Review for Death Note Relight: L's Successors (Review)
Sunday, 14th March 2010, 17:27

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Extras
The only extras this time around are trailers for the Death Note live action flick, Bleach and Naruto.

Conclusion
That's pretty good. No, really. I know that I gave the first Relight compilation a slating for being a glorified highlight package, but this second movie is worth watching. For one thing, it has a lot less material to work with, meaning a lot less has to be excised and that the story remains coherent. There's room for character study, and the narrative flow works a lot better. The second thing is that they've actually concentrated on the most important thing about this arc, the battle between Light Yagami and L's Successors, leading up to the story's conclusion. It means that they have ruthlessly culled anything that is totally irrelevant, and kept the important stuff. It means that the opening third of the arc, the trip to the US, the kidnapping of Light's sister, Mello's machinations and position in the US crime underworld are all gone. It also means that stupid stealth cruise missile plot device has vanished as well. Cutting out the crap to enhance the good is what these series compilation movies are really for, and the enhancements to L's Successors make it watchable, if not compulsive viewing.

There are a few changes as well; most notable and quite obviously is the different exit for Light's father, Souichiro Yagami. Here, a casually placed line of dialogue has him wander off into retirement off screen, as opposed to the more graphic demise in the original series. Given how the character developed, it seems unlikely that he would simply yield such an important case, and given the way it pans out, you would expect him to be in at the end of it if he still lives. That is perhaps the weakest point of this film, but if the films are all you experience, then it really doesn't matter much. Just like the first Relight film, this second one tries to jazz things up with plenty of graphic deaths and culling, something which remained off screen in the series, and once again it feels to me as if they are trying to give a cerebral story a more action oriented stance by doing so. It's certainly visually effective though and it justifies the BBFC nudging up the age rating to a 15.

But the heart of the story is still there, although calling it L's Successors turns out to be a misnomer. Mello was influential in the first segment of the anime arc, and that is what has been excised here. In the film, he really only turns up with a now unexplained burn scar as a plot device, to get the finale where it needs to be. In essence this movie is more about Light versus Near, and the way that the film has been restructured, re-edited, and rewritten, the confrontation and battle of wits goes some way to approaching the best of Light versus L. It's certainly an enticing and captivating ride from the opening to the end credits.

My experience of the second Relight compilation film is a complete mirror image to the first. I loved the L arc from the anime, and hated what they did to it to create the Visions of a God feature. On the other hand, the Near and Mello arc in the anime did absolutely nothing for me, and actually nudged my appreciation for the series down a tad. The L's Successors movie takes the best aspects of that arc, and makes a very watchable film out of it. I find that I prefer this approach to the series, even with Teru Mikami still 'delete'-ing like a demented Cyberman. The additions to the film, a quite nifty domino sequence capturing the essence of Near, and a pro-Kira versus anti-Kira debate becoming the venue for a massacre, certainly give the story a much appreciated grandeur, but the essence of Light's narrative crescendo remains unaltered. Next time I watch the series, I'll probably watch this film instead of the final thirteen episodes.

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