Summary:
At the police station, various reports are being made to the chief, starting with the one about tips from the general public. Out of 3029 calls, 14 claim that they saw or know Kira, and 21 claimed to be Kira himself. Next is the victim report: all of the information for victims could have been learned from Japanese news. Concerning the time of deaths, they occurred from 4PM and 2AM Japan Standard time, with 68% in the 8PM to midnight range. On holidays, the time frame seems to be from 11AM until late at night. Finally, Matsuda reports that criminal activity around the world and in Japan has dropped sharply. The thing L is most interested now is if the portraits of the criminals are being shown by the media.
At home, Light’s tutoring his sister when his father – the police chief – comes home. Ryuk realizes that Light’s confidence comes from the fact that his father is in the police. In fact, Light reveals that he can access the police’s files though his father’s computer. Reviewing the rules of the Death Note, he decides that he’s going to try something by having criminals die of heart attacks, but also with some conditions. Over the next days, while Light is at school, various criminals start dying on their own. Light’s father eventually learns that 23 more people died yesterday, just like the 23 that died the day before that – every hour on the hour. This causes them new confusion in the theory that Kira is a student, but L thinks that Kira is just trying to tell them that he can freely manipulate the time of death. In private, L figures out that Kira must know what the police know, meaning that this is clearly a challenge directly to L.
Ryuk is meanwhile curious why Light would put himself at a greater disadvantage by having the focus of the investigation be on the police connection rather than the student one. Light explains that it’s so that L can be found and dealt with. He knows that the police and L don’t trust each other, especially since L doesn’t show his name or face. So even though it may seem like L and the police are working together, they are actually investigating each other at the same time. Light is going to let the police find L, and then Light will erase him. At class with Light later that night, Ryuk notices that there’s a shadowy figure watching them from afar. Back at the police station, the chief gets letters of resignation from three detectives who are afraid of retaliation from Kira. At the same time, L has the FBI is investigating the police for him. He has a stack of papers of that form a list of 141 people related to the case, and L knows that one of these people, or someone related to one of these people, is definitely Kira.
On the way home, Ryuk makes it clear that he’s not Light’s ally nor is he L’s ally, but he does have something to say that’s been bothering him: there is someone following Light. This causes Light to stop briefly in surprise, but he soon resumes walking home. He thinks that he’s not in any trouble for now, but he knows can’t just leave it alone. He’ll have to learn the name of the person following them first and then he can dispose of that person. Ryuk decides that this is a good time to explain that there are two big differences between Shinigami and humans who have a Death Note. First, the reason the Shinigami use the Death Note is because it can take a person’s remaining life span and add it to the Shinigami’s life span. For example, if a person who would normally die at 60 is written in the Note as dying at 40, then the 20 year difference is added to the Shinigami’s life. This way, the Shinigami can live forever as long as they’re not very lazy. As a human though, this does not apply to Light.
The second difference is something that Ryuk thinks Light will find even more interesting. Because of their Shinigami Eyes, a Shinigami can know the name of a person and their life span by just looking at the person’s face. This is so that the Shinigami can know how much they are adding on to their own life when they kill someone. These eyes are the decisive difference between Ryuk and Light. However, the Shinigami can trade eyes with the person who touched the Death Note, and the price of such a deal is half the person’s remaining life span. In other words, if the person had 50 years left to live and they made the trade, then they would only have 25 years left. After Light confirms that Ryuk wouldn’t tell him the name of a person that’s trying to kill him, he considers the prospect of being able to know someone’s name by just seeing their face. Outside their house, a man is watching from the shadows.

Preview:

They introduced the Shinigami Eyes concept, which I think is one of the cooler concepts of this series. Being able to see a person’s name opens up all sorts of killing possibilities for someone with the Death Note, but of course there’s the half-of-your-remaining-life price. But Light doesn’t need those eyes to do his normal task of killing off criminals, he would potentially only need them against the people after him. For now he’s pretty safe so there’s no real reason for him to take the gamble on his life. He just needs to get rid of the FBI guy. Incidentally, Ryuk’s eyes in that scene are really creepy. They’re doing a good job setting the dark mood in some of these scenes.
Next week, more of Light’s brilliant or mad planning, however you want to look at it.

25 Comments

  1. man,I knew it before, but with this ep I totally feel like I”m being plunged into the darkness. This series is almost film Noirish just in how just Light is not what he seems. He seemed idealisic in the first ep, now he’s just downright psycho.

    mangamaxx
  2. I’d think Light would have had to be at least partially not alright in the head to have gotten this psycho in such a short time (well actually, how long has he had the death note for now?)

    Lana
  3. lol, it’s only just started, the mind games right now are mediocre, and if u think Raito is downright psycho now, u’re gonna probably gonna hate him when Show Spoiler ▼

    For some reason, unlike most viewers, i really like Raito, he’s really interesting ^0^

    psychohare
  4. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No mention of a time frame, or of any temporal correlation to the original sanity level of the corruptee.

    Of course, it’s also been said that within every genius is a touch of the insane, and there’s any number of examples over the years (Mozart, to name only the most obvious) that lend that maxim credence.

    Light has already been shown to be a genius, and his disdain for the actions of those around him, even before he got the Death Note, appeared to border on the sociopathic. This is something I have had some personal experience with, as in my youth I quite often felt the same way about those around me who were not on the same level intellectually, before I found more intelligent people to keep my company (too intelligent, I think sometimes). The gradual slowing of thought due to age, as well as the mellowing of youthful stubbornness have further evened things out, but I still start to feel the same way every time I catch a CW teen drama, a “reality” series, or more than a few minutes of MTV.

    Still, it might have been more fun to see a more gradual descent for Light, as at this point (hell, within the first few minutes of episode 2) he is well on his way down the Dark Path. Not having read the manga (and not planning to, now, until I see the anime) I don’t know if Light has any moments of conscience down the road, but that would be good, because the best bad guys always have a healthy dose of something (honor, conscience) tempering their evil.

    quigonkenny
  5. pssh if i had the death note i would use it on about 5 billion people, starting with people who use retarded cliches. power doesn’t corrupt, it’s just that corrupt people are more likely to achieve power

    agfadsffagh
  6. If i had the death note I´d be trying it here with your nicknames……… 😆
    NAaaaaahhhhh…just kidding……………….because i know it won´t work with nicknames 😀
    But I do love the main caracter´s mind………..twisted 😉

    tensai_otaku
  7. in my opinion light don’t need the shinigami eyes i think he will find out the name of FBI one by one than he must sacrifice his life
    light eyes when he want to use death note more creepy than ryuk eyes
    “sigh” i want to see L in anime version!!!

    muhi_kira
  8. If you think about it for a moment and consider Light’s character, its quite obvious what choice he would make.

    I find it rather amusing how Light uses his ‘idealism’ to justify his actions. Notice how whenever he talks about creating ‘HIS’ perfect world, he is always sure to add that HE will be god, and HE will be the one in control.

    Tryptomine
  9. Show Spoiler ▼

    Vincent
  10. if raito is not clever then what am I? O.o as for L… I expected something ‘bigger’, but he just fell of the chair:D try to look on other anime’s comments, you will understand how inteligent you all are:D when there is a good anime a little smarter people comment it:D there are no comments obout hoe sexy one or another char is:D silly.

    mettare

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