Death Note - Volume 1 (Episodes 1-8) - DVD ( - Dir: )

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Customer Reviews of Death Note - Volume 1 (Episodes 1-8)

Hollie
UK
23rd November 2008

As good as the books and better than the films.
This anime series lives up to all expectations. Wether you're a fan of the books and/or the films or wether you're new to the series or even new to manga, Death Note is highly recomended. Beautifully made, superbly animated, true to the source material, this series is absolutely fantastic in every way but one; the American dubbing. The two main voices of Light and L do not suit the characters at all. L in particular doesn't sound right. But despite that the series is still amazing and it can always be watched in Japanes with subtitles. I would also point out to fans that if you watch the interview with the american actor who voiced L you will hear him compare Death Note to Spirited Away! Am I the only person that finds that a bit of a strange comparison?

V

11th November 2008

Brilliant!
Very smart and sophisticated detective/fantasy. You will never guess what happens next.
The animation is not terribly flashy or bright, but good quality and realistic. If you like thinking films - you'll love this one.

3inarow

16th October 2008

Even non-anime fans should enjoy this
I haven't seen many anime series but was intrigued by the storyline for this series and was not disappointed. The animation is quite simple but very effective and you do end up seeing these characters as real people. The writing is very strong and before I realised it, I found that I was rooting for someone who could only be regarded as a mass murderer! Within the overall storyline, there are also a number of moral and philosophical questions raised e.g. can the deaths of criminals be justified if it leads to a safer society. It also shows that power can corupt very quickly and easily as Light moves from killing criminals to those on the side of justice to protect his identity. Some of the killings are also pretty brutal and callous.

It will be interesting to see how the story develops in future volumes.

Jorge Anderson
UK
22nd September 2008

Anime at its very best? Hell, any sort of TV at its very best!
It's difficult to know where to start on a review for Death Note - there are just so many great things to write about!

For starters, the animation is very fluid, and also includes some very impressive camera work; additionally, the characters are all detailed and well drawn. There are also some really nice cinematic touches (in the closing credits for example, it's drawn like an old film roll), and the whole thing is a pleasure to watch.

As the other reviews here state, the story is uniformly brilliant. Without giving too much away, high school student Light Yagami picks up a book (the Death Note) dropped by a bored death god, and, having discovered its powers, decides to rid the world of criminals by killing them all. His actions do not go unnoticed however, and detective 'L' vows to catch the person behind the criminals' murders. The story briefly touches on the morality of what Light is doing, but the main attraction here is the cat and mouse game between Light and the L, with each trying to outwit the other. It's well paced and well written, and crucially has the 'I'll just one more episode...' feeling in abundance. Gripping stuff.

The opening and closing themes were written by J-rockers Nightmare and put the music of most western bands to shame; the incidental music throughout really gives each scene bucketloads of creepy, uncertain atmosphere.

As far as languages are concerned, you have the choice of English, Japanese, or Japanese with English subtitles. As per usual, the Japanese with subtitles is superior to the English dub; however, the English is not as bad as in most anime. The subs are always readable against the backgrounds, and are a fairly accurate translation of the Japanese. The English dub however seems to have been rewritten quite a lot from the original (but not so that it changes the story).

As far as the packaging is concerned, it's in a single DVD box with two discs, each containing four episodes. A nice touch is that it comes with a mini leaflet describing the rules of the Death Note and short plot synopses for each episode. There are some extras, such as the usual clean opening/ending and a behind the scenes feature, and they run for about 40 minutes - a nice addition to an already fantastic package.

Lastly, a couple of notes about the rest of the series. Currently, only the first two volumes are available, with the third being released soon - together, these three comprise episodes 1 to 24. I believe this is different to the American release, where each volume contains only four episodes (hooray for European justice!). The complete series is made up of 37 episodes, so presumably there will be two more volumes released within the next year or so. Since the whole series hasn't been released yet, there's no legal boxset available in any part of the world (including Japan).

Final word? Even if you're not a fan of anime, it's highly recommendable, and I can't wait for the next set of episodes! Amazon cunningly priced the first series at about £8 to lure you in (the next two volumes are around £11), but the series is so good that it's worth any amount of money!

Cs Ives

2nd August 2008

simply the best
not gonna bore ya or tell u the plot. Deathnote is without doubt one of the finest anime series around..buy it buy it buy it.