Death Note - S1E2 - Confrontation
Otaku vs Notaku features a person obsessed with anime and manga (15-year-old Kali) and a Notaku (a word we made up for a person who doesn’t watch anime - Kali’s mom, Project Fandom founder, Nina) watching and discussing an anime series. Their first project is Death Note. They take turns reviewing each episode.
Previously on Death Note, ‘Rebirth’
The second episode is probably one of my favorites out of all 37. After deciding that he will be the God of the new world, free from criminals, Light Yagami continues to attend high school as a normal student. ‘Normal’ meaning getting the top grades in his classes and being the model student for everyone else.
He is told to read aloud something in class, and I find this quote oddly fitting for his situation: “Having finally made his dream a reality, he was overwhelmed. Both by the magnitude of his achievement and by the joy and happiness it brought him.” His classmates and teachers are awed yet again by this hard working student.
After arriving home, Light explains to Ryuk that he has to focus on everything he does, between studying for classes, attending cram school, and murdering. You know, just average teenage things.
Just because Light himself is smart at everything he does, does not mean that his sister is an exception. She arrives at Light’s door, asking him for help on her homework. Ryuk, being the cheeky shinigami that he is and not caring about his inappropriate timing, cheerfully tells Light that anyone who touches the Death Note would also be able to see him.
Light mentally curses at him.
Over at the ICPO, international police are discussing the recent deaths of criminals, trying to decide if it’s homicide. Seeing as how they were not getting anywhere, someone suggests that they bring in L, a mysterious yet famous detective that is known for solving every case he’s worked on.
A man comes in, dressed in all black and carrying a laptop. He opens it to reveal a screen with the letter L, written in crazy and fancy font for dramatized purposes. A voice is heard, distorted, but clear to understand.
L announces that he’ll need the cooperation from everyone in the ICPO, most importantly, the Japanese police. He claims that the suspect, Kira, as Light Yagami is famously known as, resides in Japan itself.
Back in his own home, Light takes Ryuk’s warning into consideration, and decides to create a hiding place for the Death Note. His true brilliance is shown when he creates an elaborate trap for anyone who happens to be looking for it. If the trap is activated, the Death Note is supposed to catch fire, destroying the evidence, which, in my opinion, makes Light look even more suspicious.
A house fire just to protect your ‘diary’? Yeah, right.
Oh boy, this next part.
Lind L. Tailor, otherwise known as L, appears on TV to make an announcement, finally showing his face to the world. He states that he will hunt down Kira and not stop until he finds him. Light remains confident, positive that this L person could never catch him.
And then he says it. Lind L. Tailor says the E word. Evil.
That’s when Light basically loses his cool.
Frustrated, he quickly opens his handy dandy notebook and writes down L’s name. 40 seconds later, in which L just kind of sits there not saying anything, as if waiting for something, he suddenly collapses from a heart attack.
And then the fancy L is back again.
As it turns out, Lind L. Tailor was not the real L. He was, in fact, a criminal who was sentenced to execution on that same day. Taunting, L tells Kira to try and kill him at that moment. Having no name and face to go on, Light simply stares at the TV in shock. L deduces that Kira is indeed located in the Kanto region of Japan, he has not been murdering for long, and his first kill was actually an experiment, all within a few minutes.
Ryuk just watches on the sidelines, chuckling all the while.
Observations and Conversations:
- My mom seems to love how smart both Light and L are. Light shows his clever thinking with the contraption in his drawer, and L shows his deduction skills on a live TV broadcast. I, too, am fangirling over this.
- She also seems to love how Ryuk is taking all of this in with sadistic glee. And how he is pointing out important facts quite late.
- Basically throughout the entire episode I was squirming in my spot trying not to shout out any spoilers such as, “THAT’S NOT REALLY L!” or “LIGHT IS GONNA BUILD THIS AWESOME THING WITH FIRE AND IT GOES KABOOM!”
