isahbellah

[Disclaimer: Review imported from MAL and slightly adapted because this review was old.] Death Note is pretty good and has such an interesting story, indeed. BUT... here's a few reasons why it's not that great. 1) it's really sexist. I noticed how only the male characters are "awesome" (like Light and L) and all the female characters are either there just because (like Light's mom and sister) or are there just to be submissive over men (like Misa and Takada). Not only that, but countless characters say sexist shit as well: the detective on early episodes saying that once his fiancé has kids she won't have to work anymore, some rapist guys saying that because a woman was wearing a skirt she was "asking for it", Light's dad saying that HE WON'T LET his daughter marry a policeman and that she HAS TO marry someone else, etc etc. No, but really: Misa's entire character only exists just so she can be """""useful"""" to Light. And then Takada, who is reintroduced to us as a strong female character who is successful at her job, is reduced to a Misa 2.0 as soon as Light gets to talk to her. No women in this anime are relevant. No women in this anime are important. And some of you may think "oh, that's just how japan's culture is!" but... really. Really. 2) The second arc of the anime is HOOORRRIIIBBLLLEEE. When a certain event happens to a certain character, it all just goes downhill. We're introduced to Near and Mello, which are the poor man's version of L, and they just... they're not L. Near is the one that comes closest to what L is, but Mello????? WHAT WAS HIS PURPOSE???? WHY DID HE EVEN EXIST???? HELL IF I KNOW I hated these characters, I hated that the anime kept losing its essence ever since that plot happened, I hated the plot, I hated how it only got more sexist as the episodes gone by, I *HATED* IT. I kept watching out of stubbornness, not because I was actually enjoying it. The last 3 episodes are good, but that doesn't erase the two facts stated above. Nor does it change my mind. I think that if they hadn't [spoiler about that character], things would've ended better. It would still be a sexist show, true, but at least the second arc wouldn't have been so bad. Or: if the story had ended when that spoiler happened. It would have been an interesting ending, it would have spared us from the mess that part 2 was, it would have given the audience a different kind of message (not "better" than the one we actually got, just a different one). So. Is it an interesting watch? it is, can't deny that. I enjoyed some parts of the show. But it isn't "the best anime ever", as I've seen many people call it. I guess it depends on how much you're willing to ignore certain things.

hanari

~~~img(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/464877364065599520/468018630823772162/Death_Noteunder_analyse.jpg)~~~ Death Note is one of those shows that we can easily call a __classic__. It was one of the first anime I ever watched and is one of my all time favourites, so I couldn't start my new ''hobby?'' better. I should explain first what will I do here, so give me one minute for it. ~~~__This post contains spoiler!__ ~~~ The main goal for what I want to do here is analysing openings and endings at an angle of symbolism, interesting creations and ideas. I don't want to judge it or rate it, I just want to show you that the op/ed can be amazingly good creations and sometimes it's worth to not skip them. ~~~youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QE9cmfxx4s) ~~~ ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/29e6e0878c1c66eccb1d790fc4993364/tumblr_oxd7g9C6ty1rigtsko1_r1_400.gif)~~~ When Light opens his eye, you will first notice that they are piercing red eyes. You will notice it quite a lot during opening. What these red eyes mean? There are at least two answers to that question, they can symbolise either the eyes of a shinigami or just evilness. At the start we can see that Light is looking down. This could be a sign of a godlike position, him looking down on humans. This might be how he sees himself - a god among mankind. ~~~img(http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/22000000/1st-Opening-Theme-The-World-death-note-22000027-500-281.jpg)~~~ Here we see Light laying on what could be the stained glass ceiling of a chapel, the way he postures himself is very careless but also has a godlike aura to it, which would suit how Light thinks of himself, referring to his ego complex. It might not be relevant but it is worth noting that during this scene the singer sings the line "hirogaru yami no naka kawashiatta kakumei no chigiri", in translation this reads "in the spreading darkness I exchange a pledge for the revolution" My thought on this is that in the darkness of humanity and how the world is going to ruin, Light aka Kira wants to start a revolution, to fix humanity, to rid of people he deems not worthy of living, getting rid of the plague that has spread upon the humanity. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/df2f9cc3df150374738a4b03dad667be/tumblr_oxd7g9C6ty1rigtsko10_r2_400.gif)~~~ In this scene we see the shadow of Ryuk behind Kira, this could signify that Ryuk is controlling or using Kira from the shadows for his own gain or amusement. It might also represent the pact that was made between Ryuk and Kira via the Death Note. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/f19c99f05bf836044b67335999558496/tumblr_ozqls5Yj2L1say1cko1_540.gif)~~~ Here is one of the most iconic scenes in the opening for Death Note, as you can tell it itself is a recreation of the ‘’Creation of Adam’’. There are many symbolisms or ways in which this scene could be interpreted, but to me this scene shows that Light aka Kira is raising his hands to the god of death Ryuk, reaching for the apple which is a symbol of original sin. What elevates this scene is the usage of light and shadows, with Light having the appearance of an angel with light beckoning upon him, while Ryuk is lurking and reaching out of a veil of shadow and darkness. This represents the tainting of Light by Ryuk when Light was handed the Death Note, with the apple also serving as a symbol of the note. We can also see that Light is chained down, this could be in relation to his feelings of him being more than just a human and how he is chained down to the society around him. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/7170344ce1ff612a8942af033e0d3c47/tumblr_o7p9u4MO0O1r72ht7o1_540.gif)~~~ This scene shows the two main characters of the series, Light and L standing on two towers above the ground. Even though the distance between them is small, it appears near impossible to overcome, this could symbolise their relationship throughout the series, that even though the two are so close and alike, there is a whole valley of differences that will be impossible to cross. This scene could also symbolise the mind game between two characters, the game of cat and mouse that the pair play, the challenges that they give each other. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/011545d2c3590976b8fff2d2413c3966/tumblr_oxd7g9C6ty1rigtsko7_r2_400.gif)~~~ In this short scene before the title of the anime, we see the screen filled with roses, these roses could be a symbol of martyrdom, that Kira might think of his actions as a sacrifice for the greater good. That he wants to build a road to something beautiful (the flower) but the road is covered by obstacles (the thorns). It would be even compared to that of Jesus Christ, that Light holds himself in such high regard that he himself might believe he is the second coming of Christ sent to make the world a better place. ~~~img(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deathnote/images/5/57/Light_catches_apple.gif/revision/latest?cb=20120810035115)~~~ In these next scene we see the apple fall into Kira's hand, this could symbolise the Death Note falling from above into Kira's ownership and the passing of this "original sin" onto him. We then see Kira standing above the city looking over it, surveilling it. This could be related to when he's finding and watching people to add to the Death Note or simply him assuming an all watching godlike role. We also see another two instances of this apple representing original sin being shown, one where Light is walking around the city with it in his hand and another with him in the reflection of the apple. This could symbolise the sin that Light carries around with him from the Death Note and that maybe he himself is full of sin. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/f290382a4cd08b83b5f85fd550b5c59f/tumblr_oxd7g9C6ty1rigtsko8_r3_400.gif)~~~ With Light in the foreground and the sky with doves in the background this scene gives me the sense of the freedom that Light is experiencing from the power of the Death Note, that he feels like he no longer has to walk amongst man but is instead able to be free in the sky, this might also be a sign for limitless potential. You will also notice that behind Light is a shadow, this shadow might be the representation of Kira, the alias Light uses when committing his acts. Though it could represent the opposite, that instead of gaining freedom, his freedom has been lost. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/989c0e5af100a6cea5c0ac61ac01bc86/tumblr_n5ktxjUxsD1t9xzx4o1_500.gif)~~~ Here is Misa, doing nothing as always :v ~~~img(https://orig00.deviantart.net/789b/f/2007/299/0/b/death_note_apple_by_ermano.gif)~~~ With this scene it is important to note what I said about the apple representing the idea of original sin and the story of Adam and Eve, how they succumbed to their greed. This scene visualises Light succumbing to his desire by deciding to take a bite of the apple, the original sin. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/39fb91a54a645dd165b87b758750300f/tumblr_nfg1rhlGNf1tcko28o8_250.gif)~~~ This scene shows us more of the cast of Death Note, with one being the police, in here we can see that all except one are looking in every direction, possibly due to fear of Kira. However the middle officer, Light’s dad, is looking straight ahead, he isn't letting fear get to him, he wants to find the killer, he’s seeking justice. They are the opposite for a shinigamis, they look like watching a show. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/261cf662c56afc52cfe78485cf537e41/tumblr_nfg1rhlGNf1tcko28o5_250.gif)~~~ Next we have a recreation of the sculpture Pietà, Pietà depicts the lifeless body of Jesus Christ over his mother’s lap after his crucifixion. Penbar's lifeless body being Jesus and Penbar's fiance Naomi being Mary. You can see that on Naomi's face that she is in pain and grieving yet also dedicated to catching Penbar's killer, she remains calm even when a massive amount of pressure has just been placed on her. ~~~img(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/GlitteringAngryIndigobunting-max-1mb.gif)~~~ In the next of couple shots we see a prisoners bloody hands scraping against the wall, then clutching onto a prison fence, till now Kira has been running rampant killing prisoners, with this one just being one of his many victims. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maja9cxbj61qgeeivo1_500.gif)~~~ In this scene we see Light’s reflection falling apart and smashing to pieces on the floor. It can signify that Death Note has destroyed him both physically and mentally, this also could mean that the Light we knew at the start of the series isn’t here no more and this persona, Kira, has taken over and consumed him. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/910a435513c3fff6ddf415043c3646c6/tumblr_n4argspFYm1s9l3f7o7_250.gif)~~~ The battle between L and Kira has now moved, they are standing in close proximity of each other as opposed to earlier when they stood at the top of the pillars above the city with a deep gap separating them, this shows that their battle is coming to an end, L is catching up and has nearly overcome that impossible gap. He's closing in. The fact they are in this dark, dirty and gloomy tunnel might also show that the tricks they are using, the tactics they are applying are also dirty and underhanded, all they want is to beat the other, no matter the cost. ~~~img(https://78.media.tumblr.com/9c0dae001714ad91e2e01898aa0188ff/tumblr_n4argspFYm1s9l3f7o8_250.gif)~~~ We see Kira and Misa standing in the rain, with Misa reaching out her hand to Kira and Kira going to reach out for hers. This scene shows that Kira is accepting Misa, but for his own reasons, he wants to use her for his own gain. This is Kira using anything at hand to gain the advantage and further his own ideals. ~~~img(https://i.makeagif.com/media/11-14-2015/zjVv-4.gif)~~~ This scene shows Kira in an almost angelic and godlike state, with the imagery of an angel in the background and him in the foreground, this could signify that at this moment Kira thinks of himself as untouchable or having already ascended. It could also mean that light is finally free after his death as Kira. Another viewpoint of this scene could be that this is Kira and Light, with the latter being in the foreground and the angel representing Kira, Light accepted the sin and fell from heaven thus becoming a fallen angel, turning his back on god. Thanks for reading! __Do you have any favourite scenes in this opening?__ Like and follow me for more! And leave a comment on __what should I analyse next__! ~~~https://anilist.co/anime/1535/Death-Note/~~~ This analysis wouldn't be possible to write without @Nexus95. Thank you!

