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Description
  Would Kira be gay?! Would he? What kind of question is this? Calm down Light, calm down. There's no way he could have pinpointed Kira's sexuality. What sort of clues could I have left behind for him to go down that rabbit hole?

  Here's a scorecard that should've come out in like April or something, but I never released it because I have almost no time to write descriptions for scorecards anymore, and when I do have that kind of free time, I would rather spend it on anything but doing that. However, I think I can spare some time to write one for Death Note because it's super easy to talk about where this show succeeds and where it fail, to a point where I don't know if calling Part 1 "Amazing" is worth it when I do have 1 or 2 critical issues with it.

SPOILER WARNING ahead if you haven't seen Death Note. There will absolutely be SPOILERS.

HISTORY: I have none, next. From now on, if I have no kind of history with a show, I'm abjectly going to leave this section blank-- I don't want my time wasted, so let's jump to the next section.

ANIMATION: The actual animation is good-- nothing that I haven't come to expect from Japanese animation, as it boasts unique and detailed character designs and an art style that, for the most part, is almost entirely unique to this show (One Punch Man's first season is the closest thing to looking like Death Note), with its dim, subdued colors and harsh use of shadows... but that in of itself presented a problem to me that, while I was able to ignore, still bothered me at certain points. I can admit that the muted colors lend themselves well to the tone that Death Note is going for, but there were points where most scenes, more or less, looked the same to me, and thus could be a visual bore. Scenes that are made to stand out like the sunset in the finale and L contemplating in the rain don't look appealing to me because of how restrained the colors are-- almost as though this anime's afraid of having anything look the slightest bit garish.
Some of the other visual effects are also pretty ehhhhh because of how obfuscated they can be. I already mentioned the scene with L out in the rain, but you can barely make out the rain at all, and then there's other things like blood which... doesn't move or look like it in the first place.

I should state that, in the end, I do like the way that Death Note is stylized, but I feel like it was a bit overkill and that it wouldn't have hurt for scenes that weren't the most serious to lighten up (literally), because now when I reflect back on this anime, there aren't any scenes that I'd say are visually striking because they all look so similar to each other.

tl;dr version: Like my first line said, the animation is overall well-done, but the presentation is lacking in terms of scenes or colors that stand out visually, likely because this anime was dead-set on conveying a macabre tone, though I think they went overboard with that. A little less grey would be nice next time.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON DEATH NOTE: A character section isn't needed this time around because the main crux of Death Note is purely its character interactions. In fact, the three characters I love the most (Light, L, and Ryuk) are not just some of my favorite animated characters ever, but also the main draw of this series for me-- they're the ones that manage to overshadow just about every other problem I have with Death Note, and that precisely has to do with the way that this series is formatted.

I must thank Breaking Bad for getting me into these "cat-and-mouse" type of shows... though I don't think that description is appropriate since I think of other things when I hear that phrase. A more suitable description for me would be "hunter and hunted"... I dunno. Either way, this narrative format is one that always holds my attention and makes me want to watch more since the number of twists and turns an episode can pull on you are ridiculous-- it makes it so that on repeat watches, you'll notice little attention to details that the writers put in for fans to pick up, making it so that we see eye-to-eye with what they were intending. It's the exact same philosophy Breaking Bad has, nothing short of genius, and Death Note runs with this premise wholesale. It was the first time in a while I would watch an episode, finish it, and then want to see more, as a lot of stuff I've seen lately hasn't grabbed my interest and I end up feeling like I'm forcing myself through it all.

Each and every episode preys on twisting your expectations and ramping up to the huge potential climax where L catches Light or vice-versa, and everytime I tried to predict what the next episode would do, something else (not exactly the opposite) would happen. I remember thinking to myself that L would be hidden until things got dire, but he was revealed early on and is right on Light's tail from the get-go. In fact, something that I realized long after I had finished Death Note was that L knew everything about Light all along, but couldn't convict him because Light was just that good at hiding the needed evidence-- and it almost looked like for a moment that Light forefeit the notebook at one point because of how fed up he was with L, only to then backtrack hard and become even more insane than he already is.

