Movies/Novels >> Movie 1 Translations

Some Basic information about the Death Note 1st Movie.

Interviews

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This interview was translated by Ocean from Jump 21/22. Please ask Ocean for permission for this interview. Scans belonging to this interview can be found here & here.

Q: What is the big difference between Manga and Movie?
A: In the movie, Ray’s fiance, Misora Naomi, will be playing acitve role more than Manga. Maybe we could say she’s a key person that’ll be associating with Kira case from different aspect than Manga. Also, we developed her character since Seto Asaka, whose mood is similar to Naomi, will be playing her on the movie.

Q: How’s CG going for Ryuk?
A: We’re still creating it. Reliable staff are creating it, so I’m sure he’ll be a real Ryuk. By the way, during the film shooting, we placed a doll which is 2.5 meter and pretended that’s CG’d Ryuk. It was very hard to carry around this Ryuk, lol.

Q: What did you care about Light and L’s reproduction?
A: We paid attention to make them look like the manga. We dyed Fujiwara-san’s hair and started to create the role from visual aspect. On the other hand, Matsuyama-san started from the way to sit. Also, when speaking, he’ll ignore the punctuation and talk. I thought L not thinking anything about his listener would fit his role well, lol.
Arrow: When Fujiwara-san dyed his hair, he could easily became Light. Matsuyama-san’s ultimating L-sitting.

Q: Why did you put in the original character, Akino Shiori?
A: When I read the manga all at once, I was amazed that Light is really a bad guy! Rather, it was almost impressive. In order to deliver this Light’s badness to the audience, Shiori, Light’s childhood friend, was needed. Please look forward to her activities in the movie.

Q: Is there anything you were particular about when shooting?
A: I was particular about visuals like action scenes (ie. bus jack) and details of the settings. Light’s room turned out pretty good, as you can see on the home page, lol. At first, it had boom box, but I replaced it with a vacuum cleaner. It’d probably show more of Light’s clean freak part.
Arrow: In the movie, it’ll have surveillance camera scene that L suggested. Directer said it took long time to shoot the surveillance camera scene.

Q: What’s the ending of the movie?
A: We respects the original but also dramatized a little. It has the original ending. Of course, this will be an interesting ending that WJ fan will be concent, so please keep your expectation high!!

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This interview was translated by Meimi, who translated it from the official Movie Guide Book. Please credit her!

Q: Did you all meet for the first time on Death Note?

FUJIWARA: Yes, this is the first time for all of us, isn’t it?
MATSUYAMA: Yes, it is.

KASHII: But Seto-san and I were on the drama “Girls’ Family” on TBS together. (laugh) Seto-san was my big sister!

MATSUYAMA: What?! Your sister?

SETO: I played her sister on the drama. I got to have fun getting close to Yuu-chan on this movie, too. We’d talk to each other between the filming and such.

FUJIWARA: I’m jealous. Almost all of my scenes were with the CG Ryuk, so I didn’t really get to spend time with other actors like you did. Since Ryuk was put in as an effect after filming, I did all those scenes talking to a dummy set up to look like Ryuk.

KASHII: All those scenes alone? Sounds hard for you…

FUJIWARA: Yes, because the CG Ryuk is so selfish and far more difficult to work with than a human! Because I’d have to play the scene with the dummy there. Then they’d put a greenscreen in back of me immediately after we got that take, and I’d play the scene again. I would be playing all of these scenes for four and five takes, and eventually I asked the director, “Can’t something be done about it?” But he told me that the animators absolutely needed all of those shots and said, “Nope, nothing can be done about it.” (laugh)

MATSUYAMA: Huh. Almost all of my scenes were with Kaga Takeshi playing Souichirou and the rest of that group, so I didn’t have that problem. I had lots of older actors to work with, and I was able to study them and learn from them.

SETO: I was largely with Hosokawa-san, who plays Rei…now that I think of it, there weren’t any scenes where all four of us were in it together, were there?

FUJIWARA: Yes, yes. Even though we four are the main cast we didn’t get to see each other…

SETO: Yes, even though there was the scene with Naomi and Shiori meeting, and scenes with us meeting in individual groups, all four of us were never in the same place…

Q: What about the experience of acting in the film?

