Death Note: Shinigami, Notebooks, and Kira

With the Death Note series ending on Adultswim, it is a good time to try to watch it. All the dubbed/subbed episodes are readily available on the internet. I watch most of my anime from my PS3/Playstation 3. I suggest finding a good place online to watch it, get the first volumes on DVD, or even read the manga. Once I started watching Death Note it was hard not to stop. I am sure any of you who attempt this will run into the same problem.

I will do my best to summarize Death Note in my reviews with out spoiling anything. I do hate spoilers myself. I was a victim to spoilers recently while playing Metal Gear Solid 4, it sucked.

The Death Note anime runs at 37 episodes. In the USA It played on Cartoon Network’s Adultswim (the last episode just ended). If you would rather watch all the episodes try Megavideo or do a Google search to find a site you prefer.

Light Yagami is really fed up with the crime and corruption taking place in the world. Light’s life takes a sudden turn when he observes a black notebook titled “Death Note” fall from the sky. In the notebook written are the following rules:

• The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
• This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
• If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
• After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

Light being a bit skeptical about the notebook, experiments with it only to find it does work.

Next we are introduced to Ryuk, a Shinigami (or God of Death). For those of you that are used to the Bleach Shinigami, please note they are far uglier and demonic looking. Light decides to start purging the world of criminals using the “Death Note” to become “the god of the new world.”

The public soon nicknames the serial killer “Kira” (Japanese for Killer). The many deaths also catch the attention of the International Police Organization and “L”, a mysterious detective. It then becomes a game of cat and mouse between Light and “L” attempting to out smart each other.

The anime series is great from the beginning. I must say that some of the end episodes dragged on a bit. There are many great twists and turns in the plot of Death Note. This is by far one of the most unique anime series I have watched. I highly recommend it. I rate Death Note 8.5/10.

On a side note the second opening song to Death Note is great! Check out the video of it.