RATING LIGHT YAGAMI'S OUTFITS

a death note chapter 1 vs episode 1 comparison

I think people tend to be under the assumption that the death note manga and anime are basically the same besides their endings and the foot washing scene, and thus generally interchangeable. Personally, i don’t believe this is the case. Though many of the changes are small things a casual viewer might not notice, to me these small changes add up to such a degree that despite being so similar, reading the manga and watching the anime are two very different experiences (not even getting into how the anime butchers the second half lmao)

For the record, im not against significant changes in adaptations. On the contrary, i find the oft-hated 2015 tv drama to be a compelling alternate take on the narrative (even if it often struggles in the execution of its concepts). Rather, this whole Thing is more of a documentation of the big and small changes made in adaptation, through the lens of my own extremely subjective interpretation of both versions.

the anime naturally makes many structural changes to the narrative so for the sake of consistency, i will generally be going through things according to the anime’s chronology. If i believe one of these changes has a notable effect on how the narrative comes across, i’ll mention it. I’ll try not to repeat things that are identical between versions, so naturally some existing familiarity with either version would be preferable

Let's Begin

Light: this world… Ryuk: …is rotten

The anime takes the opening lines of the manga (which are spoken separately by light and ryuk, respectively) and gives light ryuk’s line, while light’s is then shared between both of them.

Though they are very obviously visually drawing parallels between the two characters in the manga, i think the actual sentiment expressed in their respective lines isn’t meant to be quite as connected as the anime portrays it. the role “boredom” and “morality” play in their respective motivations is pretty important later on in the chapter, so just keep this in the back of your mind for now.

After light picks up the note for the first time, he puts it back down and starts to leave, dismissing it as a stupid chain letter. But once he thinks about the fact that it’ll supposedly kill people, he turns back (and goes back for it). This choice to go back is not present in the manga, he simply picks it up, laughs, and puts it in his bag without a second thought.

Though light laughs at it in both, in the manga the sequence in general feels lighter in tone compared to the anime (where light only takes interest in it Because it claims to kill). 

In general, light comes across as more mature in the anime, in his facial features and behavior. Tragically, there is no “fwaah” 🥺

It’s minor but Anime light entirely skips manga light’s rationalization of finding someone it’s “okay to kill”, though he does immediately rebuke himself for taking this so seriously

This may just be up to translation differences but anime light seems almost eager for the death note to be real, while manga light seems to just want confirmation, and is much more distressed over the circumstances. Again, the anime leaves out light determining who to kill specifically in terms of who it would be “okay to kill”. And here he then doubles down to someone who “ought to die”, as the situation has gotten more serious

It’s a small thing, but the anime completely removes this scene (the teacher is knocking him out of his thoughts of killing one of his classmates). It’s only notable to me in how it connects with the wider tonal differences between the versions of the story, and of how much less willing the anime is to portray light’s more mundane immature/human aspects

I'm not including pics but this sequence where light comes across a woman being harassed by a group of bikers is a lot more graphic, showing the preamble to sexual assault where the manga just implied it to be a possibility.

This one is probably more subjective, but when light pulls out the note to stare at it and laugh a little eagerly, the anime’s delivery is really like. Obvious overt Supervillain laugh (even if it is fairly quiet). The manga comes across a little more….. Idc, childish? Immature? Not to mention the sweat on his face

A small change, but in the anime there’s no disbelieving “a…[bold text] shinigami?”

Anime light sweats at his initial meeting of ryuk, but it’s gone as he resolves himself. Manga light sweats and sweats and keeps on sweating through most of the rest of the conversation, the closed eye expression being one of frustration before he opens his eyes and resolves himself.

In the manga, light’s hand trembles as he grabs the chair while getting up.

With the context of the rest of this chapter/episode, these lines come off very differently to me. Anime light feels like he was only surprised by the sight of ryuk+jumpscare, and is wayyy more confident in this situation. That he has been waiting for ryuk feels like a true statement. But in the manga, it really comes off like he is pissing himself scared right now and is desperately pretending to be cool and lies about it to try and have some control over the situation

The anime omits this hilariously awkward line, which really adds to the “light’s absolutely freaking out” of the manga

Ugh, for such a little thing im genuinely kinda devastated that the anime just doesn’t have that look between ryuk and light. It makes the “most people would be too scared” feel so much less pointed. Light later says that there’s “some power that makes you want to use the death note” and i think this bit really drives in how truly abnormal light’s behavior is, even for people who willingly use the death note. 

Off topic but I Hate those “the death note has supernatural powers that makes you evil” theories i really do, it gets rid of everything interesting about the narrative, i’ll fight you. anyways.

