In Case I Have Not Revealed This Yet...

I Am Still A Fan Of Japanese Animation

 

 

    Due to my newfound interest in having custom Blythe dolls made for myself, I have recently realized that I actually still enjoy anime. The tracks I am singing in the above video are both from anime that was new when I was a kid but are now considered older classics, though I have been watching a few newer series. What made me realize I still felt this love was that I was brainstorming ideas for a new Blythe doll when it suddenly hit me that the Blythe doll proportions worked fairly well to create an anime chibi-like look. At that point, it also dawned on me that I could take a look back at the animes I grew up loving, to see if I could find any characters in them that I would still want now as part of my doll collection. So far, I have been enjoying Hamtaro, Slayers, Chrono Crusade, S-Cry-Ed, Lucky Star and... Death Note. I ended up creating Blythe doll designs for Hamtaro from Hamtaro, Naraku from InuYasha and one other so far, who is the one that is currently in the actual works. 

 

The concept character sheet for Hamtaro as a Blythe doll.

 

Hamtaro as he appears in-series.

My Blythe redesign of Naraku.

Naraku's official anime design.

    You can probably see from those images how the Blythe doll proportions work similar to a chibi style for the anime characters. Anime styled characters, even when not in chibi form, can tend to have somewhat softer faces and large, bright-colored eyes. So it is not a far leap to make a bigger, cuter and more rounded head or face while retaining the feel of it being "anime". There is some challenge though in retaining that for a character who would be anime if they ever were shown in their series. In a case such as that, the character sheet artist (me) has very little to go on in regard to keeping the character resembling their canon appearance. That is the struggle that was presented to me with the doll that I am currently having BlytheDreams create for me. As it is still much too soon, I will not yet be revealing who the character I chose this time is. But I can provide you with a few sneak peeks, so here is your first look! 

This is the first set of eye chips that I designed for the current custom Blythe doll. I used colors from an illustration that was created for the Death Note franchise and since I wanted the anime directly represented, I also added in some screenshots of Naomi Misora (left) and L Lawliet (right). You may also notice some eerie floating text above them, indicating that this pair of eyes are, in fact, Shinigami Eyes. Some of you, those who know the character, can probably already guess what my next doll is just from this clue alone! ;) Either way, as you can see, my attention has turned back to anime because of my latest doll-related interest. In effect, I have been back on Amazon (anime section), Crunchyroll and Internet Archive for the last month and a half. I have been rewatching a number of anime that I loved in the past but as I have already said here, the one that has had my attention the most for the last month or so has been Death Note. The psychological chess match between Kira (Light Yagami), Misa Amane, L Lawliet and the Japanese Task Force. 

 

A very bored Light Yagami.

 

    Now, for those reading this post that may be younger, I would highly recommend either clicking off now or asking a parent or guardian if it is okay with them if you continue here, as this post is about to turn into a brief discussion of Death Note, an anime which has some graphic content. Permission to continue? Yes? Okay then. Here we go. Death Note began airing in the US somewhere around 2006 or 2007 on Adult Swim's late night Saturday anime block. At the time, I was around 14 or 15 years old and absolutely obsessed with anime and manga. Naturally, I was up late every Saturday night, eyes glued to the nearest TV screen for that specific reason. I remember my first thought during the airing of the first episode was the same one I typically had at the beginning of every shonen series- that I would give the series until episode six to hook me and if that failed to happen, well, it just would not be an anime I was that interested in watching. A shonen series, for anyone reading who may not know, is usually an anime or manga (often both) that is very obviously geared toward a young boy or male audience. They often feature drawn out battle-laden story arcs, energetic young main characters, bright colors, fantasy themes and main characters who are on some kind of quest. Some well-known shonen other than Death Note are Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, One Piece, Naruto and Demon Slayer. 

 

S-Cry-Ed is also a good example of a shonen.

 

    With Death Note, however, it was admittedly difficult at first to hold onto the hope that it would have me hooked by episode six. I did find the physical battle being swapped for a psychological one to be an interesting premise from the start, but I am also the type of person who has to be interested in a recurring character as well and Light and Ryuk were not quite cutting it for me. Light was intelligent, and his character design was quite nice. But the qualities that I thought were his overconfidence, boredom and ethical blindness really put me off. Ryuk was really cool looking and highly entertaining, without being a character I felt interested enough in to know too much more about. Likely since, as he said, he only intended to be a spectator. So he was not doing very much. 

 

Ryuk is a shinigami, a God of Death that is supernaturally attached to Light Yagami through his Death Note.

