This is a review of the entire series.

Light Yagami is an academic prodigy with a bright future ahead of him. He's highly regarded by his family, friends, teachers and classmates for his strong social presence and his level-headed genius demeanor. Despite seeming to be destined for great things, he's bored out of his mind, uninterested in daily life and disgusted with all the crime and corruption going on in the world. No matter how hard he works and how far he strives, he can't shake the feeling that the world is rotten and someone needs to step in and change it.

While sitting in class one fateful day, Light spies a black book falling from the sky as he gazes out the window in dissatisfaction. Out of curiosity, Light takes the book back home and studies the strange rules written within it. It boldly declares that anyone's name that is written in the notebook will die. Light writes down the name of a wanted criminal as a joke, only for the criminal to die on live television right before his eyes. Light soon realizes that the power of a god of death is in his hands, and if anyone can correct the wrongs of the world it's him. With the Death Note at his disposal, he vows to rid the world of evil.

As thousands of criminals begin to die within mere days, the FBI contacts the greatest detective the world has ever known who goes by the alias of L. L knows how to tap into the mind of a petty and narcissistic crook that never admits defeat better than anyone because he claims to have the mind of one himself. He employs any methods necessary to catch his target, breaking them down piece by piece until they finally slip up and get themselves caught. He's hot on Light's heels and starts to put the pressure on him by setting up dozens of intellectual traps for him to fall into. When pushed to the breaking point, Light begins to reveal his true colors.

This series is clever, dark, full of suspense and makes great use of metaphorical religious themes and imagery. It’s a look into what happens when dangerous power falls into the hands of a gifted young man that thinks he's got the world all figured out and needs to change it through excessive force. Light is a collected, highly skilled and incredibly smart ace student with the powerful urge to make the world a better place, but he's also a selfish narcissist that will do anything to make his dream a reality, even if it means killing hundreds of innocent people if they try to get in the way of his morally flawed goal. He's not nearly as noble or mature as he often tricks people into believing he is. He's a vile manipulator that treats his fellow humans like chess pieces.

Light becomes corrupted by the power to choose when people die and we are subjected to watching what seemed to be an idealistic young hero slowly reveal himself to be a narcissistic sociopath with a god complex. Light is cunning and charismatic, yet he’s also petty, spiteful and capable of causing mass destruction if he's pushed into a corner. L is also petty and spiteful, which makes them perfect intellectual opponents that battle each other through intense mind games. The entire first half of the series is a fantastic psychological thriller with two super geniuses constantly trying to outwit each other.

The second half of the series isn't nearly as good as the first as it loses the psychological thriller elements in exchange for a more dark, action movie vibe. It's still good all the way through, but it definitely loses some of its magic in the second half because the stakes constantly try to escalate higher and higher until things begin to spiral out of control. I much preferred the more self-contained psychological narrative of Light vs L over the explosive and chaotic nature of the Light vs the entire world arc. Death Note truly shined when it was just Light playing intense mind games with a small group of characters that were on his intellectual playing field.

That being said, Death Note is one of the first manga series I've ever read and it feels nice to see that one of my old favorites still mostly holds up to my modern standards after so much time has passed since I first read it. It's honestly worth reading for the first half alone as it feels like a complete story in its own right, but the second half still has a few surprises despite not being quite as good. In terms of crime/thriller manga, I would say Monster and 20th Century Boys by Naoki Urasawa are more up to par.

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4

4.5 stars

Just as strong, if not stronger than the anime.

I was actually surprised by how quickly this volume escalated; maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve watched the series, but Light’s usage of the Death Note and the plot overall sure moved quick! Not that it was a bad thing...it definitely kept me hooked! I just hope the momentum can keep up through the rest of the volumes (and I’ve heard some of the later volumes aren’t great...).

I’ve always loved this series’s exploration of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and how far you can take doing something bad for a seemingly good cause before you take it too far or lose your humanity.

