DEATH NOTE / First Impressions

Summary:
After a call from his father asking him to join, Light realizes that he’ll now be able to see what’s going on with the investigation and at the same time be able to investigate the fake Kira. Upon his arrival, the police group introduces themselves with their fake names, and Light takes on his father’s fake Asahi last name. As L shows him the Kira tapes they got from the television station, Light’s father remembers the discussion L had with them the night before. L decided on getting Light’s help without telling him of the possibility of a second Kira and he believed that Light would reach the same conclusion about a second Kira if he saw the video. Such a statement from Light would clear him of suspicion because L felt that the real Kira wants to kill him and could just wait three days for L to appear on TV and die through the second Kira. Watching the video, Light starts to get nauseous thinking about this fake Kira lowering his reputation. He notices something strange in how no one in the room has tried to explain the video to him, and when L finally comes over to ask him if he found out anything, Light immediately declares that it’s probably not just one person who has Kira’s abilities. His explanation that the video does not show the real Kira and that this Kira was able to kill with only a face matches up with L’s guesses.
After being told that L was thinking the same thing, Light questions if this was all a test. In response, L claims that he wanted Light to help back up his own theory. His plan now is to fake a message from the real Kira to stop the second Kira, and he wants Light to play that part. Light writes up the speech to be broadcast, though L is worried about the part that says it’s ok to kill him, which Light had included in order to pretend to be the real Kira. After getting that part removed, they allow the TV stations to broadcast it. From her own apartment, Misa is watching as this Kira declares that the previous Kira wasn’t the real one. This Kira is willing to let the fake Kira help, but explicitly says that killing innocents is against his will. If the fake Kira wants to cooperate, he or she should refrain from arbitrary actions and understand the true Kira’s will. As this speech is going on, Misa reaches for her videos so that she can record a reply. Several days later, the investigation team receives her response stating that she’ll do what Kira says. Light wonders to himself if can use this second Kira or not, and he thinks that if this person really understood his feelings, he or see would have insisted on L appearing on TV and killing him. The video also expresses Misa’s desire to meet Kira, and although she feels that Kira doesn’t have the eyes, she promises not to kill him. Light is shocked that this Kira would talk about the Shinigami eyes in such a video, though the other people on the investigation team are still confused by what the fake Kira meant by those words.
Misa’s video ends by saying that she would like Kira to think of a way that they could meet without getting caught by the police. The line that scares L out of his chair is when the fake Kira says that the two Kiras can confirm each other’s identity through their Shinigami. Although Light claims that the Shinigami can’t exist, L remembers how Kira got his prison victims to write about the existence of Shinigami too. Getting back into his chair, L feels that this second Kira is doing what he or she can to meet the real Kira. Light then suggests that the Shinigami is a term referring to their power to kill and that confirming each other’s identity through their Shinigami could be referring to showing their power to kill to prove who they are. L seems to agree, but decides that for now leave things up to Kira and the second Kira. He feels that the second Kira must be satisfied with the current situation if he or she is responding, and that the real Kira must be watching this closely. The real Kira must want to avoid direct contact between the second Kira and the police, and L thinks that the real Kira might send his own reply this time. If that doesn’t happen, then the second Kira might expose Kira’s secrets until Kira meets with him or her. If the real Kira does send a video, then they have a higher chance of getting material evidence against him.
Misa meanwhile gets home after a tiring day doing modeling work and asks Rem how the Shinigami was able to get another Death Note to give her since Shinigami themselves have to have one too. When Rem explains that she is one of the very few Shinigami who knows how to kill another Shinigami, Misa wonders if Rem did just that. In actuality, Rem just happened to be there when a Shinigami died, but since Misa still wants to know how to kill a Shinigami, Rem reveals that the way to do it is to make the Shinigami love a human. Rem explains that there was a Shinigami named Jealous who always watched a certain girl, and Rem had been there when it was the last day of the girl’s life. The girl had been walking alone at night when she was confronted by a guy who confessed to her. Not knowing who he was, she naturally rejected him, but the guy had a knife and started to attack her. Despite Rem’s warnings, Jealous had opened his Death Note and wrote the name of that man in order to save the girl, doing something Shinigami shouldn’t do since they only exist to shorten lives of humans. His actions resulted in him dying and turning into a pile of rust and sand-like material. All that was left was his Death Note. As for Jealous’ life, the rest of it was given to the girl that he saved.
Misa is quiet at first, but she now knows that the one who saved her back then was a Shinigami named Jealous. Rem confirms that Jealous loved Misa, and that’s why the Death Note now belongs to Misa. She then wonders if Rem fell in love with her, but Rem tells her to give it up because Misa can’t kill her. Still, Misa is happy to have found out something else she can tell Kira, though she’s still waiting for a reply from him. Sometime later, Light is at a cafe thinking about the situation and about what to do when Misa comes in and orders a strawberry sundae. Just as he’s wondering what type of person the fake Kira is, Misa is wondering what type of person the real Kira is – both of them unaware that they’re so close to each other.

