Characters / Death Note – Main Characters

aka: Death Note L Lawliet

Main Character Index | Main Characters (Light Yagami) | Task Force | Shinigami | Side Characters | Novel, Pilot, and Movies | Death Note (2017)

Warning! Unmarked spoilers ahead!

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Protagonists

Light Yagami/Kira

Light Yagami

Minoru Tanaka/A-Kira

The main protagonist of Death Note Special Chapter, set nine years after Light Yagami's defeat and subsequent demise. Ryuk chooses him as the new owner of the Death Note at the beginning of the story, after learning he was the smartest middle schooler of Japan.

After learning its rules from Ryuk as well as the events of Death Note years ago, he decides to give up his ownership for another two years before promising him to use it, along with some apples. But not in a way one would expect.

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• Audience Surrogate: Unlike Light (who, from the get-go, is portrayed as inhumanly "perfect"), he is much more realistic, since he has his fair share of human flaws, talents, skills, and doesn't make irrationally stupid mistakes like Light's (justified, since in modern times, he could easily be captured with the great technology of law enforcement). He even died without using the notebook to kill someone. All these attributes make Minoru a character that the audience can easily relate to amongst all the Kiras.
• Bad Powers, Good People: It stands out quite a bit that he manages to accomplish a fairly good deed using the power to murder people, without killing anyone.
• Batman Gambit: Chooses to sell off the Death Note in an auction before having the winning bid spread across banks accounts all over Japan so it couldn't be traced back to him.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite being the most sane and docile of all Kiras, this poor boy simply couldn't catch a break. From the get-go, we learn that, despite his high intellect, he performed poorly in school, with grades well below average. Yes, his plan, executed with great precision, worked perfectly, but he still ended up being killed by Ryuk after a new rule imposed by the Shinigami King, even though he didn't use any of the Death Note's abilities, only the notebook itself to carry out his plan. In the end, Minoru ended up dead without even being able to enjoy his achievement. It almost gives you the impression that the universe itself hated this boy.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: When attempting to claim his money at the bank, he suffers a heart attack due to breaking the new rule written in all of the Death Notes.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Is much more of an Ordinary High-School Student than his predecessor due to lacking any of The Ace aspects he had before receiving the Death Note. Overall, he is what a more grounded version of a Teen Genius would be like. For instance, he has a measured IQ of 182, which is extremely high, but Minoru points out that IQ tests aren't actually an accurate assessment of someone's intelligence in a practical sense and that his score was probably boosted by playing IQ apps and watching videos about brain age and intelligence a lot, so that doesn't necessarily mean he's a genius like Ryuk assumes he is. It is also noticeable that Minoru is a lot less ambitious and ego-driven than Light ever was, lacking his Complexity Addiction, and proves to be much more practical and mundane in his use of the Death Note. Another way they contrast is that Light was incredibly bored with normal life and reveled in his usage of the Death Note, whereas Minoru just wants to have money so he can enjoy his life comfortably, and shows almost no excitement whatsoever about the disturbance his actions with the Death Note causes.
• Cosmic Plaything: Like his predecessor, he was practically doomed from the beginning.
• Diabolus ex Machina: A more literal example than most others. The only reason Minoru dies in the end is due to the Shinigami King himself implementing a rule that Minoru broke retroactively and had no way of knowing it would be written in the first place.
• Didn't See That Coming: Honestly, how was he supposed the know the Shinigami King himself would be pissed off enough to directly get involved?!
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Unlike his predecessor, Minoru just straight up dies without any climactic significance and without anyone ever knowing how or why he died.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: When he auctions off the Death Note, he has the money divided among everyone with a Yotsuba Bank of Japan savings account under the age of 60. This is an acceptable sacrifice to protect his anonymity, since he's still going to get 1 billion yen anyways. At least until the Shinigami King writes a new rule that kills him.
• Establishing Character Moment: When Ryuk first met him, Minoru admitted that his supposedly high I.Q. didn't translate to anything practical, establishing his humbleness and wish to genuinely do something productive with his life.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Death Note would have very nearly had its first genuinely happy ending if not for a last-minute interference. Minoru's master plan is executed without any setbacks or deaths, effectively giving Light's opponents nothing to exploit and yet he dies anyway due to the Shinigami King getting angry and suddenly making up a new rule when it was too late for him to change his plans.
• Foil:
  • To Light Yagami. The fact that both are killed by Ryuk (albeit inadvertently in Minoru's case because Ryuk couldn't come back to warn Minoru about the new rules the Shinigami King implemented that winds up killing the unlucky human) certainly cements this status. In terms of sheer intellect, Minoru lacks The Ace aspects of Light, being unable to translate his intelligence into his academics while Light excelled at everything he put his mind to. However, in many ways, the entire purpose of his character seems to be an answer to everything Light aspired to be throughout the course of the series: careful, meticulous, cunning, successful, and altruistic. Ironically, in his short period, he achieved what Light could never achieve: defeat Near and being praised for thousands of people in his country. Another purpose of his character seems to be an answer to all the praise that Light has received by fans for more than ten years and to everything his archetype represents, letting Minoru himself to carry out much more cunning and altruistic plans for his country. All these attributes show that, by the end of the day, Minoru is a far better person than Light, which is cruelly ironic considering that Minoru did not seek to be praised and ended up being much more praised and loved than Light himself. One wonders what Light himself would think if he saw that another Kira managed to be much more loved than he ever tried to be...
  • He's also one to Kyosuke Higuchi, as both had average intelligence and used the Death Note for personal gain. A difference being that Higuchi was willing to kill people to maintain his power and his greed caused him to make dumb decisions. Minoru on the other hand doesn't kill anyone, is willing to share the wealth he gained with a sizable portion of Japan's populace and manages to keep a cool head long enough to ultimately cause Near to throw in the towel.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In a way he could never have seen coming. After giving up the Death Note and telling Ryuk never to appear before him again, the rules are changed by the Shinigami King so that anyone buying or selling a Death Note will die upon collection of payment. Because he told Ryuk to never appear before him again, Ryuk is unable to warn him not to collect his payment resulting in Minoru's death.
• Irony: Who could have guessed that a Kira motivated by money would be infinitely more noble than a Kira motivated by justice?
• Meaningful Name: Depending on the kanji, "Minoru" can mean "growth", "maturity", "kindness" or "success". Minoru learns from Kira's mistakes, shows strength of character, means well and manages to beat Near while making himself filthy rich.
• Mundane Utility: He uses Ryuk, a psychopomp, in his plan as an untraceable message service. And it works.
• Nice Guy: He's incredibly sweet, kind and friendly, which is quite impressive coming from Light's successor.
• Odd Name Out: Together with Kiyomi Takada, he's the only character in the entire series to have a name you would find in real life.
• Only Sane Man: Easily the sanest, most normal Kira to date, which is quite impressive considering the sheer amount of Ax-Crazy people that have been Kiras.
• Shadow Archetype: Minoru can be considered what Light would have been if he was driven by the ideals he kept saying he embodied instead of his pride and ego in reality.
• Street Smart: Minoru's teachers speculated that he might be the smartest middle schooler in Japan, with him getting the highest score on standard IQ tests three years in a row, but his academic grades were subpar, even telling Ryuk on his first visit that he's great at solving riddles, and little more. On the other hand, he hatches a plan that manages to cover his tracks, get rid of the Death Note (and his memories of it), get rich, create an economic boom on Japan and beat Near. This does imply that Minoru is indeed as much of a genius his school was saying, but his intelligence is on a practical level, and not academical.
• Superior Successor: In terms of sheer intellect, Minoru is actually inferior to Light, being unable to translate his intelligence into his academics while Light excelled at everything he put his mind to. However, what separates Minoru from Light is his wisdom, not allowing his ego to get in his way and remained anonymous while Light practically demanded he be recognized. Light constantly wanted to prove his dominance to the world while Minoru had the foresight to make a quick and clean profit and quit while he was ahead. There's also the fact that Minoru manages to outwit Near, the one responsible for Light's defeat. In the end, he succeeds in all of his objectives and would have completely gotten away with it if not for a Diabolus ex Machina.
• Teen Genius: He's just as clever as Light and far more level-headed to boot.
• Too Clever by Half: Learning from Light's downfall in the original story Minoru goes through extreme lengths to prevent any paper trail from forming that can link him to being the new Kira. And he almost gets away with it, but it turns out cutting off any further contact with Ryuk was his one fatal mistake. He pissed off the Shinigami King by turning the Death Note, a literal divine tool of death, into a farce to turn a profit. And as mentioned above in Hoist by Their Own Petard, had Minoru not cut off Ryuk, he would have had a complete victory.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Due to never using the Death Note, Minoru never succumbs to its corrupting influence and his plans don't leave any victims. He ends up dead anyway.
• Took a Level in Badass: After two years that Ryuk went to visit him, Minoru went from a scared child to exceptionally analytical and cunning.
• Undignified Death: Being practically the Cosmic Plaything of the Shinigamis throughout almost his entire plan, he dies in an incredibly abrupt and anticlimactic manner. Yes, quite undignified for someone who surpassed Kira.
• Worthy Opponent: Near acknowledges him as this, seeing how his plan wasn't to commit mass murder or become a god, but to simply turn a profit at the expense of a country that could afford the loss. Near eventually admits defeat when he sees how thoroughly the new Kira's tracks were covered.

