Death Note is eating my brain
As if I needed another fandom to do that.
But seriously, Death Note owns everything. People who recced it to be before clearly did not pound that fact into my head hard enough, because the fact that it's taken me this long to "discover" it is a crime. I was finally brought over to the dark side by a combo of Yma's fangirl squeeing post and a couple dormmate's of mine's incomphrehensible but oddly intriguing arguments about the series over meals in the cafeteria. Damn them all! I must read for English now, but how will I ever remember anything about Elizabeth Barret Browning with L staring at me in my head? Argh.
Yes, I've binged 18 20-minute episodes, a 2-hour movie and about 1000 pages of manga in one day. Damn you, internet, with your enabling ways. I've already downloaded all of the manga, too, so I'll probably allow myself a volume a day or something. I should be working on art or fic, but I really can't focus on anything more than reading and watching youtube right now, because of the three fillings I got last weekend, one of them seems to have started leaking or else the tooth itself got chipped -- I don't know but it twinges at random and it's distracting as hell. I have a presentation to finalize and make handouts for tomorrow, too, and that's gonna be a bitch. The presentation is Monday and the soonest I can get back to the dentist is Tuesday, so depending on how my mouth is on Monday I'll either tough it out or email the professor tomorrow asking to postpone. (The latter would be bad, because I've already been pushed back once and we're way off schedule.) The universe decided to hate me here for a little while, I guess. *is resigned*
Anyway... anime that is eating my brain.
So it's a modern Sherlock Holmesian sort of thing. This anime gives new meaning to the maxim "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." There isn't a single character who isn't well-crafted -- not a single character I can dislike purely from a technique standpoint. But it takes some really good character crafting to make me feel real antipathy towards the character I'm "supposed" to hate, and this one does it. I applaude the creators like you don't believe. Basically, Light is a creepy, creepy bastard -- fascinating and brilliant and a marvel of protagonist/antagonist role reversal, especially juxtaposed against L! -- but a CREEPY BASTARD nonetheless.
I immediately wanted to despise Misa, but after the confinement arc I must grudgingly admit to, well, not hating her so much. She's still annoying as hell but they've proven that even the outwardly grating characters have some real grit to them. After she forfeited her Note, her normal persona's acceptance of "Stalker-san" as her captor, as if it was no real surprise? And all the things she offered to do to be let free? She's maybe one of the saddest people I've ever seen depicted, and even though all she ever does is dig her own grave deeper, I can't say that I completely disregard her feelings, because I don't think she started digging that hole herself. I think she was already a messed up girl, but when Jealous extended her lifespan, all he really did was confine her to a state of limbo in which death would always be the dominating force of her life, and because she never had to lift a finger to save herself (or to kill others, later on) she got used to the idea that not all control was bad. Even though that later led to the idea that being controlled was always good (which is dumb and is her constant downfall), she started out with legitimate reasons. Poor kid. (But I still occassionally want to punch her in the face.)
And speaking of Misa, omg Rem. I honestly think that as of this point in the story my favorite characters -- "favorite" being defined as the ones who interest and inspire/compel me the most -- are L and Rem. It doesn't help, of course, that I keep tying Rem the shinigami to Rem from Trigun, which is completely ludicrous, but taking Trigun-Rem into consideration when trying to analyze Death Note-Rem makes for crazy-cool character twists. But I haven't developed that line of thought much yet, so I might come back to that in a later post.
Mostly the thing that really grabbed me from the beginning of DN was how it (and this will just go to show how badly college has forced me into a habit of literary analysis) focuses so strongly on the "unpopular" sins. To be honest, anime has never been known for subtlety, but that stripped-down recall to an older form of storytelling (especially evident in the heroic epic-form shows like Bleach) is actually one of the things I find attractive about it. Most good anime tend to pick a theme or two and really pound away at them, allowing the viewer ease of academic, psychological access -- if they so choose -- while retaining plenty of leeway to develop whatever superficial plot it has into a purely good story. Not to say that anime can't have more themes than you can count, but honestly, most of them can be whittled down to one, two, maybe three really big ones. (At least one of which is always stated outright in some form -- equivalent exchange (FMA); Love & Peace vs. kill the spiders, save the butterflies (Trigun); God's In His Heaven, All's Right With the World (Evangelion); hunting for/finding/going to Paradise (Wolf's Rain); even "See you space cowboy" (Bebop) counts in my book. Anime catchphrases are really all the opening you need to get into their guts.
