Playing His Game

"Playing His Game," alternatively "Into Him," is a song in Death Note: The Musical.

Overview
While L and Light Yagami play their tennis match at Todai university, they sing this song about defeating each other.

The song is briefly reprised shortly after the initial performance. Misa Amane runs into Light and L after their match, but she's soon chased away by fans. After L leaves, Light tries to call Misa to get L's name. Light sings a few lines as he makes the phone call, ending with Misa's phone ringing in L's pocket.

The studio recording versions for both the English demo and the Korean music video feature vocals for only L and Light. The productions include an ensemble of university students calling out the score and cheering, as well as sound effects for the tennis ball.

English version
The song was originally written in English. The original English title of the song is "Playing His Game."

The English demo was recorded in December 2014 with Jeremy Jordan performing as Light and Jarrod Spector performing as L. The demo track was released online in 2015 by HoriPro as part of the advertisement for the Musical's Tokyo production. Below are the lyrics for the original English version.

Japanese version
The Japanese version of the song is titled "Yatsu no Naka he" (ヤツの中へ), which translates as "Into Him" or "Inside of Him".

Two versions of the song from the 2015 Tokyo production were released on the Death Note: The Musical original soundtracks. One version has Kenji Urai performing as Light, the other version Hayato Kakizawa performing as Light, and both versions have Teppei Koike performing as L.

Korean version
In the 2015 production, Kim Junsu performed as L and Hong Kwang-Ho performed as Light, but an official recording was not released. Both artists later performed the song in concert.

In 2016, for the new 2017 Seoul production, a music video of the song was released featuring Kim Junsu performing as L and Han Ji-Sang performing as Light. The video features L and Light playing their tennis match in an empty warehouse. A Making Of video was also released for the music video.

Russian version
The Russian title of the song is "One on One" (Один на один, Odin na Odin).

Trivia

 * In the Japanese and Korean productions, L uses a blue tennis racket and Light uses a red one. This corresponds with the colors used to show the characters' inner thoughts in the Death Note anime series.
 * In 2018, the Russian production company working on the musical will release a Death Note-themed unisex fragrance named after this song.