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REVIEW: Death Note DVDs 7 + 8


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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:02 am Reply with quote
I like Light because he appeals to the teenager inside me. Like him, I felt (and still do feel) that the world is not as good a place as it could and should be. Like him, I am impatient to see it change for the better. And like him, I constantly wish that it was I that had the means to change it.

You may call this wish-fulfillment if you like. I see it as being the result of a character who is fleshed-out enough - and humanely flawed enough - that many of the audience can see ourselves in him.

As for the nihilism that the series projects, I find it odd to find some complaining about that. Perhaps those who are spiritual or religious are more likely to find the series more distasteful in its portrayal of life, death and what (if anything) lies beyond. What I do know is that I - someone who agrees with Richard Dawkins when he asserts that religion is a mental illness - have no qualms with the nihilism present in the series.

And remember, this is a Shounen Jump title people; you may not find it a Masterpiece, but it was never aiming to be such in the first place. That I consider it (or at least the first two-thirds) a Masterpiece is irrelevant; no-one should be judging this series and expecting it to be perfect. I cannot think of a single Anime that is.

As for the complaints that Light's character doesn't grow, or that the series quickly forgets the moral dilemmas, I consider both (complaints) to be an utter load of you-know-what. But even if the series is guilty of such, I would like to point out the hundreds - nay, thousands - of Anime in which character development and philosophical/moral themes either show up less often (than in Death Note), or are absent altogether.

To single out one series and subject it to drastically greater scrutiny than is usual, just because you don't like it or you hate the characters, is patently unfair and biased. There are plenty of tentacle-rape Hentai featuring "futas" and "scat" that - combined - get less hostility than Death Note. Which makes me wonder what is going on with the general Fandom these days, but whatever.

And that's all I really am going to say about that.



Oh, and DestG7, regarding the contents of that PM you sent me, don't worry about it. I don't mind at all.
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:19 am Reply with quote
I can't believe there's legitimate moral outrage about Death Note. From reviewers! The show, like the manga, was always intended by the author to be a cat-and-also-cat game of wits between one force and another. The moral implications are not important, but it is pretty clear that Light's actions are that of a total asshole, well-intended or not.

As for nihilism, why does nobody object to Cowboy Bebop's Spike or a myraid of other anime whose nihilistic anti-heroes spout lines that lack any productive philosophy of life? Why should we even care? It's a cartoon. Why is it that suddenly everybody's become church marms over this?

If anything, Ryuk's line about people becoming "nothing" is meant to enforce the ending, spoiler[because no matter how great Light thinks he is, he's ultimately nothing. It's the ultimate "screw you" to him. ]

Light doesn't develop? He's not supposed to. You're supposed to find him repellant. The author does. Nobody's arguing differently that was in the production of the manga and anime.

Opinions about the show itself should be seperate than the prevailing opinions of a handful of fans who think Light is cool. Remember, Ohba is just sitting back and watching us debating, laughing.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:35 am Reply with quote
dtm (and penguintruth, for that matter), the only reason that I think that Death Note gets singled out for criticism by so many of us is because of how it presents itself...or better yet, because of how so many of its fans present it. It's constantly being held up as some sort of intellectual tour de force or deep moral debate, when the bare truth is that it's far from either of them. And maybe it wasn't meant to be in the least; maybe all its creators wanted to do was create a fun, imperfect ride with some rather bizarre characters. But that's not how it's sold to general anime fandom, and so when some of us go into it expecting certain levels of quality and finding far less, we can't help but decry those placing it at the top of the totem pole. I know that one of the most frustrating elements of the series for me was how blatantly, inhumanly stupid every character who's not named Light or L has to be in order for the show to work out the way it does. It's one thing to establish your protagonists as geniuses...it's quite another to do so by collectively dumbing down the rest of humanity (particularly almost anyone with two X chromosomes) to an insane degree.

Just to briefly single out one or two of your points (because I'm dead tired and need to sleep), I think the idea of Light changing anything by killing petty crooks who are already in jail defeats any credibility his stance had right off the bat. I'm firmly of the opinion that anyone who sees anything of himself in Light needs to take a good, hard look at their outlook on life. I fully stand by my assertion that the show drops whatever moral quandaries it establishes as swiftly as it can. Not once after episode two or so does Light ever ask himself, "Is this the right thing? Am I justified in doing this? Does going so far as to kill innocent FBI agents, people who fight to stop crime, make me a monster?" It's just all completely and utterly ignored. Hell, I've seen plenty of comparisons of this show and Code Geass, but at least Lelouch brings up the ends-justifying-the-means question throughout that series. And finally, just because there's a crap-load of terrible anime out there doesn't excuse a show that (at least in my mind) had a chance to be something truly special and dropped the ball. It's the fact that it does work with such a different concept from your average shounen title, yet doesn't explore said concept nearly as much as it could have, that ultimately left me disappointed with it.

