Popular anime Death Note gets a US remake, fans unhappy with teaser

A US-based remake of anime series Death Note will release in August, according to Netflix, which released the teaser last evening. News of the live-action remake should've had anime fans around the world excitedly sharing the teaser and squealing on social media, but there are plenty reasons why that isn't so.

For those not in the know, Death Note is one of the most popular anime series, along with Dragon Ball Z (known to the 80's kids), Fullmetal Alchemist, Naruto Shippuden and Bleach.

Based on the Manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba, Death Note is a 37-episode series that ran between 2006 and 2007. Simply put, it is about a high school boy (Light Yagami, or Kira), who finds a notebook with supernatural powers. With the book, he can write anyone's name (if he knows what they look like) to kill them off. He tries to play god by imposing his own definition of who is evil and who is good, finishing off the evil. Meanwhile, a genius detective known only as L attempts to catch him.

In the live-action remake, the protagonist is renamed Light Turner and is played by Nat Wolff, known for his role as Isaac in The Fault in Our Stars. Keith Stanfield (Atlanta) plays L, and Willem Defoe voices Ryuk.

The teaser doesn't reveal much, except repeated shots of the notebook as it introduces some of the characters.

Response to the teaser wasn't too positive. As with other Hollywood films based on Asian films, it was the casting that got everyone's attention.

On Twitter, anime fans weren't too happy that the adaptation had a “white boy” playing the lead character.

Some attempted to explain it away as the film being set in America, which is why no Asian actors were in the lead, and therefore claims of “white-washing” were invalid. Not too satisfactory, that explanation, as this Twitterer subtly noted:

On the lighter side, fans hoped one particular scene would make it to the remake. A popular meme from nearly a decade ago (when memes weren't called memes), it refers to a scene in the eighth episode from the English-dubbed version: Light slowly picks out a potato chip from a chip bag while narrating, “I'll take a potato chip...and EAT IT!”.

It's a simple scene lasting less than 10 seconds, but the dramatic rendition of it (amidst all the other kinds of dark drama the series is prone to) served as silly, unintended humour that quickly spread across the interwebs.

Until the film releases (August 25), fans will be rattled. Already, fans of another Manga, Ghost in the Shell, were annoyed that the lead in its upcoming live-action Hollywood remake was played by Scarlett Johansson "pretending to be Japanese". The sci-fi film, which hits Indian theatres in April, was criticised for the “white” lead, even as other characters are played by Asians.

At least Ghost in the Shell looks intense and watchable (and closer to the original, according to its makers). Much of the rage directed against Death Note is for relocating the story to Seattle in the US, rather than setting it (with Asian actors) in Tokyo. According to some fans on Twitter, the story is essentially Japanese and works in context of the Japanese culture, and could lose its charm in the US. For proof, watch the teaser.