Death Note

[Forsaken Lover]

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In case you don't know about the series, I just read all 12 volumes of the manga and can summarize it for you. The person in the video is Light Yagami, the hero, and he was out to make the world a better place. He reduced crime by 70% all across the globe. He was a great man who sacrificed everything in the name of justice before he was felled by a bunch of short-sighted, morally bankrupt fools.

It was a very sad, tragic ending. Although Part 2 wasn't nearly as bad as I had been told. True, Near was no L but a lot of L's time was spent in the boring Memory/Yotsuba Arc so that didn't help. The beginning is the best part of Death Note, when Light was first creating his ideal world.

P.S.

Light x Misa forever. At least they are together in death....

[Shauna]

Light x Misa forever.

Absolutely not.

[Jinx]

Light x Misa forever.

Absolutely not.

^

[Forsaken Lover]

Are you part of the rabid LightxL crowd?

Or do you just not pair Light with anyone?

[Jinx]

With no one. Light's a horrible human being! And certainly in the case of Misa, he never loved her at all. He was using her the entire time. I don't think he ever felt any true affection towards or even cared about her in the most basic way.

[Freya]

You think Light was a great man? You think he should have been paired with someone he used? What? Light was a serial killer. Who says he deserves to be judge and jury of everyone?

It's a good series though. I watched the anime subbed back in the day. It was the second anime I ever watched subbed. I was like 16 at the time.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I rooted for Kira. It was interesting watching it all play out and seeing how the battle of wits progressed. Death Note is one of my favorite shows. I was initially on the fence about wanting to start Attack on Titan, but when I found out it had the same series director as Death Note, I was on board right away. I haven't seen the live action movies, but I'd like to at some point.

I want to buy one of the cosplay books that has the "How to use it" pages in between the regular sheets of paper, and I think it's hilarious when fans go up to voice actors at anime conventions and say "will you sign my death note?".


Light x Misa forever

No. He didn't care about her at all. Over time he only cared about people in relation to how he could use them, which is a shame, because I genuinely think he had great intentions in regards to eliminating crime in the beginning. Having so much power made him incredibly narcissistic.

My favorite piece from the score.

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[Forsaken Lover]

Okay here's my serious view of Light Yagami.

In the beginning, after he used the Death Note a little bit and before he met Ryuk, he was really eff'ed up. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat, and he was ready for his soul to be eaten or something whenever the entity that this magical power belonged to came and punished him. Yet he still did it anyway. He still wrote down the names of the scum of the earth.

We also know, from the writer of the manga, that Light was the Death Note's first victim. If he had never found it, he would have followed in his father's footsteps and joined the police. He had already helped them solve two crimes prior to the start of the series. I think Light's overly developed sense of morality, of right and wrong, is something he inherited from his father. I also think he genuinely respected his father and his father's strong sense of justice and in a lot of ways he was just trying to emulate his dad like any other son would.

At one point, when Light first meets Misa, he actually thinks that he can't start developing feelings for her. That was literally a thought that went through his mind in the manga at least. If he was a true psychopath incapable of empathizing with anyone, I don't think he ever would have had that thought.

The problem with Light is that, in addition to the fact he can kill with complete ease and immunity, he then spends years hiding himself. He has to spend years concealing who he is from his family, the people he works with, the people he goes to school with... He can't really trust anyone or let down his guard. Ever. That has to take a toll on someone; constantly lying and pretending and thinking "I have to act this way or my life is over." And after a year or two or three or four, he couldn't even recognize himself. The mountain of lies had drowned whatever spark of goodness once existed in him.

The person who might honestly have cared about Misa, or been effected when his father (unknowingly) called him evil, he was gone and all that was left was a guy putting on a perpetual act and who could never know any true peace.

The Death Note is the real villain of Death Note.

[Karifean]

Death Note is pretty great. I haven't read the manga, but the anime series is one of the two main shows (the other being Elfen Lied) that got me into anime in the first place.

For me the most enjoyable part of the show was the battle of wits between Light and L. It's quite rare that you see an all-out battle between two opposing sides on equal footing like that. It's almost always that one side is not taking it seriously and just playing with the other side (looking at you Gurren Lagann). In that way Death Note is pretty unique, although that is also why I felt the latter third of the show wasn't nearly as enjoyable as the first two thirds.

