#ohbameta

I don't think so, no. Going from reading Death Note to reading his second series, Bakuman, wasn't that big of a difference to me writing quality-wise. I wasn't as personally interested in Bakuman and didn't end up finishing it, but I thought then that maybe it wasn't due to a drop in writing quality so much as that it was just a totally different genre of story that he isn't as suited to writing. Bakuman is more of a light-hearted low stakes slice of life/educational story teaching kids how manga is made. And though I did find the informative aspect of it interesting and think he structured the story well and so on, I don't think he's particularly good at writing warm human connections like romances and friendships and such. His super plot-heavy style and pessimistic outlook and dry sense of humour suits a detective/horror thriller type story much better than that kind of story, maybe.

The steepest drop in quality I saw was from Bakuman to Platinum End, which really shocked me in a bad way and made me question how competent of a writer he actually is. Even aside from all the lazy and offensive and cliche aspects of the premise and plot and characters, the directions he took things every time an interesting opportunity presented itself in the story seemed to be the worst and most bewildering choices nearly every single time. I found it pretty unreadable and cringey and boring, and was very disillusioned with him as a fan of his previous works by the time I finally gave up on it.

What was pleasantly surprising to me was how decent the 2020 one-shot for Death Note was which came out after that, actually. Because I wasn't expecting to like it at all after reading Platinum End. I thought Minoru was an interesting and likable character that fit into the world as a later generation character well, and that the notebook situation created for him by Ryuk to navigate was an interesting scenario to analyze and discuss with others as well.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the sexism in Death Note is coming from the author Ohba or simply a flawed outlook given to certain characters like Light, not meant to be seen as sympathetic or “correct.”

It’s not nearly so ambiguous within other works by Ohba and Obata, however. Take the following exchange between the two main characters in the manga Bakuman, also written by Ohba and illustrated by Obata (2008-2012). Here they’re talking about one of the boy’s crushes, Azuki:

SO TO SUM UP WHAT HE’S SAID ABOUT THIS GIRL SO FAR:

1) It’s dumb/embarrassing that she wants to be a voice actress for some reason, even though these two boys also have artistic dreams of becoming manga artists and writers.

2) There is an expectation of girls to behave “in a natural way” which is to be “graceful” and “polite” and “earnest” and get “average grades.” Being “overly smart” isn’t “cute.” She knows being attractive and not standing out is the most important thing she can be, which makes her “actually smart” in this character’s eyes.

3) She’s intelligent because her father is intelligent. Her intelligence can’t be attributed to her, but her dad/bloodline. I’m sure they would not bother saying this about a male character; his intelligence would just be attributed directly to him and/or his hard work.

4) He assumes her passion for voice acting is just her “trying to be a typical girl” and that she couldn’t possibly feel any pressure about her future like men do.

5) The best thing for a woman to do is to “get married and become somebody’s wife,” and these male characters applaud her for knowing that instinctively and not trying to go against the flow.

6) This other girl is considered “not likable” because she’s proud of being the girl with the best grades in the class and of being smart. It’s considered unattractive and in this male character’s eyes makes her “actually dumb.”

And then, for an added bonus scene, when the protagonist goes to ask his parents if he can become a manga artist:

Haha yes, a Death Eraser would change the story so much, wouldn’t it!

That pilot test run story that featured the eraser is included in the How to Read book, and I actually just read it for the first time now. And yeah, I guess the eraser means that anyone can just erase the names in the Death Note, and everyone who was killed by it instantly comes back to life, lols. The little main character kid Taro immediately erases the names of the people he killed, and they come back to life, and everyone is understandably real confused by it!

I think the way an eraser would change the story really depends on the characters using it. Since Light is such a self-assured, extreme sort of dude who is always convinced he’s doing the right thing no matter what, he’d probably never use it unless it was to aid him in one of his elaborate 50 step long-con schemes on his path to godhood and maintaining his own innocence. Not sure how that would work exactly, but you could trust Light to make it seem legit and work to his advantage somehow!

Misa and any of the other Kira accomplices would probably only use it if Light told them to for some reason.

And also, you know that if L knew about it he’d be trying to get a hold of it so he could bring all of Kira’s victims back to life, and he’d definitely pick their brains after resurrecting them if he thought they’d have some sort of insight about Kira, as well.

I’m personally very glad they took the eraser out of the story altogether! I mean, there’s definite potential for comedy and further complicated / entertaining plots with an eraser added, but it really heightens the dramatic tension and emotional stakes when the effects of the Death Note are permanent! Nobody would really care that the characters were dropping dead if you could easily just bring them back to life whenever you wanted. I think a huge part of why Death Note is compelling is because it dares to kill off the characters so liberally, and with no fake-outs or surprise resurrections later on!