Bloo's Reviews: Death Note

I've decided I'm going to review DVDs every week for fun. And since this blog is mostly about Animation, I might try to review an Animation on DVD each week. Originally I was going to start off by reviewing all types of movies, and I was going to start humorously with "Bloodrayne" by Uwe Bol. But I couldn't finish the movie it was so terrible. So I would keep to animation, since I know the most about that, anyways.

This week's Review is:

DEATH NOTE

Based on a Japanese Manga from Shonen Jump, Death Note centers around a 17 year old called Light Yagime. A bright young man, who has perfect attendance, school marks, and athleticism. The perfect teen who is on track to go to college at the top of his class and become a great detective. Until he stumbles across a notebook which seemed to have fallen from the heavens. This Notebook, known as "The Death Note", has special powers, and soon Light discovers how special these powers really are. If he writes the name of a person and time/mode of death, that person will die in the exact way it was described. If he writes only the name, that person will die within a minute by a heart attack. But by owning this Deathnote, he is followed by a God of Death or "Shimigami" until either the Notebook is filled or the bearer dies. Light begins using the notebook by killing only criminals and vowing to bring about a new World without criminals under the guise of "Kira", a faceless 'god' of justice. Light, soon, finds a nemesis in a young, strange prodigy named, simply, "L". The series explodes in a twirling match of wits between the two trying to find out each others identities. The first to lose this struggle will die.

From the very beginning to the very last episode, "Death Note" is rarely tired and boring. Just watching these two minds sitting in the same room and psycho-anaylizing each other is exciting. This psychological thriller, loves to toy with emotions as we dive deeper and deeper into Light's psyche as he falls steadily into madness with the power of the Death Note. The visuals and animation make up for the long steady stream of dialogue, but even the dialogue is, for the most part, very intriguing and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. All of the characters are explored into amazing depth and each given some amazing detail which only gives the audience a reason to care about each one and worry about them. the only thing I would fault the series on would be the over explanations and very long dialogue scenes. It seemed to rely purely on the animation and direction to keep things interesting, especially since things were repeated on several occasions to remind the audience, which (for me at least), broke me from suspension of disbelief or just reminded me that I was watching an animation when I was previously right there in the room with each character.

Writing aside, the animation quality is outstanding. With Character Design by Masaru Kitao, Series Director Tetsuro Araki, and animation production by Madhouse. There is very little to fault. The style, direction and use of colors versus black and white flavors the already in-depth characters. Sometimes, things get a little wonky in the animation with missing frames or actions that could have been a little more expanded upon, but these are minor nit-picks since the overall quality on a half hour series, even out of Japan, is one of the better series I have seen.

Since this is my first ever rated DVD, I haven't quite come up with a suitable rating system, but until I do, I'll just go with the 10 point system for now.

This creepy psycho-thriller was well written and dripping with emotion and character along with some amazing visuals, design and excellent animation. It does get a little tedious at times with the repeated explanations, but is only a small grievance to an amazing series.

For "Death Note": 8.5 out of 10

I highly recommend watching, you'll be hooked by the first 10 minutes.

"Death Note" previously aired on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" and is for sale on DVD released in English Dub format in the US by Viz Media Production. Rated "Older Teen"