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Anime First Impressions

Death Note – Anime First Impressions

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Having read the first volume of the Death Note manga (and liking it), I had high hopes for the anime. It’s actually a pretty good thing that I read the manga, since I probably wouldn’t have been able to really understand the anime without doing so.

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Yagami Raito (or Light), is a really smart high school student. So smart, in fact, that he’s totally bored. Ryuuku is a really bored Shinigami (death god). It seems like they’re made for each other! One day, Ryuuku “accidentally” drops his note book. When someone’s name is written in the book, they’ll die within 40 seconds (or your money back)!

Raito, being a good guy, uses the book to kill all of the world’s worst criminals. He thinks that by killing all of these high profile criminals, people will be afraid to commit crimes. At very least, they’d probably think twice about committing genocide.

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This episode is just the introduction to Death Note. Since I’ve read the first volume of the manga, I’m really looking forward to how they handle the story. Death Note is more of a thinking man’s anime, so they’ll have to find a way to ramp up the excitement. This episode, they had a lot of super motion blurred shots of Raito writing in the book!

I guess I won’t divulge any spoilers, but I will say that the complexity of the story is about to go up. Hopefully the story will go a bit faster than one chapter an episode, or I’ll be waiting a few months for the story to catch up. Plus I just bought the second volume a week or so ago!

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The animation for Death Note looked really good. Death Note is pretty much a license to print money, so it’s no surprise that a big budget went into this anime.

One thing I noticed is that Ryuuk sounds like a normal guy. I figured his voice would be more, I dunno, demony? It just seems weird for that voice to come out of a scary looking shinigami. I guess it’s good that the voice actor isn’t overacting the part at least.

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The OP and ED are both done by a group called “Nightmare.” They’re your standard J-Rock songs. They’re both okay, but equally forgettable. It would’ve been nice to have some variety in the OP and ED.

Download the OP: “The World” by Nightmare
Download the ED: “Aluminia” by Nightmare

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Overall, the Death Note anime certainly looks good. Having already come out with a live action movie, I think they’ll probably get the anime adaptation right. I’ve already read a bit of the manga, so I can probably safely recommend this anime too.

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30 replies on “Death Note – Anime First Impressions”

Yeah, i also agree that Ryuuku’s seemingly normal voice is highly disappointing. Hey, he could be just a very disfigured Yagami’s neighbour, for all we know !

Misa’s being voiced by Hirano Aya – hooray! Wait, does Misa come out in the first volume? I forget…anyway, Death Note is an awesome manga and the anime adaptation seems to be very high quality. Can’t wait to see it.

Light and Ryuk are actually the official names/spellings ^^
Misa doesn’t appear until volume 3 of the manga, so i suppose we’ll still have to wait a bit …

i’m actually quite happy with the way Ryuku’s voice sounds… I didn’t imagine him with a very demony voice to begin with though.

Anyways I can’t wait to see the anime… *goes off to look for raw*

Wow, i never actually knew that death note had become an anime! Well i guess its recent. Im going to go scrounge up some!

I’ve read the manga and I think Ryuuku’s voice is okay, because he isn’t really that demonic. As much as how scary he looks like, he’s supposed to be uh…comedic in some parts of the story so I think the voice perfectly fits him.

First I’msuper stoked that Deth Noteis in anime form. I’ve actually been waiting for it to appear this way for a while. I love everything so far , it ahs really been well implemented. I’ve read most of the manga and need to finish some amazing stuf happens happens and I just hope the anime stays true to it. awesome

Great review.
I watched the first episode at 12:56am the morning it came out (why do all the good animes have to be shown so late in Japan -_-;;)

I was a little scared that it would ruin the manga, but instead I found it really good. It provides a different feeling to the manga though, more dark to begin with from the music and colors. The beginning of the manga seemed happier, I guess it had more time to depict Raito’s innocence.

Also the anime seemed to make Raito a bit evil and crazy from the start. But I loved the art though and the speed it moved along the storyline.

Do you mind if I use 3 of your screencaps on my blog? I will definitely also be linking you of course. Thankyou^^
Keep up the good work.

Mel:
Sure, you can use some caps. It’s so nice to see someone ask! And yeah, linkage would be cool.

DEATH NOTE deals a lot with human psychology. The way how ppl think, ppl do things, ppls’ perspectives in live are all included. It talks about the paradox of the humanity ideology. Questions like killing bad people, a crime or not? and a bunch of questions that follow up. Thoughts that we always avoid to think about and complicated ideas which end up like the chicken or the egg first?? If you want some serious stuff and DEEP HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY, you must watch this.

death note is nice..i usually wacth anime that were dectective,adventure,haroo,comedy…where can i byu death
note(anime) in pulau pinang(malaysia)….but in case i already watch d.n v1-7 in internet only…i trully want 2
know what will happend the end of d.n…LIGHT IS VERY COOL
& L IS CUTE,hehe….SO SAD that I HEVEN watch movie yetT-T..

