Forum - View topicREVIEW: Death Note DVD Box Set 1
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ParagonDoD
 Posts: 34 |
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Then we're clearly working under different terms (especially if being ambiguous = not announcing a conclusion at the viewer). What does it mean to "explore themes" in your definition of the term?
Then why complain about the moral ambiguity? |
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PJoker
Posts: 4 |
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I'm with all those who says that doesn't understand why to make a review again for a series that you hate.
I really, really hope that Theron Martin ( animenewsnetwork.com/review/death-note/dvd-1 ) or Casey Brienza ( animenewsnetwork.com/review/death-note/dvd-6 ) make a new review and replace this one. Wasn't enough with all the hate that Mr. Carl give to the review of the DVD 3? why to make it again? I really don't understand and I'm sure that the 99% of the readers neither. This is a big/important web and the opinion of the reviews represents the web, so isn't just a subjective opinion, it doesn't more that make the series look bad just because the reviewer seems to have personal issues with the series. I just hope that the editors take a note of this. Of all the reviewers of Death Note ( Theron and Casey for the anime, Zac Bertschy and Briana Lawrence for the manga), Mr. Carl is the only one who seems to make polemic at purpose. As a fan of the series, is disappointing to see this twice (I expect to see this kind of reviews in animenfo, but not en the front page of ANN). |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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I get what you're driving at, but at the same time what you wrote also unintentionally represents a kind of 'about face' that goes on with anime. A show like 'Death Note' had a ton of buzz that was absolutely centered around it being some sort of mature, thought-provoking work (which frankly, that's not what anime is really about for the most part), yet once it's judged as such and found lacking, suddenly the story shifts to 'C'mon, you know it's just a cartoon for teens.' And if it's a cartoon for teens, then some of your follow-up praise (and to greater extent the defensiveness in this thread) doesn't really fit. As you say:
Shonen Jump is entertainment for young teens, often quite angsty and over-wrought (the norm for young teens). But then you go on to describe 'Death Note' as a 'brilliant, dense thriller', or comparable to 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Sweeney Todd'. There's a contradiction here, especially after advising not to take the show to seriously. 'The Third Man' is a brilliant, dense thriller. 'Touch of Evil' is a brilliant, dense, thriller. 'Death Note' is a moody cartoon for teens. 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Sweeney Todd' are appealing to wide audiences over the age of 18, 'Death Note' not so much. Again, this is no means a shot at you, your argument is earnest and better thought than a lot of the crocodile tears in the vicinity; but in general I'm trying to illustrate there's a big disconnect in this 'Take it seriously, don't take it seriously, but take it seriously' argument that crops up around anime. Being fair, that sort of thing crops up around a lot of niche/cult movies as well, anime's not the only culprit in the field. I really like Dario Argento's visual style, and think he's entertaining for a certain audience. However, his works are often heavily marred by problems in the technical direction/production, bad acting, and convoluted writing, but there's no shortage of internet fandom that would put him next to Hitchcock. What anime brings a bit different to the formula is that many fans seem eager to avoid the fact that a lot of the material is aimed at 13-17 year olds. They want to talk about the material as if it were 'really serious stuff', but get pouty when it's pointed out it's actually awfully silly. To me this is much more of a case of a portion of fans needing to lighten up than the reviewer being overly-serious. 'Death Note' is a show that pushes it's psuedo-serious gimmick on the viewer quite regularly, and I found it painfully adolescent to watch, as the reviewer did. I can also understood the segment of anime fans who are very used to the particular genre/style and just enjoy the heck out of the atmosphere, no issue there. But a review is aimed at a general audience (and maybe a big problem in the perception of reviews is that anime doesn't have much of a general audience left, but instead large, hardcore niches, which is a subject for another day), and I would think a general fan sitting down to 'Death Note' would notice the same sort of preening the reviewer did. For hardcore fans who just want their Shonen Jump fix, they most likely already know what their looking for/looking past with the story and the review gives a straight take on the technical merits/aspects. Complaining (in general, not directed at JesuOtaku) that a reviewer took material at the value it was trying to pass itself of as is a bit hollow. I can guarantee if another reviewer wrote a glowing review about how 'Death Note' was a brilliant, adult masterpiece every bit as intense as 'The Wire', most of the fans currently cautioning 'Don't take it to seriously' would be happy to accept the judgment. It's more about bruised internet-geek ego than an overly-critical review. Last edited by Goodpenguin on Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
Could you misunderstand the purpose of a review any more than this? Do you think that when Roger Ebert says "I didn't like this movie" that that means the Chicago Sun-Times' official editorial position is that the movie isn't good? Do you know ANYTHING about what film criticism is? Because this entire paragraph:
Represents such a massive, massive misunderstanding of what reviews are, what they're supposed to be, what the grading system means, how people review things, and how critics are integrated into a publication. You having "expectations" doesn't mean you're being rational or that those expectations are based on reasonable and informed guidelines, or that you actually know what you're talking about.
