Casting Raito!

I’ve been griping about casting for DN and Hachikuro… but now…I’ve found my dreamboat Light! No, its not Zac Efron.

Take a look at his face shape, eyes, sharp chin, hairstyle, expression and tell me if you don’t think Kashiwabara Takashi is the real-life counterpart of Yagami Light. It surprised me that with all suggestions floating around – Kase Ryo, Zac Efron, no one thought of Kassy.

This picture makes me think of Art Imitating Life. Since Kassy precedes Light, I couldn’t help wondering if Obata-sensei consciously or subconsciously drew on Kassy as an inspiration for the model student look. Clothing resemblance is too much coincidence! Kassy’s pic is not very sharp but his brown, styled bangs here is identical to Light’s signature look.

It shows up better here. Sorry to Tatsuya Fujiwara, but let’s compare them:

Kassy in Itazura na Kiss. Poor acting (Kassy= wooden, Sato= highly exaggerated) and miscasting (Sato Aiko as the cute petite clueless Kotoko). I felt that Kassy was a little wasted there. His clean cut good looks could have been used to much greater effect for DN. It could be a case of Life imitating Art since Kassy is the classic model student type that appears in tons of shoujo high school mangas.

A bored Light is a dangerous Light. That’s Kassy from Love Letter, certainly a far cry from Light. The thing about Kassy is he kind of lacks the glinting edge that Light often displays. But I think there’s a possibility that Kassy could have played an evil smirking Light well. I’ve seen him smirk in Another Heaven as a fey, seductive possessed guy.

Conclusion: A case of very bad timing. I need to mention that the current Kassy looks very different from his early days. Kassy had the looks sans acting skills in his extreme youth and skills sans looks in his current early 30s. At around mid to late 20s, Kassy kept an optimum balance of boyish good looks and acting skills. But that was totaled by his importune illness which took him out of the entertainment scene for a while. He must have suffered during his illness because he when he came back, he lost that dreamy look and baby fat in his cheeks. I like to think that if the timing was right Kassy might have made a pretty good Light.