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

[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.