I always hear people talk about how great Death Note is so I tried watching it a few years ago and it just made me very uncomfortable the whole time. The show made sure to point out how great things are goin in the world when ever it could, like one point after the time skip it said that wars have stopped(???). At no point did it ever try making a point about how there could be a flaw in the justice system where someone innocent could be in jail and thus a casualty of the MC. Every non “criminal” he kills is someone who could potentially put a stop to his actions and thus comes off as as antagonists that the viewer Shouldn’t feel bad about dying. The whole thing feels like the author thinks that Light is actually a good guy.

  • mittens [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    I'd argue that it's actually a lib show and not a fascist one. Unmistakably the show paints Light in a bad light (lol), and Near holds him in total contempt at the end and finds his idea of a clean world to be ridiculous. But the implication is that Light is bad because he went way above the justice system and dished out judgement by his own hand. Outside of Light himself there's literally zero bad cops in the show (Melo, while trained to be a cop, instantly becomes affiliated with a gang the minute he deviates from being a cop), like they're super dumb and sometimes real cowards, but they're fundamentally good guys who do good stuff. You could argue that it's because the fodder for Light should also be unmistakably good precisely to avoid people reading that the show is in support of Light's sociopathy, so the show can't afford more nuanced takes on justice and criminality, but still, deep within the shows carries an implicit faith on due processes and the justice system. Again, all part of the liberal system of beliefs, not necessarily fascist.