The first thing you wonder about when you start to read DEATH NOTE is whether the stories main protagonist is good or evil. After reading a bit further you realise that your suppoesed to keep guessing right till the end.

DEATH NOTE was the first manga I read the entire way through and I will continue to re-read it over and over, till the day I die.

The story of DEATH NOTE is a detective story that runs over the course of about seven years. However, it has a edge-of-your-seat speed and danger about it that is strangely alluring. Tsugumi Ohba has managed to weave a tale with many twists and turns that you don't expect until it's right there on the page in front of you.

Takeshi Obata's artwork begins very well. Then gets better. It is perfectly dark and worrying, and the Shinigami (Death Gods) almost look as if you could meet one in reality. But it is at the end where the imagery is most powerful and amazing.

The most important part of DEATH NOTE is it's characters. All of them are well developed from their unveiling. Even some of the characters that are only in three or four frames seem to have been created with the same love as the main characters.

DEATH NOTE is enjoyable for almost any body in their teens and onwards through adulthood. It can be (and has been) enjoyed by all ages, all genders, race, religion and political preference. And always will be.

Overall, this series' excellence speaks for itself and has paved the way for an Anime and Film adaption as well as a prequel novel. No one can really say how good this series is. The reader must judge for themself.

And more often than not, they judge it wonderfully.