Katsunari Mano

Katsunari Mano is a Japanese television and film screenwriter who wrote the screenplay for the live-action sequel Death Note: Light Up the New World. He also wrote the companion Hulu Japan web series Death Note: New Generation.

Mano's screenplay for the 2016 film is a follow-up set a decade after the earlier live-action Death Note films. Rather than adapting Tsugumi Ohba's manga directly, it builds a new mystery around a fresh generation of Death Note users and a young investigator carrying on L's methods.

Death Note: New Generation is a three-episode Hulu Japan series written by Mano that bridges the gap between the earlier Death Note films and Light Up the New World. It kept the established film continuity and rules of the notebook intact while shifting the focus toward a more traditional detective structure.

Outside the Death Note franchise, Mano wrote the Keigo Higashino mystery adaptation Shinzanmono, along with episodes of the long-running detective series Aibou and installments of ST: Scientific Investigation Squad and Team.

Mano's body of work centers on procedural and mystery storytelling for Japanese network television, spanning shows like Aibou and Shinzanmono alongside his Death Note writing. That focus on detective-driven plots is a throughline across his career.