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Death Note news articles

Movie Matsuda is Back! Sota Aoyama to Reprise his Role as Tōta Matsuda in 2016 Death Note: Light Up the NEW World Live-Action Film

19/5/2016

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Tōta Matsuda actor Sota Aoyama in Death Note: Light Up the NEW World
Warner Bros Japan has confirmed that Sota Aoyama will return to play Tōta Matsuda in the latest live-action Death Note movie, due for release in October 2016.

This will be considered fantastic news by many fans, for whom he IS Matsuda in any live-action capacity.

Aoyama last wore the face of that young, irrepressibly enthusiastic and famously foolish police officer ten years ago, featuring in the cast of Death Note (2006) and Death Note: The Last Name (2006). 

The role also earned him a place in the spotlight starring in Spin-Off Matsuda - a movie short, little known outside Japan, released in conjunction with L: Change the World (2008).

It seems that this live action Matsuda is a glutton for punishment, as a decade on from all that trauma, he's pictured apparently back on the Kira Task Force taking on another six Death Note owners scattered across the world.

Though his presence could also be in a mere advisory/consultancy role.  It's impossible to tell from a couple of still photographs, issued as teasers without context (see below).

The news that Sota Aoyama is reprising his Death Note acting role comes on the back of two other announcements, similarly regarding actors familiar from the first movies.  Erika Toda is also on her way back - signing up to return to her role as Misa Amane - while Shidou Nakamura will be voicing the newer, darker, scarier CGI shingami Ryuk. All in glorious continuity of those earlier, decade old Death Note films.

Death Gods aside, Matsuda constitutes the only remaining person privy to insider information about Kira the first time around and able to share it now. It can be presumed that Ryuk won't be taking sides, finding it more amusing (and diverting) to observe the action as entertainment from the sidelines.

While in the movie timeline, Misa's memories of the whole Kira case (give or take her love for Light Yagami) were wiped at the end of the last main instalment.

Sota Aoyama's Matsuda in Death Note (2016) Movie Stills

Death Note Counter Measure Headquarters Special Team Death Note Light Up the NEW World 2016
Sota Aoyama's Tōta Matsuda is seen amongst those watching Wammy detective Ryūzaki (Sousuke Ikematsu) highlight something seemingly perturbing on a computer screen.  Also looking on, wearing varying expressions of shock and concern, are police Kira archivist, investigator and expert Tsukuru Mishima (Masahiro Higashide) and his colleague within the Death Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team, Shō Nanase (Mina Fujii).  Plus two others - anybody recognize the gentlemen flanking this ensemble?
Death Note Counter Measure Headquarters Special Team
Mind you, the Japanese National Police Agency's Death Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team seems rather more populous than its counterpart from a decade earlier, the Kira Task Force.   The new base doesn't look too shabby either, as the two pictures below may attest.  Still in that Death Note de rigour colour scheme of monochrome with a touch of red, so beloved of every version ever.
Death Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team
Death Note 2016 Task Force HQ desk Tsukuru Mishima
Someone's desk.  In shades of black, white and just a hint of orangey-red.  Probably belonging to one of the pair here getting all testosterone-y with each other - Ryūzaki and Tsukuru Mishima.  Actually, undoubtedly so, as one of the pictures above shows Mishima standing behind that desk, as he almost is here too.
Ryūzaki and Tsukuru Mishima Death Note Light Up the NEW World 2016 movie still
These movies stills from Death Note: Light Up the NEW World were sanctioned by Warner Bros Japan, but made it into the public eye via an intrepid Death Note fan and writer for Natalie.mu, who 'sneaked' onto set - in an undisclosed Japanese location - on May 18th 2016 and witnessed the above scenes being filmed.  In addition to managing a quick interview about the movie and their roles from the two actors seen sizing each other up in character above, Sousuke Ikematsu and Masahiro Higashide. 

Read more about that here:  映画「デスノート」対策本部に潜入、東出昌大と池松壮亮がプレッシャー語る (Natalie, May 18th 2016)  If, of course, you read Japanese or can stand Google Translate's attempt at a native transcription.  Otherwise one of our Japanese translators will hopefully be along soon to tell us all about it.
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Light Up the New World - Death Note 2016 Gains an Official Title for Release

22/4/2016

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Ready to know the name of the movie that we're all going to see in October 2016?  (Or as close as it may be coherently located within our own neck of the globe.)  Ready?  *Drum-roll*  Death Note: Light Up the NEW World.

