Overall, I think this is a really great anime with dynamic and engaging characters. It offers commentary on how the world works, presenting many different ideas of justice (L, Light, and the rest of the task force). In Light's eyes, he is justice. With his power, he is the only one capable of judging all people. Criminals, and anyone who hurts others, are evil, and anyone who tries to stop him from writing names must also be Evil as they are preventing justice from taking place. L has more complex ideas surrounding justice, though just as morally questionable as Light's. He shows us that he doesn't care for "traditional" methods of justice, unlike the police officers who joined the task force, as he will do essentially whatever he deems necessary to catch Kira. This makes everything more interesting, as you will never fully align with either of them; instead, we have this back-and-forth game to see who comes out on top, and you find yourself rooting for both of them at different points. I think the rest of the characters in the task force are also well done; aside from Matsuda, they all have differing views of justice, which makes the watcher really think about what's going on. We even get to see how society reacts as events unfold and more and more information about Kira is leaked, with some opposing him despite the risk of death and others supporting him, either out of fear or for fame. The willingness of so many people, particularly Teru and Takada, to work with him also serves as an interesting commentary on society. It highlights how people tend to conform to socially accepted beliefs, yet shift their positions when someone who aligns more closely with their personal beliefs gains power. We also see this idea with the TV stations that want to represent him.

The only reason that I'm rating this 8.5/10 and not 9 or higher is that I don't really love the Near and Mello arc as much as I liked the first 25 episodes. Even though I was still interested in what was going on and never wanted to stop watching, Near feels like a weak copy of L, and his character wasn't developed nearly as much, which is understandable given the limited time we had with him. But, because of this, I was never rooting for him the way I was for L. Light's death felt far too rushed. We think maybe he's going to win, and suddenly, everything goes wrong, and he spirals out of control with a rushed explanation as to what happened. I don't mind that Light lost in the end, but he should have lost to L, or they should have ended it after L died. It also felt like light was so smart at the beginning- him, erasing his memory and having it come back at the perfect time was PEAK. Towards the end, he's kind of always backed into a corner or having other people do things for him. It felt unlike him to rely on so many other people to do his bidding without any backup plans. When he was fighting L, it was backup plan after backup plan with both of them, which is why they were the perfect rivals. Plus, you're telling me that with all of his deductive skills, Light wouldn't have considered the fact that Teru might have the same thought as him to kill Takada? It feels like such a silly thing to result in his loss. If the idea being portrayed was that Light's descent into madness caused him to slip up and be lazy, that's fine, but he was so confident in the last episode that he even admitted to being Kira before anyone had died, so that's obviously not the case.