You have to love a series that begins with the mouth of Hell and Gregorian chants.  Or maybe I just have a thing for the mouth of Hell...it's awfully cool.  Death Note specializes in coolness.  It's stylish, it's attractive--but not too attractive, and delightfully dark. 

Work has been unsteady and life is a little too sedate for the death god, or shinigami, Ryuk.  It's his job to record the names of those who are to die in his notebook, but he just doesn't get the job satisfaction he once did.  Through a bit of craftiness, Ryuk acquires a second notebook, the Death Note, and decides to stir things up a bit by dropping it into the human world, just to see what happens.

Light Yagami is a senior in high school.  He's intelligent, studies hard, and is at the top of his class.  He's also incredibly bored.  It's evident that school does not provide the challenge he requires, so when he finds the Death Note lying on the ground, solving its mystery proves irresistible.  

After figuring out that writing the name of a person in the Death Note ensures their death, Light devises a plan to rid the world of all criminals and wrongdoers.  Of course, he'll be a god, the benevolent ruler of this utopic society.  He fills the notebook with names, and when one criminal after another die of heart attacks, it naturally draws the attention of the police.  With a mass murderer on their hands, the police scramble to piece the case together, enlisting the help of a mysterious detective who is only known as L.  No one has ever seen L, and he works with the police through the assistance of a liaison whose identity is also unknown. 

These first four episodes are fast-paced and provide a huge amount of information in a very short time.  The plot flies by with twists and turns, offering a very interesting chase with Light staying one step ahead of L.  A battle of wits and logic ensues, and it's anyone's guess who will come out on top. 

Light has discovered an incredible power; he rationalizes using the Death Note by insisting he's doing the world a favor.  Slyly encouraged by Ryuk, who can only be seen by someone who has touched the Death Note, Light is seduced by that power, and the whole thing becomes a game.  He can kill remotely, justify his actions, and dance rings around the police and L.  In dealing with L, he's finally found the intellectual challenge that he was missing in school.  Through Light, Ryuk has found an infinitely amusing pastime as he watches the drama he created play out.

Watching Light become thoroughly corrupted is kind of like watching a train wreck.  You don't want to see what happens, and yet, you can't tear your eyes away from the carnage.  In some ways, Death Note is a very uncomfortable series.  Light's sociopathic tendencies are more than a bit disturbing.  He doesn't value human life, and has a naive sense of justice, and of good and evil.  It doesn't work to just kill all the "bad people."  Who decides who's good and who's bad?  What right does Light have to kill another?  He has no recognition of the fact that he's condemning these people without any kind of trial or search for the truth.  On the other hand, it's great fun watching Light match wits with L.  The experiments he conducts to explore the notebook's power are as horrible as they are fascinating.  I found myself waiting anxiously to see what L would do next, and how Light would counter it. 

The darkness of the plot is nicely expressed by the artwork, which is dominated by darker colors and subdued greys.  Splashes of color here and there, outdoor scenes, for instance, add a bit of brightness.  Mostly, however, the drawings look as dark and edgy as the story they're telling.  I love the drawings of the shinigami, Ryuk in particular.  He's all gangly limbs and staring eyes, with a very large, very disconcerting grin.  It's great!  Another impressive touch is Light's eyes.  I'm not quite sure what it is, it's not the color, but they way they're drawn perfectly conveys the shadows in his heart.  As for the rest of the artwork, it's slick and looks good.

After a while the Gregorian chants got a little old, but they still add a nice gothic feel.  Both the sub and the dub are nicely done, so either way, it works.

Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette with the English voice actors, production art sketches, a director's commentary for episode 1, and textless opening and closing.

The fast pacing and dark plot sucked me into the story from the very beginning, and I'm hugely looking forward to the next installment.

Details: Contains episodes 1-4