The story in death note revolves around Light Yagami, and outsanding student (smartest of Japan) who is pretty bored by school. A Shinigami (God of Death) named Ryuk drops his Death Note in to the earth world. The Death Note is a notebook in which you can write names to kill people in whichever way you like. Light finds the book and tries to use it to kill every criminal in the world to make the world a better place. Soon, the best detective in the world mysteriously named L finds out about the killings, and sets up a task force to catch the killer. After that it becomes a battle of L finding Light and the other way around, containing all kinds of plot twists, and never stops entertaining.
Story.
Although the story revolves around a few set main characters, the side-characters switch constantely through the story. Although the plot-twists sometimes go a bit to far in my opinion, that's about the only negative thing I can say about the story. The suspense is amazing, as the plot-twists keep you on your toes as nothing is impossible. The battle between L and Light is a battle of two extremely smart people, and therefore lots of really smart plans are plotted which adds to the suspense even more. This makes the anime very exciting, from beginning to end. Also I must say that it's outstanding that the story is evenly good all the way, it has no ups and downs.
Visuals.
The visuals are one of the best, if not the best I've ever seen in a series. Dead-on quality animation combined with extreme eye for detail. It clearly shows the expression of every person, which gives you a clear idea of what they are feeling and thinking. A great example of this is Light when he is handling the notebook; he looks really angelic when he talks to others, but when he's on his own he looks like the devil.
Voice Acting
Original: The voice-acting in the original are done beautifully. Light and L express the emotions very well. Again Light has the possibility to sound very angelic, but when he's alone he speaks of his "new world" with a lot of evil sounding passion. The other side characters are not all as well done as the main characters, but no one is annoying or bad. In general the voice acting differs between some of the best I've ever heard and just very good.
Dub: The Engish dub is not as good as the original, but that does not make it bad by any means. Light takes a bit of time to get used to, but when you are he's still pretty good. L is dead-on, and so are some of the side characters. In the end I recommend the Sub over the Dub, but if you want to watch subs (because you watch at night, or you have problems with reading or anything like that) I wouldn't say you shouldn't watch it at all, just get the dub.
Sound.
The Sound in Death Note is the best sound I've heard in anime. The sound always adds to the suspense. Also it's never annoying or in the way of the story or visuals, it just perfectly fits in.
Re-Watch Value.
The re-watch value of death note is there to some extend, however it is one of the weakest points of death note (not that that says anything). You surely want to see the series another time, however not more than once or twice. The reason to rewatch it is because you can only see the real beauty of the story after the second time, also you'd want to rewatch it because of the ingenious plans the main characters make. However the problem with the story is that the plot twists and therefore the tension is gone after the first time.
Recommendation.
I recommend everyone to watch Death Note. Even if you are not an anime fan, you're probably still going to like it. If you haven't seen it (which is unlikely if your on this site) go watch it. NOW!
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