Anime Review: Death Note

This weeks blog is about an Anime series that I really like called Death Note. Before I write what I like about the anime series, I'll give some background info on the series.

So this series is set in modern day Japan and it revolves around the main character called Light Yagami. Light is a normal high school student that is at the top of his class and number one student in all of Japan. Because he's so smart, everything seems boring and dull to him. But he also thinks about the world and how bad some people actually are; he thinks that the world would be better off if all the bad people died. This would mean no more war or unnecessary deaths and a much happier world.

Light/Kira

Then there is another character that is also very important to the series because he's the one that sets everything in motion. His is is Ryuk and he's a Shinigami (Soul Reaper). He is a lot like Light in the sense that he is also bored with life. He doesn't live in the human world, he lives in the Shinigami world which is an alternate dimension. The soul reapers that live there don't really do much, and Ryuk thinks that he has to do something to entertain himself. So he decides to drop a Death Note onto the human world.

Ryuk

A Death Note is something really simple yet interesting. In the anime series, the soul reapers don't kill human just because they can, they do it so that they (the soul reapers) won't die. Whenever a soul reaper kills a human, the left over time that they still had to live gets added onto the lifespan of the shinigami. So as long as the soul reapers keep killing, they won't die. But they don't kill humans with a scythe or a weapon of any kind, they simply write the human's name on a book called a Death Note. Each Shinigami has one Death Note, but Ryuk somehow managed to get his hands on two of them.

So when Ryuk decides to drop one of his Death Notes on to the human world, it lands in Japan at the same High School that Light is attending. Light sees the notebook and picks it up thinking that someone must've lost it. He flips through the notebook and finds instructions on how to use the book to kill people. At first he thinks that its a hoax, kind of like the chain letters that we all get from time to time. But he gets curious about the book and decides to try it out for himself and see if it actually works.

But he's careful as to pick his first victim. He doesn't want it to be someone that he knowns because it would attract to much attention. So he decides to kill a man that he sees on the news that is holding some students and a teacher hostage at a nearby school. He writes the name of the criminal, and 40 seconds later (just like the book says) the criminal died of a heart attack. He thinks that it might've been a coincidence so he decides to test it one once more. He decides to help a woman that is being harassed by a group of bikers. 40 seconds after writing the name of the head of the bike gang, the man dies.

Light is convinced that the book is real and he can finally put his plan to work. In the past, he was only able to think about what would happen if all the bad people died, but now it would be a reality. Light would make the world a better place and eventually become the God of the new world he creates. Since Light is the owner of the notebook, Ryuk has to be with Light at all times. But Ryuk is not there to help Light, hes there to be entertained and because he has no other choice. Light starts to kill criminals everyday in an effort to get his plan into motion. People start to notice that a lot of criminals are dying, and everyone is scared of doing anything wrong. They automatically assume that someone somewhere must be doing it and people start calling that person Kira.

But all the killings also grab the attention of the worlds best detective known simply as L. He has selved numerous cases in the past, and has never left a case unsolved. Since all the killings are occurring in Japan, he assumes that the killer or Kira must be a Japanese person. There's not much to say about L, besides that he is a very peculiar person.

L

So L and Kira have a battle between each other. Kira is trying to change the world, L is trying to put him behind bars. They have to outsmart each other in an epic battle of wit and deception where the slightest mistake can get one of them killed. And Ryuk, the one that is responsible for everything, is just standing by laughing at the humans.

That is the basic background of the series. There is a manga series that ran for 13 volumes and the TV series that ran for 37 episodes. The anime series does a great job at sticking to the manga, so no matter which one you take up, the story is pretty much the same. This is a great series, but I can't say that I liked the ending. I won't say what it is, but you should watch it and decide for your self if its good or not.

If you've watched/read this series, please let me know what you think about it.

Thanks for reading.