So I want to post some regular reviews of episodes of my favorite anime shows, but it’s rather hard from me to review episodes to TV shows after I’ve already know the ending to the series. I always get the urge to talk about things that I know are coming up, but will pretty much spoil the series for people who may not yet have watched any of it.

So this post doesn’t contain an official “review” of any of the specific episodes of the Death Note series, so much as just a random review dealing with how I view the entire series, and just overall impression. General reviews like this won’t contain much in the way of major spoilers, though there will be minor ones, mostly having to do with characters I like or don’t like, and how they come off in the series. Full episode review posts, however, will be different and contain plenty of spoilers throughout.

Since I’ve been taking screen caps from my DVD of Death Note for a web layout I’m planning, I decided to start these anime series/episode review thoughts with this series instead of a more obvious one like such as Ouran or Fullmetal Alchemist. Thoughts about the first episodes of those two series, however, will follow pretty soon, as I don’t plan on staying with just one series as a time while I do these write ups.

The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

That is the first rule listed in a notebook found by the main character at the beginning of the Death Note anime series, and the overall general premise of the show. Whomever has their name written in the notebook – called a “Death Note” – will die, no matter what.

The way I first heard about this series actually came about when I was doing some research online for some original fiction I’m working on. I was checking some of the entries on TvTropes, a web page/wiki dedicated to documenting various tropes found in all forms of media, and notes some famous examples of said tropes. While looking around at some tropes, (notably, The Chessmaster and Xanatos Gambit tropes) I noticed that Death Note was a series that kept getting mentioned a lot. Looking up the series, my first thought was it sounded good, but very dark; while I do like dark stories, there can be a time when a story can get too dark for its own good. However, again being on the lookout for any new anime series to watch, I decided to check it out, thinking that – having read up a little on some plot points – I knew what to expect.

Little did I know.

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