21/03/2020

Watching the anime again because ... quarantine?!

This is probably my third time watching it. It NEVER gets old!

Let me start this way - this has to be one of the best stories of my life. A friend of mine told me about the anime when we were still in high school and I remember vividly how reticent I was going into this. Yes, I am guilty of watching the anime first, but, what can I say in my defense? I was younger and stupid, and in my immediate circle of acquaintances I am still the only one who's reading... So... Not feeling so guilty really.

Back on track. I remember how the first few episodes went by, me not really knowing how to feel about it, and I was told​ it was amazing... Thank God I remained on board ...then, I was hooked. Like, really hooked. Completely and utterly hooked. It still remains as one of the best stories of my life. As of right know I have watched it two -three times already and I plan on re-watching it some day ... That's​ how deep the love goes between us ...

Now about the manga. I planned to marathon it during my summer vacation but I needed​ some awesomeness​ in my life right now so I couldn't wait any longer... I had to have it, yes, I'm speaking about the manga...

Guilty again for loving the anime a bit more... But you have to give some credit to the amazing music in the background, it gives it a slightly unfair advantage.

Again about the manga. I'm not good at writing reviews. I'll do my best, I promise.

The first volume has 6 chapters​. I'll try to review them in order avoiding spoilers as much as possible.

1) Boredom
We meet the first principal character - Light. He is a charming young man with a very strong sense of what is wrong and right ... I'm in love with him, I can't deny it. So moving on ... We also meet Ryuk. A God of Death. I find it pretty amazing how the starting point of all this is boredom.

2) L
Second principal character. Well ... What can I say with my undying love for Light ... He is pretty dark ... I'm joking.
Here I got hooked.

3) Family
So we understand a little bit more about Light's background and motivation.

4) Current
At this point I have two things to say. First, Light is really smart. Second, I love their dynamics​.

5) Eyeballs
Wings!

6) Manipulation
I am trying really hard not to spoil everyone. Trust me on this. Amazing!

7) Target
One word - mastermind!

I'm looking​ forward to reading the next volume!

*4.5

Very interesting!

Death Note is trashy good fun. That’s basically all you need to know going in. The writing and plotting is borderline retarded though the concept is completely enthralling so while I couldn’t put the book down, I was constantly aware of how dumb things played out or were set up – and I loved it, this book is hilarious! Tsugumi Ohba is definitely an ideas man though - as a writer he’s mediocre at best, kind of like a manga Dan Brown.

But I’m jumping ahead of the gloriously high concept plot! Light Yagami, Japan’s top high school student happens to notice a black notebook in the schoolyard. Despite a notebook of any colour in a school setting not really being special, he picks it up and takes it home with him. He discovers that this is a Death Note – a magical notebook for demons, or shinigami as they’re referred to here, and finds out all about its properties from its owner, Ryuk, a death god.

Once Light finds out that any name he writes in the notebook – while visualising the victim’s face – will kill that person by heart attack in 40 seconds unless he specifies the type of death, he decides to create a utopia, free of criminals who deserve to die. But after a number of criminals die of heart attacks one after another, the United Nations decide to bring in L, the world’s greatest detective, to track down the killer.

I honestly don’t know where to start with this nonsense – and it is nonsense but enjoyable as hell – but I think I’ll start with the most glaringly obvious detail that I couldn’t get past in my head: why there is any conflict in this book at all. Think about it: you have a nondescript notebook in your room, you write a name down in it, that person dies. This is easily the most fool-proof murder weapon of all time. Writing a name in a book. Putting the book away. Going on with your life. You would never be caught. Never! And yet Light manages to somehow show up on the radar of police who suspect him of murdering these criminals! He is the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest character I’ve come across in a long while. And then for no reason he starts ranting about creating a utopia and ruling over it?! It makes no sense! It’s funny but it comes completely out of left field. To be fair, L does some detective work (he’s the world’s greatest detective) to figure out it’s Light, or someone who lives in Light’s area, but it’s mostly guesswork on his part to get to that conclusion that that too is ridonkulous.