DarkKnightofAnime

So Death Note a series where you ask yourself what left is there to say about it apart from the obvious? Well maybe a couple things to be sure because the thing about Death Note for me is that it's such a heavy handed series that I can really only afford to revisit it every so often to avoid suffering my emotions getting scrambled but after having recently rewatched it after FINALLY buying it on DVD/Blu-Ray I figured it was about time I let out my thoughts so lets just dive right in ~~~ img220(https://tibs3.threeifbyspace.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/34457_death_note-e1415670097500.jpg)~~~ ~~~__Story__~~~ The story is something everyone is familiar with so I won't spend too much time rehashing it but basically it follows academic genius Light Yagami who finds a notebook called a Death Note and after discovering it's power to kill people by writing their name on it's pages vows to use it to rid the world of all criminals and become the new god of the world while being aided by the Shinigami Ryuk. Now the thing about a story like this is that it's bare bones level it sounds pretty standard and while it is in places the series still does an amazing job at balancing and exploring this very grey area about justice and how there really is no clear answer to what's the morally right thing to do I mean yes we can perceive Light's actions as evil and immoral all we want but at the same time there is an aspect to what he's doing that we also kind of sympathize with but never enough to where we are fully on his side either allowing us to just as much get behind the detectives and authorities trying to catch him Now the one problem people constantly bring up about the story is that the second half after L dies does dip a bit in terms of pacing and overall storytelling and while I do have that exact same issue I'd argue the second half isn't the only one with this problem, true the slower pacing is more prominent in the second half but having re-watched the series I've noticed there were the occasional moments that did drag the overall pacing down just ever so slightly. Anyway going back to the second half it's like I said I do recognize the issue but I only have a 50-50 issue with it as I believe the mangaka duo behind the series Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata did say they wrote themselves into a corner after L died so that kinda validates the second half a little more to me Now if I did have a genuine criticism of the second half I will say that I am a bit more of a fan of how the Manga ended compared to the anime and it really does come down to a personal preference as the manga's ending did feel like Light's influence as Kira had a long lasting effect whereas the ending to the anime just gave off the vibe as if life moved on without him. For those who don't know then SPOILERS: In the manga's ending we see countless numbers of hooded Kira worshippers marching through Japan ready to care out his will whereas the anime just sees Ryuk returning to the Shinigami Realm. On one hand I do understand why the anime went a different route: to avoid encouraging cult-like behaviour but on the other hand I do feel the manga did better at showing just how many people actually agree with Kira's ideals long after his death 8/10 ~~~img220(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gMiuOGu75ZM/Tcjx28NISrI/AAAAAAAAAEM/jsmQXmuKzZs/s1600/DeathNote_Bookmarks_by_Harusaki%255B2%255D.jpg) ~~~~~~__Characters__~~~ So this one is probably gonna be one of the shorter sections as my favourites are all your favourites I love Light, Ryuk, L, Every character on the Task Force, nearly all the characters on the show are just so fleshed out with a likeable personality and each one has a viewpoint on Kira I can get behind in one way or another. The one character I will say that I think most people are gonna disagree with me on in this review is Misa, now on one hand when I first watched the series I was like everyone else and I did think she was a rather annoying character like everyone else but after revisiting the series I actually felt quite a bit more sympathetic towards her because she actually was a rather tragic case: She gave up everything to support Light but in return all Light really did was manipulate and abuse her in order to achieve his own personal gain. In that sense it really is a very unfortunate tale of love that was not meant to be And going off what I said about the Task Force and L being this contrasting entity that opposes Light/Kira I really like how the characters are what drives the story as each one has not only a distinct personality but also a different viewpoint that drives what they believe to be their own sense of justice and each character has a viewpoint that you can agree with which helps reinforce the middle ground and grey area tone that the series balances throughout. Hell I'd even argue Near and Mello for as forced into the plot as they felt were still very interesting characters If I did have one criticism about the characters in the show however is that outside of the main cast there are a lot of secondary characters that don't really feel like they serve much purpose other than show they exist or at the very least serve their purpose in the plot like for instance outside of Light's father Soichiro Yagami, Light's mother and sister Sayu didn't really serve much of a purpose to the overall story. I mean I guess you could argue they kept Light grounded from losing his humanity completely to the Death Note but that quickly got thrown out the window in the second half but honestly this is just a minor nitpick as the rest of the cast are very likeable especially everyone's favourite Shinigami Ryuk 8.5/10 ~~~img220(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deathnote/images/a/ae/Opening_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20170329235708)~~~ ~~~__Visuals and Audio__~~~ So I thought I'd combine these two together a. Because I'm lazy and b. They really compliment each other in a lot of cases especially since the series has to balance it's dark gothic style with it's heavy religious symbolism and you'd think trying to capture both through music and visuals would turn out distracting but in a lot of ways it works for me personally however it really works it's best when it's trying to capture a certain mood or atmosphere as those are the point where they use outstanding scores of choir music that just make us feel the weight of the scene that accompanies it like that scene with Light on the skyscraper after killing L as he begins killing criminals again, the entire scene plays out like he's orchestrating an opera and the music just booms with the sound of a church choir as people are killed Also on the visual angle one thing I really liked is how the anime accented the character appearances with contrasting colours every time they would go into an internal monologue allowing us to hear their thoughts but also giving us a little more glimpse as to their thought process of how they were planning to counter each other accompanied by some very tense music and it plays out like a mental chess game throughout the series. Even the scenes that aren't like that still are great at showing what each character is thinking through their expressions alone Now if I did ever have a problem on the visual aspect and luckily it's not all the time is that there are RARE and I mean VERY RARE occasions where every once inn a while the visuals can look a little...Derpy to say the least and what's meant to be serious can come across as a little funny but like I said that happens very little On the audio aspect of problems for me the only thing I really have a problem with there is that the Second Opening lacks both the visual and musically emotional feel that the first opening had, it's almost like MADHOUSE decided to drop all the religious and emotional symbolism about the show and wanted to go straight for a heavy metal cover which can be a little bit of a turn off in a series like this. Also the visuals in Opening 2 are definitely a little weird in places So ya overall the Visuals and Music are slightly more divisive for me but majority of what they do definitely gets it's intended reaction out of me, as I said the strongest part of both lie in the actual show itself and less in the openings with the exception obviously being Opening 1. Visuals: 7.5/10 Audio: 8.5/10 ~~~__Conclusion__~~~ So taking everything I've said I can't recommend Death Note more than enough to people but as I said in the beginning it is in fact a very heavy handed anime and one I wouldn't recommend watching on a constant basis otherwise you might find yourself an emotional wreck but make no mistake it is a very entertaining and thought provoking anime, it's one of those series that really shuts down the argument that anime isn't just for kids as it provides an interesting look into the psychology of Justice and that the world isn't so black and white as we think it to be

TheRealKyuubey

The evils in this world are inescapable. No matter where you look, no matter where you go, there are people out there who seem to do nothing but hurt others. They take advantage of them, preying on anyone they can get even the smallest leverage over, letting their own ingenuity do the rest. Rapists, murderers, thieves, all of them are nothing but soulless vampires hurting the people around them with no thoughts towards anyone’s feelings but their own. There’s no escaping it. God made a mistake when he granted man free will. This world… It’s rotting. These are the thoughts plaguing a brilliant young Japanese man named Light Yagami, a bored genius with a chip on his shoulder the size of the entire world’s criminal population. We’ve all wondered what we’d do if we could kill whoever we want with little more than a thought… We could take care of that bully who’s been harassing us, that singer we can’t stand, or that politician who doesn’t agree with us… But one day, as Light is moving between classes, he actually gets the opportunity to do just that. Out in the courtyard, he finds a Death Note, a notebook that was dropped into the human world by a Shinigami, or God of Death, who’s just as bored as he is. It doesn’t take long for the industrious millennial to realize the kind of power he’s been given, and he very quickly decides to create a new world free of crime and evil, with himself lording over it as the new God. His ruthless genocide on the wicked doesn’t go unnoticed, as he attracts the attention of copycats, worshipers, and a mysterious detective named L who wants nothing more than to end his reign of justice. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but as the body count racks up, and the deadly game of cat and mouse between Light and his nemesis L wages on, with Light’s true intentions becoming more and more questionable with every single twist and turn of the plot, it’s worth asking: What is true justice? Where is the line between good and evil, and at what point does a vengeful God cross it? If power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then then the lines may not be as clear as Light, or anyone else, realizes. I’ve always been annoyed by people who state that there’s an ‘anime style,’ because when you actually back up and take a look at the medium as a whole, there just might be more individual art and animation styles in the anime medium than there even is in America. It’s easy to say that all of the Hannah Barbara cartoons of the seventies were designed to look like Scooby Doo, or that there are too many modern cartoons that look like Adventure time, or that CG Disney ladies just look like identical dolls with different hair and faces added on, but you can’t really say the same for the anime medium. Even anime released by the same studio around the same time will rarely ever look that close to each other, aside from a few recognizable studio quirks. I’ll admit that Studio Madhouse has released a handful of titles that look like Death note, but with Death Parade allegedly taking place in the same universe, it’s a smaller number than you’d think. Other titles like Monster, Black Lagoon and the Marvel Anime come close, but ultimately stray in one form or another. But Death Note is one of the Studio Madhouse anime that lean more towards actual human realism rather than the big-eye, small nose giant head designs that people often attribute the anime “style” too. Characters are designed to be almost lifelike, with everyone sporting appropriately sized eyes, save for a few token weirdos who’s eyes are slightly larger than they should be, like Misa and Near. There’s really nothing about their anatomy that’s exaggerated, and none of them are drawn to be inhumanly attractive like bishounen or moe girls would be, everyone just looks human, which not only sets the tone of the series, but it also provides the perfect opportunity for Shinigami, the other-worldly observers who started this whole mess, to stand out as the grotesque humanoid monsters they should be. The level of imagination that went into them is astounding, as even the ones who only show up in one or two scenes look like nothing you’ve seen before. The human characters are also designed in such a way to inform their personalities in some clever ways. As for the animation, this is a dialogue heavy show, so there really isn’t much to speak of. A lot of the series is just talking heads, but they took just enough of a cue from Akiyuki Shinbou to use interesting framing and shading to keep things visually interesting without ever going overboard and looking pretentious. They save their money for big movements, and I don’t just mean action scenes like fights and chases, although those do exist, and they look gorgeous. This is an extremely over-the-top show, to the point that even the act of eating a potato chip can be made to look every bit as epic as Moses parting the red sea. They go the cheaper route when events like these aren’t happening, and while I wish to say they managed their budget well, I can’t. This show isn’t just a dramatic rollercoaster, oh no, the animation is just as inconsistent, because for every breathtaking high, there’s an egregiously painful low when they try to portray fluid movement on a low budget, and it looks embarrassingly bad, and it’s just as noticeable as the good stuff, if not moreso. The animation is a mixed bag, but in terms of the music, Death Note might just have one of the best soundtracks in anime history. The first thing you probably think of in terms of Death Note’s ost is the loud, epic greek choir that fires up for all of the show’s biggest moments, Low of Solipsism, the most memorable song in the series and easily one of the most iconic themes of all time. It’s right up there with the Azumanga Daioh eyecatch music, being instantly recognizable, maybe even to people who haven’t even seen the series. As much as I’d like to praise it for it’s overall use throughout the series, it’s the individual character themes that really take the cake here. Light and L are generally represented by the guitar and the piano, respectively, with the former representing youthful revolt and(probably unintentionally) deliberate insincerity, with the former representing order and the return to the classic world, IE the one Light’s trying to change. Appropriately, each theme has the instrument representing the opposing character creeping into it at some point. This is taken even further by a later character named Near having a similar theme to L, albeit with a less conventional instrument for a less conventional detective. Their themes go a lot deeper than this, with the progression of each track representing the course of the plot, and trust me, every character gets a similarly descriptive theme, but you don’t want to hear about that. You want to hear about the openings, and how awesome they both are. They’re both artistic, high energy and visually stunning, and they’re every bit as representative of the plot and characters as the musical themes are. Musically, the first opening, The World, is a lot more conventional, which by no means is a bad thing. It’s the catchy hard rock song a show like this should have, with a ton of religious imagery and every major character getting their time in the spotlight. The second opening, What’s Up People, has become notorious in the medium for being entirely balls-out insane. Switching from hard rock to Death metal, it symbolizes the chaos of the world and Light at that point in the story. The English dub was an Ocean effort, and while they’ve produced some less appealing dubs in the past, this one is surprisingly solid. There aren’t a lot of Canadian anime dubs out there, so the ones we do see don’t really feature the actors or directors we’ve gotten used to through the American ADR scene, and the different sound plays up how different this entire show is really well. The only problem you might have with it is the uncanny valley effect of hearing so many past and present My Little Pony actors lending their voices to such a serious show. The two main actors in particular are outstanding, with Brad Swaile matching every beat of his Japanese counterpart, and Battlestar Galactica veteran Alessandro Juiliani actually surpassing his. Swaile is able to play every side of Light Yagami, from the good-natured innocent he pretends to be to the heartless killer he hides under the surface, and he even manages to sound just as crazy and psychopathic as Mamoru Miyano, effortlessly passing the bar at every opportunity. Juiliani went above and beyond with giving nuance to L that frankly wasn’t there in the original sub. I don’t know how Brian Drummond was able to do Ryuk’s voice, but I feel like I’d offer him a lozenge if I ever met him in person. He plays the character like a combination of Wolverine and Harvey Fierstein, which makes sense, as he’s played Wolverine in more than a few adaptations. He’s had a long and prolific career in both anime and western animation, doing everything from My Little Pony and Bratz to Cardcaptor Sakura and Gundam, but he’ll always be Ryuk to me. Shannon Chan-Kent hasn’t done as much anime as Drummond, having less than ten credits to her name, but she does her best to keep up with the sheer insanity of her own Japanese counterpart, and while she doesn’t quite match up, the simple truth is that I’ve yet to see anyone match the inflections of Aya Hirano. If Wendee Lee couldn’t do it, then the singing voice for Pinkie Pie could only be expected to do so much. She does a fine job, but still kinda misses the mark, taking an annoying character that Aya saved and just playing her as annoying anyway. The rest of the cast is also at least fine, with the only other obvious stand-outs being the characters of Mello and Near, whom I can’t really talk about for spoiler reasons. Kirby Morrow, the original Goku himself, goes absolutely crazy as the justice obsessed character Teru Mikami, and his performance goes about as off the rails as anyone else I’ve mentioned thus far. I don’t think character actor Chris Britton has done any anime aside from this one, but he plays Light’s father Soichiro as grounded and authoritative, showing the age of the character very clearly through the fatigue of his voice. Vincent tong,Trevor Duvall, John Murphy and a disappointingly small role by Brian Dobson(But not as disappointing as the screen time that Tabitha St. Germaine got) make up the other officers of the NPA, none of whom battle the main cast for your attention, but all of whom do a solid job in more grounded and realistic parts. The writing is on point and as accurate as possible, and I honestly recommend watching both versions at least once, as it sounds amazing in both languages. Death Note is one of those few anime that really don’t need an introduction. If you know what anime is, you’ve heard of it. It’s not quite as recognizable as Dragonball Z or Pokemon, but if those shows are Hulk hogan and the Macho Man, then Death Note is at the very least John Cena… There’s no guarantee that you’ve heard of it, but it’s still pretty damn likely. To this day, it’s the most recently released anime to receive an American remake, and I’m not just talking about that Netflix movie that I’ve been putting off watching… I am thoroughly convinced that Breaking Bad took more than a few notes from it. Oddly enough, for an anime this popular, the backlash hasn’t been as severe as it has been for a lot of other titles that blew up as big as it did… Most critics and audiences have at least a generally positive opinion of it, it’s broken a lot of cultural barriers, and it’s even managed to inspire a number of real life murders. Is it worth all the hype? Does it really deserve it’s spot in the public consciousness? Well, we’ll start with the negatives. I didn’t really notice it until I was rewatching the series for this review, although it is pretty obvious now that I think of it… This story was, more likely than not, written as it went along. It has to have been. There’s very little material on display that feels like it was planned out in advance, or at least it wasn’t planned very far in advance. I’ve read comments from the manga’s mysterious author that at least two of the side characters’ deaths were decided spur of the moment, in one case because the character was learning too much too quickly, and the second because he happened to be the most expendable option out of those available at the time. Now writing a story this way isn’t always a bad thing… Stephen King is exceptional at it. The problem is that you have to know how to make it work, and Death Note kind of doesn’t. Outside of the music and openings, there was NO foreshadowing in this series, which makes a lot of plot twists feel jarringly out of nowhere, but there are much more obvious examples. Take, for example, the booby trap Light builds to conceal his death note early on in the series. Light goes into great detail about how he built a secret compartment to house his notebook, telling us not only how it works, but how it was set up to destroy the book if anyone were to get too close to discovering it. this is all well and good, but for the amount of screen time it takes up, it never actually comes up in the story again. It never plays a part in the narrative, except for covering a potential plothole down the line, but that alone isn’t good enough to justify the attention that went into it. There’s a rule called Chekov’s gun, stating that if something gets mentioned in the story, it has to play a part later in the story. You don’t mention a gun if nobody’s gonna get shot by it, and you don’t go to extreme lengths to avoid something if that thing’s never going to either happen or almost happen. We don’t need to know how he hid the notebook, we know he’s smart enough to do it. We don’t need to know how paranoid and careful he is, the door trick tells us that just fine on it’s own. Sure, maybe it was PLANNED to come up again, but I’m pretty sure the only reason they did that was so nobody would question why the people putting up surveillance cameras in his room never found it. Even for that purpose, simply having him say “Nobody will ever find it” would suffice, because we would have taken him at his word. It’s especially strange because as meticulously as this was described, the author was still perfectly happy with never explaining how Light was able to sneak a tiny television inside of a SEALED bag of chips, which he was somehow able to clearly watch while writing down the names being broadcast on it, all while never actually looking into the bag itself. Kind of a weird for us to just take on faith when you’re explicitly describing a fail-safe that never actually gets used. But this is also emblematic of another huge problem that writing like this can cause, and that’s the fact that the author often wound up writing the story into a corner and having to pull out complete bullshit in order to get out of it. My friend Karandi over at the 100 Word Anime blog pointed out in her review of this series that it relies heavily on coincidence, and yeah, this is a really good point. Death Note is damn near Shakespearian in the amount of deus ex machina asspulls it uses. Coincidences aren’t just conveniently used, they’re deeply ingrained in the plot, and I’m not exaggerating that. This entire situation began on a coincidence, with Light just happening to find the notebook, and it ends on a coincidence, because spoilers. I know coincidence on it’s own isn’t the end of the world, I mean there are a ton of heroes who constantly have to save people that coincidentally happen to be their loved ones, but the sheer amount of it in Death Note is