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Death Note (デスノート, Desu Nōto^?) is a series of two live-action Japanese films released in 2006 and based on the Death Note manga and anime series by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. The films primarily center on a university student who decides to rid the world of evil with the help of a supernatural notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. The two films were directed by Shūsuke Kaneko, produced by Nippon Television, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures Japan.

A spin-off film directed by Hideo Nakata, titled L: Change the World, was released on February 9, 2008.

Soon, the number of inexplicable deaths of reported criminals catches the attention of the International Police Organization and a mysterious detective known only as "L". L quickly learns that the serial killer, dubbed by the public as "Kira" (キラ, "Kira"^? derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the word "killer"), is located in Japan. L also concludes that Kira can kill people without laying a finger on them. Light realizes that L will be his greatest nemesis, and a game of psychological cat and mouse between the two begins.

Differences Between Manga and Film

• Light Yagami finds the Death Note during his final year in university, not high school.
• All events and characters in the manga after the Yotsuba arc are omitted.
• Instead of the Yotsuba Group executive Kyosuke Higuchi, the Death Note is passed to the anchorwoman Kiyomi Takada, who uses it to kill her predecessor and gain "exclusive" scoops (her use of the Death Note still fulfills the same purpose in Light's plan of deflecting suspicion from himself and her capture and subsequent disposal of by Light are almost the same as Higuchi's death in the manga and anime).
• A movie-exclusive character, Shiori Akino (秋野 詩織, Akino Shiori^?) is introduced as Light's girlfriend. Her death comes as part of the final confrontation between Light and the detective Misora at the art museum at the end of the first film. Misora commits suicide following her accidental shooting of Shiori (both deaths being set by Light beforehand in the Death Note), rather than the single suicide assigned by Light in the manga after she stumbles across information that threatens to unmask him as Kira.
• Light learns Misora's name from a wedding registry, rather than from her own admission as in the manga
• The Kira Investigative Team relies on one hotel headquarters, rather than the system of different locations employed by L in the manga as a means of secrecy.
• Sanami (佐波, Sanami^?), another character exclusive to the film, is the only female member in the Kira Investigation Team, as opposed to the all-male team in the manga and anime.
• While Mogi survives in the entire course of the manga and anime series, he dies in the film (with his death in the fashion of another member of the investigation team in the manga and anime, Ukita)
• In the climax of the second film, L writes his own name in the Death Note, overriding the time Rem writes in hers by twenty days. L subsequently outlives Light. Soichiro Yagami also survives the events of the movie.
• Rem's gender is never clarified in the Japanese version of the film, and the character speaks with a masculine voice, unlike the manga and anime, in which the character was clearly distinguishably female. In the English dub of the second film, Rem is stated to be a male shinigami.
• Light never designs the contraption to destroy the Death Note. In the manga and anime he designs a contraption in his desk drawer that destroys the death note if opened improperly. In the film, the fact that he is afraid of the authorities finding the Death Note is never fully explored.
• Takuo Shibuimaru is first found by Light in a lounge (unlike the manga, in which Light saw him and his thugs harassing a woman, and the anime in which this was changed to sexual assault), and is killed by Light the second time he sees him, rather than the first.

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