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The girl walks in a nearby book store on the first of Summer, and her wide sparkling eyes start wandering every which way like a kid in a candy shop trying to pick out just a few candies from among so many delicious looking ones. There are arts and crafts books, dream interpretation books, classical literature, rows and rows of beautiful manga, and even shelves full of role playing books. It took quite a while before she realized what she was in there for, and with a disappointed downward glance and a slight frown, she sighs. Off to the information desk she walks, asking the lady at the desk urgently for books on Oracle databases.

The lady asks “what?”

“Oracle databases” the girl replies.

“Can you spell that? I-I mean I know how to spell Oracle…” says the lady after catching a puzzled look on the girl’s face.

“Data-bases” the girl replies enunciating the word for she had a habit of being soft-spoken.

“Oh! Databases!” the lady finally understood and leads the girl to rows of books on computers and networking.

On a top shelf to the far right, there are two very thick and thorough books on Oracle 10g and 11g. She picks up a book and skims through its dry content full of computer jargon. The girl looks frantically for a book on Oracle for Dummies…but none can be found. There is a SQL Server 2005 for Dummies, but the girl knows she needs one for Oracle. Disappointed, she picked the one on Oracle 11g and drives home.

Have you ever gone into a store wanting to buy some cool stuff only to realize what you needed to buy wasn’t very desirable? Stories are very much welcome. Oh yeah, it was the 2nd of summer aka today that this story took place, but 1st of summer sounds so much more significant to me.

Thanks for your comment: katie, Lisa Marie, Cryslynn, Justin, Lav, trishie, Miss Dre, Sue, D, Kira, Olivia Kitty, Jen

I thought I’d write an entry on this book after having read it, but I’m in one of those writing moods right now, and since I’ve been in a dry-spell for so long, this opportunity simply can’t pass me by.

I’m a bit more than half-way done with the book and have been since day one of reading the book…so why haven’t I progressed? Actually, I wanted to finish the book the day I bought it but wasn’t able to because 1. I’m a slow reader and 2. I keep getting distracted while I’m reading. The two are somewhat intertwined really. I’d like to say I have too much going on to find time to finish the book, but I should be able to find time for something even if I am really very busy. Perhaps I’m not motivated. I shall finish before the end of June though.

Yes the word Alchemist was a huge determining factor for becoming interested in this book. Me and my Fullmetal Alchemist obsession…>.> I did read the inside jacket before choosing it however and was on the verge of picking a book about Jane Austen before seeing this one.

What’s so unique about The Alchemist is that the main character’s name is only mentioned once, at the very first sentence of the very first page of Part One: “The boy’s name was Santiago.” For the remainder of the book, he is known as “the boy”. I actually forgot his name was ever mentioned until a few days after reading the book and glancing at the first page. It’s written by a Brazilian author by the name of Paulo Coelho and the main character is from Spain. Most of the adventures take place in the northern deserts of Africa.

It’s a book about finding one’s destiny and how pursuing it is one’s own responsibility. Some people choose not to because they haven’t realized it, or they feel that it is merely a fantasy too far away to reach. Some people would rather have the fantasy and dream about their destiny than actually pursuing and fulfilling their destiny. The main character is confronted with many obstacles both internal and external and at times he almost gives up his dream. But he has courage, a determination to listen to his heart, a belief in omens, and creative optimism to guide him through his journey.

There’s something magical and enchanting about this adventure book. It has fantasy, adventure, romance, and other genres that I like. I also like how the main character starts by living a common life of travel through his trade of shepherding and fantasizes marrying a merchant’s daughter. Then one day he has a dream telling him to go to the Egyptian pyramids, a destination pointed out to him by a child in his dream and apparently leading to treasure. That one dream and the words of a gypsy and King Salem push him towards a great adventure.

Warning: may contain spoilers in process of analysis though nothing major

I haven’t finished watching this anime yet. I’m not sure if I will since I’ve already read the manga. I was fully engrossed in the manga while I was reading it and the anime seems to follow it pretty well. There are parts cut out, but for the most part it stays true to the manga. I could be wrong later in the anime, but thus far, everything is predictable - so much so that it’s at times tedious to watch. It’s only tedious because I’d read everything before, but if this is your first time watching it, I can almost guarantee you won’t want to stop.

I love the art for the manga as well as the anime. The symbolic use of colors such as red and blue and the continuous use of apples is pretty nice. Light’s evil laugh is something I hadn’t imagined while reading the manga and I think Mamoru Miyano did a remarkable job of that as well as the change in Light’s voice from cheerful innocence to cunning evil.

