News
Crunchyroll to Stream New Live-Action Death Note Show Outside Japan
posted on by Egan Loo
The upcoming live-action Death Note television series will run in the United States and 126 other countries and territories, after it airs in Japan every week this summer. The episodes will run on the Channel J cable station in South Korea about one week after their Japanese broadcast, and they will also stream in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and other areas. In particular, the Crunchyroll service will stream the episodes in Europe and the United States, the Middle East, and Africa a few days after their Japanese broadcast.
In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's original supernatural suspense manga, a teenager named Light finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.
Narrator & Text: Summer 2015
Narrator & Text: A new page is opened…
Narrator: …On that killer
Narrator & Text: Death Note made into a drama series
Text: New cast
Text: New characters
Text: New story unfolds
Text: NTV Sunday drama Death Note starts in July 2015
Narrator: Death Note, starts in July 2015
Text: New … resolution.
Text: New … ending.
Narrator: Death Note returns on Sunday nights.
Narrator: A new cast inherits the roles.
Narrator: The final climax will surprise you
Narrator & Text: New Sunday drama Death Note starts in July
The live-action series will feature an original story not told in the anime or movies. The main cast of the new live-action version, which differs from the previous live-action adaptations, includes (from left to right in photograph below):
- Kento Yamazaki (Kyō, Koi wo Hajimemasu's Nishiki, Another's Koichi) as L
- Masataka Kubota (live-action Rurouni Kenshin's Akira, Limit's Wataru, Kanojo wa Uso o Ai Shisugiteru's Shinya) as Light Yagami
- Mio Yuuki (live-action Assassination Classroom's Yukiko, As the Gods Will's Shoko) as Near
The previous live-action films and the musical did not feature Near.
Popular photo idol Hinako Sano (live-action Jigoku Sensei Nube) plays the idol Misa Amane:
The remaining cast members are:
Yutaka Matsushige (Sukiyaki Western Django, Miss Hokusai) as Light's father Sōichirō Yagami
Reiko Fujiwara (live-action Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu) as Light's little sister Sayu Yagami
Megumi Seki (live-action Honey and Clover) as Shōko Himura
Gōki Maeda (life-action Gokusen, Hana Zakari no Kimi-tachi e ~Ikemen Paradise 2011, When They Cry - Higurashi) as the detective Tōta Matsuda
Tomohisa Yuge (Kamen Rider Ryuki, Paradise Kiss, Higanjima) as the detective Shūichi Aizawa
Kazuaki Hankai (live-action MW, Kaibutsu-kun) as L's righthand man Watari
Jirō Satō (life-action Gokusen, Judge) as the detective Kanzō Mogi.
The show will premiere on July 5.
The manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 2003 to 2006, and its 12 compiled book volumes have 30 million copies in print. It has already inspired three live-action films and a 37-episode television anime series in Japan. Viz Media released the Death Note manga, the anime series, and a spinoff novel in North America.
Viz Pictures released the three live-action films in American theaters. The live-action films star Tatsuya Fujiwara as Light Yagami and Ken'ichi Matsuyama as L.
More recently, the manga inspired a musical by a Japanese and American team that ran at Tokyo's Nissay Theatre from April 6-29. The musical traveled to Osaka and Nagoya in May, and it will also run in South Korea from July to August, but with a different cast.
Sources: CinemaCafé.net, Oricon
