Anime Review: Death Note

Death Note was first a manga created by Tsugumi Ohba a very mysterious author whose identity and even gender has not been revealed. None the less Tsugumi Ohba is very much praiseworthy, because Death Note was the first manga he had created and it got serialised by the  famous "Weekly Shounen Jump". Most authors first ever manga's ussually do not perform well, however creating a story like "Death Note" has led him or her unparalled fame and success, what a genius eh? Anyway it began from December 2003 and ended May 2006 with 12 volumes in total.

Now the manga was already quite popular in the Weekly Shounen Jump, but when it was adapted to an anime, the popularity exploded. The Animation Company "Madhouse" took Death Note and adapted the manga into a 37 episode long anime series that ran from October 2006 to June 2007. Finnally when everybody thought Death Note could not gain any more popularity a Live Action Film was made by Shusuke Kaneko that was released June 17 2006. With the release of the movie the Death Note franchise had finnally broken though the roof and truly became "iconic".

The story centers around a young, intelligent and Handsome highschooler named Light Yagami. He is a bored individual getting the highest scores on tests and dating all the prettiest girls in school. However life suddenly becomes more intresting when he finds a black book named "Death Note". When he touches this book a shinigimi appear named Ryuk, Light is first hesitant but eventually believes what he is seeing is real. Ryuk explains how to use the Death Note for Lights own deeds. The Death Note can kill anybody, anywehere and at anytime. With such power Lights already Huge Ego and Personality develops a "God Complex", his mission is to clense the world of all evil by punishing criminals. However the worlds greatest detective is having none of it. A mysterious man named "L" puts his life on the line to bring the killer named "Kira" which the public has named Light, to justice. A deadly game of cat and mouse has been started and the shinigimis look down upon the world laughing...

Right lets disect the plot. For too long has action manga's dominated the Weekly Shounen Jump, a mystery manga on the level of Death Note changed all that. As a mystery manga it is very well written, though it is simply not complex enough to become truly great worthy. The plot did not advance to far ahead or became to ambigious for the common manga reader to understand, no it kept a steady flow throughout. "Cat and Mouse" fiction is decided upon the cunning and tactics the characters use to outwit eachother and In Death Note it has acomplished this successfully. We have Light a guy who scores perfect marks on exams, his antagonist will have to be just as smart, if not more, the man named "L". In the beggining of the manga "L" and Light are simply dancing around eachother. Its not until when L and Light join forces does the anime lieft off. The term "keep your friends close but your enemys closer" could not be any more explored then this anime.

The tricks that Light and L use against each other are ingenious using deception and cunningness that the reader cannot simply predict. As the episodes roll on the excitement levels rises, the characters get to the point when even the smallest slip up will give the entire thing away! Then we get to the climatic end of the halfway point of the anime. Of course this is a spoiler, but most fans will agree that Death Note simply never reached the same level as it did in the first half compared to the second half. They say the characters in the second half simply did not match up to the previous original. However characters are born, and they die, the story must continue. So the story did continue but not up to the same standard. Then we have the finale of Death Note, the end has been reached at last. Are we left with an empty feeling? or do we feel satisfied after being taken on a rollercoaster? In the end, the plot was thrilling and exciting wasn't?

Light Yagami: Now the problem with Death Note and its characters was that it only had a few amazing personalites, and the others characters just failed in comparison. Thats what happens when you have few superior character roles. However Light is the first superior character and he proves himself as a analytical genius who is an amazing tactition who always plans ahead. It is funny because he is the protagonist OF the story, yet he is the antagonist IN the story. However his "God Complex" was very off putting for me, he would never hesitate killing people close to him. The Death Note has driven him insane with power and he is losing his grip on humanity. Even though I dislike his character, I respect the complexity of his design as being very "refreshing". Still he was way too arrogant and cocky for his own good, nothing was every enough for him, he really wanted to kill every criminal on the planet no matter what crime too small.

L Lawliet: I am going to jump onto the "bandwagon" and say I tottally admire L's character, he by far has the best personality and overall character. When I first heard he was the "worlds greatest detective" I thought first that he was arrogant. However after seeing just how well he inteprets and solves the case of Kira I am proven wrong on my first impression. It's like L is simply just a brain, his entire body and way of life is to excercise his brain. The way he dresses, the way he sits, even the way he eats is all to stimulate his mind. With such a complex mind only he could match up to Kira, and yet again its funny becayse he is the antagonist of Death Note. The bad qualites about him is he is a "mad dog" he will continually stalk his prey and will not back down until he is proven right. He is the opposite of Light but decides sometimes killing ciminals to test the death note is needed. This is not a bad thing he just wants to achieve justice, anyway possible even if it is immoral.