Until now, this Shinsuke Sato directed Death Note movie has gloried under the working moniker of Death Note 2016.  We always knew it would change with the only bets being about how bad that final title might be, for this live-action sequel to the earlier trilogy of Japanese movies.  All things considered, Death Note: Light Up the New World isn't too bad.  Not when compared to some that we'd contemplated here ourselves.

Perhaps a little cheesy, with the strong potential for disappointment, as we doubt very much that we'll see much of Light Yagami beyond reference or the occasional flashback.  Probably just the former.

Warner Bros Japan announced the film's final and official retitle with a poster featuring its three main cast-members:
Death Note: Light Up the New World first poster
This poster announcing a name-change for Death Note 2016, first appeared in the Japanese press on April 8th 2015, trickling out across the world thereon.

It depicts new characters Yugi Shion, Tsukuru Mishima and Ryūzaki perched on chairs above a scattering of six death notes, topped by that fruity shinigami favourite - a shiny, new, red apple.

(Be still your immortal beating heart, Ryuk.  If we put together to get you a whole basket of the stuff, would you go and be bored somewhere else instead?  Like another planet or plane of existence entirely, please. A few Granny Smiths really aren't worth the wanton destruction of humanity, with a theatre of war on a global scale enacted in genocide; forced rendering of all our civil and human rights; terror; and enslavement.  Do it for oil, like everybody else.)

Reflected within the polished floor-tiles, we see the faded, pixelating visages of their predecessors - Light Yagami and L - both deceased with ten years standing between their stories told in the first movies, and the present day recounted in this.

Death Note: Light Up the New World will open in Japanese cinemas on October 29th 2016.
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Join a Pinterest Community Group for Wammy and Wammy's House!

15/4/2016

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Death Note Wammy Pinterest board run by Death Note News.
A whole group of us are already pinning our Wammy's House and Mr Wammy related items of interest over on Pinterest.  You can too!
We have a community Pinterest Board for Death Note's Wammy cohort, which anyone may join and contribute what they will.

It's part of a whole collection of character or other subject specific boards created and maintained by Death Note News.

So click away on the follow button, wait for your invitation to be added to the board - prompt us with a comment here* containing your Pinterest name if you want to hurry us up with that, though we will try to be quick with the Wammy additions during this Month of event - then pin, pin, pin all you've got on Watari and his wards.

And once you're in, feel free too to invite your friends along. All our members can add other pinners to the group. That's what community is all about!
* If you wish to be added to other boards too, then list those in your comment as well.  There are so many of you that these things otherwise go in bursts and starts!
Follow Death Note News's board Mr Wammy and Wammy's House on Pinterest.
Latest pins on our Watari Pinterest Community Board
Do you have a group, forum, community, fan-club or other website dedicated to Watari, Wammy's House or anything connected with the Wammys?  Let us know via our submission page and we'll big it up for you during this Month of Watari on Death Note News.  Help us get the community connected with like-minded members of the same fandom!

Posted as Part of

Wammy Month on Death Note News
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Death Note Profile:  Who is Quillsh Wammy?

8/4/2016

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Mr Wammy (Shunji Fujimura) -  Death Note live-action movies (Japan)

Mr Wammy as played by Shunji Fujimura
in live-action Death Note films
Watari - aka Quillsh Wammy - is L's 'handler' in Death Note.  He is also the founder of the Wammy chain of orphanages, including The Wammy House for Gifted and Talented Orphans.

Also known as Wammy's House, this was the institution which raised L, Near, Mello, Matt, Beyond Birthday, Linda et al.  It is located in Winchester, England.


We first meet Mr Wammy under his guise as Watari, an anonymous figure clad from head to toe in a black leather trench coat complete with Fedora hat.  He infiltrated a meeting of Interpol, wherein representatives of the world's law enforcement agencies had convened to discuss the Kira case. Watari was carrying a laptop from which emerged the electronic voice of L to address them all.

Later, as the Kira Task Force are invited to meet L and vetted by the same, Watari appears again, this time in the suited guise of his actual self - Quillsh Wammy, benefactor of the Wammy Group chain of orphanages and the man who trained L to become a detective.

