expiration date 

i was quite surprised when i saw the Death Note trailer on TV two days ago. i’ve been seeing it on the internet and planned to buy the VCD once it’s out in Singapore. surprisingly, it’s currently playing in the cinema.

so, today ari and i went to see it.

first thing first: i think the manga is much, much better than the movie. ari is following the english version, which is only been up to book 7, while i can’t help myself and downloaded the scans. so i finished the series. and the both of us agrees that the enticing and addicting aspects of the manga are not portrayed well in the movie.

first of all, the setup of the story is different than the setup of the manga. all that “boredom” thing goes out of the window.

second, many of the characters seems to have different personality than those portrayed in the manga. some of them seems too… undeveloped. Light is supposed to be handsome, cool and extremely smart, but the Fujiwara’s Light was… well, boring and normal. boo~~

basically, there are sooo many changes made for the movie (Light has a girlfriend, Misora Naomi has much much more screen appearance, etc etc). usually, i’m all for changes in manga-adaptation movies. but on Death Notes, instead of making the movie more interesting, the changes just made the movie quite dull.

Ryuk was funny. Ryuzaki was better than i expected… in fact, he’s a little bit on the cute side. i kinda like Yagami-san.

i like Death Note for the battle between the “good” and “evil” trying to challenge and outsmart each other’s strategies. that part is nowhere to be found in the movie. all the scene with complicated logic and moves seem to be simplified, thus lost its charm. too bad.

however, i’m curious on what people who haven’t read the manga think of the movie…