Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 11: “One”! In the previous installment, the police force assigned to the Kira case has been whittled down to five people. They are all invited to L’s hotel room so they can all see his sexy face before they go forward from there.

Raito thinks a lot about who to kill next and how he can find out how to kill L.

Ryuuku watches a lot of TV.

Oh yeah, Raye Penber’s fiancée is on her own quest to avenge her fiancé’s death. I don’t even think they gave her a name! From now on, until confirmed otherwise, I’m gonna call her Penberella.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 11
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“One”

They keep having this L dimwit’s face half-covered like anything above his nose will be a giant revelation. Like he’s going to pull the hair away from his eyes and the people in the room are gonna be like “ANDY SAMBERG!! WHAAAAAAA!!!”

BUT ON THE FIRST PAGE OF CHAPTER 11, HIS FACE IS REVEALED. This is going to be a real turning point in the series, I just know it! Is this like when Hagrid told Harry Potter that he’s a wizard? Or maybe it’s like when Jon Snow learned that Daenerys Targaryen was his aunt? Or maybe it’s like when we found out Monica was fucking Chandler? Or maybe it’s like when Jack and Kate were actually off the Island?! Or maybe it’s when you finally found out the identities of the final Cylons! YES!! YES!!! LET’S GO WITH THAT!!!

“IT’S THE LEGEND HIMSELF!!”

“I am L,” he says sheepishly, slumping his shoulders, eyes possibly surrounded with eyeshadow. He scratches one bare foot with another bare foot. He appears to have been interrupted in the middle of hitting “Publish” on his Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy fanfiction.

Detective Yagami introduces himself to his newest friend! The other four follow suit: Matsuda. Aizawa. Usata. Siza.

Certainly we can expect L to behave with at least a kernel of tact in front of his fellow detectives and– oh, no, nope, not at all. The guy doesn’t even go ten seconds.

Put down the gun, son. We have company over for dinner tonight.

This complete social dipshit makes himself look like a cringy fool right in front of five people. I’m already mad at him. I want to throw him to the floor and steal his lunch money.

“If I was Kira, you’d be dead already, Mr. Yagami,” L says meekly, looking up at Yagami with his doe eyes and his pouty lips. He reminds the group for the 4,000th time that all Kira needs to know are the names and faces of his victims. Boom. You gave him your name. Boom. You gave him your face. Boom boom. BANG!! Dead of cardiac arrest due to bullets in the left ventricle. BANG!! And so on.

But it’s not all finger-guns with Kira, oh no no no. This gentleman is using supernatural methods to kill his victims. BOO!! Heh heh. Did I scare you? Good, now you’re paying attention to me. BOO!! That’s a ghost.

“We are the only ones left pursuing Kira,” L states with his eyes boggling out his head, “so please do not give away your names so recklessly. You must be more cautious.”

The detectives stand there silently. One of them looks like he’s about ready to take off his belt and whip this kid into Hades.

The master speaks, and they’re ready to gobble it all up with their ears like so much delicious ear-syrup.

While L, I don’t know, tries to kick his pile of SNES cartridges out of the way or something, the detectives talk amongst themselves about the information they just heard. “He needs to know the names? Is that true? I’ve heard that he only needs to know the face,” one of them nudges Yagami, who confirms that it’s true. Several criminals in the database that are either incorrectly labeled with the wrong name, or inaccessible in one way or another, have survived mass killings.

Once they catch wind that L is overhearing their CLANDESTINE CONVERSATIONS, they zip the lip. “Let’s get right down to business,” says L slinkily, “Turn off your cell phones and laptop computers and put them on this table.”

Ha! What’s next? Put your keys in this bowl? Hey, it’s midnight on New Year’s, ain’t it?! Time to party! *drops key in a bowl*

The detectives are less than happy that they have to part with their electronics. What does L think they’re all gonna do? Text Kira the information? Post information all over MySpace? Pretend they’re all paying attention but really they’re jerking off to pixelated internet pornography? Is this what L thinks they’re all gonna do? Because I’m game if you are.

