Death Note Review

Sum: Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects--and he's bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal… or his life?
Review: I had to hear a TON of good reviews about Death Note before deciding to read. However, I have read Hikaru No Go, which was illustrated by the same artist, and, besides, I've obviously heard Death Note's reputation, and so I decided to read, albeit without high expectations. Actually, the beginning was very good, and it started off well. Light's character seemed very realistic to me, and the premise itself was unique. And then L appeared, and everything just got better. L and Light were perfect enemies, and they were both very intelligent. I especially enjoyed learning Light's "real" personality and how his eyes changed (from narrow to wide)-which makes you wonder what could have happened if Light hadn't found the death note. But then L died, and his "successors" appeared. I personally don't understand how Mello and Near could ever have been L's "successors". They were hardly smart enough to match up with any of the alter Kiras and were also severely lacking in personality. Mello might have been alright, but I eventually just got tired of him, and Near was just plain boring and unrealistic. I was really bored for the five volumes after L died because everything started to take so long! The story, which had been moving at a reasonable pace, ground to what was almost a halt, and I was practically falling asleep while I read. In fact, although I know that it would have been nearly impossible to keep tne story moving if L was alive, I still wish that he had been in that last scene, when Light was captured. Speaking of that scene, I had expected Light to win. And Near, for some reason, had an enormous personality breakthrough and became almost as interesting as L! However, the ending was sort of strange, and I did not understand the end scene (after the 1 year later thingy). Now that I think about it, though, there was hardly any personality growth in any of the characters. Light changed a bit after getting the death note, but that was all. I would have really enjoyed seeing something more, like better characters, in this manga. The art was great, but the story's writing itself wasn't very good or interesting. In fact, I don't really understand the enormous fan base that this manga seems to have acquired. I've also heard that kids not even teenage and barely into their teens have read this, but Death Note seems to me that it was written for a small group of-guess what-older teens. So this might be why there are so many bad reviews, because people didn't understand the admittedly few psychological ideals present. So I'm giving Death Note a 7/10 on the Kekkaishi scale, with three points subtracted for acute boredom and character personality.