Death Note: The Last Name

Picking up immediately after the debut feature, this Shusuke Kaneko entry resolves the contest between Light and L within a single timeline. Rather than transplanting the manga's full cast, the adaptation drops the later successors Near and Mello entirely, keeping the focus squarely on the original rivalry even as it steers toward an ending that echoes the source. Tetsuya Oishi shared writing duties with Kaneko, Kenji Kawai supplied the score, and Warner Bros. handled the Japanese release. The film sits between the spin-off L: Change the WorLd and, much later, the sequel Light Up the NEW World, which reopened the franchise in 2016.

The story resumes with Light mourning the girlfriend he secretly killed, using her funeral to feign hatred for Kira and talk his way onto the investigation, where L promptly admits him. Misa Amane, wielding the eyes of a shinigami, murders Kanzo Mogi and two officers at Sakura TV to draw Kira's notice, and when she spots Light without a visible lifespan, she recognizes him as the killer. She locates his address online and appears at his home with the death god Rem and her own notebook, offering her help; through Rem's narration, the slaughter of her family and Kira's role in avenging them explains her devotion. To prove herself, she presses her book on Light.

After Misa's arrest and interrogation, Rem pressures Light into a rescue, so he surrenders to L, enters confinement, and relinquishes his buried notebook. Rem passes Misa's book to the broadcaster Kiyomi Takada, who kills as a new Kira until police corner her. Light murders Takada to reclaim ownership and has Misa recover the hidden notebook. Suspicious of the thirteen-day rule, L dispatches the task force to test the book through the FBI, and Rem is forced to kill both L and Watari, then dies and burns her notebook to keep it from Light.

Light maneuvers his father into surrendering the remaining book, only to find himself surrounded. L appears alive, having written his own name to die three weeks later and swapped in a counterfeit notebook while the team watched Light expose himself as Kira. His attempt to murder the task force with a concealed scrap fails, and he begs Ryuk to kill them; instead, Ryuk records Light's name, warning that notebook users forfeit any afterlife. Light dies pleading his case to his father. Weeks afterward L passes away gazing at a photo of Watari, and a year on, with Misa once more stripped of her memories, Ryuk circles Tokyo Tower.

The feature opened on November 3, 2006, immediately claimed the top of the Japanese box office, and held first place for four straight weeks, ultimately grossing 5.5 billion yen to rank among that year's highest-earning domestic releases. Writing for The Star, Christy Lee credited Kaneko with strong pacing, though she felt the brisk final stretch muddied some details, and praised Oishi's screenplay for fleshing out characters audiences could readily empathize with.