Damascena

Great look at the series so far! Hopefully Adult Swim will continue to treat the series right, seeing as they have an iffy track record with some of their programming that isn’t the Seth McFarlane reruns.
Beyond the crude exterior of some programs, there can be some surprisingly insightful content.

You also make good points in here. It’s interesting to point out how the Relight specials and later media try to paint L as a little more of a “hero” in his stance, even if he has very questionable morality.

If I recall correctly, the one-shot by Ohba and Obata written and released during the hype of “L Change the World”, L in a flashback states to children that he only solved cases because it would kill his boredom. That his answers disappointed those who looked up to him, except for Mello and Near, who had a certain intense look in their eyes at listening to his speech.

In the Relight 2 special, the scene is revamped to have L speak to the children about monsters, with his words reflecting Mello and Near’s own questionable ways (monsters who lie through their teeth, monsters who kidnap children and never show their face).

While Light’s god-complex and issues should not ignored in exploring his character, L is also not a clear-cut “hero”. If anything, he is dirty in his own way too. It’s what makes the challenge interesting.

Nice list and analysis!

It’s interesting to note that the first movie was actually fully animated in 2D. However, for the later releases and for what they used in the English dub, several scenes were reworked into 3D.
There’s still an air of mystery about the original plot of the film too: Early trailers had a glimpse of an older Misty in them. There was the theory that the film was to developed as a possible finale to the Indigo League, with Misty looking back on the events. But nothing can be said for sure, unless the screenwriters ever say something.

It’s pretty fascinating to see how the kaiju phenomenon started out this way, as a deeper sort of message in the wake of WW2. With the duality of natural disaster from an unnatural source, it definitely seemed to play upon the fear of more destruction from forces that would appear to be beyond humans’ control.

Ahh, Captain Underpants. Definitely a fun series! I like that you’ve delved a little deeper into that. It’s true that the school system can be very flawed, though of course experience may differ for everyone.
I can recall teachers who were not willing to teach, perhaps their pay was bad. Perhaps they felt they didn’t need to teach these kids and could just sit through the class, letting it go to chaos as they sat back and read a magazine. So if a student was failing a subject or could not understand the material, there would be no suggestion of tutoring or assistance for them. And when the teacher was not teaching much in the first place, that would bring more difficulty.

Still, at face value, the books were enjoyable. But when thinking of them this way, there is a message that still stands.

Good analysis here. If I recalled correctly (it’s been a few years), Tsugumi Ohba attempted to justify Light’s cruel treatment of Misa by saying that he looks down upon her and sees her as “evil” because she kills people.

Likely that while Light believes himself to be righteous in how he kills, he sees Misa’s initial killings as senseless. And then there is how Misa displays such flippancy about wanting to kill. However, that still can’t justify Light’s own complex and his own hypocrisy. He was willing to kill Naomi just to get her out of the way so he wouldn’t be discovered. He quickly lost whatever sense of “superiority” he believed himself to have. And much as some readers may hate it, Near’s taunting of Light in the finale sums up the man’s hypocrisy and confronts him with it: That for as much of a God as he wanted to be, he was still nothing more than a cruel killer.

And in the end of the manga, Light is confronted by Ryuk and his own memories all too late- remembering that when all is said and done in life, humans are equal. Death is equal to all, and does not play favorites in honoring or punishing mankind. And for him, he winds up in misery, having failed to rise to become the “God” he wanted to be. He’s nothing more than a mere man, and one who caused so much pain and havoc.