Light's allies

Misa Amane/2nd Kira

Misa Amane/2nd Kira

"I hate evil and love justice. I do not consider the police as my enemies but as my allies against evil."

Voiced by: Aya Hirano (JP), Shannon Chan-Kent (EN), Nuria Trifol (Spain), Rebeca Gómez (Latin America), Ana Lúcia Menezes (BR), Charlene Pestel (FR)

Played by: Erika Toda (films), Hinako Sano (TV drama), Fuka Yuzuki (musical)

The second Kira, an internationally famous model and pop star who started out as Light's Stalker with a Crush since, as Kira, he killed the burglar that murdered her parents a year prior, thus making her feel indebted to him. She has one hell of a messed-up lifespan due to multiple shinigami sacrificing their lives for her and her multiple exchanges for the Shinigami Eyes. She and her shinigami, Rem, helped Light, but not before dragging him through a series of events, both good and bad, started by her carelessness.

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• Adaptational Badass: As the 2nd Kira before joining Light in the live-action movies, she is portrayed as more dark and intimidating, and not making the stupid mistakes she does in the manga and anime.
• Adaptational Dumbass: While Misa wasn't the most intelligent person in the original manga, she did have a good head on her shoulders and was serious about her actions, knew simple, slightly dangerous yet effective plans on how to get what was needed, like in the Yotsuba Arc where she goes off on her own to investigate Higuchi from the Yotsuba group and records his admission that he is the current Kira which played a big role in finishing up that arc. The anime altered her intelligence to the point of downplaying any big moments she had in the manga and even changed her personality to be more airheaded and up-played her Yandere traits towards Light, making her a typical The Ditz character.
• Adaptational Heroism: She has no hesitation or remorse when killing in the name of love in most versions, but the Japanese live-action film version is different. First, when Sayu calls her (as the Second Kira) out as a murderer, Misa remembers her own family's murder and stops writing names in the notebook, going into a guilty Villainous BSoD (which sadly ends the moment she first sees Light). And then later, she cries when Light writes his own father's name down, and actually acknowledges that Light and what he does is evil, albeit through admitting that even knowing this, she just can't bring herself to stop loving Light or stop being loyal to him.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Her eyes are apparently naturally brown in the manga but blue in the anime.
  • She's blonde in both manga and anime but a brunette in the movies and the TV drama.
  • Her eyes switch between brown and blue in the anime depending on whether she's on the job as an Idol Singer. It's probably color contacts.
• Affably Evil: She'll kill you without hesitation if you get in her way or cause trouble for Light, but other than that, she's a genuinely sweet girl.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: She was rather fascinated with Light, once she learns that the same boy is none other than someone who killed the same burglar that robbed her house and murdered her parents.
• Aloof Big Sister: She either has one or is one. The manga mentions that Misa has a sister still living in Kansai as a plot point but she doesn't even get Nominal Importance and after that it's never mentioned again. Though this could also be seen as part of her cover story, worked out with Aiber and L, to infiltrate Yotsuba; Aiber uses "your sister said that you said x about Kira" to introduce the information that Misa is connected to L to the Yotsuba group. It's never made clear if the sister actually exists or not.
• Amnesiacs are Innocent: She loses her memories of the Death Notes completely at the end of the manga, and every adaptation thereafter. But this only spares her from death in the live-action versions.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: When Rem tells Misa the story of how Gelus died and she got a second notebook.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: After meeting Light and having him doubt and question her, Misa begins to cry, falls off of her chair and tells Light that she "just had to meet him."
• Anti-Villain: ZigZagged, as her only motivation in the entire series is finding Kira and help him in whichever way she can. And if that involves killing good people...
• Badass Adorable: Despite being a childish, energetic, squeaky-voiced Genki Girl, Misa does have her moments. She takes Sakura TV hostage, refuses to give up Light under L's torture, and executes her plot to ditch L's surveillance and get Higuchi to confess to her. She is also the resident cutie.
• Beast and Beauty: With Gelus, who she never met, and then with Rem. Both are shinigami so in love with her that are willing to disregard the laws of life and death for her sake. Plus she's probably the only human Rem regards fondly. Unfortunately subverted in that Misa doesn't seem to care that deeply for either of them, and lets Light manipulate Rem as he pleases.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: She is described as beautiful and the writer makes sure she gets away with her murders especially when her life is at risk. Even her ultimate fate (suicide) is off-the-panels.
• Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Takada's Veronica for Light's Archie.
• Berserk Button: If anyone screws around with Light behind her back...even Light isn't safe from her wrath if this happens. As she tells Light, "If I see you with another girl, then I'll kill her!"
• Beware the Silly Ones: After they actually meet her in person, no one - not Light, not Near, not Mello, not L or Aizawa or Mogi - takes her seriously. At all. In fact nearly every character dismisses her as a legitimate threat; in the few instances that Aizawa, Mogi, L, Near, and Mello feel that she may be trouble, it is as an agent of Light rather than in her own right. Light, knowing that Misa has said that she will kill her competition, sees other women anyway; and L, after Misa escapes from Mogi, pretty much shrugs the whole thing off. This is all despite the fact that Misa is dangerous: she is in charge of Light's killings from time to time, she threatens and controls news stations in both seasons, and she outs Higuchi as a Kira to L.
• Blatant Lies: "Misa never betrays her friends!"
• Blessed with Suck: Her Death Note and shinigami eyes absolutely ruined her life. Thanks, Rem.
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: Misa is introduced as the supernatural killer who takes Sakura TV hostage, killing off innocent people and criminals alike to convince the world of her powers and then killing off the cops who race down there to stop her. During this, she threatens to kill yet more people. And she does it all solely to get Light's attention, because she must meet him, to tell him him how grateful she is that he killed her parents' murderer.
• Bound and Gagged: In the episode "Wager", courtesy of L.
• Break the Cutie: She is the end-product of a cutie who's been broken too much. It fatally breaks her when Light dies.
• Broken Bird: Under the childish behavior and cute looks, there's one hell of a mentally and emotionally broken young woman.
• Bumbling Sidekick: To Light. Although she's smart enough to find Light, dodge Mogi and manipulate Higuchi, her mistakes do cost them both.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The 13th volume explains that Light views Misa as a really bad person that needs to be eliminated but he's unable to kill her off, just because she has the eyes.
• Caught in the Rain: During the opening sequence of the first season, Light offers Misa his hand as she walks through the rain towards him.
• Cleavage Window: In the shape of a heart, no less.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Light is hers. Woe to any woman who tries to come between them.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Misa certainly does not live in the same world as most other people.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Her official color seems to be light blue.
  • Also, in the first arc, she's shown primarily wearing black while acting as the second Kira, and in the second arc she wears plenty of black and red.
• Come Back to Bed, Honey: She tries this with Light; it ends with him ordering her out of bed and back to work.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She really is a lot smarter than she usually acts.
• Cursed with Awesome: Her Shinigami eyes allow her to see everyone's names as soon as she looks at them, but they come with the drawback of her being unable to turn them off. As a result, she's forced to do the Eye Deal a second time with Ryuk upon reclaiming possession of a Death Note, as she is unable to remember L's real name in the sea of names she was seeing each day.
• Cute and Psycho: She is charming, cheerful... and one of the Kiras.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Her high-pitched voice is... not well-liked by fans.
• Cuteness Equals Forgiveness: To an extent, both in-universe and out. Despite being portrayed as viciously selfish and quite, quite mad, Misa never earns the same type of villain cred as, say, Light - whose eviler counterpart she was introduced as. Additionally, the characters in-universe definitely treat Misa far more gently than Light when both come under suspicion in the second season - compare Aizawa's grim, suspicious surveillance of Light with Mogi going shopping with Misa. Why is this? Misa is a small, sweet, cheerful, and cute young woman, and that registers more immediately to both much of the audience and most of the characters than "ruthless serial killer." Although it could be argued that another reason for this is that she is legitimately mentally ill and thus not in full control of her mental capacities, whereas Light is fully in control of his brain and the choices he makes using it.
• The Cutie: Subverted; She's a villainous example. Don't let her appearance fool you; her adorableness is to hide her villainy (except in the case where she's lost her memories).
• Damsel in Distress: Gelus saved her (and died for it) when she was confronted by a stalker.
• Dark Is Evil: She dresses primarily in black. And her bedroom is decked to the nines in creepiness.
• Dark Mistress: Misa starts out as a second Kira who takes Sakura TV hostage and murders several cops and criminals to get Kira's attention. Later, she tracks down Kira, discovers that Kira is Light Yagami, and falls in love with him. She demands that Light take her on as his girlfriend; because she was already a villain in her own right, their joining forces would qualify for Unholy Matrimony status, but as she becomes immediately subservient to him and her role becomes simply "Light's Love Martyr" as the story progresses, she develops into the Dark Mistress role.
• Deadly Upgrade: Twice, for that matter. She serves as Light's deadly upgrade: with the second Kira on his side and completely devoted to him, he gains the use of her shinigami eyes.
• Death by Despair: According to Ohba, this is her ultimate fate, via being Driven to Suicide.
