Barbelith Underground > Film, TV & Theatre

I'm way late to the party but Liger got me to watch the anime this passed month. I just finished it last night and had been staying out of this thread for the spoilers. I avoided the spoiler-y posts mentioning other anime stories as well because I do find the impact of a great narrative setup can get hosed by spoilage. So please pardon me if I'm not reffing things that were discussed in mixed posts up thread (and thank you for tagging them as mixed spoilers!) While I'm usually impressed by the beauty of many anime productions I was struck by how powerful the characters were in Death Note.

SPOILERS

Having early on in the series joined TEAM L in a big way I felt the focus drop out when he died. I wasn't feeling impressed or even that interested in Mello and Near. I think El Directo's comments about the lack of set up involving why I should care or believe those two were competitors and successors of L are pretty right on. It does however sound like the manga fills that in a bit better.

That said, I was very impressed that the final episode managed to make me feel sympathy for Light. I'd written him off early on and had that underscored by his shitty treatment of those that loved him and placed their complete faith in him. L's last question to him and Light's reply (in the rain on the roof) pretty much left me thinking Light=sociopath.

I too thought the scenes of Misa in her goth Lolita outfit signaled her suicide from the roof top. While the series was certainly not feminist in any way I'm not sure how misogynistic it was versus using templates of everyday interactions. Both L and Near made use of female agents who were treated as equals to their male counterparts. I was impressed with Wedy as the high tech infiltrator because her gender had nothing to do with her job requirements.

I liked some of the secondary character development arcs Shuichi Aizawa in particular.

Besides my research into Death Note dropping me in a shopping mall of schwag ( you know I am waiting for my L lunch bag and am sporting my L flare) it also surprised me being ported over to the fan fic yaoi universe. I think it was Liger who pointed out the homoerotic aspect of the conflict between L/Light is right on the surface of the narrative and the reading doesn't have to be forced at all. But that way lies fanfic so to return to the main text...

I've been reading a bit about finite players and infinite games and the history of detective novels as reactions to taming the irrational IRL. I came across a great essay in an anthology of work on Twin Peaks regarding these topics and while L is obviously an intuitive detective he unlike Dale Cooper does not automatically have a variable set for the supernatural. The scene in which L reacts to the second Kira's message about Shinigami / +eyes is fantastic as we have the moment of the rational detective being derailed by what he has ruled out incorrectly as irrationally impossible. i think it says a great deal that the irrational is then brought in as a variable.

When DN is at its best it is in the expansion of the finite game being revealed to be an infinite one of imaginative mind blowing counter moves (with enough of a setup not to be last minute hand waving). I think that's why I felt a bit let down by Light's confrontation with Near. After a run of great game board expanding earlier confrontations with L, suddenly we have this sort of accidental Mello assist and Teru Mikami fuck up retrieving the notebook from the bank off schedule. So Kira got caught because he didn't consider Mikami not hiding the notebook properly? He certainly thought that through more thoroughly during the earlier memory wipe gambit.

In my head I was hoping that L had specifically not picked a successor so that Near and Mello would be motivated by their competitive drive to solve the Kira case and so revenge L.

I have been gently poking around on youtube and found a scene of L's funeral that was not on the discs I rented. In it Light's Kira crazypants victory glee is on full display.

Liger has also mentioned there are a number of sets wandering around. Does anyone have recommendations on which set to own?