Ryuk narrating the cat-and-mouse game between Light and L strips away everything else and makes you watch two geniuses destroy each other in real time. The new animation sequences hit different, the pacing never lets you breathe, the soundtrack wraps around scenes that already broke you the first time. This is Death Note compressed into its skeleton, which means every frame has to earn its existence.

When an unnamed Shinigami visits Ryuk to ask about his time in the human world, Ryuk retells the story of Light Yagami, a gifted student who found the death god's lost notebook and set out to purge the world of criminals. The first of two feature-length specials recuts Light's battle of wits with the detective L from Ryuk's point of view, adding new dialogue, a new soundtrack and animation left out of the original series. Then the narrative pivots. The second special picks up where the first ends and follows Light's clashes with Mello and Near, L's successors, in the same compiled form. Both specials are a psychological, supernatural thriller built around mystery and deception.