- This video is brought to you by Revtown.
Hey yo, what up Wisecrack?
Chris here with the latest in our book versus film series.
Hold up, it's kind of a lie.
Today, it's technically anime versus film,
but since you're probably watching the show with subtitles,
you're technically reading and you read books.
Anyway, you know what I'm saying.
Today we're taking a peek at another Wisecrack favorite,
"Death Note".
Now you probably know about "Death Note"
from the extremely bingeable anime series,
but it actually started out as a manga,
which also spawned several Japanese live action films,
and in 2017, an American adaptation on Netflix.
We wanted to compare the beloved anime
to its source material, but it turns out that the show
is an extremely faithful adaptation,
like Sam Gamgee level fateful.
- Come on, Mr Frodo.
I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.
- The two plot lines are essentially the same,
with one exception, which we'll get to later.
So instead, we're diving headfirst
into the absolute train wreck
that is the Netflix live action film.
Spoilers ahead for pretty much every cultural product
that's ever borne the iconic "Death Note" font,
except for the musical, we're gonna skip that.
(singing in Japanese)
Let's get into it in this video
on anime/manga versus film, "Death Note".
And before we continue, I want to give a shout out
to this week's sponsor, Revtown.
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Now back to the show.
Let's take a look at what the Netflix film
and the anime/manga have in common.
Similarities.
Both have roughly the same premise.
Teenager Light discovers a notebook
that's fallen from the sky.
This is no ordinary notebook though, it has a special power.
If you write a person's name in it, they die.
Oh, and a bonus, the notebook comes with a large Shinigami,
or Death God, named Ryuk, who really likes apples.
Light decides to use the notebook to kill criminals
under the nickname of Kira, or killer.
His murders completely stump the police,
including his dad, who's on the force.
So they call in an international detective named L,
who quickly become suspicious of Light.
And that's pretty much where the similarities end.
There are so many changes that we only have time to focus
on the most significant ways that the movie
altered the story, so let's take a look
at the first difference.
Difference number one,
Light is not a compelling or believable protagonist.
In the anime and manga, Light Yagami is a genius,
like National Merit Scholar,
top student in his university class,
the police asked him to consult on cases, kind of genius,
and this is key to the story's success.
The plot is powered largely by his insane brilliance.
The tension between Light and L is so riveting
because they're pretty much equally matched
in terms of wits, deductive abilities
and strategic planning.
They're each other's only worthy adversaries.
Light's outsized smarts also make it possible to believe
that a high schooler is getting away
with murdering hundreds of people,
playing 4D chess with gods of death
and fooling everyone around him.
It also helps that he's popular, charming and personable,
so, you know, the whole sociopathic serial killer package.
(speaking in Japanese)
In the film though, Light Turner is just a normal kid,
almost comically stupid when compared to Light Yagami.
He's supposedly book-smart,
but totally lacking in Yagami's street-smarts,
logical reasoning abilities and common sense.
Film Light shows no short-term or long-term planning skills.
- You put my name in it, didn't you?
- It was only if you took the book,
and I thought I could convince you not to take it.
- Are you kidding me, Light?
- [Chris] He also can't lie to save his life,
much less manipulate everyone around him
like the anime character does.
Now, this is important because it robs the film
of something that was critical to the anime's success.
If Light's not a genius, there's no detective procedural,
no game of wits, no high-minded ideas of justice,
no social engineering of the Kira taskforce.
Instead, it's just one chaotic, unconvincing mess.
In short, the anime is interesting to watch
because Light is so brilliant.
In contrast, the film has to do some gymnastics
to accommodate his significantly less formidable
intelligence, which brings us to difference number two,
rules don't matter.
One of the most fascinating parts of the anime
is watching Light, and to some extent, Misa,
his Death Note wielding girlfriend,
expertly utilizing the rules of the Death Note
to accomplish his goals and avoid being caught.
Light meticulously tests the Note.
(speaking in Japanese)
To the point where he learns rules that not even Ryuk,
its Shinigami overlord, knew about.
(speaking in Japanese)
Some of the more fantastical killings in the anime
still feel somewhat believable
because they fall within the rules of the universe.
In the film, the rules seem less like hard boundaries
and more like suggestions, constantly shifting,
almost as if for the screenwriter's convenience.
The breaches are numerous.
Light kills Watari with the Note,
despite not knowing his entire name.
He also does at least one conditional death,
saying that Mia will die
only if she takes the notebook from him,
which violates the essential premise of the Death Note.
- Rule one, the human whose name is written
in this Note shall die.
- [Chris] Light also use the Note to declare
that he will survive his fall from the Ferris Wheel,
which goes pretty far beyond the clearly established powers
of the notebook.
Another big difference is the film's new rule,
which allows you to control someone without killing them,
as long as you destroy their page in the Note
before they are scheduled to die.
