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What would you do if you had a Death Note? What if somebody just started murdering every single criminal out there? These are the questions Death Note answers, or more accurately, lets you answer for yourself. Death Note is amazing. I don't even know where to start. The art is fantastic, I love it. Character models are quite detailed and animation is pretty good. I can't stop listening to the soundtrack. The songs are varied and the only song that was out of place was the second opening, which sucked by the way. It is just so out of place. But those are just 2 songs (the ending one as well) so I don't care as much (The first opening is amazing, I just want to clarify that. It's my ringtone as of the time I am writing this review). L's theme, Light's theme, Low of Solipsism, the Death Note theme itself... so many great songs. But now to the more important part - the story. The story is suspensful, unique, with many plot twists. It is morally grey. It doesn't tell you "this is good, that is bad". The characters are sooooooo good! L is seriously one of the best characters ever in fiction. He is just so unique and is very inspiring. Light Yagami is also very unique. The other characters also are good. Ryuuk, Matsuda, Aizawa. Each character has their own backstory and personality, as well as motivations. They also have their own morals and they do have some evil in them. Death Note has times for comic relief, by the way. But it just fits. It's not over-the-top blood coming out of people's noses things (aside from one part...), it is actually quite dark in its humour as well at times. It also uses a lot of symbolism. But it's not the annoying "Look how smart we are, we can do symbolism" type of stuff they teach in schools. No, it actually helps the atmosphere and story. It uses a lot of religious symbolism, for example, and is amusing and not pretentious. The plot moves at a perfect pace. The first half of the anime at least. The first part of the anime is a masterpiece. The second is pretty good but... there are flaws.
The pacing is all over the place. It is just too fast. The first one let the characters get amazing character development. And I mean all of them. The second one just rushes everything. Seriously, you have no time to think anything through and is unnecessarily confusing. The character of Mello I liked, but he isn't developed much, as mentioned previously. Near was just alright. Maybe even mediocre. He is just an L rip-off. He might be more interesting in the manga but we're talking about the anime here. And he just comes off as an L rip-off here. The ending, I thought wasn't bad in theory but there were some badly executed things. That song at the end RUINED IT! Seriously, who in their right mind put a song which sounds more fitting for a Disney animated classic in such a dark and twisted story?! Now this is pretentious and stupid. It also left a lot of questions left to be answered. Too many. I'd talk about it more but I want to avoid spoilers.
Also, Misa. She is annoying. And I mean very, very annoying. She is a bit okay at times but in the end just ruins the dark, mysterious feeling of the anime and makes all "kawaii" and crap.
Overall, Death Note is no doubt an amazing anime. The first half is, again, a masterpiece. The second is pretty good but is not as good as the first. You just want to watch more. You can't stop. I'm still obsessed with it.
