I found your review very interesting. I have to agree with several points that you made. First, yes, L is awesome. Second, yes, Misa is annoying. At least I think so. And I like the description you made of Ryuk.

The one I disagree with you about is Light, himself. Yeah, his humanity decreases by the minute. But it's supposed to. The Death Note is basically ruining his life without him knowing it. Had he not been corrupted by it, he probably would have been working alongside people like L instead of against them. I don't know how far you got, so I won't mention a specific scene that comes to mind as I type this.

As for the characters being too flat, I learned that they were INTENTIONALLY not given back-stories. There's a lot of up-to-the-reader-ness within the story.

I usually like to think of "Death Note" (or how the story was written) as a game of chess being played with oneself. One doesn't want one side to win so easily, but one also has no opponent. So how does one make it difficult for oneself? Does that even make sense?

It's too bad that you haven't finished the anime. If you had, I could probably have given you a more in depth-comment. I would have liked to read your take on Near and Mello (I'm not listing Matt because he's a bit character who doesn't deserve a mention-- I can't ever say this enough). I also don't know if you know how it ends, so I can't say anything about that, either.