• Death Seeker: Some of the material in the series seems to point to the fact that Misa isn't exactly concerned with her own life. Misa deliberately seeks out dangerous situations: for one example, she walks home alone, at night, on a deserted street, and for another she begins the entire attack on Sakura TV while being across the street in person. She then shows up on the mass murderer Kira's doorstep and volunteers to be his girlfriend while knowing full well that he could kill her. She in fact explicitly offers Light the option of killing her if she gets to be a burden. Also, she begs Rem to kill her when she feels that she has a good justification to ask that of Rem, and, mind you, when Soichiro informs Misa that both she and Light are to be executed, it is Light's life that she begs for. Plus, she sacrifices half of her lifespan (twice) to get the shinigami eyes. And of course, when Light dies, she kills herself soon after.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: There is a vengeful, godlike entity out there who can kill with just a name and a face. Obviously, the best way to handle the situation is to offer to be his girlfriend.
• Dissonant Laughter: When Rem agrees to murder L at Light's request, Misa's reaction is to laugh and clap her hands. In the anime, she even hugs Rem.
• Dissonant Serenity: Comes with the job of being the second Kira. When she regains her Death Note and finds Light's note asking her to kill L, she gladly, even triumphantly, considers it. Her distress comes only when she realizes that she can't remember his name.
• The Dragon: She becomes this for Light until Light has her Death Note given to Mikami.
• Driven to Suicide: What finally happens to her. She wasn't kidding when she said she couldn't dream of living in a world without Light. Averted in the TV drama and musical^note and the live-action movies for 10 years, where she simply loses her memories of Kira, the Death Notes, and all that stuff, and goes on to lead a normal (well, for a celebrity) life.
• Dumb Blonde: She has dyed blonde hair and comes off as rather ditzy and poor at thinking things through. Then again, next to L or Light, anyone would look dumb by proxy.
• Dye Hard: In a flashback, her hair is black, implying she's a bottle blonde. May be justified on the grounds of her being an Idol Singer. invoked
• Easily Forgiven: Near lets her live freely after Light died, even though she killed thousands of innocent people...
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: While she's usually more of a straightforward goth in terms of fashion sense (despite her upbeat personality), she dresses in frillier, more elaborate gothic lolita outfits when she becomes more famous—and in the anime, when she's about to jump to her death after Light dies.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She's a remorseless mass murderer who genuinely loves Light and loved her parents.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The film version of Misa was visibly horrified when Light planned to kill his own father to prevent the notebook from being analyzed. Makes sense when you remember that she lost her own parents to a murderer.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Sayu mentions that Misa is "just her type," and Misa also seems to have as many fangirls as she does fanboys at To-Oh University. Also, Rem (a female shinigami) is genuinely in love with her.
• Evil Counterpart: To Light at first, lampshaded when Light and L are building a profile of the Second Kira.
  Light: ...this Kira isn't idealistic.
  L: Yes. I really don't like the way he operates. It's not like Kira.
• Evil Diva: Along with her other traits and hobbies, Misa is a singer as well as an actress and model; in the second arc, she gets hired to open a New Year's show with a song.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: She doesn't intend to do this, but her videos provide L with a lot of clues. Before she and Light officially team up, she eagerly hands out information to him.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Misa starts out wearing her hair in either Girlish Pigtails or Baby Spice pigtails (as pictured above), to go with her Elegant Gothic Lolita clothes and her job as a cutesy Japanese actress/model/Idol Singer. After six years as Light's live-in girlfriend and the second Kira, her acting career is becoming more serious (she gets a part in a Hollywood movie), so she starts dressing in tamer, preppier clothes and wearing her hair straight and loose, in order to look older and more mature. However, after she gives up ownership of her Death Note and all memories related to it and quits her job in anticipation of marrying Light, with her now Locked Out of the Loop while he does his thing, she becomes increasingly lonely and bored, and eventually goes back to the way she looked when she first met Light, like the last six years never happened... because, for her, a lot of it didn't!
• Expy: Shares quite a few similarities with Harley Quinn.
• Extreme Doormat: Misa would do anything for Light. Especially tragic in the live-action films, where she actually comes to realize and admit that Light is evil and not worth loving and yet she just can't help herself.
• The Fake Cutie: Her cute and ditzy act is at least partly a calculated façade. And that's before you get into her severe mental illness and homicidal tendencies...
• Fake Relationship: Becomes Light's official girlfriend (and in the manga, fiancee), but he keeps her around only to make him look "normal" enough to not be Kira. She knows this, too, and hopes she can make him actually love her.
• The Fashionista: Justified because she's an idol; Misa is often shown shopping, reading magazines, applying make-up, and so on.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Misa is heavily implied to be the one who cooks and cleans after the timeskip, when Light and Misa move in together; a strip from the omake extras released in the thirteenth volume explicitly shows her doing some fancy cooking while Light reads a newspaper.
  • In the live-action movies, Misa had her own Cooking Show: "Misa-Misa's Happy Sweets".
• Femme Fatale: In the Yotsuba arc.
• First-Name Basis: With pretty much everyone.
• Flanderization: While she was on the ditzy side during her debut arc, she was actually a fairly competent strategist, she was able to see trick Light into showing himself as Kira to her, and Light even feared her enough to contemplate killing her. However, come the Yotsuba arc, she Took a Level in Dumbass, and her strategic capabilities were sidelined in favor of her devotion to Light. This is even further worsened after the time skip, where she becomes so dumb that she thinks yelling loudly is the same thing as whispering and that she can announce her intention to kick a woman surrounded by bodyguards with no repercussions (though she was memory-wiped by that point after having spent years as the Second Kira, so it's possible some of her learned cautiousness was erased as well).
• Fluffy Tamer: Even more so than Light. She gets Gelus to fall in love with her simply by him observing her from the Shinigami Realm; she gets Rem to fall in love in with her after spending an extended period of time together; even Ryuk is fond of her, with her hugging him and giving him an apple upon regaining her memories.
• Foot Focus: There's a shot of her striped-stocking feet during Light and L's sparring match when she accidentally steps into a cake she was eating.
• Foreshadowing: In the thirty-third episode of the anime, "Scorn", Misa told Takada what would become of her once Kira got caught; she would be "executed". Takada, in her arrogance and genuine belief that Light cared for her, dismisses her and leaves. Come episode thirty-five, Light coldly writes Takada's name in the Death Note, killing her off in a needlessly cruel way to get rid of the evidence she carried that could lead back to him.
• Freudian Excuse: Her family was murdered right in front of her! And she's lived either alone or with only Rem for company in the year since their deaths. No wonder she takes Light up on his offer to have her move in with him.
  • Not only that, but after her parents died, she was also accosted by a crazed fan who attempted to murder her, then died in front of her. No wonder she's so blase about killing criminals and so disillusioned with the criminal justice system. (And more than a little unhinged.)
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Debatable, but in the last few legs of the first season and then for the whole of the second season, Misa is associated with the Kira Taskforce and tolerated by them only because of her connection to Light. Aizawa, Ide, Soichiro, and Mogi never voice their opinion about the situation, but they never do seem quite happy with the idea of Misa following them around everywhere they go. Subverted by Mogi later on, who actually grows fond of her after all the babysitting he has to do.
• Genius Ditz: She has enough smarts to channelize her child-like charm into her very successful model and Idol Singer career. Also, she figures out how to expose Higuchi as the Yotsuba Kira to the police without revealing Rem's presence. She's actually quite clever, she's just more energetic and not as smart as the downright superhuman Light and L. If she didn't ogle Light so much, she could get her head in the game.
  • Some would argue that Misa has very good instincts. She taps right into Light's desire to control and use people from the very first time they meet, and her submissiveness gains her exactly what she wants (i.e. for Light to be her boyfriend). With just a little help from Rem, Misa blackmails the most dangerous man on the planet into getting what she wants. Successfully.
  • Misa follows the situation more closely than she seems to. For example, there's a scene in the manga after the timeskip where, after Misa points out something Light hadn't gotten to yet and Light tells her to go to bed, Light thinks to himself that Misa was right.
• Genki Girl: She's very passionate and energetic.
• Girlish Pigtails: She loses them in the second arc, as a sign of her maturation from a giggly idol to a serious actress. Notably, when she gives up her memories of being the second Kira (and, therefore, a significant portion of the last four years of her life), she stops wearing her hair loose with innocent preppy clothes and and goes back to the Baby Spice pigtails and Elegant Gothic Lolita costumes.
• Happiness in Slavery: She willingly volunteers herself to do anything for Light, and seems to never have a problem with it. Even after Light overwhelms her with work for him and yells at her in anger, she still beams when he walks into the room.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She is shown drinking a few times in the second arc.
• Harmful to Minors: Her parents were murdered right in front of her. She breaks down in tears when she tells Light about it.
• Hero Secret Service:
  Misa: (swooning) I would gladly die if it were for you, Light!
  Light: (sweat-dropping) We just met.
• Hero-Worshipper: Towards Light.
• He Was Right There All Along: The live-action's Misa Amane is killing the police who come near Sakura TV while being in the building herself.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: A very twisted version.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Averted Trope. She's well aware that Light doesn't give a damn about her but still swoons over him and tries to win him over. It never goes well for her as he always sees her as a pawn at best and a nuisance that he can't discard at worst.
• Housewife: What she really wants, more than anything, is to be Light's wife. When he tells her to quit her job, she immediately asks if it's so they can get married.
