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Death Note: Did the author fuck up? (Spoilers)

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L

Lights and Waves

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L's death. I'd be willing to bet that a majority of readers' interest in the series plummeted after L was killed off. Same goes for the anime. Why the author would decide to kill one of the most interesting characters, a fan favorite, and replace him with two horribly designed generic anime prodigy genius children is beyond my comprehension.

IMO, the series just wasn't as interesting after L died. Granted, his death was well done, but I don't think he should have been replaced with Near and Mello. I would have preferred that the prosecutors somehow figured out it was Light that did it, or that Ryuk or Misa betrayed him...anything but Near and Mello.

What are your thoughts?
 
Honestly, I liked the change. Maybe it's different if you binge watch it, but after so many one-up contests, I was getting frustrated with the show. Either L goes or Light does, but something needed to actually happen.

As for Near and Mello, I don't like Mello at all, but Near was fine. Basically more weird quirks, same as L. The method of catching Light works for me too, though it's got a metric TON of plotholes in it.
 
It's been a while since I've watched Death Note, but I think it was sort of a similar situation to
Doakes
in Dexter.

You can have a really good thing going on story-wise, but after a while it reaches a point where someone has to come out on top. Not that the second half of Death Note was great or anything, but a prolonged game of cat and mouse might have taken away from L's character.
 
Killing off L made it more interesting than if they kept him around and kept it the same length. They would have ended it earlier since it was already beginning to get stale by the time L bit it.
 
The series died the moment they dropped out of college and moved into that big building. L's death was at least a peak of something interesting happening again!
 
If it had simply ended right then and there, it would have been so much better. Sure that ending would be bleak, but that's what the story needed. Light wins. Because of all the twists that came before it, you're expecting L to somehow get the last laugh after he's dead, but it never happens.

In any case, everything that came after was completely devoid of tension, and it felt unnecessary to me.
 
Never watched Death Note myself, largely because I had this spoiled for me. But yeah, pretty much everyone I know seemed to think the show was worthless after L died.
 
It should have ended with his death. "Oh shit, the bad guy won" would have made for a far more memorable conclusion.
 
I thought the final twist at the end with Mello was kinda contrive, and I didn't like the way L died (at the Shinigami's hands). But I was fine with the overall direction it took, second half included.
 
Loved the entire series. Loved Near and Mello.

I didn't like the way L got killed off. It seamed cheap, like the author gave Light too many tools.
 
L's death worked really well in the story. Eventually someone had to come out on top.

The story might had been stronger overall had it ended there. There's actually a sort-of alternate ending scene to the anime in case they had ended it at L's death.

But in rewatching, I actually really still like the story after L goes, and the final confrontation in the warehouse is a stellar ending even if the show briefly loses its way after introducing Near and Mello.

Ishida said:
Loved the entire series. Loved Near and Mello.

I didn't like the way L got killed off. It seamed cheap, like the author gave Light too many tools.
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No way. L died because Light outwitted everyone with the long con of giving up his memories and keeping the piece of the Death Note in his watch. It was a smart plan and didn't feel cheap at all.
 
Lights and Waves said:
L's death. I'd be willing to bet that a majority of readers' interest in the series plummeted after L was killed off. Same goes for the anime. Why the author would decide to kill one of the most interesting characters, a fan favorite, and replace him with two horribly designed generic anime prodigy genius children is beyond my comprehension.

IMO, the series just wasn't as interesting after L died. Granted, his death was well done, but I don't think he should have been replaced with Near and Mello. I would have preferred that the prosecutors somehow figured out it was Light that did it, or that Ryuk or Misa betrayed him...anything but Near and Mello.

What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

Meh, I think those ideas are worse than Near and Mello.

1. The prosecutors finding him out and taking him out makes Light look like a chump.
2. Misa betraying him sounds bad.
3. Ryuk wouldn't betray him because doing so would just end his fun sooner.
4. And with 1., even if you switched it around to have Light win, is that really entertaining either? He wins against people who seem like ants to him.

Near and Mello are definitely no L, but I liked the idea because L was so great that no one person could have done better against Light than he did. In the end, the series shows just how great a villain and a hero Light and L were.
 
L had a great character arch though.

"Have you ever said anything remotely true in your life?"

Them feels...

And the ending with Light's meltdown was masterfully done.
 
I wasn't a fan of L at all. I realize I'm in the minority, but either way I don't see how L's story could have dragged much further anyway. Death Note really could have ended almost perfectly after L's death. The story continuing could have stilled worked, but the characters in the last arc felt tacked on. The build up wasn't there for Near & Mello to take L's place. The only redeemable scene in the last arc is the very last one where Light fucks up and laughs like a maniac.
 