(And don't get me started on the piece of work that is Richard Dawkins. I know any number of atheists who can't stand him because he's seen as representative of them, which kind of amuses me greatly. Razz)

Edit: penguintruth, the only real problem I have with the nihilism present in Death Note is the amateur and immature way in which it's handled. The whole "nothingness" idea isn't brought up at all until the very last episode, when it's just dumped on the viewer with no build-up or background at all. (And like I said, it contradicted what I thought the show had been leading me on towards for almost its entire run.) And it had no real relevance, either. Everyone goes to nothingness after they die...which has what to do with Light's plan or failure thereof, exactly? It was just some random twist at the end that was either supposed to make one feel sympathetic for Light or laugh at his idiocy...I'm honestly not sure which.

(I'd also argue that Spike's world view in Cowboy Bebop is hardly nihilism as I'm using it here, but even if it was, the glaring difference is that that show handles the theme masterfully.)
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penguintruth



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:59 am Reply with quote
It's important to seperate your own point of view from others'. If I had to judge a show based on its fandom, there'd be a lot missing from my collection.

spoiler[And actually, the nihilism was brought up right away in Death Note. Ryuk tells Light that people who use the Death Note can't go to heaven or hell, hoping to scare him. It doesn't work. But at the end, it's phrased as "people become nothing", which means that all of Light's work, for all of his pomp and arrogance, is nothing. Nothing is anything. Everything up to that point was a diversion for Ryuk. It meant nothing. This must have struck great fear in Light.

Anyway, I don't believe Ryuk was able to get that last bit in as far as the anime version, because it ended differently. Instead, Ryuk wrote Light's name while Light was running around the docks. ]
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Dorcas_Aurelia



Joined: 23 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:07 am Reply with quote
CCSYueh wrote:
Top Gun wrote:

Out of the shows you listed, I've seen very few comments on the harshly negative side of things about Gurren-Lagann, but your point still stands.


Gurren Laggan is over-rated. I have 1 dvd. Someday I'll continue I suppose, but it's not all that like everyone makes it out to be. I really enjoyed Super Robot Wars much more.

While that may be, it hasn't (yet) received the same kind of backlash that shows like Eva, DN, and MoHS have. I've seen people vocally hating those shows, while about the worst I've seen said of Gurren Lagann is "It's overrated."
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 11:06 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
As for the nihilism that the series projects, I find it odd to find some complaining about that. Perhaps those who are spiritual or religious are more likely to find the series more distasteful in its portrayal of life, death and what (if anything) lies beyond. What I do know is that I - someone who agrees with Richard Dawkins when he asserts that religion is a mental illness - have no qualms with the nihilism present in the series.


Ignoring your comment on Dawkins (most atheists I know find him annoying), I'll say that me and like half my friends who are into anime are Christians, and we love Death Note. Heck, if one were to look at the Bible and ignore the whole "God'll see you in heaven" side of it, it's a pretty grim tale. Lots of death, betrayal, etc.

Our stance is the one I think any sane person should have: it's fiction. It doesn't affect the reality of this world. So why get offended?
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 2:50 pm Reply with quote
penguintruth wrote:
It's important to seperate your own point of view from others'. If I had to judge a show based on its fandom, there'd be a lot missing from my collection.

That is very true, and there have been shows in the past whose fanbases I've had to blatantly ignore to enjoy them, but the difference I found with Death Note is that I felt that not only the fanbase, but even the show itself, was promoting that viewpoint. It's a story that's far darker and more mature (at least on the surface) than your average Shounen Jump title, but it's still subject to far too many of the contrivances and plot holes that so often plague such titles. Like I said, I've heard quotes by the original author/artist suggesting that that may have been all they were going for, but I almost feel like they drifted just far enough away from that setup where those tropes go from accepted to detrimental. I feel like it's trying and failing to be something it's not while saying that it's not trying to be that, which I think is the very dichotomy that left me feeling so indifferent about it in the end.