Again, the difference in composure. Anime light is still sweating over this, but overall way more “cool” than manga light’s heavily shadowed, serious expression and hunched shoulders

Im so sad at how they’ve removed so much of this lowkey humor in the anime. Light’s awkward laughter is so funny and characterful to me, he is sooo internally freaking out…

i think the juxtaposition of dark shit with humor to be one of the big appeals of the manga, and one of the main reasons i find the anime pretty boring tonally. 

They need to stop getting rid of light’s awkward bits, it really humanizes him

Light has resolved himself to his mission, he proclaims it with a smile on his face, in both versions. (Manga light finally doesn’t have sweat on his face anymore)

But why is he doing all this? Ryuk even asks flat out in the anime. And what does light say?

Well this is where it gets really interesting… It is here where what i believe to be the single most significant adaptation change occurs. 

Light has two RADICALLY different answers.

A childish, wide eyed smiling proclamation that “nobody will commit crimes anymore. the world will start to become a better place,” versus a serious “i was bored…too.”

once you strip away the cat and mouse games to reach the thematic and emotional bones of death note (the manga), i find it to be a story that is fundamentally a character study of our beloved beloathed protagonist light yagami. As such, i find Altering something so critical to who he is like this irrevocably changes the entire narrative. 

And the thing is, both sentiments are expressed in both versions, but come across very differently due to their contexts. 

←- right to left

This first chapter has had some fairly major structural changes done in the process of adaptation. While the anime goes from light seeing the death note fall from his classroom window to meeting ryuk for the first time in chronological order, the manga has a timeskip in the middle of it. What did they skip? Light’s first time actually using the death note. So when ryuk later tells light that he dropped the death note for a human to pick up out of boredom, light responds that he was bored too… leading directly into a flashback of when he first used the note. 

In the manga, the juxtaposition of events leads us to read “i was bored too” as: 

“Light used the death note for the first time because he was bored” 

In the anime, the same line is instead a direct answer to ryuk asking his motivation for becoming kira. Reinforced by following it up with a flashback to the immediate aftermath of light discovering that the death note truly works (+ his decision to become kira).

Though not significantly different, i do find it interesting how the anime has omitted light considering getting rid of the death note and thinking that the second victim didn’t deserve death (then talking himself into accepting it). As a result, anime light’s rationalization of his behavior feels less personal, and has much less doubt.

Again, the manga goes way harder into light’s emotional state, and doubts about this whole thing. “Just two, and look at me…” Also, no guilt blanket burrito in the anime ☹️

Now back to the conversation with ryuk, the anime is very notably missing this line from light. Ryuk has never seen someone write as many names in the notebook in 5 days as light has, and light is not dealing with it well. He’s being flippant about it, but this little line is some of the most damning evidence that the guilt of killing people is actively eating away at him, and to a pretty severe degree.

Though anime light does bring up the same/similar lines about making the world a better place and having doubts about his mission, their place in his motivations has been significantly de-emphasized. The general change in light’s characterization seems to make him look much colder, cooler and more capable, at the expense of removing most of his humanity and a lot of the dimension to his character, particularly regarding his personal feelings re: being kira.

This wouldn’t be so much of an issue to me if (ironically) the anime had changed More in order to support its new direction (the shift in light’s characterization+increased emphasis on L as well as L and Light’s dynamic), but i don’t think it executed it very well. I honestly think the musical actually delivers on these specific goals much more successfully, but we’re leaving that for another post.

can you believe i wrote all that for one chapter/episode. Christ.

Anyways look at this loser who deep down knows he’s doing the wrong thing but chooses to just keep doing it.

it feels so good not to have tumblr updated. my heart goes out to the poor souls who are suffering from the terrible ui

Guns

THE WHITE KNIGHT ARC AND ITS CONNECTIONS TO THE DARK KNIGHT MOVIE

Since it came up in my last analysis, I got the urge to rewatch the Dark Knight movie so it's finally my time to make an in-depth comparison between this and the White Knight arc which is heavily inspired by the movie.

I will list all similarities I could find by comparing the Yuumori characters to their Dark Knight movie counterparts. I will mention the differences when it is interesting, but I didn't want to turn this into a movie review, so The Dark Knight is still worth watching. However, even with that, warning: there will be spoilers regarding the movie.

(And since you've mentioned you would be interested, @diveintovortex , I ping you.)

But before I switch to the character comparison, here's these two covers where the manga actually referenced the movie with using one of its most popular quotes (said in a crucial moment by Harvey Dent).

"The night is the darkest just before the dawn. And the dawn is coming."

