself that he has the power to kill anybody he wants just by writing his or her name in the book.

A Shinigami (a sort of supernatural death god) named Ryuuku can be blamed for dropping the notebook on the EARTHLY PLANE in the first place, and thus uses it as an excuse to horn in on Raito’s life a little bit. They become buds pretty quickly.

Raito’s already stressing over whether to use his new powers for good or evil, and settled sort of in the middle – mostly for selfish reasons. People annoy him, many people deserve to die, so he wants to kill the ones who deserve to die in order to make the other harmless annoying people straighten up and fly right! The self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner, as it were.

And that’s all in THE FIRST CHAPTER. There are still ONE HUNDRED SEVEN CHAPTERS left to go! Doesn’t the story seem done already?? What more could there possibly be that would necessitate ONE HUNDRED SEVEN MORE CHAPTERS??

Cranky already.

Death Note, Vol. 1, Ch. 2
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“L”

Raito’s minding his own business in his bedroom when Ryuuku barges in like Kramer, free to roam around Raito’s dwelling like he’s HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD, JERRY! “Quite the hard worker, aren’t we?” the Shinigami comments snidely, noticing the boy loafing around and not killing humans in droves. Chop chop, son! There’s systematic genocide to commit!

It’s not like Raito’s just jerking his dick all over every object in the house (yet). He needs to squeeze in study time too to stay at the top of his class! Can’t sleep during class, so he has to sleep at home, and that only gives him about seven free hours to write names in this flimsy, cheap notebook. Give him a break, dude.

Ryuuku shoots him that frozen stare that he apparently cannot change. Those pitiful, wretched death gods and their complete lack of facial muscles.

♫♪♪♫♪♪ OPENING CREDITS ♫♪♪♫♪♪

Back “in some developed country”, as the helpful caption tells me, the Interpol meeting continues with everyone saying the same stuff they already said. It’s just a room full of angry men yelling shit out over one another.

RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE PEAS AND CARROTS RABBLE RABBLE

Suddenly, a voice was heard to remark “Well, all these people should have died anyways!”

A tizzy is spurred! A bunch of “HUBLUBLUBLUBLUB” is shouted! “Even if they’re criminals on death row, killing is still a crime!” shouts one helpful individual, loaded with insight and whatnot.

They all argue whether or not this constitutes murder if it cannot be proven that anyone was murdered and also the logistics of said alleged murder is crazy unfeasible. Grown men are arguing about this. Conspiracy theories are thrown around with reckless abandon. “We think a large syndicate is responsible for these killings,” declares one pinstripe suit motherfucker without anything further to say to back up such a vague accusation. The FBI! The CIA! The KGB! CBGB!

We’re all missing the major problem, here! These criminals are dying before they’re even executed! They’re depriving everyone of the fun part of death row!

Ughh, what do we do? We’re just a bunch of stupid men in a room. “We’ll have to call on L to solve this one.” *holds up right thumb/index finger to forehead* L sounds like a real winner.

Two Japanese representatives are seated in their assigned positions. “Chief, who is L?” asks a young woman, and the chief is like “who are you again? Oh, right, some intern. Very well. L is a secret, so zip the lip.”

This L, he solves “case after impossible case” with a 100% success rate, and he is also the last resort. Not sure why. Maybe because he snorts heroin and drags his dick over all the dead bodies while solving the murders? Who knows. He gets the job done, though, as long he actually wants to, you know, be involved in the first place.

I’ll catch that Carmen Sandiego if it’s the last thing I do.

But hey, here’s the really good news: no one has to lift a fucking finger, because this L character is already working on the case. This is according to a trench coat dude named Watari, who just walked into this sad United Nations-style debacle like he owns the place. Watari is L’s only contact, and even HE doesn’t know who L is!

This is all very riveting. Consider me riveted.

“Silence please. I now give you the voice of L,” Watari declares rather importantly, setting a laptop on the table. There’s a big Old English style letter L on the screen. “This is the biggest and most difficult case yet,” says the L. They’re really selling me here on the difficulty of this case. It’s almost as if something crazy happened, like some dumb teenager found a cheap Mead Five Star notebook and every name he writes in there turns to shit.

In order for L to solve this successfully, he needs someone from the committee to help him. Total cooperation. And all sexual favors must be honored.

Meanwhile, Raito’s spastic friends can’t stop talking about the news and how totally rad it is that all these bad guys keep dying for no reason. “Yeah! Even if it is kind of scary, it’s also kind of refreshing!” Keep it in your pants, kiddos.

Raito laughs to himself KNOWINGLY. “With this you can’t misbehave anymore can you?” he goads, already setting up his master plan for world domination. Starting small, of course, with high school nerds, but still. It’s a start.

“You seem to be in a good mood, Raito,” Ryuuku observes when Raito comes home, but should know better than anyone that your facial expressions are worth bunk. “Not really, Ryuuku,” the kid snivels, “I’m home.”

Raito spends his school days preoccupied about the notebook, all worried about leaving it in his bedroom. Like maybe his mom will find it and write “Tom Brady”, and we all know how much Raito loves Tom Brady.

He browses a few websites and calls Ryuuku over to show some of this crazy stuff he’s finding everywhere.

Half of all the old GeoCities webpages looked just like this!

