VIZ Pictures has won the North American theatrical and DVD distribution rights to Nippon Television’s Death Note and its sequel, Death Note: The Last Name. The live-action feature films are based on the Death Note anime and manga series popular in Japan and North America. (VIZ is the North American distributor of these series.)
Death Note is “based on the hit supernatural action mystery manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The live-action film, directed by Shusuke Kaneko, was released in 2006 and mirrors the manga’s story of Light Yagami, an ace student with great prospects who is bored out of his mind. All of that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god named Ryuk. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals mysteriously begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to investigate, and he is soon hot on the trail of Light, who must now reevaluate his one noble goal. Both Light and L believe themselves to be on the side of justice, and the two match wits trying to show exactly which of them is ‘good’ and which of them is ‘evil.'”
The films will debut “in a series of special screenings at Austin’s Fantastic Fest 2007 and at the 2007 Vancouver Asian Film Festival.” VIZ Pictures plans to release the two films on DVD in the summer of 2008.
Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name will screen at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (1120 South Lamar, Austin, Texas) 20-27 September 2007, during Fantastic Fest 2007. For more information, show times, and tickets, see www.fantasticfest.com.
Death Note only will screen at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, 1-5 November. The Festival’s web site, www.vaff.org, doesn’t currently list Death Note, but VIZ Pictures assures us that it will be on the program.