Before we get to work here, I want to slip in this disclaimer. If you’ve read any of my previous articles about this movie, you’d be well within your rights to think that I’m not the most objective person to review this. On the runup to this film’s release, I advocated for its conceptual merits extensively and have showed signs that I’m really hoping for this movie to be good. We call this confirmation bias, and that can be a dangerous thing in critique, as it can cause critics to judge something more or less harshly because we kinda get a kick out of being right about things.

“Wow, SnYves, you really took your time getting around to talking about this one, didn’t you? This story’s so old now it’s being looked at by archaeology undergrads; why are you even bothering at this point?” Reader, I’m writing about this because the trailer has cemented my thoughts that us rationally minded, optimistic patrons of anime, who are not ready to crap on an adaptation because it’s not the thing we like, are a dwindling minority.

In 2006, the anime community was blessed with an adaptation of the classic manga series Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, a psychological thriller series in which high-school student Light Yagami finds a notebook left behind by a shinigami named Ryuk. As Light finds out very early on, the notebook has the power to kill anybody provided the user knows the person’s face and name. Upon discovering this, Light embarks on a crusade to eliminate all evil from the world by donning the alias Kira and killing everyone he deems unworthy.