Forum - View topicDeath Note dub and its [adult swim] broadcast.
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Well, I just watched the newest episode of Death Note without being half-passed out and...
...the fun is over. No fun 4 U. Ha ha. 
The series becomes infinitely more complicated and less involving from this point on in the manga and the tone of the anime thus far reflects that. Seriously, I enjoyed the episode if for no other reason that it was more fun to listen to the internal monologues of "let's figure this out" from the characters than it was to read them. Slogging through the back half of the manga was excruciating, and this was not. Mello's dub voice does not work, I have to agree. I just expected a more boyish eccentricity, not a voice which has nothing to do with L's persona at all. He sounds like a cocky teenager, only without the suave cackling charisma of Brad Swaille as Light. I'm disappointed. I think Near is just fine. Good voice that isn't feminine but inhumanly ghostly for a child. I'm okay with it. Neither can take the place of Alessandro Juliani as L. Mello is stereotypically cocky, and Near is monotone. L had a wonderful lilt and cold carelessness to his voice combined with a more human touch. These guys just sound like comic book characters, as could be said of most of this cast now. I miss him already. Oh! Oh! And....and...THEY PUT THE "MELLO" IN MELODRAMATIC with ZOMG! SLOW-MOTION CHOOOOOCOLATE BITING! 
And...Light hits another new low by spoiler[killing the NPA director to avoid hostage trouble and continuing to ignore Misa like some hormone-less demon-possessed freak of nature.] |
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MorwenLaicoriel
 Posts: 1617 Location: Colorado |
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Even though I liked Near's voice, and I'm one of the few Death Note fans that kinda likes the second half...I have to agree. Juliani just...really, really made the dub. I'm hoping he comes back to do another Ocean dub soon. |
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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After finishing the episode, I came to the conclusion that the statements from just about everybody that the 2nd half of Death Note is garbage are completely overblown. I didn't even notice a slim drop in quality, in regards to the story; in fact, I thought that it got better because now there's three parties involved, and Light has to handle 2 of them at a time, instead of just 1.
I don't see Near and Mello as lesser versions of L, I see that they're the 2 extreme ends of L. Near is like a brick wall(though that doesn't mean he has no personality), Mello gets over-emotional and L is somewhere in between; which is why he was the chosen one over Near and Mello. I actually like Mello and Near more than I ever liked L. If I had to pick one, I'd pick Mello by a slim margin because of his chocolate eating habits. 
Also, the new tracks that were introduced in this episode are awesome. 
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BellosTheMighty
 Posts: 767 |
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Well, that's part of the problem, really. L was an intricate character, and after he bites the dust he's divided into two characters so extreme as to be caricatures. I didn't mind Near too much, but Mello was a bit much. You're right, though, that's not really the major problem. The problem is, I think, inherent to Death Note's structure- It's essentially a series of intellectual duels, and although each tries to be different, ultimately they all play out about the same way. After a while it gets tedious. The author also isn't completely up to juggling all the characters the plot demands. In the weeks to come Misa becomes more and more irrelevant, Matsuda degrades to comic relief, other characters are simply forgotten, and yet more are introduced to complicate things further. And the fundamental plot never gets more interesting. The series continues to be interesting for a while after L's death, but the best part is pretty much over. And if the anime continues the tradition of making everything overblown and epic beyond epic, well... |
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braves
Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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To be fair, most SJ titles play out the same way. The main character comes up with a new super awesome technique to beat the bad guy and nobody of any great importance on the good side dies. And the ending for most series is predictable as well, the bad guys lose and the good guys win. What's important is how a series gets to that point and I believe that Death Note does a excellent job in executing that.
