I debated calling this on a few things... here's the alternate title that didn't make it cause i have a standard name for all of these...
Death Note: why the movies are better.
first, this show finished airing in 2007 so I think the overall hype with the show has died down.
Second, I do not think the show is bad, just flawed and this being my second time watching it i found some characters a little offensive which soured my mood towards the whole product.
if you somehow don't know the plot of death note i will quickly sum up.
Light Yagami is your average high school student. he is good at everything he does and is loved by all the women.... wait... that's not average.... anyways.
One day he sees a notebook falling from the sky and decides to pick it up, it the cover there are some pretty disturbing rules... main one to note of is "if you write someones name in the notebook and know their face then in 40 seconds after writing it down they will die of a heart attack"
well Light would with his sense of good and bad would never actually test it out would he? oh... he does... and after like.... 2 or 3 tests he decides he'll be the worlds justice.... oh and not much longer after that he decided he's going to be god.... hmm.... that's a bit of a switch.
anyways after a few days the Shinigami (death god) Ryuk that dropped the notebook finally shows himself to light and makes a few promises.
1. he is neither his ally nor his enemy
2. He's really only here to have a good time so work hard to keep him entertained.
3. when the time comes the shinigami will be the one to write Lights name in the book.
anyways it doesn't take long for the police to discover that criminals that have been broadcast are being picked off one by one through 'heart attacks', the population are dubbing this killer as "Kira" and the police, being overwhelmed by the case, ask for help from a mysterious detective known as L.
oh of the detectives on the Kira case just happens to be light father. what are the odds.....
so L determines that there is a 5% chance that light is Kira.... yeah he isn't certain but any percentage must be check out.
and the next few episodes are part of the reason this show isn't as good as it could be.
1. we are introduced to Raye Penber, an FBI agent who is one of 12 tracking potential Kira's... he happens to be trailing light. He has a fiancee who used to be an agent but now that she's getting married she needs to think about more important things like making babies.
Despite the fact that this woman is a better FBI agent then Raye and seems to be a lot smarter too he won't listen to a damn thing she says cause she needs to focus more on what it'll be like when she's a mom. So when Raye is killed (along with the other 12 FBI agents) she goes put together that it was probably one of the people Raye was trailing that killed them AND that maybe Kira can kill with more then just a heart attack. This is something no one else has thought of yet.
Yeah too bad for her she bumps into light first and is tricked into giving her name to him and he kills her.
....
So this is the point for me where i don't think we can call light an Anti-hero anymore.... nope.... now he's just a serial killer/psychopath.... but I'll touch on that later.
2. we get a second Kira, a girl names Misa Amane.... she made a deal with her shinigami where half her life is taken but she can see peoples names above their head... so all she needs is their face. Remember how i said Light is loved by ALL the ladies.... Misa, a supermodel is in love with him almost instantly.
So..... let me get this straight, she blindly follows every order light gives her when they meet, all because she loves him... yeah okay she adores Kira cause he killed the people that killed her parents... but within minutes of meeting Light she is ready to die for him.... she is so easily tricked by every Lie that comes out of his mouth and WANTS him to use her and her eyes.
Um... no.... i'm sorry.... no.... i really hate how women are portrayed in this show.... every single girl, no matter how pretty, no matter how smart are ALWAYS either tricked by light or in love with him at first sight.
also side note when Misa is detained as possibly the second Kira she's in this bondage get up but when light is detained he just to sit in a room. but i'm getting ahead of myself.... again.
3. L decides to attend Lights college.... which is great until the tennis match... the main thing i hate about this show is the way deductions are made.... i'll use the tennis game as an example.
L: Kira is childish and hates to lose so if Light plays to win he's probably Kira...
Light: L will think that Kira hates losing so if i play to win he'll think i'm Kira.... but if i play to lose he'll think that i'm thinking that he's thinking i'm kira and therefor think that i am Kira.... so i'll play to win!
L: oh he's playing to win... maybe he's thinking that i'm thinking that he is Kira so if he plays to win he'll be kira but if he plays to lose i'll probably still think he's kira...... now i think he's kira even more.
the entire show is variations of that conversation in different situations. some that get some complex and stupid that i can't even begin to explain.
However... even though all that stuff annoys the hell out of me.... the show gets really good for a small portion.
see if Light gives up the deathnote he loses all memory of it. In a way to try and prove his innocence to L (who at this point he is working with to solve the Kira case) he asks to be detained just the the second Kira is and about 2 weeks into confinement he gives up ownership and loses his memory of being Kira.
after a little while killings start up again but light and Misa are held for a little over a month. well L determines that they were either controlled by Kira or they somehow passed the powers along.... he handcuffs himself to Light and puts Misa in a room with a bazillion cameras so she can't do anything.
