The Controversy and Legacy of Netflix’s Death Note (2017) The 2017 live-action adaptation of Death Note remains one of the most polarizing anime adaptations in streaming history. Directed by Adam Wingard, the film attempted to transplant Tsukumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s iconic psychological thriller from the streets of Tokyo to Seattle, Washington.
Even for native English speakers, the English subtitles (ESubs) enhance the Death Note experience:
He kept erasing, trying to make right what the book had made wrong. Each erasure cost him. The pages grew thinner, the ink darker, his fingers stained. At night he dreamed the hand that had once written now hovering over the empty margins, waiting. Faces circled his sleep—some grateful, some hollow with lost memories, some with eyes that suspected that something fundamental had been taken from them.
The next morning his name was on the news. The delivery driver had swerved to avoid a dog and struck a pedestrian. The city called it an accident. The file—whoever had written it—had been right.
The rain in Seattle didn't just fall; it blurred the neon signs of the pier into smears of oil and light. Light Turner sat in the back of the school library, staring at the leather-bound book that had literally fallen from the gray sky. The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
The movie follows the story of Light Turner (played by Nat Wolff), a brilliant high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook known as the "Death Note." This notebook has the power to kill anyone whose name is written in it, as long as the writer pictures the person's face while writing their name. Light, who adopts the alias "Kira," begins to use the notebook to eliminate people he deems evil, with the goal of creating a utopian society without crime.
While the film may have been intended to introduce the franchise to a new audience, it ultimately alienated fans of the original series. The backlash against the film serves as a reminder of the importance of cultural sensitivity and representation in Hollywood and the need for filmmakers to stay true to the source material when adapting beloved stories.
Unlike the original manga or anime set in Japan, this version is set in Seattle and changes several character motivations and plot points.
He followed every thread. He tracked IPs that came and went like ghosts, every trail folding into a wall. He visited libraries, pawnshops, secondhand bookstores, places where people forgot things and others found them. In a dim shop behind a sari store, he found a dealer in old things who remembered a peculiar parcel bought years ago: a black notebook with a patterned cover, traded by a woman who’d said she wanted it gone because it "made people certain." The dealer shrugged. She’d sold it to someone who collected curiosities—an old camera, occult postcards, a battered Rolleiflex—who’d since vanished.
"Death Note" (2017) is a thought-provoking thriller that explores complex themes and features strong performances from its cast. While it may not be perfect, the movie provides a gripping and intellectual ride that will keep you thinking long after the credits roll.
The 2017 film is a live-action supernatural crime thriller available on Netflix . It transplants the original Japanese setting of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s manga into Seattle, Washington.
Critics gave it a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans were even harsher, calling it a “whitewashed, rushed, and thematically hollow” version. However, some viewers praise it as a fun, campy horror-thriller if viewed as an original story.
Directed by Adam Wingard (known for You’re Next , The Guest , and later Godzilla vs. Kong ), Death Note (2017) is an American supernatural thriller film produced by Netflix. It is a loose adaptation of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s immensely popular Japanese manga series of the same name.