Deathnote Rant(because it sucked).

[The_Blue_Rider]

To be fair I think that the second half of Death Note was necessary, it shows more how Light no longer is the idealistic teenager he was at the beginning, he's become a twisted monster who still convinces himself he's doing the right thing.
On the other hand we have L, easily one of the better characters from most animes (In my opinion). L doesnt fight crime because he believes its the right thing to do, he does it for the enjoyment and interest, he actually flat out says this himself, he hates losing and will do whatever it takes to stop Light (Or Kira as it may be)

I didnt mind Near and Mello that much, I would've been angry if they suddenly introduced someone who was at or above L's level. I think they did good with this one, Near was a younger less experienced and less capable version of L. However he could take advantage of Lights rising overconfidence and madness, not to mention the fact that Near had a much better equipped team behind him, as opposed to L, who only had police officers as help.
I like Death Note because it shows that while Lights methods may be brutal, he gets results, but then again should the world really worship a murderer? Like it or not Light is a murderer, plain and simple, he justifies it by saying that the world will be peaceful when he is God, but peace driven by fear will not last

 

[qeinar]

death note is pretty good, not the best anime i've seen, but good. ^^

 

[Lesd3vil]

The original manga explains it an L of a lot better, as I recall. (sorry guys, I know that was bad but I couldn't resist ). It's probably more a case of the anime producers not 'getting' the original script... Though I could be misremembering >>

If I remember rightly, in the manga, Near had been trailing Mikami for some time and replaced his Deathnote with a blank notebook... The entire second arc is more of a charting of Light's slow deterioration as he goes insane with power, believing himself more and more invincible, to the point where the reality of him being outwitted because of some overlooked detail sends him over the edge... He doesn't panic, he just snaps under the pressure, which is believeable and understandable. A symptom of this is that he starts compromising more and more on his 'ideals' about who he kills. Plus, Near doesn't come off half as unlikeable, just a touch antisocial due to his extreme shyness; he's supposed to be a negative of Mello, who's quite the extrovert. They're kind of flipsides of an 'L' coin; the original L was Kain's edge of the coin...

Second, I feel you're doing the author a great injustice by discussing the story here with words such as 'Good', 'Evil', and 'Villain'. Rather, use 'Protagonist' and 'Antagonist'; since right and wrong are entirely subjective points of view:

To Light, L, Near and Mello ARE villains since they're trying to stop his vison of a crime-free society, something he believes would be good and just, he just uses methods most would consider unethical to make his attempt (though how many of you can honestly deny that you believe killers and rapists deserve to die?)

L doesn't care worth a damn for what's right and wrong, he just wants to catch Kira - something he iterates MANY times over the course of the story. This is an integral part of his character; L is practically a sociopath, he's only interested in solving puzzles and crimes that are complex and interesting. Beyond that, he doesn't really care for anyone or anything besides Watari, the man he NEEDS to be able to interact with society.

Mello, being one of the more unsavoury characters in the manga will stop at nothing to 'beat' Near to solving the puzzle, that's why he's constantly surrounded by thugs and criminals; to him right and wrong is as simple as who can get the job done fastest and best. He's also represented as a charismatic and dominating personality.

Near is the opposite, he's all of L's antisocial traits raised to the Nth power, but he refuses to compromise on his own untold system of ethics to catch Kira, prefering to rely on his own intellect and unseen maneouvering to get the job done.

Seriously, I kinda refused to watch the anime after seeing the clip of the notorious 'potato chip' scene, which may have been judging it harshly based on minimal evidence, but I'd already read the manga.

By the way, I may be mistaken in a couple of points, it has been over... 3 years, I believe, since I read the manga, but I will say I did enjoy it a hell of a lot... If you thought the anime was bad, definitely try the manga. I had the same problem with Trigun, the blatant mishandling of the last ten or so episodes of the anime compared to the absolutely majestic storytelling of the manga was incredibly jarring >>

EDIT: I did hear a ton of theories about Naomi Misora, the FBI agent, and how her body was 'never found' and how it was perhaps going to be a set-up of her being L's successor in the second series. Being fair, one of the 'prequel' books Another Note: Los Angeles BB Murder Cases' DOES foreshadow this, but I'm not sure if it was written before or after the second arc, so maybe the author DID intend to end it differently... Or maybe not. It's all conjecture 'til someone pulls some factual basis to theorise on...