• Hypocrite: Her backstory reveals she was once approached by a man who had been stalking her and who almost killed her when she rejected his hysterical declarations of love. In the story, she does basically the same thing to Light, except the threat of death is more implicit.
• The Idiot from Osaka: She's from Kansai and definitely a ditz.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: She wears color contacts to work for the appeal of this trope (and, curiously, when she first confronts Light), but her eyes are naturally brown.
• Interrupted Suicide: When Misa is Bound and Gagged she tries to kill herself by biting her own tongue when Rem refuses to kill her at her request, and L has Watari gag her to keep her from doing so. Sadly the next time she tries suicide at the end of the story she succeeds, according to the mangaka.
• Jack the Ripoff: She claims to be Kira to get Light's attention, killing off several people in precisely the same manner. However unlike Light, who tries to be subtle in his methods, Misa's way too bombastic in her approach and leaves too many clues for L to rightfully suspect her. If Light hadn't agreed to take her on and orchestrated to make her look innocent, she would've been locked away permanently the first time she was caught.
• Karma Houdini: Depending on the adaptation, she may have gotten away with her crimes in the end:
  • In the manga, she gets to live freely whereas Teru Mikami is imprisoned, though it's explained that she commits suicide later on.
  • Possibly in the anime, depending on whether or not she actually committed suicide as it was implied she was contemplating. If she didn't, then as far as the viewer knows she got away with her crimes.
  • She and Mikami are taken into custody in the TV drama, but lose their memories due to the notebooks being destroyed. She gets to live her life out as a celebrity from then on, playing this trope straight.
  • Initially played straight in the live-action movies, until Light Up the New World where she kills herself in the end.
  • The musical plays this trope straight, allowing her to get away with her crimes.
• Kawaiiko: Yes, although in most of her appearances it only serves to add to her sheer creepiness.
• Kill the Cutie: By way of being Driven to Suicide after Light's death.
• Kitsch Collection: Misa's room which is filled with candles, religious memorabilia, creepy dolls, and other things that look like they came out of Hot Topic.
• Knight Templar: Misa is as willing as Light and Mikami to fight evil for a New World.
• Large Ham: She even overacts in-universe and justified: During her plot to get proof that Higuchi is acting as Kira, the audience can hear her calmly calculating just how much cuteness, charm, and energy to use in her responses.
• Lean and Mean: She is 5' and 79 lbs. Justified, as she is a famous model/idol/actress.
• Loony Fan: Towards Light.
• Love at First Sight: Towards Light, again. (Light looks physically pained when she later asks him if he believes in this.)
• Love Makes You Evil: Her love for her family drove her to become sympathetic to Light's ideology when he killed the man who murdered her parents in front of her (and who looked like he was going to be acquitted of the charges). Later when she herself becomes a Serial-Killer Killer she meets and falls in love with Light, and her insanity worsens.
• Love Martyr: She'll do anything for Light, and the tragedy of it all comes across strong and clear.
• Luminescent Blush: While daydreaming about Light.
• Mad Love: She's madly in love with Light and will do anything to keep his interest and make him love her back. Light on the other hand makes his disinterest in her very clear and views her as a pawn to further his own goals at best and a nuisance he can't discard at worst.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Subverted and deconstructed; Misa Amane is a Genius Ditz Perky Goth with a mad zest for life and a Mad Love for uptight Broken Ace Light Yagami. But she truly is mentally and emotionally disturbed under her blithe façade, and unfortunately for her, Light has no intention of falling in love, and finds her antics both obnoxious and exasperating. He does however play along in order to use her shinigami eyes.
  Misa: LIGHT!!
  Misa glomps him.
  Light: [thinking] This is the first time in my life I've wanted to hit a woman.
• Manipulative Bastard: Though she never gets the same cred as Light, Misa is plenty manipulative on her own, such as tricking a friend into mailing her Second Kira tapes.
• Meaningful Name: From How To Read, it says her name comes from Kuromisa meaning "Black Mass."
• Monster Fangirl: She along with a friend loved serial killers, especially Kira, she’s also pretty cool around Shinigami.
• Ms. Fanservice: That cute face and wardrobe of hers. Many viewers wish they were Light, if only for the sake of Misa.
• Mysterious Woman: Misa shows up out of the blue on Light's doorstep, in a little black dress with a killer notebook and a god of death, and simply introduces herself, saying that she came because she thought that he might be worried that she would go to the police instead. Light looks wary and rather unnerved, but - and without knowing anything else about her (besides the fact that she is responsible for Ukita's deaths, among others) - he invites her in.
• Namedar: Unlike Light, Misa made the deal for the Shinigami eyes.
• Naughty Nurse Outfit: In addition to being very popular with the boys, Misa wears a nurse's outfit once, as a disguise.
• The Nicknamer: She is shown nicknaming Light (much to his horror and annoyance) as her Knight in shining armor or Raito-Naito, Matsuda (Matsu), Mogi (Mochi), and Aizawa (Monchichi); by the second arc, the last three all appear to treat it as normal.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: "What a beautiful way to kill!"
• No Accounting for Taste: A number of characters express slight skepticism on Misa's relationship with Light. However, the members of the Task Force, who witness the decidedly one-way, unhealthy relationship on a daily basis, never seem to actually notice just how unlikely it is, or question its genuineness until several years down the line.
  • Perhaps they were assuming that Opposites Attract, or simply keeping out of Light's business out of respect. There is a scene in the first season where Misa, returning triumphantly from tricking the hell out of Higuchi, sits on Light's lap, and although no one actually says anything, Soichiro looks over from the background at them with a very amusing expression on his face.
• No Place for Me There: Asked in the ending of "Misa no Uta".
• No Sense of Personal Space: She hugs and clings to Light, Ryuk, Rem, and Mogi.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: She spends much of her time in the first arc going about her job, teasing Light and L, reading magazines, playing with her make-up and hair, and being grudgingly tolerated by the taskforce. No one takes her seriously: Aizawa forcefully throws her out of the room solely because she's being annoying, L mocks her, and the others tend to just ignore her. And then Light's master plan comes full circle and Misa finds herself being appointed as the criminal-killer for the time being. Thrilled to be of service, she dresses up in a beautiful black dress and goes for a walk, singing sweetly... while murdering the guilty. And some of those deaths are pretty gruesome.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Sometimes. She's at least smarter than she acts most of the time.
  • In the Yotsuba arc, at least in the manga, when she's in the car with Higuchi and later talking to Light and L, you can see her calculating her actions and reactions quite calmly in her mind.
• Obliviously Evil: She seems to genuinely believe that she's a good person doing the right thing. Or at least the justified, necessary thing in the service of the person she loves the most.
• The Obstructive Love Interest: Especially early on. "You're my boyfriend now! Squee! I have the following demands..."
• Odd Friendship: Most obviously with L, though the extent to which theirs is a "friendship" is negotiable. However, by the second arc, she's actually won over Mogi, a man her polar opposite, and the two seem quite close. Mello even says that she appears to be his girlfriend.
• Of Corsets Sexy: She wears one to try to get Light's attention; unfortunately for her, it doesn't work.
• Offscreen Karma: After being able to go free for her crimes of killing a lot of people, she ultimately kills herself a year after Light's death according to the creators. The reader doesn't get to see this happen. Applies to the Anime adaptation as well, as the last we see of Misa is her standing on top of a very tall building. It can be assumed that she jumped, though we don't see it happen or the aftermath of it.
• Older Than They Look: She's 19 at the start of the series though she looks younger than the 17 year old Light. Lampshaded when a character (in the second arc, no less) believes her to be a teenage girl between 14 and 20 years old. She happens to be in her twenties at that particular point.
• The Ophelia: Cute? Check. Insane? check. Puts on pretty dresses and murders people? Definitely.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Her parents were killed right in front of her.
• Overt Operative: Misa is famous and so her face is everywhere. If anyone else has the Shinigami eyes she'd be the first to be discovered. That's why Light has her suddenly quit the movie in the second arc when the mafia gets a hold of the notebook and the eyes.
• Parental Abandonment: Her Freudian Excuse, as explained above.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: "I wanted that man to pay for what he did!"
• Perky Female Minion: She's been seen giggling and clapping her hands while Light plots.
• Perky Goth: She wears a lot of black and Creepy Crosses (at least in the first half of the series), and a glimpse into her room shortly after she's first introduced is filled with things that are at least vaguely gothic. Despite this, she frequently acts cheerful, perky and ditzy, at least on the surface.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Don't let her sweetness and good cheer, however genuine, fool you. She's just as dangerous as any other Kira.
• Pillow Pistol: She keeps her Death Note hidden under her mattress.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: In some scenes (when you can hear her thoughts), she comes across as quite calculating. In others, she comes across as downright ditzy. Also, she seems to bounce between being thoughtful and solemn when contemplating her role as the second Kira (the best example would be the scene in which she sings "Misa no Uta" and pauses to look sadly out over the horizon) to being cheerful and enthusiastic about it all.
• Plucky Comic Relief: She serves as the humorous element in some of the darker scenes, albeit not to the same extent as Ryuk.
• Protectorate: Becomes this for both Gelus and Rem, driving both of them to death as they both grow to care for her to such an extent that they violate their sole reasons for existing (shortening human lives) in order to lengthen hers by killing those who would do her harm.
• Psycho for Hire: Basically how Light uses her throughout the series. Even better, since she loves him, she's a Psycho for Hire who works for free.
