DEATH NOTE – 21

Summary:

As per L’s plan, the Yotsuba group soon receives Eraldo Coil’s report on Misa’s connection to L and his suggestion that they hire her to get information from her. The executives are suspicious of how Coil wants them to be part of the investigation on L when that’s supposedly to be solely Coil’s own job. They think that Coil himself should be present, so Kida calls up Aiber who’s pretending to be Coil. Later that night, the current Kira concludes from Coil’s report that Misa gave up her Death Note and lost her memories. Upon learning that this Kira plans to marry Misa and then invest a lot of insurance money into her, Rem rips off a tiny piece of the Death Note while Kira’s not around. When the day of Misa’s interview with the members of the Yotsuba group comes, Aiber pretends to be Eraldo Coil and grills her about L and Kira. Misa admits – according to the plan – that she was captured by L, but she says that she never saw his face or heard his real voice. The group eventually takes a break from the interview and Misa is allowed to go to the bathroom. It is there that Rem touches Misa’s hand with the piece of the Death Note. Even though Rem knows that this won’t give Misa her memories back, this will at least allow her to see the Shinigami. Rem did this in order to warn Misa about the dangerous situation where someone in Yotsuba could kill her.

Back at base, Light has noticed a difference between the current Kira and the previous one. The current one is judging everyone who committed a crime whereas the previous one made exceptions for people who didn’t have murderous intent, people who killed by accident, and people with special circumstances. As he thinks about this, Light realizes that if he was Kira, this is scarily close to what he would have done. However, he then wonders what he’s thinking about and asserts to himself that he’s not Kira. At that very same moment, however, Rem is telling Misa that Light is indeed Kira. Rem then quickly explains all about the Shinigami, the Death Note, Light being Kira, and Misa having the same powers. Is it when Rem finally asks if Misa still likes Light enough to die for him that she starts believing the Shinigami. Rem then warns Misa of the current Kira, and says that Misa will know who Kira is when she returns to the interview because it will be the man sitting in front of Rem. Indeed, Misa is able to see upon going back that it is Higuchi who is the current Kira. She doesn’t divulge any of this to anyone back at base and has her own secret plan to help Light with the investigation despite his concern for her safety.

After her movie shoot the next day, Misa pretends to go to the bathroom at a nearby hospital and switches clothes with a friend of hers. She is thus able to sneak out in a nurse’s uniform and call up Higuchi to pick her up for a date. By the time her manager Mogi finds out about the switch, Misa is already gone. Inside Higuchi’s car, she intentionally lets it slip that she can kill people and then admits that she’s the second Kira. At first, Higuchi doesn’t believe her, but it interests him that Misa says that she won’t prove it to anyone other than Kira himself because she wants to be his bride. He decides to tell her that he’s Kira, and it causes her to pretend to be shocked. She’s then willing to kill someone evil to prove who she is, so Higuchi pulls out his laptop and finds a good target whose death he can verify quickly through a phone call. When Misa turns her back to him and pretends to write something, Rem realizes that she wants the Shinigami to do the killing for her. It all goes according to plan and Higuchi acts quickly when he finds out that the target is dead. He immediately pushes Misa down and proposes that she marry him because he’s Kira. Having gotten Higuchi to fall for her trap, Misa now wants proof and suggests that he stop judging criminals until she tells him to start again. Using her cell phone, she records Higuchi agreeing to stop punishing criminals in order to get Misa to trust him and then marry him. She brings that recording back to base and announces to everyone that Higuchi is Kira.

Preview:

I think the manga and the anime both did a pretty good job hiding the fact that Higuchi was Kira up to now. I had no idea it was him, but I also think that the realization when reading the manga had more impact because it included the private conversations Kira/Higuchi had with Rem before we found out who he was that the anime cut out. The anime version also gave away Higuchi’s identity a little early with the silhouette in this scene, but that’s less of a big deal since we find out a few minutes later who it is.
On the plus side, the animation quality this week was still quite good. Misa actually got a few cool shots with her eyes that really showed that she knew what she was doing in stringing Higuchi along. She may seem useless sometimes, but it’s because of her (and Rem) that the investigation now knows who Kira is. Things are slowly coming back together, and it shouldn’t be long now until we reach the climax of this arc.