Hmmm, Kira? That doesn’t sound very manly, but it will have to do for now. A search for “Kira” turns up all sorts of similar terrible websites with dancing gifs and blinking backgrounds and cursor trailer text that says “wElCoMe tO suPoKaIzEn’S aNgElFiRe DojO!!1”

Either way, word’s getting around!

Time to impart a little wisdom on the ageless death god: in SCHOOL, you see, if a teacher asks you something like “is killing bad?”, even if you think that it isn’t, you still say “yes!”. Write that down.

But here on the internet, everyone is allowed to be the creepy anonymous psychopath that they all really are! Write that down too. “Those with a clear conscience cheer ‘Go, Kira!’ in their minds. While the ones who know their own crimes tremble in fear at the wrath of God.”

Raito is overjoyed at this development, but then his TV cuts to breaking news at the ICPO (International Committee of Pocket Ovaries) where Lind. L. Tailor (also known as “L”) shows his face and discusses the Heart Attack Criminal problem.

Other committee members watch the broadcast and go “huh, that’s weird, why is he showing his face?”

The ICPO (International Committee of Penis Orgasms) agrees to give L everything he wants for the case. Full cooperation. Very good! L wants the Japanese police involved; he claims the perpetrator is either Japanese or hiding in Japan. The rest of the ICPO (International Committee of Petty Outrage) is pretty outraged! What evidence is there that the perp is Japanese? Why are we ruling out BURKINA FASO?

Oh, L has evidence all right. But he ain’t tellin’. Not yet, anyway. The committee is confused, but L has solved every case so far, so let’s trust the guy.

“To the perpetrator of these serial murders: you have committed the most abominable act in history,” L scolds without an ounce of hyperbolic awareness. And he vows to not rest until the perpetrator is brought down.

Look out… *scans Wikipedia* …Kira Kosarin, teen Nickelodeon star!

Eep! That didn’t take long for someone to figure out! He must’ve gone to all the same GeoCities websites! Shit! Fuck! Shit!

But Raito smiles. Pffft, it’s all in the notebook. If he can’t find that, he’s got nothing.

When L announces on TV that what Kira is doing is evil, Raito takes pause. Evil? Moi? How can justice be evil? Those who oppose the god of justice are the evil ones! Not me! Errrghh! Don’t make me slam my fist on my Fisher Price desk!

“You’re too stupid, L,” Raito mutters, jotting down “Lind. L. Tailor” in his little snuff book, “if you were just a little smarter, we could have had some fun.”

lol

So Raito and Ryuuku wait with bated breath as Tailor continues to be on live TV, very much still not dead, only to inevitably be dead on live TV. You love to see it folks.

“Let the world see what happens when you go against Kira, L,” Raito is positively quivering with anticipation.

Tick tock tick tock.

10 more seconds.

*fart*

Check out the dead dumbass! Ha ha ha ha!

A couple of men rush to L’s aid, but it’s obviously no use. The Best Detective in the World is a dead sack of ugly, miserable bones.

But a voice is still heard from the chair. From the laptop. Sounds like L was prepared for this!

“I did this on the off-chance that you would kill me. So, Kira, you can kill people without being nearby…”

Raito has that look again, the one where his own butt jumps up into his throat.

“Kira, listen to me. The person you killed was actually a prisoner sentenced to be executed at this time today. Not me.” A twist! Color me jacked-off!

Ryuuku finds this hilarious. Laughing at the dumb kid while his mouth is agape. L challenges this bitch to kill him next. Go on, do it! Do it! What are you afraid of? Ha, just as L suspected. Upper hand!

“So there are people you can’t kill. Thanks for the hint.”

Raito is pretty discouraged. Ryuuku is eating it up. L lets him in on another secret: this is only being broadcasted in the Kanto region of Japan, so now he has confirmed Kira’s whereabouts. The walls are closing in, buddy.

L’s very first clue was the death of Mr. Bowl Cut Hostage Situation. “Compared to all the other criminals who died of similar causes, this guy seems insignificant. And only the Japanese media reported this incident. That was the only clue I needed…”

You done fucked up, Raito. You’ve only been killing people for like 18 hours and now you’re already a wanted man.

The ICPO (International Committee of Pornography Observers) is like “fuck yeah, good ol’ L, he’s saving our asses yet again”.

“I’m extremely interested in your killing method. I’ll figure it out… WHEN I CATCH YOU!” declares L unprofessionally.

Don’t be sad, little guy. I know what’ll cheer you up! Write “Joel Osteen” in that notebook of yours.

It seems we have a nemesis in the picture, eh Raito? Now what, smartypants?

“I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND DESTROY YOU!” screams the 17-year-old maniac, “I AM JUSTICE!”

Ugh, fuck this kid. He should write his own name in the dumb book.

Time for Ryuuku to lay down some info. “Each of you is searching for an opponent whose identity is a mystery. And the first to be found out will die.”

Thanks Ryuuku, you’re a beacon of insight.

Then there’s a close-up of his spooky-ass Shinigami face, just electrified with giddy glee. “HUMANS ARE SO… INTERESTING…”.

Yeah, well, one of these days you’re going to be underwhelmed.

“I will win this…” promises Raito.
“Heh. I’ll be looking forward to the result,” promises Ryuuku.

Final Thoughts

God, I feel so dirty reading this stuff. I feel like it wouldn’t be half bad if someone who knew how to write actually did the translations. But where’s the fun in that? 106 chapters to go! Ha, I’ll be dead before I’m done.