Yes, it’s another one of those “manga was better” conversations.
Summary:
- Death Note anime Part 1 is always praised, while Part 2 is criticized a lot.
- It was mostly because of Near and Mello, who were uninteresting in the anime.
- Part 2 in the manga is a completely different experience.
There’s hardly anyone who would argue that the first part of the Death Note adaptation is one of the best things the anime community has ever seen. It has outstanding characters, peculiar lore, suspense, detective aspects, mind games and a cat-and-mouse chase.
Death Note doesn’t even need much action to be entertaining, it’s all about the atmosphere, the plot and the characters. This series is practically one of a kind, and it’s no wonder that people are still talking about it almost 17 years after it ended.
It Got Worse After L’s Death
However, there seems to be a common idea in the fandom that Death Note got significantly worse after L’s death, and this is what ruined the series for so many fans. The second part of the anime.
It’s true that Death Note never felt as exciting as before after L was defeated by Light. The series became more action-focused, new characters were introduced, and Light started losing his charm. It just felt like everything went downhill.
Near and Mello replaced L, but they were nowhere near as compelling and likable as our favorite detective. And even though he wasn’t in the series for a big part of it, he’s still considered the main antagonist of the series.
Some fans don’t even like to say that Near won over Light, they prefer thinking that it was L, since Near was his successor.
It Wasn’t Like That in Manga
Unfortunately, all of the above is just an anime issue, not a manga issue. No matter how strong and outstanding the beginning of the adaptation was, it failed to impact the viewers the same way as the source material.
Manga readers admit that the second part of the manga made them feel much differently about the series than the second part of the anime. Yes, the story was more or less the same, but it lost its charm in the adaptation.
Near and Mello aren’t annoying and boring in the manga. On the contrary, it’s very easy to get behind them, and a lot of readers admit that their mind games with Light were just as enjoyable as the ones he was playing with L.
On top of that, the manga is also better at explaining various minor details and character motivation just feels more right. The anime tried to make Death Note more dynamic and poetic, but it changed the impact of the original story significantly.