My $0.02...
Death Note is one of the greatest animes/mangas to be released anywhere! XD
I'm a huge fan of psychological thrillers, and most animes are the same basic love story for girls with action and/or nudity for the guys.
That is to say... I don't hate anime, and I enjoy those same basic love stories with action from time to time ^^; I just like to see something different to keep my attention from drifting away from anime all together.
Anywho, now that I've opened the flame gates of hell <.<... for those of you that hate searching for torrents/have slow connections/can't stand youtube(like myself), There is an awesome site that hosts anime episodes and other random asian things called www.crunchyroll.com. Just sign up (it's free) and you can watch almost any unlicensed anime (and some licensed ones too) you want. The licensed ones are slowly being removed so don't get your hopes up, but it's my favorite place to go for free anime. You can even add your favorite series' to your profile so you don't have to dig and search the next time you want to see it.
And to answer the question about how many episodes there are, currently episode 25 will be airing tomorrow (Wed, April 4th) on Japanese TV. I believe someone said it already, but there are 36-37 episodes planned total.
