Well, that's the thing, he established a contrast between L and all the other characters, even though he said he could never have created the other characters either, and only said of L that he didn't feel real for him. That's why it never sat well for me, despite it being a good opinion at first glance.

And I agree. I read some similar things about both Near and Mello in the How to read while checking for that information. I'm not too surprised either about what you say about Platinum End, though I have not read it myself. I don't rely much on them either to form my opinion besides what's in the text, I agree it seems like the best choice all things considering. Like the Ryuzaki thing having to do with L and R sounding similar, I see that, but prefer to roll with Another Note here. It works wonderfully with it being Beyond Birthday's real name (I was this 👌 close to start rambling about identity again but goodness what a wonderful messy thing L has going on there). And still the washing machine bugged me, I couldn't help it. I thought for the longest time it was some kind of absurd joke headcanon popular in the DN fandom and I liked it a lot more as such xD

I don't like to dismiss completely File no. 15 though! I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion (pseudo ☕), but I love that L visits museums and likes art, and that he enjoys going to the park at times, and maybe I'm biased due to my background, but I adore and find so thought inspiring that he finished the demonstration in his first case with "Q.E.D."! The message is long again (with the new limitless asks it's easy to get carried away), but I wanted to add some positive things. I didn't mean to sound so bitter and negative in the other messages, sorry about that.

May I ask what are some of your own unpopular opinions? You don't have to reply, of course.

Oh, I didn't know the asks became limitless recently 😆 No worries, you didn't sound bitter! I tend to like being a bit critical or negative as a way of analyzing or attempting to discuss stuff honestly as well, and that's bound to happen in unpopular opinion sharing. I think it's valid to still be bothered by those things in the HTR13. I was just explaining how much I prioritize it or let it affect my feelings personally when it comes to my own interpretations of things.

Oh man, I haven't thought about my own unpopular opinions in a long time! But I think I made a list of them once in an ask I received way back in the day... I'll copy some here and then add some others, too.

I hope I don't offend anyone with these opinions, I'm not saying these are objectively true or anything but my own subjective takes, but

Some Unpopular Opinions:

-I think Misa is a worse person than Light and would rather hang out with him and be friends with him than with her. This is mostly because of how differently he acted upon losing his memories whereas she stayed almost exactly the same.

-I strongly prefer the manga to the anime because I think it's better written, more consistent, funnier, prettier, and more in-depth with all the characters and themes. I love stuff about the anime like the music, but I don't think the changes the anime made to L such as seemingly giving him regretful emotions before his death and little flashbacks to his past were automatically improvements on his manga self. I think he was far more original and complex as a character without that other stuff added in

-I LOVE LIGHT YAGAMI and can’t comprehend not loving him because he’s such a good character. Roasting him is always fun, but just straight up hating on him with no sense of humour about it is boring to me

-L is probably my all-time fave character but at the same time I think he can get a bit boring after a while if he isn’t fleshed out more in shippy fanfics and things. I love it when people give him a backstory and an interesting life in fics that go in-depth, because otherwise he can be left too much of a question mark

-Lawlight is both my favourite ship and also something I find a little overrated in the fandom at times. I think it's a really entertaining ship as an uncertain one full of tension and mind-games, but when it comes to actually putting them into a secure and loving relationship I end up getting easily bored by it

-sometimes I think Wammy's is overrated in the fandom compared to the other interesting characters and stuff in the series as well. I would love to see a little more exploration of the task force and SPK and mafia and such instead

-I think Higuchi was actually pretty nice to Misa on their date and the only thing that was awkward was that he lunged at her a little in the car when he got excited, lol

-I love Kiyomi and think it’s so silly to hate on her just because she killed Mello, he kidnapped her and made her strip at gunpoint first. I also think she gets blamed more harshly for things the guys also do sometimes, both by the characters in the story and by fans

-I don't believe Matsuda is as much of a pure cinnamon roll as some people seem to think, but he's more interesting with that darker side included in his characterization too

-I LOVE NEAR and think he’s so funny, and one of the most three-dimensional characters in the manga

