Death Note: R-Relight: Visions of a God (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Interview with cast and crew Trailer-Original Japanese Promo Trailer-Madman Trailers
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	128:00 (Case: 130)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Shusuke Kaneko
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Tatsuya Fujiwara Ken'ichi Matsuyama Asaka Seto Shigeki Hosokawa Erika Toda Shunji Fujimura Takeshi Kaga Yu Kashii Shido Nakamura
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	$29.95	Music	Kenji Kawai

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     A couple of years ago the most popular anime export from Japan was Death Note , the dark tale of a high school student who found a notebook with the power to kill anyone whose name was scrawled within it. Deciding to use it for justice, young Light Yagami started executing criminals and quickly became the world's most notorious (and successful) serial killer, dispatching criminals from around the world via unknown means and earning himself the nickname "Kira". Quickly attracting the interest of the police force and a super-detective going by the name "L" (turning out to be a hyper-intelligent high-school-age boy like Light) a battle of wit and intellect began with Light and L trying to outwit each other to the death. Light's ultimate goal was to become the "God of the New World", one where justice would always prevail under the threat of death.

     Death Note: Relight: Visions of a God purports to be a retelling of the series from the point of view of Death God Ryuk, whose boredom sets the series in motion, but in reality it is merely an extended recap of the first 2/3 of the series, up to a significant point where many fans stopped watching. This in itself is disappointing; Ryuk is a fascinating character and the amusement/interest he finds in Light's actions across the series is a good starting point to view the events again, but instead this "relight" cops out as a mundane recap instead. The opening shows Ryuk in the land of the shinigami, bribed into telling the story with an apple, before we see a cliff notes version of twenty-something 30 minute episodes condensed into under two hours. The complex and convoluted arcs that Death Note presented worked courtesy of the smart, slow pacing, all of which is stripped here to rush through as much of the plot as possible in the short time. In this format, all of Death Note's problems are more evident: the flimsy nature of the characters, the absurdity of the universe's lore, Light's completely ridiculous plans, the latter of which gets so completely incoherent and convoluted that it's easy to have no idea of his tactics or endgame after thirty minutes of complex rabble. Discarding the excellent ending to the series (which many idiot fans never watched) the whole thing washes out as pointless, with even Ryuk concluding that the events are not really worth mentioning, the perfect capper to what is essentially complete dreck.

     Basically worthless, even to fans of the anime and manga, Death Note: Relight: Visions of a God should be ignored. This is the last place a person new to the franchise should start, and is not worth watching for anyone with any vested interest in the thing. Worse than the two live action films (and that prequel b******) Death Note: Relight: Visions of a God is pointless, awful and forgettable.

Video

     The video is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced.

     The animation here is excellent, on par with and exceeding that of the original series, unfortunately burdened with occasional ugly interlacing. The animation looks clean and the colours are great, and despite an occasionally evident amount of grain there are no artefacts, all of which would be exceptional had it not been for the interlacing, likely the result of transfer from NTSC (however I cannot confirm this).

     This is a dual-layer disc, with the layer change outside of the main feature.

     The English subtitles seem accurate from what I can tell, but as most of the dialogue is lacking it is hard to notice what is and isn't mistranslationed.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio is presented in English Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo) and Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo). The English track is default and sounds fine, with all the sound effects, music and dialogue perfectly balanced and delivered nicely. However the Japanese track is superior, featuring some additional surround encoded via Pro Logic encoding (best noted in some of the later scenes). The level of depth isn't quite the same as a 5.1 track and the bass is lacking obviously, but this is the best release for any Death Note DVD thus far; it's just a shame it had to be with this particular DVD.

     The music borrows heavily from the anime series, composed by Yoshihisa Hirano and Hideki Taniuchi, as well as an interlude by MAXIMUM THE HORMONE, which is easily the best part of the film and sound great courtesy of the Pro Logic surround.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus with Sound

     The menus here feature awkward music from the film over a still of Ryuk.

Death Note Rewritten with the Japanese Cast and Crew (11:17)

     This is a short disappointing puff piece interviewing some of the cast and crew members talking very loosely about their experiences doing this "relight". There's little here of value for anyone and the video quality isn't very good.

Original Japanese Promo (2:41)

     A promotional trailer released to get interest in the "relight", this promises much more than the ultimate product offers. One curious note is that it claims the final product is three hours long, and the actual film isn't even close. (A later sequel to DN:R was released that dealt with the conclusion to the series but even the two combined isn't three hours, leaving me baffled by this trailer.)

Trailers

     Various Madman trailers after one of those annoying forced anti-piracy ads that punish you for having purchased the product legally.

     Death Note: Relight: Visions of a God is a waste of time, and should not be viewed by fans nor those new to the franchise.

     The video and audio transfers are both very good, the video tarnished only by unfortunate occasional interlacing.

     The extras are few and worthless.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall