"Death Note" is an anime of two halves. Though saying that is a bit misleading since the two "halves" are unequal in size. The really good part of Death Note probably only extends as far as the first third of the series... and it's all downhill from then on. But, man, WHAT a good part it is! That section by itself is probably more than a match for the best parts of any anime I've ever watched, and is enough to catapult the anime into my personal A-list... and most other people's too, judging from its reception.
The opening episode wastes little time in setting up the scene, and though the premises may be a little gimmicky, and the dramatising occasionally over zealous (the main character Light writes with so much aggression and vigour, you'd half expect him to leave blazing trails of fire behind his pen), the intrigue and potential are there in buckets, and I was hooked straight way.
This probably isn't the first anime to ask controversial questions of justice and morality, of whether it's right for a person to take the law into his own hands and pass judgement onto others, but "Death Note" takes this concept and puts a fresh twist on it, and this twist comes in the form of the Light. Light is the protagonist of the show, but here's the catch - he's not the hero, he's the villain. He's a villain that unhesitatingly abuses that power that comes into his hands, and goes on a ruthless killing spree, all in the name of justice. And does the world become a better place as a result of his actions? It's a point that can be fiercely debated, but I actually think it does, and I think with some subtle changes Light can easily be portrayed as an anti-hero instead. Initially, he doesn't appear to be a completely bad guy, but power corrupts, and he seems to become less and less human as the series progressed, with his actions becoming more and more extreme. I think the series did a most excellent job at portraying his moral deterioration.
Light's popularity amongst the rabid fan community is only matched (and perhaps even exceeded) by his opposite number L, the autistic detective prodigy, who is put in charge of the investigation to find the person who's been killing off all the criminals (don't worry, this isn't really a spoiler - this all gets set up within like the first 2 episodes). A fascinating character in his own right, L glows with a strange kind of magnetism despite being, put it bluntly, a bit of a weirdo. I get the feeling that L is more concerned with solving the puzzle and winning the battle of wits rather than bringing a criminal to justice. On the surface, Light and L are very different, however, underneath there are striking similarities between their personalities. Perhaps counter intuitively, they're on opposite sides of this battle *because of* rather than despite of their similarities - add their stubborn competitiveness to their similarities and you naturally get the effects of mixing two volatile chemicals together. In the interest of the anime, the two are like a pairing made in heaven. Sparks begins to fly immediately - even before the two meets face to face - and the series explodes forth at a demonic pace. About 8 episodes in, I was thinking to myself "this is unbelievable... it's actually still getting better with each episode". My friends shared the same sentiment - at the rate it was going, it was heading towards being the best anime ever by miles... surely something had to give.
And unfortunately it did. Unable to sustain the astronomical increase in suspense and excitement, the anime soon peaked, and actually started going into decline before the Event-That-Was-Spoilt-For-Me... it's just that the drop was even steeper after that aforementioned event. Looking back on it, I guess it was inevitable, given that a lot of the fun parts came about because of the bizarre way the Death Note (the object, not the anime) operates, making Light fiendishly hard to catch. Once that trick is revealed, the anime was always gonna struggle to prevent the remaining story from becoming less interesting, even without taking into account the difficulty of matching the dizzying heights of the earlier episodes. Having said that, the revelation concerning the Death Note is not the culprit behind the anime's first sign of decline. The first decline was brought about by a development in the storyline that broke up the psychological cat-and-mouse game played between Light and L, a routine that had served the series so well up to that point. Instead, they went off to chase after some random villain that no one really cares about (this is also known as the Yotsuba arc). The whole mood of the anime changes for the worst from that point on. Not only had the tension almost completely broken, the anime also started fancying itself as some kind of cheap comedy, throwing in more and more "comic" moments, mostly involving that hugely irritating walking-fanservice-doll Misa Misa and that good-for-nothing Matsuda. Whilst previously, the occasional comic moments involving L seemed appropriate to his character and did not detract from the suspense, the new wave of comedy greatly grated on my nerves.