(I find it slightly ironic that there are many people out there, and maybe even me somewhat, who have the same issue with the show whose icon you're sporting. Razz)

Quote:
spoiler[And actually, the nihilism was brought up right away in Death Note. Ryuk tells Light that people who use the Death Note can't go to heaven or hell, hoping to scare him. It doesn't work. But at the end, it's phrased as "people become nothing", which means that all of Light's work, for all of his pomp and arrogance, is nothing. Nothing is anything. Everything up to that point was a diversion for Ryuk. It meant nothing. This must have struck great fear in Light.

Anyway, I don't believe Ryuk was able to get that last bit in as far as the anime version, because it ended differently. Instead, Ryuk wrote Light's name while Light was running around the docks. ]

spoiler[I do remember that line from the beginning of the series, but I never once took it to represent a nihilist viewpoint until the very end of the show. In fact, like I said above, I was operating under the ongoing impression that those who use the Death Note on Earth wind up becoming shinigami themselves when they die. That would have fit precisely in with the "not going to heaven or hell" motif, and I think it would have been wonderfully ironic to see those who use such an unearthly power for their own ends wind up fated to the same eternal drudgery as those who gave them that power in the first place. I can't remember if Ryuk actually said the "nothingness" line in the last episode, though I do know that the eyecatch at the end of the commercial break revealed it.]
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PJoker



Joined: 10 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 3:18 pm Reply with quote
jr0904 wrote:
DestG7 wrote:
Unfortunately, Death Note is one of those
Quote:
immensely popular and highly-regarded series
with truly divided opinions, along with Neon Genesis Evangelion, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan or Code Geass to name a few. Series of wich, as you say, both positive and negative points can be heard equally. From masterpiece to overrated shit...


Not quite.Sure i can agree about some series being overated but there's brealy any,and death note isn't.

I agree strongly.

Back to the REVIEW-discussion.

Good review! Death Note is a great series and these are the weakest episodes of its entire run.
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RogueJedi86



Joined: 18 Aug 2006
Posts: 501
PostPosted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:43 pm Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:
spoiler[I do remember that line from the beginning of the series, but I never once took it to represent a nihilist viewpoint until the very end of the show. In fact, like I said above, I was operating under the ongoing impression that those who use the Death Note on Earth wind up becoming shinigami themselves when they die. That would have fit precisely in with the "not going to heaven or hell" motif, and I think it would have been wonderfully ironic to see those who use such an unearthly power for their own ends wind up fated to the same eternal drudgery as those who gave them that power in the first place. I can't remember if Ryuk actually said the "nothingness" line in the last episode, though I do know that the eyecatch at the end of the commercial break revealed it.]



spoiler[Rewarding a serial killer with an afterlife where he gets to kill people forever with no repercussions? That spits in the face of all those who took down Light in the name of justice. There is no justice in an afterlife where your very lifespan can be infinite if you kill enough people. That's not "neither heaven nor hell", that's serial killer heaven.]
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CCSYueh



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:13 pm Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:

No offense, but it's generally customary to watch more than one-sixth of a series before declaring the work in its entirety to be "overrated." Razz


Sorry. Never heard that rule anywhere on the planet.
I have a large collection largely amassed thru pre-ordering so that by the time any magazine or website here has bothered to review a title, it's no longer up for pre-order, now is it? It's usually out on the shelves.
So how do I pick titles?
I was a subscriber to Newtype USA, but that tool is now gone. I latched onto 12 Kingdoms, GetBackers, & many, many titles after reading a paragraph or less about them & I was usually pretty damned accurate about what I'd like or not like. A few times I was wrong, most usually thinking I could wait for the cheaper box set, but then breaking down & impulse-buying the first volume, likeing it too much to wait for the box. Some stuff I read the manga of first (Ouran, Ghost Hunt, SDK, etc)
DN, I read the manga.
Gurren Lagann is one of my daughter's "must have" titles she insists I buy, but then never watches. She loved Dead Leaves. I love the interviews with Kappei Yamaguchi on the dvd, but the movie is not all that impressive. In fact, Gurren Lagann reminds me of DL.
The other way I pick titles is the voice cast. If there are enough VA's I like in the cast, I find as much as I can about it to see if I'll like it. I see it as not really different than picking movies by the actors because different actors tend to gravitate to certain types of movies.
I found GL loud, brash, & highly predictable. Lacking an excellent voice cast (Konishi sure didn't last long enough, did he?) or character designs I found appealing (At least Viewtiful Joe had Tomokazu Seki & Shinichiro Miki. Would have been nice to get them on the American dvds) it's so-so


Top Gun wrote:

I realize that most shounen manga authors probably do something similar, but most shounen manga don't profess to be some sort of well-crafted battle of wits.