He now facilitates his ward in his work solving crimes, acting as a handler, spokesperson or kind of butler.  Noted mostly for organizing logistics of manoeuvres ordered by L; transferring the funds to pay for the same; and bringing copious amounts of cakes, sweets and other sugary things for L to consume whilst puzzling over his cases.

Elsewhere, it transpires that Wammy is a crack marksmanship, as well as highly skilled in espionage.  He made his considerable wealth as an inventor.

Killed in the line of duty, during the fight against Kira, Quillsh Wammy is remembered as a 'great man' by members of the Task Force, lauded as the same by newspaper obituaries around the world.

Yet there is a darkness that hides beneath the surface of this seemingly amenable, altruistic man.  As author Tsugumi Ohba put it, 'He's a guy who cultivates detectives for fun. That's kind of terrible, isn't it?' (How to Read: Death Note 13, pg 27).  Well, in anybody's language, that's child trafficking and rendition, at the very least.

The Names of Quillsh Wammy

Death Note's Watari is alternatively known as:
キルシュ・ワイミー
Quillsh Wammy
Quillish Wammy
Kirushu Waimī
Kirsch-Waimi

Mr Wammy
ワタリ
Watari
W
渡
真名
Wye Me
Originally, Ohba meant to call this character Shadow, as in L's shadow - a moniker with more than one inferred meaning, which fan-fiction writers would have had great fun exploring.  However Death Note's editor pooh-poohed the name, telling Ohba, 'No, no! Anything but that!'  Hence the author coming up with Watari, which he explained meant 'handler' in Japanese.

Watari's Vital Statistics

Watari Death Note anime
Hair Colour:
Grey


Height:
5' 7" (170.18cm)
Eye Colour:
Blue


Weight:
8 stone (112lbs; 50.8kg)
Occupation:
Inventor; L spokesperson; benefactor of orphanages; collector of orphans; educator

Relationship Status:
Unknown, presumed single

Key Dates for Watari

May 1st 1933:
Quillsh Wammy born
Manga
May 1st 1936:
Quillsh Wammy born
Anime
November 5th 2004:
Quillsh Wammy killed
Manga
November 5th 2007:
Quillsh Wammy killed
Anime

The Auguries of Quillsh Wammy

Taurus
Born on May 1st, astrologically Quillsh Wammy is Taurus
Rooster
Wammy's birth date of May 1st 1933 (manga) also factors into Shēngxiào. He is a Rooster in the Chinese Zodiac
Rat
However, the time-slip of the anime would have him born in 1936 instead. That means that now in the Chinese Zodiac Watari is a Rat
Blood Type B
How to Read: Death Note 13 reveals that Quillsh Wammy's blood group is B

A Versatile Fixer - The Personality of Quillsh Wammy

Death Note 13: How to Read gives us an insight into the character of Quillsh Wammy, at least insofar as his author saw him.

The older man scores highly for versatility, talent, initiative/willingness to act, motivation and emotional strength.  Not far behind are his only slightly lesser scores for creativity, social skills and intelligence.  That he doesn't reach the topmost figure for creativity is a little surprising, given that Wammy made his fortune as an inventor.  The ultimate creator, one might think, this side of actual divinity.

We do get a hint of the kind of things that Wammy invented, when he turns up in the Death Note manga with belts containing panic buttons.  Not exactly Bond's Q, but in the ballpark.

As befits a man whose wealth and life has become devoted to raising children, his pet hate is 'dirty rooms'.  Presumably plenty of those at Wammy's House. I can't quite see the like of Beyond Birthday, Mello and Near running around with a duster.

This is an attribute taken to extreme levels in the Death Note TV drama, wherein guests are sprayed with disinfection at the door.  The interior of L's headquarters is kept pristine in its cleanliness, with Watari hurrying in to exchange L's shirt should a mere splash of food stain hit upon it.  In most tellings of the Death Note story, it's also inferred that Wammy is a fabulous cook.  At least there doesn't seem to be any travelling caterer providing all that confectionery for L that his handler regularly delivers.

Though it's nowhere stated that Wammy is an Englishman, it's implied in the location of his main orphanage for the training of gifted and talented orphans - Winchester, in England.  A further clue is given in his most favourite thing in the world - Earl Grey tea.

