TV Shows Like Death Note
If you like Death Note, here are 11 similar TV shows — each with its current AI renewal verdict, so you can see which are still going and which have been cancelled.
Nippon TV · Animation · Death Note is ended
Death Note works because it traps you between two people who are both completely right and completely wrong at the same time. Light Yagami is not a villain you root against so much as a mirror you are uncomfortable looking into. The Death Note itself is almost beside the point. What the show is really about is the question of what happens when someone with real intelligence and real conviction decides that the rules of society do not apply to him. The cat-and-mouse structure gives every episode a tight, almost suffocating momentum, and the psychological chess game between Light and his adversaries is the engine that keeps fans watching long after the supernatural premise has been established.
The best shows like Death Note
1. InuYasha
InuYasha shares Death Note's roots in supernatural mythology and shounen manga, with demons and magical objects standing in for Shinigami and cursed notebooks. The tone is warmer and more romantic than Death Note, but the world-building is dense and the stakes feel real. Fans who liked the way Death Note used a supernatural object to upend a character's ordinary life will find a similar engine running here, just pointed in a more adventurous direction.
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2. The Summer Hikaru Died
The Summer Hikaru Died takes the horror and psychological dread of Death Note and strips it down to something small and intimate: two friends, a village, and the creeping certainty that something is deeply wrong. The show is built on a secret that the audience pieces together alongside the protagonist, which gives it the same slow-burn tension that made Death Note so hard to put down. Its willingness to sit with discomfort rather than explain it away will feel very familiar.
Stream on Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
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3. Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions
The central dynamic in Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions, a brilliant but compromised mind paired with a more grounded partner working serial murder cases, is an obvious draw for Death Note fans who loved the detective procedural side of the show. Ron himself has an eccentricity and a darkness that echoes some of Death Note's more unusual characters. The psychological mystery framing keeps the focus on how cases are solved rather than just whether they are.
Stream on Crunchyroll, Crunchyroll Amazon Channel
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4. Gankutsuou
Gankutsuou is about a man who has let revenge become the organizing principle of his entire existence, which puts it in direct conversation with Death Note's exploration of what a noble goal does to the person pursuing it. The setting is a lush, strange future Paris, and the show has a visual style that matches its sense of gothic excess. Fans who liked Death Note's operatic quality and its interest in characters who have crossed a line they cannot uncross will find a lot to appreciate here.
Stream on Crunchyroll, Crunchyroll Amazon Channel
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5. PERSONA 4 the Animation
Persona 4 the Animation is a murder mystery with a supernatural twist, centered on a group of teenagers working a case the police cannot crack, which maps neatly onto Death Note's structure of civilians outmaneuvering institutions. The mystery itself is carefully constructed and rewards the kind of close attention Death Note demands. The tone is lighter and more ensemble-driven, but the core pleasure of watching smart characters work through a dangerous puzzle is the same.
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More on shows like Death Note
Fans of Death Note tend to look for a few specific things in their next show. They want a plot that assumes they are paying attention. They want moral ambiguity that does not resolve neatly. They want characters who are defined by how they think, not just what they do. And they tend to be drawn to a certain kind of dread, the slow accumulation of consequences that builds from a single fateful decision. They are not necessarily looking for another notebook or another Shinigami, but they do want that feeling that something irreversible has been set in motion and no one can stop it.
The recommendations here cover a surprisingly wide range of tones. Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions and Persona 4 the Animation both scratch the detective and murder-mystery itch most directly, while Gankutsuou offers something darker and more operatic in its depiction of a man consumed by revenge. The Summer Hikaru Died goes the horror and psychological thriller route, with a quiet village setting that makes its unsettling premise feel even more claustrophobic. InuYasha is the outlier in terms of tone, lighter and more adventure-driven, but it shares Death Note's roots in supernatural mythology and shounen manga storytelling, and it earns its place here for fans who want to stay in that world.
None of these shows are exact substitutes for Death Note, which is probably as it should be. The best of them, Gankutsuou and The Summer Hikaru Died especially, have their own distinct personalities. What they share with Death Note is a willingness to take a fantastical premise and push it somewhere deeply uncomfortable. That combination of the supernatural and the psychological is harder to find than it should be, and this set of recommendations represents some of the better examples of it in anime.
More shows like Death Note
Frequently asked
- What is the most popular show like Death Note?
- InuYasha is the most popular show similar to Death Note in the IsItRenewed catalogue.
- Are shows like Death Note still on the air?
- Of the 11 shows similar to Death Note listed here, 1 currently carry a renewed verdict — the rest are cancelled, ended, or awaiting a decision.
- How does IsItRenewed pick shows like Death Note?
- The recommendations come from TMDB's similar-titles data, and each is shown with its current AI renewal verdict so you know which are still going.