Plot-- This anime follows the story of Light Yagami, an innocent high school student with the top grades in class. Although he does seem like a typical "innocent" teenager at the beginning, he's really not. After his classes one day, he finds a black notebook on the ground reading 'Death Note.' He thought it was a complete joke, but he decided to try it out anyway, and took it home. After he finds out he can kill people and that the notebook is real, he feels like he can bring justice to the world. While he's busy plotting his next victims, there is somebody that will do anything to figure out what is causing all these deaths. Enter L, the Japanese Police Force's top detective who has never left a case unsolved. 'L' is an alias of course, because the top detective in Japan is bound to have people come after him. He also goes by the aliases Hideki Ryūga, Eraldo Coil, Ryuzaki, and Deneuve. According to the outsiders, they're all completely different people, but they're mistaken. As L works with the police force, he stays secluded and continuously moves to prevent anybody from finding him. No spoilers, but as the anime goes on, the situations for the police force are getting harder to deal with, which will obviously work to Light's advantage.
Art-- Although the art is not above and beyond, it is done exceptionally well. It's done well enough to where you can tell what's going on, but another thing the art does quite well is expressing each characters' emotions at a certain point at any given moment in the story. It very well illustrates their emotions by their face and their body as well. Even though L is expressionless most of time, you're still able to tell what he's feeling for the most part. I really enjoyed the art, because it does a great job of distinguishing all of the characters' personalities, whether it be spontaneous and happy or serious and hard-working.
Sound-- I checked out both the English dubbed and Japanese versions of the anime. The voice actors in the English one seemed like they were absolutely perfect for the voice of that character. Each of their voices also did exceptionally well depicting the characters' personalities and emotions as well. As for the Japanese version, the voice actors were chosen very well too. In both versions, it's very easy to tell what the character is feeling. Now, for the background music. I thought each soundtrack was very well-placed to express the tensity of each moment. Some of the background music they placed into the anime does sound a bit strange, but either way, it still does a wonderful job of getting the point across to the viewer.
Characters-- Although there were a few characters I didn't like out of mere opinion, I can't say that I hated how any of the characters were done and portrayed. The personalities of every single character were very well shown throughout the whole entire anime. Almost all of the major and minor characters stick with you until the end of the anime; they don't just randomly disappear for an unknown reason. If a character does happen to die, they make sure to emphasize it just enough to where you wouldn't forget it. It is easy for many people to develop strong attachments and relations to the characters because of the way they have been portrayed, and how each of them fit into the story. There are absolutely no filler episodes for telling a characters' background or anything, yet the creators still did an outstanding job of letting you understand what was going on with each character.
Overall, this was one of my favorite animes. This was also the first anime I had ever watched, and it was the one that got me absolutely addicted to anime. The plot and characters were very wonderfully done, and the details were impressive. The creators of this anime made sure every detail of it was easy to understand, yet insanely interesting to the point where you could never stop watching it. If you haven't watched this yet, you should really give it a try.
