It’s Over Nine Thousaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!

Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind…

Despite not really liking the arc overall, the past few episodes have been pretty decent. This episode advances the Yotsuba Group plot, answering many questions, but bringing up some new ones. I still don’t like Misa, but I’ll have to admit that her plan was fairly well thought out, minus a few holes that L is sure to pick out and exploit.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

The episode starts off with another meeting of the Yotsuba Group’s kira committee as they review Coil’s (a.k.a. L) report and suggestions for finding L. Going forward with the plan from last episode, Coil has suggested that Misa may have some connection with L, and that they should hire her to try and get some information out of her. The committee doesn’t like Coil making them do all the work so they call him up and get him involved personally.

Back at the new Kira’s home, he laments on how busy Kira is, having to judge criminals after a long day’s work. Thinking about the meeting, he is aware that Misa was the second Kira and was captured by L, he even knows that she gave up her Death Note and her memories in order to escape. A flash of spontaneity comes over him and he decides that he will marry Misa, and then kill her.

He tells all this to Rem, and afterwards tells him to hide the death note as he usually does. Rem is obviously not pleased with this man’s intent to kill Misa, and tears off a piece of the death note for later use…

Under the guise of one of their board members, Coil (L’s con artist), conducts the interview for Misa’s promotion, which had been scripted and practiced beforehand. He asks Misa about her ties with L and the suspicion that she was the second Kira. In the middle of the interview Higuchi gets bored and leaves to go to the washroom, Misa excuses herself and goes to the washroom as well.

Here, Misa is confronted by Rem, using the piece of the death note he tore off earlier. He tells Misa everything: Light being the previous Kira and Misa being the second Kira, how everything is part of Light’s plan and even the details of Kira’s powers. Rem tells Misa that she is in danger, sitting prey for the Yotsuba group, Rem reassures her that he is her ally and that he will reveal who Kira is by standing behind him during the interview. It turns out to be Higuchi.

Taking advantage of his lecherous ways, Misa sneaks out on a date with Higuchi. During the date she nonchalantly brings up the fact that she is Kira, much to Higuchi’s surprise. With Rem’s help Misa manages to convince Higuchi that she was and still is the second Kira. Much like Light, Higuchi sees this as an opportunity to use her powers, the shinigami eyes, and asks her to marry her. But Misa doesn’t want to marry anyone but Kira, and asks Higuchi to prove that he is indeed Kira by stopping the killings of criminals for a while, and resuming them on her whim.

Back at investigation headquarters, Misa reveals what she has learned to the team, even backing it up with a recording of Higuchi’s confession. Needless to say, this shocks the team into a state of speechlessness, especially L, who seems to be more annoyed than happy at the news.

Thoughts

Pretty good episode, supposedly the manga starts to landslide around here, but the anime seems to be doing alright so far.

I do have some nitpicking to do about the progression of events though. The most questionable event of late is how Misa pulled off the confessional from Higuchi. In order to do so, she had to convince him that she was Kira, she did this by using Rem. Now this is fine and all, except for the fact that HE HAS HER DEATH NOTE. If he knew enough about Misa to know that she was the second Kira and that she gave up her death note, he should know that all death notes are accounted for and she shouldn’t possess one. Rem carries her death note around, Misa’s is stashed at his house and Light’s is MIA.

Even if you go along with the fact that Misa may have an unknown death note, wouldn’t Higuchi think to throw a WTF!? look at Rem, who is sitting right behind them. Had he done this, he might have noticed that it was Rem who killed, not Misa, and that he’s being betrayed.

Furthermore, how can Misa possibly explain how she got Higuchi to confess. She was only able to convince him to tell her he was Kira by proving that she was the second Kira, I’m sure if either L or Light put their brains to work, they’ll be able to deduce that.

My last gripe about Misa is the ease with which she accepted Rem’s explanation. I understand that having a real shinigami in front of your eyes, explaining something out of this world to you may seem pretty credible, but other than Rem’s appearance, Misa wasn’t really surprised at what he had to say. On the same train of thought, Misa has almost as little regard for human life as L, not even batting an eye at the prospect of human sacrifice to expose the identity of the new kira.

Now, onto Light, and his supposedly perfect plan that is unraveling. While I’m not exactly sure where it’s all going, I’m pretty sure that Rem reviving Misa’s memories was not part of the plan, as it seems to be doing more harm than good. In addition to causing Misa to take things into her own hands and flush out a confession that may end up working against them, Misa is not a good enough actor to hide the change in personality undergone after meeting Rem. Knowing that you and your boyfriend used to be murderers is sure to change the way you think and act, L is picking up on this. With all that in mind, I’m pretty sure Rem contacting Misa was an act of desperation, one which may have thrown off Light’s master plan.

One thing I left out of the summary is Light’s little monologue about how the old kira’s thought process and that of his own are frighteningly similar. The old kira only judged those criminals who felt no remorse for their sins, he notes that he would take action in a similar manner.

This is pretty interesting because it kind of explains how Light’s actions when he was Kira. Only judging those criminals who made no attempt to reconcile themselves leads me to believe that maybe he actually did believe that what he was doing was in the name of justice, and not the result of a power trip. I look forward to see how far Light reasons through the prospect that he may have indeed been Kira, and what he may do if he concludes that he was.

Back to my rant, another thing that has been on the decline, not only in this episode but throughout the series in general: animation quality. The animation isn’t bad all the time, but it is really inconsistent. Scenes like Coil’s interview are animated pretty well, yet others (see above) look absolutely horrible. It may be unintentional bias, but I’ve noticed many of these scenes have Misa in it, causing me to further dislike her. I pay more attention to the dialog of Death Note than anything else, but bad art mars good drama and I would hate to see Death Note fall to the same flaw as YoakeNa.

Now, all my nitpicking may make it seem like I disliked this episode, but the opposite is true, only good anime can make me think so deeply. Plus, there were some hilarious moments to make up for the plot holes, like Misa plopping herself down on Light’s lap and trying to lure him to bed with her XD Imagine how awkward that would be with L physically attached to Light…or for the yaoi fangirls out there, imagine how hawt that would be, take your pick.

The subs I grabbed cut out the preview, but I imagine that next episode will be something along the lines of L wtfpwning Misa, using her supposedly helpful recording to turn the tables against Light and her.

An aside: Sorry if this post seems kind of incoherent and all over the place, I’m writing this at 2 a.m. and although all my thoughts are intact, they’re jumbled out of order XD

~ Shirukii ~