The whole point, probably, of giving Ryuk a ‘normal’ voice is to break away from the typical expectations of the audience and to give the character an edge above the other stereotypical demons. Also, if I had the bloody Death Note and there all day writing names like a good little boy in detention, I might appreciate a joke now and then from a guy who doesn’t spell like a furnace.

the person who writes in the death note will not go to heaven or hell, but the person who wrote ‘death note’ will definitely go to heaven. Even the devil would like such an anime. Its awesome, by far the best i’ve seen! Can’t wait for the next episode

i was a bit disappointed with the live action it was really unaccurate, and the guy who played light wasnt very gd in my opinion, i liked the way they did ryuk and L tho.
in the anime i like ryuks voice its how i imagined it, not all demonic. the anime is amaisin quite acurate as well, thats the bit that bugs me about most animes they rnt very acurate, anyhoo i really liked it, the animation was gd ..i cant wait for the nxt one!

Ahaha. I’ve been watching the Subbed version for a while now, and I’ve read all the Manga. Being a long time follower of Deathnote, I’m extremely impressed with the anime. Rem, Ryuk, L, And Light’s Voices are perfect. Matsuda and Chief Yagami’s tend to get on my nerves (so does Misa’s, but she is cool. ). I can’t wait until the ‘Second part’ begins to progress.

Also, Thanks for the Download links, I’ve been searching all around the net for them.

-Griff

I liked the voices!
I’m on episode 27 & liking it

***WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

It sucks about L but I think it’s a good thing because the good guy never suffers at all from the so called “Ultimate Ememy”

I’ll watch all 37 episodes good or bad
The 26th one wasn’t all that good -.-

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS END HERE***

Hi, I was wondering the following three things:

*I see that Death Note has become an Anime! Will it be releaased in New Zealand soon?
*I’m making a Death Note tribute video, and I was wondering if I could use these screen shots in the video? I’ve saved most of them, but none of them are in the video yet.
*Regarding my AMV, does anyone know where I can get clips from the Anime? I’ve tried Yahoo! But you can only view them, not download them. Please e-mail me on [email protected] if you know where to get clips! Thanks,

Ella de la Noche.

Misa’s gonna be Hirano Aya?!? AWESOME!!! i just finished melancholy of haruhi suzumiya and now im really into any anime with her!

DEATH NOTE(anime) I already finish watched all……..The ending is so sad,i cry when I see Light die,it was not fair…I think all the main chracter die,First Misa’s shinigami(deathgod),L,Light,Ryuk(light’s shinigami) & misa…
why I think misa & Ryuk wiil die,because Misa say that she cannot live without Light…Ryuk maby die because he let Light die(the truth Light life still did’t end yet,but Ryuk let Light die,the Death note say that if shinigami write someone name if the person life still did’t end yet,the shinigami wiil turn 2 dust)
Death note live action movie also nice(>-<)
IF want 2 add me~
[email protected]

DEATH NOTE anime is more better than death note live action movie….the live action movie already change some of the story….

Elaine Tan, Ryuk will not die b/c he did not “extend the life” of a human by writing in the notebook. Ryuk shortened Ligths life.

Question to all: is “L” really dead. In episode 27ish when “L” dies his colleague, the old gentleman: Hotari (I do not know how to spell this one)dies first. This is presumably an act from Rem to save Misa. Does Rem write Hotari and then “L” in the notebook prior to turning to dust? Is there more than meets the eye here and does the Magna succeed the anime to reveal answers?

HOW DARE ALL OF YOU POST SPOILERS WITHOUT SAYING: “SPOILER WARNING!”

My sister recommended Death Note to me, so I wanted to read a review about it. I suppose that I had it coming when I chose to read the comments, but now I know the entire ending to Death Note – and I feel no compulsion to watch it or even read the manga anymore because I know that [spoiler] “Light dies and so does L.”

Thanks to those of you who actually put up spoiler warnings, but I suppose it’s too late now, isn’t it? >__>;

@ the above reply:
I think you yourself has to be blamed for reading the reviews. It is expected that spoilers would leak out because people are “REVIEWING” about the anime. If you don’t want to know, don’t even read these in the first place.

nice site 😀

it alleviates my office boredom a bit..
it makes me want to go home and continue watching ep18..
i didn’t know about deathnote until last week when my migo urged me to try watching it..i’m not really an anime fan..
i’m into soap operas 😀
but i’m starting to like animes 😀

I like Death Note.
A lot of people say it’s a manga for thinkers, but I disagree. Being a thinker myself, I’ve found too many glitches in it to take it as more than a form of entertainment. The main problem I have is, that for a psychological manga, it doesn’t have any character analysis, unless you count Mikami, who was a rather minor character. I guess that’s because it’s shonen and not meant to be highly emotional or anything of that sort. Besides for this one point, I thoroughly enjoy Death Note and love Takeshi Obha’s art. He’s amazing in every manga. As for Tsugumi Obha, I believe he’s somewhat of a genious if Light, L, and Near aren’t.

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