Why I hated Netflix’s “Death Note”

I’ve never been a hardcore anime or manga fan for a few reasons that seem quite understandable to me. When it comes to anime, most of the shows tend to have almost as many episodes as “The Bold and the Beautiful”, which is an instant turn off for me. Also, they all speak in Japanese and I can’t stand it. Not because I don’t like the sound of the language itself, I actually think that Japanese can sound very nice, but the way the characters speak in anime shows is extremely annoying to me. Why? If you have to ask it means that you have probably never seen an anime show. Everything seems so exaggerated, there’s a lot of unnecessary shouting and screaming, but above all the way the “ohs” and “ahs” and “huhs” and all the other sounds associated with certain human emotions are made hearable is, in my opinion, cringeworthy. If you don’t know what I mean, then find a video explanation attatched below.
It really was a relief for me when I found out that it’s not only me who can’t stand those “autistic anime noises”. What I learned is that the simplicity of anime visual effects, which significantly speeds up the production process, limits the range of visual emotional cues, so all the sounds are being put there to compensate for that and make the plot feel more dramatic. Fair enough. However, probably the most important reason why I never became a full-time anime nerd is that I always felt like all of this is children stuff and I’m too mentally sophisticated to waste my time on that. And then I heard about “Death Note”, I watched it and I absolutely loved it.
When I heard that Netflix is going to release a live action version of “Death Note” I knew straight away that this is a horrible idea. The rule is simple: DON’T MESS WITH THE CLASSICS. Remakes very rarely turn out to be succesful. Especially when it’s an American remake of a critically acclaimed story (“Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “Funny Games”, “The Ring”). Well, I couldn’t stop them and so the show was made and premiered yesterday, 25th of August, on Netflix.
Let me start with the fact that there is something I don’t like about the actor Nat Wolff. He looks like a typical emo kid, not like the nonchalant heartthrob Yagami Light was in the anime. Let’s put the casting aside though and focus on his portrayal of the young psychotic genius who wants to be the God. I’m just going to add that I know that this is an adaptation and there’s no way you can squeeze 37 episodes of a show into a 100 minutes movie, but I was at least hoping that they will stick to the characters’ personalities, so complex and ingenious in the anime. They didn’t. Everything is wrong about Light Turner (why keep the name and change the surname?). Let’s just start with the fact that Yagami is supposed to be a genius. What Turner is, is a kid who’s pretty good in math and does his classmates’ homework for money. Second thing is that the anime character was friendless, because he chose not to have friends as he considered himself superior to everyone around him. He would always stay out of trouble, mind his business and focus on thinking about how boring life is. Turner, on the other hand, is a volcano of emotions, which disqualifies him from being the God who chooses who lives or dies. However, what shocked me the most and made me want to scream “this is so wrong!” was the fact that Turner can develop feelings for other people and he shares his secret (what the hell for) with some random girl called Mia, who was supposed to be the counterpart of anime’s Misa Amane. The most crucial part about Yagami’s personality has been completely overlooked: he is a sociopath who evolves to be a psychopath. Ingenious, like most psychos sadly are, Yagami only cares about himself with a little exception to his emotional apathy when it comes to his family. However, he was known to get over that as well. He never needed a partner to help him build a brand new world and Misa was only a tool he used to put his plans into action and to save his own skin. We get to know Misa as a silly, unstable girl, who is incredibly loyal to Yagami, and that makes her just as damaged as he is. Misa would never do anything without Yagami’s full approval and blessing, as she was completely obsessed with him. Misa would never betray Yagami, but the same thing can’t be said about Mia. Bearing no resemblance whatsoever to her anime counterpart both in terms of appearance and personality, she is another aspect of Netflix’s “Death Note” that I couldn’t stand. It was never supposed to be a partnership between Yagami and Misa, it was a toxic, abusive relationship of a master and a servant. Turner and Mia fight for the power none of them can really handle and in the end karma gets to them both. I don’t really see the sense in pointing out all the inaccuracies about the rules of “Death Note” but let me just tell you that the notebook Turner has and Yagami had work in a slightly different way. If I was to write about every little thing that was wrong in the movie I would have probably given up after going through the first 20 minutes of it, so I will just skip to something that hurt me the most.
L was and still is one of my favorite characters from all the TV shows I’ve seen in my life and that really says something, because I’ve seen a lot of them, not going to tell you how many though, as I’d still like to pretend that I have a life. L’s character was absolutely fantastic. Another troubled genius, a sociopath, not a psychopath, but still very likeable. Complete weirdo, but in his own unusual way. L from the anime made me feel like I should drop everything and solve crimes. I’m going to admit that I was pleasantly surprised when L’s character was introduced in the movie. Even though the characters bear no physical resemblance, the Netflix’s L seemed to have some potential. And then it all just crashed, because again the most important features were overlook or probably just ignored. Why did everyone find the battle between L and Yagami in the anime so thrilling? Because they were both extremely intelligent, emotionless, focused on their goals and also, over the course of the show they, in a way, became friends. Watching two geniuses trying to outsmart each other was absolutely mesmerizing, because it made you think if you could be able to outsmart them. In the movie, we can see L’s emotional downfall. He acts as if Watari was at least the love of his life, he’s impulsive, aggresive and not in the slightest as sophisticated and intelligent as anime’s L was. He lacks this calmness that the original L used to have, which made him the best person to lead the Kira investigation. Dear Netflix, there is so much more to L than candies and sitting in a strange way.
I quite liked how Ryuk looked in the movie. Sadly, I can’t say the same about his relationship with Turner, because it was pretty much non-existent. I would totally want to be friends with Ryuk from the anime, but the movie portrays him as an evil demon and nothing more, which again is really unfortunate. As far as humans and death gods friendships go, I think Yagami and Ryuk had something special, however weird it may sound.
The plot, characters, casting and so much more; there are so many things I hated about Netflix’s “Death Note”. This outrage is real, as I’m very fond of the original version and I just couldn’t stand the only anime I ever enjoyd being completely butchered. Personally I think that Yagami would kill Turner instantly, and L would just look at his American counterpart with blank expression, probably sucking on his thumb. Making it a personal revenge story instead of one about someone’s sick plans to change the world was a bad decision. “Death Note” and “Death Note” have so little in common it’s ridiculous. You really have to stretch it a lot to call the latter an adaptation. It just confirmed what I always thought that not everything is better when it’s American.
I liked the soundtrack though.