Death Note is one of the first anime that comes to mind when asked about a thrilling anime to watch. There are certainly so many anime in this genre out there, from Psycho-pass to Death note to Erased the list is definitely long by the virtue of thousands of anime out there. One of the common traits between all of these anime is the plot twists they serve us with, they keep us hooked on the screen from the time they begin till the time they end and even beyond. We keep reminiscing about them and their storylines.
They keep us on the edge of our seats at all times. Some of them are downright disturbing and dark, some of them just expose our minds to the oblivious sides of the real world and that goes on to be a real thought provoker. One such anime is Paranoia Agent by Satoshi Kon, this anime effectively captured and exposed some of the ugliest parts of social behaviors and the social contacts between humans.
The anime Erased, kept us hooked and made us bite our nails in the anticipation of what is going to happen in the next scene or episode. This is definitely not just limited to the series, we also had a movie named Perfect Blue, that was so intense as well as the twists just blew our heads off completely. It is also a widely critically acclaimed anime movie.
About Death Note
Death Note (Japanese デスノート) is a supernatural thriller and a fantasy manga that has been written by Tsugumi Oba. The manga has been illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The adaptation of this manga into an anime series was done by director Tetsuro Araki. Besides the manga and the anime series, Death Note has also been made into a light novel and has been inculcated into various video games as well, further there have been two movies based on it, a live-action television drama, and so many live-action movies as well.
It is a very prominent and loved anime series. It first premiered on October 3rd, 2006 and ended on 26th June 2006, and had a total of 37 episodes. The anime series was written by Toshiki Inoue and was under the studio Madhouse.
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Death Note Story
The plot is definitely compelling and thought-provoking. When I was watching it, I was constantly torn between who to support, as both of the main characters seemed justified in what they were doing. The best part about Death Note is that it is very easy to watch, every episode gives you immense curiosity about what will happen next, and so it carries you along its own storyline.
Death Note is about a notebook of the same name which has the extraordinary power to kill anyone whose name is written on its pages. For that to happen you either have to write the person’s name along with the way in which you want them to die or you can just write their name, and in that case, the cause of death becomes a heart attack.
A high school student named Light Yagami, finds the supernatural notebook Death Note lying on the ground in his school yard. It is later revealed that the notebook was intentionally dropped by a bored Shinigami named Ryuk, who just wanted to stir things up in the Human world so he could kill his ennui as the Realm of Death was becoming increasingly monotonous. When Light discovers the Death Note, he tries to test it and causes the death of a criminal.
Later, he gets addicted to the powers that the notebook holds. As the anime progresses, we see that Light becomes obsessed with his aim to create a crime-free world where brutal murders, petty thefts and corruption just become a thing of the past. as well as criminal free world, his utopian obsession increasingly worsens. Meanwhile, the police task force now gets in a zone to catch whoever is behind all these sudden murders of the criminals even in the high security protected jails.
Now, Light comes into the limelight and chooses the name “Kira” for himself, Kira means Killer in English. The world now knows him as Kira; however, no one knows who Kira is or what he looks like, but now Light has garnered public support. The population started supporting him as he was getting rid of all the criminals to make a safer society. However, there are a lot of people who see Kira as a murderer, and hence, a special task force unit is created to track Kira down and put an end to his madness.
Now, the police force, connect to a person named L. L is an eccentric genius and the best detective I the world at that time, he had previously helped the police force in catching a lot of criminals. Now, he is contacted in order to catch this uprising villainous identity Kira. So, L starts working with the Japanese task force which also includes Light’s own dad as the head.
Light gets to meet L, and L was suspicious of Light all along. He kept saying that he believed Light is Kira, he also put Light through a lot of tests in order for him to prove his innocence. With his extreme intelligent manoeuvre, Light is able to get through each of them and manages to prove to everyone that he is not Kira. Then the series just becomes a game of wit and quick intelligence between L and Light, and this creates a lot of suspense as well as curiosity. At a point, Light gives up his Death Note and this leads to the erasure of his memories of it too. But at this point, one Kira ally kept writing names of the criminals in the death note, this effectively proved that Light was indeed not Kira.
Every fan of Death Note however, was extremely shocked when Light kills L with his death note. This was one of the saddest moments in the history of the series, and all the L fans were devastated. Later on, though, L’s successors come into play, they are called Mellow and Near. Near is a child prodigy, and he is a reflection of L. Mellow on the other hand is a capricious and antisocial teen.
Mellow denies the offer to work with Near and leaves the orphanage. He joins an American mafia gang to catch Kira. However, Mellow is also killed later in the show. The show also depicts how Light starts thinking he is God and gloats in his God-like divine powers. We also see a woman named Misa Misa, who is the second Kira in the beginning of the series, who helped Light prove his innocence to L. She is in love with Light and is crazy for him, and Light gets her to do a lot of things for his aim as well.
Later on, Near also starts working with the Japanese police to catch Kira. He is extremely eccentric and intelligent just like L. With the introduction of Near, the L fans took a breath and sighed out in relief. Near with his genius like capabilities is able to prove in the end of the series that Light was indeed Kira all along, and that he was just fooling everyone. Light dies at the end of the show and this is how the show ends.
The show does get a bit monotonous in between however, it still has a charm that pulls you towards it and then it makes you watch it till the very end. Death Note is one of the best anime out there and for the fans who want to watch something new out of the bag, something dark, offensive mind twisting, Death Note is the one for them.