I like Light trying to find a method in the madness of Kira's killing and coming to terms withthe fact that Kira's ideals and his own are a little too close for comfort... and how these new killing don't seem to follow the trend...
unfortunately this doesn't last long as the police eventually find the notebook, know it's how people are killed and light touches it getting him memory back.... damn.
luckily he wrote a few fake rules in the book that would make it impossible for light or misa to be Kira, you have to write at least one name every 13 days or the person writing in the book will die.... they are freed from L and Misa gets her notebook from the forest and starts killing again now that she isn't under watch.... ugh....
Then when L wants to test the rule, kill someone who is on death row already and then wait 13 days.
This is where the show really takes a turn downhill for me... to protect Misa who would be killed if the 13 day rule is disproved her Shinigami writes down L's name in it's own book. L dies.
L was the most interesting character... the story should have been about him... and he dies.... well that sucks.
but he is replaced by Near (the L recolour) and Mello (the psychopath who doesn't wanna work with Near and wants to solve the case his own way... even if that involves gangs and kidnapping) and they work separately to catch Kira.... both think that light (who is claiming to be L) is Kira. they know everything L knows including the notebook and work to get Kira....
and then stuff happens.... more women are used by light... light gets misa to give up the notebook to a guy names Mikami who is so OCD it's scary... and at the end of it all we have another tennis scene.
first, the women i mention in the last paragraph is kidnapped cause she is 'the voice of Kira' by Mello, she (who has a clipping of the notebook in her bra) manages to write Mello's real name and then commits suicide because Light who has a clipping of paper in his watch writes her name down...
the cements to Near that Light is Kira.... how?
well apparently that guy Mikami was being followed and he... in all of his OCD ways broke tradition by going to the bank two days in a row... why did he do this? cause he figured Kira (whom he calls God) was being watched and couldn't do anything so he went to write the woman's name in the book with the exact same instruction that Light had. when mikami left the guy following him switched that notebook with a fake one... so later when Near's team and Lights team are all gathered and Mikami has written all their names down and no one dies... who was left out of the list? Light Yagami.
that and the fact that after 40 seconds Light says out loud before Near would die "I win" kinda sucks that you just confessed. especially since like i said... no one died...
then Light goes crazy, i so love his laugh here.... creepy as hell... he tries so hard to talk his way out of it in the end is shot by the one character who has been useless/pretty stupid till this point... Light runs away... mikami... um... kills himself? i think? i seem to remember in the manga him going "you not god!" or something but it's been a while and i could be wrong.anyways light runs away and ryuk goes off on his own for a bit.
Hey... remember his promise? well apparently he doesn't want to wait for light to die in prison.... so he kills the boy right then and there.
The end....
oh god this is getting long and i still have more to talk about.... I'll be quick... hopefully.
so why do i think the live action movies (at least 1 &2) are better?
i mean the first one just retells the Raye Penber story line... it's okay.... i still hate that tennis talk...
but 2 changes things.
Light figures out L's real name and writes it in the notebook, he's working with L at this point so it wasn't hard to be near him, L falls from his chair and Light... while holding him in his arms whispers "i win"
and then L gets up.... he's not dead.... but how? Apparently one of the rules is "despite when time of death is written... the first one to write it will take effect even if the time that the second person wrote down is sooner."
another rule is you can control when people die for up to a month... i think it's like 23 days but i'm not sure.
L wrote his own name in the book the police had and stated that he would die in a month.
Light has confessed and L wins.... i can't remember if Light dies or is sent to prison but it doesn't matter.
I Love that L wins.... i love how he wins, i love how he sacrifices himself to win. it is so heroic and epic and good and it was so much better then the show.... i have nothing against Near or Mello but they really aren't needed.... mello barely gets any screen time before being killed off. and near just feels like replacement for L.... which he kinda is but that's not a good enough character.
so yeah.... there is a third movie that barely has anything to do with death note.... just shows what L did with the last of his days and how he saved people from a plague.... it's okay and when L dies from the death note working it is pretty sad....
but yeah.... the anime/manga is okay but i hate how female characters are treated and i don't think Light is an Anti-Hero.... anti hero's tend to be willing to do anything even sacrificing themselves to get the job done.... Light sacrifices everyone around him, uses everyone around him and has no redeeming qualities ... and were supposed to pity him when he's killed? NO.... no i refuse.... L.... L is the real hero.... this plot would have been so much better from L's point of view
SO yeah.... i know this show is well liked and again it's not bad.... just some things really annoy me
side note.... Whats up with the fandom loving Matt so much.... what is the Kaoru syndrome? in the show he's there for like 1.5 episodes and has 1 maybe 2 lines of dialogue.... i don't even remember him in the book but i have a feeling he didn't get much more screen time cause the book and anime are practically identical. so yeah.... don't get why he's so popular....
anyways this was way long then i mean for it to be, i'm sorry.... um if you haven't seen the show.... just go watch the movies... they really are good.. well the second one at least.
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