Kawaei possesses 1 of 6 Death Notes in fall film.
The official website for this year’s live-action Death Note film revealed that former AKB48 idol group member Rina Kawaei (Azumi: Bakumatsu-hen stage play) plays Sakura Aoi, a girl who possesses one of the six Death Notes in the film. She is described as the most terrible Death Noteuser ever, an indiscriminate murderer, and the complete opposite of Light Yagami. The website revealed a visual of Kawaei in costume.
The previously announced cast includes:
Sōsuke Ikematsu (The Last Samurai’s Higen, MOZU’s Kazuhiko Shingai) as Ryūzaki, L’s successor and a world-famous detective
Masahiro Higashide (live-action Parasyte‘s Hideo Shimada, live-action Ao Haru Ride‘s Kō Mabuchi) as Tsukuru Mishima, an investigator pursuing the Death Notes
Masaki Suda (live-action Assassination Classroom‘s Karma Akabane, live-action Kuragehime‘s Kuranosuke Koibuchi) as Yūgi Shion, a cyber terrorist who reveres Kira
In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata‘s original 2003-2006 supernatural suspense manga, a teenager named Light finds a notebook with which he can put people to death by writing their names. He begins a self-anointed crusade against the criminals of the world, and a cat-and-mouse game begins with the authorities and one idiosyncratic genius detective.
In the new film’s story, the present-day, highly advanced information society is beset by global cyber-terrorism in 2016. New charismatic figures, who inherited the DNA of Light (previously played Tatsuya Fujiwara) and the detective L (Ken’ichi Matsuyama), emerge. The successors of the two geniuses will wage a war over six Death Notes on Earth.
A crucial plot element will be the “Six-Note Rule”: Only six Death Notes are allowed to exist at a time in the human world. Of course, the Shinigami (Gods of Death) themselves are limited to the number of Death Notes. Therefore, up to six Shinigami may exist in the human world. This rule existed in the original manga, but the movies, live-action series, anime, and stage play have not used this rule thus far.
The new film will open in Japan this fall.