Death Note Is Depressive

Author: Dead at 17

**CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE ANIME**

I watched Death Note for a second time and finished it last night. I don’t remember myself being so affected by it the first time I watched. I think it’s more sad than anything.

During the time that Light loses his memory of the notebook purposefully to prove his innocence we got to see who Light actually was without the influence of the power the Death Note brought to him.

To be honest, I didn’t even know he wasn’t actually the person we’ve been watching until that point. You see, the story doesn’t even let you into what type of person Light is before he is consumed by power.

We only know that with the increasing amount of crimes in Japan and with the general situation of the world and humanity, he is bored. He believes something should be done to make the world a better place. Truthfully, as Kira, he cares more about his victims just being gone, leaving the world as less rotten, than he cares about actually delivering justice to them. If he were more concerned with punishing his victims as well, he wouldn’t have let his victims get away with simply a heart attack. I’m sure he can already realize that death is only a reward, a salvation, for the victims and nowhere close to actual judgement nor punishment. Coming from that, he mostly just cares about cleaning the world.

And we also know that he’s always been basically perfect. The top in his class, kind, charming, handsome, respectful, has socially high status as the chief’s son, smart and even has helped with some cases… Even his room is spotless. His future is already planned. Complete your education at To-Ho University and join the police. He’s used to being seen as succesful and wantable by many people, always being praised.

But you can see that he’s almost too perfect to be genuine. He doesn’t hang out with friends at or after school, it seems that he doesn’t even have any friends. His father’s probably not around so often due to work so they don’t get to have much time together. His mother seems to care more about her son’s achievements than himself. So… from what we can tell, he doesn’t have one genuine human relationship despite being such a “perfect everything”.

That’s all we know. It’s not much. So I actually didn’t think he was much different after becoming Kira.

Then, his personality becomes what we know under the affect of being Kira throughout the anime. Everything he does, every motive of his just becomes only one thing: Create a new world that is free of those rotten apples and become the god of it using the Death Note.

Then he starts getting more and more poisened by power. He drifts away from his own morales and ideals. While with L, everything he does comes down to not getting caught and winning the pride war with him. He starts using people, killing innocents.

The voice he had while talking to the others (in the original Japanese version) was kinder, softer than the voice he had during his inner-monologues and conversations with Ryuk or other people such as Misa who already knew that Light was Kira. İt made me think that that softer voice was his “manipulative” one to come off as harmless.

I was actually pretty surprised when that softer voice was the one he had when he chose to lose his memories under the plan of proving his innocence. Who he was as Kira was not the actual Light after all, it seemed. The power drastically changed him more than what you can already gauge since we really didn’t get to see the real him before the events of the anime occured. He really was just a smart, kind-hearted boy who wanted to change the world in a good way.

Misa really looked like she really loved Light. But Light on the other hand, didn’t feel anything for her at any moment of the anime. He only used her just like he used everyone else to become god. Even in his last moments when he yelled “Where are you Misa?” he was only seeking someone who he knew would still love and support him dearly no matter what in a vulnerable moment like that. Not that he actually cared for her or regretted how he treated her or anything. He called for his other love interest too right after anyway.

When he lost his memories of being Kira and was actually himself, L asked him to use Misa, take advantage of her feelings towards Light and get closer to her, so that they could maybe gain new insights for their interrogation.

And even though he used Misa and her feelings in any way without a crumb of hesitation as Kira, Light immediately refused L’s offer, saying he couldn’t use someone’s feelings for anything. So I think that was one of the times that really showed how much the power consumed his real identity.

In the end, many innocent people died for nothing simply because Kira didn’t want to get caught. L died in the arms of his enemy knowing his suspicions were right all along at the last second.

And Light… He died as not even himself, but a toxic verion that he’s been for more than the past fives years without even having had experienced one genuine relationship in his life.

That’s more depressing to witness than anything else.