An Anime Like Death Note
Death Note is for me Runescape is to many people on this forum: it opened the doors for me to be able to waste amounts of my life on complete garbage. 
Seriously though, the reason I loved Death Note so much was that I came into it not expecting anything at all. It was recommended to me by a friend in real life, in which the description he gave me was "just watch it". Turned off by the anime though I was (yoda), I sat through the first episode. It intrigued me, so I watched another. By episode three, I knew I was hooked. The reason why people think I give it too much credit is because they go in with everyone telling them how great it was, and I went in expecting to hate it. That's why I loved it.
Since then, I have been searching for an anime that could pull off the epic mind battles that Death Note was capable of. Although this is not anything like Death Note, it's built around the same core of two intellects having to plan their moves five steps ahead of time, manipulate the opponent, and deceive everyone else. Death Note has many times been compared to a game of chess, but the anime I am now comparing it to is based quite literally around Mahjong. No idea what Mahjong is? Neither did I. :(
The anime is called Akagi, and follows the story of teenage boy genius, Akagi. (Light) One stormy night, he stumbles into a bar with a group of thugs and one unlucky man playing a game of Mahjong for the poor man's life. Akagi takes his place, and even though he had never played before, manages to win the game. It then follows his descending into the underworld as the gambles keep rising in stakes, even to his own death. Basically, slam Death Note on a game board and this is what it would be. Akagi vs random-smart-dude who is usually equally matched intellectually, and Akagi has to come up with some plan to defeat him. Back and forth mind games ensue, with each predicting each other's movements and being able to take all of the other players out of the game.
The reason I like this anime is because, for me, the best part of Death Note was the mental battles between Light and L. In this anime, the same sort of thing happens, and Akagi is almost as crazy as Light becomes. Now, there are a few turnoffs to Akagi. One is obviously the fact that it is literally based around a game. (omg yugioh lol) Another is that the animation is just weird. Everyone has HUGE noses and the lines are pretty thick. It doesn't even look like an anime. 
Another big one is the lack of character development, which sorta reminds me of the Death Note manga. Deaths were just inevitable parts to the story.
So, if you liked Death Note for the mind battles, check this out. If you liked it for the right vs wrong and the character development, stay away. If you are an animation snob, do not look at this. Oh, one more thing, this is about as manly as an anime can get, there are virtually no female characters. In this type of anime, that is a good thing. No need having some random girl jump up and down for our amusement, we could go to many other places for that.
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