I just finished watching the Death Note anime series. Although the series finished airing a month or 2 back, I wasn’t in a rush to finish watching it since I’ve already read the entire manga 2 years back. The reason I actually started reading this manga was I heard it was done by the same artist as Hikaru no Go, one of my favorite animes/mangas so far. I think it probably ranks 2nd after Rurouni Kenshin. I was walking through a bookstore the other day and noticed that Death Note mangas have already been licensed and is sold in bookstores.
Anyway, there weren’t that many differences when comparing the anime to the manga that I noticed, though I didn’t think the story was able to be told in 37 episodes. I was expecting at least 50+ like Monster, though I guess that’s a good thing considering long anime series tend to drag on with fillers and recaps.
I still haven’t watched the Death Note movie and after watching the anime series, I’m not sure I want to anymore. Like most suspense and puzzle animes, once you’ve watched it once and learnt the trick, there really isn’t that much fun in rewatching it, even if it’s in a different form. I definitely felt bored through many parts of the anime series. However, if you’ve never read the manga, I would HIGHLY recommend this series or the manga. The storyline was excellent and the logical thinking animes have always been fun for me.
The only difference I’ve really noticed (or maybe remember) is the ending. Spoilers (Show)
After Mikami charges into the warehouse and reveals that he’s done it (written everyone’s name into the notebook), Near reveals he’s actually replaced the real death note with a fake one. At some point Light starts going crazy (who wouldn’t under such circumstances?).
In the manga after Mikami witnesses that, he screams, “You’re not God.” I don’t remember if he actually kills himself, but I wouldn’t doubt that also happened in the manga. Also, Light orders the Shinigami to help kill them all, but as the Shinigami told Light when they first met, he’s not going to kill anyone for Light and when the time comes, he’ll take Light’s life away personally. Which he does, and Light dies in the warehouse.
In the anime, Mikami never screams, “You’re not God,” and just ends up committing suicide. I guess that was there way of showing that he couldn’t believe his eyes that God was so powerless. Light also escapes from the warehouse and runs around and ends up dying on the staircase somewhere, after Ryuk the Shinigami writes Light’s name into his notebook.
In the manga, there were also a few pages that showed what happened after a few years later. I believe Matsuda and a couple of the other detectives were talking about how things have changed since Kira disappeared. The crime situation I believe has slowly returned to normal and some people still believed that Kira would return. The final scene in the manga showed a group of Kira believers walking up a mountain with candles, holding what I can only assume to be a candlelight vigil for him, for all the peace he’s brought for the world.
