@@middlespace8412 Yeah I've heard different takes. Some people say that it's harder to know what he's thinking others say that it's easily conveyed through his facial expressions. I suppose it's better to have both so both types can enjoy the show.
It definitely feels scarier and more “real” watching without the internal monologue. A lot more like watching a true crime documentary or CSI style show but animated (even though the method of killing is obviously in the realm of fantasy,) it’s wild how much the internal monologue does to humanize Light for the audience and make us feel like even though we know what he’s doing is wrong, we’re sort of placed on his side by being put into his perspective and into his head. This makes him feel more as he is to the world he occupies… a cold and terrifying unknown.
Unless you are a RU-vid reactor, in which case you apparently have to disregard anything you've ever said regarding legal issues and agree with L 100% the entire time.
@@Canonicallycreative You said that the internal monologues humanize Light and explain his actions. I'm referring to the people who go into Death Note and hate on Light the entire time regardless. Most reactors on RU-vid fall into that group.
I kind of felt like this particular scene, without the internal dialog, was still very humanizing. In the later episodes, absolutely. You as the audience are guided to believe in Light. This scene though, is just about testing the book for the first time. Human nature is to be curious. Who wouldn't try it once, even just as a joke?
@@michaelcarlton1484 You’re not meant to like Light, though. You’re meant to understand him and how he became the monster he is, but he’s a sociopathic serial killer, not a good guy.
Actually nothing happens if you write your own name. However if you write your own name but there's another person with the exact same name and you were thinking about them as you were writing it then that person dies.
I actually really like this. The lack of internal dialogue forces you to pay attention to his expression, especially the eyes. Without hearing his thoughts, you have to imagine what he's thinking, and it ends up being your own internal voice detailing his thoughts. You really have to read his face. It's actually really immersive, if that makes sense.
Totally agree. I've watched this series literally dozens of times in my life and never once noticed just how disappointed he is when he thinks the notebook didn't work. Like, I knew he was a little disappointed, but his internal monologue is already trying to protect his psyche by convincing him that he knew all along the notebook wasn't going to work. When you take that away, though, he looks utterly crestfallen.
@VidyaRavilochan while I agree that he's disappointed, I wouldn't go as far as crestfallen. This was his first use of it, and he didn't expect success from the start. But that's what I love about this video. Rather than just dumping Light's thoughts on us, directly telling us what he thinks, we have to make our own guess. We put our interpretation of the body language and our knowledge of the info we do know for sure together, potentially leading to different conclusions.
You gotta give credit to the artist for this portrayal, though. The skepticism, curiosity, the ‘just as I thought’ when nothing seemed to happen, the shock of realizing you may have just killed someone. And how normal Light looks at this point. He still looks innocent.
@@AkerfeldtTveitan-yi4xm The animation is actually really good for the time it came out. A lot of early 2000s anime was either really ugly or... just like this. Like, yeah, it's not the sparkliest anime ever, but it's a crime series... what does it need to be glossy for? Not everything looked like Sword Fart Online back in the 2000s. We've only just been seeing this new wave anime style in the mid 2010s.
watching this now that I've forgotten a lot of the details of what happened in Death Note, i really wish there was an alternative version of Death Note that has more of a horror vibe. don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed death note as it is, but I think a version that's leaning more into the horror could be interesting
the dynamic shots and close ups really help sell the scene, and the directing on light's body language make everything easy to understand. this first episode really was a masterpiece in anime.
This show is a masterpiece of anime indeed but I can't help notice upon watching it for like the 7th time how they didn't take the time to flesh out Light's character more so that we get an idea of how he thinks and how much of a "model" citizen he is. They just let him directly descend into madness. It feels very rushed. I though the manga did a better job here but it's the same.
Light could have been a terrifying villain. Like, we see everything from his pov, but if you observed him from an outsider perspective, he's absolutely chilling. Like, he's so good at acting normal that barely anyone in the series even entertained that he was Kira. If Kira's identity remained secret through the series, Light's reveal at the end would have been insane. Or, imagine him as a Makima-type character, that's even scarier.
That's part of what made Matsuda's breakdown so sad. Everyone (except Matsuda) caught on that Light was Kira. But none of them had any clue how unhinged and fanatical he was. Because even when he was at his most ruthless, he never outwardly expressed that frantic side of himself. Only the audience got to see that side of him. So even the people who figured out it was him were shocked. And then poor Matsuda probably felt like his friend was switched with a lying imposter and he just couldn't take it.