It's never truly explained how Watari managed to become such a crack marksman either.  His sharp-shooting is such that, in the Death Note manga and anime alike, he's able to fire a bullet which blasts a gun from the hand of Yotsuba's Kyosuke Higuchi, far below him on the ground. Wammy himself hovering over the scene in a helicopter at the time.

Nor do we learn where Quillsh Wammy acquired such skill in espionage, though he puts that to good use in Death Note, infiltrating various organizations to gain or deliver information.  Not least a gathering of Interpol.

Nevertheless he passed on all this knowledge, and the thinking/morality behind it, to the children in his care.   Maybe more clues to Watari's character reside in those he raised - how they turned out and what became of them.

Complete List of Wammy Kids in Death Note Canon

Genius children taken from wherever they lived around the world and installed in Wammy's House, Winchester.  Here their 'special talents' were cultivated with a top class education, whereupon they were sent back out into the world to put those skills into practice.  All of these individuals were nurtured by Wammy - or at least had their upbringing and training overseen remotely by him, as warden Roger Ruvie took orders from above.
Wammy A
A
- Name Unknown

Committed suicide at Wammy's House
(Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Case)
Wammy E
E
- Name Unknown

Shown on L's call/mailing list
(L: Change the World)
Wammy Kid J
J
- Name Unknown

Appears only as character in
a DS Death Note game.
(L: The Prologue to Death Note)
Picture
M
- Mello (Mihael Keehl)

Joined the Mafia in a bid to catch Kira and succeed to the L title before Near did. When unsuccessful, he gave his life to help Near defeat Kira.
(Death Note manga/anime)
Wammy kid Matt (Mail Jeevas) Death Note
Letter Unknown
- Matt (Mail Jeevas)

Third ranked Wammy kid at the time of L's death. Matt ultimately stepped into the Kira case at the behest of Mello. He was gunned down and killed by Kira supporters.
(Death Note manga/anime)
Wammy R
R
- Name Unknown
Shown on L's call/mailing list. However the name is faded out to grey, implying that R is dead. (B's is the same hue.)
(L: Change the World)
Wammy kid V
V
- Name Unknown
Shown on L's call/mailing list. However the name is faded out to grey, implying that V is dead. (B's is the same hue.)
(L: Change the World)
Wammy Z
Z
- Name Unknown
Assisted L in the Detective Wars bio-terror case.
(Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases)
Beyond Birthday - Death Note
B
- Beyond Birthday

Tried to lure L out with a series of grisly murders in Los Angeles; impersonated L for Naomi Misora, before setting fire to himself in a failed suicide attempt; imprisoned in LA, where he suffered a heart-attack and died (presumably killed by Kira) on January 21st 2004.
(Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases)
Wammy kid F (Kazuki Namioka)
F
- Name unknown

Rescued Near from a remote village, where all were dying in a deliberate epidemic, and sent him to L. F was killed in Thailand when a US helicopter shoots down his trunk. However F was already infected with a deadly virus.
(L: Change the World)
Kimiko Kujo L Change the World
K
- Kimiko Kujo

Scientist - unleashed a deadly virus in her own bid to 'change the world' by wiping out its human population.
(L: Change the World)
Near Death Note
N
- Near (Nate River)

Mathematical genius, who de facto succeeded L at age twelve, when the latter was killed by Rem/Kira.  With clues provided by Mello's martyrdom to the cause, Near was able to finally defeat Kira in the name of himself, Mello and L, ergo Wammy's House.
(Death Note manga/anime)
Wammy P
P
- Name Unknown
Shown on L's call/mailing list
(L: Change the World)
Ryūzaki Wammy kid Death Note 2016
Letter Unknown
- Ryūzaki

Cloned from L's DNA and raised at Wammy's House as L's true successor.
(Death Note 2016)
Wammy X
X
- Name Unknown

Assisted L in the Detective Wars bio-terror case.
(Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases)
Death Note Relight: Wammy kids
Random Wammy kids
as seen in Death Note: Relight (above)
and Death Note manga (left)
Wammy D
D
- Name Unknown

Shown on L's call/mailing list
(L: Change the World)
Wammy Kid G
G
- Name Unknown

Shown on L's call/mailing list
(L: Change the World)
Wammy L Death Note
L
- L Lawliet

Apparently the prototype 'special talent' Wammy orphan, for whom all the rest were raised as back-ups or successors.