I liked L more than Light. L was quite ruthless at times, but very likeable. Kira was just presented as so... morally black. No shade of grey. Just black. And I prefer my anti-heroes grey, which is why I ultimately prefer Code Geass and G-senjou no Maou over Death Note.

Still, Death Note is a classic, and a very good and gripping series.

[Slothy]

The show is like a million Xanatos gambits stacked on top of each other and I like it. The final arc gets a bit borked because it keeps going for a long time after what feels like the climax, but still really good overall.

[Shauna]

I thought it was an amazing journey from Light Yagami being a paragon of justice at the beginning, slowly becoming just as bad as all the people he deemed unworthy enough to kill. I mean, I rooted for Kira enormously, but as the series went on I found myself questioning my faith in this man who had clearly lost his moral compass.

[Slothy]

Light slowly becoming bad? Dude crossed the line into full blown crazy by the end of the first episode.

[Shauna]

I am probably remembering it differently, but I never felt that he was willing from the get-go to kill innocent people to further his ideals. It definitely was a thing that seemed to creep in a bit.

Alternatively, I haven't watched it in a long time. xD

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I am probably remembering it differently, but I never felt that he was willing from the get-go to kill innocent people to further his ideals. It definitely was a thing that seemed to creep in a bit.

That's pretty spot on.

[qwertysaur]

The series was really good until L died, then it just started imploding on itself for me.

[Sephex]

Light's method was nightmarish and irresponsible, and if no one would have stopped him, he would have probably ended up killing off the entire planet at some point. He was talking about eventually using the Death Note to kill off people who are lazy. Think about that from the perspective of the top student in Japan. Yeah, I don't want someone like that ruling the world and deciding who lived and who died.

Those who root for Light completely miss the point and the lessons imparted from Death Note.

Seriously, in the end, Light was like a toddler wielding a magnum, and it worked out for him just as well as that actual situation would.

[Jinx]

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Slothy]

Just because he didn't say he'd kill innocent people from the get go, he went from being a fairly high achieving genius kid who seemed completely normal to full blown psychopath willing to kill pretty much any criminal to make the world a "better place." The amount of hubris that takes alone is terrifying and his willingness to kill anyone that readily is just a glimpse at how little he values human life if he doesn't approve of what they do.

The guy was a full blown psychopath who only needed a little taste of power to set him loose. Like I said by the end of the first episode it is abundantly clear that he has lost it and isn't just headed down a dark road: he started out already on that road and hopped a bullet train to pitch black crazy bastard town. It was clear from the get go that he wasn't a hero, and the entertaining back and forth chess game with L is the entertaining part.

But I was never actually rooting for the guy other than in my usual root for the villain because I like a good villain way. He was a horrible person from the start, became worse as time went on, and got a better end than he really deserved when it was all said and done. For the things he did and the number of people he killed he deserved a much more painful end.

[Freya]

I loved the series for that moral gray it presented. And the way it makes you question the whole, well was he doing good cause he killed bad people? I enjoyed the dialogue it set up. :)

[Jinx]

If it's not clear that Light is insane from the get-go: Ryuk tells him that if he uses the Death Note, he can neither go to Heaven or Hell. He'd rather be trapped for all eternity just to have a moral high ground on Earth.

(I am going by the manga, not the anime. The anime is abysmally dull.)

[Sephex]

Just chiming in again to agree with Jinx. I have read the manga three times and only watched the anime once. I feel the manga version does a better job with the material (especially post L stuff).

[Forsaken Lover]

If it's not clear that Light is insane from the get-go: Ryuk tells him that if he uses the Death Note, he can neither go to Heaven or Hell. He'd rather be trapped for all eternity just to have a moral high ground on Earth.

(I am going by the manga, not the anime. The anime is abysmally dull.)

By the time Ryuk shows up and tells him that, Light had already used the Death Note. Even if he was going to Hell, it was a little too late.

I still wish more people would remember that first chapter. How this guy
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg216/NikKingMan/DN2_zps6rhpmokm.png

Just appeared to Light and Light's only reaction was "you're here to take my soul? Okay then." And yet, even as he figured he was inevitably going to die, he judged all the sinners of the world before he went.

There is definitely a difference between Early Light and Later Light.

[Shauna]

Yes, he is a psychopath from beginning to end, and I wouldn't contest that. My point really was that he goes from criminal destruction to anyone destruction over the course of the story. He may have never had any care for humaninty, but he knew where the lines should be drawn. Until people started steppin' in his way, then... the power corrupted.