Light Yagami is a gifted high school student who judges today's world as criminal, rotten and corrupt. His life changes dramatically the day he picks up a mysterious notebook called "Death Note". The manual included in this notebook indicates that "the person whose name is written in this notebook dies". At first skeptical, Light decides to test the notebook and discovers that his power is real.
He meets the former owner of Death Note, a god of death named Ryûk. He claims to have deliberately dropped his notebook in order to entertain himself.

Light decides to use the Death Note to exterminate criminals, in order to eradicate Evil and build a perfect world of which he will be the god. He learns little by little to use the powers of the notebook and its rules. The user can only kill a person whose face he knows, by entering his first name and last name. He also has the opportunity to clarify the cause as well as the detailed circumstances, the default cause being heart attack.

The many unexplained deaths of criminals around the world are attracting the attention of Interpol and the mysterious L, a detective capable of solving any riddle, but whose identity no one knows. L decides to investigate to capture the serial killer, nicknamed by the general public "Kira" (キ ラ, Derived from the Japanese pronunciation of "killer"). Between Light and L, both persuaded to act for justice, committed a psychological and fierce duel which will win winner who first find the identity of the other.

Genre Mystery, supernatural, thriller
Directed by Tetsurō Araki
Produced by Toshio Nakatani
Manabu Tamura
Masao Maruyama
Written by Toshiki Inoue
Music by Yoshihisa Hirano
Hideki Taniuchi
Studio Madhouse
Original run October 3, 2006 – June 26, 2007
Episodes 37 (List of episodes)