FUJIWARA: Raito was very difficult. He’s meant to be a genius, and communicating that incredible amount of intelligence was very tricky. And the movie doesn’t have much in the way of big easy-to-understand action sequences, so unless Raito was played correctly, it could come off very empty or simplistic. The possibility that people might think, “What kind of a boring, empty movie is this?” was always a possiblity I kept in mind. So even just through a single “smile,” I had to perform so everyone could understand Raito’s true feelings through it. Though I think probably the audience will be amused at seeing the polar opposite of a performance in watching L’s eccentricities play out onscreen. (laugh)

MATSUYAMA: Mmm…really, I think that both Raito and L are both such unique characters that they’re impossible to understand. (laugh) It was hard to play L too. I can say this now that I’ve finished playing him, but when I first heard that they were casting for L, I honestly thought, “Won’t it be absolutely impossible to play this?” (laugh) Even now, to me, the inside of L’s head is still a mystery. But while I was playing it, I thought that L was a person who hadn’t interacted with other people very much, so I had to play it as though he didn’t quite understand other people on an emotional level…and approaching it from that angle, I was able to play it. But going back to that level of “genius” that Tatsuya-san mentioned in playing Raito, L has that same quality. They’re two people imbibed with a very strong sense of justice, and in that sense they are extremely similar people.

SETO: You may be right that the two of them resemble one another. My own part was that of a former FBI investigator who is pulled into a case right before her wedding. She’s a super-cool woman who will face on any danger head-on and fight for the sake of the one she loves. So when I played her, I thought I wanted everyone to think, “She’s so cool!” too.

KASHII: I played an original character named Shiori, who is a childhood friend of Raito’s. She’s clever and also has a strong sense of justice, so she may be quite similar to Naomi in that respect. But I think that even if they were similar, Naomi was a woman Shiori never could understand up to the very end. I can’t say more than that or I’ll give away the movie, but please watch it and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Q: What about orchestrating your performances to compare with the original work?

KASHII: Shiori wasn’t in the original work so that didn’t apply to me. I was told she was “Raito’s childhood friend with a strong sense of justice, who is opposed to Kira,” but basically the rest was just left up to me. I just played her freely off that image I was given, so the performance was entirely orchestrated by myself. But I’m worried that may not live up to the rest of the characters from the original work being performed with such skill.

FUJIWARA: So you’re worried you can’t live up to my showy performance, then!

KASHII: (looking at Fujiwara) Oh, but Shiori was drawn into quite a bit of trouble because of you, Raito-san…

FUJIWARA: Now that I think of it, I did have a scene where I played Raito as breaking down into tears. That was something I orchestrated. While we were filming it, the director told me firmly, “Raito doesn’t cry.” But, I really felt the scene was more honest with Raito crying and played it that way…and the director ended up using that take in the end. (laugh) Please watch for it in the movie. I really think it was more interesting that way than it was before. Seto-san, did you change anything with Naomi in your performance?

SETO: I don’t think I really did. Seemed like filming was over for me before I’d registered it had begun. (laugh) But I did think I wanted to play it carefully, based strongly off the image of her in the original work. I had hair extensions put in so I would have the long hair she did, my outfit was the same jacket and pants she wore in the comic, so I definitely looked the part. As soon as I looked like her, I felt like, “Oh, I’ve become the character from the original work!” It was really amazing how easily I felt that way once that happened.

MATSUYAMA: I was really worried about how I was going to play it from the start, so I had many times when I would go to the director for advice. I had to really search for the role. But with details like eating the sweets, and interacting teasingly with the rest of the investigation team, I was able to play it.

FUJIWARA: You really talked with the director a lot?

MATSUYAMA: Yes, I did. I’d often go to him for advice. When I was worried, he’d often tell me that L saw things like a game, so I should play it like that. So it was all like a game from there on in. (laugh)

FUJIWARA: The director rarely spoke to me like that, he seemed a bit of a removed leader to me at times. (laugh) [can’t figure out this part] Kashii-san, did he talk to you much?

KASHII: Um, he’d ask me, “Did you eat yesterday?” and stuff…

EVERYONE: (laughs)

MATSUYAMA: Now that I think of it, the director is rather “L-like,” isn’t he. I based L off him a little bit! Though of course a lot of the ideas for L were things we came up with together while talking, but…

FUJIWARA: What about the girls, didn’t it seem like he talked to them more?

MATSUYAMA: That might have been the case. (laugh) One day I was watching the monitors with Mitsushima Hikari-chan, who plays Sayu, and the director suddenly appeared out of nowhere, chatted with her, and then seemed to vanish! Though that mysterious quality is what made him seem L-like. (laugh)

SETO: Really? He didn’t talk to me that much…though during shooting I did get some good advice. Playing the role was very fun, the director gave us a great atsmosphere on set.