The way this show's story is crafted is insane, yet surprisingly easy to follow at the same time. There's so much to take in, yet I never felt like my understanding was moving at a slower pace than the show, and I like the fact that those who worked on it acknowledged the potential for that to happen, as the breaks at the mid-point of episodes remind the viewers of the rules of the notebook. There was clearly so much effort in this engrossing narrative, and I was with it the whole way through.

I mentioned earlier that my three favorite characters are Light, L, and Ryuk, and it bares repeating that they're without a doubt the best part about Death Note, and what makes them so great as characters is just how much every episode thoroughly explores their thought process-- you get a deep dive into Light and L's brilliant minds and see how they take advantage of their overt intelligence, and neither of them get any kind of special help along the way either.

  That's why I appreciate the way that Ryuk is written, as he easily could've sucked out the tension and made things unfair had he deliberately sided with or gone against Light... but instead he's entirely ambiguous and is like a surrogate for the audience in terms of how he reacts to Light and L's dynamic. It's also worth noting that, in the end, everything that transpired was all because of the fact he was bored and wanted to be entertained-- it's funny how a show that gets so grim started from something that sounds like a joke, which isn't something I should be surprised about since Ryuk did deliver the several laughs that I got from this anime.

Which now leaves us with both Light and L, and I'd like to start with the former since opinions on this character seem to be split. In my opinion, Light is one of the best examples of a character you just love to hate, but can still understand on some level.
  It's really easy to see how much this notebook corrupts him to an unrecognizable degree, and the moment he reaches that stage, you are praying for his downfall... yet you also may not want that to happen, because Light loses, the series is practically over... you have nothing left to look forward to. When Light ended up dying in the finale, all that pent-up hatred I had for him ended up vanishing since he is still a kid at the end of the day who let his ego get the best of him, and this is the same way I felt about Walt's death in the finale. Once the jig is up, do you hate any of these characters as much as you thought? We got to see what Light's personality was like if he never found the notebook, a kindhearted boy who does good by everyone, and even when he did have the notebook, there was a point where he was contemplating killing his sister to lessen suspicion that he's Kira, yet didn't because he still has some principles.
  It's hard not to draw comparisons between Light and Walter White for me because although they are definitely evil people, they aren't completely devoid of humanity even at their lowest points-- they're just ego maniacs that took their ideologies too far and ended up paying a ginormous price for it, and all I was wondering is when and how would their actions come back to bite them in the ass and how will they react to it? The answers I got were both satisfying and some of the most tragic stuff I've ever seen in media. Without a doubt, the saddest part about Death Note's ending is the fact that no one ends up victorious. Both Light and L lose, and it's like their feud never mattered in the grand scheme of things since life continued on for a majority of the population... except for those lunatics who worshipped Kira.

  I will say though, I do think L is a better character than Light since he's the person you have more reason to root for, and is superior to Light in terms of his design and eccentricity-- he pretty much gives Death Note its identity, and it's no wonder because he is simply a fascinating individual-- if I were to describe what I was able to draw from him, you'd think I'm making everything about him up. Not helping matters is that it's hard to tell what he feels in any scene except for the rare few where he makes it apparent, and those scenes are that he has a disdain for Light... or when he first saw a Shinigami. He also has an affinity for sweets which I find hilarious, it's almost like a mini trope to give masterminds a fixation for desserts. I've already gone on a bit above about how wild his dynamic with Light is, but it's truly is amazing how well L plays his cards-- it's like he's able to look at a person and deduce everything about them, so much so that there are points where he will deliberately give Light a compliment and watch him talk himself up, only giving L more reason to eventually convict Light. He's also go to the lengths of literally chaining himself to Light to get him to fess up. His detective work is the most unconventional thing ever, and inadvertently adds a bit of humor to the series since his absurd tactics nearly work all the time... but of course Light finds a way to skirt around it.

  It should not be understated just how much L and Light's mind games make up Death Note's appeal to me. If you got rid of it, I would be left with a product that would have next-to-no value... which brings me to my problem with EVERYTHING ELSE.