astounding, and it works really hard against the reputation the show has built for itself around being smart. On top of that I can’t count the number of times that characters made stupid or ill advised decisions for the sake of the plot, and I’m not just talking about canonically stupid characters like Misa. But since Misa’s been brought up, that’s another criticism the series keeps having lodged against it, and it’s pretty damn valid… Death Note is skin-crawlingly sexist. With very few exceptions, and I can not stress the word very hard enough, male characters make up the entirety of the police force, politicians, business heads and major players in Light’s death game, with those few exceptions I mentioned either being pawns with limited agency or having extremely limited screen time. Women are portrayed through their relationships to male characters, playing the roles of mother, sister, grieving lover or obsessed stalker, and the only two exceptions to this that I can think of are Wedy and Halle Lidner, who certainly had agency and lives of their own, but were used far too scarcely to make an impact. I had high hopes for Naomi Misora, who was really likeable and interesting, even though she was giving up her career to become a housewife and was out to avenge her dead fiancee. She was a smart and proactive character, which is why it’s profoundly insulting how her sudden brain fart led to her downfall. Trust me, there’s a good reason she’s one of only two characters to get their own light novel spin-off. Misa Amane gets close to top billing, which is progressive by his series’ standards, but it comes with a pretty harsh trade-off… She is canonically the dumbest character in the show, motivated entirely by infatuation(also canonical), and while she does get a few moments to shine here and there(like her manipulation of one certain business head), her screw-ups and terrible decisions way overpower anything good she brings to the series. Yeah, she’s devoted to Kira for avenging the death of her parents, but she would die for Light and happily be used by him just because he’s good looking and smart. I’ve already covered their terrible relationship in my ‘top ten worst romances’ list, so I won’t dwell on her here, but there’s still the matter of Light being a certified chick magnet, with countless female characters getting charmed by him, including a girl who wants to continue their date after watching a man die, and a certain otherwise promising character playing right into his hand despite knowing better from the details of her husband’s death. The only difference between him and Kirito is that he’s acknowledged as being a dick about it. The ladies still be cray thirsty, though. But even with these issues being very pronounced, my biggest problem with the series is something I don’t think I’ve heard anyone else complain about… I hated the voice overs. It was just too much. I know what you’re saying, that’s just a part of the experience! It’s how they portray the mind games between the hero and the villain! Yeah, well, you could say the same thing about Yugioh, and that show gets ruthlessly parodied for it, while Death note somehow gets a pass despite being even worse about it. I kept waiting for Light to reference the heart of the cards, or something. It’s true that these sequences could sometimes be useful, like when Light was freaking out about Naomi Misora and his thought process helped to amp up the suspense, but I would honestly say that just over half of it is unnecessary. I don’t need to hear Light say “40 seconds…” to get that he’s waiting forty seconds, and I don’t need to have every one of his schemes explained to me, before OR after they happen. This is how stories are written when the writer thinks that you’re too stupid to figure things out for yourself. That’s admittedly a lot of negatives, so what’s positive about this show? how has it survived so prominently in the public consciousness, music and character designs aside? well, there are two elements that I think give it staying power, and the first is the dynamic between Light and L. And no, I’m not just talking about the whole ‘genius vs. genius’ appeal, it goes deeper than that. While they’re polar opposites all the way down to the computers they use, they also share some stark similarities. They’re both obvious sociopaths, L by accident and Light by design, and they’re both drawn to each other more for the challenge of it than through any sort of moral sincerity. They both justify their actions through moral superiority and altruism, but at the end of the day, it’s more a matter of ambition… Light wants to be god, L wants to tackle an unsolvable case. They both put on acts to inspire people to side with them, albeit with different intents, and they both seem to exhibit fear rather than remorse when they do something wrong… L for fear of punishment, Light for fear of being caught. I don’t think I have to explain how juicy a premise that is… Two characters that just happened to land on opposite sides of the law due to their circumstances, both valuing personal success over actual justice, and they’re going at each other’s throats while pretending to be friends. This interplay alone kind of makes up for the fact that there are less than five characters in a giant cast that get any development. Everyone is a player in the game of Light and L, two bored geniuses who will stop at nothing to obliterate each other… They couldn’t be more similar, but they also couldn’t be more different, and they both have pretty much every anime fan in existence gravitating to one side or another. Life even kind of imitates art, because while Light was designed to have the social skills to manipulate people in ways that L could never dream of, that also wound up being the majority consensus of the fanhood, who tend to side overwhelmingly with Light, despite the fact that he was explicitly designed to be evil and unsympathetic, but they’re drawn more to the passion of his cause and his slick, slimy charisma than to his actual actions. Even when this dynamic disappears thanks to a certain plot twist that happens about two thirds of the way into the story… A twist that most viewers loathe, but that I personally never minded… The show is still able to at least be interesting and engaging, and that’s due to it’s other major saving grace; Death note has an absolutely brilliant sense of pacing. There is not a second wasted in this series, nor does any part of it ever drag. Death note does not fuck around. Every moment of screen time is spent furthering the plot or the story in some way, and the high, energetic tone only ever slows down when it damn well wants to. It’s all plot, plot, development, spectacle, plot, reveal… I mean, yeah, there are moments that probably could have been cut without affecting anything, but more often than not, those are the really fun and memorable scenes like the tennis match, and you don’t want to skip scenes as entertaining and full of levity as that. Even at it’s worst moments, and let’s not kid ourselves, there are some serious qualifiers for that title, Death note is a roller coaster you just can’t bring yourself to get off of. Death Note is available from viz Media. It’s been released in numerous different formats, including individual 4-episode disks and the more recent thinpack bluray release, none of which are that hard to find. There have been several movies based on it, including two animated films that retell the story through Ryuk’s eyes, three Japanese live action movies(only one of which I’ve seen, and it was barely watchable) and an American movie on Netflix that I’ve been avoiding like the plague. The original manga is also available stateside from Viz Media, as are both Light novels, which I highly recommend checking out just for the awkward translation issues alone. So after all that, is Death note worthy of it’s reputation? does it deserve to be so popular, and stand the test of time like it has? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, it absolutely does. I’m not saying that it’s myriad of problems don’t matter, or that they should be ignored, but the final product is way more entertaining than the sum of it’s parts. For example, I may have complained about the author just making things up as he went along, and it probably would have been better if he’d had some grand scheme in mind so that he could fill it with depth and meaning, and symbolism that wasn’t just pretentiously chosen for aesthetic purposes, but it wouldn’t be so heart-poundingly unpredictable, so this really is a matter of execution ultimately trumping substance and content. Death note is a high energy detective thriller that, despite it’s many asspulls, never loses sense of the basic rule of cause and effect, and is able to be as campy and over-the-top as you can imagine while still taking itself completely seriously. It’s got a lot of problems, sure, but I can’t think of anyone who I wouldn’t recommend it to, and I think everyone should see it at least once. I give Death note a 7/10.

MiNiSoTaN

# __~~~MiNiSoTaN's Death Note Review~~~__ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/C3hf5zV.jpg)~~~ ~~~__Introduction:__~~~ Hello. My name is Neill or "MiNi." This will be my in depth review of Death Note, the 2007 adaption of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's critically acclaimed manga. With all my reviews I will score the anime discussed based upon 5 categories that include: Story, Characters, Art, Music, and Personal Enjoyment. Each category will be given a score between 0 and 10. The ending score will be what I determine the show deserves overall. Keep in mind I will be talking about spoilers that occurred during the anime along with spoilers of the light novels that proceed after. Now, without further ado, let's get into this. ~~~__Story (9/10):__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/s9zFD8N.jpg)~~~ Tsugumi Ohba's magnum opus will be Death Note. He crafts a story so masterfully that to say it is brilliant would be an understatement. Death Note's story is so unique and so twisted that it truly is one of the most original stories of the modern age. We begin inside the mind of Light Yagami, just an ordinary high school student following the motions of his boring day to day life. Ohba portrays Light in such a cunning way that the audience both is both rooting for and against him by the end of the series. The way Light evades the police and L through his carefully constructed plans is incredible to watch. The back and forth nature of who can outsmart who has you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire story. I cannot stress enough how intrigued I was watching the plot unfold. Even today, I go back and forth between supporting Light and L. I never decided who I wanted to win. This is due to how well the and complex the story is. There is no real clear answer to who is the "better" one. Both Light and L have valid reasons as to why they think they're superior. Each twist and turn in the plot is a train ride as well. From beginning to end you believe one character has the other outclassed, but there is always another card to be played on the table. This game of cat and mouse never never gets old even as the series grows in length. Even during the later half of the season I was still enthralled by how this tale would end, and honestly I still don't quite know how I feel about it. On one hand I was rooting for Light and his conquest to be the king of the new world. On the other, I did want to see him fail and see how he would react. The ending to this show left me with a hole in my heart I don't know if any other series can fill. The only gripes that I had with it were some of the dragged out arcs during the mid season that I felt could be been cut down a little bit. Other than that however, the story exceeded my expectations upon the first watch and I am excited to experience it again. Overall, the story of Death Note is unparalleled. There will never be another anime to do something that Death Note did. For how long it stays its welcome it almost never feels boring or unnecessary. Death Note bring fourth to the screen a masterclass story that will forever be unrivaled. ~~~ __Characters (10/10):__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/1MiOhql.jpg)~~~ __Light Yagami:__ Each and every character are written incredible well within the world of Death Note. But two stand out above everyone. One of those characters is Light Yagami. The way he can switch back and forth between his two personalities that of Kira and Light is amazing to watch. Not only his tone of voice, but facial expressions, actions, his entire personality. Light is extremely cunning to everyone around him. It is easy to see how he evaded the police for so long, there would be no reason to suspect him. His plan to be the god of the new world although seemingly far fetched would have easily been obtainable if it were not for one person. __L:__ You remember how I said there were two characters that stood out in terms of how brilliant they were? Well, the second one is L. We are introduced to him very early on in the series, but even then it takes quite a bit of time before we even see his face. L is the main antagonist for the series. The Ying to Light's Yang. L and Light compliment each other so well. The mannerisms that L displays were a shock at first but eventually you begin to understand as to why he does them. Being the greatest detective in the world, watching L deduce to probabilities of who Kira is is fantastic to watch. Obata clearly put a lot of time into fully fledgling out the characters of Death Note in order for a character so absurd as L to fit in so well. It is easy to see why many regard him as one of if not their favorite character in all of anime. __Ryuk:__ The world of Death Note doesn't actually begin in its actual world. Rather, we are introduced to the world of the Shinigami. Ryuk ends up getting bored of gambling bones and decides to drop a Death Note into the human world and see what will happen. Ryuk is one of the many highlights of the series. Although his appearance is scary, he often adds moments of humor to lighten up the show. His addition of dialogue allows the viewers toidelve deeper into the lore of the Shinigami and the rules of Death Note as well, which is something I personally enjoy quite a bit. __Misa:__ A character introduced later into the series, Misa is someone who at first I didn't really understand. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but there was something off with her where I felt she didn't fully below. As the show progressed I became to empathize with her and liked her much more as she was fledged out. Although not a super important character in the series she does play a role that I as a viewer greatly appreciated. __Near:__ Near is the one character I believe will have the most divide amount Death Note fans. Seemingly a copy of L, Near makes his entrance immediately after the death of L in order to finish the job L began and put Kira to justice. This is the point in the series where I felt like dragged a little bit. I still felt it was executed well, but to many, seemed unnecessary, included with that notion is the addition of Near. Near again to any viewer literally is a clone of L. He has the similar quirks and sleuthing skills. It seemed a little odd to kill off L only to add basically the same persona. Regardless, he is written and portrayed well just like every character within the series. ~~~ __Art (8/10):__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/u9jxmM5.jpg)~~~ Death Note is one of the few anime you can watch that has a distinct art style. No other anime combines the jagged and sharp look of characters hair and mixes it with softer more playful looking eyes. Unlike other more traditional styles of anime where the personality and character is told in someone's eyes, Death Note places the emphasis on every other part of the person's body. Most of the eyes are soft with little detail. The absence of detail is not an insult, rather it is something unique noticed throughout the art style. Beside the design of character the general art of the world is very grim and gray scaled. It fits perfectly with the theme of the show. Very rarely will you see happier looking colors. More often than not the scene will be set in a room of drab browns, blacks, and grays to wash out any onset of happiness. This is something that was deliberately shown to keep the watcher fixated on the sad and dull outlook of the world. I believe it was done exceptionally well. Although not going out of their way to create something never seen before, Death Note delivers on the art style to be exactly what you would expect. ~~~ __Music (9/10):__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/cBWHSBe.jpg)~~~ The music of Death Note is something anyone will enjoy. Every single song makes you feel something. The uncomfortable and eerie chord changes throughout each of Light's Theme leaves your skin crawling with goosebumps. The quite twinkling of piano combined with subtle but sharp guitar picking is something I will never get tired of. Every scene has music that perfectly accompanies the atmosphere. You never feel as if something is off in terms of sound. Death Note strikes a perfect chord in my book on how to make sound good within an anime. ~~~ __Personal Enjoyment (9/10):__~~~ ~~~img220(https://i.imgur.com/ml5MLPK.jpg)~~~ It's easy to say that Death Note is one of my favorite anime of all time. There should be no question as to why many regard this as one of the first classics of the modern age. It's combination of incredible story telling, perfectly written characters and an amazing score to accompany it, solidifies Death Note as a unique work of fiction that comes once in a lifetime. I was left on the edge of my seat after each episode wanting more and wanting the series to go further with more risks and it always delivered. I could go on and one about how much I love this series, but I will leave it at this. Death Note is amazing, and truly one of the only unique stories in all of anime. ~~~ __Final Thoughts and Score:__~~~Thank you all for reading. Make sure to follow my page for updates for future anime reviews! __Favorite Episodes__ Ep 1. _Rebirth_ Ep 2. _Confrontation_ Ep 4. _Tactics_ Ep 5. _Unraveling_ Ep 6. _Overcast_ Ep 9. _Encounter_ Ep 14. _Friend_ Ep 15. _Wager_ Ep 25. _Silence_ Ep 26. _Renewal_ Ep 35. _Malice_ Ep 36. _1.28_ Ep 37. _New World_ __Official Scores__ Story: (9/10) Characters: (10/10) Art: (8/10) Music: (9/10) Personal Enjoyment: (9/10) # __~~~FINAL SCORE: (9/10) AMAZING~~~__ @MiNiSoTaN ~~~Did you really read the review, or are you just looking at the score?~~~

CaninnTurtle

Death Note, Death Note, Death Note. There was so much potential to be an absolute masterpiece. I legitimately thought that it was a solid 9/10 after 13 episodes or so. Then it kept going....And going....And going...And going long after reaching a satisfying conclusion, after two characters that could go down in history as the greatest rivalry of all time concluded their epic intellectual battle. But much more on that later. I'll get to the technical side of the show briefly, then talk about my feelings regarding the show, its characters, and my verdict. Needless to say, __I will be going into spoiler territory in the favorite character section and beyond.__ I feel like I kinda have to do this to effectively talk about the show's postive and negative qualities. Anyway on to it. I'll keep my discussion of Death Note's technical aspects brief. Audially, I thought it wasn't anything special. There were certain OST songs that really hit hard, such as L's Theme and Misa's Song, but as far as openings and endings went, I really couldn't tell you. I listened to them once I think, then skipped them every time after that. Take that as you will. As far as the show's visuals, again, it's nothing special. For a show made in 2006, it certainly is very good and has aged fairly well, although it certainly won't be winning any awards for stylistic reasons since it's fairly standard. I liked most of the character designs, although most of them were pretty bland, which was fine. It didn't detract or add anything to the show that way, which is probably for the best. I do have to say though, I really loved the way that they framed some shots, mostly near the end and in episode 25, where I noticed them the most. Very symbolic. __Favorite Character: __ L Lawliet ~~~img(https://shareitnow.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/L-Lawliet-quotes.jpg)~~~ I really don't think there is another answer that's possible here, honestly. For anyone who watches this show. And this is coming from me, who didn't really care for L initially. However, seeing him bond with Light and bitterly come to terms with the fact that his first and only friend was also the person that he was hunting down was both exciting and extremely saddening. Episode 25 really turned me into an L fan, where he comes to terms with his death and accepts that Light has won. It's then that we finally see the cracks in L's wacky persona- a lonely boy who could not be understood by the world and those in it. Something that he grew accustomed to, with only his caretaker and assistant Watari as his companion. It was an absolute punch to the gut watching L deflate in his final episode, finally shedding the detective shell he wore like a skin and revealing the boy underneath. The one who just wanted a friend. This is probably where I should say that I think these two, Light and L, are up there for greatest rivalry of all time in my mind. Greatest rivalry....And greatest friendship in an alternate world. I think that's what made me so sad about that entire episode and why L's death hit me so hard. Because, in another universe, Light and L are the best of friends and each other's only intellectual equal. It actually made me emotional to think about and still does, if I'm being honest. However, to talk about the actual show a bit more, I thought this stretch where they're playing cat and mouse with each other is the peak of the series. The show is at its best when its focus is on these two and their back and forth, and it reached an intense and perfect climax in the 25th episode. Death Note should have simply ended there, because the snooze-fest that proceeded was absolutely killer to the show in my mind. Now, before I rant about the ending and the last few episodes, I'd like to say that I also didn't like a single character outside of Matsuda by the end. Misa was an idiot and useless after L, instead of being quirky but useful because of her eyes. The replacement L's were insufferable, Near being the worst offender. And the entire Japanese Police Task Force was way too quick to go back to suspecting Light. Not to mention that Light himself was just constantly doing absolutely nothing the whole time, while Near just picks him apart. Anyway, the ending. My god the ending. First, I'd like to state that I wish Light had died with L. That they sort of defeat each other, in a sense. Secondly, I would have also happily taken a Kira victory. However, we got neither of those and instead got the worst option: Light just losing. Just because. Don't get me wrong, it was cool to see him torn down like that, but Light just kinda lets it all happen as the episodes are winding down. He has no contingency for if his plan goes haywire, he puts all his trust into his sidekick, who messes everything up and Near just kinda....wins. It just felt lazy, like the author had used up all his ideas with Light and L's arc and had nothing left in the tank for the actual ending, which would make complete sense from how lazy it was and how little Light did to stop Near or Mello at the end. Also, The Japanese Task Force are morons, who, at the slightest mention of Light being Kira immediately jump back into suspicion based on one flimsy piece of evidence offered by this random dude calling in. Not to mention the plot hole that is Light's father literally saying in front of all of them on his deathbed that Light isn't Kira because he has the Shinigami Eyes and can see Light's lifespan. But that's conveniently forgotten about. Overall, I'm not really sure how to rate Death Note. It was so solid for over 2/3 of the run-time, so it's certainly _worth_ watching, but its just such a disappointing ending to such a promising series. I would say watch it, but just keep in mind that the last 12 episodes are hella boring and, at least in my opinion, ruin the show. Yet even with all of that said, I still greatly enjoyed Death Note for the most part and I hope you do too if you decide to give it a watch!