Oh, come on. You have to admit that it's both hilarious and entertaining. From the potato chips to chocolate, it's all in good fun. Just watching people think is boring, so they had to spice it up to make it more entertaining. |
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BellosTheMighty
Posts: 767 |
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I'm sorry, it just doesn't work for me. Yes it's funny, but it's annoying too, and usually more annoying then funny. And trying to argue that a series being unintentionally funny is intentional is a bit circuitous for my taste. No big deal. I'm through bashing Death Note for the time being. I've moved on to bashing Narutards who cry that the censors are coming because she-Naruto got forced to cover up her Orihime assets. OR at least I was until the thread got locked for extreme fanbabies. (Which was my fault. Sorry.  ;;;;;;;; )
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Oh yeah! Remember I said I enjoyed this episode thoroughly, and I'm a tough critic. Problem is, after about three episodes now, (when Sayu's hostage problem is resolved and Sidoh shows up,) things...get boring and repetitive. BtM is right. Just because Near and Mello have appeared doesn't mean we're at the drop-off yet. On the contrary, it's exciting to see two wild new characters...until you see that they don't develop one bit throughout their series run, unlike L, who was a multi-faceted if enigmatic character. This has nothing to do with "which genius do you like better," but it's a fact that these two are cutouts compared to their predecessor, despite being fun to watch in their puzzle-playing and chocolate-nibbling. I tried to make this vague enough not to need spoiler-tags, but you can expect, vaguely: Misa will soon become irrelevant. As will the NPA boys, save for the Chief who just does one mildly interesting thing later. Mello disappears too soon even for such a shallow character. (Not dies, just become irrelevant.) Comic relief like Sidoh and Matsuda err in without being very funny in context. Near and Light spend a LOT of time talking back and forth to each other without making any surprising moves, (partly because everything Near "discovers" we already know as viewers) and one boring character is introduced alongside one interesting, but shallow as Mello and Near character. That's about the progression without ruining anything... But the end is good! You could almost just skip to the last two or three episodes... |
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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Agreed. It's like Frank Miller's All Star God#### Batman, or Dragonaut's ridiculous breasts, if you take it seriously, you're missing out on a lot of fun. I love the overblown melodramatic shots that the anime makes. Oh, and for the record, I like Near almost, if not more than L, although I was never much of a fan of Mello. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8627 Location: Penguinopolis |
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I enjoyed tonight's episode, though it was probably the least plausible ever, with the plane hijacking, the secret underground lair, and the missile. Really, how would Mello get ahold of things like that? They're good concepts in of themselves, but it just seems like it's very unlikely Mello could do all that, even with mafia ties.
Near's voice seems to be very good. Mello's isn't as good, but it's better than the last episode's performance, at least by a small measure. Next week is spoiler[DADDIES NIGHT]. |
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Cirno
 Posts: 6 |
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ehhhh. I'm not all about seriousness, but the only thing Death Note had going for it, the only thing that elevated it above something mediocre to something really worth watching, was the dynamic between Kira and L, that cat-and-mouse game complicated by their cooperation on the surface of things (and the great thing was, you couldn't tell which one was the cat and which was the mouse.) Mello and Near's characters don't create that same sort of feeling, and so I totally lost interest after L left the scene. Really, it feels like Mello and Near are characters ripped out of totally different series and pasted into Death Note so Light would have someone to fight against for another ten or twelve episodes.
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Wow. I enjoyed this episode way more than I thought I would.
I mean, if I remember the manga correctly, and I'm sure I do, this whole escapade involving Mello and Sayu was very cut-and-dry, this is what's happening, this is what this character is doing to stop it, blah blah blah dryyy. But I liked the touches the anime creators added to the episode. It was good to see Light having spoiler[to face a little of his own humanity in being very conflicted about having to kill his sister. I think if he had been too mechanical about it, as it was in the manga, the episode would have lost even more realism than the series already has, at least in its own characters. Also, his interaction with Misa was pretty good, too. She doesn't get to have any doubts as a character in the manga, and here she's given license for it when he's more abusive to her and shows his true feelings, that he's using her. That and it's fun to see the douche-bag sweat when his plans are foiled both by Mello and subliminally by Near.] Speaking of Near, that rolling dice thing was cool, but they really went a step backward on manga character development by spoiler[showing Near not batting an eyelash when almost all his staff suddenly died. Yeah, the scene was cool, but the manga showed Near visibly concerned that so many had died, and here he doesn't really give a big hang. Even L cringed more humanly than this guy, and Near is supposed to be more concerned with justice than his competitive counterpart. I don't know. Pickiness on my part.] |
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braves
Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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After watching the lastest episode on adultswim.com, I didn't know spoiler[whether to cry for Soichiro's death or hate Light for his greed of wanting his father to write Mello's name in the Death Note, which would have given his father unspeakable pain.