THIS ANIME MIGHT NOT BE AS GOOD AS I THINK: For as much as I adore the narrative of Death Note and can almost tolerate the many problems that I took with the series, I must confess that this scorecard I made might just be a "V1", because hindsight has not treated Death Note very kindly for me. Even during my watch, I took down notes of stuff that I noticed that not many others share with me... some of those peopple do exist, but, just like me, they're able to enjoy Death Note for what it's worth because Light, L, and Ryuk do make it worthwhile in the end.

  But to be honest, everything else about Death Note is not something I can say I like, and that extends to the way that this story is told... and I know my last 2 scorecards went into detail about what it means to have bad pacing... and while Death Note's pacing isn't bad, it's generally wonky, especially by the time we reach Part 2. Part 1 wasn't as offensive, but I will say that by the time Misa was introduced, it wasn't hard for me to not pay my full attention to an episode since I never came to Death Note to watch Light feign a relationship with someone, though that is not my biggest bone to pick with Misa. If we're specifically talking about Part 2, a lot of episodes had moments that were just a load of nothing... they're watchable, but they are what I can only call a waste of time, primarily exemplified by the fact that we got a clip show episode after the show's climax in the previous episode, Silence.

  I attribute this to the fact that Death Note's total number of episodes confused me before I even started. It's merely 37 episodes. Not 26, not 52, not 45, nor 50. 37 is such an arbitrary number, and if they spent 25 episodes telling one part of the story, then they clearly would've needed at least 20 more episodes to complete the other... not 12, in which one of them was wasted by an unnecessary recap episode. In fact, something tells me that if I were to rewatch Death Note, there would be a few episodes I would deem unnecessary to progressing the story.

Some of these things are problems that could have happened during production, or the result of the creators trying to be as faithful to the manga as possible, but not having enough episodes to work with-- that might explain why the first 2 episodes were purely exposition... and they had A LOT of it, before the story suddenly accelerates by the third episode, so it's why I don't let these little things get to me that much. However, there is ONE thing about Death Note that I cannot stand and might cause me to dislike it if I were to ever rewatch it.

DEATH NOTE AND THE ART OF DEVALUATION: I tried my best to come with a term for a trend I saw running throughout this anime, and the best that I could come up with is "devaluation"-- my definition for this term is: when a series has a quality that's unique to it, but is undermined by the show itself due to introducing new elements that can only be described as bullshit, or make said quality nowhere near as special as it once was.

That might sound confusing, but I promise it'll make sense within these next few lines. As much as I did enjoy watching Death Note, I must say that there was a point where I was beginning to raise some eyebrows, and that would be the episode where Misa debuted, Confession-- that episode actually got me to take a break from watching Death Note because her introduction spelled doom for this series... I was thankfully proven wrong that the show was going to be ruined, but even past that point, I genuinely don't like Misa because her character is so unbefitting of the world Death Note has crafted for itself. An overly cheery ignoramus doesn't mesh well with stern characters like Light's father, L, Light himself, or the many FBI agents we're introduced to. Matsuda, the character that's played for comic relief (and even then he's not so great at that), doesn't clash with the tone that Death Note is setting for itself as much as Misa does... and let me just have this aside to say that I don't give a damn about any of the characters besides Light, L, and Ryuk.
   Seriously, the rest of the characters in this series are pretty damn weak because they get no attention whatsoever... which I know IS the point, but it ultimately makes the world that Light lives in feel small and artificial. Seeing more into Light's family would've gone miles to giving this world more of a personality-- definitely would've been better than the many scenes that don't contribute to the story, and it comes to bite this show back in the ass when Light's father dies, which is supposed to be a sad moment, but I had a straight face throughout that episode because Light's father has no personality at all... and it's still debated on whether Light was faking his reaction to his father's death or not, which is a problem because it could've reinforced the idea that Light isn't a completely heartless monster.