At eight years old, L could beat up the other orphans in Wammy's House. He also discovered the delight in solving true crime cases, and thwarted the Winchester Mad Bomber. Beyond that he made his name as not only the world's greatest detective but, under pseudonyms, the 2nd and 3rd ranked too. 

He was killed during the Kira case.
Linda Death Note
Letter Unknown
- Linda

Became a successful artist. During the Kira case, she drew images of Near and Mello for the Japanese Task Force.
(Death Note manga/anime)
Picture
Q
- Name Unknown
Shown on L's call/mailing list
(L: Change the World)
Wammy kid T
T
- Name Unknown
Shown on L's call/mailing list. However the name is faded out to grey, implying that T is dead. (B's is the same hue.)
(L: Change the World)
Wammy Y
Y
- Name Unknown
Assisted L in the Detective Wars bio-terror case.
(Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases)
Wammy children Death Note manga
Each skilled Wammy kid set loose on the world was assigned a letter by Watari.   In L: Change the World, it's stated that this only occurs with the greatest, most intelligent of the Wammy's House outcrop.  Kujo is according stunned to belatedly realise that she was afforded the letter K.

Dotted across various adaptations of canon, we've practically got the entire alphabet in Wammy Letters.  With Watari himself indicated by the Letter W, only H, I, O, S and U are missing.  However, some known Wammy alumni never divulge their letters.  We don't, for example, know which Matt was assigned, despite him being third in the Wammy House rankings.  Nor yet do we know which letter Ryūzaki will take in the forthcoming movie Death Note 2016, assuming that he takes one at all.

Meanwhile, by the end of the manga/anime Death Note stories, Near interchangeably uses both N and L.  The latter earned post-Kira.  Thus giving an insight into the fact that letters can be taken from their peers by successful rivals/successors from the same Institution.  This is a system that Wammy himself must have set up.

Along with a code of ethics that apparently accounts for serial killers, abductors, biomedical scientists bent on mass destruction and the propensity of Wammy graduates to think it proper to die - or be killed - for want of a puzzle's solution. 

The Faces of Watari

Watari Death Note manga

Quillsh Wammy Death Note manga
Watari Death Note anime

Quillsh Wammy Death Note anime
Wammy Death Note DS game

Quillsh Wammy Death Note Nintendo game
Watari Death Note Relight

Quillsh Wammy Death Note: Relight


Posted as Part of

Month of Watari Death Note News
Watari Death Note movies

Quillsh Wammy Death Note live-action movies
Watari Death Note TV 2015

Quillsh Wammy Death Note TV drama
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Death Note 2016: New Pics of Ryūzaki Released from Live-Action Movie

1/4/2016

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Affording an intriguing glimpse into the persona of Ryūzaki (Sousuke Ikematsu), two more picture stills
have been made public from the filming of Japanese live-action movie Death Note 2016.

2016 Death Note Ryūzaki (Sousuke Ikematsu)
Sousuke Ikematsu as Ryūzaki in Death Note 2016 live action movie
We already knew that Sousuke Ikematsu's character Ryūzaki was created genetically from the DNA left behind by L for this purpose during his own lifetime.  (The scientists here are straining at the bit to discuss that titbit in due course!)  Today's information adds just that Ryūzaki was raised at Wammy's House.

It seems the regime there went a step further even than the scenario warned by Beyond Birthday (and Mello) in Another Note.  The notion of a 'back-up' not so much a brainwashed boy, as an actual clone.

So did they keep DNA of them all?  Will the next baby squalling from a test-tube be Mello or Matt?

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Japanese Movie Death Note 2016 Features on a BRITISH Film Magazine Cover

27/2/2016

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Giving hope to all of us global audience types, that Death Note 2016 will quickly migrate from Japan to our own screens, is a rather random movie magazine cover from Great Britain. 

Dominated by a mostly monochromatic photograph, the front of Screen International's special February 11th 2016 edition features next generation L clone Ryuzaki (Sousuke Ikematsu), in what appears to be a pristine prison cell.  He is slumped on a closed-lid toilet seat, wearing a hyottoko mask - as previously donned by his genetic forebear L in the first two Death Note movies, when the detective sought to conceal his own identity from Misa Amane.

