Death Note (Drama)

Episode 5

The Death Note live action show has had steadily decreasing viewership numbers in its native Japan. One writer for Yahoo! Japan thinks it's because of Kento Yamazaki's unconvincing portrayal of L. I don't completely disagree with her; while Yamazaki has improved from earlier episodes, he's still unconvincing compared to his anime counterpart. Some of that's also due to writing changes, removing what made his character compelling by making him sexier and less socially awkward. Either way, it makes his famous head games with Light far less fun to watch.

That said, I think there's something more fundamental at work here. It's that this adaptation is hewing far too close to the original story now, after a more unfaithful beginning. Let's look at Misa, for instance. She got an interesting backstory that made her seem like her own person, but since then the show has made her more and more like she was in the manga and anime. Though her investment in Light is understandable, the degree of her devotion is alarming, as well as how easily they're able to get into a relationship in spite of Misa's status as an idol singer. The whole thing reveals just how poorly written she was in the original story. No woman instantly becomes that self-sacrificing to a guy she barely knows, even if he saved her life. She's already willing to put her career and lifespan on the line for him. Her incredible lack of discretion about who she kills compared to Light also doesn't fit with anything else that's been established about her character. Misa isn't a real person, she's a stereotype about how women will do anything for a man, and how their meddling will bring that man down. That's even more obvious after the show's initial attempts to make her more.

Light's transformation from ordinary kid to cold-hearted genius is more convincing, but still only in degrees. The extent to which he's turned sociopathic: not caring about Misa, suggesting that she die if she's captured, coolly planning out what to do to make L consider him his friend… that's not anything the first episode's Light had in him. I could see killing people getting easier and easier for him, but not that he'd lose any regard for people other than himself. It doesn't even faze him that L considers him "his only friend." He quickly responds, in voiceover, that he has nothing against L but he has to go, he's in the way of Kira's plan for the world. Not all is lost, though: his reaction to Misa's arrest at the end of the episode shows that Light might not be as dispassionate as he pretends to be. He clearly can't kill Misa, no matter what he said before, and he may even have some feelings for her after all. The repeated insistence on "Kira's plan" is another one that the show could go into: a passionate person who becomes too obsessed with a cause. Those are the real Lights in our world, the very emotional people who get too invested in an idea and start seeing everyone who doesn't fit within that plan as less than human. Developing that further would do a lot to make Light a more believable character.

That "different first, same later" pattern makes me wonder about Near, who's shown here to be pretty creepy and detached from reality. Near in the original story is basically the Perfect Person, able to defeat Light with the detached perspective that L lacked. It felt like he was Tsugumi Ohba's ideal human. That Near wasn't very interesting, though, which is why so many cite the drop-off in Death Note's quality during the Mello and Near Arc. This Near will actually be fascinating to watch after replacing L, assuming the show keeps its infamous twist. At the same time, it will be a tall order if they try to make this Near resemble the original much at all. I suspect Near will be mysterious and unsympathetic like L, if in a different way. By making both sides difficult to root for, this Death Note may be even more cynical than its predecessor.

It's moments like that that make this Death Note worth it. I know some fans prefer faithful adaptations, but after so many different versions of Death Note, I'm hankering for something fresh. It was those changes that likely made Death Note such a hit in its earliest episodes, genuinely feeling like a different show even if you were intimately familiar with the anime or manga. If it shifts too close to the old show, it may please a small group of diehards, but alienate others—including other fans who are sick of the same thing over and over again.

At the very least, the characterization needs to be more convincing. Decide whether they're going to be like the originals or not. If both, connect them more seamlessly. The plot is about to get way more complicated, so these basics need to be ironed out first.

Rating: B-

Death Note (Drama) is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn.