Three years ago, The Simpsons took on Death Note as part of their annual Treehouse of Horror Halloween special, and it’s truly a modern classic that you should make sure to check out this Halloween. The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror specials have been an annual tradition for the franchise since its second season, and through the decades fans have seen all kinds of unique takes on the classic animated series. Imagining the town of Springfield through different lenses and art styles depending on whatever is being parodied at the time, there have been some specials that really went the extra mile.
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The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXXIII is no different. Airing during Season 34 of the animated series, this iteration of the Halloween special offered new takes on The Babadook and even The Simpsons franchise itself. But the real standout of the year is a full take on Tsugumi Ohba and Takashi Obata’s Death Note that had a full makeover of the series in an anime style produced in part by one of the studios that helped the original Death Note anime come to life all those years ago. It’s just so cool.
The Simpsons Releases Full Take on Death Note
“Death Tome” is a full parody of Death Note that shifts Springfield to Japan and gives everyone a full anime makeover for the segment. This story imagines Lisa being the one to initially find the “Death Tome” in the place of Light Yagami from the original series. Curious to see how it worked, Lisa ended up killing Jailbird after seeing an active robbery report on television. It’s here that she starts to bond with the Shinigami behind the Death Tome, Steve Johnson (which is in place of Ryuk from the original series). and starts on a whole new killing spree.
The Simpsons takes it a bit further than Death Note did as it also incorporated fun new rules. One of which was that Lisa could not kill someone in the same way twice, which was a departure from the standard heart attack deaths that the original series had until Light started to specify the kinds of deaths he wanted to see from that point on. Lisa had to immediately get creative with how she killed her victims and that ranged from Mr. Burns falling asleep face first onto a hot grill to an alligator popping up out of a toilet to eat someone.
It also has to resolve its main story fairly quickly due to the runtime of the special as Bart figures out Lisa’s behind it all thanks to her diary, but finds a unique spin on it by having Lisa turn into a Shinigami herself after killing Steve. It’s a parody that only involved DR MOVIE, the studio that helped with the original Death Note anime, to provide its visuals on this high level, but also added some fun to that original story. It’s also not afraid to be brutal in how many deaths are actually shown on screen. It’s actually quite surprising how much the show gets away with because of this anime style.
Why Treehouse of Horror XXXIII Is a Modern Classic
But “Death Tome” being as good as it is would not be enough to make it a modern Halloween classic for The Simpsons fans had it not been for the rest of the Treehouse of Horror XXXIII package around it. Funny enough, it’s the second segment of the Halloween special overall and that slot is usually reserved for the weakest of the three entries. It’s sandwiched between two very strong entries that would almost overshadow it had “Death Tome” not made the full jump to anime to help distinguish it from the rest of the overall package either.
“The Pookadook” is a fun take on The Babadook that sees a possessed Marge trying to kill her daughter Maggie, and it gets fairly intense with just how far Marge actually goes in her attempt to kill her baby. It works whether or not you have seen the original film itself, and it’s the same with “Death Tome.” But this all comes together with a segment that makes fun of both Westworld and The Simpsons‘ classic past as well with “Simpsonsworld.” This third segment sees a robotic version of the Simpson family fight through the rest of the town and escape from their own series.
It’s just such a fun episode all throughout that if you liked any of the Treehouse of Horror classics from the past and haven’t been keeping up with the newest episodes, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you are not adding this modern classic to your Halloween rotation.
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Image courtesy of Stage 6 Films -
Image courtesy of Lucasfilm
