This is a short (37 episodes) anime series.
The Plot. The story goes about a very bright student, Light Yagami, who comes across a strange notebook titled "Death Note". In the note, Light discovers a set of rules for the usage of the note and that the note can be used to kill people. The rules state that Light has to envision a person's face and write down their name in the note. There is also a way to specify how a victim dies. If the way and the time of death is not specified, the victim dies of a heart-attack 40 seconds after the name has been written in the note. When the way of death is written, there is an additional 6 minutes and 40 seconds to specify the way the person dies.
Light, being a very smart youngster, decides to use the note for good. He starts eliminating criminals to make the world a better place. A few days after Light begins using the note, he is visited by a strange monster which apparently only he can see. The monster presents himself as Ryuuk, a shinigami (death god, grim reaper) and also the original owner of the note Light now has. He explains that when a Death Note is dropped in the human world, the human who picks it up becomes the owner of the death note until death. The shinigami will follow the owner and can give out information about the death note, but not help the owner to know peoples names and information. There is a possibility where an owner of a death note can exchange half of their remaining life time for the power to use the eyes of a shinigami, which give the person a power to see any person's remaining life time and the real name.
After a while, the police becomes suspicious of continuous and systematic deaths of criminals and a team is put together to investigate. As this case becomes increasingly difficult, an outside expert, who presents himself as L, is hired to assist with the case. L doesn't reveal any information about himself, which makes it impossible for Light to kill him.
Meanwhile the public becomes aware of criminals dying and also comes to the conclusion that a mysterious person is behind the killings. The public names the hero Kira (Killer), since the real identity is unknown. Since Kira is doing a good thing for the public, the majority of people side with him and support his actions.
General thoughts. This is anime series is really awesome. The main reason for this is the excellent writing. While the main idea seems uninteresting, once you sit down and watch a few episodes, it starts getting really interesting. The thing that makes Death Note so awesome is the battle between excellent minds. At a very early point in the series it becomes clear for L, that Light is Kira, but there is no way to actually prove it, since Light is very smart and doesn't make any mistakes. The whole series actually revolves around the characters outsmarting each-other and trying to gain information on the real identity of the other person. For L, it is important to prove that Light is Kira, for Light, to eliminate L, he needs to find out his real name.
A very interesting touch in the L vs Light is the actual difference between the two characters. Light is portrayed as a handsome young man, popular with the ladies, outgoing and social, as L is portrayed as a geeky, sad and lonely youngster. The writers went even as far as Light using a PC and L using a mac.
A thing that made this series especially wonderful was the sheer amount of plot-twists. Most episodes had 2-3 plot twists and the episodes themselves were the standard 20 minutes long. This makes Death Note the most unpredictable series I've ever encountered. Every episode is full of exciting moments, where you just need to know what do they think of next. There aren't many logical aspects that the writers might have over-looked. Everything is very thoroughly thought through.
In a way, this series shows how power corrupts even the most powerful minds. The power to decide if a person lives or dies made Light believe that he was a god. Step by step you could see how the power got hold of him, messing with his power to reason. But Light doesn't give up. There are a lot of moments, where you would think that now Light gets caught and given the unpredictable nature of the series, it wouldn't even be too unexpected.
Also, it is very difficult to write a lot about Death Note without spoiling it. A great deal of things change over the duration of the series. The writers weren't planning for this series to last, so a lot of characters can end up dead at any moment.
This series is awesome. I recommend this one to all anime fans and any people who like the trillerish style of writing. Even if you don't like anime, the only anime-style silly-looking things are the shinigami and there are only a few of them. A fair warning, though, this series needs some attention and isn't suitable for people who don't like to concentrate too much on something or just don't have the attention span. I myself enjoy watching things that need a lot of concentration and where you need to pay attention to the little things.
9/10 Flogs
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