Life is quiet boring sometimes. And that's not onLy true for humans, but also for Shinigamis (japoneses gods of Death). But when a shinigami gets bored, the consequences couLd be dramatic for the world. And that's the story this anime chooses to tell.

Ryuku, one of those Shinegami, decides to drop one of his Death note to earth, in order to watch the interesting consequences of his act. This death note has the power to kiLL everyone as soon a the name of a person is written in it. And the young boy who found it has decided to kill plenty : he wants earth to be a paradise, where every criminaLs are erase from its surface thanks to the power of the death note, and to become the god of this new utopia. But things won't be so easy for Yagami Light aka Kira : if he wants to kill someone, he has to have his exact name and to visuaLize his face, and InterpoL, aware of this experience, send a genius detective to stop him, mysteriously named "L".

The most interesting part of this complex and inventive anime Lies in the confrontation between Kira (the owner of the Death Note) and L, that takes the appearance of a deadly chess game, where a single mistake Leeds to failure and death. The first 18 episodes are a mentaL masterpiece, scenaristicaLy very impressive and visually extremeLy convincing. If the rest of the anime is a LittLe less good, the conclusion is also quite surprising and really beautiful.

As Ryuku, that symboLizes the spectator point of view in the show finally said : "It was very pleasant to kill time with this game for so Long. That was really amusing".