Anyways, this was about Misa and how I don't like her as a character, so let me continue the point by saying that, in this show, she is treated as an obstacle in Light's path, and to be honest with you, I saw it the same way because her introduction completely devalued the existence of the Death Note-- apparently any idiot can pick it up and wreak havoc in much the same way in FOP, apparently any kid can get fairies because Da Rulez don't matter at all. Seriously, compare the level of depth that Light's character has to Misa's and the problems begin to arise, not to mention that we had a full episode introducing her that ended up breaking the consistent pace of the story. I also take issue with the Shinigami that she has, Rem, because she's nothing more than a plot device.
  I'll give Ryuk credit for keeping his feelings ambiguous throughout the story and how he contributes way more to the story than Rem. Tell me, what did Rem do at all other than pull off some bullshit in this show's climax? (which I DESPISE btw) Y'know, that climax when she ended up killing TWO people instead of ONE as per the rules of the notebook-- I sure do wonder what was stopping her from killing off MORE PEOPLE other than pure convenience... the fact that I came to that realization just as L's death was happening before my eyes absolutely ruined that scene and cemented Silence as an episode I hate (it's rated Bad now but it should be Awful).

So what we have here is 2 Kiras, one that serves the role well and one that's far inferior, and two shinigamis, one that I love and one that I can't stand... but this show also has the audacity to have a second L in the form of Near. I don't hate Near whatsoever, in fact I kinda like him-- a part of me feels like he's dealt with much better in the manga than in the anime, but it's bizarre how the series takes so many shortcuts when it comes to his deductive abilities, when we spent a lot of time with L and learned how he thinks. I'm not kidding when I say that Near comes to the conclusion that Light is Kira by pure happenstance, and this is once again sheer proof that the pacing of this story is completely wrong. Granted, the final confrontation with Light is fantastic and would've been one of my favorite finales ever if I didn't catch onto a few minor issues that I couldn't ignore-- I love it most for the voice performances, as it's known that Death Note's English dub is phenomenal and the ideal way to watch the anime, but the leadup to that point could've been handled better.

  The takeaway from this paragraph is that I can't get behind the idea that there exists knockoffs of each of the main characters-- I find them all intrusive to the narrative since they end up breaking the logic of this series. Light gets busted because he got unlucky, L dies because Rem had to break the rules of the notebook to do so, we have the original Kira and a nuisance who also happens to be named Kira, and all they did was undermine and disrupt the narrative. They annoyed me in the moment just for a little, but became major problems when I reflect back on this series.

tl;dr version: I find it weird how there aren't many people that have taken note of the stuff I listed here. Like yeah, Part 2 is weaker than Part 1... but is Part 1 completely flawless? I don't think so as it had the seeds for the issues that would take root in Part 2, but even then, I couldn't get by Misa or Rem's existence since they're nothing but obstacles both for Light... and for me! I seriously felt the same way as Light, and not in the way that I want to because while I do want Light not to succeed, I want it to be in a way that isn't forced. Not just forced, but one that actively goes against the stuff that makes this series unique. The same thing goes for Near's existence, but I can tell what they ended up doing with him was the result of there being a time crunch instead of incompetent storytelling. You've heard me say it time and time again, but it really is L and Light that almost make up for these weaknesses, but I fear a rewatch might prove otherwise.

CONCLUSION: After writing this entire review, I don't know whether or not I should be calling Death Note a GOOD anime because it's the biggest example of how the littlest problems can be the biggest deal-breakers for me. There's so much potential here that was being used to its fullest until Misa was introduced, but problems started appearing left and right and were only remedied by Light and L's dynamic-- seriously, if they did not pull that off so well, this anime would end up being a flimsy broken mess of storytelling with forgettable characters and overly bleak animation... but I don't regret watching it all, and I'd love to do it again to see whether my criticisms will be as obtrusive as I made them out to be. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Death Note because it's the closest watching experience I've had to Breaking Bad, which was one of my favorite binges ever, and it is an anime I recommend checking out because if you're able to ignore the issues that I took with it, you're in for an experience that'll leave you on the edge of your seat the whole way through... when it's not wasting your time on stuff or characters that don't matter in the end. P.S., watch the dub, the voice acting in that was another thing carrying this anime for me.

