Light Deserved to Lose | Death Note's Near Arc is (Technically) Perfect

death note is arguably one of the most successful anime of all time it doesn't just have its one and a half seasons of content adapted from the 108 chapters of manga but also light novels movies no not that one video games live action adaptations musicals and re-releases of every single thing possible look at this all in one book look at the jonker so safe to say it's quite the well-loved series sitting at number one in terms of popularity but death note has a blemish on this otherwise quite spotless record the thing we never talk about and can only speak of in hushed tones in the dark corners of the anime world like a shitty weeb voldemort the final arc safe to say it's very harshly receded swapping most of the elements that made the first 25 episodes so good for much less desirable ones plot character and mood nothing was quite safe in the time skip to a post l world it's easy to chalk it up to terrible characters boring plot notes or a bad adaptation but what if all of this hate was somewhat intentional what if it's technically a better ending than something more enjoyable may have been and that's what we'll be exploring here today the question of is this ending however terrible it may be to watch the actual perfect ending to death note i want to start this off by reaffirming something i don't enjoy the near arc of death note it is much worse than the previous episodes and that's not just because i hated light and didn't want to see him win or because i loved ellen now he was gone but because i think the transition lost a lot of the key elements that made for the just pure enjoyability of the l arc not only this is where i'd say despite these we have something else to talk about so let's move on but we can't quite do that today because those changes are the very things i'll be defending here but i want to make it clear i'm not saying these are good changes that made the show better or that i liked watching the final episodes i'm simply going to be looking at the relevant changes and seeing if they actually fit death note better that is if they forward the ideas of the original episodes the themes or if in the context of the entire series create a technically more complete experience one thing i won't be defending however is the ever terrible presence of limited time the step down from 25 to 12 gives mellow near and new light nowhere near near enough time to be as likable or developed as the originals were but despite this i think there's much more to the story even if this very likely had an influence on the final product just something to keep in mind as we move forward it's no secret that light takes you could say quite a different role after elle's death now a full-blown member of the cure task force and acting under the moniker of his former rival he's much less free to move around and commit his crimes directly pre-l he was directly and personally involved in almost every aspect of his plan however he personally deals with ray penbar and his wife naomi he befriends his rival l in order to advance his goals even when he's doing nothing thrown in a jail cell it's just kira light using the more idealistic regular light to defeat l this is part of what makes the game 4d chests between light and l so satisfying it's very personally involved for the best example of this think of the tennis game something that on the surface looks normal to everyone watching but each of them in their own head knows what it really means at the end of the day everything came down to the bitter rivalry between these similar friends where every single act was a bid to move three steps ahead of someone who was already three steps ahead this doesn't discount outside involvement however with the task force and misa things got more complicated for everyone's favorite god complex specifically light having to deal with his worst nightmare a liability however much he uses misa it always comes back to one reason she due to rem's love had him between a rock and a hard place his original plan was just to have her kill l with her shinigami eyes and then dispose of her but this was made moot by ram's watch she was somewhere between a disposable tool and a cinder block tied to his ankle however she sticks around just like many characters and that gives us a segue to look at light's actions post l from the ones deeply involved and personal actions that light took we now see a very different man one who doesn't confront his rival headon because he knows he'll just win in the end anyway one who has spokesman and spokeswoman spreading the good word of kira one who doesn't even commit his actions himself anymore but instead passes those duties on to loyal subjects he was always cocky and arrogant but it's very safe to say those traits have shifted a little bit rather than manipulating situations or people with his head now he uses his heart and status misa and takeda are both women who believe light genuinely deeply loves them and is only using the other one he must only really love them and not the other one and although mikami isn't manipulated by romantic love he is by unconditional and faithful love the love given to someone who validates your existence with their actions who makes you feel right and powerful where you once were not and his manipulations aren't the only change as these shifts in character take over all he does and that's mostly nothing for 12 episodes he sits behind a computer talks to people a lot and writes much less dramatically he's more of a watcher than anything else with his agents acting for him while he sits back and has a laugh to himself confident in his genius now all of these actions make him much less likable and generally do create a weaker sense of involvement however remember what he says once he kills ellen this isn't the build up anymore it's the real deal with five years of nothing standing in his way light almost undeniably is the god of this new world so aren't his actions actually quite fitting for someone who thinks of themselves as a god in monotheistic terms god generally doesn't come down and address humanity directly but instead sends out agents to commit his actions and enforce his will the people to spread his words to the others and the non-believers alike these are people chosen based on love faith and devotion people who believe they are the righteous of humanity sent to do god's bidding to perform his will and they find much validation in these tasks does this sound familiar at all after watching death note well they're less involved less dramatic and craft a weaker experience light actions in respect to his character the godhood he believes himself to have achieved are quite flawlessly written i by 100 that light's god ego influenced his decisions in this second arc of death note and with no direct callouts or obvious nods at least up until the very ending where he basically says i should win because i'm god just a distinct shift in character that can be unpacked quite simply and that we know leads to his downfall and although we know and see he isn't a god he believes this to the core that he is now the world is his and it's only fitting that he behaves as a god would dealing his biddings through those with faith in him and this brings us to a nice second point the few things that he does alone and how they work out remember when light was against l and he would take actions not just thinking of the direct consequences but thinking of how l would think of the consequences how he would respond and then how l would think of them again and try to avoid performing any action that would cast doubt on him from his very suspicious rival even