Death Note (Desu Noto) is an anime series based on a manga created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.  It revolves around the character of Light Yagami, a university student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the “Death Note” dropped by a shinigami (Death God) named Ryuk.

Unlike other anime featured in the Weekly Shonen Jump such as Naruto, Bleach, and Hunter X Hunter, the Death Note series is not an action packed series but rather it is a psychological warfare, it played the chase or a game of cat and mouse as others would call it.

Despite the lack of fight aspect, Death Note was very interesting. However, the viewer must not miss a scene to fully understand the flow of the story. Compared to any action-ridden anime, wherein the fight scenes alone would already entertain the viewers, Death Note on the other hand, needs the viewer to get totally immersed to the general idea of the story to be able to appreciate it.

The plot of Death Note revolves around Light Yagami who showed antipathy towards the increasing crime rate in the community. His life took a 360-degree turn when he stumbled upon a mysterious notebook known as the “Death Note.”

It contained instructions that said if a human’s name was written on its pages, that person will die. At first, Light was doubtful of the genuineness of the notebook, but after giving it a try, he realizes that it was for real. After meeting the shinigami who dropped it, Light was determined to cleanse the world of all criminals and become the “God of the New World.”

Despite the fact that the series of deaths of criminals seemed to have been caused by natural causes, it caught the attention of the International Police Organization and the weird detective known as “L.”

L’s mental strength easily exposed that the killer, referred to as Kira by the public, is located in Japan and that the latter kills without even touching his victims. Light realizes that L is a tough opponent to reckon with, and there the mental warfare begins.

Another Death Note owner, Misa Amane, became an avid follower of Kira after the death of her parents’ killer and she vowed to help Light with his mission. However, L was too fast in apprehending Misa, who now posed as the second Kira. When Light realized that L was suspecting him to be Kira, he decided to renounce his ownership of the Death Note losing all his memories of the notebook in the process. He however regained it after clearing up his name and ordered the shinigami of Misa’s Death Note to kill L and his aide Watari.

After the death of L, the unsuspecting Japanese Task Force appointed Light as the new L.

Four years later, Near and Mello, who were trained to be L’s successor, surfaced to find Kira, who has now gained massive support from the public. Mello kidnapped Light’s younger sister Sayu Yagami hoping that Kira will give the Death Note in exchange for Sayu.

The Japanese Task Force came to rescue Sayu but lost the notebook. They later retrieved it but Light’s father Soichiro Yagami, who was a member of the Task Force, died during the retrieval operation.

Near begins to suspect the second L of being Kira and realizing the possibilities of being caught, Light urged Misa to give up her ownership of Rem’s Death Note and found a new successor in the person of Teru Mikami, an avid supporter of Kira. Mikami later hired a new spokesperson for Kira, Kiyomi Takada, a TV journalist who happens to be a former girlfriend of Light. Mikami and Takada continued killing criminals to make it look like Light was not Kira. Mello later kidnapped Takada who was then forced to kill him with a piece of a Death Note page after which Light killed Takada for fear that she will implicate him.

However, in a final encounter, Near was able to prove that Light was indeed Kira. Light then died of a heart attack when Ryuk wrote his name on the Death Note, a promise made by Ryuk at the beginning that should Light come to his end, Ryuk will be the one to do it.

Tsugumi Ohba, the writer of the Death Note series, said he did not have a particular theme in mind to express in the series but if he were to make one it should be that “humans will eventually die and never come back to life, so let’s give it our all while we’re alive.”

For me, the way I see it, the anime projects a lesson that no matter how high the criminality rate is and no matter how we hate criminals, killing them would never solve the problem as in doing so would only add one more criminal to the list. If there is one authorized to do the judgment, it would be the creator himself, not us humans.