• Psycho Supporter: She's madly devoted to Light and will do anything to please him.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: She's Type D - an endearingly naive Kawaiiko who has a very childish demeanor that persists well into her 20s, obsesses over fashion like any young girl, is completely boy-crazy, and was able to translate her Moe appeal into a successful career as an actress/model. All this is likely because her parents were murdered while she was still a child, trapping her in a perpetually immature state. Unfortunately for the world, this apparently happened before the Amanes had the chance to explain to their daughter that human life has an intrinsic value beyond being useful, who latched onto the man who used his Death Note to kill the burglar years after the actions that shattered her mind. The results weren't pretty.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When taking advantage of the Shinigami Eyes, her eyes take a red colour. This is only the case to viewers, as there is no perceptible difference In-Universe between someone with the Eyes and someone without.
• Samus Is a Girl: Light and the investigators assume the Second Kira to be male. L also refers to the Second Kira as a "he" (though L might have known sooner considering he is L and had access to physical evidence; he could have just decided not to reveal the gender so as not to give Light any clues).
• Satellite Love Interest: An interesting illustration of this trope. It's certainly possible to picture her without Light — we see her before they meet, and she's clever and dangerous. But after they meet, she'd rather die than live any kind of life without him. She improves in the Yotsuba arc where she loses her memories and her love for Light, while passionate, isn't quite as deranged and obsessive, and she interacts with other characters frequently. However, this doesn't last once she regains her memories.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Energetic Girl to Light's Savvy Guy.
• Secret-Keeper: Even while under L's Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Selective Obliviousness: To the nth degree. There is a major disconnect between Misa's personality and her actions, and it's safe to say that the full impact of what she does is something that she simply does not understand. (The anime at least gives her one sequence of contemplation, but it's implied at best.) There is another major disconnect between how she views those around her and what their actions are; the best example would be her adoration of Light, which continues in spite of all that Light does, but her friendship with L, who had her tortured in an earlier episode, is another.
• Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Immediately after meeting Light, Misa declares herself to be "his girlfriend."
• Serial Killer: She becomes one after obtaining her own Death Note and using it to attract Kira's attention.
• Serial-Killer Killer: Like Light, she dedicates her time to killing murderers and other criminals.
• Significant Birth Date: She was born on Christmas.
• "Silly Me" Gesture: Although not the only instance, she most notably uses one as a rather clever part of her manipulation of Higuchi.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Toward Light. She only ever expresses interest in him throughout the series and won't even kiss another guy while she's acting.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: She blushes over Light after she spies on him and looks him up on the internet, and it only gets worse from there. At twenty-six she's still completely infatuated with him. Enough to kill herself rather than live in a world without him.
• Sore Loser: When she lost against Mogi in checkers, she flipped the board.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The live action films. This actually becomes an important plot point in the novelization of the spinoff film, L: change the WorLd. She also survives in the TV drama and the musicals.
  • Subverted in Light Up the New World, in which she commits suicide - 10 years later than when she was meant to in the manga - after seemingly killing Ryuzaki II and helping Shien collect all Notes.
• Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Misa stalks Light, shows up at his house in the middle of the night, and demands he become her boyfriend. Light gets little to no say in the matter and he realizes she'll probably kill him if he says no.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Towards Light. The moment she learned who Kira really was, she immediately did research on Light and took a romantic interest in him. She even went to his home to reveal herself as the second Kira and to also ask him to make her his girlfriend.
  • She was a victim of one on the night where she was supposed to die. He was about to perform a Murder-Suicide after she rejected his "confession", but Gelus stepped in and had the man die differently. This resulted in Gelus dying for saving her.
• Stepford Smiler: She acts happy and cheerful but Beneath the Mask she is psychologically traumatized, uncaring, self-destructive, manipulative and genuinely believes that criminals should die. She has more in common with her "boyfriend" than you might think.
• Stocking Filler: Misa's outfits always showcase her legs.
• Strawberry Shorthand: It's something she and L have in common.
• Street Smart: While Misa is by no means a genius like Light or L she does have very good instincts. When meeting Light for the first time she seems to instinctively know how to appeal to Light's god complex and during the Yotsuba arc with just a little help from Rem she successfully outmaneuvered and controlled Higuchi to "solve" the Kira case.
• Sycophantic Servant: She always heaps praise onto Light, despite getting little in return.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Misa evokes quite a lot of sympathy from Kira's pursuers, considering all she has done.
  • She gains sympathy from the audience, too. Very few people will understand wanting to reign as a God over a New World, which costs Light points on the popularity front. Far more of those watching will identify with Misa's grief over losing her family and her heartfelt desire to support and help the person she loves, which is essentially what she is trying to accomplish during the story.
• Terms of Endangerment: After just meeting Light she starts calling him cutesy nicknames like "Light-darling" or "Raito-Naito." Note that this takes place right after Light thinks to himself that Misa could kill him if he refuses her.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Played for terrible tragedy as she believes that she can find her happy ending with an uncaring sociopath like Light Yagami who has no regard for her well-being and very little in the way of getting out of the hole he continues to dig himself into over the course of the series. In the end, she kills herself after he dies, deciding that she can't live without him.
• Third-Person Person: She does this to appear cute (i.e. kawaiiko). Mercifully, this was omitted for the most part in the English translation of the manga and completely eliminated in the English dub of the anime.
• Together in Death: Misa kills herself not very long after Light dies. In the anime, shots of Misa preparing to commit suicide are shown alongside shots of Light dying.
• Toxic Friend Influence: She cheers Light on in his quest, and supports him wholeheartedly. This does not help Light's particular problems in the least.
• Undying Loyalty: To a literal degree. When captured by L, she begs Rem to kill her rather than confess that Light is Kira Even after getting her memory erased of Kira's identity, her love for Light remains. It's also possible that she commits suicide after the series out of despair over Light's death.
• Unequal Pairing: She swears complete devotion to Light, assuring him that he can use her as he wishes and that he can kill her if he sees fit. Light, of course, with that raging god complex of his, views her merely as a pawn; although he has a few moments when he seems almost fond of her (usually when she's just been extremely useful), they don't last long and he quite coldly contemplates killing her throughout the series.
  • Interestingly enough, though, this also gets played back the opposite way early on. Misa forces Light to make her his girlfriend; he has little to no choice in the matter, because Rem will kill him if he attempts to off her, and he needs Misa close and controlled to protect his identity of Kira; and he also considers that Misa could kill him otherwise.
• The Unfettered: Her goal is to help Light. She will do anything to further that goal.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Light; they are engaged in the second arc.
• Unkempt Beauty: After she was released from captivity, she spent her next scene in white pj's, without makeup and with her hair down (more or less like this◊). More than one viewer thought she looked quite nice like that.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Had her parents not been killed one year prior to the series, she would've possibly grown into the same cheerful and sweet Idol Singer she is... only without the Ax-Crazy Yandereness.
• Villain Song: "Misa no Uta", sung while she's killing people, no less. "Be careful what you do, because god is watching your every move...."
• Villain with Good Publicity: She's an international model and pop star who secretly moonlights as the second Kira.
• Villainous BSoD: Suffers this in The Last Name after Sayu calls her a murderer.
• Villains Out Shopping: Besides literally going shopping with Mogi, Misa is shown having tea with Light's family, scolding Ryuk to stay and help her with the cleaning, and going about her daily job as a model and actress.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Misa is eager to kill for Light's sake. "So just take me to where L is and I'll write his name down!"
• Walking Techbane: In the manga Misa is no good with computers or technology and L mocks the poor quality of the Second Kira tapes. In the anime Misa is shown purchasing Light's personal information online.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: She is last seen in her new hotel room when Light calls her (for the last time while he's alive) and doesn't appear in the epilogue of the manga. Ohba admits in How to Read that he couldn't find a way to include her in the final chapter and confirms that she dies about a year after Light's death by suicide.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: Used to avoid attracting attention while tracking down Light and later Higuchi.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Her parents were taken away from her. Her mind completely broke. You know what happened next.
• Yandere: Misa loves Light obsessively, and has shown herself to be ready and willing to kill her competition.
  ''If I see you with another girl, then I'll kill her!"
  • This is somewhat muddled later on, when after Light proposes to her, she admits that she wouldn't actually kill all the girls he's been with prior to this since she knows they were just pawns to him (which, of course, she is too but she's not that self-aware to know this.)
  • Later, when Takada reenters Light’s life, Misa expresses jealousy towards her rival and talks of her plans to announce her engagement with Light to remind Takada that Light is with Misa. Not to mention her taunting Takada by saying she’ll mostly likely be killed by Kira.
• Yes-Man: She is completely subservient to Light, always happy to do as she's told. She is less his girlfriend and more his hopelessly devoted minion; he thinks very little of her intellectually.

