Going to have to break my 450 px width rule… (this post won’t work on my naruto theme). Use the GMAIL theme.
Death Note Spoilers ahead – but who hasn’t seen Death Note?
I tried to keep Hikaru no Go spoilers to a minimum.

Now, onto my….

HIKARU NO GO VS DEATH NOTE Comparison Chart
Similarities
All characters designed by Takeshi Obata	All characters designed by Takeshi Obata
Gifted player, Shindou Hikaru in a coming of age story	Gifted human, Yagami Light in a coming of the age of Kira story
Talented Rival, Touya Akira – An angry obsession towards Shindou Hikaru	Talented Rival, L – A strange obsession towards Yagami Light
Two people of equal genius. Two. (oh, it’s already written in the subs)	Two people of equal genius. Two.
Sai – An unseen partner, a ghost from a past life	Ryuk – An unseen partner, a death god from another realm
Go – a game of strategy involving deep thinking, planning, deception, and manipulation	Death Note – a cat and mouse game involving deep thinking, planning, deception, and manipulation
Go – Requires a Go board and played utilizing a person’s hand to place Go peices	Death Note – Requires a Death Note utilizing a person’s hand to write a name
Hikaru – means “Light” or “Radiance” (masculine form) – FYI feminine form is Hikari	Light – means “Light”
Touya’s father has a heartattack collapses before facing Sai	Light’s father has a heartattack before seeing Ryuk (this one is a stretch…as the 2 incidents are unrelated)
Hikaru’s kinda mean to Akari	Light’s kinda mean to Misa. To put the image in context, this is exactly what Light does.
Differences
Shindou Hikaru initially talks to Sai. Others think he’s crazy.	Yagami Light never noticably talks to Ryuk. He remains sane to others.
Not a single death occurs. Well, one guy sorta dies. And man, is it sad… :””'(	Lots of people die. Lots.
Shindou Hikaru – unlimited potential, a bright “radiant” future	Yagami Light – dies
Hikaru no Go – 75 episodes + 1 movie of anime, 23 volumes of manga	Death Note – 37 episodes + some movies and live action stuff, 12 volumes of manga
Akari – Cute girl, good intentions, you hope they end up together.	Misa – Cute girl, good intentions, Kira wants to kill her.

I gotta say, it was both fun and tedious and time consuming getting the screen grabs. I’m VERY proud of some of the shots I gathered, perfectly capturing my notes which I wrote first. It really takes someone who watches stuff over and over to be able to accurately pinpoint key lines/saying…I knew exactly what shot I wanted for most of these comparisons and a lot of them were easy to get. /pat myself on the back.

In my Hikaru no Go VS Death Note battle….I must say I definitely enjoyed Hikaru no Go more. Between Hikaru no Go, Gundam Seed and Initial D (my 3 favourite animes, overall), I think Hikaru no Go might be the top. Might be. The other 2 are high too….I think my second tier of favourite animes would include: Death Note, Get Backers, Clannad, Azumanga Daioh, Naruto, Prince of Tennis. Naruto was initially great but I’m really feeling “meh” for Part II. PoT is great but there’s not much substance. Death Note was great but I initially found the second half pretty weak, much like Get Backers. Though reading Death Note manga kinda changed the second half. Clannad was great, the best parts were the second half of After Story…that’s when it really hit it’s perfection. Azumanga Daioh was fun all around.

Anyways. Simply based on what I enjoyed more overall,

Hikaru no Go is the winner!