It's just a shonan manga. I don't think any of them claim to be all that much.



Top Gun wrote:

To be perfectly honest, that whole "become nothingness" bit was perhaps the one element that drew the most sarcastic laughter from me out of the whole series. It was a perfectly childish form of nihilism, and it felt more like a royal cop-out than anything else.


I was always told that was sort of the point. Some who believe in reincarnating until one reaches perfection/Nirvana or the right to cease existing/stop reincarnating. I simply took her comments as sort of an athiestic take on it. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs. God knows I don't necessarily believe in all the opinions expressed in things I've read. I even have this wild idea I can buy into some of the ideas, but not all expressed by any one person to form my own take on the world. Yeah, I'm agnostic. A recent study I saw suggests a lot of people who call themselves Christian also do a certain amount of idea-borrowing & don't necessarily believe their brand of Christianity in every single detail.

Top Gun wrote:

I personally feel that a much more profound ending would have been achieved by making those who used the Death Note wind up becoming shinigami, as it both explains their origin and acts as a pretty decent punishment for those who chose to take the lives of others. I can't imagine much worse of a fate than an eternity spent in that dreadfully dull existence. Razz I felt like the series had dropped some hints along that line, which is why the whole nothingness ending felt completely out of right field to me.


Read the novel Viz released. Mello seems to be the narrator so his being a shikigami certainly seems possible.

Top Gun wrote:

I count myself as somewhat of a mystery fan (love Sherlock Holmes and the Hardy Boys), so that really isn't it. It's more that I didn't really find the show all that mentally engaging, and I feel like I wouldn't get much at all out of it on a re-watch. It doesn't help that the main character of the series is a complete flaming douche. Razz

Try reading the manga. Maybe it'd make more sense. I believe both the author & the artist stated they saw the Yagami family as the biggest victims of the DN.
However,

Top Gun wrote:

I do remember that line from the beginning of the series, but I never once took it to represent a nihilist viewpoint until the very end of the show.


This reminds me of the joke I once heard where a mother overheard her son & a friend discussing a movie. The friend bet her son $1 the character was going over the cliff. The son took the bet & lost. The friend admitted he'd seen the movie before, but so did the son who said he took the bet because he didn't thing the guy would be stupid enough to do it twice.

The idea is stated at the beginning of the story. How can you think it was a last-minute thing?

You do realize Light isn't the hero of DN. He's very much the bad guy. It sort of takes on biblical implications if one thinks of the shinigami as demons (not that they really are with a very imnportant exception). Did Ryuk not say if Light hadn't picked up the book, he'd simply have dropped it somewhere else? In DN:HTR there's a short story of another person with the book & how that person used it. Did you also overlook all the refs to a person being "possesed" by the shinigami? I sort of took it to be something like a monkey paw--only bad can come of it. Was it not pointed out a "normal" person would be horrified that they could kill people in this manner. Didn't Ryuk point out Light was a greater mass murderer than any he killed?
It's a wonderful tale of temptation. Ryuk dangled the apple & Light bit, however it really was no longer Light Yagami, but Light Yagami as possessed by a god of death. Had Ryuk been a different sort of god, Light nmight have behaved in a different manner, but he very much seemed to see himself as a god with powers of death. What if it were a book that gave life & he could restore the ill to health & the dead to life? Would he have taken a more benevolent outlook, or would he have been as evil as he became?
We saw each shinigami possessed different personalities & didn't seem to quite as adversely affect their owners, or maybe they did. Rem's love of Misa was extreme, maybe selfish. Misa's love of Light was very selfish. Neither cared who was hurt in the name of their love.

Top Gun wrote:

I think I can chalk him up as just about my least-favorite character, if for no other reason than the absolutely asinine manner in which he dressed. Razz


So he's flaming, what's wrong with that? I swear Light was gay & just fought it because it's "wrong". He treated women like trash & really had a low opinion of most he encountered. He only really got excited in his little mental battles with L & Near, both guys.