Ryuk

"You're asking me why? I did it 'cause I was bored."

Voiced by: Shido Nakamura (JP, anime, movies), Jun Fukushima (Japanese, TV drama), Brian Drummond (EN), Jorge Varela (Spain), Alfonso Vallés (Spain, movies), Rolando De Castro (Latin America), Jorge Vasconcellos (BR), Emmanuel Karsen (FR)

Played by: Daisaku Nishino (motion capture, TV drama), Kotaro Yoshida/Kazutaka Ishii (musical)

Light's Shinigami sidekick, and the one who dropped Light's Death Note on Earth in the first place. Despite his terrifying appearance, he's mostly harmless (unless he gets bored), and has a fondness for apples. He tells Light about various rules of the Shinigami Realm, sometimes at extremely inconvenient times.

---

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In both the Japanese◊ and Korean◊ productions of Death Note the Musical, Ryuk is much less ugly and scary-looking than his manga counterpart.
• Adaptational Villainy: While his manga and anime incarnation could hardly be called heroic or villainous since he doesn't take sides, being more of a bystander than anything. In the TV series he is shown to be more of a prominent and will figure, in the series he intentionally drops the notebook so Light is the one to find it and goads him to use it upon seeing his hesitance.
• Advertised Extra: Ryuk is often sold as a Series Mascot of sorts, even representing the series in crossover art during the manga's original run. In the actual manga and anime, however, he is only a prominent character in the first arc, being Put on the Bus for the second, and having a substantially reduced role for the third.
• Affably Evil: Is a bit of this and Faux Affably Evil, as he can be genuinely nice to Light and Misa, but fits the latter in his malicious way of curing boredom. Of course, it's worth noting that Shinigami are not hard-wired toward compassion for humans to begin with, so from Ryuk's standpoint, his actions do not seem immoral.
• Alien Catnip: Apples are addictive to him.
• Allergic to Routine: Ryuk really disliked the fact Shinigami tend to spend their lifetimes doing nothing but writing names on their Death Notes from time to time. And when Ryuk did get a second Death Note, he decides to drop it to break the routine.
• All-Powerful Bystander: He could end the duel between Light and L at any time if he really wanted to, just by writing one of their names in his notebook. But that would be too boring for him.
• Ambiguous Situation: He has stitches surrounding his head at the distance of his collarbone, but it isn't clear if this means that his white head is stitched onto his black body or if he wears a black suit that's stitched onto his white skin.
• And Show It to You: An odd example, but the spirit is there; at the end of the manga, when Light is Out-Gambitted and is desperate enough to beg him to write the names of the Task Force in the Death Note, Ryuk instead chooses to write down Light's name and then show him the book so Light gets to spend the last 40 seconds of his life knowing his death is coming and begging to not die.
• Art Evolution: His new look for the 2016 film Light Up the New World is noticeably sharper and more intimidating.
• Audience Surrogate: For Audience members who just watch for the Cat and Mouse. He starts the whole story simply because he was bored, and mostly hangs out on the sidelines treating Light's antics like his own personal soap opera, not really caring who wins as long as it's entertaining.
• Ax-Crazy: Even for a Shinigami, his idea of fun back in the Shinigami World is attempting to kill his "friends".
• Beware the Silly Ones: He may provide a lot of comic relief, but he's still a god of death and the catalyst for the series plot. Unlike Rem, he holds no personal stake in any human's personal well-being, and once Light grows desperate enough to ask him for help, he kills him upon it becoming obvious Light has no ideas left.
• Big Bad: In the Death Note Special Chapter, he is the main antagonistic force and who carries out the plot events.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: It's difficult to really judge his actions by human standards, considering he's a member of a species from a realm far beyond humanity whose very existence is defined by claiming human lives. For all he knows, he isn't doing anything wrong because every human is destined to die anyways.
• Captain Obvious: He tends to point out obvious problems so that Light can then explain things more thoroughly (to him and to the audience).
• Character Catchphrase: To use the manga translation, "Humans are fun!"
• Cheshire Cat Grin: His face is frozen like that so he has one all the time.
• The Corrupter: In the TV drama, he intentionally drops the Death Note near Light, and goads him into using it more when Light hesitates, effectively making him the one responsible for Light becoming Kira, a stark contrast to the source material in which he was a self-acknowledged neutral bystander.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: For all his lovable goofball portrayal, we get a reminder of his status as a Death God at the end of the series, when he murders Light without a second thought for having used up his entertainment value.
• Dark Is Evil: Downplayed. He's clad in primarily dark colors, and while he's not actively malicious per say, he, like all other Shinigami, run on Blue-and-Orange Morality. He drops the Death Note in the human world out of sheer boredom, shortens other lifespans to expand his own (which is a requirement for Shinigami to survive anyways), and while is genuinely helpful to Light while explaining the rules of the Death Note, is completely honest about the fact that he's a neutral bystander and is only sticking around for laughs.
• Death Takes a Holiday: Downplayed. He maintains his function as a Shinigami and shortens more than one person's lifespan throughout the series, but his leaving the Shinigami realm to go to the human world is a holiday of sorts.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Ryuk is an apple junkie. He has withdrawal symptoms and everything, even explicitly comparing them to cigarettes.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Don't order Ryuk to kill anyone when his reason of being in the human world was to see someone else kill. When an Out-Gambitted Light asks him to write the names of the entire Task Force in his Death Note, Ryuk writes Light's name instead. He was not going to take orders from any human. Along with the small matter of shinigami who write in their Death Notes to save a human ceasing to exist; he certainly wasn't going to sacrifice himself for Light's sake.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Evil is stretching it, but as a morally ambiguous being he still has his own standards.
  • Ryuk tells Light at least once that he's even eviler than a shinigami, and generally, when Light does something particularly nasty, laughs mockingly in the background.
  • He also suggests that Light should have second thoughts about killing L after he said he thinks of Light as a friend.
  • Zigzagged with Misa wanting to make the Eye Deal a second time. He reminds her that her lifespan has already been halved by Rem when Misa originally made the deal. However, he follows through with it after she insisted she was fine with giving up another portion of her lifespan for Light.
  • Played with in the "Never Complete" one-shot. When he confronts Donald Trump over possession of a Death Note, he sarcastically muses the man values his own life over his nation's prosperity when he hastily concedes the notebook despite a monetary transaction already having gone through. However, he does call his decision "shrewd" before leaving.
  • Again in "Never Complete"; Ryuk is conflicted over warning Minoru that he was going to die if he accepted any money for selling the Death Note and honouring his promise to stop bothering him. In the end, Ryuk leaves Minoru to his fate, but doesn't chuckle at the thought of it.
• Evil Laugh: Lets lose a harsh, throaty cackle in the English dub whenever he's amused. In the manga it is written as "hyuk hyuk hyuk."
• False Friend: Though he "betrays" Light and kills him in the end, this trope is Subverted; Ryuk makes it perfectly clear that he is fated to kill Light as soon as he meets him, and, as far as things go, he really is Light's friend for all intents and purposes. It's just that loyalty and emotional attachment traditionally doesn't come with the package when you're friends with a god of death. From Ryuk's point of view, killing Light once his usefulness was lived up is just the natural way of things. No hard feelings. His speech before killing Light in the anime can even have his actions considered a Mercy Kill - he didn't want to wait until Light died in prison, implying he still had a long time to live.
• For the Evulz: Most of the bad things that happen in the series can be traced back to the fact Ryuk was bored and dropped the Death Note on Earth just to see who would pick it up and what they would do with it.
• Food as Bribe: While he claims to be neutral in Light's plans, he will occasionally aid him if Light promises him apples as compensation, such as when he used him to search for all the cameras in his room or to write fake rules in the Death Note.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: In every adaptation, Ryuk's wings are some manner of evil. In the manga, he has black crow wings, while in the film adaptation he has leathery bat wings.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's the reason the notebook is on earth in the first place. Being a genuine Shinigami, Ryuk is a greater threat to humans than Light can ever be, but he's content to watch Light work and is otherwise uninvolved with his Evil Plan.
• Greek Chorus: Serves as this a few times, notably his Inner Monologue eulogy for Soichiro.
• The Grim Reaper: He is a god of death after all and he collects the remaining lifespan from other humans.
• Hates Being Touched: More like he's rather bashful. When Misa tried hugging him, he blurred away from her, blushing and citing he's not used to it.
• The Hyena: His response to most situations is to let out an Evil Laugh .
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: He's a "triple A"; an Apple Addicted Asshole.
• I Warned You: He really, really did. Just as promised, he kills Light in the end. Even as the latter begs for his life, Ryuk simply reminds him of what he said all those years ago... Though this is averted in the anime where he kills Light and the latter dies peacefully.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Ryuk shakes with excitement when Light details his plan to kill off all the evil people in the world and declares himself God.
