Death Note Musical Returning With New Cast

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s Death Note series was an especially prominent series on its release, and the series exploded in popularity around the world as it introduced fans to a darker main character in the middle of an even darker world. The world was so enticing, in fact, that the series has been adapted into many mediums that you wouldn’t initially suspect the series would be fit for.

Death Note actually had a musical production with two successful runs in 2015 and 2017, and now the musical is returning to Japan with another run starting in 2020 and a brand new cast in tow.

Scored by Frank Wildhorn and Natalie Cole, directed by Tamiya Kuriyama, with lyrics written by Jack Murphy (Wonderland), and a script written by Ivan Menchell (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), the Death Note musical is currently scheduled to debut at Tokyo’s Toshima Ward Performing Arts Exchange Theater in 2020. According to Anime News Network, there are plans to expand this musical to other locations in Japan and potentially even overseas after this debut.

The new cast for the musical is still coming together as the production is currently holding auditions across Japan to double cast Light Yagami, but the confirmed cast currently includes Ryota Murai as Light Yagami, Fu Takahashi as L, Sakura Kiryuu as Misa Amane, Hirari Nishida as Sayu Yagami, Hye-na Park as Rem, Eiji Yokota as Ryuk, and Kiyotaka Imai as Soichiro Yagami.

Originally created by Tsugumi Ohba with illustrations provided by Takeshi Obata for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump in 2003, Death Note has since inspired an anime series, several video games, an animated film, a novel, and most infamously, a live-action film on Netflix. Though the film wasn’t too well received by fans, it’s not the only live-action adaptation as there were several produced in Japan along with a musical. The series is described as such:

“Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects—and he’s bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But will Light succeed in his noble goal, or will the Death Note turn him into the very thing he fights against?”

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