Imagine one day you come across a notebook, but it’s not like those notebooks that you can buy at the nearest bookstore for a buck or two. By writing someone’s name on that notebook, you can kill that someone. What would you do? Would you kill those people who bully you during your grade school? Would you kill those who rejected you when you confessed your love? Or would you…?

The story of Death Note starts when a perfect student, appearance-wise and intelligence-wise, Yagami Light comes across the Death Note, a Shinigami’s (God of Death, literally) notebook. On Death Note, an instruction of how to use the Death Note is written in English language. Light, being curious, tries to write a criminal’s name onto the Death Note, and much to his disbelief, the criminal dies. Light then vows to rid the world of evil to make a better world, he executes every criminal under the alias of Kira (Japanese interpretation for the English word “killer”). Fast forward for a few weeks, the polices begin to notice there are unusual deaths going among the criminals, they then decide to bring in the legendary detective L to track down whoever is killing the criminals. Although it is true that the criminal rate has gone down drastically ever since Kira shows up, L believes that Kira is promoting peace in the wrong way.

First of all, I have to say that the art is really well-drawn. Although it is tagged as shounen and most of the time it shows guys, the girls are really well drawn as well. The art style in this anime is really suitable for the genre. The art tries to be as “anime-like” as possible while maintaining its realistic and mysterious quality. I personally think there isn’t any better-suited drawing style for Death Note.

I like to think that I’m an audiophile myself, and I find this anime really interesting sound-wise. The background music, which slides in every now and then, will allow you to feel the suspense and keep you on the edge of your seat. The voice actors/actresses are also very good. The VA for the shinigamis really hits the spot with their hoarse voices. For the OP/ED songs, I personally believe they could find a better band to sing them. I find the OP/ED songs really weak in terms of dragging the viewers deeper into the show.

The characters are very unique and varied. Light won’t bat an eye when he is killing other people, L likes to sit with his legs raised on the chair. Light and L are pretty much opposite in everything they do, but they both don’t like losing, and they will do practically anything to avoid it. Other characters, like Amane Misa, which will be introduced later as the anime goes, is also very unique. Out of all the characters in the anime, I personally find L very interesting.

Death Note is one of those animes that require a bit of thinking in order for you to fully understand what’s going on. It’s really interesting to see how Kira and L try to outsmart one another, and it’s even more interesting when you can actually understand why they do what they do. That aside, if you are looking for some easy-viewing anime without any thinking, Death Note definitely is not your cup of tea.

For those of you romance-lovers: although Death Note does provide some romance, (and by some, I totally meant little to none) expect to see Light doing some romantic manipulation scenes instead of lovey-dovey scenes.

Bottom line, I really enjoyed this anime, and I will recommend this to almost anyone out there with decent comprehension level. Although this anime is relatively old (it was released in 2006), I feel the need to review this anime since I think this anime is hands-down one of the best animes out there. If you like those animes which require you to think, give this anime a shot and let me know what you think below! Oh, my personal favorite character is L, what’s yours?