Just bumping because I just watched all of Death Note in the last 1 1/2 week. Man, it was a great series. I honestly think the opening 5-10 episodes were only OK, but it really picked up and I loved it.
I’m not yet sure if I think it declined a bit when L died. I can definitely see people thinking so, but I was still very into it and liked Near a lot as well(he was basically identical to L I guess).
The ending was solid, but not incredible. I like what happened for the most part and I do not think I could think of another ending myself.
Do we all think that his girlfriend was preparing to suicide-jump during the epilogue?
I really like the ending because as with much of the series, it is not such a clear triumph over Light. Light very nearly wins.
[spoiler]Mikami makes a reasonable error which is arguably not an error at all. He assumes that Light cannot act and kills Takada. And he is very nearly right, Light himself remarks that he is only able to kill Takada because they left him unobserved in the back seat of the car. It is only this event which allows the real notebook to be replaced.
It does make me wonder. What would have happened if Light could not have killed Takada and Mikami has followed orders and not done anything. Takada gets taken by the police. They find her scrap of the notebook. There’s no way she talks.
Would the meeting still happen? If the meeting still happens, then Light wins. Mikami kills everybody (except Light). Then they kill Takada. And Light very likely killed Mikami.
[/spoiler]
I’ve often wondered the same thing about Misa. I think on my first viewing, I thought so, but on subsequent viewings I don’t but I still do wonder.
I love the scene near the end with the two Lights passing each other.
It is fairly brief but as Light runs another “Light” (the same from the 1st episode) is headed the other direction. This seems to be in Light’s mind, since of course there cannot be a second Light, and Light reacts to seeing the other Light. To me I’ve always taken this to be symbolic of the Light who could have been if he had not taken or used the Death Note. In my mind it also strengthens that this was Light’s choice. He is no victim and Light knows this, which is why he conjures the hallucination.
The link below is the start of the scene. The cross at 18:15.
I enjoyed Death Note years and years ago but there was always something that bothered me. Perhaps I’m mis-remembering, but L and the authorities figured out reasonably early on that Light needed names to kill people and was regularly killing criminals on his crusade. And yet, nobody stepped up and said “hey, maybe we shouldn’t publish the names of criminals for anyone to see, or at least use aliases until we get this all figured out”. Am I just remembering things incorrectly, or was that a bizarre oversight?
They discuss do that in Episode 6. Matsuda suggests that they could reduce the number of victims by not making the name and faces of criminal public. L states that if they do this they would put the “general public at risk” as Kira is “childish and hates losing.” He concludes that since Kira meets “any challenge head on” that if they “choose to withhold the names of your worst criminals”, Kira will “kill petty criminals or the innocent.”