Review of Death Note

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.