Attention "Death Note" Fandom

[redwoodalchan]

 I would treat the slash ships in your fandom with more gravity if you didn't treat them like they were the end-all be-all of shipping and the "Death Note" fandom in general.

Seriously--the mind boggles at how SO MANY PEOPLE could watch a psychological murder mystery about a notebook that kills people, and come out of it with nothing but gay bishounen porn to show for it!

(Before anyone asks, I'm not trying to come across as homophobic. I actually buy that Light and L might have a thing for each other. I'm complaining about how very, very overgrown this fandom is with shipping in general and slash shipping in particular)

Comments

[outstretched]

As a person who participates in anime fandom: ...aren't all anime fandoms like that, though?

[redwoodalchan]

Yeah, they really are. I mention "Death Note" specifically partly because I think it's unusually bad even for large fandoms and partly because it's that time of year in which I visit the "Death Note" fandom (I used to be super-into "Death Note" so I occasionally venture back).

[rosehiptea]

When the Death Note manga first started being scanlated I saw stuff about it on my LiveJournal friendslist a lot, and I thought it was a yaoi manga at first because that seemed to be all anybody talked about. I didn't realize it was mostly about a notebook that killed people, though I guess I did know that part.

I'm not exactly complaining because I guess people will just do what they want to in fandom... and I do have a ship in Death Note... but reading this kind of made me laugh remembering that.

It's not only anime fandoms though. I remember someone saying in a community that people kept trying to get them to watch M*A*S*H and they expected it to just drip subtext everywhere which... it really doesn't.

(My Death Note ship is Rem/Misa. I'm weird that way.)

[redwoodalchan]

0.o Really?!

See, that tends not to happen with me because I don't tend to get actively involved in fandoms unless I have some experience with the source material already. My participation when it comes to anime is usually as follows:

1) Check to see if it has an English version. If yes, proceed to Step 2
2) Watch the OP to decide if it looks interesting and pick a time to watch it. Proceed to Step 3
3) Watch anywhere from 3 episodes to the entire series when the time comes
4) If it leaves an impression, check out the fandom.

In the case of "Death Note," I actually finished the series long before I did anything with the fandom. Even these days, when I'm more fandom-savvy, I don't tend to get actively involved with fandoms unless I really like the show--which I generally don't know until I've finished watching it. I was shocked, for instance, to discover that yaoi was big in the "Shiki" fandom--though I guess I shouldn't be, since it's done ridiculously often and almost always badly everywhere.

[rosehiptea]

I didn't really get into the fandom. I just kept seeing it around when my friends talked about it, and since just about all they talked about was L/Light (or Raito in those days) I just figured it was a yaoi manga with more of an interesting plot than some of the others.

I'm never surprised to see yaoi in a fandom these days. I'm surprised to see yuri, but not yaoi.

[guardians_song]

To be fair, in the Death Note fandom, the 'canon flavor' of the region includes ludicrously intricate dozen-chapter schemes... with approximately half of each chapter being devoted to text bubbles. It probably intimidates and discourages the casual fans from attempting to mimic or equal the canon, which (fandom being fandom) leaves only one thing...

OMG TEH YAOI!!11!