Based on Obata Takeshi’s popular manga series, Death Note: The Last Name is the second half of the Death Note duology. Once again the hero is Light Yagami (Fujiwara Tatsuya), a student at an elite college who finds a mysterious notebook, belonging to a “god of death” named Ryuuk, that allows the user to kill anyone just by writing the victim's name in its pages.
Light begins by eliminating the criminal element, but goes over to the dark side, rubbing out anyone who gets in his way. The police task force assigned to stop the killer is led by Light's dad (Kaga Takeshi) and aided by a reclusive, sweets-loving genius detective known only as L (Matsuyama Kenichi).
As the second film begins, Light is still madly bent on ridding the world of its “impure” elements, while transforming in the public imagination from an unknown threat into a godlike figure known as "Kira" ("Killer"). Seeking to throw L off his scent, Light joins his detective dad's police team and the two masterminds begin matching wits. The cops are clueless as to Light's true identity, but L has his suspicions. Then another notebook appears, dropped by another “god of death”, Rem (Ikehata Shinnosuke).
Its finder is Amane Misa (Toda Erika), a cutesy TV idol who takes a devilish joy in her new powers, including the ability to spot other notebook owners - namely, Light. Misa falls hard for him, but Light quickly sees that this affair can only lead to disaster.
Like the first film, Death Note: The Last Name is less a shocker - nary a drop of blood is spilled - than an elaborate on-screen game, defined by arbitrary rules that may exist for the convenience of the plot, but acquire an absorbing logic of their own.
Best known for his Gamera and Godzilla series installments, director Kaneko Shusuke acknowledges the film's manga roots, while delivering his own, highly stylized take on the Death Note world. He conducts his investigations into the nature of good and evil, media-manufactured illusion and all-too-human reality with touches of self-mocking humor and a nod to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, while spelling out everything in cartoonish capitals. The ending is clever enough, though - and chillingly cautionary. Ryuuk and Rem, as might be expected, have the last laughs.