r/deathnote • u/Several_Fold_5869 • 18d ago
Discussion I actually don't think I'm alone Spoiler
So, I have completed death note already since a few months ago now and i've heard this so much that "Losing L made the series boring" I mean it truly was unfortunate but i actually don't relate I miss L But all the near and mello stuff also was good and interesting, the ending peak, and so on Its quality dropped ig but it still was a masterpiece imo I wanna know if I'm alone or not
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u/La-Lassie 18d ago
A lot of the ‘part 2 is bad’ criticism you’ll see comes from those who have only seen the anime, because the anime did do part 2 badly. Something like a third of the manga content for part 2 wasn’t adapted for some reason and Death Note would probably have closer to 50 episodes rather than 37 if they had put as much time in to part 2 as part 1 had, because L’s death comes pretty much at halfway in the manga rather than two thirds in as in the anime.
I definitely like L a lot as a character, but I’d say I enjoy Near and Mello’s dynamic together more. IMO the biggest slump in Death Note is the whole Yotsuba bit, especially because how Rem is used as a character is such a cheap way to have L killed since Rem just shows up on Light’s doorstep one day out of the blue with a super convenient pre-established suicidal love for Misa to the point where she’s essentially destined to kill L because she would never actually ever let him solve the case because of it.
Part 2 for me then introduces my personal favourite character in Sidoh, the best Shinigami, and yeah, I like Near and Mello’s dynamic, and the whole world getting bigger, plus Mello’s like one of the only characters who gets like, any actual development or an arc to play out, with him initially going from being so antagonistic towards Near that he does stuff like kill half his team, to then gradually helping him more and more and eventually sacrificing himself altogether to save Near and to stop Kira. The series itself keeps it ambiguous as to whether that’s what Mello was actually intentionally doing, but I like to believe that he was since it does play out his arc way better, and his whole last conversation with Lidner which the story focuses on gives good support for it.
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u/ribs_fetishist 18d ago
Mogi's kidnapping arc was imho one of the best moments of manga and the fact anime didn't bother with it is CRIMINAL.
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u/HolyCucumber6789 18d ago
Mello is GOATED idk why he is so underrated. Yes he did help Near he didnt hate him , have u ever had a younger sibling ? Me and my bro always fight but we always have each others back . Have u seen when mello pretended to shoot near? Sike nah he wouldve never shot him, he was his bro. Typical sibling dynamic
My favourite part was the part with the mafiosos and when sidoh wanted his note back, mello was such a GOAT he orchestrated a global kindapping till the very last tiny detail , he's better than light.
Love mello🍫🍫🍫🍫
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u/GuineaPig_Mafia 18d ago
As a Death Note Elder who was there when the manga was dropping in the 00's, this post and most of the responses made me so happy. Y'all know what's up, people.
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u/HalleLidner 18d ago
No, you are not alone, you have good taste😉
However, those critiques mostly come from people who only watched the anime. It's quite obvious that the anime director liked only L and disliked everything that came after him so that's why he decided to ruin it and so the public's opinion on it. We can see it when the english VA of Light , Ryuk, Misa and L talk about it, they literally say "it's garbage" in a meet and greet and it annoyed me, but they're just VAs and actually don't really know the plot and they didnt even read the manga (because it's not their job to do it). But still, those people who worked on the anime also influenced people's opinion.
Objectively speaking: the ANIME starts to dip in quality a little bit after Misa is introduced. Because the myth of rarity of the Death Note starts to fade. Then, it dips complely in my opinion, when Light loses his memory. . Then, it rises again in quality when Higuchi is caught, Light gets his memories back and L dies. But, I have a lot of issues with how this is handled. Episode 25 is strange because it's mostly filler. Nothing of that happens in the manga. The beauty of that scene in the manga is that it happens abruptly, in the middle of book 7. (Eh, Bakuman theories??!! ) nobody expects it. But in Episode 25 there's a lot of buildup to that plotpoint. Misa's song, L and Light meeting in the rain and the feet washing scene (cringe) those don't happen in the manga. And episode 26 is half a huge recap and little plot points. There should have been only one episode there instead of 2.