if it made his short term life easier he waited to kill ray penbar knew he couldn't get rid of l once he revealed himself and even trusted himself to get the death note back after giving it up sure he made missteps early on but he learned from them and figured out just what he was up against and by the end he was playing literal gods to become one himself it's safe to say he was close and his future was looking quite bright as a near unkillable killer but then things changed to put it bluntly light got stupid he gives away the fact that kira is part of the task force immediately to mellow confirms near suspicions by launching an assault right on the heels of near's testing him and picks an agent based on recorded and discoverable footage and that's not even the half of it nir knows right away that light is kira he simply spends his time gathering the tools to reveal the evidence it's a major downgrade from the crime drama god light once was but again quite fitting for a man who firmly believes himself to be such a god near is the first challenge light faces in five years like has been in control of the biggest threat to him acting as the very man who was once the only one that had a chance of stopping him this has been his sunday in the creation of the world he's resting now content with the world crafted under his hands given his reliance on others this go around and the time that's passed with no threat it's fitting that light gets so sloppy in his final turns the world even accepted kira as far as he knew no one would challenge him again at l's caliber or even below it at its most basic imagine someone who wholeheartedly sees themselves as god would anyone challenge them that could do something over thousands of years no religion has ever seen a god challenged and removed so why should he be scared of that gods have no need for such worries an egomaniac who achieved his goals he was free to do as he pleased with no need to stay sharp and hone his once great skills typical structure says characters should grow but here we only see regression it's very dissatisfying watching someone once great turn to such a weak person the very antithesis to how light viewed his change once again a much less enjoyable story to watch but one endlessly becoming of the man light shaped himself into and this is finally a section of the video i don't have to preface with even though it's bad followed by something else that's because we're going to be talking about light's death now after 12 episodes of technically perfect albeit rather unenjoyable anime we get a rather good 10 minutes or so of watching lights downfall and really there's no way this could have ever ended and it's quite a humiliating defeat for a supposed god brought to his knees not by a man but a mere child one playing with toys the whole time in a quite fitting way for how he dealt with light one who knew from the very start who he was and fittingly the final nail in the coffin inherited by his most loyal follower the crucial detail being mikami killing takado with the real note when light had already done the job this is forgive the pun again near perfect light legit stepped up his game for the finale nier openly admits that light would have gotten them if it wasn't for mikami's misstep he used his own perceived weakness and clumsiness having mikami appear to be openly killing and living his normal life quite unguardedly as a way to lull the ear and company into a false sense of victory it made sense it made sense that someone who was acting for kira and not kira would slip up and give them away but it was too late because god had already picked his agents blind faith provokes actions specifically in one-sided relationships like they had we can even see this in real life with people acting on something because they believe a higher power needs it but they are chosen and able to interpret that will and this god is perfect so everyone must be shown the way this is for the good of the world mikami is this man for light and he sees the need to act outside of his god's direct will to keep him safe basically light was too good at personifying himself as a god because a follower thought it was necessary to interpret his will as one would do with an actual god all the while light's unaware of this believing his plan to be perfect holding back his mad laugh and taunting near openly as he thinks he's achieved his plan to continue his stint as an unkillable god so i'd say it's pretty fitting but a symptom of being a god is the thing that brings down this god and now we get to the actually perfect part of death note and that's light's actual death at ryuk's hands he does exactly what he said he would do way back when and in what many may consider a boring twist of events this means that nothing that ever happened really ever mattered anyway all of this in quite a meta way was just entertainment for ryuk like it was in reality for us just someone bored of his world who wanted to have some fun for once and find it he does from someone who tries to take the very title rio colds at any moment this death god could have looked on and said enough is enough and ended the whole ordeal had he not been so bored kira would never have existed and he always held the fate of that existence in his hands anyway so once again there really was no other way for things to conclude just light running scared from his loss like a child who fell down and got hurt looking sympathetic for the first time in a long while and ryuk detached and far away simply claiming the prize that he had controlled from day one light beginning and ending as nothing more than a man no matter what happened in between anyway that's all i have to say about death note for now it's certainly one of the most interesting anime out there one of the best although it does have this blemish tacked on to the end however this is something that i had a lot of fun doing going and looking at that blemish putting the magnifying glass to it and seeing if we could find something better out of it and although it wasn't enjoyable i do genuinely believe that if for speaking in technical terms in terms of light's character and giving him the most fitting ending i think it's just about perfect in that respect so i stand by calling it a technically perfect ending despite it being rather unenjoyable but anyway i should uh stop rambling about the anime and start rambling about generic youtube plugs at the end of the video uh if you're new and like this video consider subscribing to stick around for more anime content just like this and like the video you'll be seeing on screen here if you left it leave a like so i know you liked it know to make more leave a dislike if you didn't and leave a comment down below letting me know what you thought of the video your favorite part of death note anything you want to put down there so we can get a nice community discussion going because that is one of the best parts of doing this but anyway i'll stop rambling oh wait link to my discord down in the description as well i forget to plug that sometimes but it's a good place to reach me talk about some other anime fans get some slightly early previews of topics as i rant madly at 1am and different things like that and wow now i'm really rambling in this outro you can tell that i talk too much and forget to breathe still rambling anyway wow i'll just stop there and say thank you for watching and i hope i'll see you again soon hopefully i'll learn how to do a [ __ ] outro by then

Channel: ProfessorViral

Views: 70,332

Keywords: anime, manga, otaku, cosplay, shounen, shonen, seinen, discussion, weeb

Id: snv6t5I9RzE

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020