#I may sound pissed but it's just because of that little fcuker

[piracytheorist]

So, I finished Death Note. Spoilers under the cut!

In a way, the machinations and the thought put behind them by the writers were amazing, and it was great fun to follow along and see how they would fix things.

Of course, the problem is... A bit after the time where Misa, Light and Yagami Sr. were put into detention (and we're certainly not gonna talk about how they completely ignored the psychological impact their detainment should have had on them cause we don't have time to unpack all that.jpg), it felt like the show took a bit of what BBC's Sherlock did some years after it; it presented us the result of Light's and N's machinations, and then they explained what they did.

Like how the fuck am I supposed to think N would've won when they were hiding from us that when Kira's puppet went that time to the bank, it was an unexpected outing and N's henchman was following him, which concluded in the henchman finding the real notebook? It's a bit of a stretch, and a bit annoying, that we weren't given a clue that N would win other than the fact that he's a prodigy. I mean, I don't think the show could've ended with Kira surviving and everyone else dying, pray tell what lesson would that give to the youngsters, but at the same time it felt like they wanted to make N's win such a surprise that we couldn't have deduced it ourselves no matter how prodigious we were ourselves. You can't boast about writing a good mystery/crime show when you're hiding stuff from the audience. And I'm not even saying it didn't look like it was planned, or that it was silly! I do think it was a bit of a stretch, how easily N and his henchmen got access both to the fake and the real notebook that the puppet had, but it does have logic to it.

But I am saying that by hiding those little movements by N, it didn't give us any sight as to how more deeply he was acting and foreseeing. Ok, we get it, he's smart. But the writing behind him is not fair towards an audience that, up until a little while ago, was given enough clues to be able to deduce what each character would do. L was smarter than him; yet we were able to follow along his plans.

Though, I'll be honest, a lot of my befuddlement has to do with the fact that I have no fucking idea what I'm supposed to see in N, cause currently I see a ton of hypocrisy. He stands in the end and tells Light "Oh you're just a mass murderer" and like, I don't think Mr. "I will let the Death Note fall into the hands of actual kidnappers and criminals by not revealing my psychotic brother's identity so that me and him can surpass L, lol" can actually be the judge of that. Matsuda judges Light for how his actions caused his own father's death and like, are we ignoring how N knew who Mello was, had a picture of him, saw him enter his headquarters (which had like four FBI agents inside) and let him walk freely? Cause I think we are.

Surely, I am anarchist af but I don't condone Light's actions; he was seduced by the notebook's power and his own pride, thinking that he could rule the world his own way, as well as the challenge that at first L and later N provided. And of course his actions as Kira eventually led to his father's death... But they weren't the only reason Yagami Sr died, and no I don't mean the latter's refusal to kill Mello on the spot. Part of it was also N's pride and his obsession to surpass L, and like, okay, N and Mello together managed to surpass L... once, by catching and stopping Kira for good. Boy have I got news for you, cause now N is all on his own, has admitted that on his own he's inferior to L... and L looked still quite young before he died, after having solved numerous troubling cases all on his own. Seems like the whole latter part of the story was just to satisfy N's obsession to at least once see himself as better than L. And you know it's not gonna happen again. And yeah, it's a little annoying that the show ended on a theme of satisfying N's obsession. Frankly I couldn't give a fuck, from the first moment he felt like a replacement for L, with all the weird sitting and the compulsion to build towers out of stuff and the weird eyes and the sometimes almost childlike behaviour... so yeah. Couldn't give a fuck, and I am frankly a bit pissed that it was the replacement who got the satisfaction, especially since we know it was a one-time thing and he wouldn't be able to repeat that now that Mello's dead.

That said, I've heard that the live action adaptation Netflix did is a crime against cinema and I'm so ready to hate watch it.