I just caught a late night show of Death Note: First Part in a cinema in Ikebukuro today. It was much better than I expected, but there wasn’t enough Misa Misa.

'Death Note Movie Guide
Movie guide sold with all movies in Japan.
As if the movie tickets weren’t expensive enough.

There are a few major differences between the manga and the movie. Shiori is Raito’s girlfriend and Naomi (the FBI agent’s fiancee) plays a much larger role in the movie than she did in the manga. There are also numerous original scenes added, though not all of them suitable. For example, in the manga there was nothing about what happened between the time Raito picked up the Death Note and when Ryuku appeared in his room, whereas the movie fills that part in with some new scenes. Raito Yagami also seems to be a much more… emotional character in the movie than the manga, especially in the first half.

Spoiler Alert

The FBI incident is also changed quite a bit. Naomi follows Raye (the FBI agent) onto the train and witnesses his death. She then vows to avenge Raye, which she does by holding Shiori hostage and threatening Raito to kill her if he wants to save Shiori.

The movie covers the mainly the introduction and the FBI incident, thus you don’t really get to see Misa Misa… As a fanboy that is bad. But she does look cute, almost as close as you can get to the manga version. Misa fans, look out for the second movie because it will cover the Misa chapters. :3

On another note, I’m not sure how many movies there will be, but the maximum number should be three. This movie is 前編 (First Part) and there will be a 後編 (Last Part) coming out in November.