Death Note Volume 3 (Episodes 17-24) [2006] [DVD]

Death Note returns for another installment of the hit series death Note. Volume 3 contains episodes 17-24 over 2 discs. After being confined for fifty days, the Kira killings finally resume and Light and Misa are released from their prison cells. Due to relinquishing their ownership of the notebooks, each of them genuinely believes that they are innocent and have nothing to do with the Death Note.

Unfortunately This third DVD set is where the series shows its first signs of fatigue as the plot seems to drag it's feet a bit with the introduction of the Yotsuba Company and yet another Kira. The main focus for this Yotsuba company is the 8 businessmen who are meeting up regularly and using the Death Note to kill off business rivals for their own financial reasons. Out of the eight, one of these people is the new Kira, however, I found myself not really caring which person it was as all of these characters are pretty boring and I'm not even going to try and remember their names. I found this section of the story to be incredibly slow in the manga as well as the anime.
However, this volume is not a completely bad after a shaky first disc, the pace begins to pick up and the plot starts going somewhere again. In the second disc, questions are finally answered and things begin to make a bit more sense. The second disc rescues this volume as Death Note returns to being an edge of your seat thriller again, with the tension so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The quality carries on right through to the last frame of the last episode which ends in just the perfect place to leave you wanting more.

Music-wise Death Note continues to have some cool tunes that go well with the moody style of the show. However, the most noticeable thing this time round is the addition of brand new opening and closing theme songs. You will notice that the new songs are alot heavier and aggressive than the previous ones. The artist is Japanese heavy rock band 'Maximum the hormone'. Both their ending and opening songs are frenetic heavy rock songs complete with shredding guitars and guttural screaming vocals. These new songs are completely different to the previous theme songs by'Nightmare', and they do not nesacarily go well with the feel of the show, however, they are two awesome tracks and I guess it is a bonus that they are the sort of music that I listen to.
On top of this, both Japanese and English voiceovers are impressive. The english dub contains some notable actors such as Brad Swaile (Light) who provided the voice for the hero Rumina in the anime Tokyo Underground, and Alessandro Juliani who most people will recognise from SCI-FI TV series Battlestar Gallactica.
Death Note continues to look superb in this volume! Created by Madhouse Studio who also worked on classic animes such as Gungrave, Beck and Black Lagoon. With the help of Madhouse, Death Note constantly looks gorgeous and reeks of quality. On a side note it is nice to see manga continuing their trend of putting extras on each of the discs. There are some interviews and recording sessions with the english cast among the usual trailers and clean endings or openings.

Death Note has such a rich and involving story that it has to be experienced from the very beginning, so if you are reading this review and have not yet watched any of this series, you need to watch the first and second volumes beforehand. Or alternatively you could check out the original source manga or watch the live action movies.
So overall volume 3 isn't a bad volume at all. If you have been collecting the previous DVD volumes then this one is still essential. Just try to be patient with a couple of the episodes on the first disc, and it will all pay off in the brilliant second disc of this set. This may be the weakest volume of Death Note yet, but it is still an essential purchase for fans. Now we just have to wait for volume 4 which should be amazing!!

This volume contains 8 episodes; episodes 17 - 24 inclusive.

The volume begins with the most tense episode so far as L's methodology resembles the sort expected at Guantanamo Bay. There's a noticeable shift as Light steals the moral high ground and L admits to feeling down over seemingly being wrong. Things are tense and eventually lead to physical violence. After the actions from the previous volume. the investigation team are back at square one, desperate, and now without police support. Bizarrely, Light is now innocent as far as he is aware and considers himself unassociated with Kira.

After seeing the powerplay between L and Light as they tactically battle each other, it gives the series a new dynamic to see them working resolutely together for the same cause. The two great minds combined analyse all the information at hand and from the chaos of a doomed investigation conceive a plan - to catch a THIRD Kira!

It looks as though the series is taking a less exciting turn and you begin to worry that it might be past it's best when the story starts to involve the board meetings of a large company. But Death Note does not disappoint and the series quickly returns to form - and then exceeds it! This volume of 8 episodes feels very self contained, it certainly does need the previous episodes in order to work - but a new plot is created in episode 17, and by episode 24 this sub-plot is resolved when it reaches a gripping thriller of a conclusion.

After watching this volume I can't see where the series is going to go next, it looks as though the die is cast and it could all and in one more episode. This is Death Note though, and the series delivers twist after twist, you never know what is going to happen next and the whole thing is incredibly well thought through. And besides, there are still 13 episodes left!

In a nutshell: This volume builds a fresh set of characters and circumstances in order to take them on a new journey. It isn't simply 'slotted in' though, the new Kira is fully integrated with the existing characters and you get a slow build up to a comprehensive resolution. The series is re-energised before it became necessity, and it adds to the excitement of a series which hasn't delivered a dud yet.

This Volume 3 set of Death Note covers Episodes 17-24, which is the halfway point of the series - it is also notably the episodes in which the 'feel' of the anime takes several turns (toward the convoluted and chaotic).

This is not to say, however, that the series suffers.

In fact, this only punches up the thrill of this series as both Light and L are working together against a third Kira, and so you root for the both of them to 'win' and discover who it is; you have an unexpected show of brilliance by the 'everyday' character of Matsuda, and you have the police force working full time on the barest of clues to gain entry and capture the new Kira.

The opening and ending songs do change; my theory on this is that the series is gearing up for a major change, and the rough, chaotic sound of the new songs hint at a point in which 'things fall apart'. This volume is the key to that particular point.

The English voice cast does a wonderful job - gone are the days of inferior dubbing and stilted dialogue, the English adaptation of the Japanese is done quite well (from a translator's point of view) and if one wishes, it's easy to switch to the Japanese voices and acting and to English subtitles. This is a prime example of a detective thriller, a bit of Japanese supernatural story, brilliant animation work by Madhouse, and a voice cast that works wonderfully with each other and their scripts.