Quote:
While that may be, it hasn't (yet) received the same kind of backlash that shows like Eva, DN, and MoHS have. I've seen people vocally hating those shows, while about the worst I've seen said of Gurren Lagann is "It's overrated."


Simple, characters from any number of titles I've seen before (including Levin from Tekkaman Blade), highly predictable. Nothing to really draw one into the story.
Why the hell does Kamina wear shades UNDERGROUND? Cool character design, maybe, but I wear prescription lenses & it is really nigh on impossible to wear shades tghat work outside in really dark places as one would assume underground could be.
When they come from underground to the light, they don't spend 5 minutes blinded by the light? Really?
I can go on. I found a lot of annoying plot holes that had no pretty bishies to make up for their existance. Yes, there are holes in any story (even DN), but they are usually small enough, it doesn't matter. I just had a hard time suspending my disbelief on GL & I love crazy Japanese humor like Excel & Papuwa.
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Dorcas_Aurelia



Joined: 23 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:24 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
It sort of takes on biblical implications if one thinks of the shinigami as demons (not that they really are with a very imnportant exception).

I'd say philosophical rather than biblical, since the story is The Ring of Gyges turned into a modern detective mystery.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 2:44 am Reply with quote
CCSYueh wrote:
Top Gun wrote:

No offense, but it's generally customary to watch more than one-sixth of a series before declaring the work in its entirety to be "overrated." Razz

Sorry. Never heard that rule anywhere on the planet.

My point was that you can't make that statement about the entirety of a show without having seen the entirety of said show, for the simple reason that you have no idea at all where said show is going to go or what it's going to do. It's one thing to say "I didn't really enjoy the first few episodes to any ridiculous degree, but it may get really good later on"...it's completely another to say, "I didn't enjoy the first few episodes, so the entire show must be overrated." The fact that you've watched the first four episodes of the show means that you haven't even yet made it to the first unabashedly awesome moment of the series, let alone the exponential leaps and bounds in awesomeness that it takes later on. (Not that I have much hope that you'll agree with that opinion, as I'll expand on at the end.) You're at the very humble beginning of the show, well-removed from the moments that caused anyone who liked it to heap so much praise upon it. It's far too early to make any sort of blanket judgment.

Quote:
Top Gun wrote:

I realize that most shounen manga authors probably do something similar, but most shounen manga don't profess to be some sort of well-crafted battle of wits.
It's just a shonan manga. I don't think any of them claim to be all that much.

True, it's just a shounen manga, but the fact that it's a shounen manga about the hunt to catch a supernatural killer rather than a plucky young boy trying to fulfill some lifelong dream automatically puts it in a class by itself. It's exemplary by its very nature, which is what led me to have such expectations of it. Unfortunately, those expectations went largely unfulfilled.

Quote:
Top Gun wrote:

To be perfectly honest, that whole "become nothingness" bit was perhaps the one element that drew the most sarcastic laughter from me out of the whole series. It was a perfectly childish form of nihilism, and it felt more like a royal cop-out than anything else.

I was always told that was sort of the point. Some who believe in reincarnating until one reaches perfection/Nirvana or the right to cease existing/stop reincarnating. I simply took her comments as sort of an athiestic take on it. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs. God knows I don't necessarily believe in all the opinions expressed in things I've read. I even have this wild idea I can buy into some of the ideas, but not all expressed by any one person to form my own take on the world. Yeah, I'm agnostic. A recent study I saw suggests a lot of people who call themselves Christian also do a certain amount of idea-borrowing & don't necessarily believe their brand of Christianity in every single detail.

My comment had nothing to do with my own personal viewpoint on the topic; it did, however, have everything to do with how the show handled it. The very first moment the idea was raised was in the very last episode, and it was just tossed out there like a bone to that sort of puerile young teenage mindset that would consider it "edgy" or "dark," without any sort of elaboration. It's possibly the very worst way to introduce any sort of all-encompassing worldview, and it really dragged down my respect for the author's skills even further.

Quote:
Top Gun wrote:

I do remember that line from the beginning of the series, but I never once took it to represent a nihilist viewpoint until the very end of the show.


This reminds me of the joke I once heard where a mother overheard her son & a friend discussing a movie. The friend bet her son $1 the character was going over the cliff. The son took the bet & lost. The friend admitted he'd seen the movie before, but so did the son who said he took the bet because he didn't thing the guy would be stupid enough to do it twice.