- Rule 89 says, "If the person who writes a name
"destroys its page prior to the death being carried out,
"the target will be spared."
- [Chris] In the anime, you could control someone,
but they were always gonna die in the end.
Although the film doesn't spend much time
exploring the possibilities of this difference,
it's a huge deal.
The film's Death Note isn't just a Death Note,
it's also a survival note and a mind control note
and a sort of grab bag of powers.
Since the film is less interested in making its characters
follow a strict set of rules,
the Death Note becomes an object of ultimate power,
totally beholden to its owners whims
rather than a device that must be used correctly
in order to work.
This makes it much less interesting,
although it makes sense
because Light Turner doesn't seem bright enough to use it,
even with the neutered rules of the film.
It also fundamentally changes the story's track.
In the anime, Light's aim is ultimate power, to be a God.
He's got smarts, looks and charm on his side.
Other than the team of cops and detectives on his tail,
his power doesn't face many constraints,
which is why the Death Note's rules are so important.
There are limiting factors,
repeatedly forcing him to alter his strategy.
In the film, the Note is more of a blunt weapon,
wielded at a whim and without constraint.
Sure there's still a few rules, at least in theory.
- [Ryuk] No shark attacks while someone's on the toilet.
- But even those don't seem to be rigorously enforced.
Instead, the major limiting factor for Light Turner
is himself, his own social and intellectual shortcomings.
But the film isn't content merely to forego the rules
that made the anime so compelling,
it misses out on some major themes too,
which brings us to difference number three,
justice doesn't matter.
One of the anime's central themes is the question,
what constitutes justice?
Is it the swift punishment of wrongdoers
and the promise of a world without crime,
or due process and checks on power?
This question is explored both in the conflict
between Kira and the task force,
and in the musings of secondary characters.
The anime never gives us an answer,
although it leaves hints.
(speaking in Japanese)
The film, on the other hand,
seems pretty uninterested in questions of justice.
It gestures towards the concept, with lines like,
- "I was just gonna kill all the bad guys,
"and the good guys would win."
- [Chris] But that's about as complex as it gets.
Even when Light initially lays out the idea of Kira,
he seems much more interested in the promise
of becoming a God, rather than in creating a new,
more just world.
- [Light] What they want is a God.
- [Chris] And this is big for two reasons.
The first is that, like the rules of the Death Note,
the central thematic question, what is justice,
gives the story depth.
We didn't just watch the anime
because it had compelling characters or a fun soundtrack.
The show's draw was that it forced us to grapple
with our own philosophies on justice, punishment
and authority.
And although many people have strong opinions
on whether Light was right or wrong,
it's hardly a settled question.
But it is a question that the anime continues to ask,
right up until the final episode.
But there's more.
The anime's opposing theories of justice
frame the relationship between L and Light.
Though at odds, the two are frequently presented
as parallel, more similar than they are different,
and each other's only intellectual equals.
(speaking in Japanese)
Each has a competing idea of justice
and their pursuit of that justice motivates their conflict.
Removing those philosophical concepts from the story
only serves to weaken the relationship between L and Light,
making their story more Tom and Jerry
then Sherlock and Moriarty.
Without a vision of justice to anchor Light's character,
it's not surprising that his choices
become less interesting,
which brings us to difference number four,
Light never fully "breaks bad".
Mia does it for him.
Some of the darkest choices Light makes in the anime,
like the premeditated murder of an entire FBI team,
are also some of the most important
for the development of Kira's self-conception
as a harsh and unyielding God.
When Light chooses to kill Agent Raye Penber
and uses the Death Note to force him to kill his team,
(speaking in Japanese)
It feels like a departure from the boy
who only wanted to destroy the worst kind of criminals.
Even though he already tried to kill L,
the murder of 12 agents hits different.
In the anime, Misa Amane is not exactly preventing Light
from going full Sarama.
In fact, whatever evil move he has up his sleeve,
she probably wants to help.
(speaking in Japanese)
Misa doesn't have much of a personality beyond loving Light
and it's often played off as a self-centered airhead.
(speaking in Japanese)
Mia Sutton in the film is certainly not an airhead,
but she lacks even a cursory backstory
or any real characterization beyond murderous hot chick.
As soon as she learns about the Death Note, she's all in.
- That woman and her kids are only alive right now
because of what you did.
Where is there to feel guilty about?
- [Chris] But why?
Despite being a central character, a love interest,
and the closest thing the film has to an antagonist,
we don't know anything about her motivations
or interests beyond cheerleading.
She seems to serve one role in the film
and that's the divert any blame from Light.
In the anime, it's a shocking choice
when Light kills all the FBI agents.
(speaking in Japanese)
But it's critical in the development of Kira,
who is willing to murder enemies, not just criminals.
It's an important moment for Light,
who decides that anyone who stands in his way, not just L,
must be evil and deserving of death.
But in the film, Light never goes there.
Mia kills the FBI agents, Mia ultimately kills Watari,
Mia wants to kill Light's father.
- Are you out of your mind, it's my (beep) dad!
- Yeah, and he just dared us to kill him on live television.
- [Chris] They even managed to blame Mia for her own demise
because she chooses to take the notebook,
triggering the conditional death Light had written.
This lets Light off the hook for everything.
Well, mostly everything.
- The individual known as Kira, as I'm sure you're aware,
has taken credit for over 400 deaths.
- That choice to absolve Light
of some of the more pointed examples of wrongdoing
essentially splits the character in two.
Instead of one complex antihero battling his own impulses,
the film divides his personality between Light and Mia.
Light is the conflicted misguided good guy.
- We're not the good guys anymore.
- [Chris] And Mia is the dark architect of evil.
- Now give me my (beep) book, okay?
- [Chris] This leaves them each as a half formed character,
which actually explains a lot.
Difference number five, there's no moral to the story.
In the anime, Light faces off
against the anti-Kira taskforce in a warehouse.
He escapes, but as he runs away,
Ryuk writes Light's name in his own Death Note
and kills him.
In the film, Light orchestrates both Mia's deadly fall
from a Ferris wheel, and his own survival
using the Death Note.
He wakes up in the hospital
and confesses everything to his dad.
Meanwhile, L discovers a page from the Death Note
hidden in Mia's calculus book,
and considers killing Light by writing his name in it.
The scene ends in a cliffhanger.
We'll never know whether L killed Light.
In contrast, the anime had been foreshadowing
Ryuk's killing of Light since the beginning,
and his death at the hands of the Shinigami
brings a logical and poetic conclusion to his narrative arc.
(speaking in Japanese)
There are consequences to making yourself a God,
and Light's murder is a fitting end to a story
about hubris and justice.
But in the film, there are no conclusions,
probably because there were no deep questions to answer
in the first place.
By leaving the ending up to the viewer's interpretation,
the movie avoids committing to any strong character choices,
which is consistent with the rest of the film.
L killing Light would have been a wild choice
for a character who has trained his entire life
to solve crimes without killing.
It would have been perhaps even more alarming
if L chose not to kill Light,
and the story ended with no consequences
of Kira's months of slaughter.
By painting themselves into a corner,
they were forced to choose between two bad endings,
and so chose to have no ending at all.
In an interview, director Adam Wingard said,
"In some of our test screenings,
"some people actually thought something was going to happen
"to the dad at the end or something else.
"So we purposely left it open to leave the interpretation
"up to you about what had happened, what might happen."
Of course, "Death Note" endings tend to vary.
It's one of the only ways
that the anime significantly diverges from the manga.
In the original story, Light never escapes the warehouse
where he was confronted by the police taskforce.
Mikami, a character who sacrifices himself for Light
in the anime, completely turns on him in the manga.
As Light begs for him to write everyone's name
in the Death Note, Mikami calls him scum.
Light turns to Ryuk for aid,
but Ryuk actually writes Light's name in his Death Note,
killing him.
Light Yagami's last few moments alive
are spent clinging to Ryuk's legs,
screaming that he doesn't want to die.
It's a startling image to see Light,
once confident that he was a literal God,
reduced to a sniveling heap, alone in a warehouse,
pleading for help.
The manga also has an epilogue chapter
that isn't included in the anime,
which features two members of the task force
discussing the events in the warehouse
and shows a mysterious group of Kira worshipers
paying tribute to him.
Ryuk killing light inside a warehouse
versus outside a warehouse might seem like a big deal to us,
but compared to how ridiculous the film gets,
it's safe to say that the manga and the anime
are still pretty much the same story.
Now there's no way that Netflix could have fit the anime's
entire 37 episode story arc into a feature length film,
but some of the core parts of the narrative,
the philosophical questions of justice, Light's genius,
the parallels with L,
leaving those out feels like a big mistake.
The 2006 Japanese live action film does it much better,
though it's by no means a perfect movie.
It succeeds in large part by sticking closely to the manga.
It ends after Light kills the widowed fiance
of one of the dead FBI agents.
For comparison, that happens just seven episodes
into the anime.
By taking their time,
they get more room to develop characters and add nuance,
and as a bonus, only 20% of the original source material
set it up nicely for a couple of sequels.
As you can tell, we have a lot of feelings
about Netflix's "Death Note", but what do you think?
Is this adaptation a total bummer
or did we somehow miss its subtle brilliance?
And most importantly,
let us know if you've seen that musical.
Big thanks to our patrons for all your support.
Hit that subscribe button with the power of a Shinigami
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As always, thanks for watching, peace.
(upbeat music)