Sorry about having to combine these two episodes into one post, midterm season has just finished and I had little time, which was spent blogging Kanon instead ^^. But nonetheless, two very good episodes focusing on the climax and conclusion to the Yotsuba arc.

Episode Ratings: 8.5/10, 9/10

Having met with Rem, Misa discovers the truth about Kira, death notes and the identity of the current kira, Higuchi. Though not apparently pleased with the turn of events, L cannot deny the evidence presented to him and so he throws together a plan to capture Higuchi while forcing him to reveal the powers of kira.

The plan is to force Higuchi into a position where he has no choice but to attempt to kill someone, and through careful observation (courtesy of Wedy) catch him in the act, revealing kira’s methods and implicating him as kira. To do so, L sets up a Kira Special on Sakura Television which promises to reveal the identity of kira at the end of the show. In order to convince Higuchi of its legitimacy, Matsuda will be the interviewee and reveal secrets regarding the Yotsuba group’s meetings and what they know of kira’s methods so far.

To make sure he watches the program and to back him even further into a corner, the investigation team gets Reiji, Suguru and Shingo to help them. Recent concerns and general discontent with kira’s methods lead to their cooperation. Having already deduced that Higuchi is most likely kira, their combined efforts send Higuchi into a panic.

After seeing the program and recognizing Matsuda, Higuchi begins to run through his options. Calling anyone and everyone who could possibly help him out by either telling him Matsuda’s real name or stopping the program, Higuchi is left with very few paths of action.

Everything goes according to L’s plan as Higuchi takes baited information leading him to a file with Matsuda’s “real” name, Higuchi writes it in the death note as Light and L watch on, but the name is yet another alias and Matsuda still lives.

With no way to find Matsuda’s real name, Higuchi reasons that his life would be over if he’s caught now, so he might as well cut his losses, he makes the deal for the shinigami eyes. With his new powers he rushes off the Sakura Television’s studio, when he gets there the place is totally deserted, and by the time he realizes that it’s a trap, he’s too late. In a last ditch effort to escape, Higuchi pulls a gun and grazes Yagami-san, then takes off in his car.

The resulting car chase comes to an end when Higuchi hits a police road block, set up by Aizawa, who apparently didn’t stop investigating kira even after returning to the police force. Nowhere left to run, Higuchi tries to take the cowards way out, but Watari’s l33t sniper skills stop his suicide attempt. And with that the investigation team has caught kira and gotten a hold of a death note.

Thoughts

I still wonder why people thought this arc was so bad in the manga, I thought it was pretty good. Although…the Yotsuba arc was more action based, rather than the normal logic and thought process analysis that Death Note usually offers, so I guess the anime version of this arc was much more entertaining than its manga counterpart.

Not to say that the arc was completely devoid of logical thinking, L’s plan was pretty well thought out. Though not beyond the scope of the planning of a real life detective, it was masterfully executed as the efforts of several contacts came together to seamlessly trap Higuchi. For the most part there was little evidence that the program was a trap, mostly due to the involvement of so many third parties. Television studios, Misa, production agencies and even fellow members of the kira committee all played their part to send Higuchi into a self destructive frenzy.

But I will give the guy some credit, he managed to be pretty thorough with his plan of action, even though he was always a couple steps behind. In retrospect, he called all the right people and made all the right moves in order to get Matsuda’s name, he was just beaten to them by L. He even managed to catch himself before making a crucial mistake that would have implicated him as kira to the fellow board members. Also, he correctly reasoned that it was suspicious that he would be given unrestricted access to Matsuda’s file, his intuition was overturned by Rem’s reassurance that he should go after all.

Higuchi displayed some very kira-like instincts and thought patterns, but unfortunately he is nowhere near Light and L in that respect and was therefore outdone. And frustration after frustration caused his logic skills to drop drastically near the end of episode 23, his inability to see that an empty Sakura TV studio was basically a gigantic neon sign saying “IT’S A TRAP” was moronic.

But most exciting of all:

Whoo! Next episode looks to be the return of kira-Light, a presence which I sorely miss. Not that I dislike non-kira Light, it’s just that his murderous counterpart is much more entertaining. The rivalry and mindgames between Light and L were what set the initial tone of Death Note and got me totally hooked.

I’m interested to see how Light goes about regaining his kira status and serial killer mindset. Touching a death note doesn’t return your memories to you, we know this because Misa has already been approached by Rem. Therefore Light must become aware of his previous status as kira (already halfway there), regain possession of his death note and reform his mind to one of a god of justice, all without letting L realize what’s going on, OR killing L in the process. This is going to be awesome!

~ Shirukii ~