That doesn't matter at all. If I only published reviews I agreed with then I'd... well, I wouldn't have a decade-long career in publishing, that's for damn sure.
No, I loved Carl's first review. I like this one too. I think it's a unique viewpoint. For the record there are about 1.3 billion places on the internet that you can get some nerd's opinion about Death Note. Most of them say it's better than sex. I liked Carl's take on it and I think he raises some interesting points that don't really get discussed a lot. Notably EVERYONE ELSE on our five-person reviews team has chimed in on Death Note; Bamboo in Shelf Life, Carlo in RTO, Casey and Theron in our full-length reviews section and they've all given different opinions. So it's not like Carl is somehow being given special treatment. Everyone has had a say, and they all fluctuate. You can get all manner of opinion on the show here, and that's just here; don't like Carl's review? Go read one of the billions of other reviews out there and find one that tickles your prostate and then enjoy that one.
That's a total misinterpretation of Carl's review. His basic point is that the show is well-made but the message it sends is irresponsible and shallow and seems to appeal to a particularly immature and increasingly common mindset among sheltered teens raised by the internet. That's a valid point to make. You might not like it, you might not agree with it, but it doesn't make his view on the show any less valid than yours.
You're a ridiculous malcontent who only ever seems to show up on the forums to whine and complain about procedural details and editorial policy, and every time I see your name pop up I know it's going to be some heavy-handed, usually condescending criticism wherein you tell me or other staff members how to do our jobs, what 'real journalism' is, what our reviews policy should be, yadda yadda. So for someone with such an obvious bias, someone who clearly doesn't like this site or what we do here, let me ask you - why should we ever listen to you? All you ever do is bitch. |
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josegodumb
 Posts: 8 Location: deep east oakland,ca |
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Give whoever wrote that a silver dollar because they nailed it on the head. 
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Yes Zac, it's me, as you've no doubt surmised from the good old Minneapolis skyline. Feel free to skip this post, as I apparently never have anything good to say anyway.
I just wanted to congratulate you for your brilliant ad hominem attack. It seems you've been taking lessons from abunai. He seems to think that such attacks are fine so long as they are directed towards fans of Death Note and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. Or is it the other way around, and he learns from you? I notice that you said I have it all wrong, yet you never bothered to set me straight. How am I supposed to learn the errors of my ways if you refuse to set me straight? Anyway, I apologise for not being able to respond in kind, but I don't want to get banned. Something about being polite or other such mannerisms. Stupid rules. I will ask this though (rhetorically, of course, since you probably aren't reading this by now, if you ever were in the first place): Do you have faith in the Encyclopedia? The Death Note Anime has been rated in the top five for a while now, and the Manga hasn't been doing too badly either. Now, one would think that with all the tinkering that Dan42 has put in, the Encyclopedia would hopefully be fairly accurate on a medium to long term basis. If so, then there must be something to this "Death Note" phenomenon that is more than just a passing fad. I mean, surely all of the "emos" (my usage, not yours) who originally loved it have grown up or slit their wrists already. So the people who are left must genuinely enjoy it, right? Well I don't know. Maybe heaps of fans rated it a "Masterpiece" and then carked it, leaving it up there with an artificially high rating. But I would love to learn your opinions either way. Too bad you probably won't humour me, so nevermind. ([Note to myself: read Catcher in the Rye.) |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Okay, here's a question - why didn't you bother to actually respond to any of the things I said? Especially the stuff about you not seeming to have a very good understanding of what a review is and how they fit into a publication like this one as a whole? Do you just not want to deal with it? Do you not have a good response or a decent answer? I'd be happy to respond to your arguments if you'd knock it off with the cartoonish monologuing and just make your points and talk to me like a human being and answer my questions rather than this grandstanding horsesh*t where you try and make it seem like you're either a victim or the wise all-knowing expert whose opinions are crafted from solid gold and because [THIS SHOW] is popular that means you're objectively right. |
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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Carl agrees with you. But, uh, I'm still not understanding your complaint. Carl is giving an overall grade of the series: animation, art, music, writing, direction, concept, et cetera. That's not solely a grade for either the Japanese or English dubs themselves. ANN doesn't give a grade JUST for the dubs alone, for whatever reason.