If you like mystery, psychology, the supernatural, drama as well as amazing art, then I would recommend this to you - that is if you haven’t already read or watched it. I didn’t like the ending much but that’s just me. Other than my disappointment with the ending and what happened to L, everything else was superb.

What interested me the most was that the protagonist is an anti-hero. Light/Raito Yagami is an honors student who is extremely smart yet bored out of his mind. When he finds the Death Note, unlike most people, he isn’t scared by its power to kill. Nor does he think of using the Death Note for personal gain. In fact, he vows to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. On the surface, this may seem like a noble deed, but to have one person judge the life of all others is unjust in itself. I’m one of those people who believes no one has the right to take the life of another, like Vash the Stampede. Ryuk/Ryuku the Death God/Shinigami even makes the comment that in the end Light would be the only one with a bad personality if he were to rid the world of evil. Light, himself, does not see it so. Instead he believes it’s his destiny to judge and change the world.

The Death Note grants Light great powers, but with great power comes great responsibility. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely. The people of this world would not be happy if evil were rid through death as punishment. Instead they would live in fear and possibly even hate. Sure Light’s method of abolishing evil may be fast and efficient, and it has been proven in the manga that the crime rate dropped 70%, but in the long run this sort of judgment will create much controversy and revolts. Light not only kills criminals without hesitation, but he also kills those who are in the way of his grand scheme.

Ryuk, Light’s Shinigami, is pretty special in terms of Shinigami. Normally, Shinigami are lazy and don’t bother meddling with the human world. Unlike other Shinigami, Ryuk has an unusually large capacity for boredom and the need to stop his boredom. He’s actually interested in the human world and the way people use and respond to the Death Note. He makes no judgments however, and neither helps nor hinders Light’s plans and goals. He does, however, warn Light that he will be the one to write Light’s name in his notebook when it comes time for Light to die. Also, that those who use the Death Note can neither go to Heaven nor Hell, that humans who use the notebook will experience feelings of terror.

It’s true that Light becomes more corrupt as the story progresses, but looking back towards the beginning at the closure of the story, one can sympathize with Light. He wasn’t an evil person to begin with. He had good intentions and wanted to use the notebook for the benefit of society. It was the magnitude of power that the notebook possesses that inevitably corrupts him. Also, Light’s confident personality and his resolute mind after deciding his own destiny. When he lost memory of the notebook, he even said so himself, after realizing the similarity between himself and Kira, that he couldn’t possibly be Kira because he wouldn’t kill people even if they were criminals. I think in this way, the notebook itself may have an evil force about it that drives people towards evil and misfortune.

This anime doesn’t seem to have absolute themes (according to the author), but one I consider to be important is the concept of justice. The manga doesn’t state outright that the police represent justice and Light/Kira represents evil. Many people may argue that L is justice, and when L says “justice will prevail” with his cute little smile, you can’t help but believe it so. Yet L was also willing to sacrifice criminals such as Lind L. Taylor. Though Taylor’s death was indeed inevitable (he was scheduled to be put to death just at the moment that Kira killed him), L deliberately allowed the execution of criminals to fall out of the impersonal justice system, and this shows that he is in this aspect no different from Kira in his willingness to let the power of judgment fall out of the law’s hands. It is hypocritical, also, for L to insist that Kira must be stopped if L himself freely allows Kira to continue his actions, even if he does so out of pragmatism. Additionally, L lacks respect for human life, possibly to a higher extend than Light himself does; as demonstrated in the Yotsuba arc, L is willing to allow more criminals to die in order to assist in his winning the war against Kira; on the contrary, Light, having lost his Kira memories, wants to save as many lives - even those of criminals! - as possible. This further suggests that true evil lies in the Death Note itself.

After all this, I’m not saying I dislike L and that I’m on Light’s side, but I just wanted to throw this perspective out there. If anyone were to personify justice, it would most likely be Chief Yagami, Light’s father. He also wants to save as many lives as possible, never killing anyone, putting people’s lives above winning against Kira, and putting his own life on the line in the persute in catching Kira. Yet I believe the main message Death Note tries telling us is that people are all different, and they each have a different sense of justice. There is no good and evil in Death Note, just like Near said in the last chapter. There are just different sets of beliefs at war with each other, though I do believe Kira is evil and that Light’s form of justice is twisted and corrupt.

What do you think determines or defines justice?

For further discussion relating to Death Note, check out the forum. If there isn’t already a topic, feel free to start one.

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