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A Truly Heart Stopping Comparison

Death Note

By maz ggPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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If given the chance to decide who lives and who dies, would you be able to take another’s life? In the manga, Death Note, Light Yagami is given the power to kill through the form of the Death Note notebook given to him by Ryuk the Shinigami; with the notebook, he seeks to get rid of the rotten in the world and he is willing to go to any length to do so, while Light Turner in the film is much more hesitant to deal out such punishment and has to be convinced on many occasions, and has his limits. The film adaptation of the manga seems to have more loose essence of the source material. The reasons for this lies in the portrayal of Light, justice and Ryuk in the film.

The main character of both the manga and film is Light. Light in the manga is a very bright student and has a semi-god complex that is prevalent throughout the 12 volumes. He follows his own moral codes and doesn’t care if he has to occasionally kill an innocent in order to further his agenda. While in the film Light seems more like a misunderstood teenager, just trying to help those who are pushed around and mistreated. And he has to be convinced to cross the line to kill innocents, or the decision is taken out of his hands by his girlfriend, Mia. While both portrayals are vastly different, it is the fact that Light is willing to kill others for the sake of what he thinks is right that is key to staying true to core element of the character.

The element/theme that was important in both the manga and film is the perception of justice. Despite the film and manga being very different from each other, it is the opposing ideas of what justice is that really shows the essence of the manga in the film. In the manga Light believes that justice is ridding the world of the rotten, and L, the detective trying to stop Light, believes that justice lies in putting the criminals away, not murdering them. This is also true in the film version as well, these two vastly different characters with opposing beliefs of what is right and wrong are essentially battling each other. Not only are the opposing views of Light and L present, but also the divide of which version of justice the people support is also well illustrated in the film like in the manga. Having this detail in the film ensures that what drives the characters in the manga also drives them in the movie to a certain degree.

The element that brings the film adaptation down to the level of just having an essence of the source material is the portrayal of Ryuk. One of the most important parts of the manga is Ryuk, since everything starts with him; the first panel of the manga is him saying he is bored of the Shinigami world therefore he drops his second Death Note into the human world. The whole point of doing that is to entertain himself; he is on no one’s side, and he is a passive character watching as the events of the story unfold (something he states himself). While in the film adaptation the Death Note is dropped into the human world and when he meets Light, he convinces him to use Death Note, unlike in the manga where Light has already written many names down by the time he meets Ryuk, thus making Ryuk more of an active character in the film and he seemingly chooses sides like when Mia wants to kill the FBI agents. In addition to that the film tries to make it seem like the Death Note needs to have a human owner, which completely diverges from what is stated in the manga. It almost seemed like there wasn’t enough time to clearly outline Ryuk’s character in the film.

This unclear statement of Ryuk’s purpose in the human world also makes the ending shot of the film very confusing and out of place for both those who have and have not read the manga. In the wide shot we get of Ryuk in Light’s hospital room, he is laughing and says, “You humans are so interesting.” This is something that Ryuk says a lot in the manga, since he dropped the Death Note into the human world for the sake of entertaining himself. And the reactions or events that result from it are entertaining and “interesting” to him. In the film there wasn’t a lot of screen time for Ryuk, and no clear objective or reason for this character in general. Thus making the end scene confusing and out of place for the viewer.

The Ryuk portrayal drops this movie down to only having an essence of the manga. He is key to starting and ending the manga, yet there is no evidence of this being the case in this film adaptation.

This film adaptation managed to maintain some key elements of the story, but in general has only an essence of the manga within it. It managed to keep the character Light’s moral code the same within the film, and also the conflicting ideas of what justice is for Light and L, though it is downgraded to having an essence of the manga because of its portrayal of Ryuk, one of the key plot elements in the manga. Despite the major differences in the manga and the film it still raises the question in the viewer’s mind: Would you use the Death Note to get rid of the evil in the world?

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