Beautiful Friendship ... in another time, in another place
The most beautiful scene in the anime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDP3AKC0xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlaT4f-qwb8
When watching this, the first thing that comes to every fangirl's mind is... Yaoi!
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It's difficult for me to remain conscious for over 18/20 hours. I HAD TO WATCH IT. Admittedly, I snoozed here and there in the midst of the second arc, yet when Light left Takada's place in the dead of the night, I straightened in my chair in disbelief. I may even have said it out loud. THERE'S NO WAY HE SLEPT WITH HER!
L. One of the most complicated, well developed characters in animanga in my and many others' opinion. Perhaps it's due to this development that his character is sympathetic. Whatever. His death crushed me unlike any other character death in fiction. Ever.
A good deal of my grief had to do with the foreshadowing; the lush melancholy in the rain, the ambiguity in his last conversation with Light.
And that bittersweet smile of L's, so poignant it ached.
Those scenes were so imbued with emotion, (and I think that L has a great deal of difficultly expressing how he feels: he was desolate in the rain, yet when Light asked what he was doing, L cupped his ear and smiled), they gave us a glimpse of who L was before so cruelly ripping him away.
The very swiftness in which he was taken from the viewers was realistic. I think that fact lent to my grief. It was too realistic and L, too real, too human.
Which is exactly what I think L wished to impart to Light by touching him once they came in from the rain.
For Light's part, he understood it. He respected L on an intellectual level, and his initial discomfort during that scene had everything to do with being touched on an emotional level, being forced to acknowledge that L was a living, breathing human so very much like Light himself (despite his delusions of Godhood, he was painfully aware of his own mortality). In Light's eyes, L was innocent or became innocent at that moment. By association, those Kira had killed for the purposes of concealment also became more human to him and more innocent, and if that was true, then even (in Light's thinking), he truly was a serial-killer/murderer.
The tragedy of L's death was twofold: L, who valued his solitude, died surrounded by others, helplessly in the arms of his killer, the only person ever he could have called his friend.
In watching Light's face carefully during the scene, you can almost see the moment his mind breaks, when his denial asserts itself and the Kira ego smothers his grief utterly. It comes out later and not prettily if you've seen the director's cut.
Forty hours straight of Death Note may or may not disturb the average person. Certainly I came away deeply disturbed. For a long while, I couldn't quite discern why. I think I know now.
I hate Capital Punishment. I hate it. Passionately. It doesn't work. Punitive measures rarely do. As a parent, I know that positive feedback does wonders. Frankly I have no clue as to how that could be implemented into the justice system; however, it should be, somehow. I know it's not that simple, but...
ANYWAY, I found myself wanting revenge for L's death. I wanted Light to be punished. That's unlike me. Seriously. So part of the reason I came away so upset was my own desire for vengeance. Not desire even. Lust.
Light Yagami as a character is even more developed than L. He's an anti-hero who is difficult to like, but I find him sympathetic, very much so. It took me awhile to get there, however.
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In the middle of the final episode, the Death Note rule displayed reads, "All humans, without exception, will eventually die". Yeah, it flips to the rest of the rule about once having died, humans go to Mu, but I think the fact that the original phrase about humans was separated is significant. Once I read it, it came to me that, even Light, in his ascent/descent to "Godhood" was only human. He was a kid when he found the Note and played it out according to his ideals, no matter how twisted he eventually became. Even at the end, alienated (ironically and as always) by the hatred and judgment of the people who cornered him and wanted him dead, Light still believed what he had done was right.
As much as I grieved for L; Light's death horrified me. Thinking about it now, he died as lived; alienated, terrified, proud and humiliated.
And very much alone.
I think Light wanted to be understood, and in L, he lost the single person who did, in fact, understand him. That he was forced into having L killed by L himself and the nature of the circumstances under which they met is, to me, the tragic irony of the series.
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