Death Note

It was one of those cases that gave a figurative crate of ammunition to uptight, conservative mothers in Anytown, America: a grisly murder carried out seemingly influenced by "those Japanimation comic books" their sons and/or daughters were bringing home with their allowances. In 2007 just such an event took place in Saint-Gilles, Belgium, one of the urban municipalities in the Brussels capital zone, when three men killed, cut up and ham-handedly attempted to dispose of the body. Now four men are in custody over the slaying--three for the actual killing and one for witnessing the act yet standing idly by--and new details are emerging on the case. 
 
Reports of the arrest come from Belgian newspaper De Morgen (via ANN and a Belgian Japanese studies blog) who says that the victim was a French national who was a roommate with one of the suspects in custody. After an altercation between the two the former was killed and the Belgian man and two accomplices tried to dissolve the body with acid, failing, and then just cutting it up and leaving the remains in Saint-Gilles' Dudenpark. Near the bodies were two identically worded notes in poorly written block lettering: "WATASHI WA KIRA DESS." These jackholes could have used penmanship and Japanese lessons. 
 
The kicker is that police say one of the suspects was a manga fan and, obviously, a big fan of Death Note, which has caused a fair amount of reaction from the warrens of society that think anime and manga are child-corrupting guides to devil worship. Now, I don't know about you, but it doesn't sound like the French national was killed because of that particular series. If anything, the notes seem to have been an afterthought or even a red herring to throw the cops off. Whatever the case, it doesn't change the fact that somebody was killed and manga will be forever linked with this heinous act.

If that was how the wrote their "Engrish" they screwed it up. It should be "Watashi wa Kira desu". The "u" at the end is just left silent. Also, if it was a Japanese attacker, why write romanji rather than actual Japanese.
 
This may be the Holmes geek in me, but this is pretty similar to Sherlock Holmes first book, A Study in Scarlet. In that one, a man is found murdered alone in a room. Written on the wall in blood was a German phrase, but the dead body wasn't bleeding from anywhere.
Holmes was able to discover that the killer wasn't German and only had a little knowledge of it, because what was written on the wall wasn't spelled correctly.
 
As far as some groups are concerned, everything save for the Bible is child corrupting. These are the same arguments that people make against comic books, movies, rock music, rap, and even Harry Potter. These are the kind of people who watch Disney movies looking for things they can point to as sexual.
 
While I do notice this is yet another article revolving around another VIZ series. This one actually seems much more valid as news worthy.

this is just a way for the world to try to suppress anime and manga

This is too bad for anime/manga and the murdered man. Of course, I don't think (with the current general views of anime/manga and its fans) that we or the material will escape such connotations. But creativity be damned we will keep doing what we do!
 
@FoxxFireArt:
Death Note is still a great series despite that fact.

I'm from Belgium too and the only people who actually talked to me about this case are my fellow-anime/manga-fans... I don't think other pleople actually care, since most murder-cases have a lot of strange or unrelated facts.
Also, people around here don't really know what manga or anime are, unless you explain them clearly, with examples like: " It's like Pokemon, but also for adults! ". And they've already forgotten it again the next day anyway. My parents heard the message too, and they didn't respond with: "hey, you have that book on your shelve!" So they probably didn't notice either :D 
Case closed ^^

This sounds like replacing the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four with H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot in the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon so kids don't set themselves on fire.

@SamJaz: I did kill a man, not because of Death Note, but just to watch him die.

I'm a big fan of Death Note and I'm not a killer for that ...   fantasy  differs  from reality
 
 

I think that most people that are going to murder and act out something they have seen on a show, movie, book or game; were going to murder regardless, but they are recreating something they love for a sick sense of enjoyment. 
 
What I am trying to say is: Anime is not the reason these murderers killed that man, their sick minds are, and since they were fans of that anime they wanted to re-enact a part of it in the process of committing the murder.