timepiececlock | Death Note... my continuing and failing effort to finish this series

DON'T DO EET. Don't skip ahead. Just go up to the death—if you even want to continue that far, I'm not sure I recommend it—grind your teeth, drop it, and imagine a satisfying ending somehow. It's not worth the frustration and heartache of subjecting yourself to the entire second half of the series. Death Note has a couple of characters I like who don't show up until part 2, but I've never seen a series with such a spectacularly pointless self-implosion of an ending. Including Evangelion.

I would actually recommend instead the live-action movie(s?) in Japanese. I've only seen movie #1, so I don't know if the others are up to par, but #1 at least deviates from manga canon in a number of nifty evil ways. There are also the novels, which I haven't read, but I know at least one stars L detectivating pre-series.

P.S. are you watching the dub or the sub? If the sub: the seiyuu for L and Light, who melt me with their hotness, were also the seiyuu for, respectively, Inuyasha and Ouran's Tamaki. THIS BREAKS MY BRAIN.

Oh, and while I still really like Misa for some reason (I don't know! I just do! I would like her and Ryuk to go off and have wacky adventures!), the aforementioned misogynistic crap does not. Ever. STOP.

I just the first movie last night! It was fantastic and got rid of a lot of the bullshit I don't like about Death Note while preserving the stuff that I do. I second the notion of just doing the movie.

I remember the movie poster when it came out.

I'll have to download it. Where'd you get a copy? torrents?

Viz is doing a two-night theatrical run, so I actually saw it at the theater.

Lucky. Where do you live these days that it would be shown in a theater? I rarely see anime films at theater in Orange County, though i used to see them every once in a while when I lived in San Jose.

The theater was in Edgewater, which has a large Asian presence and is also right across the bridge from Manhattan, so that might have something to do with it.

Did y'all get a sub or dub version? Someone on my flist saw the dub last night and didn't like it, and I'm not too interested in it myself. Matching cartoon mouth-flaps to dialogue is one thing, but dubbing live-action these days is just silly.

Dub. Summer said she was going to ask our Viz contact why they did that, because seriously-wtf? But logic issues aside, the actual actors were excellent. They made stellar choices for Light and L.

Hey, will your work send you to Comic Con San Diego? I'm signed up for it.

Yeah. It doesn't usually, but this year there's a special interview we need. :)

::glomps you::

HUZZAH! Providing nothing happens in the next several months to keep me from going, I will totally have to meet you there. I'm shacking up with

irrel and some other ATLA fans, but I would love to stalk you when I get there, maybe hang on your backpack straps until you give me deep and interesting anime industry secrets just to make me go away.

XD totally.

I remember forever ago you talked about rumors of a Trigun movie. Whatever happened there?

Hell if I know. They may have quietly dropped it, or they might still have it in the works and just aren't talking about it.

quietly CRUSHED OUR DREAMS

I watched the anime in dub (up to #20), but I would prefer a live action in subtitled... I'm just so used to subs from watching anime that when I get to live action, where we see the faces of the actors in addition to hearing their voice, it seems unfair to watch it in dubbed. It's... like watching a pan&scan version when letterbox is available... you're missing some of the original art.

I can't get that sentimental about dubbed anime, though. Honestly, now that they take dubbing seriously and put out quality shows, I'd frequently just as soon watch it in English, if it's my first time with a show.

Keep an eye on Fathom Events; Viz has run the Naruto, FMA, and Death Note movies through there.

though I guess it's more "foreign film" than anime...

I love movie!Light because I can loathe him properly!

He is absolutely more of a douchebag.

That's good, because the waffling and self-delusions of anime Light are really bugging me. I want to yell at the screen "You're a fucking amoral murderer, own up to it! Stop piddling around pretending you're not the evil crazy bastard when in your head YOU KNOW."

It takes half the Hannibal Lecterful fun out of him!

Yes.

Ah.

I'll probably watch until that, then.

but I've never seen a series with such a spectacularly pointless self-implosion of an ending. Including Evangelion.

Really? REALLY? Because I was pretty let down by Eva, though to be fair I liked Eva more than I like Death Note. I didn't ever love it (except maybe small things), but there was substantial "like" that got lost with its finale. I wish I had just been told the world ended instead.

So.... maybe I should watch until The Death that's under discussion, and then write up an entry about how I'd end the show if it were me. Then I can go spoil myself about the real ending.

Honestly, given that my relationship to the show is touchy anyway, I feel pretty comfortable taking the word of y'all on this matter and stopping then. I am on the verge already, but I would be interested in how said person dies.

Actually, while I wouldn't say the ending for Death Note was horrendous (though undeniably anticlimactic - despite the gems of characters

octopedingenue's mentioned, part 2 really falls flat), I would second her suggestions to think twice about continuing it. But, well, I think there are definitely worse endings; recently, I was reminded of RahXephon again and I FINALLY found the perfect word for its ending: deus ex machina. Now Death Note's ending is perhaps preferable to a few others' series, but given how you feel about the series as a whole, look for this instead:

Fanmade (manga-based) alternate ending! Actually more interesting and intriguing than the anime/manga ending itself, even if it might resolve less (but like you need much resolution anyway, following Spoiler's death).

I am on the verge already, but I would be interested in how said person dies.

