Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yeah! Death Note is awesome. Basically this young man named Light Yagami finds a "Death Note" which was dropped into the human world by the Shinigami named Ryukk. A shinigami is a god of death, who write the names of humans in the death note to kill them, which then transfers their life force to the shinigami who killed them, which extends the shinigami's life force. Ryukk dropped the Death Note into the human world for amusment because he is bored.

Light Yagami uses the death note to start killing criminals who he thinks deserve to die, in order to make the world a better place. The authorities begin to figure it out and hire another young man, known only as "L" to help them track down and stop this person who kills the criminals, who they call Kira. (Kira is the name that his fans on the internet started calling him, which is a play of the American word Killer)

There are rules to using the Death Note that begin to be revealed throughout the series, but the ones written in the book when Light finds it are:
* The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
* This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
* If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen.
* If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
* After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.


By the way, the Manga is available here in the US. I only have the first 7 trade paperbacks, I am not sure how many are out.