Death Note is a brand that has managed to leave the audience in awe no matter how it’s delivered. The manga was a huge success and later the Japanese anime made it into an even bigger brand by reaching the global audience. Now Death Note has been released on Netflix and fans are interested to see whether the true essence of the show will be delivered or not. Well initial reviews have been a bit of a mixed bag , and it appears that the Western rendition of the manga has left a sour taste in the mouths of the fans of the manga.
While manga and animes have a great fan following there are often people who feel themselves to be too mature for both. Thus an adaption by Netflix should have done great wonders for the popularity of the show. The show now can reach an even greater audience and give its current fan base an all new opportunity to rediscover their favorite characters in the show. But despite all the positives, it appears that the Netflix backed production has only managed to divide the fan base, something which was expected since the initial Death Note trailer hit our screens.
As reported by Wired, Adam Wingard director of Death Note said that When you’re tackling an adaptation of a manga comic that’s 108 chapters long and has already been reimagined as play, film, and anime, Adam Wingard says it’s best to start from scratch rather than “doing a half-assed homage to the original.” Wingard further acknowledged the fact that the show has a huge fan following including his brother and indicated that they felt best making a show about it rather than fitting it in a two hour movie.
Wingard regarding the issue said that “Once we realised there was no way to jam the whole series into one movie, it evolved in a natural way where we said these are our touchstones that we’re going to use as inspiration,” he added “On one hand you want to be faithful to the source material but in this case you have to do that in a way where you’re saying the best way to do that is to do something totally new and unique with the heart of ingrained within it.”
The westernization of the Manga has not worked out as we had hoped for and it comes as no surprise to anyone, considering the debacle that was Ghost In The Shell. I guess its time that Hollywood really considers the source material and sticks as close to it as possible.