Then there’s the Death Note itself and its gazillion rules. First we find out about how you need to visualise the person whose name you’re writing down – which makes sense as every name is replicated at least once and you wouldn’t want to kill every John Smith or Sarah Jones – but then there are more and more rules shoved in about how if you touch the Death Note you can see the shinigami (Ryuk the death god is a constant companion of Light’s which provides a great visual of this S&M Sharon Osborne lookalike with no eyelids floating around behind Light, unseen by all). Every chapter introduces a new rule, not elegantly woven into the story but explicitly stated at the start of the chapter like a rulebook and then bluntly stated by Ryuk again and again throughout the chapter. And why is there an arbitrary 40 seconds from writing the name down before the death? Is there some magical timer in the notebook?

This brings me to Tsugumi Ohba’s writing which is good enough to keep me reading the story but bad enough to find it laughable too. When Light wants to try out the Death Note, he encounters a biker dude hassling some girl but he needs the biker’s name to kill him (because that’s an appropriate punishment for hitting on a girl). The biker then states his name and one of his buddies literally says “that’s his real name too!” so Light is able to kill him – well, that’s convenient! There’s also supposedly a moral question being posed in this book about Light killing killers and whether this makes him a bad guy or not. First off, Light is a dimwit – I know he’s Japan’s greatest high school student but he shouldn’t be getting suspected by the police of these random killings (I still can’t get past this – a dozen criminals die of heart attacks and they’re able to trace it back to a high school student who wasn’t anywhere near them when they died!!!). Second, having him talk about ruling the world or anything along those lines skews the readers’ perceptions in one direction only. Third, I don’t like him anyway. But this moral question is so stupidly handled that it’s not even worth discussing seriously, I mean, the guy’s name is Light and he does dark things – that’s the level we’re talking about!

Light’s adversary isn’t Dark (though it wouldn’t surprise me if that turned out to be the character’s real name) but simply L. This guy is the world’s greatest detective who’s brought in by NATO (or the United Nations, it’s some international organisation made up of representatives from the richest countries in the world) to catch the killer (or Kira – bless the Japanese, can’t pronounce their “L”s). So his identity is a secret, which doesn’t bother the top governments of the world nor are they able to find out who he is for some reason, he never leaves his bare room which only contains top Apple products from 2003, and he operates with possibly the most evil-looking gumshoe who’s his physical presence in the world. I get that other world’s greatest detectives are improbable, but Sherlock Holmes’ identity was known to Scotland Yard when they approached him – L could be Kira for all they know! – and Batman operates without the consent of anyone unlike L who is hired by world governments. This entire character is totally bizarre – and what a coincidence that his real name isn’t known, preventing Light from killing him!

All of this might seem like I dislike this book but I really don’t – I thought it was a hoot! - I just had to talk about the insanity that makes up this book. It’s not on the level of sophisticated adult comics but it can definitely be enjoyed by adult readers, as I did. It’s like watching Con Air and enjoying it for what it is, even though it’s absolute nonsense through and through (why was Dave Chappelle on that plane in the first place?!). Death Note is the Con Air of comics – big and dumb but great fun.

4.5
Buenísimo!

Este manga es de mi hijo y me ha gustado mucho. Me parece que tiene mucho humor :)
Light Yagami es un chico de 17 años, buen estudiante, que se encuentra un cuaderno. Este cuaderno no es un cuaderno normal, si no es un cuaderno de la muerte. Con él tiene el poder de matar a las personas que quiera, y así empieza a hacerlo. Peeeeero, hay un detective "L", que no sabemos quién es que intentará descubrir quién es Kira, quién provoca esas muertes.
Seguiré con las siguientes partes.

Můj první manga komiks. Asi jsem se zamilovala! Je to geniální.

4.5