Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba is the story of Light Yagami, a highly intelligent, but misguided, Japanese high school student who finds a notebook of death that kills whoever’s name is written in it. The best way to describe the series is to call it a “battle of the brains” between Light/Kira and his rivals L, and later, Near and Mello.

Personally, I was excited about reading the manga after seeing the anime’s pilot episode on Adult Swim. I was fortunate to stumble across a great deal shortly thereafter at a convention where I bought the entire Death Note series — new — for $65. Quite a deal for a manga that has great character design and an incredible story, not to mention about 200 pages per volume.

The positives, of which there are many, far outweigh the negatives. Ohba does an excellent job of pacing and not letting the story develop too quickly. Instead of using the death note right away in his quest for creating a perfect world, Light at first dismisses it, then to satisfy his curiosity, tests it on a criminal who dies of a heart attack. Knowing that this may simply be a coincidence, Light tests it on another subject who also dies, but in the manner that Light wrote down. Only then was he convinced that the death note was legitimate.

This leads to Light going slightly overboard and killing hundreds of criminals a day. Light isn’t concerned about profit or revenge. He believes that he is god and the only person capable of cleansing the world of evil.

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