The main cast and other details for Death Note 2016 have been announced!

Last September, we brought our first report on the new live action Death Note movie, and now we have some updates — including the actors who will be playing the main cast!

The previous two-part Death Note movies, both released in 2006 and based on the hit manga and anime by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, were a huge success at the box office. Fans were apparently quite happy with how Tatsuya Fujiwara and Kenichi Matsuyama portrayed the main characters Light Yagami/Kira and L respectively in the films.

Death Note 2016, which will be an official sequel to the original Death Note movies, is set to take place 10 years after the events of the previous films. The Death Gods are once again up to mischief, with multiple Death Notes appearing in the human world, and a special Death Note Task Force is busy at work trying to track down the owners of the deadly notebooks. The new story evidently will involve some fierce cyber battles, including a “Kira computer virus.” The movie will also make use of one of the Death Note rules introduced in the original series, namely that up to a maximum of six Death Notes can exist in the human world at a time.

Here is the cast for the three principal roles in the movie:

▼ Masahiro Higashide will play Tsukuru Mishima, the central character in Death Note 2016. Mishima is a an agent in the Death Note Task Force and is practically obsessed with the Death Note and the series of Kira killings committed by Light ten years ago.

▼ Sosuke Ikematsu is “Ryuzaki”, the international detective who tries to track down the Death Notes along with Mishima. Ryuzaki is described as L’s successor, not just a detective but someone carrying L’s genes as well.

▼ And Masaki Suda plays Yūki Shien, the crazed cyber-terrorist who worships Kira and uses his exceptional hacking abilities to search for the Death Notes.

So, it seems we can again look forward to a battle of genius minds. Higashide has commented that he enjoyed the original movies and feels a bit of pressure starring in the sequel, but he hopes that, with the help of his co-stars, they have created a story that both existing fans and new audiences can enjoy.

Even series creator Tsugumi Ohba has admitted to being super excited about the plot, which involves more Death Notes and Death Gods than ever before. And with the new movie being directed by Shisuke Sato, who has had success with such adaptions as Library Wars and Gantz, it looks like Death Note 2016 is heading in the right direction.

▼ A short trailer was released in September last year, but as it was early in the movie-making process, there was little actual footage from the new movie.

Although a release date hasn’t been announced yet, we’ll be looking forward to seeing what new and bizarre Death Gods will grace the screens when the movie opens in the fall!

Source: Death Note 2016 official website via MANTANWEB

All images: Death Note 2016 official website