Anyway, getting back to that first statement, about the unpopular sins. Death Note's catchphrases and iconic imagery are just as glaring as any other anime, but what I find interesting about them is the themes they suggest. Most shows focus on "cool" ideas, clean ideas -- FMA: pride, envy, fighting to remedy mistakes of the past, fighting to bring family together. Bebop: avarice -- symbolized by the bounty hunting; running from the past, fighting for self-interest. Trigun: wrath, pride, self-identification, fighting for a system of morality for the sake of the morals themselves (or trying to; there is a constant struggle within the characters, esp. Vash, to maintain a separation between his own wishes and the inherent goodness of the morality he tries to promote). But in Death Note, what I really get is a vibe of -- gluttony, mainly. Gluttony is the biggie, followed by sloth; pride and greed factor in there, too, but greed is really synonymous with gluttony in this case, and pride is a surface factor, considering L's outright statement that "Kira is childish and hates to lose; I know because I'm the same way.
Gluttony and sloth. Honestly, they're hard to make into "cool" sins, no matter how you slice it -- not like lust or greed or envy, easy sins to play up with appealing imagery. Death Note manages to make its sins look pretty damn cool, though, which is an accomplishment in itself -- but, that outwardly polished image doesn't mask a sense of discomfort. Gluttony is the unchecked cancer of the modern world, and sloth is what keeps us from doing anything about it. Death Note hits home all the stronger for taking a fascinating premise, one which could go any way imaginable as a story device, and using it to build an uncomfortable, tense, tightly-constructed-yet-morally-messy tale about people who are gluttons for everything from death to intellectual sparring to apples to cake.
You've got the apple, clearly a religious thing. You've got Ryuk's literal addiction -- the impotence of emissaries from alternate planes. You've got the scene where Light, having gotten over his moral agonizing in record time, gluts on his newfound powers and fills several pages with names in only a few days. You've got L eating something different in every scene, always sweets -- yet never gaining any weight. What does that say? L claims it's his mental exercise that keeps him thin, obviously sarcasm, but symbolically -- the discomfort is still there, maybe because there's the subconscious suggestion that we, the viewers, are gluttons for pretty imagery just as bad as any of the people stuffing their faces or their minds or their Death Notes in the show. Misa brings a whole new aspect to the "image" angle of the gluttony theme, too.
As for sloth -- Misa represents the entertainment industry, not even as an actress but as a model. She is paid to stand still and smile so that people in their homes can sit still and look at her. L slouches if he absolutely must stand, but how rare is that? And when he sits, he has the constant rictus position of someone who's crouched staring at a computer screen for most of his life -- "If I sit any other way, my reasoning ability drops forty percent" -- glutton for intellectual stimulation -- can't get what he needs mentally unless he allows himself to give in to sloth. Also, overall, the "action" scenes aren't all that action-y: sitting in exams, exchanging videos over public TV, the chip-bag scam, L reaching massive deductions while staring at the TV. Same with the deaths: Light doesn't bother coming up with his own "unique" M.O., just decides to let the rules of the Note dictate Kira's methods. Very rarely is any given Note in the show used to cause a death by any means other than heart attack, illness or accident.
So even though the imagery of Death Note is, admittedly, really cool on a purely superficial level, it all plays into this bigger thematic sense of disgust and apathy that's really pretty daring, I think, for an anime featuring so many pretty-boys.
Ugh, I don't know how coherent that was -- and the ideas are still flying around in my head -- and I still have a lot of the series left to go. And I need to get to sleep because I have work to do tomorrow, work like crazy. But. There's my two cents on my (YET ANOTHER) new fandom.
sleep... then read English... then make handouts...
maybe soon my mouth will just disconnect completely so I don't have to feel it anymore...
blah life sucks.