Q: Then, what were the scenes from the movie that left the strongest impression on you?

KASHII: The scenes where Raito and Shiori talked, because those scenes weren’t in the original story. But in the movie, Shiori is the one person strongly expressing her own views to Raito. So in those scenes it was fun to see his face and reactions, since they were original moments that hadn’t been from the comic.

SETO: It has to be my last scene, for me. That last scene left quite an impression. In addition, the scene that took place on the subway train! Shooting in a difficult place like that was a first for me.

FUJIWARA: The subway was hard, I agree. Though I’ll go with the moment where the two similar geniuses Raito and L meet face-to-face – everyone, please take notice of that scene in the movie.

MATSUYAMA: I’ll have to go with that moment as well. By that point in filming, the two of us had completely become Raito and L entirely. So we didn’t really speak to each other on set, as we didn’t think it would be as good for the roles…

FUJIWARA: Though since filming has finished we’ve gotten closer, though! Since it’s finished, we’ve gone out drinking together, right?

MATSUYAMA: Yes, but going out drinking together right after the shooting finished was a bit of a weird feeling! (laugh) Like Raito and L were out drinking together…

Q: Please give a message to the fans.

FUJIWARA: Please come see this movie. The subject matter may be a bit scary for some, but it’s resulted in a very intelligent final product, so please enjoy watching it.

MATSUYAMA: The original work is interesting, but the movie is also interesting enough to compete with the original. I believe this movie is capable of surpassing the original work!

SETO: I think we’ve succeeded in creating a movie that will please the fans of the original work. Fans of the original, please watch and enjoy this exciting movie!

KASHII: People unfamiliar with the original work will be able to enjoy it, and the fans of the original work should watch it while keeping in mind the necessity of the movie’s differences from the original. Anyway, it is a very interesting movie, so please watch it!!

Translations

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This is Rei’s translation & lyrics of Manatsu no yo no yume (the ending theme), whose music video can be found here.

Japanese

Boku wa kodoku de usotsuki.
Itsumo yume bakari miteru.

Kimi wa kizuite nai furi.
Dakedomo sore demo dakishimerunda. (“L” on the screen)

Marude kyuuketsuki mitai ni.
Kimi no yasashisa wo
suitsukushite shimau ki ga suru.

Hitotsu owaranai kanashimi ga
Bokura wo tsutsumikondara (Light in front of Alta Vision)
Dakiatte asa wo matou

Itsuka naoranai kizuatomo (Light and Raye in subway)
Bokura yuruseru nokana (Ryuk eating apples)
Ano koro to kawaranai egao de

(an apple falling in water)

Mayonaka boku wa yume wo mite
Hidoku unasarete me wo samashita.(Light in his room)
Manatsu no yoru no kurai yume.(In an art museum?)

Mado no soto ni hateshinai yami. (L acting Bang!)
Kagami no nakani utsutta (Light picking up the notebook)
Nikushimi to shi to
Ai to yobukoto nukumori to.(Naomi and Raye)

Soshite yukkuri me wo tojita ra.(Light crying, Shiori crying)
Kimi ga mabuta ni ukande furimuita (Shiori running)
kiete shimauyo (Light crying)

Moshi yakusoku no ano basho ni (Bus hijacker shooting at Ryuk)
tadori tsukenai to shite mo,
kimi no te wo boku wa hanasanaidarou.(Raye and Naomi)

Kimi ga yasashiku waratta
Tooi sekai no dekigoto mitai ni

Boku wa kodoku de usotsuki,
Itsumo yume bakari miteiru.

English Translation
(I hope some of you will rewrite the following in more natural and poetic English!!)

I am a lonely man and a liar.
All I do is only dreaming.

You pretend as if you didn’t notice that.
And yet I’ll hug you knowing that.

I feel as if I’d suck up all your tenderness
like a vampire does.

When one endless sadness wraps us up,
Let’s hug each other and wait for another morning.

Someday will we be able to forgive
the scar that cannot be cured,
with a smile we used to have?

At midnight I was troubled
with a nightmare and woke up.
It was a dark dream of midsummer night.

Outside the window lay depthless darkness.
Inside the mirror were hatred, death,
love, calling and warmth.

When I slowly closed my eyes,
I saw you face round.
I felt you were going to fade away.

Even if I can not get to the place we promised,
I will never let go of your hand.

You laughed gently,
As if it were an affair in a distant world.

I am a lonely man and a liar.
All I do is only dreaming.

I heard that Yu Kashii, playing the role of Shiori, wept when she first heard this song.