Death Note: Light Up the NEW World turns 10 this week, and the 2016 Japanese horror film still rewards fans with production choices, box office numbers and in-story rules that are easy to miss. Set ten years after the deaths of Light Yagami/Kira and L, it follows Interpol assigning L’s biological successor Ryuzaki to a newly established Death Note Task Force led by Detective Tsukuru Mishima. Here are seven trivia beats worth knowing from the production, box office and rules of the Death Note world.
It topped Your Name on opening weekend
The film opened on 342 screens and sold 342,309 tickets, earning 458,645,800 yen ($4.37 million) during its opening weekend. That debut was strong enough to beat Your Name to the top of Japan’s box office, an early sign of its domestic appeal.
The new Shinigami came from the original creator
Takeshi Obata, one of the original creators of Death Note, designed the new CGI Shinigami character Arma specifically for the film. It was a direct contribution from an original Death Note creator to the 2016 continuation.
Namie Amuro sang both theme and insert songs
The theme song ‘Dear Diary’ and the insert song ‘Fighter’ were performed by Namie Amuro. As of February 2016 principal photography was taking place outside Japan, with the production underway for the 2016 release.
The human world allows only six Death Notes
Ten years after the deaths of Light Yagami/Kira and L, a chain of unexplained deaths suggests that Death Notes are being used once more. When the Death Note Task Force touched Sakura Aoi’s notebook, it met its original owner, a Shinigami named Beppo. Beppo revealed that six Death Notes were currently in the human world, the maximum number that can exist there at any one time. The task force then resolved to find the remaining five, while Aoi’s killer, cyber-terrorist Yuki Shien, vowed to acquire all the notebooks.
Ryuzaki owned the last Death Note but never used it
Ryuzaki spread a CGI video of the original L to draw Kira out. Mishima found a hidden message in that video: ‘I own the last Death Note.’ Confronting Ryuzaki at home, he discovered Ryuzaki’s unconventional relationship with his Shinigami, Arma, and learned the notebook was blank because Ryuzaki had promised L before his death that he would never use one.
It earned mixed reactions and a 40% approval rating
The film received a mixed reception from fans and critics. Praise was aimed at the attempted unique and modernized take on the Death Note mythos and the performances, especially Erika Toda as Misa Amane and Nakamura Shido as Ryuk, while criticism centred on the rushed plot and rehashing of earlier themes. On Rotten Tomatoes it received a 40% approval rating based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10.
It became one of 2016’s top Japanese films
The film was the 19th highest-grossing film of 2016 in Japan and the 10th highest-grossing Japanese film of the year, tied with A Silent Voice, with ¥2.3 billion ($19.56 million). Overseas, the film grossed $489,872, bringing its worldwide total to $20,049,872.
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Facts from Wikipedia: Death Note: Light Up the New World, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Film images from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.