I was ready to give up on anime. I'd tried watching several anime series and none of them appealed to me. Most of the ones I've watched have had one-dimensional characters, an unrealistically fearless, heroic main character and a below- average plot. And then comes along Death Note. The concept is immediately intriguing and although it toys with moral ideas, it doesn't have so much moralising that it gets in the way of the plot. In fact, it's very plot-focused, with the majority of the focus being on Kira trying to sentence all these people to death without being caught. This makes Death Note a constantly gripping thriller full of ingenious plot twists and a complex plot that sets the mind racing. At first it seems deceptively simple but within a few episodes it's turned into a game between Kira and the authorities as they try to outdo each other in attempts to get one step ahead of each other. It had me hooked till the final shocking episode, and even then I didn't know which way it was going to go. If there's one problem, it's that the focus on plot comes at a cost. Some characters are introduced with strong emotions with seemingly no reasons to feel those emotions. When this happens it seems jarring at first, but you can see why the writers made those decisions as those features are later crucial to the plot. It makes the experience uneven at times though.

Death Note is an excellent series about justice and the best anime I have seen.