Death Note Reviews

Warning: Spoilers
The first time I heard of Death Note was from a youtube channel Hello Future Me and his storytelling analyses. Previously I had resented anime as childish and totally weird-looking, but after Timothy took Death Note as an example of a good story-beat management, I was wiling to give it a shot. And boy, was I hooked.

Never before have I seen any show try to copy that sherlock-ey way of thinking and incorporate it so cleverly with mystery and fantasy elements. Death Note has such an unique feel to it that no other anime has... every moment Light's and L's theme play, I get slight goosebumps while wondering who will outsmart whom next. It is a matter of simple beauty seeing the writers play with the contrast of Light's and L's personality, making them grow close while simultaneously growing further apart. Ant to top it off with so much symbolism and biblical references in the final episode of L's saga is a matter of pure perfection.

Yes, people will say that the second part sucks. Truth be told, even though it may not be equally as engaging as the first one, I wouldn't say it was unbearable either. The fact is that by this point Light is so cornered that he cannot operate on his own; therefore the tension is dissipated towards minor characters and Near that we don't get enough time to care about. Nonetheless, seeing Light maneuver through all the traps Near sets for him provides a proper build-up towards the eagerly expected end.

And about the end... I really felt for Light in those final moments. Part of me didn't want the series to end the way it did, simply because Light was the embodiment of my answer to the fundamental questions of justice that stem from Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment. As much as I may be a follower of Kira in one part of my mind, I also cannot deny that Near is absolutely right - Light Yagami is just another serial killer; nothing more and nothing less.

Death note is the first of all the animated series that has introduced me with the fact that not all things animated have to have a happy ending. Think of it, how many western-animation movies do you know that do not end on a happy note? Very few would be my guess. And from this time on, my journey through japanese animation has started. I couldn't be more grateful for the way it began and therefore, Death Note will always be the No. 1 anime I will recommend to people new to anime. If you haven't seen it yet, I really do not know what you are waiting for...

... btw I hear the bells. Do you?

A better version of Fight Club that sadly becomes Fight Club for a moment to have a ending that at least doesn’t feel contradictory as Fight Club. So decent.

Story:
It is very welldone, the pacing is nice, since it is almost the same as the manga (in actuality, a light novel) that has perfect pacing. It is very suspenseful and clever, with excellent use of cliffhangers. Is is a battle of wits between Light and L (and some others latter on), that really differs from your usual shounen. It is nice to say, too, that Light is totally and completely the villain, and an excellent, sadistic, maniacal, bad person villain. And yet he's the main character, our point of view in the anime, which is nice for a change.

Soundtrack:
Oh my God, it is awesome! Since the opening, till the ending, and it really heps set the mood and heighten the tensions and suspenseful atmosphere with excellence. I just don't like the second opening and endings. The dub is also really nice.

Characters:
They are not very deep, and yet they have much flavor in them. The only character I particularly have a problem with is Misa Amane, she really does bring down the cast of the anime, she doesn't fit in.

Art:
Awesome. Takeshi Obata's art is very rich and sofisticated and translates well to the screen. It has many nice little touches here and there, with clever use of visual metaphors and little-to-none fanservice. It is also very cinematographic and intense.

In general, all of the aspects blend really well for a nice complete product.

I have been reading lots of top ten favourite anime list and I have found that Death Note has the highest success rate among them all. While many people have differing favourite animes Death Note nearly always ends up between 2 and 5th place. While it may not be many peoples favourite, it nearly always holds a spot in peoples hearts in the top five. And it definitely deserves it. No complaints there. I would recommend this as a first series for an introduction to anime. The idea of Near and Mello was a good one but it lost it's humorous charm that the show needed after episode 25.

First Anime to really watch and get into. Great, extremely pleased and overall fantastic story line and edge of seat type series.

This is one of the best shows ever. If you ever thought that the level of intelligence and imagination of a person could never go far beyond your own, you should watch this and there is a chance you might stand corrected. Most people are put off by the anime tag but a lot of things in this comes of far better when shot as an Anime as opposed to real human. There is a real movie version of this but that does not even come close to this.
After watching this, I was searching the entire Anime world for something similar and could never find anything as good as this.

Death Note is universally appealing. It has some kind of magic that digs in and holds fast to the heart of anyone watching. It is obviously well-written; the plot is solid, the suspense sublime, and the characters? Best Characters in Any Work of Fiction Anywhere Ever.
But even all these elements combined don't account for Death Note's magnitude of charm. Its whole is greater than the sum of its parts, great as that sum already was.
For a friend who just couldn't get into anime, I recommended Death Note. It's impossible not to get sucked in by the masterful writing, airtight characterization, and that indefinable something extra: that magic spell Death Note casts on its viewers.

I saw this after watching the live-action movies. They were rather jumbled and I'd give them 4 stars (except for Erika Toda's amazing performance), but they were creative enough that I gave this a try. Its easy to see now that a very brilliant and meticulously crafted storyline in which every possible nuance is considered and explored was stuffed into the much shorter running time of the movies. The anime is really a marvel of ingenuity and if you like cat and mouse games you'll be in heaven. Misa, the character Erika Toda plays in the movie, is voiced by the equally amazing Aya Hirano, who I've never heard anything like. Unfortunately, the latter third of the series shifts gears and doesn't work as well, but, from what I've read, the anime is actually based on a manga and suffers from the same problem the movies did--trying to cut out parts to fit the running time.

AWSOMENESS! That's a I can say! xD