 

    I suppose I should take a moment to briefly explain Death Note before I get too carried away. As I mentioned, it's about a psychological battle between minds. However, to be a bit more clear, the main series focuses on events that take place after Light Yagami acquires a black notebook titled the same as the series. He quickly discovers that by writing a name and picturing the associated face in his mind, he can use the notebook to remotely kill off criminals who have been broadcast on the news. Light only briefly questions the ethics and morality behind this, but something ultimately pushes him toward deciding to use the notebook to try to shape the world to his values and beliefs by killing off those he deems unfit to live. Seemingly overnight, news stations, the internet and the international police agencies start connecting the string of heart attacks that have begun occurring in prisons all over the world and the general public starts referring to the killer as Kira, a Japanese spelling and pronunciation of the English word, "killer". Unable to determine who the perpetrator might be or even why the deaths are occurring, the agencies around the world hold a conference to discuss what to do in the face of such a terrible, faceless enemy. During the conference, the decision is made to call in the world's top detective, L.

 

L Lawliet, the supposed 'eccentric' and world-famous detective.

 

    This was the point where about 85% of the fangirls started screaming, myself included. L's initial introduction is in episode two and though the series keeps his face mostly hidden until his full reveal, there was enough to make me start wondering if he would be the character that would hook me on my first viewing. First, I must point out that Adult Swim was airing the English dub. What this means for L specifically was that Alessandro Juliani was the voice that we in the US were hearing back then whenever L opened his mouth. I will say that the entire English dub cast for Death Note was a very good one overall. But Juliani's voice as L, to me, was like auditory chocolate cake. Then, there was the way he was immediately framed as a highly intelligent character that could very well face off with Kira, even without his own killer notebook. The voice acting performance, the mental abilities and his slightly more true-justice-aligned beliefs probably would have been enough to snag me. The final blow, however, was his character design. I suppose I have never gone much for guys who were clean, put-together and perfect looking. Sorry, Light fans, teen me and adult me would both try to sit with knees up beside L here. 

 

I mean, really, how can you say no to this?

 

 

    Anyway, those are the basic details of the main series of Death Note! What I would like to do now is pose some questions and answer them. Feel free, though, to leave your own answers to these questions in the post's comments section! :) 

 

1. Does rewatching Death Note feel like returning to a specific time in your life? 

     Yes, actually. Just a tiny bit. As I said earlier in this post, I was fourteen or fifteen years old when Death Note began airing here in the US. When that opening ("The World" by Nightmare) comes on, I remember the laughter I shared with friends, the cosplay meet-ups at the mall food court, the late nights staying up to roleplay over the phone with a boyfriend I had then, dropping by Borders and F.Y.E every time my friends and I hit the mall, the smell of the candied roasted nuts drifting into a semi-darkened Hot Topic while heavy metal and screamo poured out to the rest of the mall through the wrought-iron doors... Anyone remember yelling "butt-scratcher" at the local anime cons? Oh, and don't even get me started on how much Death Note merch there was at Borders, Barnes & Noble and Hot Topic. Most of it seemed to be L stuff, too. I had posters, cosplay pieces, figures, pins, keychains, shirts, etc.

 

2. Have any characters surprised you during this rewatch -- someone you appreciate more or less as an adult?

    Definitely! I have watched this series so many times since it aired here and usually, I have not noticed any changes in the way that I process any part of it. This time, however, it occurred to me that Light Yagami may, in fact, be just as much of a victim as the people he seems to be killing. Hear me out. There is a rule in the Death Note that says the human owner of the notebook will be possessed by a shinigami, a god of death, until he or she dies or forfeits ownership. Possessed. Key word. If you take into consideration the fact that Death Note has supernatural horror movie themes in the story, then it's quite likely that either the notebook itself or Ryuk is having some type of possession effect on Light from the moment he obtains the notebook and that effect may manifest in him as the murderer known as Kira. I always used to hate Light Yagami for the things I thought he was willingly doing, but now, I am not so sure it is Light who is doing those things. I've begun to realize that we only really seem to see Light in the first half of episode one, during the memory loss arc/arcs and at the very end of the anime. The rest all appears to be Kira if the behavior and changes in voice acting indicate anything. Light's voice is much more youthful and often frightened. Kira's is cold, measured, calm and overly confident. There is also a change that comes over the face that marks a difference between Light and Kira as well. Light's eyes are more wide open, curious, searching and hopeful. Kira's are confident, narrowed, focused and judging. So yes, I will repeat that this discovery about Light and Kira really tripped me up this time around.

