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What seems to be the oncoming flurry of anime adaptations that will shortly make huge waves come the next decade, the latest to be thrown on the slab is Death Note. Warner Bros acquired the rights to the popular Japanese manga series and are ready to slap it onto the big screen, American style. Death Note back in Japan has already been adapted into three commercially successful live action films. Death Note, Death Note: The Last Name and L: Change The World have made wonderful runs in the Japanese box office, and the third film has already made its trip through U.S. theaters for two night showings on the 29th and 30th of this month. Warner Bros Japan sector was those responsible for creating the Death Note films overseas. Now with the rights in hand, they plan on basing the adaptation from the manga source material, not from the movies.

Created by Tsugumi Ohba and beautifully illustrated by Takeshi Obata, Death Note revolves around Shinigami Ryuk dropping his Death Note in the human world where it’s found by honor high school student Raito. With the death note actually having directions in it for its use, Raito discovers he now has the power to discreetly kill people, and with this new power he plans to change the world in his ideal world by killing off criminals. Eventually the governments of the countries around the world notice the unusual amounts of deaths of their criminals, and figure out someone is behind them, but they have no way of discovering it themselves. That’s when they hire L, a master detective, to find out who is behind the murders.

I can already hear Galvatron saying in my head, “First…Speed Racer…then…Dragonball Z…now you. It’s a pity you anime adaptations die so easily, or I might have a bit of satisfaction.” Despite the great wave of worry that already washes myself among a few others that I know, here’s hoping for the best from a production company that produced fine recent adaptations such as The Dark Knight and Watchmen.