Short Synopsis: After day fifty (!) of confinement, Light and Misa finally get released.
Good: Misa looked beautiful when she was in the car.
Bad: Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Dammit, just when I thought that this anime was so good with surprises it comes with this episode. Why did it have to be so mysterious when it was obvious that Light’s father was acting all along? It would have been way better off focusing on Light’s and Misa’s reaction to this, the people who didn’t know anything. Speaking of the two of them, they acted awfully normal for people who had been locked up for fifty days. Especially Misa. You’d think she’d go at least a bit crazy, but she’s immediately back to her normal self when her blindfolds are taken off. I really would have liked to see how the confinement changed them, but the only changes that came from them were because of the effects of their resignments of the Death Notes.
Still, this episode showed something very interesting regarding the Death Notes. The only thing that the resignation of the Death Note did for Light was lose his memory of everything related to the Death Note, and anything what would make him remember it, but nothing more. That’s why he forgot how he wanted to manipulate Misa, because of her power, but he didn’t forget Misa herself. (On a side-note: what would happen if L showed Light the “L, do you know Shinigami love apples?”-note to him once more). Still, based on this, you’d think his personality would remain the same. Rather bored with society, wanting to do something, not really caring for anything. But interestingly enough, he suddenly turned into a goody two-shoe. This shows how a Death Note is able to influence people. I’m suspecting that Light actually had the same personality before he found the Death Note, though he had lots of doubts about his life-style. When the Death Note arrived, and he saw what he could do with it, his true self suddenly started opening up.
And also about L’s building. What the heck? Why does he need such a high building in order to search for Kira? Why is he willing to spend so much money on the search for Kira, why does he say that he’s determined to catch the real Kira, when he also releases the number one suspect of Kira from confinement? I mean, he could have just left him there for a couple of more months, to see what happens, while continuing the investigation on Kira by himself. If I had to guess, it was to get the police officer’s trust on the case back. I can imagine that the team must’ve been falling apart for the weeks in which he did nothing but observe Misa and Kira. That’s probably why he let them go, but still ordered their 24/7 supervision.
It’ll also be interesting to see how Light will get his Death Note back. I mean, I just know he left some hints behind while he still had his memory, but it’ll be pretty tricky to do this when he’s continuously tied to L.
Also, seeing as this episode marks the end of the Misa-arc, a new arc is about to start. It’s probably going to be the Yotsuba-group-arc. This episode already left a little teaser. A really vague teaser, actually. We seem to be dealing with a powerful company, which is run by eight people. Takahashi Ei’ichi, Higuchi Kyousuke, Ooi Takeshi, Namikawa Reiji, Kida Masahiko, Midou Shingo, Hatori Arayoshi and Shimura Suguru. Apparently, Kira’s murders were incredibly benificial for them, so they conclude that Kira’s one of them. They make lots of theories, but most of them miss the mark.
It’s interesting to compare the Misa-arc to the Naomi-arc. Both had their good and their bad points. During the Misa-Arc, Light really had some great moments, after finding out that there’s a second Kira, for example, and of course his involvement in the great plot twists in the episodes 14 to 16. During the Naomi-arc, I feel that Light’s planning talents were better executed. Not to say that he got dumb in the Misa-arc, but his strategies in this arc just didn’t match up to the great plans he had in order to track and kill Ray Penbar, and not to mention to fix the holes in these plans. The Naomi-arc also had an amazing ending, while the Misa-arc ended rather dull, like we saw in this episode. I also liked how the Naomi-arc was nice and down to earth, in opposition to the huge events in the Misa-arc. That did make sure of some amazing plot twists, though. It’s interesting to note that both arcs were troubled by some moments of convenient timing.]]>
Death Note – 17