• Instant Taste Addiction: He falls subject to this trope when he first tries "human world apples". For context, vegetation in the shinigami realm is all dried up, so a juicy fruit is unlike anything he has ever tasted before. He immediately forms an addiction to them, even going through withdrawal symptoms.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Along with boredom, his main reason for setting off the events of the series.
• It Amused Me: Ryuk drops his Death Note into the human world, setting off all the chaos that follows, just because he's bored.
• Jerkass Gods: He's only here for laughs. He makes no secret of the fact that he is on neither Light's side nor L's and doesn't much care who wins. However this does not make him a pure Jerkass as he is shown to be quite friendly towards Light and other people who can communicate with him, though he would prefer to just enjoy the show from the sidelines.
• Karma Houdini: Despite being the one responsible for the events of the story, nothing bad happens to him.
• Keet: He's surprisingly energetic and cheery, despite appearances. Of course, the events of the series are the most fun he's had in centuries...
• Kid with the Leash: Inverted; Ryuk, and by extent, the rules of the Death Note, are often the only thing restraining Light from killing his opponents directly. Not that that stops him from getting around the rules.
• Kill You Last: To Light.
  "You know, you haven't been very nice to me. I might just write your name in my Death Note and kill you, just like that! ...I wouldn't laugh if I were you."
  • Which he does when realizing that Near's beaten him.
• Large Ham
  "The symptoms are STAAAAAAARTING!"
• Laughably Evil: He sets the entire plot in motion because he's bored, but he's just so funny that it's practically impossible not to like him.
• Lost Food Grievance: He doesn't like it when he's denied apples.
• Lying by Omission: Everything Ryuk says is true. The problem is that he never gives you the entire context. Like his telling Light not to think a human who's used a Death Note is able to go to Heaven or Hell actually means there's no afterlife for anyone. Though Light already figured that to be the case on his own.
• Man Behind the Man: He gave Light the Death Note, or rather, he arranged for someone to pick it up.
• Meaningful Name: One of the meanings of Ryuk is boredom or bored in Japanese.
• Mercy Kill: It's not outright confirmed, but the way he kills Light in the anime seems to suggest this is his intent. Light is clearly going to die one way or the other and if he somehow doesn't then he's going to prison, so Ryuk instead gives him a relatively quick and painless heart attack so he can go out with some dignity.
• Monster Clown: His white face, dark blue lips, and constant smile evokes clown imagery, when in reality he's a ruthless god of death who views the deaths of thousands of people as entertainment.
• Monster Roommate: He's a Shinigami, and he's bound to Light so long as he has the Death Note, and usually just chills out munching on apples when Light's at home.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Ryuk has a definitive row of razor sharp canines.
• Mr. Exposition: It's through Ryuk that we learn the rules of the Death Note (since he's the one who wrote them down), as well as how the eyes of the Shinigami function and the deal humans can make for their eyes.
• Mundane Utility: He uses his intangibility to poke around Light's room and find where the cameras and bugs are stashed after he suspects that L had his room tampered with.
• Noble Demon: An honest demon, as he is fully straight with Light from the start that he's on nobody's side and will probably be the one to kill him in the end.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He likes to get close to Light, especially when explaining the rules of the eye deal.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Ryuk acts like a goofball for the whole series, but his initial decision to throw a Death Note near Light Yagami, only because he wanted to have fun, is the reason why he becomes Kira, leading to the deaths of millions of people in the process. In a more concrete way, he finally uses his own Death Note at the end of the series to kill Light, as he promised in the first episode.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Ryuk conceals his knowledge of the rules of the notebook from Light in order to amuse himself.
• Out of Focus: After the Time Skip, he isn't as prominent a character as he previously was, mainly due to him having to shadow Mikami instead of Light once the former became the Death Note's owner.
• Pass the Popcorn: The whole series is him doing this. He watches disaster unfold with sheer delight, since it's entertaining. Instead of a big bucket of popcorn, however, he has apples. Many, many apples.
• Perky Goth: He is dressed in a dark manner, with lots of black, belts and chains, but he's very energetic and excitable.
• Perpetual Smiler: His default expression is that of a Cheshire Cat Grin, even when he's obviously upset or in pain.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Along with Matsuda, he provides most of the humor in the story.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He's a nigh-immortal god of death that happens to like Nintendo games (since he asked Light to play Mario Golf with him, and, in an omake, asked for a silver Game Boy Advance SP).
• Practically Joker: His default expression is a wide grin, has a morbid sense of humor, and drops the titular Death Note into the human world because he's bored and wants to see what chaos will unfold.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Ryuk is a god of death itself who sets everything off because he's bored.
• Rock Me, Asmodeus!: His character design (both the one they ultimately went with and the original Bishōnen one) evoke the image of a rockstar.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: His presence becomes significantly limited after L dies, and even more so after Mikami receives the notebook, though he does play an integral role in the final chapter.
• Shooting Superman: When the bus-jacker tries shooting him in Episode 4. He's thoroughly amused by it, and proceeds to scare the shit out of the guy.
• Slasher Smile: His literal default expression is a creepy grin on his face.
• Snarky Nonhuman Sidekick: He is a god of death and Light's sidekick, and ninety percent of his dialogue consists of deadpan commentary.
• The Sociopath: To the extent that he can be judged by human standards, Ryuk fits a great deal of the criteria. He sets the plot of the series in motion when he deliberately drops his Death Note into the human world just to see the results, and when Light himself acquires the notebook, he makes it clear that if he doesn't provide entertainment through continuing to cause carnage and mischief, his own death won't be far behind. Light himself is eager to oblige for his own reasons, but while Ryuk sometimes expresses surprise at the depths Light will sink to, it's always with amusement or appreciation, never condemnation. Throughout the series, Ryuk never quite reaches Light's level of active evil, and in fact often serves as comic relief, but his role as an amoral eager observer is never obscured. In the end, he makes good on his promise to kill Light when he outlives his entertainment value, and despite Light's pleas, shows not a trace of remorse in doing so.
• So Proud of You: He tells Light he's proud of him at his high school graduation, in a bizarrely hilarious Pet the Dog moment.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Light directly uses him as part of his plan to flush the FBI agents out by putting a death precondition of a thug that he will freak out when seeing a terrifying monster, who is Ryuk after he unwittingly touches a Death Note page.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: He crashes at Light's place the entire time he remains bonded to Light through the Death Note. He spends most of his time lounging on the bed or couch and eating apples. Justified in that he is supposed to remain close to the human owner of the Death Note to encourage him to use it (not that Light needs any encouragement) and kill him when it's his time to die.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Apples.
• Troll: He seems to enjoy messing with Light just for the sake of amusing himself.
• The Unblinking: It seems he doesn't even have eyelids.
• Video Game Culture: In the manga Ryuk pesters Light about wanting to play Mario Golf, and Ryuk begs Light to get him a silver Game Boy Advance SP for Christmas in an omake.
• Villainous Friendship: With Light, of the Evil Vitriolic Best Buds variety.
  Ryuk (sounding excited and happy): He's not the least bit daunted by the fact that I'm a Shinigami! He doesn’t suck up to me, and he seems to have no problem giving me a hard time. (Grins, AWESOME!!)
• Villains Out Shopping:
  "Hey Light, want to play some video games?"
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Light may poke at each other often but they actually enjoy each other's company.
• The Watson: Since he's constantly hanging around Light (and has to because of the Death Note bond), he is the one that Light explains all of his plans to, for the audience's benefit.
• Wild Card: He makes it clear that he's not on Light's side or L's; he's on no one's side but his own.
• You Can See Me?: He can only be seen by the current owner of the Death Note or by people who touch it. Asks this word for word, when one of Light's plans involves a criminal picking up a note written on paper of the Death Note and then freaks out upon seeing him.
• You Didn't Ask: Ryuk amuses himself by explaining certain rules of the Death Note to Light at the worst moments. He even invokes this trope word-for-word in the movie.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He doesn't kill Light because he's Entertainment Value. This is what he plans to do to Light when the latter's final days are up. He does so in the end when Near beats Light when his entertainment is pretty much over but in a less malicious way and becomes more of a Mercy Kill.
• You Monster!: Downplayed; he does call Light worse than any Shinigami at one point and multiple times seems shocked at how far he'll go, but whenever he expresses this it's not out of condemnation.