ChillLaChill

It's been about 12 years or so since I had discovered Death Note for the first time. It was one of the first anime alongside Fullmetal Alchemist to get me versed into anime, and it's funny because I remember pretty vividly my cousin showing me this show on YTV's former late-night anime block Bionix; I even remember the episode being the one where Aizawa breaks down crying when he sees his family in the park. The show was strangely intriguing because of its mature subject matter, and thus I entered into the fandom of Death Note. I used to be obsessed with the series, had posters, watched the live-action movies, owned all the manga, cosplayed L, but ironically enough, I never actually finished the actual anime. Why you might ask; if you want to skip the slight tangent go to the next paragraph. Well, funny thing, I had the first volume of the anime in the days where they only gave you 4 episodes, and those things were hella expensive, especially when you're only 11 with no job. I didn't know how to torrent at the time, or Limewire in those days and many of the episodes were very hard to obtain for a home release as I had to wait for ages for them and they were releasing at a snail's pace. Funnily enough, the big reason I skipped about the Death Note anime was that I owned a bootlegged subtitled DVD, and young me didn't have much patience for reading subtitles and consuming the anime's much slower burn, at least compared to the manga. However, watching this show with a smaller recollection of what I read of the manga (forgive me it's been over a decade), makes me see this series in a new light, pun intended. I rediscovered my love for Death Note, and I'm really glad I decided to sit down and watch this show as someone who had sort of forgotten and neglected the smartly crafted story. Death Note is honestly peak anime and deserves the praise it gets, despite the years of enduring cringy fans, including my young self, who obsessed over this show at conventions and on YouTube in the late 2008s. Words cannot describe the amount of greatness this show brings, and it makes me happy that I was able to watch a classic. It makes so much sense to me why a genius director like Tetsuro Araki decided to take on Attack on Titan, especially with all of the twists and turns later on. The pacing and soundtrack are godly. The dub is even great too. There's just so much right about the show's presentation, with very few hiccups. It's a completely different experience for me as an adult watching this show, I finally appreciate the nuances and expertly crafted story. Many of the smaller details that I never noticed as a kid, make me smile all the much more knowing how clever the story unravels. "Oh, shit" moments are aplenty as the intrigue ran in full force. This show has aged like fine wine, and I'm glad I decided to revisit Death Note after all these years. I've also noticed the small lull in the story that happens about halfway through the series. There's no denying that there are some things fans might argue being weaker like Near being nothing more than an L clone, and that's somewhat true to some extent. Although Near being low tier L is something I never really noticed in the manga since it felt more natural. Mellow also feels really underutilized and is more annoying if anything. Mello should have been present more in the main story to add some unpredictability to hide the story conveniences, and it's a shame that he only comes in later on in the end. Although there are so many other characters who are that I'm entranced by like Mikami, so it would be a disservice to skip or drop this portion. I know many have complained about the second half, but many of these scenarios that happen after the halfway point are still fun to watch. I have no qualms with how the plot continued to play out, including the ending, regardless of how harsh some of the criticisms are by others. I myself can't think of any other way to conclude it without saying "end it here" because there's still so much stuff in the latter half I enjoyed watching. There are plenty of other interesting scenarios that were explored, but I guess you could pose the question of having a spin-off to keep these less relevant stories contained or explored like the newest one-shot manga. I have to admit that those McGuffins appear more often to advance the plot at an alarming rate that the latter half feels weaker as a result. Rather than putting the stories focus on the mind games that take place between Light and his opponents, the pacing feels more like a race than a game of chess. That being said, I still hold Death Note in such high regard. It was so nostalgic for me experiencing the anime that I never finished, and I'm really happy with myself that I fully "get" the intelligence of the series now that I'm an adult. I consider this show one of the pillars of anime, and it should fully get a recommendation for those looking to get into it. Death Note and Monster are truly one of a kind thriller series in their respective mediums.

althonos

_This review will contain spoilers. I did not read the manga._ Death Note came around at a time before I started watching anime on a regular basis. But by the time I finally got to watch it, is was considered by many as __a classic__; you only have to see the ratings to see that. Sure, there is a consensus about the last part of the series being much worse, but even without that part I'd give it about the same score, __for I did not enjoy Death Note__. ~~~img(https://forallnerds.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Death-Note-1-360x260.png)~~~ # Story After about the first three episodes I started to spend half of the time sighing in front of the screen, but it took me a couple extra to realise what was wrong. Basically, Death Note attempts to be a __serial killer detective show__, like the [Hannibal live action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_%28TV%20series%29), but it does so by using a very cheap trick: for its characters to look like geniuses, it relies on you, the viewer, who have both point of views and necessarily more information than each protagonists. This translates in particular into __L's findings__, who keeps pulling predictions out of his ass that make no sense with what he knows, but that make sense with what __you__ know, so you're expected to just accept it and move along. Let's take take an example: in an early episode, L analyses the day and time of the killings, and since it is only on evenings and holidays, __guesses that Kira is a student__; this assumption is then never addressed again. And it's supposed to make sense, since you already know Light, and __he's indeed a student__. But from L's point of view, this makes no sense: it could as well be a salaryman, or anybody working out there, really. You may think I'm nitpicking, but this happens again, with Naomi later being convinced (without any argument to support it) that Kira can cause accidental deaths, with L detaining Light despite all evidences and the viewer being okay with that only because we know Light is Kira, and so on. This is, perhaps, what made me have trouble staying into the show, since identifying that kind of pattern early made me see it everywhere after that. ~~~img(https://static.giga.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/l-lawliet-in-typischer-kauer-haltung-rcm992x0.jpg)~~~ There is also the issue of Shinigamis themselves: while Ryuk states that __he has no side__, he switches to Light's side from time to time, quite ingeniously at first (the camera thing where Light tricks him with apples), but then later with no explanation (him lying to Near, or writing the fake rules). Overall, the __supernatural elements__ of the show are extremely quickly accepted by the people investigating Kira, and I found that a bit cheap as well. # Characters I won't go into a detailed analysis of the __psychology__ of each character here, because I don't care enough and there are other reviews which are doing it a lot better. I tend to think here that I have a personal issue with __who__ the characters are, not __what__ they are supposed to be. Light is an evil genius _a la_ Lelouch, Misa is his tool to use (and the author's only way to do fan service), etc. The show succeeds in making them that way; it is I who didn't find that extremely interesting. Even the task force members, who had potential to be more than __pawns__, end up blindly following either side all the time, changing allegiance from L to Light and then from Light to Near without really questioning their new master (like, nobody even has the idea that N may be Kira when they contact them, and once again we're supposed to be okay with that because we as a viewer know Near already). I think the only character I found slightly interesting was __L__ himself, not because the show depicts him as a genius (we discussed earlier that it's a hack), but because he's given a bit of __character evolution__ compared to everybody else. _Also, I wish Mello had died of diabetes. Eating chocolate is not good characterization. Even Ryuk eats less apples, and it's one of its character traits._ ~~~img(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Z64XW4ZHmcs/maxresdefault.jpg)~~~ # Graphics Even watching this from a Blu-Ray source, the animation __didn't age super well__; mostly because of that constant numeric grain which was probably used at the time to erase the _animation_ look, but that now looks like shitty __MPEG artefacts__. The show is not ugly, but not particularly unforgettable either. I also won't comment on the __aesthetics__ or the __symbolism__ a lot, since I have the feeling it was quite _something_ at the time, while it feels a bit out of fashion nowadays. I don't think anyone still thinks __bad guy red hair / good guy blue hair__ is amazing symbolism as they did when they were an edgy teen. ~~~youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QE9cmfxx4s)~~~ # Music I don't like the openings, I didn't care for the rest of the soundtrack. Some tracks are being used to give an __over-the-top__ feeling to mundane activities, so it's hard to tell if you're supposed to laugh or take things seriously at times. ~~~img(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zP0AjJ6EIxE/maxresdefault.jpg)~~~ # Conclusion I think I'm a bit __harsh__ to Death Note because I came to it expecting the __masterpiece__ everybody was preaching about, only to find a __forgettable__ show that was __dragging out__. I did like some pieces of the __L/Light confrontation__, but I was almost always disappointed in the outcome. Now that I think of it, it's harder to remember the good moments I had while watching the series, because they are always shadowed by something I didn't enjoy. _My final advice about that show would be: if you start questioning the show after a few episodes, stop. Either stop questioning, and you'll have a mildly okayish psychology series; or stop watching it, because it's not getting any better._

Miposky

I’ll try my best to avoid spoilers, but this review might contain a few. _Death Note_ is about a student named Light Yagami who finds a notebook capable of killing people. What he does with that power results in a game of cat and mouse between Light and the people dedicated to stopping him and his newfound weapon. When I first watched _Death Note_ almost a decade ago what got me was the battle between the characters. Upon rewatching, Light’s evolution and that of the world around him were what I found most interesting. I think that’s part of what makes it so compelling, there are various aspects of it that can suck the audience in. The battle of wits is, of course, front and center and is the main draw of the anime, and it does execute it very well until the 25th episode, which starts a shift in the direction of the story. From there, the reviews are mixed on whether the second half of the show is able to maintain, or even surpass, the first half. Personally I don’t think they are able to keep the momentum going. The first half is great because, despite the seemingly endless cycle of one-upmanship, the main characters are fascinating enough to interest us, and we are given just enough time to become invested in them and their relationship, a relationship full of contradictions and parallelisms. There is an escalation of events that drives the story forward and a sense of progressively tightening tension. Even though there are sometimes leaps of judgment that challenge our suspension of disbelief, the main leads are convincing enough and have enough chemistry to keep us from going completely over the edge. I also like the addition of certain characters that some might find annoying because I think it breaks up what could have been a monotonous, linear story, and messes with the overall dynamics and opens up the story to more interesting events and opportunities. At first it did bother me because I was more interested in conflict between the leads, but I realized that, with something as highly prized and contentious as the Death Note, it would be unrealistic to keep the ramifications and consequences between just Light and L. Other people would eventually get involved. As for the second half of the anime, I tried to like it. I really did. Initially I thought that the change would result in the further escalation of events and would raise the stakes even more. But what we get instead is a diffusion of tension. We go from the peak of Light and L’s battle to the bottom of the mountain again, this time with new characters we know nothing about. It fails partly because these new characters fail. In order for us to fully get on board with this new direction and find it just as compelling, we need to find these characters compelling. Unfortunately, they’re not. At least not enough. What do we get? Two mini Ls that seem like watered down versions of him. Even the parts they play in the story are not as well constructed as that of L’s. Instead of working together and creating greater conflict, they go their separate ways. One of them is woefully underutilized, and the other just serves as a retread of L and copies his game of one-upmanship with Light. As a result, the story also suffers, deflating the tension with its struggle to regain new purpose and momentum. But while the battle of wits aspect suffers as the story progresses, the aspect of Light’s psychology and evolution doesn’t share the same fate. In fact I would argue that the latter becomes even stronger the more we get into the anime. Throughout the show, Light fashions himself as a crusader, a god whose purpose is to rid the world of evil and to build a utopia for those he deems worthy of life. But as we get further and further into the story, the conditions he places upon those he favors becomes more and more stringent. He starts with killing off criminals and those who commit “evil” acts. Later, he proceeds to threaten those who go after him, then moves on to those who oppose or defy him. It is also indirectly revealed towards the end of the story that he has plans of browbeating even those he thinks are not properly using their abilities to benefit society. It becomes clearer the deeper we get into the anime that what he’s after is not justice, but control, that what matters is not what’s right, but what he thinks is right. Whatever blood he has on his hands, that blood is necessary and made possible because you forced his hand, the classic “you made me do it, so it’s your fault.” This picture of an infallible dictator drunk on his own power is made more effective by the response of the people and the world around him. It paints a frighteningly accurate portrayal of the reactions we would have to this type of (abuse of) control. A world ruled by fear and vengeance, with people divided, some in opposition and others in support. A world where moral dilemmas are numerous: Is the killing of criminals important enough to spur action? Does the fact that they’re criminals make it alright? Is it okay to employ whatever means possible in order to catch the perpetrator of this crime? Even more fascinating is realizing the difference between how our main character sees himself and how his enemies view him. As previously mentioned, Light thinks of himself as a god, a martyr, the chosen one. Only he can do what is required to build a new world. This is supported by the divine imagery that abounds in the anime. But to some, as one character succinctly puts it, he is “nothing more than a serial killer with a god complex.” The contrast is stark and rife with conflict. This depth of psychology, and even philosophy, is what I think saves the anime and makes up for the lagging and meandering second half of the story. It could have been a masterpiece had the new characters been just a touch more interesting and original, but nevertheless, it’s still a pretty darn good show.