The idea is stated at the beginning of the story. How can you think it was a last-minute thing?

The idea of Light being presented as a villain who had succumbed to the Death Note's temptation was obviously present from the very first episode, but that wasn't what I was referring to in the least. I was talking about the specifically-nihilistic viewpoint that "all humans go to nothingness after they die," which was never once mentioned before the final episode (and even then, it was presented as if random in an eyecatch). Ryuk stating that Death Note users would go to "neither heaven nor hell" didn't imply nonexistence after death in and of itself, either for Light specifically or humanity in general.

Quote:
Top Gun wrote:

I think I can chalk him up as just about my least-favorite character, if for no other reason than the absolutely asinine manner in which he dressed. Razz


So he's flaming, what's wrong with that? I swear Light was gay & just fought it because it's "wrong". He treated women like trash & really had a low opinion of most he encountered. He only really got excited in his little mental battles with L & Near, both guys.

I could care less what Near's sexual orientation was; that outfit was still horrific whether you're straight, gay, or otherwise. Razz But I will agree that Light came across as only just barely in the closet. That bondage rope between him and L pretty much tells the whole story.

And to sum up several comments of yours, no, I'm not planning on reading the manga, because I have no real interest at all in that particular medium, let alone this example of it.

Oh, and just to touch on an earlier point, the fact that you're complaining about something as inane as Kamina wearing sunglasses underground suggests to me that you should really not bother with the rest of the show, because you're clearly not getting anything out of the entire point of it. Razz Why does he wear them? Because he's ****ing cool, that's why. Gurren-Lagann holds no illusions about telling a story that's truly revolutionary in any particular way, or in following any sense of realism in the least. The entire show is completely founded on the principle of the Rule of Cool (as that article itself states in no uncertain terms). It takes the very best elements of the super robot series of the past, coats them with a massive layer of style and flair, cranks the volume up to 11, blasts the power level over 9000, and increases its scale exponentially by leaps and bounds until you can scarcely comprehend what's going on. It's not groundbreaking in the least, but it is a true masterpiece by accomplishing what it sets out to do so completely. But if something like the mecha battle at the end of episode 3 did absolutely nothing for you, or maybe even better, if you didn't think that Dead Leaves was awesome in its insanity, you're probably entirely outside of the show's target audience.

And finally, to respond to something completely different...

RogueJedi86 wrote:
Top Gun wrote:
spoiler[I do remember that line from the beginning of the series, but I never once took it to represent a nihilist viewpoint until the very end of the show. In fact, like I said above, I was operating under the ongoing impression that those who use the Death Note on Earth wind up becoming shinigami themselves when they die. That would have fit precisely in with the "not going to heaven or hell" motif, and I think it would have been wonderfully ironic to see those who use such an unearthly power for their own ends wind up fated to the same eternal drudgery as those who gave them that power in the first place. I can't remember if Ryuk actually said the "nothingness" line in the last episode, though I do know that the eyecatch at the end of the commercial break revealed it.]



spoiler[Rewarding a serial killer with an afterlife where he gets to kill people forever with no repercussions? That spits in the face of all those who took down Light in the name of justice. There is no justice in an afterlife where your very lifespan can be infinite if you kill enough people. That's not "neither heaven nor hell", that's serial killer heaven.]

spoiler[I'd hardly call that horrifically dull existence we saw the shinigami living out any sort of "heaven." Razz Ryuk himself stated that the shinigami lifestyle is almost fatally boring, with most of them having to almost physically force themselves to perform the simple act that keeps them alive. For someone who took such apparently visceral pleasure from using the Death Note, subjecting them to that sort of existence, where the exercise of that very pleasure became almost a curse, would be rather ironic in my mind. Plus, I originally took the "neither heaven or hell" line to refer to something like what I would understand as purgatory, which would also fit right in with the shinigami realm.]
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CCSYueh



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 2707
Location: San Diego, CA
PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:03 am Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:

The fact that you've watched the first four episodes of the show means that you haven't even yet made it to the first unabashedly awesome moment of the series, let alone the exponential leaps and bounds in awesomeness that it takes later on.


