That's because they didn't bother developing Near and Mello. They crammed 5 and a half volumes into 12 episodes just so they could get the show done with. Had they actually adapted it properly and given us all of the characters, you could have seen the brilliance of the second arc.

They also didn't even bother giving the show its One Year Later epilogue chapter.

Welp! Finished Death Note and yeah that ending sucked. I'd still say that I liked the anime overall, despite the back half being kinda crap, it still had some good things in it. Now I need to find something else to watch.

TBH, from what I've seen about The manga, I don't think it would really have changed my opinion too much. I mean it would have been better, sure, but the manga ending was honestly worse as far as I'm concerned.

Been a while since I've posted here so a bit of an update I guess.

I was watching Trigun when I last posted but I guess I never mentioned it, but yeah, I watched Trigun. It took me a bit to get into it but by the end it had captured my attention for a while. Really strong show.

Finished Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu. I have some slight mixed feelings about the revelations in the ending but on the whole it was a really great series.

Downloaded the second of Gakkatsu! and watched it. I'd had it on hold for the past few years since only the first two episodes were subbed, but I'm comfortable enough with my understanding of Japanese by now that I felt it was about time to get back to it. It turned out that it came with captions, which made my life much easier. All in all, pretty fun.

Second Season of Owarimonogatari aired, so that was pretty good. I also rewatched Karen Bee after reading the first volume of Nise. Enjoyed it more than the first time some three years ago, that's for sure. Not as much as I enjoyed the book, but still.

Watched through Kemono Friends, enjoyed that a lot.

And I'm like, two episodes into Jigoku Shoujo. Not...really that into it at the moment? I mean, it's ok, but I'm not really enraptured or anything. Unless that changes by the time I finish I doubt I'll be moving on to the other seasons, but well, it's two episodes. Not that much to judge on I suppose.

Far as airing stuff goes, I've been enjoying everything I'm watching, which is a good feeling to have. Centaur no Nayami in particular has continued to surpass my very low expectations week by week. It's still not an objectively very well crafted series, but the fact that they understand the themes of the manga and what makes it good shines through extremely clearly, and that means a lot to me. They've gone beyond what I ever expected them to do, like, I never ever expected them to touch on the Holocaust chapter, yet there it was. They have not neglected the worldbuilding aspect of the series in any regard (well, almost any, they have understandably cut down the chapters focused on television, which i get, but also regret), so while I'm not necessarily impressed with the show on a strict technical basis I really appreciate it as a faithful adaptation.

Mahoujin GuruGuru is also really fun.

And...I think that's it for now. Not everything I'm watching, but everything for now.

You should check out the two Japanese live-action movies out if you ever get the chance. Dated special effects aside, it cuts Near/Mello completely out of the equation and ends in a way that perfectly fits the Light/L dynamic.

The first half of the anime is golden, but because of that the movies will always be my preferred version of Death Note.

I really don't understand the hate Near and Mello receive. They brought in an interesting dynamic and they each had their own different personalities and methods to catching Kira, but it took both of them to do what L could not.

I didn't find their dynamic or characters that interesting at all. In fact it's only at the very end when they realise they had to do it together that they became remotely interesting as characters.

And by that point one of them's dead.

I'll try and see if they're on Netflix once my wifi comes back on. If not, eh, they can't be too hard to track down.

The Japanese Live Action movies of Death Note are not bad in my opinion. If you like Toku, the director behind the 90's Gamera movies and GMK did direct the first two Death Note live action movies in Japan.

The Japanese live action movies were well-received other than Ryuk looking pretty bad, which is why the Netflix movie had more pressure than the upcoming American made live action One Piece. There's something to compare it too

I think I'm the only one here who liked how Death Note ended. :lol