HotTakesCharlie

When one thinks of quintessential anime, the first things that come to mind might be classics such as Dragon Ball and Naruto. This list arguably contains slightly more modern series such as Attack On Titan, My Hero Academia, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. And it certainly isn't hard to find people who would include Death Note on this list. After all, you're reading the work of one. The anime depicts a deliciously complex battle of wits, deception and mortal risk that makes Magnus Carlsen's chess look like a six-year-old playing hopscotch and falling over. But it isn't just some inhuman grand strategy; the series examines the slowly-changing mentality of Yagami Light as he enacts his plan, as well as the pains to which he goes in order to hide his plan from his family and the police. Every episode introduces some new twist, allowing the creators to show off Light's cold, cruel intelligence or L's insane deductive skills in a way that evokes the same awe that one feels when watching the world's best sportspeople facing off in the Olympic Games. Many people dislike the latter half of the series, and believe that it should have ended around episode 25, but I disagree. Although, that may be because I can't get enough of feeling like a monkey compared to Light. I concede that there were probably plenty of ways that it could have been better executed (which I won't get into now for spoiler purposes), but it makes all the sense in the world for it to continue. Let's get into the specific scores: __Premise: 4/5__ As few anime as I've watched, I can't help but feel like the premise of the series will probably remain one of my favourites. An unrealistically smart high boy who spends his time studying, reading and dreaming of a world without crime or pain comes across the one tool that will allow him to exact those fantasies and become the God of a new world: a notebook belonging to a Shinigami that will kill anybody whose name is written within the pages (as long as the owner knows their face). It is reminiscent of a power fantasy (or... intelligence fantasy?), which might put off some people who enjoy watching the protagonist struggle to improve and overcome their demons. However, it isn't the average power fantasy, since we soon meet the world's greatest detective, L Lawliet, who easily defies Light's expectations and proceeds to cause no end of stress and trouble to him, forcing him to go to further and further lengths to hide his power. Altogether, it's something that can probably attract anybody, as long as you like smart boys. __Story: 4/5__ As mentioned above, the first part of the story is nothing short of a masterpiece: it is paced extremely well, keeping an air of mystery and ensuring that you're interested. Each episode ends with some kind of cliffhanger, but it doesn't feel repetitive or predictable. The second half keeps this good pacing and cliffhanger style, but introduces some rather shoehorned characters. This is not only a detriment to the story, but it feels so strange, since the majority of the series uses only what it needs and does so incredibly naturally. Despite this, the second half is still enjoyable, as long as you overlook the above. Without it, Light's character arc would remain incomplete, and we wouldn't get to see him pushed to his very limits (which is probably one of the best parts). __Music: 5/5__ Every bit of the music in Death Note works to the series' advantage. It is dramatic when it needs to be dramatic, calm when it needs to be calm, and even lighthearted on the rare occasion that it needs to be lighthearted. Every track underscores the scene and enhances it. But the thing I appreciate the most is that it's never too much. Often, a complex and conspicuous OST can distract the viewer from the story, while one that is too plain will fail to cause any emotion or add anything to the scene. But Death Note's music is _just_ enough. It often utilises instruments such as the bass guitar that are usually relegated to the background, allowing it to blend in with the scene without taking away from the story experience. The openings and endings are pretty cool. In particular, I love the second ending, Zetsubou Billy, because it's super metal and just generally cool. The second opening is also pretty metal. It's a bit crazy for my taste, but it really highlights the progression of the series up to that point. The first opening and ending are, in my opinion, pretty cool. They aren't particularly special as songs, but their lyrics fit the story nicely. __Execution: 4/5__ The voice acting is sublime, with every character's voice demonstrating their emotions and general persona. Again, it isn't over the top, but plenty of effort went into it. The animation is pretty good, considering that it's a relatively old series. There are some moments during which it is laughably odd (mainly for Amane Misa's face), but I tried to ignore it. The script is great too, allowing the series to unravel its mysteries in a way that feels both complex and understandable. __Total: 17/20__ __Favourite Quote__ >'The real evil is the power to kill people. Someone who finds himself with that power is cursed. No matter how you use it, anything obtained by killing people can never bring true happiness.' - Soichiro Yagami This quote is pretty obvious in meaning, but it truly hits hard when you take into account its truth across the series and how it underlines Light's story. ~!After all, at no point do we see Light truly happy (in my opinion, anyway). He consistently ruins his relationship with his family, even having to debate killing his own sister, and only loses in the end. He never truly wins: once he has cleared one obstacle, another appears that is far more difficult than before. Once he sees Lidner, thinking he is L, he kills him, only to find out that he has been tricked. Once he finally kills the real L, two more detectives take his place. Even after his father confirms his innocence by way of the Shinigami eyes, he continues to be suspected and undercut by his colleagues. And when he thinks he has achieved checkmate, he is promptly torn down, shot, and confirmed as Kira. He might have even escaped, had Ryuk not ended his life in the end. His goals are never achieved, and all he does is ruin the life that he had at the top of his class and the pride of his family. Every time he appears happy, it is almost immediately crushed. For him, the Death Note is nothing but a curse.!~ __Discussion of Ending__ ~!First of all, I want to repeat that I actually enjoyed the stuff after L's death. It made sense that the story would continue (as there was still a group of people who were searching for Kira and suspicious of Light), and there were always going to be people forcing Light to rethink his strategies and lifestyle. Near and, in particular, Mello, were pretty cool, although it might have been good if they had been introduced a little earlier, since the way it was, they definitely felt a little out of place. However, I think that there were 2 routes that the series could have taken for it to make a little more sense. 1: Light wins. This would have been pretty simple. Maybe one episode after L's death, where Light is shown dealing in some way with the other detective team members and settling into his new life as the true god of a world of justice. This probably would have been a little more difficult to write, since Light most likely wouldn't kill his father, and I can't see any other way of him ending it. 2: Light loses, but differently. Perhaps Light chooses not to kill L, or maybe he somehow fails due to a Near-like notebook switch, and is forced to elect a different path. This would make more sense, since there are ways that L could have protected himself, and it could have easily extended the series to its current length of 37 episodes. It would have also satisfied me, since I just wanted to see Light in action as long as I could. Of course, Light would definitely die in the end, and this probably could have been done in a far better fashion than it was in the series. Maybe he is being sent to his execution and Ryuk decided to take matters into his own hands, or perhaps a continued stalemate between Light and L leads Ryuk to become bored and somehow abandon Light (although this isn't such a good ending in itself).!~ Altogether, no matter your opinions on the latter half, avoiding Death Note will inevitably cause you to miss out on one of the greatest anime experiences you can have. It's definitely worth your time, and you should make it a top priority if you haven't already.

Chizuo

Death Note is one of the most well-known anime of all time. It is responsible for broadening the appeal of the media, piercing through the mainstream and consolidating itself as a relevant piece of pop culture. Moreover, the series helped to reaffirm the space that mystery/thriller manga could have in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump. In that same sense, Death Note’s appeal is evident on its premise alone: a note that can kill people. It may seem simple at first hand, but when you look at it, it’s a genius concept in and of itself, mostly because of the many narrative ordeals that the writer could take us in, like in how the murders would be investigated, assuming that this was an all-new method of killing. Since coming up with a good premise and actually executing it well are two distinct things, a vibrant cast of characters is necessary for the show to shine. Some impressive work is done here, both on the design and characterization levels. Light Yagami, as an example, is a character that could be easily projected by teenagers who think they have above average intelligence, find the world around them to be boring and in need of change. Add to that a distorted sense of idealistic sense of justice and you’ve got the perfect main character for this kind of story: an immature genius with a distorted worldview. With that in mind, you must be thinking: “now this could easily turn out to be a bunch of teenager bullshit about changing society and all that.” Well, you’re wrong. But I get that the beginning of the show could give off this impression, particularly when the scale of the murders is small. However, the show successfully punishes the main characters on his idealistic endeavors, gradually showing the danger of uncontrolled power with the subtle decay of Light’s character, sinking deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole that proves to be too late to get out of. In addition to that, it is precise in depicting the incoherent and selfish acts on society’s side, frequently longing for a hero like Light to purge evil, regardless of ethics, morality or even justice. Although the show succeeds in creating tense, thriller-filled moments, especially throughout Light Yagami and L’s (the main antagonist) conflicts, it is also guilty of other overly complicated, drawn out and derailed segments. As a prime example is the whole Light losing his memory plan, that was too long for its own good, even with a superb but expected conclusion to a masterfully crafted plan. It is also unbelievably annoying when side characters who are aware of Light’s crimes, like Misa and Teru, act more as a handicap to his plans then as accomplices of some sort. Therefore, it feels like they were the main culprits of Light’s mistakes, always acting as some kind of obstacle in his path. It is nice, however, that the writer knew exactly when to stop giving too much otherworldly aspects to the narrative. Not giving too many details on the Shinigami world, their kind or any of that is certainly a good thing, as it could’ve indulged in some pointless arc about the origin of the notebook or of the Shinigami themselves, which would only wrongly shift the focus of the main story in the first place, unnecessarily adding layers to an already interesting main story. Although it’s a common opinion that Death Note gets worse after L’s death, I’d argue that it’s just a slight change of tone. When facing L, Light was in a different position: trying to obtain dominance in the world by extinguishing his biggest threat. After he does just that, it’d make no sense to keep the thriller inducing scenes as frequent as they were before, because it’s a different moment in Light’s character arc, when things are seemingly under his belt, and the tides have calmed down. However, as time passes, Near and Mello start to become an increasingly dangerous threat, like a pebble on Light’s foot that gradually evolves to a huge stone that would eventually crash him. The last stretch of the show is just as suspenseful as the conflict between Light and L, with the two final episodes setting Light’s end in stone. Death Note made me reflect about concepts that are taken for granted in our everyday lives. What’s justice? Who determines what’s just and unjust? Are people in any position to judge? Would they not do the same thing, or even worse, if met with the same circumstances as Light? I don’t know, but it’s a profound analysis on the dangers of overwhelming power, both to an idealistic individual and an idealistic society, both refusing to see the dirt on their clothes before trying to change the world around them.

Rahatul

Though this is different from the genre of anime I normally watch, I was blown away by Death Note's execution and original, inventive storyline. I had always been intrigued by its concept of a notebook that can kill anyone whose name is entered in it, and that alone was enough to convince me to watch this supernatural crime thriller anime, and it was just outstanding! I've just now finished watching all episodes on Netflix, and I kind of feel blank. The show raises a lot of moral questions about justice, capital punishment and vigilantism in a very plausible manner. Instead of giving us clearly defined hero, the anime gives us a rather complex protagonist we might even have trouble rooting for at times. It's a first-rate thriller, and a powerful character study at the same time. Throughout the 37 episodes, the show gives you edge of the seat suspense and intriguing twists, as a result of which it becomes very addictive and hard to stop watching. Action scenes, although present only in a few episodes, are done really well and the dialogue is intelligent. And yes, the soundtrack elevates this show to a whole new level of excitement. I couldn't help but listen to the intro music every time I picked up to continue watching the show. No doubt this anime has been such a success with the viewers and has left a memorable impact. To anime fans who enjoy crime thrillers with a supernatural twist, this is definitely recommended, but adults who enjoy live-action shows dealing with similar topics can watch it as well, because it's only the format of the show that's animated. The story is very well mature and intelligent enough to be enjoyed by someone who doesn't even watch animation in general. Fun fact: Having known I'd love the show, I'd got myself a copy of the Death Note (notebook) in advance. No wonder it's a memorabilia for me now! Not only one of the best animes ever. But also one of the best series ever. The story is so thrilling and exciting. It never gets boring anywhere. It captures your complete attention. You Won't Regret Watching even a Minute Of It. The characters are Just so Awesome and Lovable. Death Note Thrills you every second and you will Love it........ While youre watching it , You cant stop thinking about it while Your daily life is going on ...... wondering what will happen next . Till You Finish it( at least Thats what happened to me) 37 Episodes sure Will fill you with amazement. Definitely worth every sec of it . I cant tell any more that would ruin this masterpiece . Just watch it and see why it has so many Great reviews Thanks to the author ,artist and director Tsugumi Ohba ,Takeshi Obata for creating such an mind blowing story The Sountrack, Musicians , Voice actors and Animators all together put a great work and made a perfect over the top Series that you will remember forever... Im note even Exaggerating........ Anyone who watched it will fall in love with Death Note?

