Death Note (Movie)

Death Note (Desu Nōto) is a full-length Japanese movie that was released in 2006. It was directed by Shūsuke Kaneko and was originally a very popular manga. The manga was written by Tsugumi Ohba and was illustrated by Takeshi Obata. It began in 2003 and had a total of 108 chapters before its completion in 2006. It was in 2006 that an animated series was also created after the manga. A total of two movies were made from the manga: Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name.

Synopsis

Death Note is about Light Yagami. Yagami is a University student who is extremely intelligent and is in the highest level of all of his classes. He is severely disheartened, though, by the crime that is rampant in his community. One day he finds a notebook on the ground. It is called the Death Note and there are instructions inside the book that explain what it is to be used for. The instructions say that all Light has to do to kill a person is to write their name in the book. Any person’s whose name is in the book will die by a heart-attack. Light does not believe this but decides to try it out to see if it works. He writes down the name of two known thieves and is shocked to discover the next day that they both are dead!

Light then meets up with the pervious owner of the book. He is a Shinigami, or a death god named Ryuk. Through his discussion with him, Light realizes that he can clean up the criminals in the world. He then travels around, writing down criminal’s names in his book and letting them die. So many criminals meet sudden deaths that the International Police Organization becomes curious as to why the criminals are suddenly dying. They send out a detective that is known merely as “L”. He uses his computer to slowly track down the killer, eventually calling him Kira, which is a butchered version of the English word killer. Light realizes that L is trying to track him down and knows that he has got to be very careful before he ends up in trouble himself. It then becomes a race for Light to outsmart L, and for L to outsmart Light.

Cast List

• Light Yagami - Tatsuya Fujiwara
• L - Ken'ichi Matsuyama
• Ryuk (voice) - Shidō Nakamura
• Soichiro Yagami - Takeshi Kaga
• Misa Amane - Erika Toda
• Raye Iwamatsu - Shigeki Hosokawa
• Naomi Misora - Asaka Seto
• Shiori - Yū Kashii
• Rem (voice) - Peter
• Sayu Yagami - Hikari Mitsushima
• Sachiko Yagami - Michiko Godai
• Watari - Shunji Fujimura
• Matsuda - Sōta Aoyama
• Aizawa - Shin Shimizu
• Ukita - Tatsuhito Okuda
• Mogi - Ikuji Nakamura
• Kiyomi Takada - Nana Katase

Misc Info

Some fans were disappointed with the ending of Death Note. There are significant changes from the manga to the movies, but the producers and director have all stated that it was the direction they believed the story had to take.