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Lost+Brain the new Death Note.

I have to say, this Hiyama dude looks just like Light, except with silver hair. The story (from the dialouges provided) sound just like the premise of Death Note, as well. I wonder how these stories get approved for the magazine, surely the editors would notice the extreme similarities?

akichan911 wrote:

I have to say, this Hiyama dude looks just like Light, except with silver hair. The story (from the dialouges provided) sound just like the premise of Death Note, as well. I wonder how these stories get approved for the magazine, surely the editors would notice the extreme similarities?

Are you kidding? If the editors care at all, they're pushing FOR it. Anything that gets big, people show up to try and milk it for a few bucks of their own. Not new stuff, dude. Look at the new releases section of a video store at any given day, and you'll spot at least one direct-to-DVD feature ripped off from whatever blockbuster film was recently tearing up the box office. When the work does enough new things, the imitators form a genre. See: slasher films after Halloween, fantasy novels after Lord of the Rings became big, angsty, confusing, and artsy-fartsy anime from the post-EVA period, the resurgence of gore films in the wake of Saw, date-sim anime following To Heart, the list goes on and on and on.

BellosTheMighty wrote:

akichan911 wrote: I have to say, this Hiyama dude looks just like Light, except with silver hair. The story (from the dialouges provided) sound just like the premise of Death Note, as well. I wonder how these stories get approved for the magazine, surely the editors would notice the extreme similarities? Are you kidding? If the editors care at all, they're pushing FOR it. Anything that gets big, people show up to try and milk it for a few bucks of their own. Not new stuff, dude. Look at the new releases section of a video store at any given day, and you'll spot at least one direct-to-DVD feature ripped off from whatever blockbuster film was recently tearing up the box office. When the work does enough new things, the imitators form a genre. See: slasher films after Halloween, fantasy novels after Lord of the Rings became big, angsty, confusing, and artsy-fartsy anime from the post-EVA period, the resurgence of gore films in the wake of Saw, date-sim anime following To Heart, the list goes on and on and on.

I see your point there- it does always happen that way. I agree with that, but making it an almost exact carbon copy, maybe even pushing plagiarism (look at Dormcat's linked page if you don't know what I'm referring to) seems like something editors (or whoever is managing it) should make sure of. Shouldn't they try to be cafeful of that for legal purposes?

akichan911 wrote:

BellosTheMighty wrote: akichan911 wrote: I have to say, this Hiyama dude looks just like Light, except with silver hair. The story (from the dialouges provided) sound just like the premise of Death Note, as well. I wonder how these stories get approved for the magazine, surely the editors would notice the extreme similarities? Are you kidding? If the editors care at all, they're pushing FOR it. Anything that gets big, people show up to try and milk it for a few bucks of their own. Not new stuff, dude. Look at the new releases section of a video store at any given day, and you'll spot at least one direct-to-DVD feature ripped off from whatever blockbuster film was recently tearing up the box office. When the work does enough new things, the imitators form a genre. See: slasher films after Halloween, fantasy novels after Lord of the Rings became big, angsty, confusing, and artsy-fartsy anime from the post-EVA period, the resurgence of gore films in the wake of Saw, date-sim anime following To Heart, the list goes on and on and on. I see your point there- it does always happen that way. I agree with that, but making it an almost exact carbon copy, maybe even pushing plagiarism (look at Dormcat's linked page if you don't know what I'm referring to) seems like something editors (or whoever is managing it) should make sure of. Shouldn't they try to be cafeful of that for legal purposes?

I'd assume they do. In America at least, there are well-established legal guidelines for this sort of thing, and they can always do just the bare minimum to get it past legal. Again, if you check the direct-to-DVD shelves in a video store, you'll find a handful of utterly blatant rip-offs and a larger bit of stuff that clearly takes significant cues. I don't know what the situation in Japan is, but I'd assume it's even more complicated thanks to doujinshi culture and so forth.

I see...and maybe the brown-hair/silver-hair thing is their bare-minimum.
I think that Japan definetely has had some plagiarism problems; I remember one incident when a creator almost directly copied photos of action shots for his basketball manga.
And while I see what you mean, I don't know if doujinshi has anything to do with the type of copying that we are seeing here, because many manga artists either accept doujinshi or were doujinshi artists, and for the most part doujin artists don't make much of a profit from their material.
It makes me wonder what the creators and editors of Death Note think of this; I'm sure people show them things like this often. Maybe they don't mind too much, because it would be up to them to make a move on this (because the creators own the copyrights).
And also, is this the only real Death Note copy, or are there multiple running in Japan's manga magazines now?

I think people wouldn't be complaining as much about Lost Brain if it wasn't right on the heels of the Megabaka scandel. In fact, people seem to be conflating them, or using them to try and perceive a pattern.

In any event I don't think it's such a big deal, because before these incidents, I'd never heard of either of them. Which implies that the work isn't catching on. (Of course, it may also be that they're too new.) Which, again, isn't unusual. In fact, the creators may know and not care. In Hollywood, generally you avoid stepping on other people's toes if you can, because the people in power talk to each other. If you talk shit about people, either those people start talking shit about you, or you get a rep as someone who's hard to work with. Then your employment prospects start drying up. Japan is not Hollywood, but I understand reputation is far more important there. If the knock-offs aren't making money or getting publicity, it may be a better move to just let them lie- chances are they'll die a natural death soon enough.

Come to think of it, this might even be to the creators' benefit. Death Note has wrapped up. There are really no sales left to steal. Sure, there's merchandise and paraphernalia of various kinds, but that's generally based more on characters and artwork then on the story. But if the inferior knock-offs start proliferating, people start saying "Man, that's just a pale imitation of Death Note." Which inflates Death Note's reputation and increases long-term sales and sales of later works from the same creators. In which case it's an "everyone wins" scenerio.

Are you kidding? If the editors care at all, they're pushing FOR it. Anything that gets big, people show up to try and milk it for a few bucks of their own. Not new stuff, dude. Look at the new releases section of a video store at any given day, and you'll spot at least one direct-to-DVD feature ripped off from whatever blockbuster film was recently tearing up the box office. When the work does enough new things, the imitators form a genre. See: slasher films after Halloween, fantasy novels after Lord of the Rings became big, angsty, confusing, and artsy-fartsy anime from the post-EVA period, the resurgence of gore films in the wake of Saw, date-sim anime following To Heart, the list goes on and on and on.

....

I see your point there- it does always happen that way. I agree with that, but making it an almost exact carbon copy, maybe even pushing plagiarism (look at Dormcat's linked page if you don't know what I'm referring to) seems like something editors (or whoever is managing it) should make sure of. Shouldn't they try to be cafeful of that for legal purposes?

....

I'd assume they do. In America at least, there are well-established legal guidelines for this sort of thing, and they can always do just the bare minimum to get it past legal. Again, if you check the direct-to-DVD shelves in a video store, you'll find a handful of utterly blatant rip-offs and a larger bit of stuff that clearly takes significant cues. I don't know what the situation in Japan is, but I'd assume it's even more complicated thanks to doujinshi culture and so forth.