 ]
spoiler[The reason I felt so sad for Soichiro is because he had suffered so much with his son being accused of being Kira and the confinement and L's insistence that Light had to be Kira. At least, in the end, he died thinking that his son wasn't Kira. ]
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JacobC
ANN Past Staff
Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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Well, they definitely cut out some extraneous portions of the manga. Too bad those involved Sidoh, who I was really getting a kick out of. His voice was so funny. Not that he didn't have his moments here: "Chocolate is so gooooood..."
Brad Swaille, although slightly disappointing at first, has proven his mettle as an actor in this episode. Watch it and you'll see why. Dichotomy of a killer and spoiler[acting the part of acting the part of a mournful son. Ulterior motives carried well, there. Kudos.] I actually feel good for spoiler[Soichiro Yagami. Yeah, he died believing his son was innocent, which is ARGUABLY a good thing, but more than that, he died both A) inadvertently foiling Kira's plans and B) continuing to prove himself as the only true man of integrity in the entire show. I mean we've had "good guys" in Matsuda, Near, and of course, L, but no one of such solid moral convictions. In the end, I think, they were more of a help to the case than his downfall. Mello lives, and THAT'S important later on. At least SOMEBODY in this show knows that every life has to be treated with discretion, because everyone's life is important somewhere.] Enough moralistic ranting. I find it funny that Misa is in her underwear sitting on Light's lap in this episode and he's like: "I love you so much" in monotone. And she falls for it. NO, he doesn't, sweetheart, just how stupid are you?
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freezespell
Posts: 127 |
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spoiler[Check.]
spoiler[Check.]
spoiler[I'm pretty sure that Misa's death will come sooner rather than later. She does have the Shinigami eyes after all and this time, no Shinigami to save her sorry ass at the 11th hour.  ]
The beginning of the episode made me wonder how spoiler[Sayu ended up in a wheelchair. Must have been a freak accident or something.] Other than that little bit, I must say that I really admire spoiler[Chief Yagami for sparing Mello's life when Light was really egging him on to kill him.] It reminds me of an episode of Trigun where spoiler[Wolfwood spares Chapel the Evergreen's life but ends up getting killed by the guy whose life he spared.] spoiler[On one hand, I would like to be glad for Chief Yagami for him dying "knowing" that his son wasn't Kira. On the other hand, I think that Light has hit an all-new low, even for him because we all know that motherfucker is Kira.] Hell, he makes Adolf Hitler look like Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama all rolled up into one. And to think, he still believes he's the good guy in all of this. He needs a reality spoiler[check.]
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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The thing with Misa and the shinigami eyes got me at first too, because if her natural lifespan would be, say, 70 years, halved, and halved again would make it about 17-18, right? But here's the thing, she's had not one, but TWO shinigami die in her place, and I think they mentioned at some point that when that happens, their life is transfered to her, so presumably she could have inherited hundreds of years worth of natural lifespan. Also, I don't think they ever made it clear whether they halve your total lifespan, or the remainder. If the former, then without the shinigami sacrifices she'd likely be near death, but if the latter, she'd at least have another dozen years or so, assuming she had a noraml length life before the deals.
That threw me a bit too, since it wasn't discussed, but I assume that the wheelchair, along with her hollow eyes, are the result of traumatic shock from being kidnapped and shot at and everything.
He still is, an anti-hero, at least. He does good work, the only good people that get killed are those who try to stop him. It's really not much different than a cop or a soldier killing someone who commited no other crime than firing upon that officer while he was doing his duty. |
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