RaphterClaws

__ ~~~*SPOILERS AHEAD*~~~ ~~~(This is my first review and I’m gonna focus on the characters on this review since the plot is amazing on its own)~~~__ I’m quite new to the anime medium as a whole but I can say without a doubt that Light is probably the most sinister character I’ve ever seen so far. In the first half of the story It casually starts off with him picking up a notebook that grants the power of killing anyone who’s name is written on it. Light doubted it at first until he tested it out for the first time and from that moment on he goes on a nonstop killing spree and takes whatever means necessary in order to fulfill his newfound desire of becoming the God of a new world. img 500(https://media.giphy.com/media/EcnAlQcGnZq9y/giphy.gif) This makes him the perfect antagonist and it didn’t take long until someone named L, the world’s greatest detective, challenges Light or “Kira”, his alias given to him by the public, in a duel of wits to see who really is the embodiment of justice. Then starts the entertaining L and Light dynamic which the series is centered on. img 500(https://media.giphy.com/media/yCDoXaZyBVilq/giphy.gif) What intrigued me the most is the fact of how L takes into consideration of theories that go beyond human physics and logic and implementing plans that no one would even dare try. From considering the fact that shinigamis may exist and theorizing that Kira’s power was passed onto someone else and that Light could have planned it beforehand. He even hired criminals to help him with the whole case. Aside from our main duo there were a couple of characters who I just couldn’t stand: Misa Amane and Touta Matsuda. To put it simply, Misa is a full on SIMP for Light and is willing to do anything for him which makes her the perfect person for Light to manipulate. Hell, Light even two timed her with his ex, Kiyomi Takada and even told her that she could be the Goddess of a new world. Which never happened because in the end Light just used both of them in order to get what he wants which again makes him the perfect antagonist. Matsuda on the other hand was just plain immature sometimes and doesn’t take his job seriously enough. His only redeeming moment include stopping Light in the warehouse and talking his way out of the company in the Yotsuba Arc. Finally Near, L’s successor, was the one brought Light to justice with the help of L laying the groundwork and Mellow assisting him in the case. To be honest I don’t really find him all that interesting but I guess it’s because of my attachment to L. Near has stated that his skills doesn’t match up to L alone but with allies like Mellow, he can surpass him together. Even though this implies that Near alone isn’t as intelligent as L he isn’t afraid to get the help of his fellow peers in order to catch Kira once for all and this became Light’s downfall as well. Even when he got caught and tried to talk himself out of the situation by stating that he is the embodiment of justice and that the world needs him, Near reminds him that he is far from that and what he has done is evil and that he is nothing more than a bloodthirsty serial killer. img500(https://media.giphy.com/media/H1tRAKpdiLMsM/giphy.gif)

HidamariSeashore

Have you ever thought about the way the world is now? Have you seen it in a positive light or a negative light? Have you ever thought about how you can change the world you're living in, for what you think is the better? Then one day, you find yourself with an unlikely weapon which you use to change the world. Welcome to one of the most critically-acclaimed anime in the world, "Death Note". The story begins with Light Yagami, a 17-year-old high school student who is basically bored with his entire life. One day, he notices a mysterious, black notebook literally fall from the sky. Of course, since Light is human, this particular notebook piques his curiosity. This particular notebook is labeled "Death Note", and according to what is said inside of the Death Note, anyone whose name is written in it will die. Light initially thinks that it's fake, but he discovers it's real after testing it out. Now, aided by the Shinigami Ryuk (who was the one who dropped the Death Note into the human realm in the first place), Light sets out to create a "better" world by using his Death Note to "punish" criminals. Meanwhile, as all of these deaths are happening, the police, aided by a man known only as L, try to catch the man behind the deaths, who are known to them as "Kira". I don't know if I even need to explain all this, though. If you haven't at least heard of Death Note, I don't know if I can say that you're a true anime fan. (No offense intended.) It was through all this hype that I was finally tempted to watch Death Note myself. Now, after watching all 37 episodes, I know what all of the hype is about. Let me start by talking about the story. It's clear that the story is the strongest point of Death Note. It's a suspenseful story with lots of twists and turns. Although some parts of the story had been spoiled to me even before I started watching it (for example, the way it ends), that did not stop me from not being able to really guess what I didn't already know. Thus, I can't say I hate the story at all, even if some parts of it were ruined for me. Now, the characters. There was quite a number of interesting characters in this series, but were ALL of them likable? Of course not. In fact, some of Light's actions left me really hating him. Yeah, I just said I don't like Light, who is the protagonist whom the viewers are supposed to be following all of the way. Think about it, though; while it's great that he punishes criminals, he also makes the loved ones of those criminals sad. What's worse, he hardly feels any remorse toward them. Then, you've got L, who is basically Light's opponent. While I didn't know exactly what to think of him at first, I eventually grew to like him. What happens to him in the anime, which I refuse to spoil for anyone who hasn't seen it, really was a shame. The animation was rather well done; it really gives off the intense atmosphere there is most times. All of the opening and ending themes were pretty awesome, too, especially the first opening. It matched the anime very well for the time that it was the opening theme. I should probably mention that I was watching the English dub for Death Note. The voice actors did an excellent job, especially (believe it or not) Brad Swaile as Light. For the amount of time that I spent watching Death Note, I can say that I greatly enjoyed it. It's a suspenseful police drama that is not all that predictable unless you were giving spoilers for it. I guess the series getting spoiled for me was what killed some of my enjoyment. Even so, the hype for Death Note is well worth it; I'd say you give it a try. Oh, and while you watch it, try taking a potato chip and eating it. (You'll catch the reference soon enough.)

DBZLEGEND100

I'm very fresh out of water into anime right now ever since the fall and one anime that has always been on my mind was this show. I finally got the time to watch it and just finished it tonight so while the show is still on my mind here are some final thoughts. The show took me about a month to finish (I'm a college student) so some material I might pass by, and I apologies if so. Outright I will say that the first 25 episodes are legendary pieces of media, such great entertainment with no flaws what so ever. The story felt so well thought out! Like the creators gave a crap and wanted the viewer to get engaged with everything going on and the characters. It's the one anime where the protagonist does not seem like the hero of the story and yet I didn't hate him but also didn't want him succeeding I was just very intrigued by him and wanted to see how his mind games went between him and L. I was thinking the entire time that this was so well thought out, and I appreciate so much they didn't pull any retconning with the rules they set up. Everything made sense within it's universe and I appreciate it because it doesn't take me out of the experience and even at the end when L dies there's a lot of satisfaction at what I just watched and everything built up to that very moment. If the anime ended there this would be my favorite anime no question. The mello arc in the anime I hear wasn't that good but If I'm being honest I still enjoyed it to the end I heard the ending in the anime and manga were different so I bought the last volume and read it and It was much more painful and deep seeing Light die. This is by far one of the most entertaining and addictive shows I have EVER seen. There were even a few moments where I caught myself leaning toward the TV in disbelief, jaw on the floor. Story was amazing and the soundtrack was stellar as well. "L" is one of my all time favorite characters in any show out there. 11/10 would recommend to anyone who is willing to give it a try. Its late and wanted to share my thoughts and if someone is reading this and hasn't watched it, you'd be doing yourself a favor by doing so. Just wish there was more of it. One day I kind of hope they remaster this great anime! Kinda like what they are doing with fruit basket, or what Netflix is doing with Evangelion. Seeing this anime a few years from now in a more modern animation might be interesting and also bring a new generation of fans. I recommend you guys read the manga, i'm 8 almost 9 volumes in of 12, and i've loved every bit of it. I'm not even a reader, I used to hate reading. For example, I watched YouTube video tutorials rather than reading instructions. Sorry for the long read. Thanks for reading this!

AshVolcano

# ~~~__THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DEATH NOTE__~~~ ~~~(This is my first review)~~~ ~~~__Story, 9/10__~~~ __Death Note Rules:__ The human whose name is written in this note shall die. This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected. If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack. After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds. __Plot Synopsis:__ Those are the rules of the Death Note, the magical notebook that grants the user infinite power over death. Well what happens with the Death Note throughout the story? Let me explain. At the start of the series we meet the Shinigami Ryuk, who spends his daily life gambling and pretty much nothing else in the magical realm called the Shinigami realm, one day after facing extreme boredom he drops the book into the human world where a teenager named Light Yagami picks it up. He tests out the note book and finds out that the power this book contains is real. Soon he gets visited by the Shinigami Ryuk who is just there to spectate Light's mischief. We then soon meet L, the world's best detective. L is assigned to find and defeat Kira (Light's anonymous name given to him by the people), which he eventually (sort of) does. However with Light's clever schemes, and the forceful help of Misa Misa's Shinigami Rem, we see him defeat L and soon face off against Near, L's successor, after a time skip. Near eventually uses his deductive skills to bring down Light once and for all with the help of his team and his friend Mello. __Review of Story:__ Death Note’s story feels concise and everything feels as if it happened for a reason. The story begins because a literal God of Death was BORED. Quote from Ryuk: "You've eased my boredom for quite a while, haven't you?". Ryuk’s boredom caused this whole story to occur and no one who soon died from the Death Note, would have to die. L could've lived for decades longer as the world's best detective, Near and Mello could've lived normal lives and not have had to take up L's position, and Light could've lived as one of Japan's brightest. However, due to one god's boredom, the course of history changed. Light could've seen the Death Note but just brushed it off as a silly prank, but his curiosity got the best of him. Although it makes sense as he is a very cautious and crafty person. Characters like Rem die because of Light but not undeservingly. Everything happens due to an action and that is the charm of Death Note. Justice is also a massive theme in Death Note. Light’s moral compass is all over the place and his sense of justice wouldn’t be viewed as “righteous” to the majority of people. Nonetheless, he believes in his actions and takes charge with his sense of justice, killing bad people and sparing good people who don’t come after him. L on the other hand (and even Near to a certain extent) has a very different sense of justice, wanting to catch evil doers and nothing more. Just protect the people. The show leaves us with the question as to who's sense of justice do we align more with, we have to pick a side, and this… this is the dilemma... of Death Note. __Cons:__ No “Pros” section because pretty much everything is a pro except this next section I’m going to be talking about. Post-timeskip. Post-timeskip Death Note is generally received worse than regular Death Note. I understand that and quite frankly agree, Near felt like he got lucky multiple times and the plot was WAYYYY too inconsistent at times (such as Sayu getting kidnapped and side plot involving a nuke... what?). But overall it still felt coherent with the overall story and the Death Note itself. That’s really my only complaint about this show. ~~~img440(https://media1.tenor.com/images/e5dd8fb170bedb03003cb81ce0f72c60/tenor.gif?itemid=8708162)~~~ ~~~__Characters, 9/10__~~~ Light: The perfect character to focus on, he has a wrong sense of justice and is truly evil, yet believes in what he believes in. He is shown to go to great lengths to accomplish what he believes in. Although he is shown to have some restraint as to not killing his sister when she got kidnapped (reason as to why he WOULD kill her is because her death would cause less suspicion on him and it'd just be another convenience out of the way). But events like him killing Watari, the agents L hires, and killing the Yotsuba Corporation members even THOUGH, they wouldn't have caused too much of a hassle to him after L's death, truly shows his despicable nature. L: The perfect opponent for Light to face, his deductive skills brings him to Light time after time yet doesn't QUITE get Light convicted. His death was a tearjerker and seeing him use his skills to the absolute fullest was a joy to watch, such as when he deduced that Light was a student because of the times of the killings AND when he realized the student had access to police information when the killing times changed. L truly is remarkable. Ryuk: BIG LAD RYUK (Actual Ryuk analysis: Ryuk is a spectator and never TRULY chooses sides. He watches, looms over everyone, and doesn't get in the way of anything anyone does UNLESS it's for his own personal gain, such as helping Light find locations of the cameras so that Ryuk can eat his oh so precious apples again. And when he is the one to kill Light at the end of the story by writing Light's name in the Death Note, the amount of emotion and payoff in the scene was ecstatic. Especially after Ryuk said to Light at the start of the series that once Light's time has come, his name will be written in the notebook by Ryuk.) Near: L's successor didn't charm me in the same way L did, but he was certainly an interesting character to see, it was fun trying to figure out what he'd do next to try and finish off Light. He did feel like he got extremely lucky/cheated sometimes though. Teru Mikami was shown on TV for 1 interview and Near suddenly figures out Teru is in cahoots with Light? Seems kinda weird. Still enjoyed him quite a bit though. Misa Misa: She was annoying at first but later on became integral to the plot, her Shinigami and her charms made her delightful to watch. Seeing her being used as Light's pawn was terrifying and made you feel bad for her, such as when she was obviously going to be caught by L unless Rem killed herself for Misa's sake. And especially when Light passes away and she commits suicide, after losing all her memories from the Death Note…. oh boy was that a kicker. Mello: Eh, I liked the way he ate chocolate. The Kira Task Force: As a whole they were a great squad, particularly Aizawa and Matsuda. They were shown helping and eventually turning on Light, and seeing Matsuda realize Light was Kira all along and delivering the final blow was heart wrenching, as he was the only one who never thought Light was guilty. ~~~img440(https://media1.tenor.com/images/6b1e7e15299f083ea74403a7bf401a45/tenor.gif?itemid=5110958)~~~ ~~~__Animation, 8/10__~~~ __Animation and Quality:__ This will probably be the shortest segment as there isn't a lot to say other than the animation is fairly good, Studio Madhouse always delivers on good animation and this is no difference, from the tennis scene to Light writing in his notebook every scene looks smooth. Some talking scenes look a bit sloppy but nothing intolerable. ~~~img440(https://media.tenor.com/images/0da51595a92b06732bf522d2ff8411ab/tenor.gif)~~~ ~~~__Sound Design,10/10__~~~ #~~~OPs and EDs~~~ OP1: OP 1, "The WORLD" by Nightmare is a fantastic opening song that helps bring Light (no pun intended) to what the story is about. I won't go into detail as there are plenty of articles and videos online breaking down this OP but here are my thoughts. The OP has a punchy feel to it and slows down every once in a while to showcase the slow paced parts of the story but also the fast paced parts. 9/10 OP OP2: OP 2 "What's up, people?!" isn't as good as OP 1 in my opinion, especially the song, but the visuals are definitely still great. We see L and Light's final stand off before the time skip, where we see Near, Mello, and all the other important post time skip characters. The vibrant colors help us see what's going on and we see how the story moves forward as Light faces off against his final foe, Near. 7/10 OP EDs 1-2: Now these I don't have much to say about other than, they're cool, the first ED is a pretty chill song and is overall just kinda soothing. 7.5/10 EDs ED 3: The final ED, "Coda ~ Death Note", is a somber track, it plays when Light is shot and killed, halfway above the stairs, representing how he can neither go to heaven nor hell for eternity after he passes. Its soothing, showing us Light's final moments in the human world before getting killed by Ryuk writing his name in the Death Note, closing off the story in a delightful way. 9.5/10 ED Soundtrack: 11/10, do I really need to say more? L's and Near's themes are my personal favorite themes, they have this ominous vibe that gets interrupted by guitar (being Light) in their plans, and of course every other theme is amazing but I can't stay here all day explaining so please just have a listen for yourself, it's godlike. # ~~~Voice Acting~~~ Amazing, both in Sub and Dub every character has amazing voice acting. I personally prefer the dub for this series and my favorite character's voice is probably Light. Ryuk and L are my other 2 favorites as well as everyone else. You can tell that the VAs had lots of fun performing and played their parts with all their hearts. The lip-syncing was pretty solid as well. ~~~img440(https://media.tenor.com/images/1149ef00b82ce973f30bdbae539a7948/tenor.gif)~~~ ~~~__ Enjoyment, 10/10 __~~~ Personally, this show was a blast. I love psychological type stories that make you think, with lots of back and forth & twists and turns. And of course the actual Death Note concept itself was amazing, I really enjoyed this show and I can recommend it to anyone even if they aren't an anime "fan"! ~~~img440(https://c.tenor.com/-bB2JahXkMoAAAAM/light-yagami.gif)~~~ ~~~__Conclusion __~~~ In conclusion, I love his show. yes it DOES get weaker after the time skip but it's still a fun and enthralling time. Seeing how the characters all outsmart and outplay each other is a joy to watch and I would recommend this show to anyone, even if they aren't an anime fan. Favorite Character: L Favorite OST: L's Theme Favorite Quote: “Learn to treasure your life because unfortunately, it can be taken away from you anytime.” – L (Yes, I know all 3 of my favorite's are L related things, now shut up) Final Score: 94/100 Recommendation Level: 5/5 _______________ Thanks for reading my first review, I know its a bit sloppy and I'll probably redo this one in the future when I grow as a reviewer but please leave any feedback or criticisms on my profile, have a nice day! ~~~img440(https://media1.tenor.com/images/65f3b8f89e55d7751483ed8d3ea13f21/tenor.gif?itemid=16974027)~~~

appumia

this is surely one of the best anime i have watched and i still love this anime even after so many years and this is definately the same case with everyone................ but if you are a person who hasn't watched this series yet and wondering that should you watch this or not then here you can go on with my review below although don't open the spoiler part or the story will be spoiled not just a bit the spoilers are big ones so don't !!! just go and watch this series that will be the awesome experience for you . you will definately love the characters in this series thats a fact-- the story of this series is very well written the writer did the super awesome job in that so hatts off for that and this is one of the type of series where not a single character is hated, i have watched so many series where the main problem is always that there are some character who are too much hated and just because of those few characters but thats not the case here. i loved every single character although i know some people dont like near and mello but i liked them too they were the reason of the great ending !! but still this series is not perfect !! there is the issue of pacing in the series -- from the start till a specific point ~!(after loss of memories of light yagami)!~ the pacing was very great but after that after the the part which was not expected ~! (the death of L) !~ the series was kind of slow after that but just after few more episodes there was again the great jump which covered all the holes of the story so i was completely satisfied with that series and that not just my case i know almost everyone who watched this series loved this series there were somethings i liked the most and one of them was ___Ryuk!!!!___ this character really is awesome he literally didn't do a single work in whole series a completely useless character but still so interesting....and its not just him all the characters in this series are super cool and awesome just take L in case first of all his name was a complete mistery i mean who knows what his name was.. and that thing make him more of an awesome detective the chemistry between L an KIRA is so amazing that no matter how far they are they were always thinking the same things and their IQ was on whole different level !! this series was actually a war of two super intelligent person who both seek the justice but the meaning of justice is different for both of them which makes this series more interesting __~~~!!!this is one of the most favourite and memorable series for every anime watcher!!! ~~~ __ >>BY THE WAY I WAS ALWAYS IN TEAM OF KIRA NEVER CHANGED SIDES TO L so whose side were you guys?? you can tell me where ever you like you can directly send me message in my profile or you can go to my discord account or my telegram account every detail is given in my profile page in my about section you can go and check out that too if you like.

