Sequel film with original story featuring 6 Death Notes opens this fall

Japanese anime news website Anime! Anime! reported on Friday that a new visual for this year's live-action Death Note film appeared on the cover of a Screen Daily issue (seen below) distributed during this year's Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) from February 11 to 21. The visual features the character Ryūzaki ( Sousuke Ikematsu ) in a mask. The staff also made a special video to promote the film at the festival.

The festival distributed 10,000 copies of the Screen Daily issue, but it sold out at a quick pace.

In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata 's original 2003-2006 supernatural suspense manga, a teenager named Light finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.

In the new film's story, a highly advanced information society is beset by global cyber-terrorism in 2016. New charismatic figures, who inherited the DNA of Light (previously played Tatsuya Fujiwara ) and the detective L ( Ken'ichi Matsuyama ), emerge. The successors of the two geniuses will wage a war over six Death Notes on Earth.

A crucial plot element will be the "Six-Note Rule": Only six Death Notes are allowed to exist at a time in the human world. Of course, the Shinigami (Gods of Death) themselves are limited to the number of Death Notes. Therefore, up to six Shinigami may exist in the human world. This rule existed in the original manga, but previous adaptations in the franchise have not used this rule thus far.

The previously announced cast includes:

Sousuke Ikematsu ( The Last Samurai's Higen, MOZU's Kazuhiko Shingai) as Ryūzaki, L's successor and a world-famous detective

Masahiro Higashide (live-action Parasyte 's Hideo Shimada, live-action Ao Haru Ride 's Kō Mabuchi) as Tsukuru Mishima, an investigator pursuing the Death Notes

Masaki Suda (live-action Assassination Classroom 's Karma Akabane, live-action Kuragehime 's Kuranosuke Koibuchi) as Yūki Shien, a cyber terrorist who reveres Kira

Rina Kawaei ( Azumi: Bakumatsu-hen stage play) as Sakura Aoi, the most terrible Death Note user ever, an indiscriminate murderer, and the complete opposite of Light Yagami.



The new film will open in Japan this fall.

Shinsuke Satō (live-action Gantz , Gantz: Perfect Answer , Library Wars films) is directing the film. The film is a "forbidden sequel" to the two earlier live-action Death Note films, 2006's Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name . The film is shooting in overseas locations, and Warner Brothers will distribute.

Image via Comic Natalie

Update: Shien's spelling corrected. Thanks, Kylara