Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects--and he's bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal or his life? Death Note is a manga series by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata. The story follows Light Yagami, who stumbles across a mysterious notebook, that grants the user the ability to kill anyone whose name is written in its pages. Manga are graphic novels originating from Japan. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics and cartooning. Outside of Japan, the word is typically used to refer to comics originally published in the country.