ReturnToMonke

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This review may contain Spoilers

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ####I definitely don't think this show is perfect it has a few flaws particularly in the latter third but to me, it isn't as bad as some people would say it is. This review's main purpose is to (maybe)make some people better appreciate the series as a whole and especially the ending as I believe that the ending was good at the very least. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__Visuals__

This anime adapted the Illustrator of the Death Note manga; Takeshi Obata's art style very well, it is simple but effective and it also has a darker palette than most, fitting for a show with very dark themes like Death Note. The animation is done well but not exceptional, of course this is no surprise as the animation isn't really a main focus when it comes to non-battle series. The directing on the other hand is some of the best in anime, the use of colors and the exaggerating of movements create for some of the most stunning and chilling scenes in anime. ~~~~~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__Characters__

The characters, especially the main two are very well done: Light; an arrogant but righteous genius that uses the Death Note – A notebook with the ability to kill any person by writing their names in it, this power slowly consuming and corrupting him as the story progresses giving his character a sense of progression and L, a quirky and likeable genius with a hidden agenda, both having different views on what "Justice" means posing a greatly written philosophical debate for the viewer to think about however the others are not just bystanders, they have their own sets of goals and motivations that make for interesting dynamics with the main two. Ryuk for one is a great sidekick to Light and acts as an outlooker for the story and the other task force members each have their own different take on "justice" that differ from others, however Near; the main antagonist of the latter third of the series and the successor to L is very misunderstood in my opinion, most people will say he's just a worse version of L but that's basically the point, he is not as great as L but he tries his best to emulate him, be it the way he speaks or his mannerisms similar to how Rock Lee from Naruto tries to emulate his master and Near's rival; Mello is not bad as well though neither are as fleshed out as their predecessor.~~~~~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__Plot__

The main plot is basically that it starts off with Light "randomly" getting a Death Note which is mentioned previously, is a notebook with the ability to kill people by writing their names in it, however there are many rules that the user has to follow such as needing the knowledge of the victim's face and obviously needing their name, he uses this power to try and solve the world's problems but is then hunted down by L throughout the course of the show and because it requires Light to be able to find a way to work around the rules to be able to kill someone, it makes for an interesting story full of twist and turns and an interesting cat and mouse chase from L and Light as they try their best to outwit each other because of opposing ideologies that eventually turns into a game of pride, each episode will leave you a cliffhanger that leaves us hanging for each succeeding episode that is until eventually in the 25th episode, L dies after being outsmarted by Light. Light without a rival is is left to purge the world of those he deems as evil according to his "Justice" however he is then hunted down in the latter third of the show by Near and Mello. This part in many people's opinion is not very good, but though I may agree that it wasn't as exceptional as the first 25, they were definitely not bad, it still had a great philosophical debate that made Death Note what it is, and though not as exceptional as what came before it, it still made for an enthralling game of wits and the way it ended was done in a way to send an great message, that there is no one who is truly a "good" person and Light learned that the hard way. There are also some scenes in which people deem to be "bad" such as the scene where Near escapes from Light's followers that are out to get him by throwing money at them which may seem to be uncharacteristic as it does not showcase Near's intelligence, but what most people fail to take into account was that Near also wanted to send a message to Light, that his "loyal" followers are easily influenced by materialistic things to show that Light isn't the God that he thinks he is which is a massive blow to his ego by this point in the story, there are several more instances of these types of "misunderstood" scenes which is such shame in my eyes.~~~~~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__Sound and Music__

The Voice Acting is phenomenal for both sub and dub, it really depends on what you prefer, Light's voice acting for both versions in particular are very well done. The sound design is nothing memorable though, it's not really a main focus. The Openings and Endings are phenomenal, the songs are great with just as great visuals, metaphors and is packed with symbolism. and the OST is one of the best out there, some of the most memorable and compelling tracks in anime. ~~~~~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__Other Stuff__

This Anime has a great amount of well done symbolism with the use of colors or with the Christian symbolism especially with the first opening. The philosophical debate that the show introduces is one of the best you'll ever see, it makes one think a lot about what the true objective meaning of "good" or "evil" truly is or even if there is one. ~~~~~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

__Overall__

Though the final 12 episodes were definitely not as good as the rest of the show considering how exemplary the first 25 episodes were, they certainly were not bad. It still had great themes, philosophy and some of the most compelling scenes in anime with some very thought-provoking ideas that can make one re-evaluate their views. "Supposing a god and his world existed, even then I’d stop and think for myself. I’d decide for myself whether his teachings are right or wrong. After all, I am just the same as you. I put faith in my own convictions as to what I believe is right, and consider them to be righteous.” – Near ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

inductionstove

This is a widely enjoyed show, therefore the low rating may trigger some people. I shall explain it. This show is loved by most, and I have recommended this show too, as an intro anime. And, if I could go back in time and make myself unwatch the show, I wouldn’t. I have even given it a 6.9 (which is just below `Good’ and much above `Fine’.) This is rather a complex show, so hear me out. Up until L died, this was a character based story, with the two lead characters, with equal position in the hierarchy of importance pitted against each other. Light was a a teenager who believed that all criminals/bad people need to die, and also having a god-complex. L, on the other hand, was a detective, who believed that whatever said and done, Kira was a murderer, and must be caught. L outwits Kira many times ans also suspects heavily that Light is Kira, but Light owtwits him very well with the book-swap strategy. But after L died, things went terribly wrong. They introduced Near and Mellow, with neither of their characters established or developed properly, to fight Light. At this point, the only side with strong characters is Light’s. But at the end, Near wins and Yagami dies. This makes the plot structure worse, and even the positions given by the plot to characters is not structured. Now, I do understand that Light was supposed to die from the start, but it was not executed properly. What would have been a proper balance is L also killing Light (perhaps by poisoning Light’s food, knowing that Light would kill him soon and wanting to save the world within the time he had) when Light manipulated Rem to eliminate L, or by creating evidence to make the police catch Light and prosecute him, much like the actions of Hercule Poirot in his last case, or anything else of that sort. The ending of the story was supposed to restore equilibrium between the two lead characters, and therefore, if the characters were to die (which is a common yet good way to do it), it would have to be at the hands of each other. By introducing a third party which lacked both establishment and development, they were not able to establish proper equilibrium, both in the show as a whole and in between Light and L. Despite the criticism, I call it a good intro anime. An intro anime must be very enjoyable, and does not need to be as structurally sound. Death Note was indeed, very enjoyable, and also had some good characters (who did receive injustice, but they were there). That said, the show was very enjoyable until L died. I would have given it an 8 star had the show ended at that time, restoring a proper equilibrium, perhaps (and most likely) with L killing light in turn.

Ghoul987

#DEATH NOTE . img220(https://i.imgur.com/Cwd0O3U.gif) . STUDIO --- MADHOUSE FORMAT -- TV GENRE--MYSTERY , PSYCHOLOGICAL , THRILLER , SUPERNATURAL SOURCE --MANGA YEAR RELEASED ---2006 NO OF EPISODES --37 . # Synopsis: #####A mass murderer and a mystery detective both on a mission to provide justice and make the perfect world, and the story of their cat and mouse chase leads to mysterious and unexpected outcomes which shook the world and makes one think the real meaning of justice. . # Rating Summary: (after review) ###A true masterpiece and a show which will be remembered as a gem due to its great storyline and everything perfect aspect. ###Death note needs no introduction to normal anime watchers, but for the ones who have not yet seen it, you are missing on something really great. ###A rollercoaster ride of goose bumps, mind bobbling mysteries and unpredictable cat and mouse chase . # OVERALL RATING 10/10 PLOT / STORY 9.5/10 ANIMATION/DESIGN 9/10 CHARACTERS 9/10 AUDIO 9/10 . img220(https://c.tenor.com/AKrgF2CztdcAAAAC/death-note-laugh.gif) . # What made me watch it? ###This was my first anime. I had been planning to watch an anime for quite a longtime, and DEATH NOTE had to be my first I just knew. Personally I am a fan of psychological, mystery and crime movies and wanted to see something similar. And the synopsis of death note was quite intriguing too, death related concepts have always took my attention . # Plot/Story 9.5/10 ###My first anime and I my mind was just blown with the plot and storyline. The story is very well written with great plots and mystery factors inside it. The story itself makes the audience stick to their seats but the mystery factor which was filled in the series altogether was a cherry on the top. . # Animation/Design 9/10 ###Considering the year it was released it is very superior to its time. The details in the animation and the graphical representation of backgrounds and the visuals were amazing and give you chills sometimes. ###The animation is smooth and not overdone and direction or camera angles were also very good, compared to real reel movies , I will say both are at a par in direction , to be honest never thought an animated series could be at that level . #Characters 9/10 ###Characters are very well represented straight from the main protagonists and antagonists to the supporting characters; all are very well written and very smoothly presented. Though there were some pieces left of some characters unsolved and not discussed which though makes you confused sometimes, but it can be ignored considering the episode limit of the series . #Audio/Soundtrack 7/10 ###The background soundtracks are just amazing , makes you feel the emotion of the character very well , and makes you think like them , the amount of work and hard work done with it can be seen (heard to be precise) and there is no doubt about it that the team did a superb job ###The opening soundtrack is also a pleasure to ears and makes you love, though I don’t understand the language but the music itself has made me fall in love with it . # Additional Mentions ##Critics: ### At some point the story becomes a little stretchy and feels kind of boring but nevertheless the mystery and unpredictability of the series remains the same. . ##Deep thoughts: ###DEATH NOTE really makes one think on the more depth facts and meaning of life and death, right and wrong, good and evil. It keeps on asking you the question that are you supporting the right person, and are the persons acts justified. The show touches some not so common thoughts of people but everyday aspects of life like murders, justice, addiction of power, right usage of power, blind love and human rights . img220(https://data.whicdn.com/images/334354379/original.gif) . #Predictable meter 1/10 #Addiction meter 9/10 #Recommendable meter 10/10

CulturedWhamen

Death Note is without a doubt one of the most influential anime only rivalled by attack on titan and full metal alchemist. its basically the bible of anime. to this day Ive never seen episodes as tense as that of death note (the first 25 at least) its always said that the moment a certain event happens in episode 25 (which is also considered to be its best episode according to imdb) . the trip of light from this highly intelligent student to a psychopath who believes himself to be the god of the new world. honestly to this day i think that the first episode of death note is one of the best hooks into an anime only rivalled by attack on titans first episode. the battle of wits between L and Light is without a doubt one of the best things in the world. the way they both are so close yet trying to figure out whether one is kira / trying to find the others name. now for production value how should i put it..... madhouse nailed it i mean there is soo much you can do to make a man writing down names tense. at least thats what i thought till i saw what madhouse did with the sequences in death note. so death note has it all interesting protag and characters interesting premise and amazing production so why is it not a masterpiece?? well only word NEAR ok so now onward im gonna spoil this show like its some sorta... i dunno where i was going with that one but whatever Im gonna spoil the show . so basically after L died a piece of shet called N or Near came and challenged kira and managed to kill him/catch him via some pure luck and stupid bullshit plan im still mad kira wasnt taken down by L but the piece of shet that is N took him down. its just soo sad to see such an amazing anime spiral down into 4/10 territory even tho is was 10/10 for the first arc. well that's all. now for character development Light Yagami is the main character. Light is the protagonist and anti-hero of the series. He could be called a hero if seen from his perspective, as the author never explicitly states if he is evil or not. It is left for open interpretation. He is brilliant, calculating, and manipulative. In spite of being popular in school and his class, he never really has any interest in making friends. The only friends he has are for the show and he doesn’t care about them. He only cares for his family. He believes that his family is innocent and pure, thus deserves to live in the ‘new world’ he is creating. He appears to be perfect. He gets the #1 position in the nationwide college entrance examinations. Not only is he good in studies but also he is brilliant enough to aid his father, who is the head of NPA (Japanese FBI), in solving some really complicated cases in the past. Along with brains, he is athletic. He is the National junior high champion in tennis for two consequent years. He is really good looking as he is always flocked by girls to go on dates with them. However, he doesn’t show any interest in girls unless he requires them for his sinister plan to succeed. Light never loved any girl in the series. The girls who showed any interest in him were either killed by him, used by him or he just dated them to throw off suspicion. He is a polite child and a good brother and son to his sister and parents respectively. However as the series progressed, Kira, the dark, sinister and menacing side of Light Yagami starts surfacing more often. He starts focusing on killing L and uses people around him, including his family as pawns in his game. While he outwardly shows himself to be a perfect, straight-A student and a good son, his darker side emerges when he is alone or with Ryuk, the shinigami. that's all

RowX

