The first part of the Death Note movie just premiered in Japan yesterday on Saturday. From what I've read it covers up to the FBI incident and, a few things have been changed such as Shiori now being Raito's girlfriend. They've also added in some original scenes.

Luckily it looks like the movie will use the 'L' arc of the Manga as the base story, otherwise it would end up too boring. Can't wait to see it!

The second part of this two part movie, will premiere some time in November and I'm guessing it will feature the battle between Raito and L to finish it off.

For those wondering, yes, this two part movie will make it outside of Japan according to Animaxis. Currently an international release is planned for 8 different countries. Negotiations between Thailand and Hong Kong have already been settled. Not sure about the others but, it seems a few American and European distributors have also expressed interest in it.

What's Death Note about? Well, it's originally a Japanese Manga about how a God of Death was bored one day and decided to drop his notebook, the "Death Note" into the human world. This notebook allows its owner to write anyone's name in it and make him/her die in any way he/she wishes but, the owner must know the victim's real name and what he/she looks like when writing down the name.

After the victim's name is written into the notebook, the owner has 40 seconds to write the cause of death, allowing him/her to manipulate the victim before he/she dies. Otherwise the victim only dies of an heart attack.

The protagonist is Raito, a top class student who picks it up at school. He then decides to use it to kill off criminals. At first, it seemed like he was carrying out justice and making the world a safer place but, the ICPO soon decides to try and catch him for murder. The best detective around who calls himself 'L' is put on the case and then, both he and Raito try to outwit each other.

It's a great Manga (for the first half anyway) and have just ended recently at 108 chapters. The English version by Viz Media is still slowly being translated while an Anime series and game have been announced for sometime in winter.

As you can guess, it's quite a dark Manga and ???? (as it's known in Chinese) seems to have caused a few problems in HK. The comic's been banned from some schools because little children have been buying black notebooks to write their teacher's names in them... Terrible.

Related Links: Official Movie Site, JP Manga Site