L overhears this too. Tells them to shut the fuck up. Also, he doesn’t want anyone to take any calls while they talk, simple as that. So shut the fuck up.

Yes, yes, the twitchy, caffeinated weirdo is right. Let us follow suit and all come up with our own safe words.

With all safety precautions addressed, L perches on a sofa chair like some sort of cracked out orangutan and invites the rest of the group to sit and make themselves comfortable.

If that’s going to be at all possible. Jesus Christ, dude.

The pow-wow commences!

Interchangeable Detective #3 has an idea! Stop broadcasting news about the criminals! No names, no faces, no murders!

“If you do that, Kira will kill innocent people instead,” L responds, eyes darting around the room like a manic chameleon. The rest of the room goes “BWWAAAAHHH” like Hank Hill. Why would Kira the killer start killing innocent people? Do you think he’s some sort of killer??

Ugh, so this is where the typical Death Note fanbase will fall over the edge and forever empathize with this guy: “Because Kira is an immature sore loser. Yes… since I am also an immature sore loser… I know exactly how he thinks…”

And L looks like every creep you knew in high school that was one bullying remark away from committing a mass shooting. I forgot to mention that he allowed the detectives to call him “Ryuuzaki”, which is way harder to remember how to spell than “L” and that was already hard enough. They all ask Ryuuzaki what he meant by that weird “sore loser” comment.

So here’s the laborious explanation:

Kira killed the fake L on live TV. That was an instance where he didn’t kill someone he thought was a criminal. So let’s not RULE OUT THE POSSIBILITY that this CRAZED KILLER wouldn’t decide to murder FREDDIE PRINZE JR. if he felt like it. NEXT!

Remember when L declared his knowledge that Kira had to be somewhere in the vicinity? Well, when he learned that the FBI agents were in the vicinity he had them killed too. Does that one make sense to you?? NO!?! Well, deal with it. NEXT!

Remember that many individuals are getting paid by your tax dollars to figure out stuff like “the killer is killing” 15 full days into the case.

L continues to perch on his chair like a feral weasel. He already knows how Kira thinks and there isn’t much time to act. L doesn’t want to be proven right, you know. Maybe a little. He seems like the kind of guy who would get a kick out of being right all them just to show people he was right. Even if 1,000,000,000 people got murdered.

“If you don’t show me the criminals, I’ll start killing suspects of minor crimes. Or even innnocent people. The world is my hostage! Their deaths won’t be on my hands. You’re the one who hid the criminals from me!” L says, aping what he thinks Kira would say. Verbatim. Even with the exclamation points.

Oh yeah, here’s another thing. There sure are a lot of “another things” going on. I’m kind of tired of keeping track of all these “another things”. L doesn’t want the media to catch wind of their sexy hotel meetings AND he wants the media to be involved! Tricky tricky! And another thing…

OK, so L has an idea. Why not? He’s doing all the talking anyway. Why are these other soggy noodles even in the room with him? L wants the Department to broadcast a message that America is pissed that twelve FBI agents were killed, and all the other world leaders are pissed too. Mozambique, Micronesia, Maldives, world leaders from all sorts of exotic countries that start with “M” are upset and frothing at the thought! The United Nations has sent 1500 more investigators to Japan! That’ll learn him. That’ll ruffle his pretty peacock feathers! He’ll think everyone is out to get him! And he’ll get a hand cramp trying to write the whole world in his stupid little murder book! Hah hah!

The detectives in the room love this idea, mostly because L continues to do all the work for them. Kira will never be able to really retaliate! This is some perfect stuff! Who wants a pizza? Happy New Year and whatnot!

L, still perched with his gross bare feet on the cushion, is ready to share even more insights. Some personal ones. A whole bunch of “another things”, I reckon. 1) Kira acts alone. 2) Kira needs to know the name and face of his victim. 3) He can control the time of death and the actions of the victim, within the confines of reality of course. He can’t make them lick their own buttholes, for example.

This guy has it all figured out, which is really annoying because I keep reading the same fucking shit over and over again. I ALREADY KNOW HOW RAITO IS DOING THINGS! I ALREADY KNOW THAT L KNOWS HOW RAITO IS DOING THINGS! I don’t need some piss-pants to tell every character that arrives at his room the exact same information for me to read endlessly.

