Death Note Musical English NY Demo: 'The Way it Ends' JEREMY JORDAN + JARROD SPECTOR

Can't believe I nearly missed the reaction to my own suggestion! Great vocal breakdown as usual. If the musical has you enticed enough, I also highly recommend "Where is the justice?", "Stalemate", and "Secrets and Lies". All feature even more stellar Jeremy Jordan and are all bangers.

I have seen Death Note, years and years ago, but never in my life have I heard of / would have expected a musical adaptation 😂 I guess other people are saying this happens but I was shocked. Based on what the anime is about I can only imagine this has the same unhinged vibes as Repo! the genetic opera or like... sweeney todd.

Great analysis! It was kind of confusing to me too, because I didn't expect an English language Broadway version of an anime. I suppose all I can contribute is the premise of the original story. It is about a genius high school student, Light Yagami, who gets his hands on a notebook that kills people. It’s called a ‘Death Note.’ He has to write their name in it in order to kill them. He can choose how they die, but if he doesn’t write it down, they just die of a heart attack. He starts to take his version of justice (murder) in his own hands, and eventually develops a God complex. The ‘thing’ that gives him the book is a shinigami (a‘ God of Death,’ common in Japanese mythology as a being that guides humans to the after life) named Ryuk. Only Light can see him at first. He’s a neutral observer as Light gets more and more violent. Light is given the identity of ‘Kira’ (Killer as pronounced in Japanese), and thus a super detective called ‘L’ tries to track him down. Light wants to save his skin and therefore he needs to find out L’s name in order to kill him first. Concurrently, there’s an actress/model named Misa that also has a Death Note and her own shinigami called Rem. She basically wants Light to be her boyfriend in exchange for her help on his mission. That’s just the wild ride of the first arc in the books, but the musical ends with L’s arc. There’s the gist! And don’t watch the live action Netflix adaptation (not the musical). It’s terrible.

Its not too uncommon for an anime to get a musical or stage adaptation. The quality of said adaptations varies. But the composer (who also composed Jekyll and Hyde) of the Death Note musical was convinced by his son who was a fan of the series to make it when he was approached with the idea and they created this demo. And I believe it was first performed on stage in Japan and then Korea. And more recently there was a London performance in 2023. There's been talk that it could come here to America.. but nothing concrete yet.