Description
  Would Kira be gay?! Would he? What kind of question is this? Calm down Light, calm down. There's no way he could have pinpointed Kira's sexuality. What sort of clues could I have left behind for him to go down that rabbit hole?

  Here's a scorecard that should've come out in like April or something, but I never released it because I have almost no time to write descriptions for scorecards anymore, and when I do have that kind of free time, I would rather spend it on anything but doing that. However, I think I can spare some time to write one for Death Note because it's super easy to talk about where this show succeeds and where it fail, to a point where I don't know if calling Part 1 "Amazing" is worth it when I do have 1 or 2 critical issues with it.

SPOILER WARNING ahead if you haven't seen Death Note. There will absolutely be SPOILERS.

HISTORY: I have none, next. From now on, if I have no kind of history with a show, I'm abjectly going to leave this section blank-- I don't want my time wasted, so let's jump to the next section.

ANIMATION: The actual animation is good-- nothing that I haven't come to expect from Japanese animation, as it boasts unique and detailed character designs and an art style that, for the most part, is almost entirely unique to this show (One Punch Man's first season is the closest thing to looking like Death Note), with its dim, subdued colors and harsh use of shadows... but that in of itself presented a problem to me that, while I was able to ignore, still bothered me at certain points. I can admit that the muted colors lend themselves well to the tone that Death Note is going for, but there were points where most scenes, more or less, looked the same to me, and thus could be a visual bore. Scenes that are made to stand out like the sunset in the finale and L contemplating in the rain don't look appealing to me because of how restrained the colors are-- almost as though this anime's afraid of having anything look the slightest bit garish.
Some of the other visual effects are also pretty ehhhhh because of how obfuscated they can be. I already mentioned the scene with L out in the rain, but you can barely make out the rain at all, and then there's other things like blood which... doesn't move or look like it in the first place.

I should state that, in the end, I do like the way that Death Note is stylized, but I feel like it was a bit overkill and that it wouldn't have hurt for scenes that weren't the most serious to lighten up (literally), because now when I reflect back on this anime, there aren't any scenes that I'd say are visually striking because they all look so similar to each other.

tl;dr version: Like my first line said, the animation is overall well-done, but the presentation is lacking in terms of scenes or colors that stand out visually, likely because this anime was dead-set on conveying a macabre tone, though I think they went overboard with that. A little less grey would be nice next time.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON DEATH NOTE: A character section isn't needed this time around because the main crux of Death Note is purely its character interactions. In fact, the three characters I love the most (Light, L, and Ryuk) are not just some of my favorite animated characters ever, but also the main draw of this series for me-- they're the ones that manage to overshadow just about every other problem I have with Death Note, and that precisely has to do with the way that this series is formatted.

I must thank Breaking Bad for getting me into these "cat-and-mouse" type of shows... though I don't think that description is appropriate since I think of other things when I hear that phrase. A more suitable description for me would be "hunter and hunted"... I dunno. Either way, this narrative format is one that always holds my attention and makes me want to watch more since the number of twists and turns an episode can pull on you are ridiculous-- it makes it so that on repeat watches, you'll notice little attention to details that the writers put in for fans to pick up, making it so that we see eye-to-eye with what they were intending. It's the exact same philosophy Breaking Bad has, nothing short of genius, and Death Note runs with this premise wholesale. It was the first time in a while I would watch an episode, finish it, and then want to see more, as a lot of stuff I've seen lately hasn't grabbed my interest and I end up feeling like I'm forcing myself through it all.

Each and every episode preys on twisting your expectations and ramping up to the huge potential climax where L catches Light or vice-versa, and everytime I tried to predict what the next episode would do, something else (not exactly the opposite) would happen. I remember thinking to myself that L would be hidden until things got dire, but he was revealed early on and is right on Light's tail from the get-go. In fact, something that I realized long after I had finished Death Note was that L knew everything about Light all along, but couldn't convict him because Light was just that good at hiding the needed evidence-- and it almost looked like for a moment that Light forefeit the notebook at one point because of how fed up he was with L, only to then backtrack hard and become even more insane than he already is.