??? First dvd is 5 eps.
Sorry. I have the first sub-only set which = 9 eps & no more Katsuyuki Konishi (who I've sort of followed since SDK & Shaman King as a VA) Therefore I am about 1/3rd into the title, correct? We've met Levin-sorry Leeron played by Masaya Onosaka (Vash the Stampede. Don Patch/Bobobo). We've met Viral (Nobuyuki Hiyama. Hiei/YuYu Hakusho) We've met the stupid princess, haven't we? Or was that an ep I caught on Sci-Fi? I saw a fight with the King on Sci-Fi I know.
I have about 500 titles in my collection, I would say MS Nadesico is far more awesome than Gurren Lagann as a mech title. The effects in Super Robot Wars are pretty amazing.
Not that mech is my favorite genre.
I lean to historical or bishies. CCS, Saint Seiya, Hellsing, Ayakashi (particularly the Goblin Cat segment), 12 Kingdoms, Kyo Kara Maoh, GetBackers, Saiyuki, DB (up to about King Piccalo where the fights started stretching out), chunks of DB (Vegeta), Demon Prince Enma, Descendants of Darkness, Dragon Half, Shinesmen, Twin Signal, JIng King of Bandits, Hare+Guu, Bobobo, Papuwa, Most of Akahori's stuff, Zenki, Shonen Onmyoji, Saiunkoku.

Then there's the so-bad-it's-good stuff like Fist of the North Star that's loads of fun to heckle


Top Gun wrote:

True, it's just a shounen manga, but the fact that it's a shounen manga about the hunt to catch a supernatural killer rather than a plucky young boy trying to fulfill some lifelong dream automatically puts it in a class by itself.


Yusuke Urameshi wasn't following a lifelong dream.
Kenshin was just trying to live, wasn't he?
Goku just wanted to protect those he loved. He didn't really have any lifelong dreams outside of eating & fighting.
Kagome & InuYasha were just trying to fix a mess Kagome made by shattering the stupid jewel.
Zenki was cool. He sure as hell didn't dream of serving some stupid priestess.
Ueki's a pretty huge slacker.
Dark Schneider's only dream is to get rid of all the other guys so he can have all the women to himself. Saving the world's sort of a side thing.
And the bishies in my yaoi manga are all just looking for love.

Top Gun wrote:

The very first moment the idea was raised was in the very last episode,


No, you admitted you heard it in the first episode & just interpreted it wrong. Ryuk said those who use the DN go to neither heaven nor to hell which Light interpreted his own way also

Her point wasn't "edgy" or "dark". The author stated bringing characters back from the dead was "cheating" No dragonballs in the DN universe.
As I said, Mello is the narrator of that novel Viz brought over & thus it suggests some might wind up shinigami. Problem is Light did murder thousands of people & had others-Misa & Mikami-kill thousands more. Why should he earn a practically immortal existance as a shinigami? His becoming a shinigami would have allowed him to live in some form.
This isn't Pumpkinhead.

Top Gun wrote:

I was talking about the specifically-nihilistic viewpoint that "all humans go to nothingness after they die," which was never once mentioned before the final episode (and even then, it was presented as if random in an eyecatch). Ryuk stating that Death Note users would go to "neither heaven nor hell" didn't imply nonexistence after death in and of itself, either for Light specifically or humanity in general.

So if they don't go to heaven or hell, where do they go?
DN's a title one has to watch closely & it is better done thru the manga. I remember lots of people saying how stupid L was for Light to only be suspected 5% of being Kira or whatever the percentage.
That was a lie.
The author stated L is a huge liar. When he said Light was his only friend, it was also a lie according to the author. Just like Columbo in his wrinkled trenchcoat acted dumb to make the over-confident baddies mess up, L did a lot of stuff to push Kira to the edge.
You think all those times Light was ready to take L out that L pulled just the right rabbit out of the hat was luck?


Top Gun wrote:

I could care less what Near's sexual orientation was;


We were discussing Mello, not Near. So if he's flaming & chooses to dress in a flamboyant manner, so what? Certain musicians wear a ton of jewelry. Wendy O Wlliams used to go onstage in stratigically placed black tape & plastic wrap. Mello's attire is actually pretty mild compared to some J-Pop bands I see in the Cure magazine my daughter picks up all the time.

Top Gun wrote:

Oh, and just to touch on an earlier point, the fact that you're complaining about something as inane as Kamina wearing sunglasses underground suggests to me that you should really not bother with the rest of the show, because you're clearly not getting anything out of the entire point of it. Razz Why does he wear them? Because he's ****ing cool, that's why.


Like the song from the 80's about wearing sunglasses at night? It was a dumb song.

