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4th, 5th Death Note The Musical English Songs Feature Misa, Ryuk

The fourth and fifth full English songs from Frank Wildhorn's Death Note the Musical are now available on the official website. The fourth song features Misa, as performed by Adrienne Warren (Dreamgirls, Bring It On: The Musical), and the fifth features Ryuk, as performed by Eric Anderson (South Pacific, Kinky Boots).

Although the songs are in English and are sung by English actors, there is no word on an English version of the musical at this time.

The cast of the upcoming Japanese performances includes:

• Kenji Urai (Aoi Honō, Kamen Rider Kuuga, Sailor Moon musicals) and Hayato Kakizawa (Crows Explode, Kaiji 2) as Light Yagami (shared role)
• Teppei Koike (Gokusen, Love*Com the Movie, Tōfu Kozō) as the genius detective L
• Fūka Yuzuki (live-action Shinigami-kun) as Misa Amane
• Ami Maeshima (SUPER☆GiRLS idol) as Sayu Yagami
• Megumi Hamada as Rem
• Kōtarō Yoshida (Hanako to Anne, MOZU) as Ryuk
• Takeshi Kaga as Sōichirō Yagami

Kaga is reprising his role as Sōichirō Yagami from the live-action Death Note films. The Japanese cast members Kenji Urai and Hayato Kakizawa — the actors who share the starring role of Light Yagami — sung "Bunshiten" (Junction) in a video released last year.

Jiji Press is streaming a longer video showing song performances by Teppei Koike (L) and Fuku Yuzuki (Misa).

Frank Wildhorn, an American composer known for songs sung by Whitney Houston ("Where Do Broken Hearts Go?") and Natalie Cole, is scoring the Death Note musical. Tamiya Kuriyama, a recipient of the Japanese government's Medal with Purple Ribbon, is directing. Jack Murphy (The Civil War, Rudolf, Carmen, Wonderland, The Count of Monte Cristo) is writing the lyrics, and Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bonnie and Clyde) is writing the script. Jason Howland is in charge of musical supervision, arrangements and orchestrations.

The musical will run at Tokyo's Nissay Theatre from April 6 to April 29. It will then travel to Osaka and Nagoya in May. It will also run in South Korea from July to August, but with a different cast.

In Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata 's original Death Note 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. The 12-volume manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 2003 to 2006. The manga has already been adapted into three live-action films and one television anime series in Japan. Viz Media released the Death Note manga, the anime series, and a spinoff novel, while its Viz Pictures affiliate released the three live-action films in American theaters.

Thanks to Sebastian Klein for the news tip