Death Note is one of the most critically and commercially acclaimed anime of all time, and it absolutely deserves to be so. It's an incredibly thrilling experience consisting of many marvelous twists and turns that never fail to amaze the viewers, and some of the greatest cat and mouse chases in all of media.
Story (9)
Light Yagami, a genius highschool student bored by his surroundings, finds a notebook called "Death Note" where if one writes the name of a person while imagining their face, that person will die within the given time. Light, disgusted by the heinous crimes happening everywhere, uses the Death Note to kill criminals and eradicate injustice, and ultimately become the God of his new world. After Light starts his killing spree, the police soon discover that a serial killer is anonymously murdering a lot of criminals without being present at the crime scene. Feeling hopeless at their current situation, they seek the help of a strange and anonymous individual by the name of L, the best detective in the entire world.
Death Note follows Light and L, two extraordinarily intelligent individuals, as they try to outwit each other and come out as the victor in perhaps the greatest battle of intellect in mankind's history.
The premise of Death Note is simple yet very intriguing, and easily manages to to attract the interest of viewers—irrespective of their age and preferences. The narrative is amazingly constructed. The prime attraction of the story are the intellectual encounters between Light and L, which are all extremely thrilling to watch for how competitive they are. Every part of the story contains a fair amount of turns and twists that could easily come off as ridiculous and over-exaggerated, but they never do because of the effortless execution, the sombre atmosphere, and the brilliance of the two main leads.
The first half of the anime is a total masterpiece, but the second half is a bit underwhelming in my opinion. L's death is the catalyst for an entire new half, which would've been better to avoid in my opinion. In all honesty, the second half is really entertaining in of itself, but it just fails to reach the peaks of the first half that made it so phenomenal. The absence of L, along with the story becoming a bit messy at times, slightly downgrades the second half. It's not that I hate Near, but I find L to be a lot more interesting individual and fairly more competent as an opponent of Light than him. However, the amazing conclusion to the show does redeem these flaws quite a lot.
Art (10)
Death Note's animation is superb. Madhouse did an excellent job with it as they always do. The portrayal of the mind games going on between Light and L and other events are atmospheric, which make some scenes a lot more immersive and intense. Also, you know that the animation is marvelous when even something as boring as eating chips can be dramatic and intense. (I know the meme is dead, but I used it anyway.)
Barring sarcasm, the animation of Death Note really is astounding. So I'm bound to give it a 10/10.
Sound (10)
While most shows have considerably decent, or at least passable, openings and endings, their background music and such usually suffer from negligence. Death Note is an exception. It's one of the very few shows that actually take proper care of the entirety of their score. One of the soundtrack's outstanding feature is its variety of music genres. I would say it's very difficult to not even find a single song you like because of how varied and beautiful the soundtrack is. I honestly think Death Note has the best soundtrack of any media that I've watched to date.
The voice acting is also really amazing. Both the subbed and the English dubbed versions are splendid, which is a very rare occurence in anime. All the voice actors of the show are immensely skilled and perform magnificently well. Be it the maniacal Light or the bizarre L—nobody ever fails to impress with their performance.
Character (10)
Death Note gives enough time to develop all the characters in the anime adequately so that the viewers can stay invested in them. Most of the characters in the anime have distinct but believable personalities which make them very unique.
The most outstanding of all the characters are, of course, our two main leads: Light and L. While extremely overpowered characters can become problematic and cause a lot issues regarding story and character development, in case of Death Note, it's rather extremely effective. It's because of their intelligence that their encounters are always so thrilling to watch. Their spectacular cat and mouse chases are easily one of my favorite moments in all of media. Their intellectual battles are also brilliantly depicted, which make them really compelling.
Other characters besides these two aren't unremarkable either. They are all very adeptly written to help move the story forward. Most of them are decently developed throughout the entire show. Even Matsuda, who seems to be very useless and idiotic, has a bunch of redeeming qualities to him. Many people seem to hate Near, but I personally don't dislike him that much. He isn't as great as L, but he is still a decent character in my opinion.
Enjoyment (10)
Watching Death Note for the first time was like a new experience to me. I felt a wide variety of emotions while watching it. I never had this sort of experience watching any kind of show before. I wasn't able to finish the whole anime in one watch the first time I watched it, because I had to take breaks to finish my chores. Even when I wasn't watching Death Note, I couldn't but think about what would happen in the next episode. I was emotionally invested in the characters. I cared about them a lot, and I still do. And alhough the second half of Death Note is worse than the first half, I think the ending does make up for it.
The enjoyment of watching Death Note for the first time is incomparable, but I still had a lot of fun re-watching the whole series recently. So I'll give Death Note a 10/10 in terms of enjoyment.
Overall (10)
To conclude, Death Note is an amazing show to say the least. Not only did I get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but the show also made me contemplate a lot about my morals and beliefs, the concept of what is right and what is wrong, and lots of other things. Although there are few slight flaws prevalent in the second half, I can't but give Death Note an overall score of 10/10 since most aspects of the show are absolutely stunning.
If any of you still haven't watched Death Note for some reason, you should definitely give it a try. I assure you that even if you aren't a big fan of psychological thrillers, you'll at least find a few things that you will love from this anime.
