Death Note 13: How to Read

Death Note 13: How to Read is an official encyclopedia-style guide to the Death Note manga series. It including character bios, storyline summaries, interviews with creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, production notes, and commentaries. It also includes the pilot chapter of the manga and Ryuk's Human Observation Journal.

In Japanese, the guidebook is titled Death Note How to Read 13 (styled as DEATH NOTE HOW TO READ 13), which is the official title on the Japanese copyright page. This title is also on the Viz Media English edition copyright page, as it's based on the Japanese edition, but the English edition is officially styled Death Note 13: How to Read, such as on the guidebook's back cover. The Japanese cover also has the kanji for Truth, so an alternative Japanese title is Death Note How to Read 13 - Truth (DEATH NOTE HOW TO READ 13 真相).

Everything contained within this book is official, written by the original author and artist, and is considered canon for the manga series.

Description
The official description of Death Note 13: How to Read from Viz Media's English-language edition: The Ultimate Death Note Encyclopedia!

Here, in one authoritative volume: everything you need to know about Death Note, the best-selling manga series. Featuring complete character biographies, detailed storyline summaries, production notes, and behind-the-scenes commentaries. Death Note 13: How to Read also includes exclusive interviews with creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata and a bonus manga chapter of never-before-translated material. Unless you own your very own death note, it doesn't get any better than this!

Chapters

 * HOW TO READ -Characters-
 * Character Profiles
 * The Forces Involved in the Kira Case
 * Kira Case Participant Relationships
 * Complete Shinigami File
 * Shinigami Observation Diary
 * Abilities
 * Behaviour


 * HOW TO THINK -Tsugumi Ohba-
 * Story Commentary
 * Intermission
 * Epilogue


 * HOW TO READ -Story-
 * In-Depth Interview with Tsugumi Ohba
 * Death Note Truths (Q&A)
 * The Origin of All 108 Chapter Titles


 * HOW TO DRAW -Takeshi Obata-
 * In-Depth Interview with Takeshi Obata
 * Behind the Scenes
 * Character Design Secrets
 * Humans
 * Shinigami
 * Other Details


 * HOW TO READ -Rules & Tricks-
 * Death Note Investigation File 1
 * Death Note Basic Knowledge
 * Death Note Investigation File 2
 * Change of Ownership
 * Death Note Investigation File 3
 * How to Use It: Complete Rules
 * Death Note Case Study
 * Death Note Investigation File 4
 * All Tricks Revealed


 * HOW TO CREATE -Tsugumi Ohba x Takeshi Obata-
 * Special Discussion
 * The Making of Death Note
 * Questions
 * The 13 Truths About Chapter 108


 * HOW TO PLAY -Ryuk's Notebook-
 * Ryuk's Human Observation Journal
 * The New World According to Light Yagami
 * Inside L's Bewildering Belly
 * Misa Amane's Pure Love Memorial
 * You Can Do It, Mello!
 * Near's Shopping List
 * Professor Ryuk Presents: Relatively Accurate Character Type Diagnoses
 * Creator Comments
 * Four-Panel Comics
 * Pilot Chapter

Character heights
The Japanese edition gives the characters' heights in centimeters.

Viz Media's official English release incorrectly converts the characters' heights, so some characters are listed as a few inches shorter than they should be. Viz apparently converted from centimeters to feet, and then used the remaining decimal as inches instead of properly converting to inches. For instance, Light is 179 cm, which correctly converts to 5.87 ft, or, but Viz gives his height as 5' 8", apparently taking the eight inches from the .8 feet.

Trivia

 * The title How to Read was originally used in Weekly Shonen Jump No.20 2005 where Ohba released two pages of Death Note facts.
 * Included within is a special character card, which reveals L's true name.
 * The limited edition Japanese release also includes 5 finger-puppets as seen in the Death Note series in Near's possession:
 * Kira
 * L
 * Misa Amane
 * Near
 * Mello
 * This is the final volume of the manga series, but the guidebook for the anime series, Death Note /A Official Analysis Guide of the Animation, is designed to go after it. The "/A" in the title is meant to resemble the number 14, following volume 13.

Navigation
es:Death Note 13: Cómo Leer pt:Death Note 13: How to Read Death Note (tome 13) pl:Death Note: How to Read 13 (Tom)