The way this show's story is crafted is insane, yet surprisingly easy to follow at the same time. There's so much to take in, yet I never felt like my understanding was moving at a slower pace than the show, and I like the fact that those who worked on it acknowledged the potential for that to happen, as the breaks at the mid-point of episodes remind the viewers of the rules of the notebook. There was clearly so much effort in this engrossing narrative, and I was with it the whole way through.

I mentioned earlier that my three favorite characters are Light, L, and Ryuk, and it bares repeating that they're without a doubt the best part about Death Note, and what makes them so great as characters is just how much every episode thoroughly explores their thought process-- you get a deep dive into Light and L's brilliant minds and see how they take advantage of their overt intelligence, and neither of them get any kind of special help along the way either.

  That's why I appreciate the way that Ryuk is written, as he easily could've sucked out the tension and made things unfair had he deliberately sided with or gone against Light... but instead he's entirely ambiguous and is like a surrogate for the audience in terms of how he reacts to Light and L's dynamic. It's also worth noting that, in the end, everything that transpired was all because of the fact he was bored and wanted to be entertained-- it's funny how a show that gets so grim started from something that sounds like a joke, which isn't something I should be surprised about since Ryuk did deliver the several laughs that I got from this anime.

Which now leaves us with both Light and L, and I'd like to start with the former since opinions on this character seem to be split. In my opinion, Light is one of the best examples of a character you just love to hate, but can still understand on some level.
  It's really easy to see how much this notebook corrupts him to an unrecognizable degree, and the moment he reaches that stage, you are praying for his downfall... yet you also may not want that to happen, because Light loses, the series is practically over... you have nothing left to look forward to. When Light ended up dying in the finale, all that pent-up hatred I had for him ended up vanishing since he is still a kid at the end of the day who let his ego get the best of him, and this is the same way I felt about Walt's death in the finale. Once the jig is up, do you hate any of these characters as much as you thought? We got to see what Light's personality was like if he never found the notebook, a kindhearted boy who does good by everyone, and even when he did have the notebook, there was a point where he was contemplating killing his sister to lessen suspicion that he's Kira, yet didn't because he still has some principles.
  It's hard not to draw comparisons between Light and Walter White for me because although they are definitely evil people, they aren't completely devoid of humanity even at their lowest points-- they're just ego maniacs that took their ideologies too far and ended up paying a ginormous price for it, and all I was wondering is when and how would their actions come back to bite them in the ass and how will they react to it? The answers I got were both satisfying and some of the most tragic stuff I've ever seen in media. Without a doubt, the saddest part about Death Note's ending is the fact that no one ends up victorious. Both Light and L lose, and it's like their feud never mattered in the grand scheme of things since life continued on for a majority of the population... except for those lunatics who worshipped Kira.

  I will say though, I do think L is a better character than Light since he's the person you have more reason to root for, and is superior to Light in terms of his design and eccentricity-- he pretty much gives Death Note its identity, and it's no wonder because he is simply a fascinating individual-- if I were to describe what I was able to draw from him, you'd think I'm making everything about him up. Not helping matters is that it's hard to tell what he feels in any scene except for the rare few where he makes it apparent, and those scenes are that he has a disdain for Light... or when he first saw a Shinigami. He also has an affinity for sweets which I find hilarious, it's almost like a mini trope to give masterminds a fixation for desserts. I've already gone on a bit above about how wild his dynamic with Light is, but it's truly is amazing how well L plays his cards-- it's like he's able to look at a person and deduce everything about them, so much so that there are points where he will deliberately give Light a compliment and watch him talk himself up, only giving L more reason to eventually convict Light. He's also go to the lengths of literally chaining himself to Light to get him to fess up. His detective work is the most unconventional thing ever, and inadvertently adds a bit of humor to the series since his absurd tactics nearly work all the time... but of course Light finds a way to skirt around it.

  It should not be understated just how much L and Light's mind games make up Death Note's appeal to me. If you got rid of it, I would be left with a product that would have next-to-no value... which brings me to my problem with EVERYTHING ELSE.

