Death Note

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I really want to sit here and say "This is one of the best mangas that exist and you ABSOLUTELY should be reading it." It would be so easy to leave it there, and move on.

But I can't, I just simply can't. However Death Note starts off as one of the best mangas ever made. A big piece of it is that the manga breaks a lot of bounds. Instead of focusing on the backstory of a character, the main character gets a Death Note, a book that will let people write names in it that will kill ... people, and then starts doing so.

What truly works here though is the main character, Light Yagami, is smart, charismatic and interesting, instead of seeing his day to day life, we can just accept it exists and the focus becomes around the Death Note and how it has changed the main character as well as how he protects it. Right from the get go, Light knows the power he holds and continues to wield it in a way that says he's taking precautions.

And then before the second chapter is over, we have an enigmatic L who directly challenges the main character (known by the public as "Kira") and from there Light and Kira compete to find each other. Now this would be a spoiler in most manga, but this is just two chapters into Death Note and Death Note keeps this accelerated pace for the entire 108 chapters. There are a couple weaker choices, but the competition between L and Kira is exceptionally well done, and more importantly keeps the readers attention because the writers change up the formula more than readers will expect at first.

But that's all great, and honestly, this is just a top notch manga... so what goes wrong?

Well eventually the competition between L and Kira finally change, about half way through, and the follow up never really reaches the same heights, I don't wish to go into spoilers, but it's sufficient to say the level of "play" between the opponents in the second part of the manga never can reach the height of the first. It would be possible, but the changes made make for a weaker story. It's a shame, because I would read the first part a million times, it's just that good and well written, but I can't help but notice how little the desire to reread the second part, and that's a shame.

Should you read Death Note? Absolutely, at least the first part. In fact I'd probably recommend people reading the entire manga at least once, it'd be hard to stop, but this will always be half of a perfect manga... and that's a shame, because it could have easily been just a perfect manga.

Death Note is a series that will always be held in a high regard but still gets a lot of shit thrown at the second half of the story. For any new readers to the story it is important to note that while it is fast paced and feels really meticulously thought out, the second part of book is kind of slowed down to an extent, at least for Light Yagami. I wasn't the biggest fan of Near but thought that L (Ryuzaki) was a fun arc of the story. Reading this in 2023 or watching is definitely a good idea but there should be ... no shame in stopping about half way. Great story with great characters, however the ending drops off a lot, it definitely has its fans but be cautious when finishing the story.

This manga is for edgelords. While it has a strong beginning that I actually like, everything after that is pretty predictable, so I feel like I'm reading some high schooler's essay that starts with a good hook and the rest is bullshit. I feel embarrassed recommending it to people because it's so misanthropic. It's better than watching tv but that's not a high bar to get over IMO.

The main character being so weak and cornered almost every time he talks to the police makes him look pathetic. That one scene where the hero says he was "never so embarrassed in his life" after the school ... graduation sums up my feelings about him.