~~~__"Deathnote is a masterpiece that scorched itself half way through"__~~~ Deathnote is easily the BEST detective anime out there, for almost a decade it was known to hold that title, and still is, but dare I say, it has it's fair share of drawbacks, we'll get to that in a minute, lets start off on the good notes. ~~~img220(https://i.redd.it/498wu5ahajiz.png)~~~ __Pros:__ Deathnote has dozens of pros that cannot even be listed by one in a simple review, but to cut this short here's my short version of pros in the anime Death Note: 1. __Perfect creation of an Anti-Hero__, Death Note's protagonist IS the antagonist of the series, the holder of the Death Note, Light Yagami, even though he is the bad guy in the story, we still want to see him win, and prosper in a mind game. 2. __Tricks used by Light Yagami and L are AMAZING__, please note that this review is to convince you to watch the anime, so I cannot disclose most of the tricks done so you can experience them the way everyone else did, but what I can disclose is that it held it's spot as the most watched anime for 4 years for a reason, and this is the reason for so. 3. __Absolutely devoid of plot armor__, the main character Light Yagami gets his butt kicked as many times as he kicks L's butt the entire way through, which also brings up the reason why both characters can be rooted for, they are both put on a fair standard where 1 wrong step can screw the entire equation up. 4. __This point is a continuation of the last one__, as Death Note gave us a stage where we could root for both the Protagonist and Antagonist, which is very rare amongst animes, and almost exotic back in the 2000s, which shows the new stage that Death Note took anime to, raising standards that high. ~~~img220(https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/26bce323-3097-4fd7-84dc-58404fadc901/d3kel1z-7e6114f7-f441-401e-9689-4710db1f9511.png/v1/fill/w_900,h_176,q_80,strp/l____death_note_banner_by_holophrasic_d3kel1z-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTc2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvMjZiY2UzMjMtMzA5Ny00ZmQ3LTg0ZGMtNTg0MDRmYWRjOTAxXC9kM2tlbDF6LTdlNjExNGY3LWY0NDEtNDAxZS05Njg5LTQ3MTBkYjFmOTUxMS5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9OTAwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.zKr-bZeAIHwrX4Y7k1QsQY14yuhw25pyfMeHXjHTqtw)~~~ __Cons (Spoilers of the 2nd Arc of Death Note):__ Well... At this point we've talked about the AMAZING and PERFECT Death Note, now we head to the dark moments in Deathnote, the 2nd Arc, a bit further than half way through the anime, I cant turn this into a list of reasons but more like 1 reason that was so major that it almost RUINED Death Note as a whole. Death Note was made as a brain battle between Light Yagami and L. Lawliet, and Death Note ruined that half way through by making Light Yamagi get CAPTURED by Death Note, A literal more than 7 episodes of nothingness but interrogation and updates on the case. . . That goes reverse-like to what Death Note works for, making this a 1 sided case where the 2nd side cant do anything about it? Then making Light Yagami forget about owning the Death Note and basically going on another 3 episodes of running after a business that he GAVE his Death Note to? Actually?! The main point of Death Note Was and still Is Light and L having a mind brawl, taking that away for a total of 10 episodes is AGONIZING, Thankfully that problem is fixed around the last 5 episodes of the anime. ~~~img220(https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/fe8b343e-c448-4bbf-bcda-a28b85329314/d2axpmt-b106389b-fad4-44c5-affb-a787a6c6c37b.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2ZlOGIzNDNlLWM0NDgtNGJiZi1iY2RhLWEyOGI4NTMyOTMxNFwvZDJheHBtdC1iMTA2Mzg5Yi1mYWQ0LTQ0YzUtYWZmYi1hNzg3YTZjNmMzN2IuanBnIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.pjkZRddarl9gpP7nQCftJa2HaG0VyQmsgMqMKsXy6kM)~~~ If anyone new to anime asked me to recommend them a start up anime to set the scene, I wouldn't hesitate to say Death Note, it's the popular opinion that wraps up anime in a nutshell, both its pros and cons while showing an amazing classic that took over anime in it's era. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my Review of Death Note, remember that opinions are objective and it's completely fine if you think otherwise to what I said, and have a great day, peace. __Official Trailer:__ youtube(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlJZ-YgAt-c)

WitherThrakh

Here is an anime that I consider a bit overhyped if not overrated, I will share my positive and negative thoughts about the characters, plot, world-building, art, moral and finishing with a small paragraph. The premise is good but it is not like I wanted to watch it right away, it was the 50th anime I watched, I was not disappointed as I thought that the good outweighs the bad and the ending wraps up everything. If you ask me an anime or two that interested me more that I watched before that was a psychological thriller, Elfen Lied (I ended liking Death Note more) and Ergo Proxy which is my favorite are examples. The characters are interesting, some are weird in a good or bad way depending on who but I love weird characters so I am completely fine with it, the variety of characters is good but I think that some needed more flesh out as the plot was more the focus than the characters, it is not about relating to characters, I do not need that to be interested in them in general but it needed to show more about who they almost fully are and other characters needed more screen time as they seem like afterthoughts. Light being a 17-year old is logical considering the plot since only a teen like him would think that being a "god" to change the world would be a solution without consequences and as I expected since the beginning of the series, his plan was doomed from the start. His relationship with his father is great, nothing negative to say here, I was not a fan of him being the son of the one that investigates the Kira case but it grown on me, it worked very well at the end, I would have liked to see more of Sayu and her relationship with Light and to see her concerns for him, Mr. Yagami's death was the most tragic for me, Light did not want his father to die but it is his fault anyway. Misa was hit-or-miss for me, she is not pointless as she is useful at times but there are times where the purpose of the character was questionable, especially when she confronted Takada for example, I get that they are both fighting for Light and the latter used them but it felt flat for me just like when she was with Higushi, it was not pointless but was not necessary either, thing is that I was not a fan of the Rem part where she helps Misa to not have Light kill her by accident, it felt like stuff thrown out there and nothing more for me but Misa had a great character development at least and her committing suicide at the end revealed her sensitive side as she truly loved Light. She was more useful to know L's real name since she has the eyes but she ended up arrested but it was a good part but after that? Meh... I wanted to see a darker side of her. L was a great and weird character in a good way, not a fan of him but his war against Light was great, his eccentric look fits the complexity of the case on the Shinigamis and... because you have to be weird just like the one you are chasing (Light). His death felt rushed for me, it frustrated me because he knew about the Death Note, Shinigamis (BEFORE he first saw Rem while Higushi was arrested), suspected Light to be Kira and was next to him in the helicopter when Light regained his memories while touching the Death Note then L died like he was clueless, did not like that at all. Raye Penber and Naomi Misora were just there to strengthen Light's character, the Yotsuba case was completely uninteresting to me, did not care at all for Higushi, the police officers got good scenes but only Aizawa was interesting to me, a lot of fans like Matsuda, not me. Takada had an interesting arc but unfortunately, she was an afterthought because there is almost nothing from her relationship with Light before, yes she talked with him in high school but their renewed relationship was just THERE, I get that Light was using her and it made sense but she does not question about anything related to Kira's case and Light's motives, she just listens to him even if she was a follower but she needed to be more skeptic than a robot, it is just how I felt. Mello, his character was an afterthought, yes he helped Near to close the Kira case indirectly but he has little screen time (apparently, several scenes with him were cut according to some fans), personally, I was not a fan of that character, I also think that the competition between him and Near to capture Kira first was not enough developed BEFORE the indirect alliance between the two. Near was my 2nd favorite character just behind Ryuk, I saw a lot of hate on Near on several posts or comments by fans because he is according to them a ripoff of L, I disagree with this because he is more strategic than L and does not wait too long before taking actions unlike L again, he might have cheated to beat Kira but at least, he wanted Kira to lose to his own game which was a great plan by Near (I support the "win by any means necessary even if it is not moral" ideology), I do not think he used the Death Note do defeat Kira like some fans think since he sees Ryuk for the first time at the end, fans related to Mello more since he is emotional and not cold-blooded and "perfect" like Near. Ryuk was my favorite character, he was a god of death but he was more "human" than the other gods of death, he always made me laugh a lot with his obsession for apples and considered Light as a friend almost instead of being impartial as a god of death, it is well showed at the very end, I do not think he regrets killing Light but you saw that he was at least happy to have passed the time with him since it was an entertaining ride and was not bored like he was with the other gods of death playing cards or other stuff. The art was great, despite some inconsistent faces of some characters at times (especially Misa), it succeeded at portraying the dark atmosphere and vibe when it needed to and portraying the tension and psychology of important scenes like Mr Yagami's death or the more happy days at first when Light and Misa met for examples by having it more bright. The OST is good but there was not enough music for me, it is good that sometimes, it was discreet to keep the tension going. The world-building was great, every place owned by a particular character fitted each of them, the only grip I have is Mikami's room, I mean, it was almost just a copy of Higushi's room. The plot itself is very good but not great either, it is quite simple if you think about it but it was executed very well, I only disliked the case of Yotsuba and L's death, I will be in the minority there but I loved the war between Light and Near more than anything else, yes there are times when how Near investigated could have been showed more but I think it was enough, I am aware that the manga shows more but I am not interested in mangas in general, the Takada/Mello/Mikami parts were a bit messy for me, I had to check some posts about why Mello captured Takada because I was a bit confused by it, I was fine with Mikami. The very ending saved everything bad for me when Light died and all the symbolism showed (the stairs, moon...), I did not feel bad for him tho, I was happy tbh, Misa committed suicide and Ryuk standing above were great visuals. About the philosophy and moral aspect, the subject of wanting peace in the world by wanting to apply your justice as a doomed will from the start was an interesting concept, it was very well executed, more could have been done I think, especially on why your justice does not matter in a world that will move on from you anyway. In resume, a great flawed anime for beginners but a bit overhyped as it is not a masterpiece like its fans consider it to be but it is one of the great anime from the 2000s and I love products like these with edginess, seriousness, darkness, deepness, goofiness and weirdness which are non-existent today. I love Op 2 and hated End 2, Op 1 was very good and End 1 was fine. Would I rewatch it? Maybe but it would not be in a rewatch list if I would create one.

Florentino

Casi nunca reviso nada porque creo que es una pérdida de tiempo, así que disculpe mi divagación en este caso. Death Note es una serie sólida con algunos momentos brillantes, pero también algunos igualmente ridículos. Ha tenido un comienzo muy fuerte. La historia es muy emocionante e interesante ya que es bastante atípica y es posible que nunca la hayas visto antes. En cuanto a los personajes, es interesante saber que cada personaje tiene un trastorno mental específico. La mayor parte es más o menos lo mismo: un largo juego del gato y el ratón que se turna para ir a favor y en contra de los dos enemigos principales. Al principio es bastante aburrido, ya que ves que todo se toma su tiempo para llegar al punto, e incluso hay un episodio que consiste casi en su totalidad en dos personajes que deambulan sin rumbo fijo y que se vuelven realmente aburridos muy rápido. Una vez que los grandes giros comienzan a ocurrir, en su mayoría son impresionantes, pero casi te cansas de ellos después de que siguen apareciendo una y otra vez y comienzan a volverse un poco repetitivos. Los últimos episodios que conducen a la muerte de un personaje principal son realmente buenos, pero después de que realmente sucede, la trama se descarrila y termina repitiendo una buena parte de todo lo que sucedió antes. Pero a pesar de volverse bastante tonto al final, el final es una recompensa decente. L es impresionantemente inteligente y deductivo, pero aparte de eso, realmente no hay mucho para él. Near y Mello son personajes realmente forzados, y Mello ni siquiera sigue siendo el mismo personaje en su breve mandato y termina sintiéndose como varios personajes diferentes a lo largo del programa. Light es demasiado perfecto, sus defectos son los resultados lógicos de su perfección, como su narcisismo y exceso de confianza. Se podría argumentar que esta impecabilidad se hizo intencionalmente en un esfuerzo por expresar cómo el ser humano aparentemente perfecto sería en sí mismo un defecto, pero finalmente este concepto fracasó. No es un programa que veas por estilo artístico. Tiene algunos fondos geniales, pero no ves una animación solo para los fondos, ¿verdad? La animación no es nada extraordinaria. La "acción" generalmente toma la forma de panorámicas de cámaras y personas que escriben en cuadernos. Por supuesto, eso no quiere decir que no sea bonito o esté bien dibujado, pero no es espectacular. En general, un gran espectáculo con una comprensión única de cómo el poder corrompe a aquellos con altos ideales. Ojalá Light no cometiera ese error al azar de la nada al final, sinceramente... Not gonna type this out again in english, sorry haha

chinesepro

I just love making reviews so I'm making a new one and it's on a death note. if you guys don't know death note is an anime that was adapted from the manga of the same name. I'm not gonna go too in-depth because I think most of you guys have probably seen the show let alone heard about it. firstly the animation is not fantastic but still good for its time. you all know the music of death note is fantastic and the only music I would put on the same level as devilman crybaby, but you all know the classic l theme tune and even lights and nears is popular and all of them are fantastic. the openings are not my favorites for me and probably the second opening is one of the worst openings I have heard in anime in my opinion but the score and the character's theme songs are fantastic. the story is what sets death note apart from most anime and manga, it's so damn good, especially the first episode of this show is actually fantastic, and the rest are still amazing but I think the first episode will just hook you to this show, almost all the characters are amazing except misa of course but she's not bad but just a bit annoying. light is a fantastic character both as a protagonist and antagonist, and l maybe my favorite character in anime itself, but apart from the main 2 I like everyone else as well, I liked Aizawa, Matsuda, Soichiro Yagami, and ryuk are also among my favorites and I think near gets a little too much hate, I think he's good too but he's nowhere near l and even light says that in the anime. apart from the characters, everything else is also amazing like the voice acting, the suspenseful aspects of it, and the famous potato chip scene. I think this show is a masterpiece but nothing is perfect so now I will talk about the bad stuff about this anime ~!the first 25 episodes are fantastic, the cat and mouse chase between l and light is just a masterpiece and the whole, second death note aspect that they introduced was great I thought. you know a show is good when people still talk about it almost 16 years after it came out, I can't even put it into words how good the first 25 episodes are, and u knew this was coming as soon as l dies, the whole show goes down a level, in my opinion, everything is just so perfect up until that part but that part almost ruins it all. as I already said both near and Mello combined are nowhere near ls level and when they introduced the whole FBI USA aspect, it just became a cluster f**k I thought. at least now I know the show is not scared to kill beloved characters, firstly l, secondly Soichiro and finally right at the end, Light Yagami. a lot of people hate the ending to this anime and I can understand it, light was a hugely beloved character, even though he was the bad guy all along, I thought the ending was great, the bad guy ended up loosing and the good guys won and ryuk delivered on his promise that he will be the one writing lights name down in the death note. and that's my review done of the death note, what did you think of it. even though it has its downfalls this show is a must-watch and I don't think you're an anime fan if you haven't seen this show.!~