Death Note (2015 TV drama)

Death Note (デスノート, Desu Nōto) is a live-action television drama that aired from July to September 2015 on NTV. It is based on the Death Note manga series but includes many notable changes. The series was announced just a few months earlier in April 2015. Masataka Kubota stars as Light Yagami and Kento Yamazaki as L.

Plot
Light Yagami is a normal college student living with his father and sister in a society with an imperfect justice system. One night, after encountering a school bully, he finds a strange black notebook, which allows the user to kill a person simply by writing down their name. He resolves to use the Death Note to bring justice to the world by killing criminals, while the great detective L resolves to solve the case and catch him.

Episodes
The series ran for 11 episodes. The episodes do not have titles.

Characters

 * Light Yagami (Masataka Kubota)
 * L Lawliet (Kento Yamazaki)
 * Sayu Yagami (Reiko Fujiwara)
 * Soichiro Yagami (Yutaka Matsushige)
 * Watari (Kazuaki Hankai)
 * Near / Mello aka Nate River (Mio Yūki)
 * Misa Amane (Hinako Sano)
 * Teru Mikami (Shugo Oshinari)
 * Touta Matsuda (Gōki Maeda)
 * Kanzo Mogi (Jirō Satō)
 * Shuichi Aizawa (Tomohisa Yuge)
 * Shoko Himura aka Halle Lidner (Megumi Seki)
 * Raye Penber aka Mark Dwellton
 * Ryuk (Jun Fukushima (voice), Daisaku Nishino (motion capture))
 * Rem

Notable changes
There are several major changes from the manga the series is based on:
 * Light's mother, Sachiko Yagami, is killed prior to the series.
 * Light is an average college student with a close group of friends and little ambition, working a part-time job at a pub.
 * Light likes Misa Amane, regularly attends her concerts, and intentionally looks up the name of her parents' murderer to kill him.
 * Light does not want to become a police officer. As a child, he shared his canon counterpart's dream, but his father's absence after his mother's death changed this.
 * Misa sings in the popular girl group Ichigo Berry. She realizes Light is Kira when she spots him at one of her concerts and cannot see his lifespan after she obtains the Shinigami Eyes.
 * Unlike in the manga, where the lifespan isn't understood by humans, Misa can read a person's lifespan and knows when they're going to die.
 * Misa's Death Note is red instead of black.
 * Misa does not obtain the Shinigami Eyes a second time. She and Mikami are in contact.
 * Ryuk chooses to give the notebook directly to Light, rather than just dropping it for anyone to find. He actively encourages Light to use it, and even brings it back to him after Light throws it off the roof of a building to discard it.
 * Near is introduced early and is in regular contact with L. He has a stronger presence throughout the events of the series. The depiction of Mello suggests that Near might have Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), although it's not explicitly stated.
 * Mello is introduced early and is a puppet that Near carries around. He is given a personality and voice by Near. L treats Mello as separate from Near and shouts at him directly when he starts giving Near problems in L's presence.
 * Teru Mikami is introduced early as the prosecutor handling Misa's case. He writes L's name in his Death Note after seeing it with his Shinigami Eyes.
 * Raye Penber's fiance is Cathy Cambell, but she doesn't take the role of Naomi Misora, who isn't in the series.
 * L wears shoes and sprawls in his chairs. Instead of frequently eating sweets, he's constantly drinking energy juice packs. He's always immaculately dressed, and instead of sitting hunched over, he puts his feet up and crosses his legs.

Trivia

 * Cathy Cambell's name is clearly written as "Cambell" onscreen in episode 2, but the official subtitles misspell it as "Campbell."
 * At the end of the series finale, the teaser trailer for the Death Note 2016 film aired for the first time.