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‘Death Note’: Dead before it hits the screen?

> Americanized Netflix adaptation alienates many fans

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

 

he live action Netflix version of Death

Note is leaving fans increasingly
baffled and outraged over the film’s
largely American cast and setting.

The remake of the super-popular
manga and anime is set for release on
August 25. Netflix unveiled a one-minute
trailer on March 22, reigniting the
outcry over the adaptation’s apparent
Westernization—an outcry that first
started building up since it was revealed
in fall of 2015 that the film will star
Nat Wolff, best known for his acting in
young adult novel adaptations The Fault
in Our Stars (2014) and Paper Towns
(2015), alongside Margaret Qualley.

Death Note took the world by storm
when the manga was first published in
2003, with an anime following in 2006.
The plot features 17-year-old Japanese
high school student Light Yagami as he
comes into possession of a notebook that
allows the wielder to kill someone by
writing their name. Incredibly gifted and
incredibly bored, Light decides to use the
notebook for the idealistic purpose of
bettering the world by killing criminals.
Meanwhile, the mysterious and equally
brilliant detective L tries to identify and
apprehend the supernaturally-powered
vigilante, who comes to be known as
“Kira.” And now this 12-volume (or
37-episode) battle of morals and wits is
being transposed to Seattle, Washington.

Whitewashing foreign media fora
Western audience is not an issue exclusive
to manga and anime. Controversy
has been especially prevalent lately
with the recent release of Ghost in
the Shell, another movie based on a
manga with Scarlet Johansson in the
lead role of a cyborg. One could go on

and on about the endemic problems
of underrepresenting Asians and other
visible minorities in Hollywood, but the
Americanizing approach seems even
more problematic and bizarre in a story
as culturally-specific as Death Note.

First off, that concept of (white)
schoolkid-turns-mass-murderer instantly
has many more connotations in the US.
Even beyond that, it’s hard to imagine
Light, played by Wolff, as an American
surnamed Turner. In the manga,
Light’s character is heavily shaped by
Japanese cultural expectations and by
his relationship with his police chief
father (Shea Whigham in the film). In
Japan, families place a huge amount
of pressure on academic performance,
and family dynamics are strongly rooted
in respect and tradition. This isn’t to
say that elements of these dynamics
aren't present outside of Asia, but in
North America we have a context of very
different societal norms, and it seems
the film will have to take a very different
approach to the cultural pressures
influencing Light’s personality.

The rest of the cast is also

perplexing. The main female character
Misa Amane has been turned into Mia
Sutton (Qualley). Misa/Mia is a famous
model, actress, and pop idol, but at least
celebrity worship seems fairly culturally
ubiquitous. After witnessing the male
and female leads cast as white actors, it
was something of a surprise to find that
the eccentric genius L is played by Keith
Stanfield, who stars in the TV series
Atlanta. Seeing a black actor cast as L is
at least a placation to anyone appalled at
the thought of an all-white Death Note.
L’s invaluable assistant Watari is
played by Paul Nakauchi, so the film
will feature some Asian presence on-
screen, albeit a character whose sole
purpose is support. Masi Oka also
has a role, although his part is still
unannounced. One casting that does
seem appropriate is Willem Dafoe, who
has the perfect oddly-spaced eyes and
distinctively goblinlike face to play the
Death God Ryuk (although according
to IMDB, Dafoe is only the voice).
Ryuk’s character brings up a whole
new problem of cultural transposition
with the Death Gods, or Shinigami.

 

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They’re a part of traditional Japanese
folklore without an obvious American
parallel, and it’s hard to imagine
Shinigami meshing with the North
American setting without feeling like
some quirky and trite ghost-spirit-
companion-thing. Another point

of potential incongruence arises in
the nickname “Kira”—the Japanese
pronunciation of the English word
“killer.” In the manga, the figure known
as Kira gains a worldwide cult-like
following, and while this might still
stand in the American remake, the
name loses a lot of its power without
its international connotations.

Ina statement to the website Collider
last June, the movie's producers (both
of whom are Asian) called the story one
of “moral relevance—a universal theme
that knows no racial boundaries.” The
concept, maybe, but it will take a lot of
stretching to adapt the story and the
characters to an American context. A
lot of fans are clearly not in favour of
this imaginative leap; an online petition
to boycott the movie already has, as
of April 1, about 15,000 signatures.

Supporters of the upcoming Netflix
film might point out that Japanese live
action versions of Death Note already
exist. The manga was adapted into a
series of four live action films, the first
two of which roughly follow the original
storyline, taking place between 2006
and 2016. Death Note was also made into
an 11-episode live action TV drama in
Japan in 2015. A Westernized Hollywood
version will at least be a different
approach from these earlier adaptations.
However, there's absolutely no reason why
“Westernized” has to mean “primarily
non-Asian,” especially when that choice
drives away so many potential fans. Spoiler
alert: Asians live in North America, too.

Canada’s history explained 1n record time

> ‘Canada: The Story of Us’ miniseries review

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

kek

Coie The Story of Us explores

the long and interesting history of
Canada and the various people who are
important in that history.

Canada: A People’s History, which
first aired from 2000 to 2001, is, in my
opinion, the most interesting miniseries
about the history of Canada. It has
detailed explanations about the country,
features famous Canadian historical
figures talking to the audience, and was
shown in many schools’ social studies
classes. In celebration of the 150th
anniversary of Confederation, CBC
decided to remake the miniseries and

 

show it in abridged form to create The
Story of Us.

The miniseries begins with an
introduction by Justin Trudeau, and he
says that while the miniseries’ history
shows the creation of the country, “there
are dark chapters in our past that we've
only begun to confront.”

The first episode is about early
Canada before Confederation and
the first voyagers who discovered
the country. It chronicles Samuel de
Champlain discovering indigenous
peoples and introducing modern (at the
time) technology that would change
history forever. The episode also talks
about the women during that time,
Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard de
Groseilliers opening the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and James Wolfe during the

War of 1812.

The miniseries has modern
filmmaking, allowing it to have a lot
of action. However, the action causes
it to have violent scenes that make the
miniseries almost as violent as Game of
Thrones.

The descriptions of events in The
Story of Us are explained at a very fast
pace. The aerial shots are sped up at
a very fast speed, the conversation is
sped up with fast cuts, and they fast-
forward events with montages. While
I understood all of the events in the
episode, a typical viewer might be
confused as to what is going on.

The narrator of the miniseries
is the same person I have heard in
various commercials that involve the
Government of Canada. While the

miniseries does include historians
explaining the events that are shown,
most of the people interviewed are
famous Canadian people, including
Ann-Marie MacDonald, former Governor
General Adrienne Clarkson, Christopher
Plummer, Paul Gross, Tatiana Maslany,
and Georges St-Pierre. The interviews
are like a making-of special feature on

a DVD, where various actors talk about
the material that they worked with , and
some of them could have been in the
dramatizations. Maybe in later episodes,
the miniseries will interview people

who were involved in the events and the
relatives of the people who were involved.
Canada: The Story of Us shows the history
of Canada at a fast pace and with a lot

of action. Canada: The Story of Us airs
Sunday at 9:00 p.m. on CBC.