"Abduction's" English translation also follows a misstep taken by the original Japanese dub. Near is voiced by a woman. It's obvious, it's distracting, it's confusing, and it's bizarre. There are plenty of young male actors to take on this role. Instead of Near sounding like a young boy, he sounds likes Jodie Foster with a cold. This may be an unfortunate result of good intentions. A woman also played Near in the original Japanese recording. While this is faithful to the original… it's a faithful mistake.
The episode starts where we left off, back in 2007. Roger, the caretaker of the Wammy House for pre-L detectives, tells his top two students, Near and Mello, that L is dead. Mello leaves to go on his on own as Near is appointed as L's official successor. We smash cut to the future (2012) to Light's house.
These whacky-anime lighter moments never truly play well on this show. The always-lovable Matsuda is love-struck when he meets Light's sister. Misa is bug-eyed and annoying as always, but at least we got Ryuk there who is consistently hysterical. In fact, he delivers the episode's (and maybe the entire series') best line, "Ah, a heartwarming scene from the most unfortunate family in the world." This line was also from the manga… seriously, pick it up. It kicks ass.
The rest of the episode serves as a clusterfrack of storylines, as if the anime is the Cliff Notes version of the manga. Near forms a special task force for investigating "Kira" and the "New L". Mello kidnaps the director of the Japanese police force in an effort to recover the Death Note. Light retaliates by offing said director by writing his name in his notebook. Mello's plan fails, so he instead kidnaps Light's sister. By the end, Chief Yagami decides to go to Los Angeles (home sweet home, baby!) to trade the notebook for his daughter. Mind you, all this is very cool! It's just done too fast, and too sloppily.
The episode does manage to provide one goose-bump raising moment for Light-haters. The show concludes with a phone call between Light (posing as L) and Near… or as he refers to himself, N. Near calls Light out as the "Second L" revealing that other people now know that the true L is dead and that Light is a fake. The look on Light's face is priceless. An artistic shot of Light still caught in L's long chains sums it all up… L may be pushing daisies, but his work isn't done yet.