Misa Amane: Personally I could not stand Misa's character, she was the definition of a boisterous brat who wanted Light no matter what state the world is in. It is such a one sided relationship yet even though Misa understands this she never gives up, until Light accepts her love. Even though this is very loyal and devoted, it is borderline annoying when she is constantly thinking about him. I like the parts when she had amnesia in the story, she hardly talked then. I understand how in the past she thinks Kira saved her life and thats how her love developed, but she is so misguided. Misa would jump off a cliff if Light said so, and this type of character is just not unique enough. If Light was not around her character would essentially cease to exist because I view her as a support character. To improve her character she needed to make decisions that even Light with his God Complex would be proud of, it would never happen but thats what would do it. Misa needs to live her own life basically.

I was VERY suprised when I first saw the animation level for Death Note, it was quite high quality. The opening scene shows a huge amount of graphical detail and digital art blended with that rocking music made the whole image very appealing. There is a great deal of shadow and dark tones used in the animation which makes it flow very nicely. The key animation points I love is when the scenes when Light and L have frozen in time and they are only thinking of eachother. The world is stil around them, Light has a red aura while L a blue one and the animation makes the scene out of this world. It is actually quite difficult to shunt the level of animation quality, im thinking back to it and almost every scene had great consistent animation. Just look how menacing Light looks above in the screencap from the anime, reading from the manga I never thought they could capture how evil Light was. However the animation had animated the expressions in the characters faces amazingly and was truly a polished job.

Now lets talk about the fanbase shall we? When an anime or manga gains enough popularity to have a huge fanbase, people will watch the anime depending on the state of the community. A good example is naruto, which has millions of fans world wide, and its filled with naruto tards, hence naruto gets a bad name becayse of their fanbase. However Death Note is different, it has 2 key intresting groups of the fanbase. The first is the intellectual fan base that talks about morals or tactics in Death Note. An intellectual fanbase is good reading material and reliable what many animes lack in size. The second however is the yaoi fanbase between Light and L, my gosh it is larger then you think. The amount of fan fictions and fanart on them is absurd and disturbing. Anyway the manga had a good sizable fan base when it was mainstream in the weekly shoenen jump. When it became an anime the fanbase exploded and people were flocking to see the anime because it was the new "big thing".

Finnally when the movie was release not just anime watchers became intrested in Death Note, but the whole world. Naruto, Bleach and One Piece have been ruling the modern of anime lately because of their weekly mainstream episodes and enormous fanbases. However Death Note managed to squeeze into the shoenen holy trinity while it was still running. When the anime ended the fanbase started despersing looking for new animes, but when the movie was released everyone came back. Now currently the Death Note fanbase is in the state of remembrance, because there is no sequels, no new content, the death note franchise has retired. However there is still one medium that exists in the anime society and that is cosplaying. Death Note cosplays became the "Damn I don't have a cosplay for the convention, I shall just wear some normal clothes to resemble Light or L" kind of cosplays. When you go to a convention it is impossible to not see a Death Note cosplayer. The anime of Death Note might have ended but the people who cosplay them will never end!

Many people who have reviewed Death Note has given it a 9/10 or a 10/10, however I am safe saying I believe it is a 9/10 anime. I was considering given it a 10/10 but I got myself thinking "what has it done to merit it a perfect mark?" You see the plot, even though very exciting and intellectual is medicore at most when compared to more intense mystery animes or manga's. If I compared the mystery level of Death Note, to Urasawa's Monster, 20th Century Boys or Pluto, heck it makes it seem like a childrens novel! A true excellent plot remains consistent throughout, and death note had lost its momentum after the time skip half way through the anime. The characters as I said simply do not have a wide selection of intresting personalities. We have Light and L, together they are the greatest of personalites, and everybody else fails compared to them. You need a good range of characters that are appealing and creative. However the animation was top notch, no faults on that. In the end Death Note was never really one of the best animes I have ever seen, it was certaintly good to watch though.