Margaret Qualley’s Death Note character Mia was created for the 2017 Netflix adaptation. Death Note is a manga created by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata, which involves a teenager named Light coming into possession of the titular notebook from bored death god Ryuk. The notebook gives Light the power to kill anyone he chooses so Light sets out to create a peaceful new world purged of criminals. Hot on his trail is L, a mysterious, almost supernaturally intelligent detective.
Death Note was later adapted for an addictive anime series in 2006 that stayed faithful to the source material. Death Note has been praised for being an intense thriller with great characters, in addition to exploring themes like morality and celebrity in an intelligent way. Death Note has received several movie and TV show adaptions in Japan. An American adaptation spent many years in development, with Zac Efron once reportedly in the running to play Light. Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) was also set to direct Death Note for a time before departing the project.
Adam Wingard (The Guest) eventually inherited Death Note, which became a Netflix exclusive. Nat Wolff played Light while Willem Dafoe voiced Ryuk, with the American version relocating the action to Seattle. While the film was enough of a success for the streaming platform to greenlight a sequel, it was greeted with accusations of whitewashing and received a very mixed response from fans for the many changes and omissions to the narrative. A big change to the story is the character of Mia, played by Margaret Qualley (Death Stranding).
Mia sort of has a counterpart in the Death Note manga and anime in Misa, a Japanese idol who becomes obsessed with Light and possess’ a second notebook. Her over the top, almost childish persona is quite different from Mia though, who is somewhat closer in personality to the Light seen in the manga. Light and Mia quickly form a duo after the former discovers the notebook, which the duo use to punish evil while falling in love. Light has strict limits on who he’s willing to kill and how far he will go, which starts to frustrate Mia. The finale reveals she’s been secretly writing names without his knowledge and threatens to kill Light unless he relinquishes ownership of the Death Note to her.
The changes to Light’s character from the manga to the Netflix movie was one source of criticism against it, though Wingard intended the film to be an origin story. The plan was for future Death Note movies was to lean closer to the sociopathic Light seen in the source material, with Mia created for the first movie to reflect the person he would evolve into. Mia becomes obsessed with the power the Death Note grants, and the destruction of their relationship pushes Light into an even darker place. If the planned sequel does go ahead, it will be interesting to see if Misa makes an appearance.
