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Death Note
Feb. 5th, 2026 05:27 amCross-posted from ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
vampiremonday.
So, I never watched Death Note in 2007. I saw, like, scattered clips with no context, and I wrote it off based on a very incomplete impression and somehow managed to live an entire life with 0 context about it. Like... to the point of big gaps in my understanding of certain cultural cues, both in nerdy US circles and here in Japan. (Example: a few months ago I found a weird Ryuk with an apple charm on the floor at the school where I work and asked, 'Is this anyone's... ugly... little guy?' and asked a Japanese adult coworker when the kids didn't know who said, 'Death Note???')
Anyway, I started watching it at a friend's suggestion and mild insistence.
In a way, I feel like it's good that I didn't watch it when it was new and I was still a teenager. It feels like it strikes a chord in me that is very... aesthetically coherent with who I am as a person in a way that I did not realize at the time that it was popular and new.
It is so resonant with me, here as a 35 year old watching it for the first time, that it is actually making me think about how it might have affected my interests, desires, and choices, had I chosen to watch it when it was making its first rounds in America. I know that sounds silly, but I almost do feel that it would've been a butterfly wing in me making different life choices somehow, even if I have absolutely no idea how it would've panned out.
I'm to a point now where I love the people I still have in my life enough that I wouldn't want to risk not knowing and loving them, even though there are a handful of moments in my mid teens and early 20s that I sometimes wish I could test-run to see how things went if I had done things differently, but it's just a fun and eerie little feeling to experience.
Sure, a lot of my fandoms seem to sort of... click into place like "oh, I am glad I found you," but this one feels... weird. Like a chunk of missing time.
Anyway, I am watching Death Note and really into it and I know I'm 19 years late, but I might write these creatures in some situations later.
So, I never watched Death Note in 2007. I saw, like, scattered clips with no context, and I wrote it off based on a very incomplete impression and somehow managed to live an entire life with 0 context about it. Like... to the point of big gaps in my understanding of certain cultural cues, both in nerdy US circles and here in Japan. (Example: a few months ago I found a weird Ryuk with an apple charm on the floor at the school where I work and asked, 'Is this anyone's... ugly... little guy?' and asked a Japanese adult coworker when the kids didn't know who said, 'Death Note???')
Anyway, I started watching it at a friend's suggestion and mild insistence.
In a way, I feel like it's good that I didn't watch it when it was new and I was still a teenager. It feels like it strikes a chord in me that is very... aesthetically coherent with who I am as a person in a way that I did not realize at the time that it was popular and new.
It is so resonant with me, here as a 35 year old watching it for the first time, that it is actually making me think about how it might have affected my interests, desires, and choices, had I chosen to watch it when it was making its first rounds in America. I know that sounds silly, but I almost do feel that it would've been a butterfly wing in me making different life choices somehow, even if I have absolutely no idea how it would've panned out.
I'm to a point now where I love the people I still have in my life enough that I wouldn't want to risk not knowing and loving them, even though there are a handful of moments in my mid teens and early 20s that I sometimes wish I could test-run to see how things went if I had done things differently, but it's just a fun and eerie little feeling to experience.
Sure, a lot of my fandoms seem to sort of... click into place like "oh, I am glad I found you," but this one feels... weird. Like a chunk of missing time.
Anyway, I am watching Death Note and really into it and I know I'm 19 years late, but I might write these creatures in some situations later.