The three main characters of the arc and the Dark Knight movie roles they have: the Lord of Crime/Batman, Adam Whiteley/Harvey Dent and Milverton/Joker.

THE LORD OF CRIME / BATMAN

Let's talk about the similarities between the Lord of Crime (here, I will mean the role, so not just William, but all three Moriarties) and Batman.

First, they have some similar tools - the Lord of Crime shown to use something similar to Batman's equipment he can get onto buildings with, he also wears a coat.

Both of them hides their identity from the public and both of them have a well-respected public persona - the Moriarties are nobles and Batman is a wealthy businessman, Bruce Wayne. Both of them also donate a lot.

Both of them has an agent/informant in the police - for the Lord of Crime, it is Patterson, for Batman, it is James Gordon (and both Patterson and James Gordon wear glasses).

Both Batman and the Lord of Crime are someone the common people looked up to first and saw as their hope - then their views changed when Whiteley and Harvey Dent arrived to the scene.

Both Batman and the Lord of Crime fight for a good cause, to make a better society with means outside of the law (but unlike the LoC, Batman doesn't kill). Batman wants to clean Gotham from the mobs and the Lord of Crime England from the evil nobles. Gotham and England are also shown to have similar curses what makes the people on the low's life a hell - Gotham has corruption what makes the city unable to thrive and England has the class system.

They both got refered to with the name "Dark Knight. For Batman, it occurs at the end of the movie and for the Lord of Crime, it's the title of the next chapter (which, despite that the Lord of Crime doesn't appear in it, is all about the Lord of Crime in talks between Milverton and Ruskin and Sherlock and Mycroft).

Getting more into the plot-wise similarities - at the start of the White Knight arc, someone complains that kids nowadays play that they are the Lord of Crime and even injuring each other during that. At the start of the movie, people dressing up as Batman show up and fight criminals in even more violent ways (like using guns what Batman never used) which also lead to complaining from the ordinary people.

In the movie, Batman catches the Chinese mob leader and gives him to Harvey Dent, so through the information he can get from him, Dent can catch the other mob leaders - while in Yuumori, Albert gives information to Whiteley about the corruption in the House of Lords and their connections to the mafia. These informations can be used to Dent and Whiteley solve the problems.

As Harvey Dent becames the hero Gotham needs and seems to be able to solve the problems, Bruce Wayne thinks he can quit being Batman - just like the Moriarties think they don't need to continue with the Moriarty plan because Whiteley can bring the equality they wanted.

After Harvey Dent turns into the villain Two-face and murders people, then dies (but not by Batman's hands), Batman tooks the blame for his crimes, so Gotham can still have the hope what Dent gave to the people. The Lord of Crime similarly takes the blame for Whiteley's crime, so people can still believe in his equality movement.

This way, Batman becomes a villain in the eyes of the society - just like the Lord of Crime. And they both getting chased by the police at the end of the movie/arc led by their police agents, James Gordon and Patterson (in the anime) who both know the truth, but for the bigger good, they decided to play along.

ADAM WHITELEY / HARVEY DENT

Let's move onto Whiteley and Harvey Dent.

Both Whiteley and Harvey have blond hair, really idealistic personalities and a well-respected public position - Harvey is district attorney and Whiteley is a parliament member.

Harvey Dent fights for the same issue as Batman just like Whiteley fights for the same cause like the Lord of Crime, but they are with the means of the law. They also get threats for their activities.

Both of them called as White Knight by the people who view them as their heroes.

Whiteley uses his hunch (intuition regarding people) and puts his most trust into getting by with this, similarly Harvey Dent believes in his ability to make his chance and use a coin (even if it's a tricky one first) to make decisions. Both of these will lead to their ends.

Both of them survives an assassination in public, but Harvey Dent notices the gun in time, while Whiteley smells the smoke. They defeat their assassins by themselves.

For Harvey, his moral support is his girlfriend, Rachel while for Whiteley, his brother Sam. After they lose them, both of them fall apart and commit crimes.

They both end up using a not lawful method to achieve their goal - Harvey, despite being against Batman's ways, ends up siding with him and Whiteley tries to blackmail. Both of them fails.

Bruce Wayne supports Harvey Dent's activities with money and the Moriarties support Whiteley with information - and neither Harvey or Whiteley knows that they are supported by Batman or the Lord of Crime.

Both of them get betrayed by the police they put their trust into and lose their loved ones thanks to them what makes them commit crimes. (But since Harvey was more mentally unstable even before that, he actually starts murdering people while Whiteley only commits one murder).