@@bennitori4 I thought the ending was bad. I wanted to see light win ,since he lost I wanted his defeat to atleast make sense but it didn’t😂 He could’ve got out of it easily and won, but I hate that “the villain can never win” Trope and it seems like they wrote themselves into a corner and didn’t know how to kill him off
@@loni1771 read the manga, or at least the second half of it. the anime cuts out a lot of things from the ending half of death note. they completely ruined near's character, and the way they beat kira makes no sense in the anime. it works in the manga, though
@@isaacpoppe990 nah even in the manga it’s stretched how Nears Agent somehow was able to get close to mikami and copy his handwriting perfectly hand by hand in under a day. It’s like near’s character was just handed the dub against Light.
I was exspecting this to be more goofy than it actually is :/ I actually kind of like how even without hearing Lights internal dialogue, that his expressions and heavier breathing at some parts convey the thoughts and feelings perfectly Me likey
In manga form, internal monologue is necessary to fill in the visual gaps that can't be communicated panel by panel. In anime form, when you can-in detail-animate every subtle eye movement and facial expression, it really does become so much more to _show_ and not _tell_ what the characters are thinking.
Despite the fact that the constant internal monologues are one of my favorite things about the show, this is actually a REALLY interesting way to frame this scene.
@@AkerfeldtTveitan-yi4xm while the monologues never outright ruined the experience for me, I do think that silence plays just as important a role in a shows storytelling and sound design as dialogue does. silence can show us a lot about a character. i even think removing the music from this scene would have improved it even further. it creates a tension that wasn't there before.
On of the reason it has so much dialogue is because it’s originally a manga. Doing These long shots of nothing doesn’t work as well in comic form. Nor can you for the audience to linger on a single panel. But in anime form, they can force the watcher to linger on a frame and wait for the whole time building anticipation for the person death. We’re as in manga they can skim and skip the page. No dialogue to read or slow down for. You see this lot in anime that is an adaptation. Like Evangelion or Samurai Champloom. Where they hold the watcher still or convey without internal dialogue.
I'd show my kids this version of the series first if a full version was ever made, it makes Light feel less like the protagonist and more like a force of nature that you just happen to be witnessing.
I've never watched Death Note, I've seen a few solid jj & RG33 videos but that's about as far as my knowledge goes. I can take a pretty good guess of what he's thinking but I could be entirely wrong, I don't really know. Based on the one line he says, I can tell that he's incredulous at first. But after thinking about it in his head the curiosity gets to him and he opens the book and grabs a pen. He realizes there's nobody who he'd be sure he'd want to kill and then a news report on a hostage situation comes on. After hearing the name of the criminal who's doing this terrible act he figures that he'd try it on him. If he dies, he'll have saved people, if he doesn't then oh well, out of his hands. So he writes the name and waits. And waits. And waits. Eventually he grows tired of waiting and gets up to leave. But then suddenly, the news report exclaims that the hostages are now free and the criminal suddenly collapsed and died. Light is shocked, and a mix of "holy shit what did I just do" and "holy shit it worked" and "holy shit....... it worked. he's dead"
I expected this to be funny because of the long silences, but it's actually really good. It highlights the animation team's work on the facial expressions and body language. Would love to rewatch the show like this.
One thing I like about this is how the series still works without Light’s input. Like the episodes are designed to have Light talk over certain moments but they still work without hearing his thoughts.
The fact there's such potent visual story telling and yet they decided to put all that inner monolog in😭 Anyway I'd totally love the entire show edited like this🛐
It wasn’t too late at that point to turn back destroy the notebook or whatever. It was the moment light wrote a second name down later in the story that there was no going back
This makes it way better, it adds an bit of tension to the scene. The anime should've worked more with silences and ambiance rather than reading character's thoughts telling you what's happening.
That's actually really neat. On one hand, the idea that we're following the logic of a teenager who starts playing god in the series as written is interesting, but getting to just watch it unfold lets the viewer experience it as a bystander, but gives less insight into Light's mindset and why he feels the _need_ to do this. I would totally watch a whole series of Death Note with No Monologue, just to see how many scenes like this one end up with a totally different vibe. You definitely get more of a sense that Light is spooked by what he's just done than he is awed.
@@grantwalter2243 Huh? They're talking about a change in direction, which gives a different perspective on the same event, not altering the events of the story themselves
But the thing what makes death note special is the internal monologues. Remember this is a shonen anime. All the fighting and battles are in the charachters head. Without that this would be a whole different anime and also kinda boring since the most hype moments happened in internal monologues
He wouldn't expect a god of death to show up Imagine this line God of death: "that person's fate was sealed when you wrote it down" Then light would have a more intense version of the freak-out when he found out the notebook was real
I don’t have a problem with Internal monologues as long as it doesn’t feel like exposition dumping. That’s why its so good in death note. Its not just that he’s explaining why he did something but more so that he’s actively trying to solve a problem and we get to hear his thought process while doing so. Not like in Naruto when they just say the obvious all the time
I agree. Plus Naruto repeating the same few quotes and flash backs frequently, especially in the anime. Naruto is a masterpiece, but a few little things can be a bit obnoxious sometimes.