 

[Accountfailed]

I recently watched the entire DeathNote series and I really have to say, of all the anime's I've watched over the years, DN was potentially the best, and absolutely the most disappointing of them all.

Why? Here's why.
THIS IS THE PART WHERE YOU STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT BECAUSE THERE ARE (many)SPOILERS.

Spoiler

The ending, that's why.

Right, so we spend some 20 or so episodes watching Light and L duke it out in a clever game of intellectual/detective warfare, which was really fucking good. It was a joy to see the now memory-lost Light trying to (unwittingly)find himself so he can clear his own name, but L is still in the picture, and still suspects Light, and for a safety measure, shackles himself to him.

And then they kill off L.

That was the "sos" signal of anime burnout I guess, killing off the most interesting and like able character by far, but I could accept that, if it was in the name of a good story.

And then this asshole happened.

That's Nier, the supposed 'replacement' for L. This is the most annoying, nonsensical and straight up **** of a character I've ever seen shoehorned in to something.

The first thing he says, the first impression given by this character to the audience is "If you don't win, you're a loser." You think this kid is a dick from the start and only to make things worse in comes Mellow an even bigger, dumber Nier who's rocking so many transsexual vibes he might as well be voice acted by Lady Gaga.

similar hair too.
But I digress, LOOK AT THIS DOUCHEBAG. And Mellow's 'substantial' role in the plot is to pooter about being generally antagonistic, scarf chocolate all day, every day(seriously, there is maybe 2 scenes in the entire series where he isn't stuffing his pie hole.) and then die, That's it!

Which is of course, completely different from Nier's role, which is to pooter about being generally(but more so) antagonistic, playing with fucking toys all day, every day, and then SOLVING EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE USING MAGIC DETECTIVE POWERS.

Oh but the worst is yet to come, the biggest affront to my intelligence and a middle finger the entire audience as a whole. Nier, that **** I keep ragging on because he's a ****, WINS, by pulling some completely stupid piece of additional info out of his ass at the last minute, the whole ending was so badly handled that they had to defy both Light's and his doppelganger, Mikami's personalities to fit in this stupid "crime doesn't pay" ending. Nier wins, Light PANICS(the one thing he never ever does), Mikami pretty much rats him out by SPEAKING DIRECTLY FUCKING TO HIM AND REFERRING TO HIM AS "GOD" and they both die by gunshot wound. THE END.

The worst part of that for me was that Nier 'Winning' didn't even make any sense. Because of Light's actions, crime worldwide was down 70% and both the Japanese and the American government (the two governments funding and legally backing Nier's and L's operation) had accepted Light's rule, meaning that not only were they not funded or supported by any branch of government, effectively making them a terrorist group at that point, but their entire motive and moral stance was made moot as well.

Nier and L were trying to "uphold the law" and prove they are the greatest detectives by catching the big bad guys at the moment. But by the end of the series Light's rule IS(or pretty much anyway) law, and as such "arresting" Light(had he of simply said "okay, bring me the fuck in, see what happens"), would not only have done nothing(as the police would have just gunned down Lights arrogant-ass kidnappers when they brought him in.) but would have breached the law and landed them as the criminals.

And the show just ignores that big fundamental hole in this apparent genius' reasoning, and continued to roll the credits as if it all made sense.

What a waste of a good show, all to a stupid climax "holy shit fix everything before we accidentally make a good point" ending. It was almost as if somebody burst into the script writer's office, slammed his down on the table and said "you will change this message to CRIME DOES NOT PAY or else!". But there you go, if you haven't actually seen death note and are reading this anyway(you bastard) then I suggest you do give it a look, but stop after say... episode 20 or so. Honestly, even an "and they all lived happily ever after" ending would have been better than the crap they tossed out at us.

/rant.

EDIT: Do let me know of any grammatical/punctuation errors you find, it's late and google chrome's spellcheck is a bit bananas.

Wrong wrong wrong. I guess you're entitled to an opinion, but your understanding of writing is shoddy if you didn't pick up on what was so important about the Mello/Near arc. Also, this would be better off in the off-topic section. I don't think a rant is a review. You didn't review the series, you just stated what you thought was wrong with it.

A few points from me:

1) The Mello/Near synchrony was great. A lot of people were too taken aback by L's death to fully appreciate it. While their characterization could have been better (it is in the manga, admittedly), it is special because this is the implication: together, they could have surpassed L's brilliance. They are two pieces of the same puzzle, like yin and yang. Mello is supposed to excel where Near falls short, and Near complete Mello's picture. The writers said that Mello is driven and extremely strong-willed, but is emotionally impulsive and reckless. Near is calm and level-headed, but lacks in inspiration and empathy.

