デスノート(Death Note) is a Japanese media franchise based on a manga which focuses on a random highschool student, named Light Yagami, who finds a Shinigami’s notebook, which allows him to kill anyone provided he follows the rules.^A)
Death Note is an interesting franchise because the initial story has some pretty incredible elements that are evened out by some of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in a story.
So, yeah, I’m not gonna be popular.

The anime is good overall and definitely worth a watch. However, the first 10ish episodes of the anime are the best and, following the death of L the quality declines quite a bit.
Death Note has some issues that are not immediately visible because the series is great at hooking you in. The most egregious problem with Death Note is that Light is a Mary Sue (Gary Stu?) and there are multiple moments in the series where the laws of the universe bend to his will. The obvious examples are: the walk with him and Naomi, detailed below; the bus hijacking and when Light gets the Death Note back and he screams at the top of his lungs. Besides these, another issue is the appearance of Nier as he is quite literally just L again. There are a handful of other issues that I can’t remember at this moment.
Something I’ll note is that I dislike the nihilism of Death Note. I don’t really know what else I could say in that regard, so I’m leaving it be.

I’ve only seen the first two of these and, honestly, they’re okay. Putting aside their natural weirdness, they compress the story well and give it a better (if less climactic) ending, because L actually beats Light.

I spent a little time playing this DS game and, well, I’ll just say that it’s likely to be more fun in multiplayer.

There are some hints that suggest Death Note is good by accident. This is mainly down to Light’s status as a Mary Sue and the Sequence I’ll get to below. The Sequence was created in a scramble to avoid derailing the story and it really shows.
While I don’t have experience myself, my friend’s girlfriend (yes, really) has read another work by the same author and said it isn’t good. I’m noting that just because it’s relevant to ‘good by accident’ but, well, this is obviously not conclusive evidence.

Note that spoilers here are unmarked, be warned!
Here I’m referring to the sequence where Light and Naomi (FBI chick) are walking from the police station…and then back to the police station.
The interaction between the two of them is pretty bad and causes quite a lot of damage to the series. Let me explain why.
The fundamental problem is that Naomi isn’t acting like a normal person and, more egregiously, is not acting in character considering the situation. This isn’t the last time something like this happens to a character in Death Note, but this is the most egregious instance.
Let’s look at this from Naomi’s perspective:

• Her fiancé, an FBI agent, was killed by Kira.
• That fiancé was in a highly unusual incident a few days prior.
• That incident involved one of the targets of investigation.
• She figured out that Kira can kill with methods other than heart attacks.
• She needs to relay this information to the Special Investigators.
• Her own life is in danger.

That last point is the most important as she really shouldn’t trust anybody she isn’t sure is part of the investigation team.
Now, consider the situation she is currently in: she went to police headquarters and found nobody from the Special Investigations team was there. While there, she meets the son of the Police Chief who she talks to and, well, he walks her out of the building.
However…then he starts following her. He follows her for an unusual amount of time until she points it out to him. He gives some excuse and continues following her. He’s curious in why she’s at police headquarters. She intends to circle around hoping someone will be around when she gets back, but this guy is still following her.
When she finally intends to turn around and go back to the station, he claims that nobody is going to be there (completely new information) and, further, that he is part of the team so she should just relay whatever information she has to him.
Taking all that together, there is no reason she should trust him. The anime even has her glancing back at Light as if to say ‘she’s suspicious’ and as if to mock me, directly, for noticing how unusual this all is. While Light’s questions about why Naomi was there, who she was and such can be easily excused as casual curiosity…the main fact is that he’s following her for no good reason. In a real life situation, that is highly unusual. Anything he says after the fact he keeps following her is obviously a lie or excuse. She’s a former FBI investigator…why the Hell does she trust him after all that?
The main flaw here, that Naomi isn’t thinking, stems from the series’ central flaw: Light is a Mary Sue.^B) The reason Naomi doesn’t find this suspicious is, quite simply, because Light needs her to not find him suspicious.
I think this whole sequence is a microcosm of the issues that plague the entire series…just that they’re exasperated here because it was rushed. Rushed? Why, yes.
The author found that Naomi was way too good for the plan that he had set out for the series…I mean, just look at the beginning of that situation: Light loses the second she reports her findings. So the author decided to quickly get rid of her to keep his original story plan in place. That’s why this is the ‘broken sequence that fixes Death Note’.
This is definitely the reason why the issues are so visible here while they’re generally unnoticeable in the rest of the series.
Despite it ‘fixing’ Death Note, I think the far better option would have been to put the series on hiatus while the author re-planned something…because he clearly is not good at the whole ‘improvisation’ thing.

This is something I won’t elaborate on for a while, but the series has a quirky issue where it presents Light as highly intelligent while his actual actions suggest he really isn’t.
Seriously, pay attention to what he does…it’s honestly amazing that L didn’t beat Light near the start of the series…as he actually is intelligent.
It’s a little disturbing that I haven’t noticed anyone else notice this about Light.

• aniDB
• AniList