• GalaxyBrain [they/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Why is Death Note a thing again? That shit was for the most edgy of hot topic teens when I was a kid.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      It’s one of the staple anime and manga. No different than Minecraft and TF2 being a staple of PC gaming.

      It is edgy, but so what? it’s a fun watch. I rewatch it like once every few years because the music is good, and my perspectives have changed from thinking Light did nothing wrong to realizing he’d kill anyone QAnon accused of being a pedophile.

      I also enjoy the magical realism. Everyone acknowledges that their entire understanding of the world has been shattered, but it doesn’t matter because now they have to go back to doing police paperwork and investigations and sitting around.

      And the best part is that the supernatural deity Ryuk, the most edgy gothic looking one besides Misa, isn’t edgy at all. He’s just bored and tags along a brat who thinks he’s solved the world.

    • autismdragon [he/him, they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      Just a popular enough piece of media that a lot of people will get the reference. That said youre underselling it based on fanbase here i think. I think itd pretty good.

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        20 years ago it was the show for the wallet chained and that's hard to get past. I guess Limp Bizkit came back too, the wallet chained are being vindicated.

        • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
          ·
          10 months ago

          You're only understanding it in the context of how it fit into mainstream culture at the time, in the anime subculture it was firmly established as a pillar of the edgy side of anime. It sits at the boarder between shounen fans and more mature shows, having a protagonist who's simply not conventionally good, some exploration of themes, and frequent depictions of death and disturbing concepts. It may be clumsy or juvenile at times, but it's a core piece of media to anime fans, and watching at least the first season is part of the shared culture and media in that sphere.

          • StellarTabi [none/use name]
            ·
            10 months ago

            I remember about the time death note was rising in popularity, most TV shows available to the average american teenager (not me I was below average) were "about nothing", the stories were either so basic/short/trivial/generic/for-kids you might as well say the story didn't exist or were aimless and next week's episode forgot everything from last-week. If you watched cartoon network, you get the impressed to believe that animes have long-form story telling and western cartoons are for baby children, which functionally is true-enough if that distinction matters. If you were willing to watch anime with subtitles, you basically 100x your supply of good TV shows. I still like the pointless shows like lucky star and bugs bunny, but at the time, that's literally all that was available in western cartoons. Death Note was likely one of the highest quality and earliest long-form cartoons most western millennials got to see of it's style and genre.

          • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
            ·
            10 months ago

            That makes sense. I was in high school when it first was a thing and wowee it seemed exclusively for mall ninjas.

            • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
              ·
              10 months ago

              there's a difference between "people who watched Deathnote" and "people who wouldn't shut up about deathnote"

              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                ·
                10 months ago

                There was a dude who tried making his own smoke bombs to dissappear in, they of course didn't work and i think he set if s fire alarm and got kid arrested one time. There was another dude who tried to do a cool climb leap over a chain link fence and caught his leg on the descent. Cool exits seemed to be their biggest gambit. The early to mid 2000s had an interesting cast

                  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    It's what makes me question how it was something to come back after almost 20 years and not something without being associated with dudes whonacted like Kaiba from yugioh irl. We talk about embracing cringe now but at least thst implies you still know it's cringe being cringe while thinking you're the coolest thing ever is a whole other thing

                    • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      10 months ago

                      That's the thing, it didn't come back. It's always been part of the anime community. Just like EVA and Sailor Moon

      • fossphi@lemm.ee
        ·
        10 months ago

        The second half of the show was such a letdown after the amazing set up done before L's departure

        • RyanGosling [none/use name]
          ·
          10 months ago

          They really should’ve just kept L around until near the end because Near and Mello were fucking awful lol. Literally no reason for their inclusion

          • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Yeah, silly decision to throw away all the tension and chemistry built up between the mastermind detective and the illusive killer to do a "well the mastermind detective actually raised two orphans to be mastermind-1 detectives and they kinda hate each other but now they're on the case" twist. Addiction to twists and/or "this is successful, I have to keep writing more of it for financial reasons" after already killing off L have to be the reasons.

      • silent_water [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        does it? I liked it as a teenager but kinda found it mid as an adult

        • Cromalin [she/her]
          ·
          10 months ago

          yeah i like seeing kinda dumb mind games being played and the music makes it work really well

          sadly the composer was arrested for weed and has therefore been completely blacklisted from the industry

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
      ·
      10 months ago

      The first half of the show is probably my favorite anime. Yes, it's pretty edgy, but it shows such a great game of intellectual cat and mouse.

      • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
        ·
        10 months ago

        I liked a lot about the second half, too. I know it's weird and not as good, but the change in dynamic by splitting L's impulsiveness and thoughtfulness to the extremes with two different characters I thought was really interesting actually. But I think I'm the only one who thought that lol.