Lights and Waves said:
L's death. I'd be willing to bet that a majority of readers' interest in the series plummeted after L was killed off. Same goes for the anime. Why the author would decide to kill one of the most interesting characters, a fan favorite, and replace him with two horribly designed generic anime prodigy genius children is beyond my comprehension.

IMO, the series just wasn't as interesting after L died. Granted, his death was well done, but I don't think he should have been replaced with Near and Mello. I would have preferred that the prosecutors somehow figured out it was Light that did it, or that Ryuk or Misa betrayed him...anything but Near and Mello.

What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

L was no less a generic anime prodigy than the two that followed.
 
Modest Mauser said:
No way. L died because Light outwitted everyone with the long con of giving up his memories and keeping the piece of the Death Note in his watch. It was a smart plan and didn't feel cheap at all.
Click to expand...

The introduction of Misa, who has another Death Note and conveniently is in love with him, the new Shinigami that is in love with Misa and would do ANYTHING for her. All of that seemed just too convenient for Light's character and motivations. The author kept giving him tools and reducing the changes of L to win.
 
The manga ending (with Light begging pathetically for his life) and the anime ending (with Light panicked and running away like a little bitch with some self reflection and hallucinating L standing over him) both, to me, justify the "first" climax of the series.

I don't think we were ever meant to care about M and N as much as L, but in a way that mirrors Light's mistake - he underestimated them both. He elevated both himself and L as 'godlike', and THAT was his downfall, because it led to other mistakes like creating a disciple in Mikami.

Sho_Nuff82 said:
"Have you ever said anything remotely true in your life?"
Click to expand...

Such a great scene.
 
Ishida said:
The introduction of Misa, who has another Death Note and conveniently is in love with him, the new Shinigami that is in love with Misa and would do ANYTHING for her. All of that seemed just too convenient for Light's character and motivations. The author kept giving him tools and reducing the changes of L to win.
Click to expand...

I suppose. Those things had been introduced much earlier in the story however. It wasn't like they were pulled out of the writer's ass right at the end so Light would win.
 
The story was just stretched out longer than it otherwise should have been. Show should have ended before they even introduced the 2nd notebook.

Also, L's death was sort of shitty in that he hadn't been outsmarted by Light but instead was the victim of an invisible circumstance he had no way of knowing about and to me that just rings hollow. L's death should be more meaningful in that either he should get straight up outsmarted by Light in a logical way or he purposely sacrifices himself in order to expose Light to the world and bring about his end. The way it happened on the show was he died and didn't even understand why.
 
Yeah, part 2 drags the series down. It has some great moments and having a more experienced and even more arrogant Light was a great idea and it led to some cool moments but it lacked the tension of Light vs. L.

Part 1 by itself is amazing though.
 
I'm not sure it was a bad move, but the follow-through was poorly done. The second half of the manga just felt like a inferior rehash of the first half. A shame since I really enjoyed it up to that point.
 
The fuck up was not ending the series with L's death. Light should have won, and completed the incredibly interesting concept of the protagonist being the straight-up villain, and how people would feel if he really won.
 
It died with L and Mello.

The way Light goes crazy and basically sets up some crazy fan to be him which ultimately screws him up also cheapens the whole thing for me. It invalidated Light's genius, which in turn invalidates L's.

In the manga it felt a lot more like Light was a good guy trying to do the right thing and slowly being forced to do wrong for his ultimate dream, maybe corruped by the power/deathnote.

But in the anime he just flips straight to crazy son of a bitch almost right away as if he always had mental issues and never gave a shit about the law or justice.
 
I have to agree with the OP. When I watched the anime, L died and I had 6 episodes left. I couldn't do it. I still haven't finished the series to this day. I find in general that adding new characters near the end of the series hurts it too. Adding Near when the series was almost done was a mistake as well.
 
I honestly got the sense, reading the manga, that the series was probably supposed to end with L's death and Light's win, but wasn't allowed to due to popularity and that bad guys don't win in shonen manga usually. The subsequent arc always felt tacked on, with Light making basic tactical errors because he couldn't be beat otherwise.
 
I would have prefered if the story had just ended after that. For a start it would have led to better discussion among the fan community, and I think we would have seen more people thinking Light was a the 'good guy'. Light had fallen already true, but he wasn't anywhere near the level of batshit crazy he gets by the end of the series.