To explore themes is to present actual examples of ideas that are reflective of real-world situations and/or systems of thought/belief and have them develop over the course of the story. Merely referring to such ideas is not adequate to explore themes and become "deep" -- too many anime fans make this mistake. vashfanatic mentioned Watchmen earlier. That's a very good example of exploring not just authoritarianism, but also consequentialism and deontology. It sets forth examples and see how they interact with each other and the allegorical real world. It examines such consequences, as well as motivations behind those thoughts while offering concluding arcs to the characters that represent such ideologies.
Carl is complaining about Death Note skimming over the surface, rather than plunging straight into the water:
It's not that he's objecting to its presence, but rather than he feels that Death Note doesn't actually do anything with it. (Though I don't see how the series is ambiguous in regards to morals: everything is pretty much black and white in the story.)
Appeal to majority fallacy. Just because something is palpable to the masses doesn't mean that it doesn't suffer under a critical eye, nor does it mean that it necessarily lives up to the acclaim it has gathered. I mean, jeez, I could write a story that involves a young girl being abused by her father, string it out for a few episodes with mawkish, moe-inducing scenarios, and then have her take revenge by shooting him with one of his guns that she found in the heat of another abusive session. There's absolutely no commentary there, no insight at all, and yet some anime fans would lap it up because they think that emotional vicariousness/tragedy porn somehow makes a work "deep." Same thing applies for simply teasing whether or not the kind of mass-murder in Death Note is justifiable. The writers have Light waver on this decision for a moment in the first episode, and thereafter it takes off to only become a convoluted and melodramatic cat-and-mouse game. Yet viewers are hooked by that small bit and the occasional non-sequitor and deem it intelligent. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18247 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Sorry, but both of you apparently either didn't read earlier posts or didn't pay attention to them. Carl got sent the box set by Viz; I didn't, and apparently neither did Casey. That's why he did it and we didn't. There's absolutely nothing more to it than that. Besides, I also did both of the live-action DN movies, so that makes three times I've reviewed the content. While I was initially high on the series, my enthusiasm for it has faded over time, so that's plenty enough DN reviewing for me unless I get sent the series' second half. (I certainly won't be buying it myself.) In fact, I felt the series dropped off so much in its later stages that Death Note won't even make my top series of the year list for 2008. And I'm guessing it won't be on Carl's list, either. 
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konkonsn
 Posts: 172 Location: Illinois |
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You didn't get it straight. I don't expect Ohba to cram his philosophy down our throats. I do expect him to have made up his own mind about his work. If he doesn't know what he's trying to do with this piece, then there will be no guiding hand in the process, and the work will come out sloppy. And so it did. Quote from Death Note 13 in interview with Ohba: Meaning that Death Note is not meant to push an ideology or make a statement about good and evil? "I didn't think about that at all...I understand the series brings up questions of right and wrong, but because the answers to those question always eventually become ideological, I decided from the beginning that they wouldn't be a part of Death Note. It's dangerous, and I don't see it as being interesting in a manga." He's writing a series that deals very much with ideology and is consciously refusing to address the questions it brings up. So yeah, you can call it flat.
I hold Death Note to a different standard because it clearly says, "Hey, this is the real world. These are real people." I know it has Death Notes and Shinigami. But you could write the most blown-out fantasy there is, and if you don't establish that your characters are a farce or symbolic or have grown up in a world where their emotions would somehow be different than a real person's, you better damn well write them like they're a real person. Suspension of disbelief is there for minor things that help the story move along. But since this is Earth 2009 (or 2012...I forget which), there are multiple world police organizations, religious organizations, etc. that would be up in arms about this crap and are noticeably absent from the show.
I don't know why I can't cite Godwin when you clearly pulled one. Try a different example next time (please do; I'm sick of people pulling Nazis out of their butts as if that'll make their argument right) if you don't want to hear it. And, um, moral ambiguity is when right and wrong is unclear. I admit I didn't use it correctly in the sense that I was actually talking about the people themselves seeming to not have a sense of what they believed, but I don't know where you got your definition.
Death Note 13: So the series is meant to be all about enjoying the plot twists and psychological warfare? Ohba: "That's why I'm very happy I was able to tell this story in Weekly Jump. Because it's aimed at the young, you're able to naturally push back ideology and focus on pure entertainment. If the story were aimed at an older audience, they would expect more debate over the issues and therefore it would have to go in that direction."
