Death Note Review

My problem is I hated the manga - it was an interesting concept that got me for the first few volumes, but as things progressed there were no sympathetic characters left at all, and not in a good way. Light's a megalomaniacal sociopath, L's a simpering, holier-than-thou geek, Misa's a brain-damaged sheep and the various other "good guys" who join the proceedings are equally off-putting. I didn't care what happened to them, or rather I didn't particularly care who won - none invited my empathy or admiration. It's kind of interesting to see something like this come about, and it would be neat to see it get some kind of US/Western release but I doubt I'll bother catching it.

Nice to see they sticked close to the manga.I've read the first 5 volumes so far and I enjoy it quite a bit.

Hmm... I have to disagree. I saw the "DEATH NOTE" film in Tokyo a couple weeks ago, and the movie is NOT an exact adaptation of the manga. The movie certainly does NOT follow the manga closely; there are a lot of similarities but just as many differences as well. IMO, the changes are for the worse. I'm a huge fan of the manga, and I was utterly disappointed with this film version. I wouldn't call it an adaptation, because it's more like a retelling of the story. I will admit thought that there were some crucial scenes from the manga that were included in the film and were executed quite well (without spoiling anything, the "Bus Scene" and the "Subway Scene"). But I thought the casting was very poor, esp. with Fujiwara Tatsuya as Light and Matsuyama Kenichi as L. Yagami Light is supposed to be suave, handsome, very charismatic, and innocent-looking (although, he's very evil inside) but Fujiwara Tatsuya has none of those qualities. Matsuyama Kenichi definitely got some of L's mannerisms down and looks somewhat like the original manga character, but his performance didn't nail down the character entirely. I felt that a lot of characters (both their personality and appearance) were altered from the manga to the big screen and its quite a shame since "DEATH NOTE" (the manga) puts a strong emphasis on characters before everything else.

I think many fans of the manga will be disappointed with the film, and unfortunately may even go as far as forcing themselves to like it (just because it's a movie version of their beloved manga series). But those who haven't read the manga, definitely have a good chance in enjoying the film. I love the manga, didn't like the film one bit, and recommend others to read the manga first (before seeing the film).

Regardless, thanks for the review, Mark. Even though I felt differently about the film, you're review was still well-written and insightful (esp. to those who haven't seen the film yet). :P

Thanks for the comments Yamato...It does skew my perspective a bit being a Battle Royale and a Deathnote fan...but there is a certain air of darkness to the film which I wish they had explored more. It's been a while since I've seen Tokyo portrayed well as a place of evil...lol I do totally recommend reading the intial volumes of the Manga to fill in the blank spots for yourself. I do believe that the next film will make this one much more sweeter.

where can i BUY the DVD??? or download the MOVIE??

To Misteria: The movie was just recently released in theatres in japan. It'll be a while before you can get your hands on a dvd.

Yamato, you can't expect the movie to be that great when you think about it. Nothing's ever as good as the original, not even regular anime to manga. Most Death Note fans will be disapointed with the movie, depending on how much they are expecting. But like I said, it's going from manga to movie, and so it will be a lot different and you can't expect it to be as good and/or better than the original manga.

One thing that i believe many people are overlooking is that when you translate a story from one type of media to another, there are bound to be some differences. It is especially difficult to keep true to the story in every single aspect especially when translating from book to screen. Due to time constraints, there are always things that will be left out. The only thing we can hope for is that when a series of books is made into movies, is that there is a sequel to do the series some justice. Some stories just cant be told in their entirety in only one film.

well,as i predict,we wont be able to expect that the movie will be as intersting as the manga,or as comoplex as the manga,but the movie crew has worked so hard,just accept it as a tribue to the death note manga,not the representation...-L- forever

Eight Rooks how can u say that the manga sucks and whant 2 c the movie 0.o. the movie look every good can't w8t 2 see it. it is a shame that the charters personelty are not the same in the movie. i hope the us puts this movie out but i doubt it. lol it be funny/suck if years latter us make a sh***y remake of it like they did on so many others. i hope i like this

I agreed with yamato. I saw the movie yesterday.The casting was so bad, Fujiwara and kenichi dosent show the quality of being Light and L. They even change the manga flow entirely (not a bit). Light seem to be more evil in the movie(killing her girlfriend??) which is never happen in the manga and he also seem not so smart+cool as the manga. If u are big fan of death note, u'll be disappointed

Blake if you like send me a note, although i live in Australia
it was released today 28th November or Misteria, we have copies out here which did surprise me how quick it came out, also
English sub-titles

I wanna see the movie, even if it sucks! Can i download it anywhere? Do you know?

First, I should clarify that I am a huge fan of the manga so my views are necessarily colored somewhat by knowing how the characters were originally presented. The movie itself was fairly well done and stands alone as a decent film but it doesn’t do service to the surprisingly well-written manga. I agree wholeheartedly with Mark Slonsky that the character of Ryuk was remarkable. That being said, I think he’s the only character that was completely faithful to the original story. While I didn’t find the character of “L” entirely believable I attribute that more to the difficulty of translating a pen and ink personality to live action. He wasn’t all that bad.

I was, however, tremendously disappointed by Tatsuya Fujiwara’s “Light”. The Light of the manga is suave, brilliant under pressure, and deceptively handsome. This is integral to the story. Its this dichotomy between his outward appearance and his true nature that allows him to manipulate people so effortlessly and makes him such a compelling character. To the contrary, Fujiwara came across as sullen, unbalanced and, frankly, pretty creepy looking. He’s instantly suspicious so it comes as no surprise that he’s singled out as the main suspect by L. The movie also robs the story of its primary dramatic element as well, Light’s implied internal struggle. The story is told from Light’s perspective. That’s often a literary trick to force the reader to relate to a particular character. Initially, in the manga the reader isn’t quite sure how far Light is willing to go, how much of himself he has lost to the appeal of ultimate power. We know he’s being corrupted, but how far has it gone? We are compelled to relate to him despite his deeds because his motivation, while twisted, is still to bring justice to the world. We know that he is willing to kill innocents if it becomes essential to carrying out his plans to create a better world, but is he totally evil or just horribly misguided? Throughout the story the reader is torn between the sympathy we feel for Light’s intentions and our revulsion at the methods he employs. For who among us hasn’t become frustrated by the state of the world and wished for some way to right it? And that’s the hook of the original story. What would YOU do if you found the death note? How far would YOU go? Having Light kill not only an innocent but one so close to him robs his character of any ambiguity. He is evil, black and white with no shades of gray. Now it’s been dumbed down to just another story about a good guy trying to catch a bad guy. There’s no psychological tension any more. Its unfortunate the filmmakers felt the need to tamper with the one aspect to this story that made it so different from the hordes of others out there, that it didn’t insult our intelligence.

This is now on dvd if anyone still cares, i have not seen it yet, but hope to soon. i'll have to find out where to order it from, i was going to buy it from a local comic book shop, they say its subbed, and is def a bootleg, but one of really high quality.

the movie look's good but it not exactly the same in the manga!! but death note still rocks!!1

Why didn't they make this in anime form? It's just dumb with real people it looks so...weird. Misa's hair isn't even blonde or Light's brown...just becasue all Japs have black hair. It would have been way better if it was anime! Gosh that's just dumb.