I was sad to see this series end. Seldom have I had a book in my hands, where I just could not put it down and think “Oh, one more chapter”. I found it to be very addicting.

Unfortunately I thought the end was weak. Too bad. I find this perplexing, such excellent, intelligent writing throughout the series and then an ending where even I could have come up with several I would find much more satisfying…

Oh well, still, especially the first seven volumes (the whole first L arc) are some of the best stuff on my shelf and I’ll reread them soon I hope.

Oh Death Note – so you do have an ending! Well, sort of. Because, as we all know, there must be spin-offs. I’m not sure that I’ll be flocking to those right away. This was such an intriguing story, but I feel bogged down by it after finishing. Normally, when I really enjoy a book or a series, once I finish with it, I have to do crazy amounts of research on it, find tie-ins, watch and/or read them, and obsess. Not so with Death Note. At least, not right now.

So back on to the topic… and yes, of course there are spoilers in this. You’d be foolish to read a review of the last book and expect to come away without them! This is the final showdown between Light and L’s heirs, Near and Mello. One of them doesn’t make it to the actual face-off, and for that, I was sad. It’s an incredibly tense moment, where readers feel somewhat smug about who will win, but not safe enough to crow about it. Unfortunately, all that tension, the moment of the big reveal, once again comes to a screeching stop as the Encyclopedia Brown-style explanation goes on and on and on.

What I really did enjoy was getting to see Light’s fall, as he realizes that things have gone wrong for him. He loses his composure, his dignity, his wit… it’s all wiped out in the moment of panic, when he’s been caught. Finally Matsuda got his head out of his ass and tried to stop Light! And then, we got to see Ryuk in full-Death God mode! I thought that we should’ve seen more of this throughout the series, that Ryuk was not just a comical figure, but something very dangerous that was always waiting for Light.

The final scenes show the world, returned to the way it was, a little more easily than we expected. Hooray for Aizawa coming out of this whole ordeal! That was a character that grew on me over time. We never found out exactly what happened to Misa. I thought that the girl at the end looked exactly like Misa, but I’ve read that that is NOT her… oh well, guess I’ll see when I read the “How to Read” volume.

Okay, this was a meandering review. Overall, for the entire series, this is worth reading, if only for the moral issues that it raises. The art is incredible, the characters are interesting, though not always likeable. But sometimes the series gets so caught up in explaining the how of its little tricks that it gets distracted.