This is definitely worth watching. It was clever of Light even by his standards, though absolutely rotten (even by his standards). That's all I'm saying.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, you might definitely want to steer clear of Death Note's second half if only because of her. It introduces That Character Whom I Despise With My Entire Soul (incidentally, the only other female to get half as much limelight as Misa) and I am pretty sure that you would hate her too. Misa is infinitely more interesting, since she's twisted but not without a redeeming feature; That Character is, however, (strictly IMHO, mind) gifted with humanity's worst, most predictable flaws, and yet totally pathetic and subordinate to Light. As if he needs another tool. YEAH, I DON'T LIKE HER. Definitely another piece of misogyny at work. Steer clear!

Yeah, Light's twisted brilliance in that particular instance is a thing of beauty dimmed only be my overwhelming need to mock him relentlesly. And those certain awesome part 2 characters, I love to ittybitty pieces, but in a way completely divorced from the plot. Like, sometimes I have to remind myself that they're actually in Death Note, and/or were not there from the very beginning, because their awesome + part 2 flatness = Does Not Compute in my head.

HELLO MISOGYNY, MY OLD FRIEND. For one, a significant portion of my Frothy Capslock of Fury over the ending was how it deals with Misa. Or rather, DOESN'T.

I'll still rank the finale worst for the sharpness of its spinning nosedive. I mean, overall Death Note's ending was less Deus Ex Machina descending from the heavens (which at least is flashy, and has a long boring literary history so I'm used/resigned to it?) and more "All right, you know that handpuppet lying limply over the arm of a chair backstage? He's actually God, and has saved us all while we weren't paying attention. Go team! And now for something completely relevant, this pony will give us the weather report."

All right, you know that handpuppet lying limply over the arm of a chair backstage? He's actually God, and has saved us all while we weren't paying attention. Go team!

WHY did that make me think of The Doctor in the DW season 3 finale? I think it was "handpuppet".

Mm... is this "god" in question actually the young, excitable rookie cop? Y/N will do.

Or possibly one of Light's unnamed paper-doll siblings?

...If I were writing this show, I'd have Misa kill Light. In a tragic accident of mistaken identity/guilt/role-confusion in the middle of a classic Mexican standoff. I'd have her shoot him thinking she's shooting one of the cops who is trying to kill him, but have it all be a result of Light's overly-ambitious scheming, and he was pretending something so good that in a crisis Misa believed the [insert incomprehensible Kira conspiracy#46] deception and just totally shoots Light in the head.

And then she's like "Oh fuck oh fuck" and goes crazy and ~~writes the end of the world~~ runs off, only to wake up one morning and see that Light has become a Shinigami and is haunting her because he's REALLY ANNOYED GODDAMMIT that Misa of all people killed him.

Meanwhile, her book gets thrown into a box and floats downriver like Jumanji.

For one, a significant portion of my Frothy Capslock of Fury over the ending was how it deals with Misa. Or rather, DOESN'T.

OH MY GOD, YES. I mean, here there I was flipping through the ending to see whatever happened to Misa - and she doesn't even get a mention. Not even a mention! Some stranger, cultist chick gets the very last, entire page, and we don't even see what happens to the... only character in this series resembling a heroine! The only mention of the author's intended fate for her was actually in an INTERVIEW, but really, it could've been inscribed on the walls of some mountain range near El Dorado and it STILL wouldn't make a difference.

... and more "All right, you know that handpuppet lying limply over the arm of a chair backstage? He's actually God, and has saved us all while we weren't paying attention. Go team!"

I'm sorry to say that I actually enjoyed the irony of that bit - not really enjoyed it as a fan or viewer, but found it highly amusing that it worked out that way. It started registering once I got into the mindset of, Hey, you're kidding, is this series really giving us an ending that, FOR ONCE, does not require any convoluted over-thought, but rather the very contrary? That was the beauty of it, I think. ... That pony-given weather report would've definitely spruced up the scene; that anime's finale art was really depressing. O_O

And about those characters, I know! All those awesome characters, only put on the backburner to characters like... Takada. *haet* It's like we're not allowed to have nice things. I mean, first Naomi, whom I utterly adored, and then Wendy, and Hal and Misa aren't even given any closure! ... At least Hal survived, I guess.

Are you a fan of the series? I find that a lot of the fanbase has the same issues with the series that we do, yet are fans regardless. I do like the premise a lot - it had a lot of potential and to an extent it fulfilled that potential - and it was definitely a novelty for me, pretty ingenious and absorbing. Still, I couldn't stand the misogyny, and I sort of lost heart after Spoiler's death. By the finale, I was just tired. With the exception of reading a few fics, I've stayed almost completely out of the fandom - and I'm glad of it, too, ever since I learned that Light and his cause actually have a fanbase. Scary, really scary.

... speaking of scary, my buddy has his maniacal laughter from episode 37 as her cell's ringtone! The real-life Kira mini-cults need to wake up and realize that Light breaks the most crucial How To Be a Dark Lord rules, and therefore following him will only lead to sad, hilarious failure.

Yeahhh, that whole anime to me was just one big bag of chauvanism. Despite that, I still really like Misa for some reason. I just wish she'd been given a bit more development.

And seconding the suggestion of skipping part 2 (post-character-death). The second part to this anime was not worth it.

It certainly has bothered me as I've tried to watch it. I'm only at episode 19.

scratch that. I've seen 20.

I tried to read the manga, but I couldn't even get past the first two volumes. At least I'm not alone in disliking it.

Death Note... my continuing and failing effort to finish this series

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

hey, speaking of...

Re: hey, speaking of...

Re: hey, speaking of...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

RE: Deleted comment question

Re: Deleted comment question

just my two cents!

Re: just my two cents!

Re: just my two cents!

Re: just my two cents!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject