Light, hero of justice or cold hearted serial killer? Stay tuned for the debate

Much better episode than the last. There’s still a lack of the internal reasoning and intellectual fencing between Light and L, the plot is becoming interesting enough that the series is still watchable even without Light as Kira. I still preferred the earlier episodes, but the new direction the plot has taken has a lot of potential. But I’m counting the weeks until Light reprises his role as Kira, assuming that does indeed happen.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

The team has moved into to L’s newly constructed building which boasts an intricate security system, which Aizawa-san seems unable to get the hang of.

As for the Kira case, with the suspicion of Light and Misa having been all but lifted, the team’s motivation (and leads) are wearing thin. L hypothesizes that Kira can transfer his powers between people, meaning he had controlled Misa and Light. If that were the case, there would be no meaning in catching a host, as Kira would shift to a new person and the killings would continue.

With nothing but a vague new theory to base the case on, L is depressed and bored, and still unwilling to cope with his deductions that Light is Kira being incorrect. The unmotivated L disgusts Light and he proceeds to punch L in the face, who then kicks Light in the face…etc etc. All the while Misa is in the background, trying to break them up, but doing little good. The fight comes to an end through Matsuda, who prank calls the room to distract their attention.

A short while later, another message from “Kira” is delivered. He says that he will not kill any politicians if the investigation of Kira is suspended. With the police’s resources being spread thin anyways, and L’s investigation producing little results, the police complies and forbids any active officer to formally investigate Kira.

All of the members of the investigation decide to quit the police force and continue the Kira investigation under L, all except Aizawa-san, who has a wife and children he must support. After some deliberation, Watari comes on speaker phone and reminds the team that financial support will be provided to them. However, L did not mention this because he was testing the team’s resolve. And with that Aizawa quits, having become fed up with L’s constant mind games.

The rest of the episode was dedicated to the revelation of some clues about the new Kira and his ties to the Yotsuba group, a growing force in the business world who’s excellent financial situation seems to be a direct result of Kira’s support. Also, the team acquires a few new members: Aiba, a con artist and Wedy, a professional thief. The new members are recruited in order to begin a thorough investigation of the Yotsuba group.

Thoughts

Not a bad episode, definitely not as good as the beginning arc, but much better than the Misa arc. It’ll be interesting to see if L (or Light?) can gather enough information from the new Kira and backtrack to the conclusion that Light really was Kira. Ideally, I’d like to see Light uncover the truth and be forced to make the decision to either reclaim his role as Kira, the god of justice, or bury his past, or maybe even turn himself in? Though I really have no idea how it turns out, so please, no spoilers T_T or at least mark them as such.

On that note, I find it interesting to see how differently Light acts when he’s not Kira. The way he stands now, he’s very much the poster boy for the fight against justice, unrelenting in his motivation and will to catch Kira. However, this makes me wonder why he was so evil as Kira.

After thinking for a while, I could only think of two possibilities. The first being that: Absolute power corrupts absolutely – Lord Acton. This quote suggests that the acquisition of absolute power, in this case the power to kill by a nearly untraceable method, inevitably leads to corruption. Although I’d like to believe that human nature is more optimistic than this, we are time and time again reminded of the truth of this statement.

Politicians are the worst (best?) example, they make idealistic claims and promise a better future for all under their rule. However, when they take office they realize that the common good is not beneficial to them (it’s usually actually destructive to their rule) and begin to act for their best interests. Surely Light is human, and therefore susceptible to this same fate. No matter how just a person thinks they are, the prospect of becoming a god among men is a difficult deal to pass up, no matter how rocky the path.

The second explanation would be that Kira-Light genuinely thought that what he was doing was in the name of justice. I find this difficult to accept because Light resides in the upper echelon of reasoning and intelligence. I find it hard to believe that such a smart person would be unable to come to the conclusion that what he is doing is in direct contrast with the rules and regulation of all those heavy law textbooks.

It’s reasonable to say that Light started out on a reasonably just motivations. Ridding the world of criminals does quite a service to the law abiding, and it’s clear that the world’s justice system as it is, is incapable of achieving such an ambitious goal. However, killing criminals and stunting the birth of new criminals out of fear of judgment is arguably no better than being a criminal yourself. Human nature is complex and unfortunately consists of elements such as lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, jealousy, and pride (7 deadly sins) and as long as those continue to exist, crime will continue to exist.

Light may have begun with good intentions, but somewhere along the way he must have realized that what he was doing was wrong. Not to mention he started killing police, which, despite his theory of “Everyone who defies Kira is an enemy of justice” is undeniably unjust.

Well, that was one hell of a tangent, back on topic…

QUALITY D=

Misa looked weirdddd this episode.

An aside:

Graphing posts are incredibly time consuming, but I’ll try not to abandon them just yet. I’ll probably combine them with season wrap up and reviews.

~ Shirukii ~