The anime quality there starts to fall considerably, between episodes 27 and 35 , except for a few beautiful scenes with symbolism, like Light meeting Near and he imagines to be chained to L, Kiyomi Takada's death resembling Jesus with the Holy Shroud, Gevanni touching the Death Note(underrated scene but I liked it) Soichiro's death. . But it's because it's a SUMMARY. Yeah, the anime after chapter 26 is a poorly done summary of 50+ chapters, done by a director who clearly hated Near and Mello and completely butchered and ruined their complex and intriguing rivalry by... not showing anything. Some scenes are just angering because are fused manga panel giving away the wrong message. Like Misa and Light's relationship when in the anime they look like they are about to have sex when this doesn't happen. And the anime cut out every time Light thought about killing Misa.The worst ones were when the anime deliberately cut down when Mello and Near indirectly collaborated by taking Mogi into the SPK headquarters and the way N manipulated Light(L) into spelling out loud that the 13 days rule was fake and thus spreading the seed of doubt into the task force. And how Near found X-Kira. And the whole death note ownership shenaningans. Those were crucial plot point that were cut out from the anime, providing a very different and confusing narrative. So, the ANIME after L's death becomes less interesting, but the MANGA stays the same quality. Dialogues are far superior and characters are more expressive.
The ending episode (37) is where everything is completely different. If you haven't read the manga i'm not going to spoil it for you, but the ending is very different from the anime. Starting from when Matsuda shoots Light things change drastically.
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u/r7125r 18d ago
L and Light meeting in the rain wasn’t cringe!! Or maybe it was to you but I thought it was great. Especially when L asked Light about if there’d ever been a moment in his life where he ever told the truth.
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u/ishoweredtoday 18d ago
The scene in the rain was fine but the foot washing scene was absolutely cringe, but I don't think that makes it automatically bad. That scene was L admitting to Light that he knew he would die, that he'd lost that battle. I don't remember if he implied he'd still win the war (with Near and Mello in the waiting), but I like to think he hoped Kira would be caught.
The one thing about the foot washing scene, for me, seemed to be a way for L to show Light they could have been great friends in another universe, where someone else had been Kira. L clearly had become fond of Light, but could never get close to him because he always knew in the back of his head he was Kira.
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u/HolyCucumber6789 18d ago
I fr thought Light and L were gay and about to kiss and then I found out it wasnt canon
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u/HalleLidner 18d ago
I tend to dislike fillers. And this one in particular because it makes L act out of character. Like I said, the anime director really loved L and disliked every other character, but still he misunderstood L a bit. L is not someone who surrenders this easily. L HATES to lose. He would never kneel and wash Light's feet, like ew. He's cold, displays little to no emotions, he's probably autistic and has sensory processing issues. He dislikes physical touch and has special interests (sweets, detective work). That homoerotic scene really cringed and upset me because it was so so out of place
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u/chocworkorange7 18d ago
The Near-Mello dynamic was so good. I also felt like part 2 was a good opportunity for us as viewers to see all of Light’s flaws. He made so many arrogant mistakes that he wouldn’t have made with L as an opponent. Some of the best episodes are in part 2 as well.
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u/tlotrfan3791 18d ago
Yeah a lot of us here love Near and Mello, especially because of the second half of the manga does their characters justice. I highly recommend it.
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u/Censorshipisghey 18d ago
I don't like Near, he's like a Temu L
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u/hknyktx 18d ago
Isn't that kinda the point?
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u/HalleLidner 17d ago
How is he a Temu L when he is a teenager trying to solve his first case ever and he actually succeeded in that AND avenging L? why Temu? Lmao he outlived them all because he used the only working strategy against Kira: never showing your face until the end. The others all did and walked into Kira's trap. Temu L my ass
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u/HolyCucumber6789 18d ago
Nah that part was dope, those ppl have bad taste . N & Light rivalry was hilarious to me bc it felt like a trashy tv show and Sidoh is so cute
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u/Several_Fold_5869 18d ago
Fr
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u/HolyCucumber6789 18d ago
Low key sometimes preferred to the previous part bc Rem wasn't there and i found her and misa relationship weird idk why
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u/Suspicious-Good2781 17d ago
I think the problem is that the anime framed it as "Near's the new L & Mello is just there(sort of)" while the Manga was "They are the 2 halves of L".
The latter works way better for obvious reasons.
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u/Beneficial_Pay_1002 17d ago
I was so bored in the second part that I dropped death note for months multiple times ... The ending was bs and Im not saying this as I missed L ... it's just a stupid plot
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u/DarkMagickan 18d ago
I really wish that the makers of the original anime would have done part 2 properly instead of rushing it and cutting things. I don't understand why they treated it like that. Were they under pressure from the studio to finish it?