In the anime, after Whiteley commits the murder, the blood on his face makes him similar to Harvey Dent after he became Two-face.

"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Harvey and Whiteley died and remained as heroes in the people's eyes while Batman the Lord of Crime who lived and took the blame, became villains in the eye of the public.

MILVERTON / THE JOKER

The biggest deviations from the Dark Knight movie is between Milverton and Joker's character so I want to start with the two biggest differences: Milverton has a public persona outside his villain activities (but what he also use for those villain activities) while Joker doesn't. Joker also acts more impulsively and hates control while Milverton is a control freak. But beside these two, there are lot of similarities between them as well, even if sometimes with a twist.

The Milverton cover to the White Knight arc is really similar to one of the Dark Knight movie posters.

Milverton wearing a purple suit in the anime similarly to Joker (while the missing green from Joker's outfit is found at Ruskin). Both of them have overly messy hair.

They both use the media to scare/manipulate the public and kills those henchmen they have no more use of (but unlike Joker, Milverton has Ruskin as his constant partner in crime, also his bodyguards while the Joker is completely alone).

"Some men just wants to watch the world burn." Both Joker and Milverton's only goal is to cause as much suffer as they can. Neither of them can get negotiated with - Milverton doesn't blackmail for money just for torture and Joker even burns the money what he got as a payment.

Joker keeps telling to people how he ended up like that, how he got his scars, but the story is always different. We never learn the truth about his background. Milverton is the same - he gives some explanation why he is evil but that story exlains nothing and most likely a just a good-sounding excuse. We never learn how he turned into a villain either.

Joker wants to cause chaos what turns the civilians into monsters. Milverton's Jack the Ripper plan was the same and he also mentions that his media power is just to tempt people to sin.

After the mob is unable to catch Batman, Joker visits them and offers that he will deal with him, making them to hire him with showing his power by killing one of the mob leaders first. Similarly, Milverton kills the failed assassin to make the House of Lords to hire him, but in his case, to deal with Whiteley.

However, similarly to Joker's obsession with Batman's defeat, Milverton is also obsessed with defeating the Lord of Crime.

Joker looks down on the mob leaders like Milverton looks down on the House of Lords. Both thinks that they are the only worthy criminals because they don't do evil for personal gain.

Joker wants to make Batman to break his one rule (no killing) by murdering one of Batman's loved ones first. Milverton uses a similar method to tempt Whiteley to sin.

"I took Gotham's White Knight and brought him down to our level." Joker wanted and caused the good-hearted Harvey to fall to make him someone like him similarly to Milverton who also wanted and made Whiteley to sin.

****

It ended up to be quite a long post but that's just shows again how much the movie inspired the arc. I really love both and anyone who didn't watch The Dark Knight yet, I can only recommend!

So you know when you're writing a scene where the hero is carrying an injured person and you realize you've never been in this situation and have no idea how accurate the method of transportation actually is?

Oh boy, do I have a valuable resource for you!

Here is a PDF of the best ways to carry people depending on the situation and how conscious the injured person needs to be for the carrying position.

Literally a life saver.

(No pun intended.)

reblog if you wear glasses. too many mutuals don't know they have glasses wearers in their midsts

also: real question genuine question did anyone else have the childhood experience of being convinced you had to be romantically attracted to a boy not for "fitting in"/"being normal" etc reasons but because that was how all the stories went for girls and you thought you were a girl, and therefore developed an almost compulsive habit of trying to slot every interaction with a boy into Good Romance/Bad Romance and overanalyzing everything you felt and everything they did, which ended up in thoughts like "oh wow he's wearing a blue necklace today and i have a blue bracelet somewhere in my possession we must be soulmates and have a happily ever after" (referring to someone you were not attracted to whatsoever), making mundane existence into a frantic scramble for True Love in every single corner of life, or was it literally just me and misa amane

Day 2. Competition

In her own eyes Misa is too good to be rejected by anyone. Unfortunately, the target of her affection had been dating someone who is equally good. Or better.

Well, never better.

chapter two is here 🥹 is it a love triangle or am i normal

the answer is neither, btw

so, uh, death note rarepair week is finally here and I have successfully finished everything. now, did I have the time to translate it? no, but at least it is beta read.

anyone who knows russian is welcome to read the first chapter. anyone who doesn't... well... for now they can use google translate because my hands are full at the moment. I promise I will add a translation sooner or later though.

it's a complete story in seven chapters about dn characters in a starship. main pairing is kiyomi/light, but it's complicated and other ships will appear along the way.

kiyomisa, moonriver, lawtsuda, lawzawa... I didn't hold back with this work 😭

No man does it all by himself