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Netflix’s Death Note Live Action--REVIEW

Title: Death Note Length: 100 minutes Premiered: August 25th, 2017 Rating: TV-MA

Summary: Light Turner, a bright student, stumbles across a mystical notebook that has the power to kill any person whose name he writes in it. Light decides to launch a secret crusade to rid the streets of criminals. Soon, the student-turned-vigilante finds himself pursued by a famous detective known only by the alias L.

Due to spoilers, my !personal! review will be under the cut.

Ah, yes. The most controversial movie to come out on Netflix in recent time. I decided to subject myself to this not once, but twice, in two different mindsets; one of someone who has never seen or read Death Note, and once as someone who has previous knowledge of the series.

No matter which way I watched it, it was still pretty shit.

Characters: 5/10 (No previous knowledge), 3/10 (previous knowledge) Light Turner had very much been changed from his Yagami Light counterpart. While Yagami was a independent soul who continued to write names even after becoming crazy with his idea of becoming God. Turner wants to give up the Note halfway through because he sees the issues it creates, and it blinded by his love for Mia. Speaking of who, Mia is a very manipulative character, since she basically only stays with Turner so she can stay near the Death Note. Watari is still Watari, and L has changed drastically. He’s much too emotional, too impulsive. Ryuk, however, is as badass as always

Cinematography: 7/10 (No previous knowledge), 7/10 (previous knowledge) I understand there wasn’t much blood and gore in the original series, so the addition of the intense gore in the movie was welcomed. When the first victim of the Note was decapitated, I was not expecting the head to come off in the gruesome way it was. Very pleasant of a surprise.

Casting: 5/10 (No previous knowledge), 2/10 (previous knowledge) Let’s get this straight. The only reason that number is not a 1, is because Willem Defoe’s Ryuk was absolutely phenomenal. Incredibly creepy, sarcastic like Ryuk was. The rest of the cast just didn’t really fit their roles.

Story/Pacing: 6/10 (no previous knowledge), 3/10 (previous knowledge) Adaptations aren’t easy, and I know this wasn’t supposed to be a direct adaptation because we already have some live actions created by Japan, but I caught myself really questioning the story as I watched this the second time. I think it was because I was comparing it to the original.

Entertainment: 2/10 (no previous knowledge), 1/10 (previous knowledge) Yeah. No. Not gonna watch this unless I have to.

Overall: 5/10 (no previous knowledge), 3.2/10 (previous knowledge)

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Boku Dake ga Inai Machi--REVIEW

Title: Boku Dake ga Inai Machi (ERASED) Length: 12 episodes Premiered: Winter 2016 Production Studio: A-1 Pictures Rating: R/NC17+

Summary: Satoru Fujinuma is a normal (struggling) manga artist and pizza delivery man with an extraordinary ability he calls “Revival”. He jumps at most five minutes back in time whenever tragedy around him strikes, and do his his naturally good nature, does his best to prevent them! When someone dear to him is killed, he somehow jumps back fifteen years, back to his fifth year of elementary, which is when his classmate, the mysterious Kayo Hinazuki, was murdered. He decides to help change the future and make sure Kayo stays alive.

Due to spoilers, my !personal! review will be under the ‘keep reading’

This anime wasn’t bad. It has been on my to-watch list ever since its premiere, and thanks to my being in an anime club, I’ve finally gotten a chance to watch it. I thought I would pace myself with the twelve episodes, seeing as I had about three days to complete it, but ended up going through the whole six hours with minimal breaks.

Another worry was its studio, A-1 Pictures, which I’ve had negative experiences with. For some reason, the shows I’ve watched from A-1 either are poorly adapted from source material (an entire season of Kuroshitsuji with terrible original characters to back me up) or they take on horrible series from the get-go (Sword Art Online, I’m looking at you).