The manga does a better job of explaining their roles together. I was a bit confused when I saw the anime. Basically, Mello expresses an understanding of the fact that he might die, and literally risks his life to uncover the existence of the second note. L failed to apprehend Kira, but in that one moment that Mello and Near acted as one, they succeded where L failed.

That was the point.

2) L is less likeable than Mello and Near, in my opinion. In the manga and in the anime rewrite, we are treated to a scene where he practically destroys the dreams of the orphans at Wammy's house by essentially calling himself an unfeeling, unrelatable, lying monster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1uSCnuCzwM

3) Near and L aren't trying to uphold the law. It's explicitly stated that L only takes on cases because he's interested in them and views them as a challenge for his own entertainment (the "justice" thing is a lie, L is apparently very much a liar according to the writers), and Near doesn't believe a man can judge another man's life or death (and views Light as a serial killer with a God complex).

4) You're forgetting that Ryuk was technically the one who killed Light, even though Matsuda shot him.

5) And that he flipped out when they were trying to arrest him. And even if he got arrested and went into custody, Ryuk would have killed him with the note anyway.

People who stopped watching the series around L's death are idiots. Simple.

Edit: Just thought of something else.

6) No, Near/SPK wouldn't have been branded as criminals. Again, your poor understanding of the series shows through. The nations never "accepted" Kira, they were simply neutral to him and withdrew from actively pursuing him. If nothing else made this abundantly clear to you, the president's address in one of the Mello/Near arc episodes should have made it lucid.

It was something like, a journalist goes "Does that mean you think Kira is justice?" and the president says something like "Justice? What, no. We're simply withdrawing from persuing Kira."

And an add on to point 1, since your feeling about Mello being pointless bothers me:

"As a result, Ohba did not give Mello a "large role" at the conclusion of Death Note and instead had Mello negatively affect Light "indirectly". Ohba gave Mello a "very plain" death, depicted in only one panel; he felt that if Mello had perished "dramatically" it would reveal the truth behind his death."

and

"While Mello is certainly a genius and more intelligent than most people, the concept of being only the second most intelligent person at Wammy's House, behind Near, fuels the inferiority complex that defines Mello's character. Mello verges on being amoral in his obsession with being the one to take down Kira and is willing to do "whatever it takes", tactics which include kidnapping and being an accessory to murder. In the manga, after Mello has successfully stolen a Death Note, he even goes so far as to attempt to blackmail the President of the United States via telephone into giving him funds and resources to aid his hunt for Kira, threatening that if his demands are not met he will use the Death Note to force the president to launch the United States' nuclear missiles and start World War III."

I feel like it'd have been better if they included this in the anime as well.

And one final word. If you're solemnly against the second arc of the story, you should read the light novel "Change the WorLd". It carries on from the plot of the movie. Yes, a whole alternative ending actually exists for people like you who decide to disregard the second arc, I am not making that up.

In it, L safeguards himself against his usual death in the series (at the hands of Rem) by writing his own name in the Death Note and writes his time of death as occurring in something like 23 days (the maximum time between the writing of the name and the time of death as allowed by the note's rules). Because his name has already been written, Rem writing his name fails, Light is apprehended and L wins. The novel is about L taking on one last case before his time is up, after Light was apprehended. It's very plainly written, but extremely sweet (I can't say too much about that, spoilerific) and pretty engaging. It ends with him dying any way, but he dies happy and fulfilled. I suggest giving it a shot.

It appears, miss, that nobody is free from stupidity. Not even you, reasons below;

A: Do be sure to read the entirety of the thread if you plan to resurrect it from the grave, I posted this rant weeks ago and I'm still getting replies.

B: I have previously stated that I'm not talking about the manga, or any other part of the series aside from the anime series. This is purely because of artistic isolation, I don't wish to discuss the ins and outs of the series at all actually, and my supposedly "shoddy" understanding is based only on the anime, I have not seen any other part of this series. My point is that to you my understanding is shoddy but in reality it is simply due to you being a far bigger fan of the series than I.

C: You have written such a long and -disregarding the lack of thread reading done- valid post and then ruined it by ending it with "People who stopped watching the series around L's death are idiots. Simple." Miss, that is the kind of comment I would of expected off of an angry child, a broad and bigoted statement that undermines your entire post. Shameful.