THIS ANIME MIGHT NOT BE AS GOOD AS I THINK: For as much as I adore the narrative of Death Note and can almost tolerate the many problems that I took with the series, I must confess that this scorecard I made might just be a "V1", because hindsight has not treated Death Note very kindly for me. Even during my watch, I took down notes of stuff that I noticed that not many others share with me... some of those peopple do exist, but, just like me, they're able to enjoy Death Note for what it's worth because Light, L, and Ryuk do make it worthwhile in the end.

  But to be honest, everything else about Death Note is not something I can say I like, and that extends to the way that this story is told... and I know my last 2 scorecards went into detail about what it means to have bad pacing... and while Death Note's pacing isn't bad, it's generally wonky, especially by the time we reach Part 2. Part 1 wasn't as offensive, but I will say that by the time Misa was introduced, it wasn't hard for me to not pay my full attention to an episode since I never came to Death Note to watch Light feign a relationship with someone, though that is not my biggest bone to pick with Misa. If we're specifically talking about Part 2, a lot of episodes had moments that were just a load of nothing... they're watchable, but they are what I can only call a waste of time, primarily exemplified by the fact that we got a clip show episode after the show's climax in the previous episode, Silence.

  I attribute this to the fact that Death Note's total number of episodes confused me before I even started. It's merely 37 episodes. Not 26, not 52, not 45, nor 50. 37 is such an arbitrary number, and if they spent 25 episodes telling one part of the story, then they clearly would've needed at least 20 more episodes to complete the other... not 12, in which one of them was wasted by an unnecessary recap episode. In fact, something tells me that if I were to rewatch Death Note, there would be a few episodes I would deem unnecessary to progressing the story.

Some of these things are problems that could have happened during production, or the result of the creators trying to be as faithful to the manga as possible, but not having enough episodes to work with-- that might explain why the first 2 episodes were purely exposition... and they had A LOT of it, before the story suddenly accelerates by the third episode, so it's why I don't let these little things get to me that much. However, there is ONE thing about Death Note that I cannot stand and might cause me to dislike it if I were to ever rewatch it.

DEATH NOTE AND THE ART OF DEVALUATION: I tried my best to come with a term for a trend I saw running throughout this anime, and the best that I could come up with is "devaluation"-- my definition for this term is: when a series has a quality that's unique to it, but is undermined by the show itself due to introducing new elements that can only be described as bullshit, or make said quality nowhere near as special as it once was.

That might sound confusing, but I promise it'll make sense within these next few lines. As much as I did enjoy watching Death Note, I must say that there was a point where I was beginning to raise some eyebrows, and that would be the episode where Misa debuted, Confession-- that episode actually got me to take a break from watching Death Note because her introduction spelled doom for this series... I was thankfully proven wrong that the show was going to be ruined, but even past that point, I genuinely don't like Misa because her character is so unbefitting of the world Death Note has crafted for itself. An overly cheery ignoramus doesn't mesh well with stern characters like Light's father, L, Light himself, or the many FBI agents we're introduced to. Matsuda, the character that's played for comic relief (and even then he's not so great at that), doesn't clash with the tone that Death Note is setting for itself as much as Misa does... and let me just have this aside to say that I don't give a damn about any of the characters besides Light, L, and Ryuk.
   Seriously, the rest of the characters in this series are pretty damn weak because they get no attention whatsoever... which I know IS the point, but it ultimately makes the world that Light lives in feel small and artificial. Seeing more into Light's family would've gone miles to giving this world more of a personality-- definitely would've been better than the many scenes that don't contribute to the story, and it comes to bite this show back in the ass when Light's father dies, which is supposed to be a sad moment, but I had a straight face throughout that episode because Light's father has no personality at all... and it's still debated on whether Light was faking his reaction to his father's death or not, which is a problem because it could've reinforced the idea that Light isn't a completely heartless monster.