Cool....Akabane's cool & he doesn't have to wear shades.
Alucard's a vampire, so he can wear shades day or night because he has nightvision. He's way cooler than Kamina.
Ikki Phoenix is damned cool. Konishi played him in the Hades Chapter.
Demon Eyes Kyo is damned cool (& Katsuyuki Konishi)
K is cool. Crazy American.

Top Gun wrote:

Gurren-Lagann holds no illusions about telling a story that's truly revolutionary in any particular way, or in following any sense of realism in the least. The entire show is completely founded on the principle of the Rule of Cool (as that article itself states in no uncertain terms). It takes the very best elements of the super robot series of the past, coats them with a massive layer of style and flair, cranks the volume up to 11, blasts the power level over 9000, and increases its scale exponentially by leaps and bounds until you can scarcely comprehend what's going on.


Sorry. I knew the moment Kamina was talking about daddy how that one was going to go so I had no issue with knowing where it was going to go. And there is no way on earth it's cooler than Go Nagai. Go Nagai rocks. Obari has sexier character designs.

Top Gun wrote:

It's not groundbreaking in the least, but it is a true masterpiece by accomplishing what it sets out to do so completely. But if something like the mecha battle at the end of episode 3 did absolutely nothing for you, or maybe even better, if you didn't think that Dead Leaves was awesome in its insanity, you're probably entirely outside of the show's target audience.


The only awesomeness to Dead Leaves itself was the cute sounds Kappei Yamaguchi emitted while rolling around the padded cell. And the Truth or Dare-type segment included on the dvd where he talks about self-pleasuring.

The mech battle in ep 3 nor the one in ep 8 did anything for me. Shu Shirakawa's Granzion in SRW is pretty awesome in action. It was just too incredible when he showed up-was it ep 11? 16? I forget. He asked who wanted to fight & the other side called a retreat. Zoldark's mech looked pretty awesome for that matter, though it went down pretty fast.
The mech in Tekkaman Blade are pretty cool looking also.

But Gurren Lagann just can't touch Nadesico. Pilots sitting around watching a Super Robot anime--come on. Poor Gai & his Kamina-like enthusiasm lasts 3 whole eps. Or DaiGard-office workers being the only ones who can pilot earth's only defense against the alien invaders because the last surviving mech has been on display in a theme park.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:14 am Reply with quote
Hey hey hey. This is a thread devoted to Death Note, isn't it? Specifically the episodes covered in DVDs 7 and 8. I won't backseat Moderate; it's against the rules, and poor form to boot. So I'll just say that unless we want the thread to get locked, we should avoid talking about overrated garbage such as Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and get back to the Anime (and specific episodes) at hand.

Can we do it? Yes we can.
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Key
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 10:54 am Reply with quote
I was going to completely stay out of this until I saw these comments:

CCSYueh wrote:
I would say MS Nadesico is far more awesome than Gurren Lagann as a mech title.

. . .

But Gurren Lagann just can't touch Nadesico. Pilots sitting around watching a Super Robot anime--come on. Poor Gai & his Kamina-like enthusiasm lasts 3 whole eps.


Different tastes for different folks, I guess, but I disagree with you pretty strongly here. MSN is a fun and clever series, but with the exception of one or two scenes it doesn't come close to GL in terms of stylistic, action, or dramatic punch. I'm not a GL fanboy, but I didn't rate it solidly on my Best of 2008 series list for nothing.

And concerning DN: let's not get too carried away here. The series does take a novel approach for shonen shows, but is still a shonen show. Many people are, I think, reading way more into it than what is present or ever intended. The series isn't trying to make any grand statements about morality or nihilism; those are just side effects of its cool-but-gimmicky story.

And incidentally, my impression has always been that the Death Note was just the trigger which brought out Light's true character rather than a device which possessed him or warped him to the Dark Side. From the beginning he gives the impression of being a complete egotist with the teenage-fueled arrogance to believe that his world view is unquestionably the correct one. Even though scenes in these volume do show him spoiler[hesitating on killing his sister and being somewhat concerned about her welfare], he generally doesn't give a damn about anyone else (except in terms of their usefulness as a tool) and seems like the type who thinks he's superior enough to be above normal morality. (It's similar to the kind of attitude you see in the more full-of-themselves pro athletes.) The Death Note just allowed him to fully realize those traits and go on the kind of power trip he probably long dreamed about.
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