A New Challenger Appears! More extreme writing in this episode, Mikami puts Light to shame. Look at the passion! He puts his whole body into it.

The episode itself was alright, exactly what I’ve come to expect from Death Note at this point. I.e. more perfectly executed plans, betrayals, rearranging the balance of power, etc etc.

Episode Rating: 9/10

Last episode Light contacted the president of the USA and told him to reveal the location of SPK headquarters. With that information, Demegawa from Sakura TV was instructed to lay siege to the building, smoking Near out, leaving him open to be killed by Misa’s shinigami eyes. The plan fails when Near realizes that the rioters are just anarchists, not true followers of Kira. Using their greed against them, Near showers millions of dollars over the crowd, throwing them into a panic. He then calls in the SWAT team, blending in with them and literally walking out the front door.

After escaping the riot, Near contacts the investigation team to let them know he made it out. He then reaffirms his belief that one of the members of the team is kira and should anyone have any suspicions, they may contact him. It’s made pretty obvious that Near is referring to the second L, Light, based on his previous suspicions, the convenient timing of the attack on SPK HQ and Light’s behaviour during the riot.

With Near’s suspicions being the same as the former L, Aizawa finally decides to contact Near. He tells him about the process the previous L used to clear the kira suspects, the 50 day confinement and Yagami-san’s act. However, trying to remain loyal to both sides, he doesn’t reveal the names of the two suspects. But Near’s smarter than that, and reasons that the only person who Yagami-san would act that way towards during the act is his son, so the second L and the person he suspects to be kira is Yagami Light.

Afterwards, Aizawa tells Light that he contacted Near, and wants to search both his and Misa’s room for a death note, Light agrees to it. However, Light already saw this coming, and arranged for Misa to give up ownership of the death note and send it to someone else already. So Aizawa’s search turns up blank, and even if he were to interrogate Misa, her memories of the death note are long gone.

When Aizawa returns from his search, Sakura TV’s Kira Kingdom is playing and Demegawa is on, saying that he is planning to construct something of an amusement park in honor of Kira, and is asking for donations from supporters. Light is angry that Demegawa is taking advantage of the situation, as it may tarnish Kira’s reputation. Just as he thinks it may be best to kill him off, the members on screen begin to die, Demegawa included. It’s the work of the one who Light chose to send the death note to, Mikami. With that, Light is convinced that Mikami is committed to the same ideals as kira, and is pleased with his decision to send the note to him.

Thoughts

A decent episode, though, admittedly, it wasn’t the most original one thus far. The two major plot developments have already been done before. The first being Near’s escape using the SWAT team to blend in, this is how they got Yagami-san out of Sakura TV’s studio. The other reused plot twist is the passing off of the notebook to a third party, the same tactic Light used the first time he needed to prove his innocence.

On that note, I like Mikami so far, he seems to be just as power hungry as Light, and shares the same concept of “justice”. He also seems to have the same interest in becoming godlike, which makes me wonder if he might betray Light down the line, to try and claim the throne for himself.

However, there seems to be an inconsistency with the death notes, from what I’ve observed. There should be two free death notes in the world at the moment, Ryuk’s extra death note and Rem’s old death note (recall that Shidoh went after Jealous’ death note instead of Ryuk’s extra). The inconsistency lies in the above picture, if it’s right to assume that shinigami follow the owners of their death note, either Ryuk shouldn’t be following Mikami OR he should have been following Misa.

During the raid on Mello’s base, Light gave up the ownership of his death note (Rem’s) and borrowed Misa’s death note (Ryuk’s) so he wouldn’t lost his memories, and sent his notebook to the police. Now the only way for him to retain his memories and not hold on to Misa’s death note was to reclaim the one he sent to the police, no problem there. But, this means that the death note that Misa has been using all this time is Ryuk’s, yet Ryuk was hanging around investigation headquarters as if the death note they had was his.

If anyone can find a flaw in my reasoning, or prove that shinigami don’t always hang around the owner of their death notes, then I just wasted two paragraphs…but it’s still fun to pick at nuances anyways XD

[EDIT] The more I think about it, the more I am forced to conclude that shinigami don’t have to stay by the owner of their death note. If that were the case, it would be pretty hard to hide that Misa is the second kira, as the whole investigation team can see Ryuk. It’s also a necessity that Ryuk watch over Mikami, both to teach him the rules of the death note and guide him to where Light wants him to go with it. But there’s still the issue of Ryuk suddenly disappearing from the investigation team’s headquarters, he was pretty much their pet, they’re going to notice if he suddenly disappears. Added to the fact that it happens at the same time as the deaths of Sakura TV staff, which couldn’t have been done at the hands of Misa or Light.

Near, knowing they had a shinigami, or even Aizawa, knowing the time line, might be able to conclude that the death note has switched hands yet again.

As for what happens from here on in…there are too many possibilities to consider, I can’t pick any single one that makes the most sense. However, what I am pretty certain of is something that was mentioned in a comment by Kanon_fan82 in a previous post, the undoing of kira’s world will be from the inside. Although Near has a pretty good lead, he isn’t as close to Light as L was, he will most likely need help from someone inside the investigation squad to bring him down. The most obvious person to do this is Aizawa, who has been suspecting Light for a few episodes now.

On a closing note, animation has been plummeting recently, character drawings in particular have been made of QUALITY lately. Production must be stretching its budget at this point, but fortunately we’re nearing the end, they only have to keep it together for 6 more episodes.

~ Shirukii ~