I’ve finally finished all 108 chapters of Death Note yesterday (borrowed from Namsoc). It is pretty good – I think well worth a read if you can enjoy the ludicrous nature of the plot. It is entertaining to see round after round of second guessing and plotting – and while it does slow down in the second half, it ends with enough closure for me – I prefer stories to arc well (and end!), and this one pulls it off mostly, with only a few only “good” sections, rather then the great examples of being simply very, very over the top which mostly happen. 🙂
Certainly I found it interesting reading the comparisons with the anime series too, which compressed much of the plot and altered little things which, while not much apart, added up into something which is likely vastly different in execution. However I still want to watch it at some point because of all the amazingly over the top notebook writing. Sadly if they remove many of the speeches and planning parts, it’d be a shame since the whole point of the manga comic was to provide space for the long monologues and speeches. It’d not have gone down badly in book form in fact, apart from seeing the characters expressions adds a lot to the pacing, and it is made more dramatic for it. Probably one of the best uses of serial comic writing I’ve read, although as I’ve said previously I need to read more.
So, go read this series if you feel like getting involved in over the top battles of will between the anti-hero and several people that try to capture him. Backstabbing, going past the moral event horizon and then some, along with murders aplenty make it a pretty morally grey series – almost no one is a sparkling example of justice. Also, at times, there are certainly a lot of coincidences (or…are they? 😉 ) but they’re played out well enough. Well worth a read and it’s pretty easy to get through if you’re not ill, since you need a clear head to make sense of it all 🙂