Anime Title: Death Note
Reviewer Name: Cool Beans
Anime/manga Rating: 3/5
Creator/Artist:
Short Summary: A brilliant but bored japanese student Light Yamagi finds a mysterious book the death note, which allows him to see the mysterious shinigami who owns the book and kill people by simply writing their names in it. He uses this power to kill criminals around the world. Dubbed as Kira by the people of the world his actions attracts the attention of the police, FBI and even the worlds greatest detective known simply as L and so begins one of the most complex games of cat and mouse ever between L and Light.
Anime status: Ended 37 episodes

Review:

Even with its limited concept Death Note manages to remain a complex, fun and interesting show, well for the first 24 episodes or so. The second half of the series does begin to drag and eventually winds up at a bit of a dud conclusion which leaves you with a sort of bad taste in your mouth even moreso than full metal alchemist.

The main draw of the series is the mind games and cat and mouse escapades between L and Light, each character is about 4 steps ahead of the other, just when it seems Light is about to be caught, he turns the tables on L in a way that gets you thinking as a viewer wow i didnt see that coming and its this cat and mouse game that keeps you hooked from the offset, but confuses you as to who to root for, you may side with Light at first seeing as he's the main character however you ulitmatley relise that he's also the main villian of the show too. L is the true hero of the show, however he does resort to some questionable means of catching Kira.

Death Note doesnt delve too deeply into Light's frame of mind killing off all these criminals he seems to show little if any remorse at killing all these people just its hit on a lot that he has a strong sense of justice. Justice and its many forms of being dispensed and who has the right to dispense justice is the main theme of the show, surprsingly theres not too much depth to the characters, just their strong beliefs in justice. Light's character is just shown to be a cold ruthless calculating indivual which even surprises his shinigami companion. The shinigami, Ryuk keeps the show quite interesting and supernatural throughout the series, an invisible companion which can only offer so much to the death note owner and just generally follow the owner of the death note chuckling away at all his mis deeds. Imagine a sort of warped jiminy cricket from pinnochio just without all the concious business.

But the main problem with the series is the second half of it, (major spoiler section here read at own risk)

Spoiler:

after L's death and his two replacements Mello and Near, these two characters are meant to be L's successors but simply feel like mini clones of him specifaclly Near, Mello is quite interesting as he crosses some boundaries even more so than L did but it ultimatly feels like the series has run out of steam by the time these two come into the fray.

So in conclusion a series that either should have ended earlier or very much differently, that by the end felt like it dragged on and a sour ending that while i can see it for its value just does not sit well with me at all, but this is a brilliantly produced anime and well worth watching just for the battles between L and Light,

Spoiler:

add an extra point to the score if you liked mello and near, or simply if your emo and like dark themed anime.