-rave
But seriously, Death Note owns everything. People who recced it to be before clearly did not pound that fact into my head hard enough, because the fact that it's taken me this long to "discover" it is a crime. I was finally brought over to the dark side by a combo of Yma's fangirl squeeing post and a couple dormmate's of mine's incomphrehensible but oddly intriguing arguments about the series over meals in the cafeteria. Damn them all! I must read for English now, but how will I ever remember anything about Elizabeth Barret Browning with L staring at me in my head? Argh.
Yes, I've binged 18 20-minute episodes, a 2-hour movie and about 1000 pages of manga in one day. Damn you, internet, with your enabling ways. I've already downloaded all of the manga, too, so I'll probably allow myself a volume a day or something. I should be working on art or fic, but I really can't focus on anything more than reading and watching youtube right now, because of the three fillings I got last weekend, one of them seems to have started leaking or else the tooth itself got chipped -- I don't know but it twinges at random and it's distracting as hell. I have a presentation to finalize and make handouts for tomorrow, too, and that's gonna be a bitch. The presentation is Monday and the soonest I can get back to the dentist is Tuesday, so depending on how my mouth is on Monday I'll either tough it out or email the professor tomorrow asking to postpone. (The latter would be bad, because I've already been pushed back once and we're way off schedule.) The universe decided to hate me here for a little while, I guess. *is resigned*
Anyway... anime that is eating my brain.
So it's a modern Sherlock Holmesian sort of thing. This anime gives new meaning to the maxim "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." There isn't a single character who isn't well-crafted -- not a single character I can dislike purely from a technique standpoint. But it takes some really good character crafting to make me feel real antipathy towards the character I'm "supposed" to hate, and this one does it. I applaude the creators like you don't believe. Basically, Light is a creepy, creepy bastard -- fascinating and brilliant and a marvel of protagonist/antagonist role reversal, especially juxtaposed against L! -- but a CREEPY BASTARD nonetheless.
I immediately wanted to despise Misa, but after the confinement arc I must grudgingly admit to, well, not hating her so much. She's still annoying as hell but they've proven that even the outwardly grating characters have some real grit to them. After she forfeited her Note, her normal persona's acceptance of "Stalker-san" as her captor, as if it was no real surprise? And all the things she offered to do to be let free? She's maybe one of the saddest people I've ever seen depicted, and even though all she ever does is dig her own grave deeper, I can't say that I completely disregard her feelings, because I don't think she started digging that hole herself. I think she was already a messed up girl, but when Jealous extended her lifespan, all he really did was confine her to a state of limbo in which death would always be the dominating force of her life, and because she never had to lift a finger to save herself (or to kill others, later on) she got used to the idea that not all control was bad. Even though that later led to the idea that being controlled was always good (which is dumb and is her constant downfall), she started out with legitimate reasons. Poor kid. (But I still occassionally want to punch her in the face.)
And speaking of Misa, omg Rem. I honestly think that as of this point in the story my favorite characters -- "favorite" being defined as the ones who interest and inspire/compel me the most -- are L and Rem. It doesn't help, of course, that I keep tying Rem the shinigami to Rem from Trigun, which is completely ludicrous, but taking Trigun-Rem into consideration when trying to analyze Death Note-Rem makes for crazy-cool character twists. But I haven't developed that line of thought much yet, so I might come back to that in a later post.
Mostly the thing that really grabbed me from the beginning of DN was how it (and this will just go to show how badly college has forced me into a habit of literary analysis) focuses so strongly on the "unpopular" sins. To be honest, anime has never been known for subtlety, but that stripped-down recall to an older form of storytelling (especially evident in the heroic epic-form shows like Bleach) is actually one of the things I find attractive about it. Most good anime tend to pick a theme or two and really pound away at them, allowing the viewer ease of academic, psychological access -- if they so choose -- while retaining plenty of leeway to develop whatever superficial plot it has into a purely good story. Not to say that anime can't have more themes than you can count, but honestly, most of them can be whittled down to one, two, maybe three really big ones. (At least one of which is always stated outright in some form -- equivalent exchange (FMA); Love & Peace vs. kill the spiders, save the butterflies (Trigun); God's In His Heaven, All's Right With the World (Evangelion); hunting for/finding/going to Paradise (Wolf's Rain); even "See you space cowboy" (Bebop) counts in my book. Anime catchphrases are really all the opening you need to get into their guts.
