I honestly never viewed death note or ohba as sexist on a whole, I only saw light's character written as sexist but I figured that was on purpose because he's generally self centered and an asshole. I mean, sure, there's a distinct lack of female roles, but most of them were written as strong/likeable/complex and (at least imo) the people who were sexist were portrayed as either villainous or ignorant in their actions. I'd love to hear more about your reasoning, though.
I mean, Iâd certainly be more receptive to devilâs advocating Death Note on that point if I hadnât read other Ohba works that are far less ambiguous on the matter. Your view of it makes sense when you only take Death Note into account and I was also far less judging of Ohba before I learned to see the patterns in all of his works. Things just stop being coincidence eventually.
And then I must also say that I absolutely donât think that the female characters in Death Note are bad characters. I just think theyâre framed awfully.There is more to these girls than canon explicitly deals with and you can easily infer it, but the way Ohba never actually gives it focus is telling.
For one, every human female role (bless Rem) is centered around male characters. Misa and Takada are primarily defined by their love for Light, Naomi is defined by mourning Raye, Sayu and Sachiko exist only in correlation to their male family members, Wedy has like 3 lines and has no agency outside of working for LâŠ. you could argue Lidner breaks out of this at least? Kinda.
I once tried to see if Death Note passes the Bechdel test (do two named female characters hold a conversation about something other than a guy?) and the answer was âbarelyâ. I lost the paper I wrote my results down on but basically it was like âa few short snippets of Misa and Rem talking about the shinigami eyesâ and other âthis is like one panel and if we squintâ situations. (If I overlooked something major, feel free to correct me, but the fact that I had to look so hard is already telling imo.)
The women, Rem exempt, donât actually get any focus outside of their relationships with men. That isnât to say they donât have depth that is implied? Itâs just never focused on. The death of Misaâs family only comes up when she wants to convince Light to date her, the impact on her is never focused on again and is not a focal part of her character. Neither is her career or anything else that is unique to her and not related to stalking Light.Likewise, Takada has a gigantic life outside of men and her political opinions are strong and autonomous, but they get no focus. Her focus is loving Light.
We can tell these characters are 3D by filling in the blanks, but we are never truly told about it on the pages. Ohba didnât think to highlight it.
And then the other thing is that, as I mentioned, the narrative proves sexist characters right all the time - or at least doesnât call them out. For example, Light constantly goes âlol women are so emotional and easy to manipulateâ and then consistently manages to achieve exactly this. It may appear as a negative trait to you as a reader, but in light of the fact that the narration never truly criticizes it (or at least I donât know where you see it), Iâm not sure thatâs the effect Ohba wanted it to have. Rayeâs attitude towards Naomi was also meant to come across positively as their relationship is always portrayed positively, yet readers hate it - because they have more feminist sensibility than the writer himself has, you know?
So like, I love the DN women and most of them give a lot to work with that makes their characters very interesting, but the way their stories are told is as âover-emotionalâ accessories to stories about men.
Death Note is by far not the most sexist story and if it hindered my enjoyment of the series I wouldnât be here, it is just something I take note of.