Anyways, this was about Misa and how I don't like her as a character, so let me continue the point by saying that, in this show, she is treated as an obstacle in Light's path, and to be honest with you, I saw it the same way because her introduction completely devalued the existence of the Death Note-- apparently any idiot can pick it up and wreak havoc in much the same way in FOP, apparently any kid can get fairies because Da Rulez don't matter at all. Seriously, compare the level of depth that Light's character has to Misa's and the problems begin to arise, not to mention that we had a full episode introducing her that ended up breaking the consistent pace of the story. I also take issue with the Shinigami that she has, Rem, because she's nothing more than a plot device.
  I'll give Ryuk credit for keeping his feelings ambiguous throughout the story and how he contributes way more to the story than Rem. Tell me, what did Rem do at all other than pull off some bullshit in this show's climax? (which I DESPISE btw) Y'know, that climax when she ended up killing TWO people instead of ONE as per the rules of the notebook-- I sure do wonder what was stopping her from killing off MORE PEOPLE other than pure convenience... the fact that I came to that realization just as L's death was happening before my eyes absolutely ruined that scene and cemented Silence as an episode I hate (it's rated Bad now but it should be Awful).

So what we have here is 2 Kiras, one that serves the role well and one that's far inferior, and two shinigamis, one that I love and one that I can't stand... but this show also has the audacity to have a second L in the form of Near. I don't hate Near whatsoever, in fact I kinda like him-- a part of me feels like he's dealt with much better in the manga than in the anime, but it's bizarre how the series takes so many shortcuts when it comes to his deductive abilities, when we spent a lot of time with L and learned how he thinks. I'm not kidding when I say that Near comes to the conclusion that Light is Kira by pure happenstance, and this is once again sheer proof that the pacing of this story is completely wrong. Granted, the final confrontation with Light is fantastic and would've been one of my favorite finales ever if I didn't catch onto a few minor issues that I couldn't ignore-- I love it most for the voice performances, as it's known that Death Note's English dub is phenomenal and the ideal way to watch the anime, but the leadup to that point could've been handled better.

  The takeaway from this paragraph is that I can't get behind the idea that there exists knockoffs of each of the main characters-- I find them all intrusive to the narrative since they end up breaking the logic of this series. Light gets busted because he got unlucky, L dies because Rem had to break the rules of the notebook to do so, we have the original Kira and a nuisance who also happens to be named Kira, and all they did was undermine and disrupt the narrative. They annoyed me in the moment just for a little, but became major problems when I reflect back on this series.

tl;dr version: I find it weird how there aren't many people that have taken note of the stuff I listed here. Like yeah, Part 2 is weaker than Part 1... but is Part 1 completely flawless? I don't think so as it had the seeds for the issues that would take root in Part 2, but even then, I couldn't get by Misa or Rem's existence since they're nothing but obstacles both for Light... and for me! I seriously felt the same way as Light, and not in the way that I want to because while I do want Light not to succeed, I want it to be in a way that isn't forced. Not just forced, but one that actively goes against the stuff that makes this series unique. The same thing goes for Near's existence, but I can tell what they ended up doing with him was the result of there being a time crunch instead of incompetent storytelling. You've heard me say it time and time again, but it really is L and Light that almost make up for these weaknesses, but I fear a rewatch might prove otherwise.

CONCLUSION: After writing this entire review, I don't know whether or not I should be calling Death Note a GOOD anime because it's the biggest example of how the littlest problems can be the biggest deal-breakers for me. There's so much potential here that was being used to its fullest until Misa was introduced, but problems started appearing left and right and were only remedied by Light and L's dynamic-- seriously, if they did not pull that off so well, this anime would end up being a flimsy broken mess of storytelling with forgettable characters and overly bleak animation... but I don't regret watching it all, and I'd love to do it again to see whether my criticisms will be as obtrusive as I made them out to be. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Death Note because it's the closest watching experience I've had to Breaking Bad, which was one of my favorite binges ever, and it is an anime I recommend checking out because if you're able to ignore the issues that I took with it, you're in for an experience that'll leave you on the edge of your seat the whole way through... when it's not wasting your time on stuff or characters that don't matter in the end. P.S., watch the dub, the voice acting in that was another thing carrying this anime for me.