Japan Synopsis
デスノート
“The battle of wits begins. Whose side are you on?”
Light Yagami finds the "Death Note," a notebook with the power to kill, and decides to create a Utopia by killing the world's criminals, and soon the world's greatest detective, "L," is hired to find the mysterious murderer. An all out battle between the two greatest minds on earth begins and the winner will control the world.
Audience Engagement
614 audience reviews — more than 95% of Japan films in our index.
Review volume (95th percentile) outruns trending popularity (80th) — a durable title with sustained audience attention.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Death Note. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From Nippon Television Network Corporation
Fantasy + Mystery in Japan
133 Japan titles in our catalog blend the Fantasy and Mystery genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Death Note itself).
The 2005–2007 Japan Window
Death Note holds position #170 of 364 Japan films in the 2005–2007 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2000s Japan Landscape
2006 was the decade’s peak output year for Japan — 134 titles released, including Death Note. Bars below show how the 2000s stacked up year by year (1020 total).
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 2h 6m runtime, production spent $159K per minute on screen and earned $235K per minute back.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 133 other Japan films in 2006.
The 1836th Japan title from Japan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1899).
Our Japan catalog contains 4,579 titles in total (2,908 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Death Note, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- moral ambiguity · 3
- psychotronic film · 3
- shinigami · 2
- battle of wits · 2
- heart attack · 1
- notebook · 1
- criminal · 27
- father son relationship · 26
- fbi · 13
- supernatural power · 11
- japanese · 8
- japan · 454
- based on manga · 297
- murder · 155
- police · 105
- remake · 101
- tokyo · 78
- suicide · 51
- death · 43
- serial killer · 42
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #2,298 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (50th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Among Japan Fantasy productions specifically: #816 of 1,274 (top 64%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Japanese |
| Production Companies | Nippon Television Network Corporation, Shueisha, Shochiku, VAP, Nikkatsu Corporation |
| Runtime | 2h 6m |
| Release Date | June 17, 2006 |
| IMDb | tt0758742 |