Hi Everyone I Am Currently Losing My Mind Because Of This Panel

hi everyone i am currently losing my mind because of this panel

IG: Uniquesora

hi this is a random question but,, its something i want cleared up. you know when Sayu gets kidnapped and Light is all stressed about it? is it because he actually still cared about her enough for it to clash with his kira-ness, so he didnt kill her like he did the other guy, or was it some other more professional reason that he couldnt kill her, like it would make him more obvious or something? i know i would rather it be the first, but knowing light... 😬

It definitely wasn’t just for purely selfish reasons:

“That’s not all” means that Light agrees with Ryuk here, that he does indeed have a soft spot for his sister still. And Ohba says in HTR13 that they decided to have Mello kidnap Sayu specifically to move the plot forward; if he had, for example, kidnapped Misa, Light might have just killed her. He also said that Light loves his family, which I think is apparent in the story itself if you read it carefully enough.

It’s no coincidence that they picked Sayu.

There’s great meta by Casuistor about Light and Sayu’s relationship here. If you scroll down a bit, you can find a well-thought out explanation for his behaviour regarding your question, but I would honestly recommend reading the entire thing, haha. I agree with everything that’s said here.

So yes, the well-being of his sister was definitely among his worries. You know, the interesting thing about Light is that he tries to create this New World of his for people like his family. He occasionally thinks about how he might have to harm them, as a sacrifice, yes. But ideally he wants his entire family, and other “good” people, to live in a better world. Some of Light’s bitterness towards the world comes from watching his father sacrificing himself without making a real difference.

Light and Geovanni from the AU being gay dorks in love!!! Please please please please pl-

Rose colored world. 

based off this post

I read the manga first and I didn't even notice L's moral greyness because my lizard brain thought he looked cute so I got distracted lmao. The anime kind of shocked me more with his controversial scenes (the fake execution in particular) because they were more dramatic plus the voice acting really got to me (also, I didn't like L's anime design that much so I could focus more on his terrible personality hdfghshs)

Oh lol that’s funny! He’s definitely extremely fun to look at in the manga and the hilarity of his character definitely can be distracting. But it was the opposite for me, because when I first read the manga after watching the anime I found L came off much less… idk, genuinely well-meaning or straight-forward? He seems way shadier in the manga to me just because of a few little tweaks to his behaviour and how he and Light react to each other and such.

Some examples I can think of right off the top of my head:

1) When L says to Light that Light is his “first-ever friend”: 

L CLEARLY has a little ironic smirk about it in the manga; Light appears to catch onto this right away and plays along, probably seeing it as a private joke between them:

And then L makes a vague little threat toward Light afterwards:

In the anime L comes off way more genuine about it:

And Light’s reaction seems very serious and tentative in comparison:

 I remember completely believing L when he said Light was his first ever friend the first time I watched the Japanese dub of the anime, and being like “Aww poor L, he’s finally feeling a connection to someone and yet Light’s trying to kill him.” 

The anime is just a lot more serious and sentimental in general!

2) L says dark things like this in the manga which he never says in the anime:

3) The anime takes out things like L’s inner monologue during his first fight with Light. In the manga it’s made very clear that L’s just antagonizing Light to test him and get a reaction out of him when he says he “wanted him to be Kira:” 

In the anime we don’t hear L’s thoughts during this part at all, so his motives and feelings are way more ambiguous and left up for interpretation. His self-awareness about his manipulative nature seems more clear to me in the manga.

4) The anime’s addition of the rain scene and those other little moments behind the scenes of L having emotional struggles before his death. That added this whole other dimension to his character which wasn’t present whatsoever in the manga, and which you could definitely say changed his character completely. It seems to depict L as someone who reflects upon his actions and has some doubt and/or guilt about his own morality at times, which wasn’t really present at all in the manga, or at least not present in a way in which L had any regret or overt sentimentality about anything regarding his own behaviour or relationships with people in the Kira investigation. I like both manga L and anime L in their own different ways, but I can understand why there’s confusion about people’s ideas of L because of these subtle little changes. I remember talking to my friend about L a while back and she kept saying things like “he was such a good guy, he just didn’t know any better when he did (insert morally ambiguous behaviour here), it’s such a shame what happens to him!” And she’s only ever watched the Japanese dub of the anime; and I think this is a fairly common sentiment to hear from people who just watch the show.

The one other thing I can add about this is that the voice actor playing L makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE when it comes to how his personality comes off in the anime. I LOVE English voice actor Alessandro Juliani’s intepretation of L so much, not just because he has such a nice voice, but because he puts that complete ambiguity and shadiness back into L with every line he speaks! I think the anime kind of sucked a lot of that out of L originally and made him come off a bit naive and overly sincere, so it was very nice to see how AJ’s interpretation of the character put it back into L and made his true motives and personality so mysterious once more.