The legend slanted on the floor is in English and reads, 'The new saga begins.'  Whilst a larger one, in the familiar Death Note font and a more than familiar first rule, floats alongside the actor telling us, 'Death Note.  The human whose name is written in this note shall die.'  The implication is clear. L's biologically cloned successor isn't going to make it to the closing credits either.

Though none of us believe it. The danger point is too blatant and too premature.
Screen International Death Note cover Feb 11th 2016

Screen International Death Note cover,
as Tweeted by Warner Bros Japan
Berlin Film Festival Screen International Death Note cover, as distributed at Berlin Film Festival

Berlin Film Festival Screen International
Death Note
cover, as distributed on the day
This wasn't a British magazine found generally upon the shelves of newsagents.  It was a private marketing magazine circulating at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival.  Only 10k were ever printed and they were distributed to attendees of the opening day on February 11th 2016.

The clue to why lies in the logo of Death Note 2016 copyright holders Nippon TV prominently displayed in the bottom right hand corner, alongside details for enquiring about world sales.  Ryuzaki may look slumped, but that merely serves to turn his whole body towards the lower logo and its missives.  His bulging hyottoko eyes are trained upon it.  The floor legend leads the eye straight into said inquiry details for the international distribution of Death Note 2106.

After all was is a marketing fly cover (wrapped around the film magazine's actual cover), which must have knocked NTV back a pretty penny! Therefore knowing that a representative was waiting - at booth 111 of the European Film Market in Martin Gropius Bau - was the actual point. 

Now all we need to know is whether anyone from our own respective countries nipped on over to stand 111, and if a deal was struck.

Incidentally, Screen International has its Feb 11th 2016 Death Note Berlin Film Festival cover - plus contents - online for us all to read.
Death Note actress Rina Kawaei on set as Sakura Aoi
In other related news, new casting Rina Kawaei has been Tweeting herself (February 24th 2016) on set, during filming of Death Note.  She was basically telling her fans that she was playing Sakura Aoi, and it had just been publicly announced by the studio.

While four days previously, on February 20th, her actor colleague Masaki Suda celebrated his 23rd birthday.  He was surprised at his desk, while performing his role as hacker and Kira worshipper Yūgi Shion, with something which obviously delighted him.  Unfortunately we can't get a decent enough translation to find out what!  Paper lanterns, perchance?
Yūgi Shion actor Masaki Suda celebrates 23rd birthday on Death Note set

Death Note 2016 movie, official Twitter (Feb 20th 2016)
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Death Note Movie Makers Gearing Up for Filming

6/2/2016

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We have two Death Note films coming this year.  The proof is in the Tweeting.
(Incidentally the actual date for Japan's Death Note 2016 movie release is September 13th 2016, according to IMDb.)

Japanese movie Death Note 2016 starts filming

'Death Note 2016 begins! Thank you' reads this Tweet
from the official Japanese Warner Bros account
on January 6th 2016 - presumably referring to filming
Meanwhile, over on the official Death Note 2016 website:
Death Note 2016 lead actors
 The recently announced stars of Death Note 2016 - Sōsuke Ikematsu, Masahiro Higashide and Masaki Suda - have been commenting on their new roles.

Masahiro, who is playing Death Note researcher and investigator Tsukuru Mishima, notes that he's grown up knowing this story.  Therefore it's difficult not to be influenced by what has gone before; nor to avoid the pressure in getting it right.

He views the latest story as a three-way, intertwined battle between geniuses. He is enjoying making the movie and hopes that we enjoy watching it, including those discovering the story for the first time now.

'New L' Sōsuke - aka Ryūzaki - is also feeling the pressure: to live up to the legacy left by Ken'ichi Matsuyama in the earlier movies. He feels excited about filming and notes that every day the cast are directed in exceeding the standard of the day before.

This new Death Note story, he feels, contains the central message that human beings are weak and foolish creatures.

Masaki equally remembers when he was in the audience watching earlier Death Note live-action films. That makes it all the more thrilling to be starring in one now.

He sees in his own legacy a hint of Mello and Near in the original manga, insofar as his cyber-terrorist Kira worshipper character Yūgi Shion - plus the parts played by the other two - represent the successors, heirs or children of Light and L.  This is the movie equivalent of a Death Note second arc.

He hopes that their 'second half' story will surpass expectations laid down by the first wave of Japanese live-action Death Note movies ten years ago.

