Death Note is close enough to the manga to please

Death Note follows the mysterious L and others as they try to catch cool and brainy high school student Light Yagami who has come into possession of a notebook that allows him to summon a murderous demon simply by writing the name of his intended victim. Although Light is aware that killing is wrong, he strongly believes that the violent crimes he perpetrates are justified because "evildoers must die in order to create a better society."

Earlier this year I was excited to hear about the US finally having a chance to view Death Note. Based on the manga with the same name, we meet Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara), a smart high school student who just turns out to be bored with his day to day life until he finds a book which plainly says DEATH NOTE on the front. Inside the cover are the rules on how to use it. The main one stating "The human whose name is written in this note shall die". Light desides to test the notebook on a street thug who he sees harassing a woman. When the thug gets into an accident he realizes that the book is real. Soon after we meet the owner of the Death Note, a Shinigami (or Death God) named Ryuk. We find out that he dropped his notebook on earth because he was pretty bored himself.

Light decides to use the notebook to rid the world of evil doers and create a perfect world. This catches the attention of the mysterious and brilliant (if not extremely odd) investigator known only as L (Ken ichi Matsuyama). Light then starts a sort of a figurative chess game with L. Light now aptly named Kira by his followers, has the upper hand. With L not knowing who Kira really is, Light can stay one step ahead of L. And he does this very well. It also doesn't hurt Light that his father Soichiro (Takeshi Kaga) who is the police chief and the head of the Task Force put together to stop Kira along side L (or Ryuzaki as he likes to be called during the investigation). Soon Light gets followed by the FBI (which he disposes of brilliantly with the help of Ryuk), which takes Light to a whole different level because now we see that he won't anyone stand in his way to create his perfect world. Does he care anymore about right and wrong?

By the end of the movie we've met Light's girlfriend and the fiancee of the FBI agent that was sent to track him, Naomi Misora. She gets pretty close to figuring out that Light is Kira and he gets rid of her in a very smart way after trying new things with the Death Note. We also meet someone new in TV personality Misa Amane or "Misa Misa" (Erika Toda) who gets her own Death Note. she has made it very clear that she is a supporter of Kira. What will her story be in part 2? Wait and see. There were a few small details that were changed from the manga for the movie, but they a few and far between. The original plot was still there and that was what got me hooked to the manga in the first place. I LOVED seeing the live action version of a manga that I really enjoyed and I can't wait for part 2 Death Note : The Last Name. This one gets a definite 5 on my "Go See" scale. It's truly a must see!