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デスノート
Also known as Desu Nōto, Desu Noto, Deathnote, DN
One notebook can kill. One detective can catch him. Only one can win.
Light Yagami is a brilliant, bored student who finds a black notebook dropped by a shinigami, a death god. Any name written in it, by a person who pictures the face, dies. Light decides to remake the world as its judge, killing criminals by the thousand while the public acclaims an unseen savior called Kira. The killings draw the attention of L, an eccentric detective who never shows his face and rarely loses. What follows is a duel of deduction: two prodigies probing each other through surveillance, decoys, false identities and carefully baited traps, each trying to prove the other's guilt without exposing himself. Police, media and a shadowy task force are pulled into the game, and every clever move narrows the distance between hunter and hunted.
A shinigami, bored in its own realm, drops a notebook into the human world. Whoever writes a name in it while picturing the face causes that person's death. Light Yagami, a top student with a rigid sense of justice, picks it up and starts executing criminals, believing he can scare the world into behaving. The deaths do not go unnoticed: an anonymous detective known only as L takes the case, and the two begin hunting each other.
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Episodes 1-8
Light Yagami finds the Death Note, tests its killing rules, and meets the shinigami Ryuk. He targets criminals as Kira, drawing L's televised trap. FBI agents and Naomi Misora become casualties as L and Light begin a tense personal duel.
Episodes 9-17
Misa Amane emerges as the Second Kira, forcing Light into an uneasy alliance. When L's suspicion tightens, Light surrenders the notebook and his memories, gambling on a careful plan with Rem and Misa to prove innocence and later reclaim power.
Episodes 18-25
With Light's memories gone, Kira's killings shift toward the corporate Yotsuba Group. The task force investigates Higuchi and the executives, while Light's hidden plan restores the notebook, his memories, and his ruthless resolve, finally allowing him to engineer L's death.
Episodes 26-30
After L's funeral, Near and Mello appear as his successors. Mello kidnaps Sayu to obtain the notebook, while Near quickly launches a new investigation into Kira. Light must manage both dangerous rivals and the new task force's increasingly shaken trust.
Episodes 31-37
Near closes in as Mikami's devotion and Mello's interference create a fragile endgame. A carefully staged notebook swap leads to the warehouse confrontation, where Light's godlike claims collapse, his plans unravel, and Ryuk delivers the series' cold and inevitable final judgment.
Episode 1
The Notebook and L's Broadcast
Opens with Light's test kills and Ryuk's unsettling arrival, quietly establishing the notebook's rules, the series' seductive moral premise, and the cost of playing god.
Episode 2
The Notebook and L's Broadcast
L's televised challenge traps Light into a public killing, instantly defining their battle of wits and forcing both supposed geniuses to carefully rethink every strategy.
Episode 24
The Yotsuba Group and L's Last Move
Light's memories return as he reclaims the notebook and kills Higuchi, a decisive turning point that restores his ruthless confidence and quietly seals L's fate.
Episode 25
The Yotsuba Group and L's Last Move
L's death is staged as a quiet, almost tender chess move; the episode pays off the central duel and leaves Light victorious but spiritually isolated.
Episode 37
The Yellow Box and Final Gambit
The warehouse showdown ends with Light exposed and desperate; the finale judges his god fantasy through Ryuk's final act and a world that keeps moving.
Every episode of Death Note with its broadcast title and air date, grouped by arc. Watch links search Crunchyroll for the series.
Every character has a full profile covering their history, abilities and relationships.
Death Note asks whether eliminating criminals justifies mass killing, pitting Light's utilitarian god fantasy against L's procedural justice and the task force's duty to lawful evidence.
The notebook turns moral certainty into tyranny; Light's growing appetite for control shows how unchecked power reshapes identity, friendships, and the story's definition of evil.
Light, L, Misa, and Near hide behind masks, aliases, and public reputations, making detective work a contest of performed selves and showing how secrecy can hollow out ordinary life.
Ryuk's boredom and the notebook's rules frame death as arbitrary, while each character's schemes create chain reactions no one fully controls; the ending stresses consequence over triumph.
Death Note arrived as anime moved from fansubs to legal streaming and became one of the first titles to cross over completely, watched by people who claimed not to watch anime. Its cat-and-mouse structure, cliffhanger endings and potboiler moral argument made it a gateway series. The imagery - a black notebook, an apple, a shadowed detective - became online shorthand. It also joins a short list of thrillers that make a mass murderer the protagonist and ask the audience to keep score.
Content notes: Frequent on-screen deaths, including of sympathetic characters, Suicide and self-harm, Psychological manipulation and cruelty, Religious imagery and heavy moral cynicism, Guns and violence, Discussion of crime, punishment and capital punishment.
The 2006 series follows Light Yagami, a brilliant student who finds a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. He battles the detective L while trying to reshape the world.
The 2006 TV anime has 37 episodes. It adapted the complete main story across that single run, so viewers can finish the series without needing another TV season. It remains the core adaptation.
It has appeared on Netflix in multiple countries, but streaming rights change. Check your regional Netflix catalog; if it is absent, try Hulu, Crunchyroll, or ad-supported services. Availability is not guaranteed worldwide.
Yes. The 2006 series received an English dub, and both subtitled and dubbed versions are common on licensed streaming services. Check each platform’s audio options before watching. The dub is widely available where the series is licensed.
Yes. The 2006 anime tells a complete story in 37 episodes, with a beginning, confrontation, and ending. No continuation TV season follows it; later projects are separate retellings for other formats.
Many fans point to episode 25, “Silence,” as the series’ pivotal turning point. Episode 24 builds tension toward it. Preferences vary, so finish the 37-episode run before seeking spoiler-heavy discussions. Both sit inside the original TV series.