I could carefully pick through your post (and your edit, yes I see it.) but I'm not going to, I don't want to talk about DeathNote anymore, you can go on about how I don't understand the writing, or how characters X and Y were actually very good because of additional manga/movie/book Z. But the long and short of it is that I watched the anime, I liked it, and then it ruined itself for me by tossing in a bunch of different characters without defining them, and then broke the established personalities of the characters already there to achieve an ending that didn't really make sense at the time. That's it, there's my review if you don't think my previous rant counts.

I'm sorry if you take issue with this miss, but I simply couldn't care any less about DeathNote at this point. The anime wasted my time with a rushed ending, and like a kid's adaption of 'Romeo and Juliet' the meanings are lost to the audience due to the constraints in production.

Have a good evening.

 

[William MacKay]

whats wrong with Near and Mello? yeah, Mello's a twat and Near plays with toys but Adrian Monk has OCD. it makes characters interesting. and L eats cakes in pretty much every appearance.
and Near doesnt pull this information 'out of his ass'. Light didnt know about it, and the series is from his perspective. you expect Light to win because of his plan, but then Near explains how he countered that. which is basically what L would have been doing, except because Light was on the investigation team and was stealing info, he knew the plans at the same time. so basically, you just dont like Near and you dont like how the creators didnt just tell you his plan and ruin all the suspense of the series ending arc. if Light new the plan, then he wouldnt have even done his plan.

 

[CrystalShadow]

...Well this blows my explanation out of the water, however I can counter your closing statement with:

Spoiler: Involving the ending and the ending to Death Note 2: The Last Name

The sad part is that L not only sacrifices his life to catch Kira, but his afterlife, as it's clearly stated those who use the Death note can't go to either Heaven or Hell. L commits himself to true death all for the sake of stopping Kira.

I wanted to catch up with a point made among many here...

Spoiler: In answer to what I've left above

That would work as an idea except that in the series there are explanations about the deathnote in the middle of the episodes, one of these is:

"The human who uses a deathnote can neither go to Heaven nor Hell".
That seems to support your point...

Except that we later see:
"All humans will, without exception, eventually die."
"After they die, the place they go is MU (Nothingness)"

This doesn't contradict the first statement, but it does make it clear it has nothing to do with having used the deathnote or not.
A human who uses the deathnote can go neither to Heaven nor Hell not because they used the deathnote, but because ALL humans go to 'MU' (Nothingness).
Which is a different way of saying there is no afterlife.

So in effect it is a moot point.

 

[likalaruku]

I make it a point to avoid animes where all of the characters die, thanks to a piece of shit series called Final Fantasy Unlimited & the anime adaption of Sorcerer Hunters that completely changed the ending from the books.

 

[Odbarc]

Death Note (season 1) was the best written and exciting thing I've seen in an anime period.
Death Note (season 2) was likely written by second string writers on a short budget who knew nothing of the intellect behind the original and merely tried to copy them in a means to Hollywood fans' money away from them for an easy buck.


The ending was simply absurd and nearly a random "oops, this is the last episode, tie all the strings and kill him off" attitude you'd come to see from an Oceans 11~(13?) sequel.

 

[Arehexes]

Normally i'd say somthing like. I think the Magna ended perfectly and the series is great its my favorite and near and mello were cool but were all entitled to our opinion and i'd maybe try convince you but.

IT seems like you didnt buy it, you just watched for free, stole it, maybe pirated it watchred it online for free? all bad things that if you were a gamer people would hate you for. maybe if you stayed up with the series and bought all Magna like i did or maybe buy the DVDs i'd try to talk to you, but why should i care what a theif has to say about a series i love.

No offense but what the hell does how he watched it affect his view point on it? Your just a smug jack ass more or less

 

[shadowelancer]

Since you couldnt even take the time to spell the names properly, in my mind your argument is invalid

 

[Ian Caronia]

...Well this blows my explanation out of the water, however I can counter your closing statement with:

Spoiler: Involving the ending and the ending to Death Note 2: The Last Name

The sad part is that L not only sacrifices his life to catch Kira, but his afterlife, as it's clearly stated those who use the Death note can't go to either Heaven or Hell. L commits himself to true death all for the sake of stopping Kira.

I wanted to catch up with a point made among many here...