Yes, because of all the things I've done in my life, judging a famous Japanese cartoon to be poor in certain areas is what I am most upset about. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4621 |
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These would be examples of the "dialogue wankery" I mentioned. They're not "intelligent" at all...they just pile circuitous logic onto circuitous logic until you've wound up spinning round four or five times. No one thinks like that. No one would draw the conclusions that Light expects L to draw. No one would ever try to base any course of action on that sort of "reasoning"...outside of a Looney Tune, maybe.
This is the single dumbest contrivance in the entire series. In anything even remotely resembling the real world, that ridiculous setup would have fired as soon as Light so much as sneezed in his room...which would have left him with nothing more than a burnt-down house. It was about five miles beyond the disbelief I was willing to suspend for the show.
These are what we call "plot contrivances for the sake of the plot." There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but there's nothing inherently intelligent about them either. They happen only because the story demands that they happen to bring Light and L into conflict. And even then, some of these often stretched suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, too. L had no reason on Earth to take any action against Light; in any realistic sense, he appeared as innocent as a newborn babe. (Ha.) And yet he did...because the story needed him to.
Fairly sure I did, but please do.
Ah, so now we're committing unjustified murder just to save a buck. Good to know. And before you spring the death penalty argument on me, as it's implemented right now, the death penalty in the US costs taxpayers nearly as much in legal fees as keeping a prisoner fed and clothed for the rest of his life, thanks to the inevitable myriad of appeals.
Ah, so now we're committing unjustified murder just because it might make other people think twice about becoming criminals themselves (which is the exact same argument often used to justify the real-world death penalty, although statistics tend to be inconclusive or not back it up). And a true maximum-security prison is no "job"...it's hell on Earth. In any case, my whole point in asking that question was to bring attention to the point that the criminals that Light kills are already off the streets and no longer pose a threat to anyone. You can argue nebulous crime rates all you want, but the bottom line is that he's committing murder in cold blood. Killing a violent hostage who's taken over a school? Great. Killing a gang about to rape and murder a woman? Awesome. Killing a career thief who's already behind bars for 20 years? ...no. (Christ, I've turned into GATSU.  )
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Labbes
 Posts: 890 |
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If the "deducing Kira's existence" means the thing where they broadcast a message in a certain region - actually, that has happened in Germany. They know where a murder suspect lives or lived because a certain flyer was only distributed in that area. While it is a little OT, I just found it interesting. |
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Kireek
Posts: 274 |
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I happen to agree with this, In short I dont think the show was terrible but it is one of the most overrated shows ever, 6/10 for me. I only said I liked it to look popular in front of my friends. <<<<this. |
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Shirochan88
Posts: 20 |
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Oh my goodness, too many people are taking this poor man's review far too seriously. He didn't like the series all that much, you didn't like the review very much...oh well. I may not agree with him, but he doesn't deserve to be badmouthed as much as he is here. Sometimes you just kinda have to read/watch/hear something you don't agree with and say, "hmm...oh well, moving on with my life". 
P.S. I can now understand why Zac has the avatar he does, you certainly don't want to get on his bad side, hehe. Love and Peace. 
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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After the latest post of yours Zac, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say and how I was going to phrase it. After rejecting all the drafts with a cathartic amount of swearing in them, all the wordy drafts appealing to your better nature, the risky but tongue-in-cheek drafts, I finally decided what I wanted to say. Here it is.
You claim that I do not address your points even as you pretend my own points and questions do not exist. If you do mention them, it is only to dismiss them without giving anything concrete in return. Twice now you have attacked me instead of the points I raised. To put it bluntly, I believe you are trying to bait me into - pardon the expression - "going off my rocker", thereby giving you the perfect excuse to not only claim a moral victory but ban me. You've banned people for less. So for the time being, I'm walking away from posting in this thread. Not because I am scared of you, or because I cannot handle the pressure of single-handedly debating against three people at once. Not even because I concede defeat; I most certainly am not. I'm walking away for the foreseeable future because I'm refuse to lose my temper and get banned over this. I love Death Note, I detest this review, and I think your position is wrong and absurd. Your attitude is only making it worse. However, I have decided that I'd rather stick around than hold the moral high ground and yet be banned. It's just not worth it. I'm no Gandhi; I have a feeling not many people are. Good night to you. P.S. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. And yes, I just typed the previous sentence with a straight face. I do not find it a laughing matter. |
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