Summary

• Parasyte: The Grey was an original story set in the same world as Parasyte.
• The upcoming live-action Death Note show should focus on new characters in the same world instead of retelling the classic story.
• Death Note: Light Up the New World is a good example of how to tell Death Note stories that don't involve Light and L.

Parasyte: The Grey, Netflix’s latest manga adaptation, proves how to make a great live-action Death Note show. Manga and anime adaptations are still one of the trickiest genres in Hollywood, with several failed projects making a case against live-action interpretations of beloved properties. Still, projects like One Piece, by far Netflix’s best live-action anime adaptation, indicate that the industry may be learning from previous mistakes. Parasyte: The Grey was quite different from Netflix’s other live-action anime projects, starting from the fact it was a South Korean production instead of an American or Japanese one.

It is not too common for K-dramas to use popular Japanese manga as their source material, which is why Parasyte: The Grey sounded so interesting from the start. Despite some initial confusion regarding how Parasyte: The Grey connects to the anime, the series makes it clear that it takes place in the same world as Parasyte: The Maxim. Parasyte: The Grey’s ending even includes a particularly strong connection to Parasyte. While they are very different properties, Parasyte: The Grey just showed the best way to tell a live-action Death Note story.

Parasyte: The Grey Shows How To Make The Perfect Live-Action Death Note

A live-action Death Note project should be a spinoff, not a remake

Parasyte: The Grey is arguably the blueprint of how to bring an anime like Death Note into live-action. Instead of trying to retell one of the best anime stories of all time in a different media, the ideal live-action Death Note adaptation would follow different characters from that same world. Death Note establishes that other notebooks fell into the human world before Yagami found his, although what Kira did was on a different level compared to previous users of this deadly power. Therefore, Death Note’s lore means there can be stories that go beyond Light and L.

Parasyte: The Grey has made a strong case for live-action adaptations not to retell the source material’s story and instead follow original characters.

In other words, there could be a live-action Death Note movie or TV show about new, original characters instead of Kira and L. This adaptation could tell a brand-new story set in the world of Death Note based on the idea that one of the notebooks could appear anywhere in the world at any time. For example, a Death Note prequel set before Light Yagami’s journey could follow a character whose use of the Death Note did not become public knowledge like the Kira case. Another option would be a Death Note sequel set in a post-Kira world.

A Death Note adaptation telling an original story would avoid some of the biggest problems with live-action anime movies and TV shows. Direct comparisons between this new project and the original anime would be avoided, as the former would not be an adaptation of the latter. Characters like Light Yagami and L are so massively popular that is difficult for any adaptation to satisfyingly get them right, a problem that an original Death Note story inspired by Parasyte: The Grey would not have to deal with. This live-action Death Note spinoff would be judged by its own merits.

Parasyte: The Grey Not Adapting The Anime Made It A Much Better Live-Action Show

Parasyte: The Grey was a unique show compared to other anime adaptations

Parasyte: The Grey has made a strong case for live-action adaptations not to retell the source material’s story and instead follow original characters. Parasyte: The Maxim, which is an adaptation of the Parasyte manga, is one of the best anime of its generation and continues to find new audiences almost a decade later. Some would even argue that Parasyte: The Maxim is one of Death Note’s spiritual successors – an anime that deals with fantastical, larger-than-life elements but still tells an engaging, human story. Parasyte: The Maxim is also a relatively short anime, just like Death Note.

Considering that there were already two live-action Parasyte movies that retold the manga’s events, plus how well-received the anime was, there was no point in telling Shinichi Izumi’s story yet again. Parasyte: The Grey’s approach was much more interesting and expanded the world of the anime with an exciting new story set in South Korea. Even though Parasyte: The Grey was not an adaptation of the anime, it honored all the rules and lore from the source material, making it feel like a true spinoff of Parasyte. Not many adaptations have managed to do that.

Parasyte: The Maxim anime is streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu.

Netflix’s New Death Note Live-Action Should Repeat Parasyte: The Grey’s Trick

A live-action Death Note Netflix show is currently in development

Stranger Things creators Duffer Brothers are developing an "all-new live-action television adaptation" of Death Note for Netflix. The series was announced in 2022 alongside other projects the duo is developing at Netflix. Not much is known about the Duffer Brothers’ Death Note show, but this will be Netflix’s second attempt at bringing the manga into live-action. Given how poorly received Death Note (2017) was, it is interesting that Netflix is working on a new live-action Death Note adaptation. Despite the failure of the 2017 movie, there are reasons to be excited about this new project.

A TV show is a much better format for a Death Note adaptation than a movie. Part of the reason why Death Note was so successful was that it followed every step of the Kira investigation alongside the battle between Light and L across several episodes. A Death Note movie that tried to condense the story into a 2-hour event was bound to fail regardless of the changes it made to the source material. One Piece season 1 and even Yu Yu Hakusho have shown that the TV format works greatly for live-action anime adaptations.

1 Death Note Movie Already Did Something Similar To Parasyte: The Grey

Light up the New World told an original story set after Death Note

There is already a live-action Death Note project that tells an original story and does not focus on Light or L – Death Note: Light up the New World. The 2016 film, which was a sequel to two other Japanese Death Note movies, took place after the events of the main series. As such, characters like L and Light were no longer involved in the story, but their legacy was acknowledged by the film. When mysterious deaths similar to the ones caused by Kira begin to happen 10 years after Yagami’s death, a Death Note Task Force is formed.

Light up the New World is an interesting take on the world of Death Note, and it answers the question of “what the world would be like after Kira?” It serves as a legacy sequel to the anime, even though the live-action Death Note movies that came before it made quite a few changes to the source material, including removing Near and Mello entirely. Regardless, Light up the New World and Parasyte: The Grey are great examples of how there can be Death Note stories that do not feature Light and L, especially in a live-action format.

Stream Parasyte: The Grey on Netflix