My friends were always going on at me to try readi manga. I am sorry I waited this long.
This year and this one is my first and I loved it.
The idea is so original - a book that a god dropped that if a name is written in - that person will be killed.
The way it is already affected our main character is so interesting.
I’m already hooked.

I wish I was as smart as L... or light for that matter...
its a hard knock life

Wow i last read this series when I was 13, the nostalgia is REAL re-reading this. ITS JUST AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER THE SECOND TIME AROUND.

Thanks to M for recommending this to me.

"Start looking around you.. and all you see are people the world would be better off without."  

Light Yagami is a bright young high school student who appears to be highly focused on his studies as he prepares for his college entrance examinations (after already pretesting as the highest score in Japan). The only issue is that Light is extremely dissatisfied. That is until a mysterious notepad crosses his way one day. The words "Death Note" are emblazoned across the front of the book.

The aspect of Death Note that I enjoyed the most was how likeable Light was. He's an anti-hero by definition. His actions result in the cold-blooded death of hundreds of men (criminals or not, murder is murder), and he considers the potential that if any of his family members discover the Death Note, he will be forced to murder them as well. Despite his chilly demeanour, I couldn't help but admire Light's cunning plans and traps as the story followed him and his utopian ambitions.

n  You might like to check out more similar books here.n

My first toe dip into the world of Manga, this was enjoyable and packed full of surprises and colourful characters.

What would you do if you had the ability to kill anyone in the world just by writing their name and picturing their face, in a book? That's the situation Light finds himself in when he comes across the Deathnote. Soon he finds himself persued by the police, and the mysterious 'L', as he tries to complete his dream of creating a utopia free of violence by killing the worlds criminals.

I suppose the overriding theme here is does anyone have the right to take another's life, even if that life has done nothing but evil? Choice, surely must always play a part. Light is arrogant with his power, and lets it go to his head big time. He thinks he can outdo the worlds police, that he's smarter than everyone he meets. Honestly, he's not a nice guy. Which comes as a surprise, because from the start I though he was going to be the protagonist. The antihero. He's anything but. Ryuk by comparison, the shinigami who owns the Deathbook is a great character. He's funny, often feigning melancholy at his life before coming to earth, and appearing interested yet also completely nonplussed at what Light is doing.

The plot is also really interesting. Far from being straightforward, it had plenty of twists and surprises to further the plot and make it exciting. I'm actually amazed that such a complex story can be told in so few words.

My only criticism is the lack of any female presence through this volume. We see Light's mother, sister and a random girl who takes on a 'date'. All the main characters are men. And most of the secondary cast too. A bit of female presence would have been welcome.

3.25 stars

This is my first manga. Trying it out because I am interested in the story and the huge hype surrounding it. For these types of reviews, I usually focus on art, story, and writing, but for this series I am eliminating the first.

n  Storyn: ★★★.5
Great start. The quick set up of Light vs L built up the tension and intrigue as well as made it super easy to follow and read. I love how the author manages to use story telling to show Light's intelligence through his plans to verify how the Death Note works (instead of simply telling us he is smart). The mythology of the Shinigami, although it is spoonfed to us, is super interesting (ex. the eyeballs) and I look forward to finding out more about them. Although there wasn't a lot of action yet, I enjoyed it. A lot of people say that they become obsessed with the series after this first instalment, however I am not quite there yet.

n  Writingn: ★★★
It was fine, but felt very stiff sometimes. I acknowledge that this may be because of the translation. I just felt that sometimes characters would go from 0 to 100 in terms of emotions way too fast (maybe the nuiances and subtexts that are there in Japanese do not translate to English? I know that this is how it is with the Polish version of the Witcher series). I also felt like the world building was very in your face on the nose with Ryuk's dialogue, but again that was a bit expected because this is the first instalment in series.

*manga completed as part of the July art-month challenge

-----------------------------------
Volumes in manga:
#1 Boredom: ★★★.25
#2 Confluence: ★★★.75
#3 Hard Run: ★★★
#4 Love: ★★★★
#5 Whiteout: ★★.75

Not Stopping Until I Hit The Finale.

My wife was hunting me down to read this manga and until I do that, she won't let me breath.

Well, well!
I'm glad that she has tremendously fantastic choices in everything. And so she proved it in this case too.

A thrilling ride Death Note is!

If you haven't still encountered with it yet, I urge that you should!

I think if a Shinigami gave you a death note – oh, I should say a Shinigami is a like god or spirit who controls the way HUMANS (meaning YOU) DIE (meaning DIE!) and also WHEN just by writing it down, and also this death NOTE is not a note, it’s a NOTEBOOK, just to be crystal clear – but anyway, why this becomes an issue is that this particular shinagami is really bored in the realm where he & his other death gods live – they always live in a REALM, have you noticed, never in a house or an apartment, always a realm – anyway, it turns out in the death god realm there’s nothing much to do, they get really bored writing down name after name with stroke or general organ failure or rabies or giraffe attack next to them, these shinagami don’t have much initiative otherwise they could of I dunno got a franchise to make a death realm Disneyland or play crazy golf or I don’t know what people do for entertainment, lot of the people I know just watch football, so maybe they could get Sky up there and follow the English Premier League, and see how Manchester United gets on under Ole Gunnar Solskjær, whatever, the clue is in the title of this first volume here BOREDOM, so because of that this particular shinagami leaves a death note (= noteBOOK) for this 17 year old kid to find and then he has the power to make anyone dead and that’s what you call a responsibility, I wouldn’t want that.

But I wouldn’t mind if a lower-ranking Shinigami from a lower REALM left me a SICK NOTE so I could make anyone really ill, that would be great, a lot of politicians I could name would be rolling around on Christmas Day after the turkey & not in a good way.

So is this 17 year old kid’s plan to make the world a better place by killing lots of people ethically sound or not? This is the big issue. Omelets, eggs, eggs, omelets. If Pol Pot was asked he would have said YES. Likewise Stalin. But if you asked Princess Diana or Walt Disney they would have said NO. Hmm, Stalin, Princess Diana, Pol Pot, Walt Disney. It’s above my pay grade.

تجربتي الأولي في قراءة المانجا وكانت تجربة مذهلة بشكل لا يصدق

Death Note was my first manga, and I enjoyed it rather more than I thought I would. Although the premise sounds quite macabre, this isn't a book about "killing people," as would seem from the description. The pleasure in reading Death Note comes from watching the battle of wits between two brilliant minds, Light and L, as each tries to find out the identity of the other. The book also raises interesting philosophical questions, such as, is it wrong to kill criminals who have committed horrible crimes and probably will again, given the chance? And how does doing that change the person doing the "vigilante" killing?

Click here to review my entire review

Very good, very very good.

I watched the anime years ago and reading this series reminds of the craziness of this story but I've also forgotten certain things and it's nice to be surprised.

What an insane plot with insane characters. A must-read for anyone who reads OR DOESN'T read manga.

Hiçbir şeye önyargılı olmamak lazım sayın arkadaşlarım.
İlgimi çekmeyen mangalara karantina dönemi sıkılırken biraz bakayım dedim, çok eğlendim. Hikayenin nasıl süreceğini merak ediyorum.
Seriye devam edeceğim.
Animelere hâlâ önyargılıyım (sanırım).

(Manga önerisi alabilirim, Tokyo Gul denemiştim.)
Önyargı kötüdür.