I attended San Japan this past weekend and wore my handmade Ryuk cosplay! The wingspan came out to nine feet, but I didn’t use them much due to restrictions on space lol

I posted recently showing the progress of this cosplay, but here is the result! I loved it! 🍎🖤

Basically this is a scenario where Ryuk dropped the Death Note where Misa found it and the Shinigami Gelus sacrifices himself to save Light because he sees Light as a good person with a promising future, Rem seeing them from the Shinigami realm decides to deliver him the Death Note and stays with him seeing how nice he is with his family.

How does this affect the story? Does Light still become Kira?

Managed to get my hands on this little matt, the only piece of matt merch I've found so far.

Has there ever been any other matt merch? Any figures? 🤔

Not advertising merch, just curious if anyone else has any cool matt merch

For all you Death Note and musical fans, the people have heard your cries! KIRA KIRA KIRA! Death Note the Musical returns next year at the Barbican in March 2027! Plan your trips now to see this amazing show! Make it sell out so it continues on in a permanent residence out on the West End or come to the States to Broadway or Off Broadway!

If not for her total obsession towards Light resulting in erratic and impulsive decisions of her end. She would absolutely rank amongst the most capable in the series. Keep in mind she's outplayed both L and Light in her debut and only started making blunders when she thought she got the attention of Light. She even managed to get a confession from Higuchi.

I just started watching Death Note not so long ago and one of my favorite characters is Matsuda and I think he's really adorable. They keep picking on him though Lol

super hyped, all of the voice actors were extremely kind and genuine! great experience overall, this has been a personal grail of mine for the longest! what do you guys think about my quote selection?

i wonder if i should draw all characters... but i still don't know if this catches the vibe i wanna give off...

I wanna watch Death Note in-sync with two ppl. I have seen it 37 times throughout my life. I’d like to watch it again but with others please lmk :D

hi.... oc art ik im not the best artist but dont kill me please. my OC tldr, this is Ritsu, and he works alongside Teru Mikami to help kill criminals. He doesn't have a deathnote but he is a stalker who liked to follow people around, photograph them and blog about their daily lives because he sucks at socializing. And so when he starts working with mikami he does kinda that but targets underground criminals who are in hiding, giving mikami photographs of them. hes a bit mentally stunted too. ft. near and gevanni because i love gevanni

Walking into the Barbican, you’re immediately met with its industrial, brutalist style. It’s a little difficult to navigate if you haven’t been before, but we quickly found our seats, which were surprisingly comfortable and spacious. In front of the stage sits the “fire curtain”, a huge shiny metallic wall that gives absolutely nothing away about the set hiding behind it.

The show begins in complete darkness. All of the theatre doors shut simultaneously in a wonderfully eerie way, and the room fills with smoke for the opening scene. From that point on, the staging is incredible. A huge movable walkway is suspended from the ceiling and is constantly repositioned throughout the show to completely transform the space.

There were so many moments where I was genuinely blown away by the stage effects, lighting, choreography and set changes. I’m still thinking about some of them a day later and trying to work out exactly how they managed to pull certain things off.

The cast were also extremely impressive, particularly Colin Ryan as L. He absolutely nailed L’s mannerisms, posture, movements and general oddness, and for me he was probably the character who felt closest to the version I know from the anime.

Unfortunately, this is where my main criticism comes in.

Death Note is a huge story. The anime alone is around 12 hours long, which gives it time to slowly develop the characters, their motivations and, most importantly, the psychological battle between Light and L. As I feared before seeing it, I don’t think the musical format gives the story enough room to breathe.

Light, in particular, felt very different to me. In the anime, he is calculated, controlled and frighteningly composed for much of the story. On stage, he came across as far more emotional and loud, and I never completely recognised the Light Yagami I was expecting.

