Directed by Tetsuro Araki, he series began airing in late 2006 and ended in mid 2007, spanning a total of thirty seven episodes, each lasting roughly twenty five minutes. it original aired in Japan but was dubbed and re-released later for English speaking audiences.
The story revolves around a young adult, Light (Japanese translated name, as will be the case for most names in this series) who is on top form, ready to take on the world when he stumbles upon a notebook which grants him the power to kill anyone just by writing their names in the book as long as he know's what they look like. Light decides to use the book as a hand of justice and takes it upon himself to systematically kill criminals and wanted felons around the world. However, these series of events have attracted the authorities and one particular specialised detective known only as L who wants to bring the killer down on charges of what many believe to be terrorism. This leads to Light trying to evade suspicion at whatever cost, even if it means killing those closest to him.
Despite the series being animated, it is has a very sombre tone and I personally found the overall plot to be quite tense throughout. The Japanese anime media overall to most audiences may be associated with loud, obnoxious characters screaming at giant creatures that magically come out of pods to fight against other loud and obnoxious characters. This, thankfully, is not the case with Death Note. Although the series has its mystical elements (thankfully sidelined throughout), the subject matter and the heap of moral choices that need to be made by each character lead this series into a medium which can be confidently determine as pure drama.
As the series goes on, more characters become involved, characters motives are suddenly changed, a lot of back-stabbing occurs and the stakes get gradually higher.
Inspiration that I would take from this series is the way that it builds suspense. It takes its time to build characters and their motives and it is so much more effective when they are ultimately led to victory or their downfall. I would like my film to take its time unfolding events, something which I would find challenging given the six to seven minute gap. However, this is something which I would like to do.
Also, the series tends to use a rather muted colour palette. Certain key locations are desaturated and certain lighting effects create some overexposure in the the picture. Overexposure in this sense would usually deteriorate the quality of the picture but, used against the colour palette and at key sombre moments in the series, it creates a unique quality to the look of the series overall. I would perhaps like to utilise this look when it comes to dialogue heavy scenes in my own film.
However, the series does have a tendency to tell the audience what I certain character is going to do and what their motives and thoughts are at hat certain point in the series. I doesn't happen too often and these actions take place directly after the characters have just told the audience what will happen, often leading to these moments of exposition being largely pointless. This is not something I'd wish to emulate as I believe I should be showing and not telling in my own project.
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