Death Note, by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
One day, seventeen-year-old Light Yagami finds a strange notebook dropped outside his school, and when he picks it up, he realizes that it's a Death Note, a notebook that shinigami (death gods) use to kill people whose time has come. Light reads the instructions and learns that to kill someone, all he has to do is write the name of the person in the notebook while thinking of their face -- and forty seconds later they will die of a heart-attack. If he wants to make them die a different way -- hit by a car, for example -- he must write the manner of death next to the name, and it will happen. At first a little bit intimidated by this power, Light eventually begins to write names of criminals in the notebook. He decides he will use the Death Note to rid the world of evil people and set himself up as lord and reign over a new, better world. Meanwhile, the shinigami Ryuk, who dropped the notebook on purpose, settles in to watch a very entertaining show.
However much these criminals deserve death, the authorities realize the someone is murdering them and set about trying to find out who and how. They hire a legendary detective, known only as "L", to track down this killer, who the media has dubbed "Kira". Light quickly realizes that his noble goal won't come off without complications -- will he have to kill the policemen who are after Kira, will he have to kill neighbors or friends or family who find out his secret? Is he willing to go that far?
The cat-and-mouse chase between Light/Kira and "L" is tense and exciting, all the more so because Light, the protagonist of the series, is working in a morally gray zone, where he has the potential to become (and some would argue, already has become) as evil as the people he kills. Obata's art work is also exceptional, with none of the typical manga/anime cartoon style -- the people and settings look realistic, and there are no cutesy expressions, silly antics, or flowery backgrounds.
This is a dark, gritty story with a moral question at its center: is it okay to kill when you're killing bad people, and how do you decide who is bad and who is good? Who is qualified to make those decisions? When do you, in passing judgement on others, become evil yourself?
We have the first three volumes of this excellent manga series in the library's graphic novel section, and we hope to have more eventually.