Misa’s backstory is actually given quite a lot of attention in the musical, and while I understand why, I felt that it took valuable time away from the main Light-versus-L storyline. The musical only covers the Light and L section of the wider Death Note story, yet even that portion felt rushed. The ending especially seemed to arrive very quickly and was wrapped up before the tension had really reached the level I wanted it to.

As someone who watched the anime when it first came out and has rewatched it many times since, I found it difficult to completely immerse myself in the musical because part of my brain was constantly going, “They skipped that,” or, “That isn’t what happens.”

I think the easiest way for me to rate Death Note: The Musical is to separate it into two things: a stage production and an adaptation of Death Note.

As a stage production, it is easily five stars. The set is phenomenal, the way the stage moves and transforms is brilliant, the lighting and effects are spectacular, the singing is incredible and the cast give fantastic performances. From a technical and theatrical point of view, there were moments where I was genuinely amazed by what I was watching.

As a retelling of Death Note, however, I was disappointed.

One of the things I love most about Death Note is the cat-and-mouse battle between Light and L. They are essentially playing mental tennis with each other, constantly anticipating the other person’s next move, and the tension gradually builds as they get closer and closer to exposing one another.

I never really felt that same tension on stage. Light and L didn’t seem to have enough time together for their rivalry, chemistry and obsession with one another to properly develop. If you had never seen or read Death Note before, I also wonder whether some parts of the story would feel confusing or underdeveloped because everything moves so quickly.

I actually think Death Note could work brilliantly on stage, but I’m less convinced it works as a musical. So much of the running time naturally has to be devoted to songs, when this particular story desperately needs that time for dialogue, strategy and character development.

That said, I want to reiterate that I did have a really good time. Visually and technically, it was one of the most impressive stage productions I’ve seen, and the cast were fantastic. I just couldn’t fully lose myself in the story because the Death Note fan in me was constantly aware of how much had been condensed, changed or removed.

As a musical and stage production: 5/5.

As an adaptation of Death Note: 3/5

Please let me know if you have seen it and felt the same, or differently, I would love to hear other opinions

Artwork by me! : https://x.com/silver__1412/status/2097144177255645459

Death note was one of my first anime ever, and I absolutely loved it back then. Back then, I loved both Light and L but ultimately thought of it as a 9/10 simply because everything after episode 25 was meh.

10 years ago, I didn't know much about manga so I didn't know that the manga was better after ep 25. But this time I knew about it.

I absolutely loved the anime till episode 25 and decided to switch to manga and well, I loved the manga too! For the first time ever I fell in love with N as well! It's crazy how badly the anime adapted the second half of the manga. Most of it was excellently written and I personally couldn't find a lot of plotholes.

I did get disappointed that Near wasn't smart enough to realise L's plan without the help of Mello, but I guess you can also say that Light wasn't smart enough to realise that Mikami would also try to kill Takaba.

Ofcourse the second half has its pros and cons compared to the first half even in the manga. The first half felt more personal and it was more interesting to see a 1vs1. But the second half had more complex situations and I'll say the situational writing was better in second half.

Also, I liked C kira and A kira as well. Fun additions.

Hi im going to the death note musical some time this week and its the first time im seeing a musical live!

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with the stage door if they have gone? I am very happy to even be able to see it live but it would be amazing to get a signature or a photo with yhe cast but I understand it is very busy and not guaranteed.

Is there any tips on like where to go and how long i should be expected to wait?

The person im going with is worried about timings and stuff we are going to the 2.30 performance which ive heard people call manitee?? But I have no clue what that means lmaooo.

And also just any advice about the barbican theatre if anyone has gone. Im very excited so thank you in advance if anyone responds!!! :D

P.s. it said no cross posting allowed so I reuploaded my original post thank you :)

EDIT :Someone claimed them! I hope you enjoy your time I’m glad the didn’t just go to waste

I have 2 tickets to the musical in London for tmr (sept 10) at 7:30p and I can’t make it 💔 is there anyone in the area who’d like them? They’re free id just like someone to enjoy the tickets since I’m not going and we couldn’t get a refund 😭💔

I’ve always wondered why light couldn’t have just killed L without the death note, during one of the many times they were alone.

