Q: What happens when an unstoppable Mary Sue meets an immovable Mary Sue?
A: Death Note.

The protagonist, and his adversary, are both genius pretty boys (with the odd names of Light and L) who have an incredible amount of achievements and skill for their young age. Light somehow predicts things that he could not possibly have the foresight to predict, because, you know, probability is a thing. Don’t worry though, it’s not like you know that he’ll always win, because L possesses this exact same unexplained and ludicrous ability to predict the future; he just does so without a cheesy “Just as planned!” catchphrase that makes me want to shoot myself every-time it graces my ears. In this way, rather than being a dark and mysterious thriller, Death Note often manages to be an overblown mental mudslinging contest between two impossibly perfect master practitioners of bullshit who are both describable in a single sentence. This is epitomized in an early scene where the two, who both have tennis skills at a professional level, get into a match and engage in a ridiculously drawn-out internal line of logic about how the desire to not lose might relate to the true identity of the other.


Furthermore, what kind of psychological mystery thriller has a plot entirely driven by coincidences, improbabilities, and impossibilities? Again, Death Note. Plot devices like this were used every-time the manga found itself in a narrative corner, and these cop-outs always completely killed the tension that was built up to that point, while simultaneously disengaging the plot from the audience.


The concept was intriguing, and I won’t say it did not entertain me at some parts, but it was ultimately far too flawed in its execution to be called enjoyable or good overall, and it never managed to pull off the promise of its premise. It seemed overdone at times, with eye-roll worthy developments, and lines like “I take a potato chip and eat it!” delivered with the utmost significance and conviction, devoid of any irony or self-awareness. Light’s ability, of writing a name in a notebook as a method of killing, is initially well established and limited, while being relatively creative, although you would think he’d be able to do a bit more with it, but the way the new rules of the note are introduced as the story goes on can get a tad contrived.


Characterization quality is somewhat varied, but I would say that it's generally not all that good. It was bad, really. Light is a bit too perfect, his only flaws being the well-concealed logical results of his perfection, such as his narcissism and overconfidence. It could be argued that this flawlessness was intentionally done in an effort to depict the deconstruction of a seemingly perfect human being, but I think this concept eventually fell flat. It would have been far more interesting to see an average teenager find the note and watch the scope of his ambitions and arrogance develop over time. Light is arrogant, ambitious, and a staunch consequentialist from the very outset; this, logically, kills almost all opportunity for development. As for the rest of the characters, L was far more interesting and entertaining than Light, although he was even more unrealistic, evoking the child prodigy and boy detective clichés among other things; I mostly found myself rooting for him rather than the protagonist. Light's eventual “girlfriend” falls in love with him, to the extent of obsession, right away, as the plot commands it, and this insufficiently-explored obsession with him defines her entire character. There is absolutely nothing to her besides that, despite her eventually becoming one of the most significant characters in the series. In all actuality, the motivations for most characters, besides the protagonist and the Shinigami, are hazy at best and, with the exception of L, none of them are interesting in the slightest.


Death Note has some religious symbolisms and themes, which are underplayed and done well until a forced Christ allegory towards the middle, but this all kind of falls apart in the second half and all of the symbolism quickly vanishes into thin air. To make matters more dire, the already limited development of the protagonist stagnates and his adversary is quickly replaced by two identical, yet duller and less compelling, copies. At the same time, while the developments and additional rules to Light’s ability in the first half were often a bit contrived, they were usually better than nothing; pretty much all evolution stops in the second half, and it only gets worse. The manga essentially loses everything that it ever had going for it, and it then lies fallow in that inadequate stage for the remainder of the plot, all leading up to an anticlimactic conclusion that the audience knew was coming from the very beginning. The manga would have lost nothing to speak of had that conclusion come around 4 volumes earlier than it did. Therefore, as the plot progressed, it increasingly lost its higher significance and simultaneously started to wear thin the initial appeal of its premise.


The art is arguably the strongest, or least flawed, aspect of Death Note, the character design being particularly astounding, with the exception of a couple characters introduced in the second half whose designs were either dumb-looking or recycled. The art is generally pretty atmospheric and it never skimps on detail out of convenience, although not much detail is required in the first place. The design of the main antagonist, while understated, is particularly impressive due to the fact that he manages to be very aesthetically appealing, despite the ridiculous heroin chic vibe that the audience gets from him. It is usually pretty stellar, although side characters aren't all that detailed.


In the end, what Death Note did accomplish was hackneyed and not all that original; it could not be called “deep” nor was it ever cutting-edge in the grand scheme of things. The coincidences and general improbabilities that drove the plot bar it from being called “realistic,” more than the out-there premise ever could. That said, it should be given some credit for featuring a true antihero, who is still often admired by the audience, and ultimately not being afraid to portray him as pathetic. It also never used the character’s high school age as an excuse to throw light school-life hijinks into the plot. But these positive qualities unfortunately failed to have too much influence in the industry, and they are additionally outweighed by negatives in the universe of the manga itself. Code Geass, a blatant Death Note rip-off, wasted no time at all in taking every single good Death Note did and flipping it all on its head. I might recommend Death Note, if only for the first half, but only with a warning that it fell apart and that even the first half is not as great as it's often made out to be. You honestly might be best off watching the first half and simply skimming the plot summary of the second, because it has nothing of value to offer the reader beyond that point.

Note: This is mostly a modified version of my review for the anime. They follow the same storyline and suffer from the same fundamental issues.