1. The human whose name is written in the note shall die.
2. The note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
3. If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
4. If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
The story concerns the finding of a "death note" by a high school student in Japan, a near genius named Light Yagami. The death note is the tool through which Shinengami (death gods) schedule the deaths of humans as their job. Light uses it once almost by accident, and then decides to use it again to "save humanity" from criminals. The sudden surge of deaths does not go unnoticed by anyone, and as news reports focus on the mysterious deaths of criminals, the police begin to investigate. Light winds up involved in the police investigation himself, with the interplay between Light trying to stop his pursuers while he is participating among them being the main draw of the story. The police are led by a super detective who goes by the name of L, and the near brilliant moves by both him and Light to try to outwit the other are the crux of the story, and just immensely compelling. Other characters join both on Light's side and against him. There are just tons of interesting turns and twists. Character's motivations are never that simple, and the lengths Light goes to not to be caught, and that L goes to catch him are just amazing. It's easily one of the best manga I have ever read.
(Note: The manga almost feels like two stories. Books 1 to 7 are just brilliant. Books 8 to 12 continue on the story after a major event in volume 8 brings the first part of the story to a close. It almost feels like Godfather 3 (book 8 to 12) as opposed to Godfather 1 and 2 (the first 7 volumes). The remainder of the story is just not necessary, to the point that the movies wrap up the story at the end of the first 7 volume point, and just ignore everything going forward. I kind of mentally have done the same.)
Death Note inspired 3 movies in Japan, the first two being part 1 and 2 of the main story, and a spin off with L solving another case. The movies are just ok. They aren't the best acted films (there are a lot of idol types in the film) and some of the more iconic moments from the manga are not handled properly. (One character, whose introduction in the manga is just fantastic and so interesting is done in a way that takes all the fun out of it.) Cutting the manga at the end to try to wrap it up neatly doesn't work that well either. Still, for those of you who don't read manga the movies are a fun diversion and I can recommend them.
Death Note has also fueled a bunch of negative incidents with people using the imagery and names in the book. There have been death notes references found near murder victims in Europe, and schools in the US and China have confiscated "Death Notes" from students which they thought were precursor's to some action. The most interesting is the Edison Chen photo scandal (which I am NOT touching here) where the person submitting the photos signed his submissions KIRA, which is the name Light uses as his fictional alter ego which kills criminals. Clearly none of this is good but I think it shows the iconic nature of the images in the work.
Links
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/OA/OA/series/deathnote/rules.html Rules of using a Death Note.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note - Wikipedia Page
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