CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I've been reading through the reviews lately and noticed something: the Naruto manga gets an 8 in violence, while Death Note gets a seven.

I've heard from a friend of mine that Death Note is more violent than FullMetal Alchemist, which is more violent than Naruto. (I'm sure this is getting confusing. xD)

They were probably done by separate reviewers, but what is everyone's opinion? Is Naruto more violent than Death Note?

Edit: Death Note also has a lower age rating than Naruto.

Death Note's violence could be considered more tame, but that does not necessarily mean it's less graphic. I think Naruto does have more violent imagery, such as people getting stabbed and such. However, I would consider Death Note to considerably more mature than Naruto, based on the themes they both encompass. I can't remember most of what happens in Death Note, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

This is where I complain about how the content scale works, or doesn't work. How in character of me.

Naruto is your typical Shounen fair, this entailing a near unhealthy assortment of action scenes and signature finishing moves. Death Note is also Shounen, but it's a lot more dialogue and plot heavy than most of its genre, and the art comparatively goes for realism over a more cartoonish style. So though it contains significantly less violence than Naruto, Death Note is considerably more graphic.

The problem is that there is no objective way to measure violence, much less something that can be attached to each of the numbers. Of the reviews I have approved, I've tried to roughly standardize them (there have been some tame series with 9 or 10 on the violence scale) but that is only a small portion of the reviews.

Regardless, all I can add is that in this case it depends on what kind of violence bothers you. See the post directly above for more details. However, I think I agree with the numbers that were chosen for these two, because they are also supposed to account for the frequency of violence. Death Note has violence, certainly, but its plot is about people sitting and talking, not about ninjas trying to kill each other.

I also think that violence is majorly affected by the build up. Are we talking about two bouncers meeting randomly and getting into a brawl or are we talking about a long covered assassination plot which is born for the purpose of revenge. The latter one, even if it matches the violence of the whole bouncer brawl, does affect one alot more. I mean, Tom and Jerry is one of the most violent shows ever, but the random violence/plot structure/bloodless events makes it acceptable for children. There is more 'violence' in Tom and Jerry episode than your average action film. However the violence in Tom and Jerry is not stimulateing and its ceartainly not inspirational.

I think a show can be very violent even though there is no physical harm occuring at all. If it was about someone being manipulated into haveing a severe mental breakdown then that could play out as very violent even if it did not involve any blood/physical harm at all. Death note focuses on long plot buildups with not too much direct action, but plot changes/phsyological events that occur during the highlights which puts it as more violent in my opinion than Naruto which has some blood, some action, but not really that much substance behind all of those encounters. Sometimes its a fighter that meets a fighter and the result of that is a fight. Which is ok, sometimes it is more in dept than that of course, but it has a fair violence rateing in my opinion.

That being said, any show with massive annoumts of gore and violence deserves a high violence ranking regardless of the plot build up/events that occur.

Hmmm. Killing someone by writing their name in a notebook isn't exactly "violence"... Maybe they should have a "malice" rating?

Well, Id say that FMA is probably the most violent. Either that or Naruto. I just remember the episodes of alchemy used to change the biological content, like the one with that girl and the dog [SPOILER] getting it's brains blown out by Scar.[/SPOILER].

So yeah Im at a loss between which is the most violent because Naruto is such a longer series than FMA and DN put together(Mostly due to the filler episodes.).

Id say the violent scale going done is this.
1. FMA
2. Naruto
3. DN

Course as UC said, it is really hard to rate violence. So Im still not sure.

Hold on, the last episode of DN was pretty violent, gah! Im confussed! Forget it, let's just say that they are about even. But they do have different kinds of violence.

Moved to the manga section.

Woops, nevermind my post. I thought you were talking about the anime, not the manga. My bad, you guys.

I'd say the Death Note manga isn't as violent as the Naruto manga but Death Note has much darker and more serious themes so the violence carries more emotional weight.

What about how direct the violence is, and weaponry? Naruto certainly has direct violence with weapons, and it's pretty gory. Death Note on the other hand has indirect violence against criminals, and the only weapon used for some time is...a notebook.

However, while Naruto's your typical action-heavy shonen, Death Note is aimed at a slightly older audience than other shonen manga (although it wasn't in Monthly Jump/Jump SQ, which has an older target audience and therefore all the maturer series like Rosario+Vampire, NORA, Claymore, Kurohime, etc are serialized in it).

Also, the age rating for Death Note is actually higher than the one for Naruto. Shonen Jump titles like Naruto typically are rated "All Ages" or "Teen" (with the exception of Rurouni Kenshin, which got an uncharacteristically harsh "Older Teen" rating). But Death Note was grouped with the SJ imprint "SJ Advanced", where all the manga I've listed are published as. SJ Advanced titles always have "Older Teen" ratings and some (such as Ral Omega Grad and I"s) are shrinkwrapped. But Death Note wasn't.

Now back to the subject. Death Note is rated "Older Teen" but Naruto is rated a meager "Teen". Both series have violence; however, it depends on the audience. I don't know that many preteens who want to read a manga about supernatural crime, but I do know some who want to read about "NINJAS STABBING KUNAI KNIVES INTO EACH OTHER'S CHESTS". Like I said, it all depends on the audience.

death note should be a higher age than naruto because of the themes

Naruto is more violent, as it is an action manga. But Death Note is darker, being a thriller.

Ah, please don't gravedig year old threads unless you have more to add to the subject besides what has already been said in the thread. ^_^