This doesn't really have enough character work either, but when your standards have been beaten down far enough, you start appreciating the scraps. I haven't read the one with the seven mummies in a crazy rural village, but dammit, I'm going to now, even if I have to ILL it!
I remember a lot of "Would you do what Light does?" type discussions occurring when Death Note was young and I was still paying attention in the right places, so you may be on to something. It's a little counter-intuitive to me, because it's not at all what I enjoy about the story.
I'm sure the not being a morality play, as I have put it before, is a great part of its appeal to people, but that still upsets me, because it's not a work of depth, either. Instead of being a shallow, didactic morality play, it's a shallow, amoral work of pure entertainment, which is regularly enough accepted as "a great manga about the death penalty!" and "very deep"--I have seen many people describe it so, and in similar ways--to actually upset me.
It was awful, but I have to admit, it was good drama.
I think...what Death Note does not do, and you do have to be paying attention to see it, is properly balance the drama of the mind games with the drama of the lives and deaths of the victims. Ohba's good, but not great, and so is the resulting manga. For a concept as ambitious as this, good isn't enough.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2008-05-23 12:42 am (UTC)I remember a lot of "Would you do what Light does?" type discussions occurring when Death Note was young and I was still paying attention in the right places, so you may be on to something. It's a little counter-intuitive to me, because it's not at all what I enjoy about the story.
I'm sure the not being a morality play, as I have put it before, is a great part of its appeal to people, but that still upsets me, because it's not a work of depth, either. Instead of being a shallow, didactic morality play, it's a shallow, amoral work of pure entertainment, which is regularly enough accepted as "a great manga about the death penalty!" and "very deep"--I have seen many people describe it so, and in similar ways--to actually upset me.
It was awful, but I have to admit, it was good drama.
I think...what Death Note does not do, and you do have to be paying attention to see it, is properly balance the drama of the mind games with the drama of the lives and deaths of the victims. Ohba's good, but not great, and so is the resulting manga. For a concept as ambitious as this, good isn't enough.