I'm going to have to disagree with all of the Death Note suggestions here. I think it has a great idea, but terrible execution.
The characters are pretty annoying across the board (L is pretty much "Hot Topic Sherlock Holmes", Misa is a shrill, useless Harley Quinn, etc.), and the Shinigummy Bears are more distracting than anything else. There has to be a better way to deliver exposition than that.
The plots also get ludicrously complex - there reaches a point where we exit "Xanatos Gambit" and enter sheer asspull territory ("Oh sure, I can perfectly replicate this book, down to every single minute scratch and crease, in exactly one night, by hand. Why not?"). The series seems desperate to top itself, and so the problem only continues to get worse as it drags on. Beyond that, the acting is... uh, rather over the top.
It's a shame because the core of the series is decent enough. It's a Holmes vs. Moriarty dynamic, except we're watching things from Moriarty's perspective. The show is at its best when it's just the two characters trying to one-up the other, getting caught up in heated mind games, and having to improvise new plans of actions as they desperately try to keep face.
Unfortunately, the show manages to ruin the one thing it had going for it halfway through. It reaches a completely satisfying conclusion and just. keeps. going. It tries to recreate the original dynamic but utterly fails (it fails twice over, in fact); the replacements are so laughably inadequate I have to wonder if it was some sort of joke on the audience.
Apparently the manga is even worse - it's supposed to extremely padded. "Death Bloat" would be a more accurate title.
I think there's a good show in Death Note, but you'd have to do a lot of digging to unearth it.
TL;DR: You're probably better off just watching something else.
The characters are pretty annoying across the board (L is pretty much "Hot Topic Sherlock Holmes", Misa is a shrill, useless Harley Quinn, etc.), and the Shinigummy Bears are more distracting than anything else. There has to be a better way to deliver exposition than that.
The plots also get ludicrously complex - there reaches a point where we exit "Xanatos Gambit" and enter sheer asspull territory ("Oh sure, I can perfectly replicate this book, down to every single minute scratch and crease, in exactly one night, by hand. Why not?"). The series seems desperate to top itself, and so the problem only continues to get worse as it drags on. Beyond that, the acting is... uh, rather over the top.
It's a shame because the core of the series is decent enough. It's a Holmes vs. Moriarty dynamic, except we're watching things from Moriarty's perspective. The show is at its best when it's just the two characters trying to one-up the other, getting caught up in heated mind games, and having to improvise new plans of actions as they desperately try to keep face.
Unfortunately, the show manages to ruin the one thing it had going for it halfway through. It reaches a completely satisfying conclusion and just. keeps. going. It tries to recreate the original dynamic but utterly fails (it fails twice over, in fact); the replacements are so laughably inadequate I have to wonder if it was some sort of joke on the audience.
Apparently the manga is even worse - it's supposed to extremely padded. "Death Bloat" would be a more accurate title.
I think there's a good show in Death Note, but you'd have to do a lot of digging to unearth it.
TL;DR: You're probably better off just watching something else.
