TL;DR: charming and intelligent high school student finds a notebook that can kill people if their names are written in it. He starts killing all criminals and is subsequently hunted down by the police.
Death note, like Cowboy Bebop, is a classic in the anime world. While most highly rated anime tend to shine in a few particular areas, death note is unique in the fact that it excels at several different things. It’s mostly known for the dramatic and complex plot, it also has stellar character designs, directing, music, and even some decent openings/endings.
The character designs themselves may seem like a silly thing to focus on, but the variety of head/eye shapes in the anime do really outshine the rest of the industry.
These little visual/audio quirks add up to what I call a “distinguishment” factor — the creation of an environment which is unique to the series. I think this is very overlooked among reviewers who tend to focus on the plot or the characters. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most classic anime tend to have a unique atmosphere — be it One Piece, Cowboy Bebop, Naruto, or Fullmetal Alchemist.
I hypothesize that a unique atmosphere also contributes to greater rewatchability, as the emotions from the first viewing are then associated with the visual/audible quirks of the series.
Critics of death note are extremely rare, and when they appear, they usually criticize the 2nd half of the series rather than the first one. I don’t think the second half was truly that bad, but the absence of some characters they killed off did ruin part of what made death note so great.
Scoring:
Design (14/15):
Distinguishment: (5/5) - iconic music, directing, and artwork
Animation: (2/2)
Sound: (2/2)
OST: (2/2)
Character designs: (2/2)
Backgrounds: (1/2)
Script (46/50):
Character Investment: (10/10)
Character Realism: (1/2)
Character Complexity: (3/3)
Plot solidness (5/5)
Plot complexity: (10/10)
Ending: (4/5)
Pacing: (5/5)
Stakes: (8/10)
Value (11/15):
Thematic elements: (5/5) - utilitarianism vs deontology, political policy
Skill: (5/5)
Originality: (5/5)
Enjoyment (20/20):
Did I like it: (20/20) - great ending, but can get a little dull
Death note is heavily overrated IMO. It's been a while since I watched it, but from what I remember, the thought processes of Light and L actually made sense for the first half of the show, but after that, the writers just started throwing thousands of bullshit factors into the pie as a cheap way of writing characters that they want to make look smart, and nobody ever actually thought shit through.
I watched through 'A Certain Scientific Railgun' recently, and while although this sort of detective stuff generally isn't the point of the show, there was one episode around the middle of season 3 which really gives a shining example of what it looks like when the writers actually figure out smart shit for a character to do rather than coming up with cheap shit like in the latter half of death note. Basically, there was this one blonde girl, shokuhou misaki, who had mind control powers, and who also created this giant clone of her brain which could enhance her powers but also allow other people to borrow it for some time, and the villain wanted to have it (or rather, he had limited access already, but he also needed her to tell him the passcode required to unlock its full potential). Normally, the villain was way more powerful than her and could always infer what she was thinking, but she finally got the leg up on him when she brainwashed herself into thinking that the passcode was the self-destruct code and into thinking that she had a realistic chance of beating him in a fight. Then, when her attack against him failed, she thought that she lost, and the villain knocked her unconscious. With her defenseless, the villain could finally read her mind, and he thought that what he saw was the real passcode.