Now for the actual review:

Characters: 8/10 The characters were very well written, in my opinion. Because Satoru was thrown back in time fifteen years, it was perfectly alright for him to have his adult thoughts while in his eleven-year-old body. The classmates were written nicely, and Satoru’s mother was superb. Even his co-workers were fine. However I feel as though Yashiro, or the teacher, was written too obviously. I knew he was the killer from maybe his second appearance, but that’s only because I’m a veteran and I knew a teacher wouldn’t have a prominent role in a drama-mystery series about murders and kidnappers. Admittedly, there were times where I thought maybe Kayo’s mother committed Kayo’s murder, but that died down when I found out Hiromi was also a victim. Also, for a negative tick, Kenya was too much of a smartass for me, being as he is only eleven throughout most of the series. That kid simply knew too much.

Art: 7/10 One reason I dislike A-1 Pictures is because a lot of times their shows end up suffering from ‘same-face syndrome’, and I feel like that happened here in some cases. I had to remind myself time and time again that Kayo’s mother and Sachiko (Satoru’s mother) were two different characters because their faces looked identical. I also for a long time thought that Satoru’s boss was one of his childhood friends, only because they looked similar. As for backgrounds, because this is based off of real areas of Japan, the localizational art isn’t bad. It’s accurate, and moreso during the time skip to 1988. One of my favorite shots is the repeated camera rolls. I don’t know why, but it’s mesmerizing.

Sound: 8/10 I honestly didn’t know that Asian Kung-Fu Generation still made music, as I remember listening to “Rewrite” from Fullmetal Alchemist back in 2003, but this opening “Re:Re” was amazing. I tend to skip anime openings to get on with the story, but I couldn’t do it. I only watched/listened to the ending once, (this is worse to say since I can’t remember what it’s called) and that’s simply because I was engrossed with the plot. But I do remember that it was a very beautiful song. The OSTs did a phenomenal job capturing the suspense and melancholy this show produced. The voices were excellent, even if Satoru and Kayo’s purposeful monotone voices irked me at times.

Story/Pacing: 7/10 A time skip is going to be obvious when dealing with a character that can time travel, so I will be overlooking anything dealing with that. When Satoru is a child, the narrative literally gives you the dates which things happen: Satoru and Kayo’s birthday is on March 2nd, and throughout the show, that fact doesn’t change or becomes ambiguous. In fact, we’re reminded over and over again that X-Day, or Kayo’s original day of death, was the night before her birthday, or March 1st. Keeping track of the dates like this is a very good way to slow down the storytelling process and keep the audience interested. The same cannot be said at the end of the series, after Satoru’s fifteen-year coma. From what I’ve read, the story is split into two arcs: the first being the entirety of Satoru’s jumps back into his childhood, up to the point where it is absolutely sure that none of the three targeted children died, and then the post-coma arc. The latter of the two lasted maybe, what, three episodes at best? Satoru woke up from his coma, ran into Yashiro again, and then helped put Yashiro behind bars. It’s rushed beyond belief, and that’s probably why it gets a lot of negative reviews, because the ending just wasn’t as exciting as the first half of the series. One downfall from the narrative is Satoru’s “Revival”, which is never explained. We never learn how it came to be, why only he has it in this universe, or why he is suddenly unable to use it at the end of the series. I feel as though this is just a plot point stuck onto Satoru’s already blunt and boring character, to make him stand out. I haven’t read too far into the manga, therefor I have no idea if it explains it there, but knowing about this ability would have made me a little happier.

Entertainment: 9/10 I could not put my laptop away unless it was to use the bathroom. I was immersed in this series from start to finish, even if I was falling off the track at the end due to the drop in story quality. It’s a murder-mystery that keeps you at the edge of your seat in a different way from all the rest, mainly due to its time travel and having children be the main characters for most of the story.

Overall: 7/10, specifially, 7.8/10 I would not mind watching this again. It kept me at the edge of my seat, entertained beyond belief, and itching to know if I was right about Yashiro being the killer from the moment I thought it was him. I greatly recommend this series, it’s not the best out there, but it’s most certainly a must-watch.