Though quite revealing in terms of plot, this episode was a little disappointing. Maybe it was because the animation quality dropped off after the first 5 minutes or because it was too predictable, but I just didn’t enjoy it as much as previous episodes. However, it did do a good job in setting up events to come, so it wasn’t a total failure.

Episode Rating: 8/10

At this stage of the game, Near is almost 100% sure that Light is kira, he doesn’t even give a probability estimate anymore, he’s working under the assumption that he’s right. With that in mind, he makes his way to Japan for the final leg of the race.

When he gets there he notifies Light and the rest of the investigation team that he is in Japan, and even tells them that there are only 4 members of the SPK remaining, the rest having been killed by Mello. Rather than conveying this information to the investigation team, Near is not so subtly directing it at Light as an informal challenge. Will Light be identified and caught as kira, or will he manage to kill the rest of the SPK and walk away innocently?

Continuing with his false investigation on Takada Kiyomi, Light meets up with her and talks to her about the SPK. But his true message is that Takada will be given kira’s power of judgement and become the goddess of the new world. Mikami is told to send Takada 5 pages of the death note and stop judgment until Takada receives them, when she gets the pages he is to continue his judgments on a fake death note while Takada does the real killing. Mikami is unsure of what’s going on, but isn’t in a position to question his god, so he obeys silently.

Near is progressing nicely as well. He breaks the case down to three major players: Light (L-Kira) whom he is certain is the original kira behind everything, X-Kira (Mikami) who has the death note and is carrying out kira’s judgments, and Takada, the bridge of communication between the two. Using careful investigation, research, and concrete evidence shounen hax, Near identifies Mikami as X-kira and sends an agent to tail him.

Meanwhile, Light keeps the fake investigation going. He sends Misa to infiltrate NHN, the station that Takada works at, under the guise of being a promoter with Mochi as her agent. Near is also using Light’s team, specifically Aizawa, who he uses to confirm that only bugs are used when Light meets Takada. Based on that, Near’s suspicions that Light is kira and is using Takada to communicate with Mikami are more or less confirmed.

Another problem is brewing under the surface of all these events, the rivalry between Misa and Takada. They end up going out together for dinner and talking about kira and Light. Misa tells Takada that she’s going to announce her engagement to Light soon, basically telling her to give up. She also takes a stab at her for working with kira, although Misa is a kira supporter, she is sure that Light will catch him soon and when that happens Takada won’t go unpunished. The insult backfires though, as Takada realizes that Misa doesn’t know that Light is kira, and takes it as a sign that he trusts her more than Misa. She belittles Misa for her bad etiquette and leaves, Misa responds by getting smashed. GG!

The episode ends with Mikami who is riding a train home when he sees a guy sexually harassing a girl. He uses the shinigami eyes to get his name, takes a picture of him with his cellphone and writes his name in the death note before getting off the train. All this as the SPK member assigned to trail him watches and gives Near a play by play.

Thoughts

This episode made me lose tremendous amounts of respect for Near, who has proven himself a hypocrite. When explaining how to deal with the situation, he says that he could just kill Mikami and Light and take the death note, but won’t do so because that sort of guesswork is not indicative of how he works. Yet, the very conclusions that he is basing his investigations on are just that, guesswork.

He has no concrete evidence that Light is the real kira, he hasn’t once met him and reached his conclusion based on his attitude during their brief conversations and recent events. But fair enough, looking at the way things have unfolded and Light’s behavior, it’s plausible that he could come to that conclusion and believe its probably correct. But then when he tries to identify X-Kira, he surrounds himself with programs of kira supporters and miraculously picks out Mikami!? The ONLY thing that I would consider as an indication that Mikami is X-Kira is his speech about how those with the ability to work yet are slacking off (NEETs) should also be judged. This was one of Mikami’s messages as the acting kira and the only thing I can think of that distinguishes him from the other kira supporters as suspects for X-Kira.

But Near isn’t the only one using shounen hax, Light is guilty himself. His move to give the power of judgment to Takada and make Mikami use a fake death note is just as random. I can understand transferring the power to Takada, as she’s much easier to get in touch with. But to have Mikami use a fake death note suggests that Light thinks Near might be on to him, and while that is a correct conclusion, there’s no reason to think that might be the case!

I guess how it works is that Takada is on stand by, Mikami continues his judgments with the fake death note, takes the picture of the criminals and sends it along with the name to Takada, who carries out the judgment. This way, Light’s ideals are still maintained by the like-minded Mikami, but they are carried out by the easier to contact and manipulate Takada. A brilliant set up, but the guesswork behind it destroys its believability.

The preview for the next episode suggests that Near’s agent gets a hold of Mikami’s death note, the fake. This works out perfectly for Light, Takada will continue the judgments even after Near supposedly gets hold of the death note. This will throw everything into question because the two existing death notes are presumably accounted for.

Lastly, although I hate to bring it up, is the animation QUALITY. The trend seems to be that all the scenes with Misa in them are drawn by a five year old. I’m not picky when it comes to animation, but when random scenes with Misa making those ridiculous faces are thrown into a relatively serious situation, it ruins the atmosphere. But I guess I should be thankful they things didn’t degrade to that point during the dinner scene.

Misa has become quite useless ever since she lost her memory, she was always Light’s plaything before, but at least she had the shinigami eyes and therefore served a purpose. But with that gone, she’s constantly at the receiving end of bad jokes and half assed animation. If she’s supposed to act as comedic relief, she fails, her only hope at this point is to become an hero, and honestly, that would be a most fitting end to her.

~ Shirukii ~