I don't think that having a set length for a story is actually good for it in any way. I know that some writers have every aspect of their story planned out before writing, so all that's left is to fill in the missing blanks. However, it just sometimes takes longer to develop some stuff and a shorter length of time to describe others. I've written occasionally, and I know that sometimes the story just writes itself in that if it's originally supposed to be a short story, it sometimes just expands, and if it's supposed to be a novel, sometimes you find that the same impact can be made with a short story. I'm by no means a serious writer though, so maybe there's methods for this that I'm not aware of.
So I think the best parts of Death Note's story--Light and L, Higuchi, Misa, Naomi--all occur at the beginning when the authors feel that they have a lot of time. The pacing isn't fast, but then that just /works/ for Death Note, kinda like it works for Shiki too. Oftentimes in general pacing increases towards the conclusion of a story, but the breakneck pace at the end of Death Note didn't seem natural. Maybe I just really like slow stories?
This goes against most of the internet, but I never really saw what the big deal about L was. Yeah, he was undeniably awesome and watching him get on Light's nerves all the time was interesting, but the guy himself....I dunno. Other than being a diabetic emo, he wasn't really fleshed out in my opinion. The only reason he held together the task force was because he was just really good at his job, but he never cared if they wanted to follow him or not, and just kind of saw them as pawns. At least he seemed like he always knew what kind of person he was all along. They could have taken more steps and have him learn some kind of lesson in the end or, I don't know, have some revelation that he can rely on other people after all, although that would be a cliche. It just seemed like the instances where he did get some background, like when he said that Light was his first friend (and even then, the author said he was lying when he said that) and in his death episode during his childhood flashback, were tacked on and not really expanded upon. My favorite characters were Misa and Matsuda.
So it seems like the dubs you do like are the ones that aren't trying to adapt to the original that well, right? They'd somehow successfully make it their own, but then it's a totally new work and shouldn't be considered a translation of the original. It's like, I read the first Earthsea book by Ursula LeGuin (I couldn't really get into the series) and those books were also apparently loosely adapted into a Miyazaki movie, which I also haven't seen but whatever. So LeGuin said something along the lines of "It's a good story. It's not my story, but it's a good story." So it's kind of like that.
I bet if anime and video games were taken more seriously, more good voice actors would take them up and hypothetically, dub quality would increase too. I doubt that people who decide to go into voice acting as a career aim to become anime dubbers; if you want mainstream success, that's not what you do. There are some that do it for the art, but most just don't seem to care about it that much, thinking it's okay to show up and say the lines. They're like people who are in school plays; they think they're good at acting, but they're........okay at it.
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So I think the best parts of Death Note's story--Light and L, Higuchi, Misa, Naomi--all occur at the beginning when the authors feel that they have a lot of time. The pacing isn't fast, but then that just /works/ for Death Note, kinda like it works for Shiki too. Oftentimes in general pacing increases towards the conclusion of a story, but the breakneck pace at the end of Death Note didn't seem natural. Maybe I just really like slow stories?
This goes against most of the internet, but I never really saw what the big deal about L was. Yeah, he was undeniably awesome and watching him get on Light's nerves all the time was interesting, but the guy himself....I dunno. Other than being a diabetic emo, he wasn't really fleshed out in my opinion. The only reason he held together the task force was because he was just really good at his job, but he never cared if they wanted to follow him or not, and just kind of saw them as pawns. At least he seemed like he always knew what kind of person he was all along. They could have taken more steps and have him learn some kind of lesson in the end or, I don't know, have some revelation that he can rely on other people after all, although that would be a cliche. It just seemed like the instances where he did get some background, like when he said that Light was his first friend (and even then, the author said he was lying when he said that) and in his death episode during his childhood flashback, were tacked on and not really expanded upon. My favorite characters were Misa and Matsuda.
So it seems like the dubs you do like are the ones that aren't trying to adapt to the original that well, right? They'd somehow successfully make it their own, but then it's a totally new work and shouldn't be considered a translation of the original. It's like, I read the first Earthsea book by Ursula LeGuin (I couldn't really get into the series) and those books were also apparently loosely adapted into a Miyazaki movie, which I also haven't seen but whatever. So LeGuin said something along the lines of "It's a good story. It's not my story, but it's a good story." So it's kind of like that.
I bet if anime and video games were taken more seriously, more good voice actors would take them up and hypothetically, dub quality would increase too. I doubt that people who decide to go into voice acting as a career aim to become anime dubbers; if you want mainstream success, that's not what you do. There are some that do it for the art, but most just don't seem to care about it that much, thinking it's okay to show up and say the lines. They're like people who are in school plays; they think they're good at acting, but they're........okay at it.