 

3. What details have you noticed so far this time that you have not noticed before?

    I have started to notice the reality of my preferred pairing, actually. I have loved L x Misa since I was a teenager and as a teen, I was so certain that it was so close to being set in stone because, spoiler alert, there was the "I could fall for you" line that he told Misa after she kissed him on the cheek, there was the scene where he was caught with that banana while watching one of Misa's commercials, and there was L's admission that he had been a fan of hers since the August issue of Eighteen magazine. However, just before I started this rewatch, I ran into someone online who carefully pointed out that we really have no way of knowing just how much of what L says to anyone, himself included, in the series is truth or lies. I had to take a step back and realize that a lot of the 'ship evidence' I thought I had for all these years could all just be L acting in order to trip Misa up. Now, when I watch the series, I am keeping in mind that L could be lying in order to bring himself closer to solving the case. Though I will say, it does not completely dismantle L x Misa for me. I mean, I do still think there's a solid chance that the expression L makes the second that Misa kisses him on the cheek unexpectedly could be genuine, even if what he says in reaction could be a lie. Also, I know the novels are technically not canon sans Another Note, but in L: Change The World, L had a whole closet full of Misa merchandise that he seemed a little embarrassed to have someone discover and when he ran into a Misa concert, he quietly wished for her to have a decent remainder of her life before he left. Neither of those two things offer him anything to lose or gain in a case and as such, I cannot discount them as L lying/acting. :) So there is that, at least. Even if it is not canon. Another thing to note is that I am also sort of rereading the manga and I have noticed that L is usually quite annoyed at Misa in the manga. He does this a little in the anime, but it seems sharper in the manga somehow.

 

4. Did the show influence your creativity, writing, or the kinds of characters that you gravitate toward?

    I do not think I would say so. I feel that there was far more influence, during that time period, from Tim Burton's films and the books I was reading, like Redwall, Eragon, The String of Pearls and Memoirs of a Geisha. However, Death Note did help me to prepare my mind for watching horror movies. The psychological work it takes to overcome the appearances of the shinigami in the series apparently makes very good mental progress toward being ready to take in real horror films. I appreciate that so much, as someone who had been wanting to watch horror from a young age but couldn't because it messed with their anxiety disorder too much. Thanks to Tim Burton's films and anime like Death Note and Paranoia Agent in my teen years, at the age of twenty-one, I was finally able to start sitting through horror films.

 

5. How does watching it now compare to watching it on late night TV as a teen?

    To be honest, I do sort of try to simulate it by waiting to watch Death Note either at or after 11 pm at night, but there is a marked difference. The obvious is that there are no commercial breaks, so if I need to use the restroom or need a snack, I have to hit pause, leave and come back to hit play again. Which is fine. It's very useful for that. What I miss though is the sense of a community during the viewings. In the 2000's, since Death Note was airing on TV, you got the sense that you were watching it with other people who had probably stayed up to watch when you were by yourself. If you weren't alone, then you had the even more wonderful sense of watching with friends or family by your side. People you could actively talk to about the episode as it was happening or during the commercials and credits. Trying to watch it now, at any point, is a bit... Quiet. There is no guarantee that someone else is using another screen at the same time you are to watch and if you are not lucky enough to be watching with a friend or family member in person, then you have to pause or completely stop the episode randomly just to scroll TikTok or Tumblr to see what the other fans are saying... and that's assuming the fandom is active online.

 

6. Why do you think Death Note stayed with you all these years? 

    This might just be the most personal question for me. Part of it is because the story is so interesting to watch and rewatch or reread, especially the spin-off novels. But the major thing that keeps Death Note resurfacing in my mind is the memories I made with people I loved surrounding it. Evenings enjoying the live action Japanese films with my mom (who really liked them), parties where friends joking wrote names in my Death Note notebook, the day a certain ex boyfriend first came down to see me in person and chose to wear an L cosplay because he knew how much I loved L... Ironically, the music playlist I have on right now is actually playing Who Knew by P!nk. I will not say too much here at this point in time, but if you listen to that song, the lyrics will tell you quite a bit about what happened during and after those seven years (2006 to 2014). 

 

    To close this post on a brighter note, I have been enjoying rewatching all the anime series I can find that I used to love! Death Note has had a grip on my brain now for at least a month or so but there are so many other series that I think I'm going to enjoy posting about in the near future. Until then, take good care of yourself, stay rested and hydrated! :)