Alright, first review I’ve done on this site, so apologies if it isn’t exactly the best thing. The reason why I decided on Death Note was for the simple reason of…it was because of this site that I got into it, and Death Note opened me up to series where fighting isn’t really relevant, so I felt it would be fitting for my first review on here to be about one of my “Life Changing” manga/anime. Let’s just get into this though. Oh yeah, I’m putting spoilers in this review, nothing major (I think anyway), but you have been warned.

Story: 9/10
What is the whole premise of Death Note? Essentially, it’s about a high school student who found a book that can kill people and decides to play God since he has the power to “judge” people now. This student, Light Yagami, starts off only killing criminals that he deemed were too evil for this world, but eventually decides to kill anyone that is a threat to his ideal world. One of these threats is a detective that goes under the alias of L. The first half of the series mainly dealt with Light’s rise to godhood while having a mind duel with L, the one person Light thought could figure out he was the culprit for killing all these criminals. If I can make an analogy, this battle between L and Light could be compared (albeit on a much serious scale since whoever loses between those two loses everything) to Yugi Muto and Seto Kaiba from the original series. Much like Kaiba, Light is hell-bent on defeating his rival and then rising to the greatest in their series (Dueling world for Kaiba and the world in general for Light). On the reverse side, L and Yugi are more focused on just doing what they do best, and take all challenges, including the challenges of their rivals. I can also say that the battle between L and Light was the greatest part of Death Note, and I can maybe even say one of the greatest in manga period. The plot twists are also so amazing. The most controversial one of them all is still in my Top 5 moments in all of manga, even after all the other series I have read. I’m not saying what it is, but you can probably figure it out if I told you it involves L’s and Light's final confrontation. All in all, I say an amazing plot. The only reason why it’s not a perfect score is because near the end, they were making a lot of characters almost nonexistent (Misa being the prime example).

Art: 8/10
If I can say anything, it’s that the characters are drawn pretty well. With one exception, I don’t think there is one character that looks bad and even then, the one character I think looks bad is probably just me. The scenery looked nice, and when something evil from an “evil” character was about to happen, I could definitely tell that most of these characters were enjoying themselves with their facial expressions (hello Light!). I’m not good at describing art, so I’m keeping this part short.

Characters: 15/10 (10/10)

Oh. My. God. These characters are some of the greatest characters I have ever had the privilege to read about. With one exception, I really love every single character in Death Note. I think every single one of them are written in a beautiful way that makes them extremely interesting and diverse that you can’t possibly mix up any character. I’m going to put it his way for all you video game enthusiasts and especially Portal fans; I would say most of these characters have the same charm and likeability as the ones in Portal and the sequel. I’ll go a little in depth about the two main characters so you can see where I’m coming from.

Light Yagami, the main character of the story and probably the most well written character, isn’t your typical hero where he’s good and he can never do evil. No no no, he’s far from good. If I can give him one title to describe it would be Satan, and that’s why I love him. He is so distant from what I was accustomed to for a main character of a manga, that I was actually upset whenever he was losing against L. I think the biggest reason why I love the guy though is probably because of the way he had fallen from grace. Based on what I said previously, you would assume Light was evil from day one right? He actually started out with good intentions, only killing criminals that he saw doing crimes himself. Eventually though, he started becoming more and more power hungry, and killed anyone he felt didn’t fit in his ideal world. That is actually a believable reason to descend into become the very evil you set out to destroy, not because you felt like being a dick (like most hero-turned villains in media sadly). Other than having the power to kill all, Light is actually a realistic character. Anyone would become corrupt if they had that much power. I could go on with this, but I got one other character to do plus a whole other section, so moving on.

L, the second main character and my second favorite character (you probably wouldn’t ever guess my favorite), is probably one of the strangest characters if he isn’t the strangest character in the series. My first impression of the guy was that he was going o be a guy that looked interesting but would only have one good moment in the entire series, not counting when he beat Light. Boy was I wrong and I was so glad about that too. While Light got the most development as a character, L was the more entertaining of the two in my opinion. He’s a real pleasant surprise since, like Light, is almost nothing like the standard hero of a manga. He isn’t afraid to do cruel and demented things like torture Light and Misa to get answers, and even considers writing people’s name in the Death Note to see if it really does kill people. He’s also not afraid to be out there, with his strange sitting position or how he admits that sleeping would make him stupider. He’s still a genius though, despite his weird habits. Only someone like L could pull off having not one, but three different aliases and not get discovered, all of it with no one but his butler knowing his real name. That is pretty impressive, no matter how high your standards are.

Again, most of these characters are written so well, that I think there is only one character that I think could have been improved on. The characters are definitely the reason why you read the series.

Enjoyment/Overall Rating: 10/10

Overall, Death Note was a blast to read/watch. If you are just getting into manga/anime, go and give this series a read, you’ll probably love manga in general after doing so. If you are already a long time fan of manga, why haven’t you checked this out? You are missing out on an amazing series and should check it out. From the characters to the amazing plot twists, there wasn’t a single dull moment where I just wanted to give up on this series. I’m not afraid to give Death Note a 10/10, as it really deserves it. Thank you for getting me into non manga Light and L, hope you can do the same with other new people to the world of manga.