Hiroki went from... whatever his picture on off site tried to portray (criminal racoon? I have no freaking idea) to the gorgeous emo L. He even captures the mannerisms now! I have no wish to sound patronising (he is grown ass man my age after all) but I AM so freaking proud 😭
And Ao... still cutest Light ever, god bless him.
Wish them all to break a leg on tour.
Growing up, I understood that Death Note is about mistreating children. But only when I’m older (than most of the main cast), I undrestand how much it weights on failed parenting.
Light Yagami is a child, treated like an adult. He’s seventeen at the beginning of the story, and at most times, he would be considered a young adult, an older teenager. He poses himself like a grown person, but his conceptions of life are naive. His actions are close to juvenile - and it’s perfectly fine for boys his age. Everyone needs their own time to grow.
But because of his intelligence, his actual personality is overlooked by his parents. In the beginning, Light’s boredom is so loud, a God answers. He’s successful - but it doesn’t give him any satisfaction. He’s following a path to his career, but his dedication is hollow. Light portrays a picture perfect student, so nobody would question - is he really okay? What is going on inside his head? How does he feel about world that he lives?
How being a picture perfect son shaped him as a person?
Yagami’s family doesn’t pester psychopathic tendencies consciously. Some kids would seriously just try the thing that has “KILLS PEOPLE NO CONVICTION” to see if it works.
It needs to be noted that most seventeen-years olds consider other people as living beings and wouldn’t.
But the following plot of Death Note shows that Light didn’t value human life and felt himself superior; how did this happen? Being Kira filled his life with purpose as nothing before; how it came to be?
Discussion on relation of characters of DN to the autistic spectrum is still alive; and one might see some behavioural patterns in Light as sighs of autism, but that’s not to infantilise neurodivergent people. That’s to show that different ways of development need different types of parental attention; and that there are different types of neglect, and some of them can be masked by formal success.
But Light’s inner world, definitively different from his family, and definitively troubled, is not in a spotlight. Treating a growing person like they have capabilities and needs of a grown is neglectful.
And Yagami family continues that pattern, when they let Misa, a grown woman, in their house, when their child never shown any interest in her and was so visibly disturbed by her intrusion - because he’s treated like an adult. It continues, when Light forgets about Kira and inserts himself into the case, continuing abhorrently twisted relationship with another mistreated man, L.
In L’s case, we see deliberate neglect in different way, and him being stunted rather than really adapted to society shows that he’s treated like a function, not a person.
(If I see any antis in my mentions I will block immediately and I WILL be mean)
Death Note is a great piece of social critique, but it really shines on child-parental issues, on the reasons why we come to live in the world of Kira supporters. Light is an intelligent, in-proportionally rational man who adapted to the world on his own, and was never questioned on the ways he looks at himself, his purpose, other people, because he presented a successful facade. That was enough for his family.