Anyway, getting back to that first statement, about the unpopular sins. Death Note's catchphrases and iconic imagery are just as glaring as any other anime, but what I find interesting about them is the themes they suggest. Most shows focus on "cool" ideas, clean ideas -- FMA: pride, envy, fighting to remedy mistakes of the past, fighting to bring family together. Bebop: avarice -- symbolized by the bounty hunting; running from the past, fighting for self-interest. Trigun: wrath, pride, self-identification, fighting for a system of morality for the sake of the morals themselves (or trying to; there is a constant struggle within the characters, esp. Vash, to maintain a separation between his own wishes and the inherent goodness of the morality he tries to promote). But in Death Note, what I really get is a vibe of -- gluttony, mainly. Gluttony is the biggie, followed by sloth; pride and greed factor in there, too, but greed is really synonymous with gluttony in this case, and pride is a surface factor, considering L's outright statement that "Kira is childish and hates to lose; I know because I'm the same way.
Gluttony and sloth. Honestly, they're hard to make into "cool" sins, no matter how you slice it -- not like lust or greed or envy, easy sins to play up with appealing imagery. Death Note manages to make its sins look pretty damn cool, though, which is an accomplishment in itself -- but, that outwardly polished image doesn't mask a sense of discomfort. Gluttony is the unchecked cancer of the modern world, and sloth is what keeps us from doing anything about it. Death Note hits home all the stronger for taking a fascinating premise, one which could go any way imaginable as a story device, and using it to build an uncomfortable, tense, tightly-constructed-yet-morally-messy tale about people who are gluttons for everything from death to intellectual sparring to apples to cake.
You've got the apple, clearly a religious thing. You've got Ryuk's literal addiction -- the impotence of emissaries from alternate planes. You've got the scene where Light, having gotten over his moral agonizing in record time, gluts on his newfound powers and fills several pages with names in only a few days. You've got L eating something different in every scene, always sweets -- yet never gaining any weight. What does that say? L claims it's his mental exercise that keeps him thin, obviously sarcasm, but symbolically -- the discomfort is still there, maybe because there's the subconscious suggestion that we, the viewers, are gluttons for pretty imagery just as bad as any of the people stuffing their faces or their minds or their Death Notes in the show. Misa brings a whole new aspect to the "image" angle of the gluttony theme, too.
As for sloth -- Misa represents the entertainment industry, not even as an actress but as a model. She is paid to stand still and smile so that people in their homes can sit still and look at her. L slouches if he absolutely must stand, but how rare is that? And when he sits, he has the constant rictus position of someone who's crouched staring at a computer screen for most of his life -- "If I sit any other way, my reasoning ability drops forty percent" -- glutton for intellectual stimulation -- can't get what he needs mentally unless he allows himself to give in to sloth. Also, overall, the "action" scenes aren't all that action-y: sitting in exams, exchanging videos over public TV, the chip-bag scam, L reaching massive deductions while staring at the TV. Same with the deaths: Light doesn't bother coming up with his own "unique" M.O., just decides to let the rules of the Note dictate Kira's methods. Very rarely is any given Note in the show used to cause a death by any means other than heart attack, illness or accident.
So even though the imagery of Death Note is, admittedly, really cool on a purely superficial level, it all plays into this bigger thematic sense of disgust and apathy that's really pretty daring, I think, for an anime featuring so many pretty-boys.
Ugh, I don't know how coherent that was -- and the ideas are still flying around in my head -- and I still have a lot of the series left to go. And I need to get to sleep because I have work to do tomorrow, work like crazy. But. There's my two cents on my (YET ANOTHER) new fandom.
sleep... then read English... then make handouts...
maybe soon my mouth will just disconnect completely so I don't have to feel it anymore...
blah life sucks.
-rave