[Anime] Death Note

I'm including some YouTube links to the first episode RAW for those poor people who can't use torrents due to the university firewalls...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

So far, the anime has exceeded my expectations - the animation is top notch and the music is creepy as hell. The killing spree conducted from Raito's desk, matched with chorus music and crazy camera motions worked really, really well... And a nice touch was the use of red for Raito's eyes. They looked really evil O_O

I'm definitely watching out for this one. Any sub-groups picked this up or has announced their intension to?

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The Death Note movie was released in Singapore yesterday, and I just saw it on the big screens tonight. Here's some hands-on impressions the movie's made, as well as random critiques... I'll try to make as spoiler free as possible, though those who never read the manga should steer clear of this...

I'm a big fan of accurate book to movie adaptations, so I was quite annoyed at the beginning to find very big changes from the manga. And the changes were made for no apparant reason other than the producers thought it'd attract a bigger audience or something - you are thrown right into the midst of Kira killings in the very beginning of the film, and almost every single scene involving Light acquiring the notebook and subsequently meeting Ryuk was manipulated to a more dramatic setting (or so they try to convey). And the worrying trend of seeing Shiori (remember Light's girlfriend who went with him on the bus?) playing quite a bigger role in the movie.

The choice of the actor for Yagami Light I thought could have been better - Tatsuya Fujiwara has this tendency to smirk all the time, even in serious scenes which just goes against the whole Light personality as this eeriely unemotional and cold guy. Being expressionless is better than having a smirk on your face half the time. L's portrayal and acting was by far better.

That said, I thought that despite the weak beginning, and the myriad deviations from the manga, the development and ending was pulled off very well. In fact, the ending was a surprise (yeah, you won't know from reading the manga) - but it was pulled off so well and so ingeniously thought out that I couldn't say anything bad about it. It was an awesome ending to the film... gives you a climax while advancing the plot.

Spoiler:

The movie ends with Light meeting L for the first time face to face - L introducing himself as L. No, that's not the *surprise* - I'll let you find that out while watching it...

You're left with a cliffhanger - people around me were going "Huh? They ended like that?", so I think a sequel may be forth coming. I mean, the introduction of Misa was so short and seems pointless if there isn't a sequel.

Here ya go, I surprised myself by actually enjoying a movie adaptation of the manga - though the anime adaptation is better by far. Still, something good to go see on a Friday night...

There's nowhere I can't reach.