VRMN said:
I honestly got the sense, reading the manga, that the series was probably supposed to end with L's death and Light's win, but wasn't allowed to due to popularity and that bad guys don't win in shonen manga usually. The subsequent arc always felt tacked on, with Light making basic tactical errors because he couldn't be beat otherwise.
Click to expand...

I agree, and reading Bakuman cemented this idea in my mind.
 
VRMN said:
I honestly got the sense, reading the manga, that the series was probably supposed to end with L's death and Light's win, but wasn't allowed to due to popularity and that bad guys don't win in shonen manga usually.
Click to expand...

I'm hoping this is where they go with Platinum End.
 
I consider the 2nd half of Death Note to be one of the single biggest drops in creative quality in an anime, ever. It wasn't just Near & Mello, but rather just how all the intricate care that went into the mental chess just goes out the window. There is a scene in the 2nd half where
Near has to choose a potential assistant of Light's out of a lineup out of a large selection of potential assistants. He picks the exact one out of pure, blind, sheer feeling, not evidence.

Near & Melo could've been great, same for the 2nd arc. For me, the series just kept moving away from what made it so strong in the 1st half, the longer we got in the 2nd half.
 
Yes. Don't kill a character only to replace them with poor imitations of them.

L had sound logic and the way he figured things out and his back and forth conflicts with Light were awesome.

Near just pulled answers out of his ass. He just correctly jumped to conclusions. It was annoying.
 
Just like there was no point for Twin Peaks to continue after Laura Palmer's murderer was revealed, and the series lost its way. The promise of more money can keep a series going for a while, but if you remove the most compelling elements of the story, there's no real reason to continue.
 
I never liked the show mainly because of the main character Light Y. but I did watch it for L until he died, then I dropped it.
 
I knew L was going to die before I watched it, due to spoilers.

The only thing I dislike is that it didn't really cost Kira anything. Like for sure I thought he was going to cave in and get the eyes, but damn Kira got a clean break. I guess you could say it cost Kira his sanity because he felt that it was L that kept challenging him after his death.

Atleast L went out like a champ and had contigency plans set up.

The 3 year time skip was just weird. It should have ended 2-3 episodes later, with L's contigency plan providing evidence for the police to use to lock Light up. Basically LIght would have fucked up by going for the kill on L instead of playing the long con.
 
kaizoku said:
It died with L and Mello.

The way Light goes crazy and basically sets up some crazy fan to be him which ultimately screws him up also cheapens the whole thing for me. It invalidated Light's genius, which in turn invalidates L's.

In the manga it felt a lot more like Light was a good guy trying to do the right thing and slowly being forced to do wrong for his ultimate dream, maybe corruped by the power/deathnote.

But in the anime he just flips straight to crazy son of a bitch almost right away as if he always had mental issues and never gave a shit about the law or justice.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the second arc is done a lot better than the anime. It's a lot more conversation heavy and the anime just condenses it and loses a lot of nuance. The second arc in the manga is about how he tries to do too many things, gets arrogant and doesn't realize he can't do all of them at the same time.
 
SneakersSO said:
I consider the 2nd half of Death Note to be one of the single biggest drops in creative quality in an anime, ever. It wasn't just Near & Mello, but rather just how all the intricate care that went into the mental chess just goes out the window. There is a scene in the 2nd half where
Near has to choose a potential assistant of Light's out of a lineup out of a large selection of potential assistants. He picks the exact one out of pure, blind, sheer feeling, not evidence.

Near & Melo could've been great, same for the 2nd arc. For me, the series just kept moving away from what made it so strong in the 1st half, the longer we got in the 2nd half.
Click to expand...

The first arc has plenty of hack coincidences that favor Light. For example:

Raye Penber's fiance Naomi (a 'top rate former FBI agent' made almost useless by regressive Japanese views on career women) was moments away from cracking the Kira case wide open - until Light just so happens to run into her on a sidewalk, and fools her into not going to the police and giving this stranger her contact info (and promptly kills her). That's bullshit.
 
Ishida said:
The introduction of Misa, who has another Death Note and conveniently is in love with him, the new Shinigami that is in love with Misa and would do ANYTHING for her. All of that seemed just too convenient for Light's character and motivations. The author kept giving him tools and reducing the changes of L to win.
Click to expand...

I disagree here. I thought Misa was such an awesome extra layer of complexity. The fact that:

  • She has the shinigami eyes
  • She has her own Death Note
  • Her obsession with Kira is a direct outcome of his mission to become a God

Made her really interesting!
 
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