The somewhat dull Yotsuba arc eventually ended, and was soon followed by the Event-That-Was-Spoilt-For-Me (not that I'm bitter or anything), and though the incident itself was executed extremely well (with the exception of the foot massage scene aimed to provoke high pitched screaming from the fangirls), the series really takes a nose dive after that. What exactly went wrong in the final arc? Well, it's hard to know where to start - "Death Note" pretty much deteriorated in all aspects: First thing to note is that both the opening and ending theme turns into screaming rage metal (or whatever pretentiously named genre that brand of "music" is classed as) songs (and I use that word loosely) that are painful to the ears. No doubt it's an attempt to make the anime seem more "edgy". What a disaster that is - it certainly made me more edgy, frequently putting me in foul mood even before the episodes properly started. After that, there's the story that becomes totally unbelievable. Granted, even in the beginning, there were occasions in the storyline that bordered on the ridiculous (the whole farce involving Light and his packet of potato chips for example), but in the final part the it becomes so "out there" that the whole series starts to feel little surreal - that monkey business involving a stealth missile that's untrackable by satellite and launches from some secret underground base is just... I'm actually at a loss for words that can describe how ludicrous that is.
Then there's that set of oh-so-original new characters that gets introduced. Mellow and Near are just poor copies of L. What's with the "eccentric habits" that all these "genius kids" seem to have? With L, it all seems quite natural and original, but Mellow and L has to come along and spoil it all. Mellow's habit of munching chocolate is like a big sign saying "hey look! Obsessively eating chocolate is my unique vice!" Near is even worse, constantly playing with his toys despite his serious mannerisms. I mean, I can accept him playing puzzle games as those are mentally challenging to a certain degree, but... lego men?!? Whilst L's behaviour can be excused because of his childish streak, Near doesn't even look like he's enjoying playing with his kiddish toys. Like Mellow, it seems like he's only playing for the sake of doing something that would give him a distinguishing trait. Furthermore, L's methods for solving cases reminds me of Sherlock Holmes, because he explains every step in his thinking clearly and everything makes perfect logical sense. In comparison, Near is more like a character from some second-rate detective novel - a lot of the time he just seem to make mental leaps of faith without indicating how he made the logical connections. The overwhelming sense of intelligence and logic built up by the anime's fantastic early work starts to crumble at this point thanks to Near and his lucky guesses. Mellow and Near are just cheap copy cats that are inferior to L in just about every way - I had to nod in agreement when Light commented that they are nothing to compared to L. No doubt that, given the immense popularity of L, the creator attempted to replicate the success with these new characters. You know those bands that scores a huge hit with their debut single, and follow up with a couple of songs that are really similar to that first hit, but are no where near as good? Well, that's pretty much what Mellow and Near are. Just as those follow up singles often end up being flops, so too does Mellow and Near fall well short of capturing the viewers' imagination in the same way L did.
Not only does the new characters fail to impress, many old characters got worse: I mentioned earlier that Lights seems to get less and less human... well, what I didn't mention back then is that he seems to get more and more stupid too (one of the main causes for the psychological warfare losing it's earlier potency) - maybe mentally duelling with Near's lack of logic caused Light to become more retarded. Meanwhile Misa Misa evolves into Ultra Annoying Misa Misa (I didn't think it was possible for her to get any more annoying, so hats off for achieving this epic feat), and L... err... through no fault of his own, L's image kind of got cheapened by the mere presence of Mellow and Near. Yeah, that's how bad they are.
I guess all my ranting must have made the latter parts of Death Note seem absolute pants. But from a more objective point of view, it isn't. It did not fall much short of being decent even during the weakest points of the series. The series retained its strong dramatisation elements throughout. Epic background music aside, it often cleverly uses subtle sounds to create tension - one of my friends used one for his mobile phone ring tone, and everyone instantly recognised it... it just goes to show how powerful these little things can be. The fantastic use of colours to contrast between the opposing characters is still there, and the awesome artwork, especially the designs for the shinigumis, continues to impress. The disappointment is because the later parts fail to measure up against the lofty standard set by the first - the fact that it felt so bad says more about the utter brilliance of its first arc than anything else. By the sheer merit of the first arc alone, Death Note manages to justify all the hype surrounding it, THAT'S how good it is. If you haven't seen this yet, well, where have you been?!
