AnimeVice Writes; "Though to be sure, Lupin III's antics are pretty far off from Kira's. Reading some of the comments you Anime Vice lunatics have been making about my DEATH NOTE reviews has been interesting. There’s a lot of disagreement over whether or not it’s OK to root for Kira. Anybody who isn’t a DEATH NOTE fan needn’t worry - - this doesn’t pertain strictly to that show."...
I always sheer on the bad guys since the mighty morph power cr@pe The-bad-always-loose (lets go my friend we can beat him)lol?...fact of bad guys is always there to loose, the fck?, so wanted Kira to win, but at least L was taken out, so no pros.
May sound sadistic, kinda true, another thing why the bunch of series out there tend to fall off of my viewable sight(drop them).
How can they talk about this and not bring up Lelouch?
Cheering on villains isn't something new to anime. It's honestly nothing more than the fact these characters have an awesome streak to them that makes us cheer them on, I think.
Think about Dexter. Is it ok to root for him?
"Protagonist" is simply the character you are made to root for. The antagonist is the foil to that character. Those lines are blurred in much of media... but not here. Kira is very clearly the protagonist and L, Near, and Mello are very clearly antagonists. And Dexter is very clearly the protagonist to whomever is the biggest threat to him that season/book.
Bad guys? No.
Anti-heroes? Yes.