Why The American Death Note Movie Sucks ​ ​ By: Victoria Sitz Back in 2003, Death Note, the manga, was written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by ​ ​ Takeshi Obata. Three years down the road, Death Note the anime was released. In August of ​ ​ 2017, Netflix released Death Note the movie. This was directed by Adam Wingard and was ​ ​ ​ ​ written by Charles Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapanides and Jeremy Slater. Some fans, such as myself, were super stoked when they heard that an American Death Note movie was coming out. ​ ​ But, once it actually came out and people saw the entire movie, fans were devastated with the outcome. Mostly because of how dumb that character changes are.

In the anime/manga the human that owns the death note, Light Yagami aka Kira, a name given by his worshippers, was an overachiever, top of his class, and only killed criminals to make the world a better place. While Netflix’s Light, Light Turner aka Kira, the name he gave himself, was a coward, temperamental and just flat out dumb. Ryuk, the Shinigami, is a god of death, that’s attached to the death note Light owns. Another main character that they severely messed up was L. In the anime/manga L is one of the world's best detectives. The Kira case was first in the police’s hands, but the deaths just started to get out of control. L saw something interesting about the case so he stepped in and offered to help. He is very intelligent, thinks things through and doesn’t let his emotions get in the way of his work. While the L in Netflix movie is emotionally weak, really stupid and is treated like a child rather than the super genius he originally was. One other main character is Misa Amane/ Mia Sutton. Misa is from the anime, and she’s loving, charming and a bit ditzy. She also holds a death note in the anime, but that death note is held by another Shinigami, Rem. In the Netflix movie, she’s manipulative, smart and down right murderous. Mia kills because she wants to, while Misa only killed because she was in love with Light. Although Mia loved Light, the reason is unclear. Misa loved Light because Kira killed her parents’ killer, so she feels like she owes him and supports him 100%.

They could’ve gotten away with some changes, but switching them completely totally takes away from the experience. The people who’ve seen the anime or read the manga most likely know and love these characters. Then Netflix comes around and switches all of that, making the movie seen uncomplete or useless. I’m not saying that the characters need to be exactly the same to please viewers, but you shouldn’t take character loved by a lot of people and then turn them into this, whatever this is. It’s just upsetting to see how bad things can get, but also happy that the original is nothing like this. According to Adam, Netflix will be making a sequel. Let’s hope that it isn’t as much of a train wreck as the first. Or that they just cancel the production.