Death Note (Japanese: デスノート) is a Japanese television drama series based on the manga series of the same name by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. It was directed by Ryūichi Inomata, who directed the television drama Kaseifu no Mita in 2011, and Ryō Nishimura known by the special version of the 2014 drama Kamen Teacher. The show stars Masataka Kubota as Light Yagami, Kento Yamazaki as L, and Mio Yūki as Near / Mello and focuses on the story of an intelligent yet reserved college student named Light Yagami, who finds a mysterious black notebook known as the Death Note, which can kill anyone whose name is written within its pages. Intrigued with the notebook's god-like abilities, he begins to use the Death Note to kill those whom he sees as unworthy of life, in a bid to change the world into a utopia. Soon, the student/vigilante finds himself pursued by an enigmatic international detective, known only as: "L".The drama premiered on NTV on July 5, 2015. The first episode received a viewership rating of 16.9% in the Kantō region.