[Manga] Various Death Note thoughts
Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuuagoI promised some Death Note thoughts, as I recently finished reading the series. My brain's a little mush, but I do want to jot some things down while it's still relatively fresh, so some point-form thoughts below.
- This series has been very popular for a while, but I'd never read it before. I wanted to see what the fuss was about, even though I'm coming in kind of late. Very slowpoke.jpg I suppose you could say.
- I actually read the first 2 volumes or so last year, but dropped it for a bit because my attention was wandering. I picked it up again because manga is good to read when it's too warm out to think, to be honest.
- Really love the premise. I can see why people like this series so much. The concept alone is very appealing, especially for the target audience I think. The whole idea of the Death Note, the moral dilemmas, the implied "What would you do if you had it?" and so on. Yeah.
- Sometimes I found the logic a little difficult to follow. "If I do X, he'll think I'm Kira. So I will do Y, and then -" and all that stuff. After a while my eyes just started glazing over at some of that stuff and I'd skim to move onto the next thing.
- I really enjoy L as a character. Love his design, love how determined he is, love his weird everything. He might not be a straightforwardly good person, but that makes him interesting too.
- Light can eat glass, though. Can't stand that dude.
- It's actually kind of frustrating because the concept of the relationship between L and Light and the whole identity thing, the cat-and-mouse game (which is the cat and which is the mouse?) is so theoretically interesting to me, but in practice I dislike Light enough that I don't enjoy their relations half as much as I otherwise would. Kind of a weird place for me to be.
- I've never been particularly into the whole "handcuffed together" trope, but for some reason I like it a lot more the way it was done here, with the long chain connecting L and Light. Maybe having (somewhat) more freedom of movement is what makes it more interesting to me? ...Plus all the potential it offers for fanwork - I bet fandom dined out on that real good.
- Though I can't help but wonder how the hell they managed practical everyday things while handcuffed together. Like showering and going to the washroom and whatnot. But see above about fandom dining out on it, probably.
- Speaking of the handcuffs, I saw a tumblr post that said it's too bad that this wasn't played for comedy more, and u know wat, I really agree. (Perhaps fandom delivers?)
- I had some vague osmosis about spoilers related to L's death, so I wasn't as disappointed when that happened as I might otherwise have been, but I was still pretty disappointed. I did like Near, though. Sure, he's not L - but on the other hand, he's aware that he's not L and never could truly be L, if you know what I mean? Somehow that makes a difference.
- I wasn't into Mello so much, though. Theoretically he should've been up my alley, but the whole thing where he can't keep chocolate out of his mouth for five seconds was kind of a turnoff. Plus, dude's kind of a nut.
- However, the whole... Thing going on between Mello and Near was pretty interesting, especially toward the end. The whole thing where Mello made his decision - that one panel in particular, when he has his head in his hands and he knows what he has to do - and Near is aware that he did all this, and clearly has some feelings about it - I found all that compelling.
- I can see why people ship Mello/Matt. Like, yeah Matt only has a handful of scenes, but there's enough to work with and you could spin it into an interesting relationship if you took the time to. And Matt's fashion sense is on point (or terribad depending on your taste). Deffo can see the appeal.
- The series ending was satisfying. Like, it was a very good ending. It all tied up really well. Light's end was pretty dramatic, but also really fitting. I thought it all worked out well.
- Unrelated to Death Note per se, but the fact that this series and Hikaru no Go share an artist kind of boggles me. Such very different stories! ...Speaking of which though, I never did read Hikaru no Go, even though I wanted to for years. Maybe I'll tackle that series next, though I'll need to interlibrary loan it.
Tl;dr I found Death Note solidly all right. Not my favourite series ever, but I can see why it was so popular, and I did enjoy reading it and would in fact read more if there was more (I've already read the Short Story collection). Maybe I'll check out the anime too? Who knows!
- This series has been very popular for a while, but I'd never read it before. I wanted to see what the fuss was about, even though I'm coming in kind of late. Very slowpoke.jpg I suppose you could say.
- I actually read the first 2 volumes or so last year, but dropped it for a bit because my attention was wandering. I picked it up again because manga is good to read when it's too warm out to think, to be honest.