Personally they would have had my (tentative) vote straight out, if they'd just HAD Mello in one of these live-action movies.  And I don't mean disguised as a young schoolgirl.  We're all looking at you, L: Change the World and Maki.
Reading Death Note Adam Wingard Director

US live action Death Note director Adam Wingard,
re-reading the Black Edition,
as per his Tweet on December 10th 2015
Adam followed his with this Tweet, also dated December 10th 2015:
Death Note director Adam Wingard Black Edition luggage Tweet Dec 10th 2015
Death Note Black Edition I
Death Note Black Edition II
The complete Black Edition Death Note, as read by Adam Wingard,
is available in our Death Note Books and Manga Store

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Live Action Movie Cast of Death Note 2016 Revealed

4/2/2016

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The three stars of the forthcoming Japanese movie sequel in the Death Note series have just been announced. Following on from Death Note, Death Note: the Last Name and L: Change the World, this latest film outing is tentatively called Death Note 2016.

It will feature three brand new characters to add to the canon dramatis personae:

Ryūzaki


Also known as L mark 2 (or should that be mark 4, seeing as we have to account for Near, Mello and Matt), Ryūzaki is a world famous, top-class detective lured into the spotlight by the emergence of no less than SIX Death Notes.

Shinigami are getting very careless these days. Or bored.

However, Ryūzaki isn't merely a Wammy kid grown old enough to get chucked onto the front line.  Like all the rest.  He's legitimately an heir of L, bloodline, genes and all.

No, this isn't a secret love-child that we've uncovered here. It's much worse than that.

Apparently L left behind a sample of his DNA, so that he might be cloned, into a global detective, called Ryūzaki.

This new Death Note character will be played by Sōsuke Ikematsu, known to the cinema going public as Higen in The Last Samurai and Kazuhiko Shingai in MOZU.
Sōsuke Ikematsu as Ryuzaki in Death Note 2016
Masahiro Higashide as Tsukuru Mishima in Death Note 2016 movie

Tsukuru Mishima


Ryūzaki is aided and abetted in this endeavour - and no doubt given the heads up re a sudden epidemic of Death Notes - by police researcher and archivist Tsukuru Mishima.

The spiritual (as opposed to genealogical) successor to Soichiro Yagami and his crew, Tsukuru Mishima specializes in artefacts from the Kira case that went before.

Ten years previously to be precise.

Therefore the investigator is well placed to recognize the reality of each new notebook dropped by a Death God in various locations around the globe.  He becomes the go to expert for all other authorities within stricken nations.

Or more likely, he does whatever Ryūzaki ends up directing him to do.

Tsukuru Mishima will be played by Masahiro Higashide.  The actor's other roles include Hideo Shimada in Parasyte and Kō Mabuchi in Ao Haru's Ride.

Yūgi Shion

And what's a Death Note story without a Kira?  Or in this instance, a Kira worshipping cyber-terrorist and/or hacker named Yūgi Shion.

Me and popular media don't often agree upon what constitutes a 'cyber-terrorist', but this time we may be in accord. 

Yūgi Shion uses his computing skills and internet presence to not only locate all fallen shinigami notebooks, but also has some role in co-ordinating events.

He may or not be the individual already announced - in a snippet from the Death Note 2016 movie trailer - as being cloned from a shard of Light Yagami DNA.  Though how anyone got that is anybody's guess, particularly as they had to get through Near to reach the corpse.

Unless it was Near.  In fact, where is Near in this movie plotline now?!

Oh.  Movies.  He's an infant maths genius just entering Wammy's House as L was killed.  Not manga instigator of the Yellow Box pwning at all.  He should be just about old enough to be, well, Ryūzaki by now. Because the new L isn't a ten year old either.

Back to the actual plot - Masaki Suda will be playing Yūgi Shion; an actor also known as Karma Akabane in Assassination Classroom and Kuranosuke Koibuchi in Kuragehime.
Masaki Suda as Yūgi Shion Death Note 2016
Directed by Shinsuke Sato, the fourth in the Death Note trilogy (as was) is confirmed for theatrical release in Autumn 2016.  It is currently being filmed in Kobe - with one or two sneaky night shoots in the middle of Tokyo and occasional suburbs.  Moreover, there will be some international scenes, which will be filmed actually in the relevant foreign parts. 

Any tremors of excitement building over this out there?
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