-I think it was a good story choice that L died when he did and that he wasn't the final one in the warehouse showdown (though if I had only watched the anime that probably wouldn't be the case)

-I like that the story says that all the characters go to MU no matter what they do. I don't see it as just an edgy nihilistic thing which we should pretend isn't part of the story due to being too depressing to think about. In my opinion it's important to include it because it forces the audience to draw their own conclusions about the actions we see onscreen, and who we choose to sympathize with or condemn. If there was some sort of afterlife consequences based on the characters' morality it would easily become way too weirdly preachy or annoyingly nonsensical for me. And I respect how permanent the character deaths are because it would weaken the dramatic stakes and lessen the tension a lot if characters could arbitrarily come back from the dead

"I love lawlight when it's like Mario Party" your tags are hilarious at times, for real xD

I agree so much with I think all your unpopular opinions. The Misa one is unpopular? I thought it was explicit in the text. Light sure states it, and while he's not the most morally reliable person, he has a point there. Basically "stop killing innocent people" is what he first tells her, and his disgust for her never ceased for that reason, I think. And even in their personal relationships before meeting it's shown. Misa has no problem using and making a friend risk her life unknowingly, while Light might use the girl in the bus but without putting her in real risk, and I feel he wouldn't do that to say Sayu, unless there was really really really no other way.

I love that L dies in the middle, narratively it works so well, and I love Near and Mello (checking yesterday the HTR13 I remembered they were going to be L's actual sons at first and yikes xD), but I think the story flows better in the first half. Not a problem of L's absence necessarily, I think. It's normal that the first half of a story is better fleshed out. They rush manga writers too much for these things not to happen.

I think my favourite opinion is what you said about Matsuda! When he snaps he snaps! I love his dark aspect and how he several times states that Kira has a point, to the very end. I think him being so influenced by Soichiro and Kira being Light, who is also very influenced by Soichiro, is a very interesting aspect of the story I always want to explore. In fact I was thinking about writing a fic with that premise, Matsuda's dark part struggling with his admiration for Soichiro, but how they're actually related. I wanted to oppose that with a character that had a similar situation going on, but with L's methods instead of Kira's, and so draw a parallelism between that conversation happening in the background and what is going on with Light and L, but I can't think of a character in the Task Force that would see L has a point and how the things they're against are actually more the government's fault, and nor Naomi (due to her situation, I don't think she'd be too up to conversations about dark morals and methods with someone she didn't know before) nor Watari nor of course the very L work imo. And that takes me to another unpopular opinion ☕, which is that Soichiro's simplistic hypocritical morals are actually the ones I dislike the most in the manga. I would have to reread and take notes to actually assest this, but intuitively at the other end of the spectre and opposite to Soichiro seems to be Near. Which again is something I find interesting.

Well, I don't know if there's really no limit now to asks, but thus far they've let me write endlessly. I mean *gestures vaguely to this ask*. Sorry again. I'm just so excited to discuss some things about DN, and you point out so many interesting things I want to scream and end up getting carried away.

Haha, well the Misa one was unpopular when I wrote it, as there was a lot of stuff going around about how Misa was mostly just a poor misunderstood victim of Light or whatever. Though the fandom could very well have totally different takes on this stuff now. To some degree I think that Misa is just the specific type of person who gets my hackles up more than Light is; she is very impulsive and confrontational and loud and has a major disregard for personal boundaries, which are often big deal-breakers in a relationship for me. I relate more to Light's personality and background and like that he's more naturally aloof, so I just could imagine myself hanging out with him when he's memoryless a lot more easily than I could imagine myself hanging out with Misa when she is.

I don't think I've ever heard that take about Soichiro before, but I find it really interesting! I think Near's approach was the one I agreed with the most overall as well... I personally kind of like Soichiro, though don't always agree with his actions. But I'd be curious to hear what you disliked about him and his morals the most.

I know the excitement, don't worry! I always need to talk about the shows and books and stuff I immerse myself in, especially when they bring up so many things to ruminate on as DN did for me.