Anyway, L tells the room to not forget the three things he listed. In case there’s some noxious brain-damaging gas leaking into the room, remember to forget everything else except those three things! Your name, your family, none of those memories are as important.

And this, gentleman, is proof that aliens walk among us.

L proceeds to do some nutcase numerology stuff. Yes yes yes, Kira found stuff out and killed some people. Yawn. Did the ball drop yet? It’s time for bed.

He keeps writing his numbers and drawing his circles. He killed 12 FBI agents between December 19th and December 27th, and he also killed 23 other random people to throw everyone off the scent. Some had criminal records; some were only suspected of crimes.

And Kira couldn’t have killed these dudes without knowing their names and their faces. So someone…somewhere…at some point…gave him the info. One of the 12. And, for some unknown reason the makes no sense, L knows the exact order, from 1 to 12, that each one received the documents. SO WE CAN NARROW DOWN WHO GAVE HIM THE DOCUMENTS BASED ON WHEN KIRA BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Yeah, what do you think that answer is to that question? You think L likes to show of his twitchy Asperger’s in front of a group of people?

The detectives in the room positively ejaculate with joy! They can really get shit done now! Find the connection between the 12 FBI agents and the 23 random people, right? Right? No? Well, they’re going to do it anyway. They split into two teams: one to investigate the 12 and one to investigate the 23.

Detective Yagami has one final nagging question. One that he needs to know that answer to even if it is completely unimportant: does L consider the necessity for this meeting a failure?

Of course he does, bonehead. This meeting, the death of 12 FBI agents, that’s all L’s fault. He owns it, and he’ll be giving himself 30 lashes on the back during tomorrow evening’s autoerotic asphyxiation, BUT now is not the time to ruminate upon that! “I will win in the end,” he declares, gripping his knee with FIERCE, UNFETTERED DETERMINATION. No fettering here.

“This is the first time I’ve risked my life to catch a criminal. I want to let everyone here, who is also risking his life, know that JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL!”

The detectives look startled at this strange moment of, frankly, psychotic optimism. He has the face of someone who looks like he’s going to start skinning female victims and wear their skins as masks; fashioning lampshades and curtains that he can sell to Ed Gein for a pretty penny.

“That’s right!” they start cheering, “Justice will prevail! Let’s get him! Yeah! Let’s go, Ryuuzaki!”

We’d all be better off throwing this kid right off a bridge before he starts chaining us all to the heat register.

That last thing we need to do on this blessed New Year’s Eve is perform a one-on-one pow-wow to make sure none of these detectives are Kira in the flesh. Yagami agrees with this strip search, especially since the room now knows L’s name and face.

Later, once everyone is gone, L Ryuuzaki “L” paces around his hotel room hemming and hawing about his next move. “Just one thing left…”

BACK AT RAITO POOPYPANT’S HOUSE, the delinquent is scratching his pen within a notebook that isn’t the notebook. It is, in fact, a notebook. Ryuuku looks surprised that he’s not spending a usual evening scrawling 500,000 names into his beloved book (amen), but Raito is spending his time going over the last few weeks to make sure he didn’t make any missteps. “If I made any mistakes… even if I just made one mistake, I will be dead. Just one is enough.”

The chapter ends with Raito’s Mistake walking around the streets. “Raye clearly said he was going to Shinjuku,” she says, going over the facts just like every other character constantly does just in case you didn’t know what was going on. STILL.

Penber’s unnamed fiancée makes her way to KIRA INVESTIGATION HQ in order to get involved! Oh no!

Final Thoughts

Here’s what I predict will happen: The Yagami family is going to eat a meal of chicken nuggets at the dinner table and his dad will angrily wave a fork around going “THIS RYUUZAKI GUY IS REALLY RIDING US! YOU KNOW, RYUUZAKI, GOES BY THE ALIAS ‘L’, HERE’S A PICTURE OF HIM. YEP, HERE’S HIS NAME AND PICTURE.”

I hope L dies. He gives me the fucking creeps.