- Really love the premise. I can see why people like this series so much. The concept alone is very appealing, especially for the target audience I think. The whole idea of the Death Note, the moral dilemmas, the implied "What would you do if you had it?" and so on. Yeah.
- Sometimes I found the logic a little difficult to follow. "If I do X, he'll think I'm Kira. So I will do Y, and then -" and all that stuff. After a while my eyes just started glazing over at some of that stuff and I'd skim to move onto the next thing.
- I really enjoy L as a character. Love his design, love how determined he is, love his weird everything. He might not be a straightforwardly good person, but that makes him interesting too.
- Light can eat glass, though. Can't stand that dude.
- It's actually kind of frustrating because the concept of the relationship between L and Light and the whole identity thing, the cat-and-mouse game (which is the cat and which is the mouse?) is so theoretically interesting to me, but in practice I dislike Light enough that I don't enjoy their relations half as much as I otherwise would. Kind of a weird place for me to be.
- I've never been particularly into the whole "handcuffed together" trope, but for some reason I like it a lot more the way it was done here, with the long chain connecting L and Light. Maybe having (somewhat) more freedom of movement is what makes it more interesting to me? ...Plus all the potential it offers for fanwork - I bet fandom dined out on that real good.
- Though I can't help but wonder how the hell they managed practical everyday things while handcuffed together. Like showering and going to the washroom and whatnot. But see above about fandom dining out on it, probably.
- Speaking of the handcuffs, I saw a tumblr post that said it's too bad that this wasn't played for comedy more, and u know wat, I really agree. (Perhaps fandom delivers?)
- I had some vague osmosis about spoilers related to L's death, so I wasn't as disappointed when that happened as I might otherwise have been, but I was still pretty disappointed. I did like Near, though. Sure, he's not L - but on the other hand, he's aware that he's not L and never could truly be L, if you know what I mean? Somehow that makes a difference.
- I wasn't into Mello so much, though. Theoretically he should've been up my alley, but the whole thing where he can't keep chocolate out of his mouth for five seconds was kind of a turnoff. Plus, dude's kind of a nut.
- However, the whole... Thing going on between Mello and Near was pretty interesting, especially toward the end. The whole thing where Mello made his decision - that one panel in particular, when he has his head in his hands and he knows what he has to do - and Near is aware that he did all this, and clearly has some feelings about it - I found all that compelling.
- I can see why people ship Mello/Matt. Like, yeah Matt only has a handful of scenes, but there's enough to work with and you could spin it into an interesting relationship if you took the time to. And Matt's fashion sense is on point (or terribad depending on your taste). Deffo can see the appeal.
- The series ending was satisfying. Like, it was a very good ending. It all tied up really well. Light's end was pretty dramatic, but also really fitting. I thought it all worked out well.
- Unrelated to Death Note per se, but the fact that this series and Hikaru no Go share an artist kind of boggles me. Such very different stories! ...Speaking of which though, I never did read Hikaru no Go, even though I wanted to for years. Maybe I'll tackle that series next, though I'll need to interlibrary loan it.
Tl;dr I found Death Note solidly all right. Not my favourite series ever, but I can see why it was so popular, and I did enjoy reading it and would in fact read more if there was more (I've already read the Short Story collection). Maybe I'll check out the anime too? Who knows!
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2025-07-24 02:53 am (UTC)I love the art style. Hikaru no Go has a different author, but the author who did Death Note collabbed with the artist on a couple other series, Bakuman and Platinum Angel, both of which I also liked.
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Date: 2025-07-24 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-24 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-24 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-26 11:44 am (UTC)I think fandom definitely had fun with the handcuffs, though unfortunately, Light/L is a hard NOTP for me, so it's not something I could ever enjoy the results of, ha.
The whole thing where Mello made his decision - that one panel in particular, when he has his head in his hands and he knows what he has to do - and Near is aware that he did all this, and clearly has some feelings about it - I found all that compelling.
Yes!
no subject
Date: 2025-07-27 02:01 am (UTC)Which pairings were you into? :V
no subject
Date: 2025-08-02 12:12 pm (UTC)To answer your question—honestly, Death Note has never really a big "fannish" kind of canon for me, but what fannish energy I did/do have is directed towards Misa! Particularly alternate, non-Light ships for her, with Misa/Rem being the most obvious example.