Something I found not many animes can do correctly. Either do them right or don’t do them at all. If it’s not necessary then leave it out and keep the audience guessing (and invested) until they find the answers.
@@sixkicksfightertricks949 A few? I have tried several times to start watching that show and by the fourth or fifth episode, I can’t take the anime-moments anymore so I stop. It’s not a masterpiece, it’s professional fan fiction for weebs.
I think there's a video out there where L confronts Light with partial evidence, presented out of order. In the show, Light has to make some 4D chess moves in his head about whether to make the correct assumption based on missing information that L never presented him with, or to purposefully make the wrong assumption. But how can he fake conviction towards a wrong assumption without looking like he's faking. In the show we get a solid 2 or 3 minutes of Light trying to strategize. But without the monologue, they both just stare at each other for 5 minutes. Light says 2 sentences. They stare at each other for another 3 minutes, and then they go right back to a seemingly normal conversation. And the idea of L just going along with it all makes the entire scene even funnier.
@@bennitori4 my favourite headcanon is that the monologues aren't just for audience comprehension, that is actually how they communicate and the rest of the task force learned to live with it.
@@bennitori4I just came from that video, and it was hysterical 😂😂 There’s no blinking or anything, it’s just a single frame up for ten seconds, but not one comment seemed to find it as funny as I did 🙃
Light's initial reaction to the Death Note feels so realistic without the internal dialogue. Not to say it isn't realistic normally, but watching everything play out on it's own with the long silences from Light as everything is unfolding is so cool to watch. Now, I can't say I relate to what he does afterwards with the Death Note (Although who really knows) but I can see myself reacting to this scenario in the exact way that Light does.
@@happilyevernever4289 exactly. people like death note because of the internal monologuing. the reason why this is funny is because we already know what light is thinking, and the deafening silence in juxtiposition with our expectation is humorous. however, this would not work on a larger scale, otherwise more people would watch season 2 of the anime of death note. but they dont, because its not a good formula.
In any context the first kill honestly is what sold me on the show. The fact he thought it was stupid and fake made it feel grounded, then it turns out it worked and it completely shook his entire world. Sadly it means he doomed his soul for eternity even it was morbid curiosity. That’s the true horror of death note. Who ever uses it no matter what is doomed.
This presentation of the scene is actually pretty interesting, although I don’t know if it would hold up for the entire series. What I will say though is that this feels way more tense and claustrophobic - the relative silence of Light’s room creates a really creepy contrast with the violence that’s unfolding. It almost highlights the vibe of the Death Note more accurately (from the perspective of the average person, but possibly not Light’s) in that it’s a silent and insidious killer. The lack of melodrama here makes the power of the book scarier imo: it does exactly what it says it does on the inside cover and no more or less than that. A totally stone cold killer that will obediently kill anyone the user chooses.
I like how Light only talks out loud to push the idea of using the Death Note out of his mind. It's like he's trying to talk himself out of using it by highlighting how ridiculous it would be to expect it to work. Yet, he's already picked it up and brought it home. Even as he tells himself "lol how stupid" he has already decided to use it. Also, I never realized how sudden the cut to the hostage crisis was until it played without internal monologue. This makes it seem like we skipped several minutes or maybe even a few hours of Light sitting there flipping through channels until he found something to use the Death Note on. Seems like despite shltting on the idea, Light already wanted the Death Note to be real, even before he saw evidence that it was. Maybe Kira was already in there, even before he got the book.
As someone who’s never seen the show, this seemed entirely natural, and I feel like adding internal dialogue to this would’ve felt cluttered and unnecessary. Though I could obviously be wrong, as I haven’t seen ir
I agree, but the problem is that Death Note has a ton of scenes like this, and it would be very hard to know what's going on and what characters' plans and motives are without internal dialogue
I never watched Death Note before (aside from out of context references), but this scene was perfectly coherent. 1) Light reads the book and its rules, note the “must picture target’s face” rule in frame. 2) Light believes it is some sort of prank, but is still superstitious 3) He sees an opportunity on TV. He can test the book on a hostage crisis. If the book is a prank, nothing will happen. If the book is legit, he would have fixed a bad situation. No risk really. 4) he tries it out, thanks to a police mugshot of the suspect on TV 5) due to TV/information delay, nothing happens immediately. He almost writes it off 6) the news reports that the suspect suddenly collapsed with no police intervention 7) Light realizes that the book is legitimate, but is interrupted by his mother If I had to guess the continuation, Light has time to reflect and believes it is a coincidence. So he waits for another similar opportunity to show up again. When it does, he tries again. It works. Premise established.