Preview:

For all of you who may still be confused, this is Jealous, aka. the Shinigami that Matsuyama Ken’ichi (aka. L from the movies) voiced. That was probably the most interesting scene this episode, especially since we find out that Misa was the one he saved. Having said that, I do think that the L-reacting-to-finding-out-about-the-existence-of-Shinigami part was really amusing because of how over dramatic it was in showing L falling out of his chair.
The final scene of this episode wasn’t in the manga, but it does raise an interesting point. We will learn next episode (minor spoiler alert) that holders of a Death Note cannot see the life span of other holders of a Death Note with the Shinigami Eyes. They can see the name of the other holder, but not the life span. Thus, if Misa saw Light at all at the cafe, then she would have realized who he was, or at least noticed something very strange that she could have asked Rem about. It doesn’t seem that this happened, so we can only assumed that she wasn’t looking or that the production team didn’t consider this when they wrote that scene. In any case, this will come into play in the next episode which is not airing next week, but the week after.

41 Comments

  8. You know, not having read the manga, but having spoiled myself silly reading the Wikipedia entry, I thought Hirano Aya’s voice for Misa was off, in the little bit we saw and heard of her in the previous episode. Let me just say that now having seen a better shot of what Misa looks like, I think the voice is dead on with the way she looks.

    quigonkenny
    Reply

  12. What the hell is with L in pics 12 and 13? That never was seen in the manga.
    Also I agree Kurosaki Ichigo, Misa is only remotely important in the beginging, later she does’t serve any purpose.

    Avisch
    Reply

  14. “What the hell is with L in pics 12 and 13? That never was seen in the manga.”

    It was when he found the existence of shinigami.

    I think this episode was very a high quality O.o

    AznSoulBoy
    Reply

  19. yeah, it’s really not as bad as some others which can take weeks or even months =P..btw, the recap death note ep last week hasn’t been subbed right? i’ve been waiting and waiting..=S

    Hemlock
    Reply

  22. I second that, tensai_otaku. One of the few animes that really has me thinking. I saw the movie and I don’t think Light’s character was represented as well as it could be — he didn’t seem to be that smart compared to his anime counterpart, but the Anime is longer and has more time to fill with little details. Can’t wait to see this!

    Shak
    Reply

  24. One thing that I found really insteresting about this episode, is the fact that the lifespan of Jealous has been transferred to Misa. She’s taken the eye contract, which should have halved the lifespan that Jealous had, but If I’m thinking correctly, she probably still has enough life to outlive everyone else on earth by far. But I haven’t read the manga, or know anything about the story ahead of us, so I’m just merely speculating. It might explain why she so quickly accepted the Shinigami eye-transfer deal. REM might have told her about how long her lifespan is compared to other humans.

    Tim
    Reply

  27. #
    [qwertypoiuy at 8:23 pm on December 26th, 2006

    the bad thing is that fansub is so slow and yes it is my favorite show too until the real naruto and bleach return]+1
    i still thinking read manga or not ? i dont want to ruin anime. but icant wait the misaxlight releation development.

    kaplan
    Reply

  28. Thanks a lot for the good work^^ I saw Death Note 12 raw on youtube. My japanese is not so good, so I just understood only 50%(or less) of this episode. Thanks to the summary I know whats going on ^__^

    BigBam
    Reply

  33. The question I’m about to ask may be retarded…(cause I haven’t read the manga)

    If Misa sees Light, isn’t she just going to see the name “Light Yagami,” as opposed to “Kira?” How would she even know if it’s him [real Kira]?!

    -D

    Dan
    Reply

  35. Interesting episode. The part where L falls out of his chair at the thought of shinigami possibly being real was pure comedy gold. Now that we’ve learned that Jealous sacrificed himself for Misa out of love and gave his lifespan and death note to her, the idea of Misa agreeing to cut her augmented lifespan in half for the shinigami eyes doesn’t seem so crazy (she most likely has enough years leftover to outlive every other person on earth anyway).

    Misa didn’t seem too broken up over Jealous, though, but ever the flighty romantic, she’s focused all her attention on Kira and teasing Rem enough to learn how to kill a death god. She’s still a bit of a careless airhead and completely unpredictable, and letting slip the existence of shinigami and their eyes in the tape just proves that (nice of Death Note to reinforce the stereotype of dumb blondes, especially super model types, heh).

    I kind of like how Ryuk, the trickster and rascal (heck, hey tricked the King of the Death Gods out of a death note), is paired with the intelligent and overly serious Light, while Rem, a pretty cynical and grim shinigami so far, is paired with the not too bright and flighty Misa. Makes for some good conflict of interests and foils to bounce their personalities off of each other.

    Ryuma
    Reply

  41. omg dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooootttttttttttttttttttttttteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
    L rocks=D//

    L
    Reply

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