Finally caught up with this!
Death Note was the second anime ever watched, and the first manga I read. I even made my own terrible, homemade Death Note out of a school notebook and would sit all hunched over like L does in class. It's still one of my favorite series, and a really good example of how to play the "way too smart anime character" trope straight.
Sure, some things like Raye showing Light his ID are "luck" but I kind of like the way that the series just says "no, Light and L are smart enough to basically predict the future perfectly" and just goes with it.