The Death Note stage musical has cast Teppei Koike (Gokusen, Love*Com the Movie, Tōfu Kozō) as the genius detective L. The production also stars both Kenji Urai (Aoi Honō, Kamen Rider Kuuga, Sailor Moon musicals, pictured below left) and Hayato Kakizawa ( Crows Explode , Kaiji 2, pictured below right) as Light Yagami.

The musical will run at Tokyo's Nissay Theatre beginning next April. It will also run in South Korea from July to August, but with a different cast.

In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's original 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. The 12-volume manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 2003 to 2006.

Frank Wildhorn, an American composer known for songs sung by Whitney Houston ("Where Do Broken Hearts Go?") and Natalie Cole, is scoring the Death Note musical. He previously wrote the music for the Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Civil War, Carmen, Wonderland, and The Count of Monte Cristo musicals. Tamiya Kuriyama, a recipient of the Japanese government's Medal with Purple Ribbon, is directing. Jack Murphy ( The Civil War, Rudolf, Carmen, Wonderland, The Count of Monte Cristo ) is writing the lyrics, and Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bonnie and Clyde) is writing the script. The cast has yet to be announced. Jason Howland is in charge of musical supervision, arrangements and orchestrations.

The manga has already been adapted into three live-action films and one television anime series in Japan. Viz Media released the Death note manga, the anime series, and a spinoff novel, while its Viz Pictures affiliate released the three live-action films in American theaters.

Source: Sports Hochi via Hachima Kikō