The Death Note live-action Japanese films!

In Japan, the Death Note manga story was made into 2 live action films. Having just seen them recently, I'm highly recommending them to any fan of the manga or anime series.

(Caution: spoilers may follow)

As you can imagine, trying to condense a 13 volume manga series into 2 films is going to be a tough task, and much detail must be sacrificed in any such endeavor. However, given how well plotted the manipulations were, it makes me wonder what the problem is with American film adaptations when liberties are taken with plot. Very often a movie butchers a book's plot so severely that if you have read the original work, the film is completely un-enjoyable.

This is far from the case with "Death Note" and "Death Note: The Last Name". There are a number of deviations from the plot, and of course many of the scenes are omitted, but all of these changes are done with close attention to the integrity of the concept and characters behind Death Note.

The movies never introduce characters like Mello or Near from the manga, but they compensate by keeping the drama and competition between Light and L extremely captivating. Light's manipulation of characters using the powers of the Death Note goes into uncharted territory with these films, although the underlying twisted motives will ring familiar bells with fans of the manga or anime series. I recommend checking these films out! You can probably find them under foreign films-Japanese. There are also plans for an American Live Action re-make of this story, so watch for that too...

Death Note

A new phenomenon popular among teens these days is the reading of manga (Japanese comics). Many of these comics are developed into animated series (called Anime). I happen to enjoy watching Anime a great deal, but for the most part I haven't read much manga.

The one manga series that has really grabbed me is Death Note.


Please don't be deterred by the fact that this story is a "Comic". Manga is a completely different style from your stereotypical "Super-Hero" comics. It is simply another form of creative story-telling, and the better titles are incredibly well-plotted. Death Note is one of them.

(Caution: possible spoilers)
Death Note follows the story of a brilliant & bored-to-death high school student (Light Yagami) who happens to find a notebook that was dropped by a Shinigami (or God of Death). Light finds instructions in the front of the notebook, one of which is: "The human who's name is written in this note shall die."

Now, of course Light thinks its some kind of practical joke at first. However, when he sees a live hostage situation on a breaking news story, he figures it wouldn't hurt to write the gunman's name in the notebook- just for wishful thinking right? Imagine his surprise when a couple minutes later the hostages walk out of the building saying their captor had just collapsed dead.

Interested in this story yet? Maybe you're thinking what you might do if you had this mysterious death note? Whould you write some one's name in it? A couple someones' names? Maybe a few thousand? Curious to know how many names get written in Light's death note? Well, you'll just have to find out for yourself! Read Death Note. Remember that Japanese manga reads right-to-left, so it might feel like you're starting at the back of the book. Don't worry, you're not.

Death Note is a fantastic story, with a myriad of plot twists that keep coming at you. The rules of the death note are seamless. The plot is very intense, and philosophically challenging. All throughout the story it keeps you captivated-there are no slow points in this story. It becomes a detective/cat-&-mouse hunt. The events of the story reach a global scale before its over. And the ending does not disappoint, so you're not left hanging with major unanswered questions. So do yourself a favor: Read this story! Don't pre-judge it because its in graphic novel format. You will not be let down...

PS- If you are a fan of Anime, then you should watch the series as well. I've been collecting the DVDs as they come out, and they stick to the story like glue. Great voice-cast, and well produced.