The staff of the Death Note television drama adaptation revealed on Monday that the cast for the drama will differ from the previous live-action film adaptations. The TV series will also include N (Near). The previous live-action films and the musical did not include the character.

The drama will also feature an original story not featured in the anime or movies. The series will air on NTV on Sundays starting in July. NTV has also launched a website for the drama.

The official announcement included an image of Ryuk (pictured at right) saying "A serialized drama.... Interesting!!..."

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.

The manga has already inspired three live-action films and a 37-episode television anime series in Japan. Viz Media released the Death Note manga, the anime series, and a spinoff novel in North America.

Viz Pictures released the three live-action films in American theaters. The live-action films star Tatsuya Fujiwara as Light Yagami and Ken'ichi Matsuyama as L.

More recently, the manga is inspiring a musical by a Japanese and American team. The musical will run at Tokyo's Nissay Theatre from April 6 to April 29. The musical will then travel to Osaka and Nagoya in May, and it will also run in South Korea from July to August, but with a different cast.

Images © Tsugumi Ohba , Takeshi Obata / Shueisha

Source: animeanime.jp