Death Note

Imagine you could commit the perfect murder and get away with it. Now imagine there was a detective who could still catch you even if it's literally impossible to connect you to the crime. Death Note was the story of how these two impossibilities create a pardox that challenge eachother until the system breaks. The most impressive thing is I never realized the villain was really the villain until a magazine pointed it out to me, he was the most insidious ever.

The story begins with Light Yagami, a picture perfect young man, handsome, smart, promising future, life comes so easily he's bored. Then he finds the Death Note on the ground, a simple empty black notebook that says nothing but "Death Note" on the front and on the back two rules, #1 write person's name and they will die in forty seconds #2 you may take an additional six minutes to write specifics of how death will occur, otherwise the default method is heart attack. Light thinks it's a joke, but he can't stop thinkng about it. He decides to test it, but he won't risk an innocent life, so he waits until he's watching the news and sees a hostage situation. They release the name and picture of the hostage taker, Light writes it down and then checks his watch. Exactly forty seconds later, the hostages leave the building and the perp is found dead of a heart attack. Light still has doubts, it's impossible, it's just coincidence. He goes to a store in a bad neighborhood and waits for his next opportunity. A girl gets gang raped outside the store, one guy is dumb enough to admit his name out loud. Light writes down the name and adds that he will get hit by a car. The girl manages to escape and as that one fool chases her across the street, he gets hit by a car, just as Light wrote it in the Death Note. Once is coincidence, twice, Light realizes he is a murderer. He begins to rationalize, he has only killed bad people, he can make the world a better place by killing the bad people. He starts researching criminals and writes their names in the Death Note. In just a few days, hundreds of criminals have dropped dead of heart attacks in prisons. Most think it's merely coincidence, others believe it is the death god "Kira" but only one knows the truth. Then the Death Note's owner shows up, Ryuk, the shinigami or grim reaper. His kind sustain themselves by taking life from mortals using the Death Notes, subtracting from their predetermined life expectancy and adding it to their own. He says he left the Death note in the mortal world because he was bored and wanted to see what would happen. Ryuk is amused to find out that Light is now a self-proclaimed death god and dreading the boredom if he ends this now, allows Light to continue his little game.

Enter L, the world's greatest detective. L has figured out that Kira is real and he will catch him, he just has to figure out who he is and how he's doing it. L is eccentric, never wears shoes, has awkward posture, holds his cell phone by it's edge like a stinky wet sweat sock, and never seems to blink. L very quickly deduces that Light is Kira, but doesn't know how he's doing it. He does have the guts to reveal himself to Light, knowing that if Light does kill him, he will prove L right in the process and expose himself. The game is afoot, Light must figure out how to kill L before L figures out how Light is killing. Light gets some help, Misa Amane, another individual who has a Death Note and worships Kira as she is the only one who knows who he is and is thankful he killed the man that killed her parents. She is surprisingly friendly with her shinigami Rem, and they are also dragged into the game of cat and mouse. Light becomes obsessed with maintaing his secret identity using everyone, human and shinigami alike, as mere pawns in his game. I can't say anymore without spoiling the ending, but trust me, this one is worth watching. What it lacks in action it makes up as a cerebral thrill ride.