The Strange Review SPECIAL: Death Note

I've never expressed just how near (pun intended) and dear "Death Note" is to me. "Death Note" essentially showed me what anime could be if it wasn't trapped in it's need to be anime, if that makes any sense. "Death Note" at it's core is a detective story, pure and simple, the fantastical element of a notebook that kills anyone should their name be written in it is just icing on the cake. Light & L are characters that transcend themselves as they're archetypes of the perfect rivals, equally smart, equally driven and equally enthralled with each other and under different circumstances could have been friends. "Hannibal" was live action's answer to "Death Note", "Hannibal" being a show that showed me (a writer) that I had yet to realize what good writing was and it was going to show me.

My wife got me into watching "Death Note", she didn't know that as I watched it secretly behind her back and I surprised her by asking her if she knew Shinigami's liked apples. I adore "Death Note". And now here we are in a place we probably didn't know was coming but has nevertheless arrived. America has made their own live action version of "Death Note", the day is April. 7th (the day I began writing this opening paragraph) and a teaser trailer has dropped for "Death Note" to pretty much scathing reviews with profanity such as "Dragonball Evolution" being thrown about. I'll admit the teaser raised more eyebrows and questions for me as I've yet to get a solid handle on just how this will go but I am nonetheless thrilled to finally see it. Maybe thrilled is too strong of a word, more like anxious. Now that we have some images we can start to put this thing together and see what's what.

"Death Note" is NOT an easy property to adapt, let alone adapt to an American audience, let alone adapt for movie length running time. My wife has already expressed annoyance at the project and I don't blame here, L is one of her favorite characters and seeing as how he's not ANYTHING AT ALL like he is in the series is already eyebrow raising and for myself, annoying (as it raised issues of what I call "Blackmasking" and the fact that people are allowed to complain about Light being played by a White guy but you can't say anything about L being Black because racism..., right). But as it stands now, I'm remaining optimistic and eager to see how this story will go and if it'll hit all the story beats it needs to. Will this be it's own unique story or will they attempt to cram the full breadth of "Death Note" in a bite sized piece for us? Well, I guess we'll find out, so join me and my bag of potato chips and while I watch this movie, I'll take a potato chip and eat it...

"Death Note" Trailer Review

And now, now we have some more images and a good idea of what the story will look like. No, you're not dreaming and having a very surreal nightmare, yes, there is an upcoming American adaptation of "Death Note" coming to Netflix and now we have a legit trailer. I gave you all my thoughts on the teaser and you can check those out here, but here we review the trailer and see what we can gleam.

FINALLY, A "DEATH NOTE" TEASER!!!

FINALLY!! Geez! If there was EVER something I was waiting for, it was this! Whether you were waiting for this negatively or positively or wasn't even aware it existed (like a good 80% of the internet, shocking, right?) we're going to talk about the American Adam Wingard "Death Note" teaser and see what we see! Let's dive in!