Death Note is 37 episode supernatural thriller series, based on the manga of the same name by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. It is directed by Tetsuro Araki, animated by studio Madhouse. Death Note is a legendary anime, known by pretty much every anime fan there is. Does it meet it's lofty ambitions, or is it a product of overhyped fanboyism?
Story: Our story follows Light Yagami, a brilliant Japanese honor student suffering from something we can all relate to. Boredom. One day, he finds a notebook on the ground, and find that any persons name he writes in it, will die. Most people would use it only for their own personal gain, but Light is a little different. He vows to kill all who commit violent crimes and go on living, seeing himself as a God. When the police catch on that someone is actively killing these criminals, the detective L comes in to solve the case. What proceeds is a battle of minds between L and Light, each trying to track down and kill the other. It's a very fun battle to watch, although it was obvious at some points in the series that they are just written to figure out things they couldn't possibly know, but that wasn't a problem. L and Light both offer interesting perspectives on the idea, "I it okay to kill someone who killed others" and there is lots of grey here. All the cast is incredibly charming and memorable, L in particular I really liked. Misa, I guess one could call her the main heroine, also deserves a mention for always getting a laugh out of me. The second half of the series kinda goes downhill, but it still manages to draw you in. The ending is great, the perfect way to end it in my opinion. 8/10
Animation: The animation in the series is quite good, I especially like what they did in deductions, where the background will fade to black and the character will be colored differently. It's a really cool effect, one they use frequently, and it adds a lot to the scenes where they are just thinking, without much else happening.
The openings look really good, with tons of style and symbolism everywhere, which I love. However, as much as I like the animation, the colors look extremely muted at times, weirdly so. There are some super dumb faces the characters make in the series, especially towards the end. And despite it being good at what it does, it doesn't do anything spectacular. Animation gets 8/10
Sound: Really good performances from the whole cast, the main three, Light, L, and Misa, in particular gave really good lines that killed me, delivery alone. The dub is decent, but nothing incredible, I stick to the Japanese on this one. The music for all the opening and endings are really memorable, and I listened to them long after the series was over. Great sound design all over, with a few memorable tracks. The L theme, as well as the main theme of the series stook out to me. Sound gets 9/10.
Overall: Death Note is a wicked enjoyable series that I can recommend to anyone. It might not be the best anime ever, but it's still a great watch. This series functions quite well as a gateway anime, an anime to show someone who hasn't watched anime before to get them into the medium. I give Death Note 8.3/10.
Death Note is available on DVD from VIZ media, and is on Netlix and Hulu