Desu nôto (2006–2007)

Storyline

An intelligent high school student goes on a secret crusade to eliminate criminals from the world after discovering a notebook capable of killing anyone whose name is written into it.

In the first episode, you can already see the amazing animation, the well-chosen voices, the immediate gripping of fear over the future in your chest. Death Note is a must-see for those who love to have a good 5 minutes of thinking because Death Note beautifully weaves suspense and unexpected turn of events that leaves the audience stunned and fascinated.

You'll notice the good production, but to truly decide whether it's worth watching you will have to watch to the 2nd (and for those who are stubborn, the 3rd) episode. If you are planning to watch this for a limited of time, you're in luck because the series is only 37 episodes long since the manga already ended.

While the IQ of the two main characters is straight-out impossible, you still cannot feel but admire just how logical their reasons for making possibilities and theories are (what makes it even scarier is that most of the theories that L or Light, the two protagonists, are true). If you are one who watches things from a personal view, you would have a hard time deciding whether the things they are doing are right and if they are, in reality, insane.

There is slight humor that adds faint scratches on the anime, but it is soon covered up in the next minute with what a character has done or said. There was not a moment where I wasn't sitting at the edge of my seat, my eyes literally sticking to the screen. Every minute is worth watching, even the sinister theme songs played by Nightmare.

What makes this anime/manga unique is that it's a mystery thriller where you hardly question the origins of something. You rarely ask yourself unanswerable questions (not even in the back of your mind) and without realizing, you're only focused on the present events.

I promise, no matter what kind of audience you are, you will be gripped by this chilling life and death chain of events of a bored genius who kills criminals mercilessly with the mysterious Death Note.