Spoiler: In answer to what I've left above

That would work as an idea except that in the series there are explanations about the deathnote in the middle of the episodes, one of these is:

"The human who uses a deathnote can neither go to Heaven nor Hell".
That seems to support your point...

Except that we later see:
"All humans will, without exception, eventually die."
"After they die, the place they go is MU (Nothingness)"

This doesn't contradict the first statement, but it does make it clear it has nothing to do with having used the deathnote or not.
A human who uses the deathnote can go neither to Heaven nor Hell not because they used the deathnote, but because ALL humans go to 'MU' (Nothingness).
Which is a different way of saying there is no afterlife.

So in effect it is a moot point.

Oh but that's just bad writing. Ignore that.
*sigh* Yeah, I know. I heard that before so I'm guessing it's cannon. Ugh But it's just so blatantly bad I found it impossible to give it the time of day.

"Use the Deathnote and you can't go to Heaven or Hell."
Me: Oooh~ Talk about a serious price to pay! I can't believe Kira would sacrifice his-
"Nobody goes to heaven or hell anyway. lulz"
=_= ...Gotta be fucking kidding me

It's just... I've never heard of that from the show (never read manga), but I didn't watch a LOT of the show. Just up to where L first goes to the school and meets Light since that's the last ep on the two dvds I bought before finding the movies. So, that being said, I was skeptical such a horrible piece of continuity fuckover was actually part of the story.
...But then I heard that the author her/himself (dunno sex) said that there was no afterlife for humans in the series (or something like that) and I just-
It's just REALLY BAD WRITING! I mean, what the fuck is the point of mentioning one if the other is already mentioned?! You're ruining your own story by negating- You're wasting time explaining if you go onto explain-
*sigh*

Nevermind. You're right on every count but one, CrystalShadow. I'm fairly confident that what you stated isn't mentioned in the movies, and if that's the case then the ending I mentioned remains intact and beautifully powerful (movie cannon diverges a bit from the show obviously). If it is mentioned in the movies, then you'd be right on all accounts, and I'll punch my Deathnote DVD and hating the entire thing since the anime ending (whole thing after L dies) pisses me off.

Thanks for the follow-up, though! You made a great point I overlooked (for obvious reasons XD).

I'm sorry if you take issue with this miss, but I simply couldn't care any less about DeathNote at this point. The anime wasted my time with a rushed ending, and like a kid's adaption of 'Romeo and Juliet' the meanings are lost to the audience due to the constraints in production.

Have a good evening.

Hah Not to burst your bubble, OP, but you've opened a can of worms that won't shut as easy as that. It's like if I made a thread talking about how the Batman comics fucking suck after they crippled batgirl and killed off Bruce Wayne.
However, even in that suck, they at least kept the-
No. Can't defend it on any level. Fuck that shit.

Though I will say that I'm pretty sure the anime ending is the manga ending, making it the original cannon and not the result of any kind of constraints.
EDIT: Feel the same you do about the anime by the by

 

[Eisenfaust]

just finished it then... it's up there with my list of most disappointing endings to things ever

Spoiler

i mean, fine, i accepted that light was going to die in the end from the get go (as if that weren't already obvious from Ryuk saying "i'll kill you in the end", and what message would it be sending otherwise?), fine, whatever

but to have his big grand plan brought down because/to have near's big grand plan only succeed because mikami made a stupid mistake... it's hardly a testiment to near's skill/light's lack of skill that having near ultimately win should have been... it's essentially saying "hey, best laid plans work perfectly unless someone else gets stupid and accidentally fucks them up" - an epic battle of wits, with mikami being chosen by light with that ending in mind from whenever near first arrived on the scene, brought down not because he was outwitted (as was the constant back/forth throughout the entire series...) and yes, i know it was phrased that mello did it on purpose, knowing he would die, just to expose the fake notebook - but near didn't know there might have been a fake until mello abducted takeda and mikami broke his schedule to kill her - essentially meaning that near just got shit lucky, and in fact wasn't better than l at all (otherwise, mello created the scenario just so near could realise the possibility of a fake note and act opportunistically on the scenario mello had created... it makes no sense! mello's "i'm the only one who can do it" would mean that he was the only one who could expose the fake notebook, which would mean he already knew of that possibility and COULD HAVE JUST TOLD NEAR!

it was anticlimactic and unfulfilling, and not just because i REALLY wanted to see Near cark it in a lonely grave
/ANGER!!!!