Review for Death Note Relight: L's Successors

Introduction

That's it, no more Death Note. With this second Relight movie, we can draw a line under the franchise, as all the variants of anime, the live action movies and the manga have now been released in the UK, and we no longer have to suffer/enjoy/be indifferent to (delete as appropriate) this all conquering franchise that has taken the world by storm in recent years. Of course if at this point someone mentions the prospect of a Blu-ray release, I think I'll scream. The Relight movies follow the trend of most popular anime series, to beget an eventual theatrical feature, or television movie, carefully crafted from re-edited moments of the series, telling the main story in a compact couple of hours, instead of a leisurely ten or more. They aren't always a guarantee of quality, as I found out with the previous Relight Movie, which I thought made a hash of the L arc of the Death Note story. This second movie does the same to the Near and Mello arc, but has some more room to play with, given that it compresses just 12 episodes into 90 minutes, as opposed to the 24 into 2 hours that just didn't go last time.


Actually, L's Successors is even more cutthroat than that, as it ditches the initial segment of the arc, the trip to the US, and Souichiro Yagami's exit from the story, and goes straight for the endgame in Japan, with Light facing off against Near and Mello. Once again, I won't go into details about the plot. You can take a look at my individual reviews, or Stuart McLean's excellent review of the complete series boxset. The difference is that this movie, instead of being book-ended by Ryuk, now gets an introduction and minor commentary from a corpse. Yes, L comes back from the netherworld to remind us of the story, and introduce us to his successors.

I loathed the Near and Mello arc from the anime, I felt it was a sop to popularity, and an unfortunate desire to milk the franchise. I never really got into the final third of the series. With all new animation and dialogue, as well as an altered story, maybe this time it will win me over.

Picture

Death Note Relight gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer that is typical of modern anime. It's clear and sharp enough, with only the barest of NTSC-PAL transfer signs worth mentioning, in this case a slight judder in pans and scrolls. The animation courtesy of Madhouse Studios is top notch. The character and world designs are excellent, and the level of detail and fluidity of motion speaks to a high investment in the animation. The look of the show suits the story well, and as you would expect from a show with such dark themes, there's plenty use of shadows and moody lighting. It makes for a rewarding viewing experience. Compared to the first Relight feature though, it looks as if much of L's Successors has been reworked with new scenes and new animation. Certainly I felt perhaps 70 to 80 percent of the animation was new, although that may have more to do with the lack of attention I gave this arc in the series.

Sound

You have a choice of DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs track. You won't get any complaints from me when it comes to the English dub, which is cast very well. All the voices suit their characters, and the performances live up to the hype surrounding the anime. Of course my preference as always is for the original language track, and there were no problems here either. There is some new music to go with the new edit, and the incidental music is really quite notable, taking a leaf from Danny Elfman when it comes to spooky and quirky, and certainly suits the bizarre Ryuk character down to a T.

Extras

The only extras this time around are trailers for the Death Note live action flick, Bleach and Naruto.

Conclusion

That's pretty good. No, really. I know that I gave the first Relight compilation a slating for being a glorified highlight package, but this second movie is worth watching. For one thing, it has a lot less material to work with, meaning a lot less has to be excised and that the story remains coherent. There's room for character study, and the narrative flow works a lot better. The second thing is that they've actually concentrated on the most important thing about this arc, the battle between Light Yagami and L's Successors, leading up to the story's conclusion. It means that they have ruthlessly culled anything that is totally irrelevant, and kept the important stuff. It means that the opening third of the arc, the trip to the US, the kidnapping of Light's sister, Mello's machinations and position in the US crime underworld are all gone. It also means that stupid stealth cruise missile plot device has vanished as well. Cutting out the crap to enhance the good is what these series compilation movies are really for, and the enhancements to L's Successors make it watchable, if not compulsive viewing.


There are a few changes as well; most notable and quite obviously is the different exit for Light's father, Souichiro Yagami. Here, a casually placed line of dialogue has him wander off into retirement off screen, as opposed to the more graphic demise in the original series. Given how the character developed, it seems unlikely that he would simply yield such an important case, and given the way it pans out, you would expect him to be in at the end of it if he still lives. That is perhaps the weakest point of this film, but if the films are all you experience, then it really doesn't matter much. Just like the first Relight film, this second one tries to jazz things up with plenty of graphic deaths and culling, something which remained off screen in the series, and once again it feels to me as if they are trying to give a cerebral story a more action oriented stance by doing so. It's certainly visually effective though and it justifies the BBFC nudging up the age rating to a 15.


But the heart of the story is still there, although calling it L's Successors turns out to be a misnomer. Mello was influential in the first segment of the anime arc, and that is what has been excised here. In the film, he really only turns up with a now unexplained burn scar as a plot device, to get the finale where it needs to be. In essence this movie is more about Light versus Near, and the way that the film has been restructured, re-edited, and rewritten, the confrontation and battle of wits goes some way to approaching the best of Light versus L. It's certainly an enticing and captivating ride from the opening to the end credits.


My experience of the second Relight compilation film is a complete mirror image to the first. I loved the L arc from the anime, and hated what they did to it to create the Visions of a God feature. On the other hand, the Near and Mello arc in the anime did absolutely nothing for me, and actually nudged my appreciation for the series down a tad. The L's Successors movie takes the best aspects of that arc, and makes a very watchable film out of it. I find that I prefer this approach to the series, even with Teru Mikami still 'delete'-ing like a demented Cyberman. The additions to the film, a quite nifty domino sequence capturing the essence of Near, and a pro-Kira versus anti-Kira debate becoming the venue for a massacre, certainly give the story a much appreciated grandeur, but the essence of Light's narrative crescendo remains unaltered. Next time I watch the series, I'll probably watch this film instead of the final thirteen episodes.