Death Note question

M

Miss Coffee

New member
Let me first say that this is no attempt at trolling-

I have been hearing so many people praise Death Note, and frequently see it top lists of best animes. I watched the series, and was very unimpressed with many aspects of it. Since I have heard so many good things about it, I can't simply shrug off the opinions of what seems like the majority of the anime community-- I feel like I must be missing something. So, my question is:

What does everybody love about Death Note? What makes it stand out that might have gone over my head?

Any answers would be greatly appreciated!
 
Well, I'm easily impressed but the story is what I liked. It kept me interested and I really wanted to find out what would happen next. I can agree that it got kind of slowed down near the end, but I think that's because they killed off the best character. Overall, I really liked it, but I can see how it might not be for everyone.
 
Though it's not my favorite anime of all time, I'd say it's maybe in my top 10, it was just very unique. It was an incredibly witty crime drama with supernatural aspects which was something you haven't really seen before. I loved seeing what it was like when 2 geniuses battle each other.
 
Well, if you didn't like it then you didn't like it. No one here is going to convince you to like it, but it's interesting that you're asking what people who enjoyed it were thinking when they watch it.

For me much of the initial appeal of the show was how many things it did differently, some small things like how Light's true strength was his enormous brain rather than enormous muscles, a pretty rare quality in your average anime lead characters. He's much more akin to someone like LeLouche from "Code Geass", a guy who is truly dangerous not because he could beat you in a fight but because he can plot a decisive strategy to end you. He exemplified this quality early on with some minor cleverness, like how he hid the death note in his drawer in such a way that if it were discovered it would start a fire that would destroy it thereby keeping his identity safe, and later on when he took care of a nosey female former detective when he realized she knew too much. His weapon suited his greatest strength perfectly, and it was fun watching him explore and demonstrate it's potential.

The serious does weaken considerably in the second half, as if the writer used up all his best ideas early on and couldn't hope to top them before the series reached it's end.

Oh, and the end was pretty satisfying, too.

"Death Note" is not without it's faults, not by a long shot, but when it was good it was so good that the rest of it was pretty forgivable.
 
The second season really put down on what the first one was trying to build. Which is why Death Note is not even all that great on my radar. I didn't like the ending either.
 
I found it really entertaining, and thought it was quite a nail-biter at times, but too often I rolled my eyes at events that miraculously worked out for one person or another. They seem to pile on the pressure, or excitement, and when you think one thing could happen, something else does. For pure entertainment this is a good thing, but my eyes started to hurt from all the rolling.

Overall a very good and exciting anime though. But when you don't like something, you just don't like it. I don't see the appeal of magical girl anime, but others love it. It's all left up to personal taste.
 
A lot of people like death note because its just well publicized.
the manga was successful, the anime was successful, they both made a lot of money, and are basically as mainstream as you can get bar naruto/dbz/etc
However death note presents itself very well. while it was dragged out its length is compact compared to that of many other series of its level of fame, and it had strong
scripts with an intelligent approach.

when dumb people watch something intelligent/something they think to be intelligent, they feel smart, then they like it. then they praise it
as far as mainstream crap death note isnt that bad imo. it was rather unique.

But everyone knows about it, it fitted in well with the whole emo-craze in a lot of countries, and anything involving death is going to be popular with angsty teenagers
hope that gives you my understanding of why death notes so popular
 
Thanks everybody-- I wanted to add that I didn't think it was terrible, I just didn't see what the hype was about.

I think my problem with the show arose from high expectations. These responses definetly helped me see how people could enjoy it- and I may revisit it sometime. I just found it hard to enjoy the story because I couldn't really get past the arbitrary rules of the universe that the story took place in. It seemed to me that all the laws of the Death Note had no place other than to serve the purpose of the narrative.

I know this is a no-no when judging a narrative, but I also couldn't help but imagine the different directions that the story could have ( and in my opinion ) should have gone. Within the first few minutes of the first episode I was hoping for a character study about a person who slowly goes mad with power. Instead Light makes the jump from normal to insane immediately. I also feel like they could have done some very interesting things regarding morality, but instead Light's desire to rid the world of evil was simply played off as evil itself. I just found it kind of two-dimensional.

This third complaint may be totally irrelevant because I watched the English dubbed episodes, but the dialogue was pretty bad. I'm sure in its original form this may not be the case, but lines like "Death Note... as in notebook of death?" were just very silly to me. The dialogue also spelled out every single little detail of the story, making it feel like I was being talked down to. For a series that I heard was supposed to make you think, they spent too much time explaining things that an average viewer could infer.


I just thought I should elaborate on my thoughts to any fans of the show who might read my post and demand explanation, haha

Thanks again for the replies
 
I suspect that you're over thinking this quite a lot since you're obviously right, the rules of the book are exactly that, servants to the narrative. If simply writing anything in the book resulted in the desired effect then the story would be pretty dull. If anytime Light encountered an obstacle and he could just jot down whatever he liked and kill the intended target then there would be no suspense. Not only that but it literally lays the foundation of the rules of the universe so that the viewer (or reader if you read the manga) was able to keep up and make predictions of their own. The author even makes a point of challenging those predictions from time to time, which is a fun game to play with your viewers.



I'll have to straight up disagree with you here. Light's progression into self delusion and madness is a pretty gradual one. He does have momentary lapses throughout the first act but I think they're pretty believable ones. When L challenges him on national television he reacted about as well as I expected him to since up to that point he'd be outwitting everyone and was calling himself a god. Then some guy he doesn't know makes a fool of him on live TV and he can't "punish" him because he doesn't know their face. He was understandably upset given the circumstances. These lapses faded as he learned from his mistakes, and I don't think he really starts going loony until the second season.



"Death Note's" English dubbing is revered for it's delightful badness, as this clip demonstrates beautifully. You always take a gamble when you opt for the English dubbing first as it's pretty rare when it equals the original ("Trigun") and even rarer when it improves upon it ("Cowboy Bebop").
 
Thanks, KT. I know now that I definetly had the wrong frame of reference for my first viewing (and that I'll have to find the sub episodes next time I have the time to give it another go).
 
Well I can't speak for others, but what I liked about it was the fact that it wasn't afraid to show people humanity at its best and worst, simultaneously. It makes you think; what would happen if a human being really got a hold of something as powerful as the Death Note? Would we use it? Should we? Is it right, or wrong to pass judgement and kill others, like a God? That's a huge debate among people who have watched the show, and/or read the manga.

In Death Note, the lines between evil and good were very blurred. Some thought Light Yagami was doing the right thing, while others hated him for it. I found it interesting, and a change from the norm.
 
Back
Top