News

South Carolina Student Removed over "Death Note" List

South Carolina Now, a news website jointly run by the CBS affiliate WBTW and four local newspapers, reported on Friday that Hartsville Middle School removed a student after a school official confiscated a "Death Note" notebook last week. The school district officials in the city of Hartsville linked the notebook to the Death Note anime series, which runs on the Adult Swim network in the United States. The student's notebook reportedly listed seven other students' names. The school is planning a disciplinary hearing for the notebook's owner, and notified the parents of the seven listed students. Hartsville Middle School principal Chris Rogers also sent the parents of all the school's students a letter on Friday with the following excerpt:

Regardless of the origin of the book, we take the situation very seriously. The safety of our school family is always our top priority.

We treat situations like this the same as if a student called in a bomb threat or brought a weapon to school. While there may not be any serious intent to do anyone harm, we cannot and will not take that chance with our students. We will take all steps necessary to ensure our students' well-being.

There have been scattered reports of students being disciplined for having "death notes" in North America, but it has been much rarer for school officials to link any incident to the anime or manga series. The first widely reported school action in North America that was directly linked to the fictional Death Note story occurred in Richmond, Virginia last November. In the fictional supernatural suspense story, a teenager finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names.

Thank you to Robert Dockery for the news tip.

Image © Takeshi Obata, Tsugumi Ohba, VAP, Madhouse, NTV, D.N. Dream Partners