China’s crackdown on Death Note and other pirated horror stories continues as authorities last week wrapped up a nationwide search for the illegal publications.
Officials have deemed the stories detrimental to the “physical and mental health” of the nation’s youth. The search targeted book and stationery stores near schools, where many students had been buying notebooks inspired by Death Note, the popular manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. In the series, any person whose name is written in the supernatural notebook will die.
Japan’s Daily Yomiuri reports that from April until just before the sweep began on May 28, Chinese authorities had confiscated 2,409 books and 366 DVDs related to Death Note.
But some students aren’t taking the seizures sitting down. ComiPress passes along a story that officials in Gansu Province have received threatening telephone calls related to the crackdown.
One message said, “I am the Death God, and I will curse you and watch you die, let’s see if you still have the courage to confiscate Death Note.” Authorities have determined the call was made by a middle-school student using the school’s public phone.
Unfazed, the official sees the threat as further proof of the manga’s dangers: “I have confiscated many things before, but this is the first time I received threats on the telephone. It just goes to show what a bad influence this thing called Death Note has on the children. We’ll need to increase our regulation on these harmful materials.”