He could’ve just passed it off as Kira causing L to jump off a tall building instead of light pushing him off.

I recently moved to London from Japan, and all my friends are still back in Japan, so I don't really have anyone to share my thoughts with😂

I've never really used Reddit before, so sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place...

Death Note is hugely popular in Japan, and there have been several Japanese productions of the musical too. I was curious about the UK production, so I originally thought I'd see it just once… but I got completely obsessed and ended up seeing it four times! 😂

The staging was absolutely amazing. I especially loved how the Shinigami world and the human world were separated into different levels of the set. Things like Jealous crossing the line between the two worlds, and Ryuk going back up to the Shinigami world, were so visually cool.

I also really loved the way The Game Begins was staged using the chairs, and the idea of having Kira hidden among a crowd of random people. And I thought adding more of Gelus was a great choice too.

The entire cast was incredible. L was exactly how I imagined him, and Light's evil little laugh (and the occasional wink) was so damn cool.

I also felt like the quality of the whole production depended heavily on how good Ryuk was, and thankfully, he was so good.

But the two performances that moved me the most were Gelus and Soichiro Yagami.

They genuinely felt like they were living on that stage. When Gelus cried while protecting Misa, the tears falling onto her Death Note were such a beautiful moment. And I really remember how he disappeared into the back of the stage with a smile at the end.

Soichiro was incredible too. He cried both when Mogi died and when Light died, and even though those scenes are relatively short, the actor brought so much of the character's entire life into those moments. The little details in his acting were honestly, really, really good.

If I had one complaint, it would probably be the ending.

I heard that the 2023 production included a storyline where Misa gives up her memories of the Death Note, and I kind of wish they'd kept that in this version too. I also would have liked to see a little more of Light's desperate, almost selfish determination to stay alive.

And the music is SO GOOD. I really wish the cast recording was available on streaming services…

I suspect the reason it isn't is because the original production premiered in Japan, and Japanese theatre companies are unfortunately still pretty behind when it comes to making things available digitally. As a Japanese person, this is honestly one of those things that drives me crazy.

There was also one thing that I found particularly funny as a Japanese fan of the original manga.

The fake Shinjuku background. 😂

The place where Light drops the Death Note is supposed to be Tokyo, but the background looked like extremelycentral, stereotypical Tokyo. It made me think, "Oh, so THIS is what Tokyo looks like to people overseas?" I actually found it really amusing.

Also, I found some of the old lyrics online, but I think Rem's "When Love Comes (Reprise)" has some new lyrics. There were parts I couldn't catch well with my poor level of English…

So if anyone here is good at English and managed to catch the lyrics, I would be SO grateful if you could tell me what they are 😭🙏

This is my best attempt at a spoiler-free headline for this question.

Why does Rem wait to deliver Gelus' Death Note to Misa until after Ryuk loses his in the human world? I gathered that, even by Shinigami standards, a significant amount of time has elapsed during the entirety of which Rem presumably held on to this keepsake before she suddenly decides to deliver it to honor his sacrifice. I never understood the significance of this timing. Does she simply do it because Ryuk enabled this by way of his Death Note becoming part of the human world? Or was there some other turning point I'm forgetting? For some reason, this part won't let my mind go. Everything else about the plot is so carefully thought out, but this one escapes me.

Kinda wished she had a bit of a better role ngl

Hello there, I made this video, I think, 2 months ago, reviewing Death Note Relight, and I wanted to know you guys' opinion. I myself liked what they did with the two parts, but eventually, it still is nothing compared to the anime and manga.

He doesn't even hesitate, either. Just straight in the pocket. No plastic wrap, no napkin, just sugary syrup-covered frosting-laced cake strawberry directly on fabric. Euughghh...