You’re only understanding it in the context of how it fit into mainstream culture at the time, in the anime subculture it was firmly established as a pillar of the edgy side of anime. It sits at the boarder between shounen fans and more mature shows, having a protagonist who’s simply not conventionally good, some exploration of themes, and frequent depictions of death and disturbing concepts. It may be clumsy or juvenile at times, but it’s a core piece of media to anime fans, and watching at least the first season is part of the shared culture and media in that sphere.
I remember about the time death note was rising in popularity, most TV shows available to the average american teenager (not me I was below average) were “about nothing”, the stories were either so basic/short/trivial/generic/for-kids you might as well say the story didn’t exist or were aimless and next week’s episode forgot everything from last-week. If you watched cartoon network, you get the impressed to believe that animes have long-form story telling and western cartoons are for baby children, which functionally is true-enough if that distinction matters. If you were willing to watch anime with subtitles, you basically 100x your supply of good TV shows. I still like the pointless shows like lucky star and bugs bunny, but at the time, that’s literally all that was available in western cartoons. Death Note was likely one of the highest quality and earliest long-form cartoons most western millennials got to see of it’s style and genre.
There was a dude who tried making his own smoke bombs to dissappear in, they of course didn’t work and i think he set if s fire alarm and got kid arrested one time. There was another dude who tried to do a cool climb leap over a chain link fence and caught his leg on the descent. Cool exits seemed to be their biggest gambit. The early to mid 2000s had an interesting cast
It’s what makes me question how it was something to come back after almost 20 years and not something without being associated with dudes whonacted like Kaiba from yugioh irl. We talk about embracing cringe now but at least thst implies you still know it’s cringe being cringe while thinking you’re the coolest thing ever is a whole other thing
You’re only understanding it in the context of how it fit into mainstream culture at the time, in the anime subculture it was firmly established as a pillar of the edgy side of anime. It sits at the boarder between shounen fans and more mature shows, having a protagonist who’s simply not conventionally good, some exploration of themes, and frequent depictions of death and disturbing concepts. It may be clumsy or juvenile at times, but it’s a core piece of media to anime fans, and watching at least the first season is part of the shared culture and media in that sphere.
I remember about the time death note was rising in popularity, most TV shows available to the average american teenager (not me I was below average) were “about nothing”, the stories were either so basic/short/trivial/generic/for-kids you might as well say the story didn’t exist or were aimless and next week’s episode forgot everything from last-week. If you watched cartoon network, you get the impressed to believe that animes have long-form story telling and western cartoons are for baby children, which functionally is true-enough if that distinction matters. If you were willing to watch anime with subtitles, you basically 100x your supply of good TV shows. I still like the pointless shows like lucky star and bugs bunny, but at the time, that’s literally all that was available in western cartoons. Death Note was likely one of the highest quality and earliest long-form cartoons most western millennials got to see of it’s style and genre.
excellent point.
That makes sense. I was in high school when it first was a thing and wowee it seemed exclusively for mall ninjas.
there’s a difference between “people who watched Deathnote” and “people who wouldn’t shut up about deathnote”
There was a dude who tried making his own smoke bombs to dissappear in, they of course didn’t work and i think he set if s fire alarm and got kid arrested one time. There was another dude who tried to do a cool climb leap over a chain link fence and caught his leg on the descent. Cool exits seemed to be their biggest gambit. The early to mid 2000s had an interesting cast
that’s incredible
It’s what makes me question how it was something to come back after almost 20 years and not something without being associated with dudes whonacted like Kaiba from yugioh irl. We talk about embracing cringe now but at least thst implies you still know it’s cringe being cringe while thinking you’re the coolest thing ever is a whole other thing
That’s the thing, it didn’t come back. It’s always been part of the anime community. Just like EVA and Sailor Moon