(Welcome to Survey Says, a feature in which we conduct a random group of individuals in a movie-related survey and explain why they're absolutely correct, completely incorrect, or somewhere in between.)
As an anime fan, I'll be the first to confess that when it comes to criticising live-action adaptations of our favorite series, anime fans can be harsh and even unfair. However, there are situations when a strong dislike for a particular adaption is absolutely justified. Take, for example, Netflix's "Death Note." Many of you said it was one of the worst live-action anime adaptations of all time in a recent poll, and to that I say, I absolutely agree.
The original "Death Note" anime series is set in Japan and features Japanese characters, and it still became extremely popular with non-Japanese audiences. We live in an increasingly globalized world in which the cross-cultural exchange of media is delightfully common, and audiences in various countries and regions are often more than willing to consume content from foreign places. With this in mind, it makes the decision to whitewash and "Americanize" the characters and setting of "Death Note" extremely puzzling, if not downright insulting. There is a time and a place for tweaking content so that it is better understood in the cultural context of respective audiences, but this wasn't one of those times.
