I've heard a lot of people were disenchanted with it partway through, or the ending put them off, but I can honestly say, my reaction from chapter one til the very last page never changed from "omg this is so cool!" (Also I wasn't that big an L fan or an L/Light shipper, so it didn't bother me that L died and the series continued on without him.)

To talk about the very end first, I wish Light would have won, though I knew he wouldn't (I was spoiled that he didn't, plus I was almost certain they wouldn't actually go there). That would have been the more interesting ending to me, though I did like the Kira followers at the very end (with someone who kind of was maybe Misa leading them) with their little ceremony. And Matsuda not being sure that they had done the right thing (and Ide pointing out Matsuda's crush on Light) and Ide only being able to say it was the right thing because otherwise they'd be dead. I loved Mikami's "you're not God!" outburst and Matsuda being so angry with Light's betrayal.

I was surprised when Takada died. I hadn't thought there was a reason to kill her, but I guess with Mello's body there...? And that that would be Light's downfall! Oh, Mikami! Why couldn't you have just sat tight!

One thing I thought was really interesting was that Light really seemed to be a different person during the amnesia. He wasn't thinking "I wish I could get my hands on the Death Note and rule the world with it in Kira's place!" It makes me wonder how much of all this was some inherent corrupting influence of the Death Note.

Like, Near says a normal person would have tried the note once, become frightened at the results, and then never used it again and felt guilty about it. But would they? Or would they always get sucked into using it more, for whatever reason? (Whether for personal gain, like the Yotsuba guys, or to rid the world of evil, like Mikami and Light.)

While I do like the whole friendship/heroic thing that most Jump manga follow, I'd really love to see more series like this. ( )

The final volume! At last, Ryuk gets his money worth and Light comes face-to-face with Near. So, what really happened? Everything is explained in minute detail, which slows down the pace of the entire ending, but at the same time, it is needed for most readers; mind you, Death Note was originally written for Jump Weekly, a children's magazine. It's a complex ordeal, which most of you reading this probably know.

I really loved the artwork, especially of Light in his explaining sequence at the end. The writing was very good; Mello did his bit, as did the bystanders.

I'd love to have seen an alternative ending, though. ( )

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. ( )

I was a little disappointed with the way this series ended. Yet it was quite satisfactorily creepy. ( )

Well, that was a massive letdown. ( )