NextSharkNextShark.com
Latest Newsletter🍵 Biden awards Asian artistsRead

Article

Twitter Can’t Help But Notice How White Netflix’s ‘Death Note’ Trailer Is

    Asian America Daily - in under 5 minutes

    Get our collection of Asian America's most essential stories, to your inbox daily, for free!

    Unsure? Check out our Newsletter Archive

    “Shall we begin?” Netflix asked when it dropped the trailer for “Death Note” on Wednesday, but the Twitterati wanted to first discuss how white some of the main cast is.

    Coming from “The Guest” and “Blair Witch” director Adam Wingard, the live-action adaptation of the popular manga and anime series follows the same premise, in which a schoolboy discovers a supernatural notebook that will kill anyone whose name is written in it.

    Light Turner (played by Nat Wolff), or Light Yagami as he was called in the original manga, decides to use the power of the notebook in his attempt at vigilante justice, but draws the attention of a detective (played by Lakeith Stanfield) along the way.

    Death Note” was originally going to be released with Warner Bros. before the adaptation landed in Netflix’s hands.

    Although the movie has a black actor in the role of detective L, fans have taken to Twitter to note how, once again, just like “Ghost in the Shell”, the film industry has given a white actor the leading role in a story created within Asian culture.

    The best news out of all of this, however, is that Willem Dafoe will play the role of Ryuk, a voice that will surely give you nightmares for months to come.

    According to The Wrap, fans will get to see some aspects of the Japanese source material in the adaptation, such as the name Kira, a Japanese romanization of the word “killer,” which is given to Light’s alter ego.

    Netflix has previously been hit with heavy criticism surrounding Marvel’s “Iron Fist after casting a white actor (Finn Jones) instead of an Asian-American who learns martial and mystic arts.

    Death Note” lands on Netflix August 25.

    Support our Journalism with a Contribution

    Many people might not know this, but despite our large and loyal following which we are immensely grateful for, NextShark is still a small bootstrapped startup that runs on no outside funding or loans.

    Everything you see today is built on the backs of warriors who have sacrificed opportunities to help give Asians all over the world a bigger voice.

    However, we still face many trials and tribulations in our industry, from figuring out the most sustainable business model for independent media companies to facing the current COVID-19 pandemic decimating advertising revenues across the board.

    We hope you consider making a contribution so we can continue to provide you with quality content that informs, educates and inspires the Asian community. Even a $1 contribution goes a long way.  Thank you for everyone's support. We love you all and can't appreciate you guys enough.

    Support NextShark

    Mastercard, Visa, Amex, Discover, Paypal