Death Note’s Near & Mello Arc is important

Tolkien’s distinction between applicability and allegory is a conventional topic on the Internet because in modern usage what he means by applicability also counts as allegory.  But I tend to agree with Tolkien on this because of how calling something an Allegory leads to obsession with making things very 1 to 1. In a way that both oversimplifies and overcomplicates.

And this is reflected in Anime discourse in the narrative that Bakuman is allegorical about the author's prior experience making Death Note.  That inference is definitely applicable to a lot of it I'm sure.  But many other things clearly don’t line up, the Manga being made in Bakuman is a much more conventional Battle Shonen.

The big problem is people then citing what happens in Bakuman as proof that they never wanted to write the Near Arc but were forced to artificially drag out the story so the Manga can still be published alongside the Anime adaptation airing.  Which is refuted by the simple fact that the Death Note Manga including the Near Arc wasn’t still ongoing when the Anime started, the Manga ended on May 15th 2006 and the Anime started on October 4th 2006 over 4 and a half months later, and entire season of Anime started and ended in between.

Anime Onliers have a low view of the Near largely because it was adapted differently, in the Manga L’s death is the halfway point not two thirds, so the Near Arc in the Anime is much rushed and less fleshed out.  

That said I enjoyed it even in the Anime just as much, and the first 25 episodes were not exactly flawless either, I’ve never liked Death Note because I thought it was brilliantly written.

However the principal logic behind rejecting the Near Arc is that a lot of people mistakenly got the Vibe during the first half that the story was about L equally as much as it was Light and therefore the point of the story is gone without L.  But if that were true then L would have been in the first episode.  The story is about Light/Kira and everyone else exists because of how they relate to Light, that’s why it’s a rare Anime that doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test.

Light is not a morally ambiguous character, he is pure Evil, there is no Slow Descent into Madness, he went full God Complex during the first episode’s time jump between his second kill and meeting Ryuk.

There is no point to having him win the struggle with L if we don’t see what he does with that victory, and morally would feel off to not see him face consequences eventually.  

But even if L wins it would still be incomplete to not progress the story to that point, that’s the problem with the first Live Action Death Note Adaptation.

It suits the values I like to see in Anime in general that what truly defeats Light is a team effort not simply a rival Great Man.