Playing in participating theatres in U.S. and Canada for two nights only. We went last night, for $12.50 a ticket. But we do it for the fans.
As Cas calls it, "a feature length L lovefest". Yes it was. There were Light fans there too, but even they loved L.
So we had Ian, our little brother, dress up as L. That kid is creepy, as far as cosplay goes. He can pull off anything! He went as Barry the Chopper for Halloween once, and he gave me shivers. He's also a self-made contortionist, and definately double-jointed in places. He made a creepily good L, but we couldn't convince him of that. We walk into the theatre and the first thing we hear is, "L! There's L! Hey, L!" And they came running down to tell him how they loved his costume. He got lots of fans and people taking his picture. One girl even commented, "He's gonna end up on Ebay."
We brought my L plushie and Cas' Ryuk plush. We also brought another L plush to see if we could sell it while we were there. We got soooooo close! But no one had $30 on them after paying for the tickets. We might have still been able to, but attendants were walking in and out so we couldn't just yell it like we would have. I don't think it's legal to sell things in theatres.
The two rows in front of us got into an "argument" over who won, L or Light. Finally, the main L girl just said, "Yah, well Light's ugly!" The whole theatre just gasped and then it turned into who was hotter. Two rows below that, some girls brought their little stereo and were blasting Zetsobou Billy, Numa Numa, and Caramelldansen, which they got about ten other people to dance to.
During the movie, all the girls in the theatre were "Awwwwwwwww!"-ing every five minutes. Especially around L and the kids. Or whenever L put his figer in his mouth. Or whenever he crouched, spoke, moved or breathed.^^' I love the fans.
As for the actual movie, I liked it. They had fun with Alessandro and Kenichi did the introduction to the film and sold it pretty well. They did good with they're comedic parts, and had a death scene that kept the entire theatre laughing. From the sad, suspenseful music playing, I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be funny, but that had to be one the longest, writhing death scenes in American theatres. He'd writhe and choke and fall behind a table and it'd be quiet for a minute. Then he'd dive back up making so much noise you wonder why you couldn't hear him while he was under the table. Finally after about 5 minutes of blood, boils, gurgles, and some pretty impressive work on our voice actors part, he slowly slipped down behind a window. Then he jumped up and slammed against the glass right in front of his daughter, whom I can only imagine he could not see from behind what used to be eyes, or that would have been really mean of him.
They did get a cute kid for "the boy". and the girl wasn't a bad actor at all. The action scenes did get pretty cheesy, but I've seen much worse. And the girls in theatre cheered at every one of them. (I keep saing that like I'm not a girl, but I mean I'm just as enthusiastic) Besides, it was worth it watching L run. That guy had to have fallen down so many times during filming.
The story didn't really fit in with the actual Death Note story very well, at least not the manga/anime, and they broke some of the original rules. But I can totally see why they would want to make a purely L story. L is a very unique kind of character, with so many quirks that they didn't get to play with in line with the original story. You see some of the character that never came up otherwise. Especially since this plot is set in a fairly accurate world, without paranormal things to deal with. Plus you know all these guys are L lovers and they get to make him all heroic.
Personally, I liked Kinichi's style of performance much better in this film than in, say, the first DN movie. Because the whole thing was set around him, he had to make L more concrete and he had to actually move around, when normally L would just watch. Plus he had to find ways that L would do otherwise normal things, like typing. (definately an awesome gif avy there) He was much less zoney. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but in DN1, Alessandro was having a little trouble dubbing, because he had to change his originl voice so much. Kenichi is much younger than anime/manga L supposedly was, and much more zoney. He came across as half asleep rather than observant. (Don't blame him, that would be a difficult character) This time, he was much more the L I was used to, and Alessandro really picked it up.
Of course, like all these showings, there were special features at the end. Those were fun, but I love special features more than some movies. Keichi looks so normal as himself, I don't know I could recognize him if I ever saw him. Alessandro came on and thanked us for watching and even gave us a tiny L impression. And they gave us a chance to win Kenichi Matsuyama's autograph. Winners should be picked next week.

"L ~ Rest In Peace" - after credits