Teru Mikami/X-Kira

"DELETE!"

Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (JP), Kirby Morrow (EN), Jordi Pons (Spain), Arturo Mercado Jr. (Latin America), Flávio Back (BR), Bruno Choel (FR)

Played by: Shugo Oshinari (TV drama)

A prosecutor who holds a view of morality more black-and-white than a zebra and penguin musical in the 1920s. Has even more of a flair for the dramatic than Light, if that's even believable, and worships Kira as the true God. Light provides him with Death Note both to use him as a diversion to pull attention away for himself as well as a co-conspirator.

---

• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • In the Relight specials, Light's meetings with him and Takada are moved to earlier than occurred originally.
  • In the TV drama, he's involved in the story from the start and meets Light much earlier.
• Adaptational Heroism: In Light Up the New World, he was driven insane by Light's crazed, violent and murderous child son ^note who got a Death Note of his own from Ryuk, and was killing people, to the point he ended up killing him for fear of being killed himself. His Ax-Crazy personality is also largely omitted in the film.
• Adapted Out: Of the first two live-action movies, though he does appear in the TV drama and in Death Note: Light Up the New World.
• Amoral Attorney: Somewhat subverted; he works as a prosecutor during the day, but there are no hints that he acts like one of these, aside from Hanging Judge quirks.
• Amnesiacs are Innocent: In the manga, he loses his memory after the Death Note is burned, but is in prison when this occurs and dies ten days later. On the other hand, he survives in the TV drama.
• Alas, Poor Villain: While Mikami is a deranged fanatic, his final moments in the anime are extremely depressing. Firstly Light rejects knowing him, to say Mikami was heartbroken by this would be putting it lightly. Then he sees Light someone he sees as equal to a god shot multiple times and reduced to a crying bloody wreck on the floor. Throughout the finale Mikami looks on the verge of breaking into pieces and eventually he ends up stabbing himself in the heart with a pen just to buy Light some time and also because of how broken he is by this point, dying in complete agony. It's All for Nothing as Light is killed by Ryuk very soon after Mikami's death.
  • Mikami was just as deranged as Light if not more so, even so ultimately he's yet another victim of Light's manipulation just as Misa and Kiyomi were and in general it's sad to see someone who initially had genuinely good intentions to help his classmates end up a fanatical murderer who died a horrible death at his own hands because his good ideals got warped into something very twisted after years of bullying and then was used as a weapon by Light who then threw him away to save his own skin.
• All for Nothing: Kills himself in the anime so Light can escape the warehouse, Ryuk kills Light mere minutes after this.
• Ascended Fanboy: Or more specifically, ascended Kira worshiper.
• Ax-Crazy: By far, one of the most insane characters in the series. Say it with me: "DELETE." Some added scenes in Relight 2 makes this even worse.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Wears a suit almost all the time.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears one exclusively when seen as an adult.
• Beat It by Compulsion: Near uses this strategy with Mikami, who neatly and precisely writes a certain amount of names down in the Death Note per day, to calculate which pages of the notebook to replace and which to leave.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Even more so than Light. While Light falls into this after getting his hands on the Death Note, Mikami has always had it and getting the Death Note just made it a whole lot worse. Mikami's also a lot more extreme in his views than Light, seeing those who commit minor crimes or are simply lazy as equally deserving of Kira's retribution as murderers and rapists, a stance which even Light disapproves of.
• Broken Pedestal: In the manga, Mikami loses his faith in Kira and outright tells Light he's no god after he claims he does not know Mikami, as well as Near's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Bully Hunter: According to his Back Story, although his efforts always end up with him getting his arse kicked. He hasn't given it up completely, as in the present, he intervenes as an adult to a group of children picking on their classmate with a stern look.
• Bumbling Sidekick: He's actually fairly intelligent compared to Misa, but his issue was that he was actually too proactive for his own good. He accidentally exposes a vulnerability in Light's plan that ends up costing the both of them.
• Calling Your Attacks: Overlaps with Madness Mantra: "Delete. Delete. Delete."
• Character Catchphrase: "Delete. Delete. Delete." And to a lesser extent: "GOD!!!"
• Class Representative: In his Back Story.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Official color seems to be purple. Wardrobe tends towards black, white, and blood red.
• Creature of Habit: He follows a daily schedule down to the minute. The fact that he broke from this schedule is what tipped Near off to Light's plan and ultimately resulted in Light's defeat.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was ruthlessly bullied throughout his childhood, and he felt that his mother, the only person he had, didn't support his crusade or his ideals.
• Deadly Upgrade: "Shinigami... I thank you for these eyes."
• Death by Adaptation: His suicide in the anime means he doesn't live 10 days longer while imprisoned like in the manga.
  • Is finally mentioned in Death Note: Light Up the New World, except he's already dead when the story begins.
• Despair Event Horizon: Having Light yell at him and claim to not know who he is causes him to emit a soul-crushing groan. Seeing Light on the floor dying from gunshot wounds while whimpering like a dog in a pool of his own blood causes his mind to snap like a twig.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Commits suicide in the anime, while it's never fully answered how he dies in the manga.
• Distaff Counterpart: Can be considered the Spear Counterpart of Misa.
• The Dragon: "The Hand of Kira."
• Driven to Suicide: At least, in the anime. In the credits scene, his body is apparently just left there to rot.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The emphasis here is on "eerie."
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: A notable subversion - as he sees his mother as someone who tolerates the bullies of the world rather than opposing them, he is ecstatic when she dies, taking it as a sign that God is looking out for him.
• Evil Is Hammy: ”Delete. DELETE. DELETE!”
• Evil Is Petty: When it comes down to it, his entire motive for being evil is motivated purely because he was bullied at school.
• Evil Overlord List: Subversion of item 5, in a darkly humorous manner. Apparently keeping the artifact that is the source of your power in your safety deposit box doesn't quite cut it.
• Fatal Flaw: Predictability. Mikami is highly intelligent and fairly cunning on his own, but he also keeps to a schedule so precisely that his daily actions can be calculated down to the minute. Once the SPK catches on to him, they quickly cotton on to his schedule, making him incredibly easy to keep under surveillance at all times. And of course, the one time he breaks his usual schedule is ultimately what tips Near off to Light's plan.
• Felony Misdemeanor: At one point, his killing spree extends to innocent people that commit such minor crimes as being lazy; even Light himself disapproves of him doing so.
• Foil: His motivations are on paper the same as Light's except Mikami is a fanatic who honestly believes that he is making the world a better place by "deleting" evil people while Light's crusade is a thinly veiled excuse for him to assert his dominance onto the world.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Despite wearing glasses and trading his regular eyes for Shinigami Eyes, he's still not very compassionate.
• Four Is Death: He is the fourth Kira. His office is number four.
• Freak Out: At the end when he realizes that he's using the wrong Death Note.
• Freudian Excuse: Subverted. His tragic past, while certainly traumatic, was nothing more than a particularly bad case of middle school bullying that he blew way out of proportion, making it quite clear that there was something wrong with him from the beginning. To further emphasize this, he's the only character in the entire series who gets a flashback sequence, reflecting his obsession with the supposed significance of these events.
• Gone Horribly Right: Light recruited Mikami in search of a pair of Shinigami eyes who, unlike Misa, could act independently while adhering to his will. What ended up screwing the two over was that Mikami turned out to be too independent and similar to Light for his own good. He believed that he needed to act and kill Takada since he was under the impression that Light was unable to do so, and Light assumed Mikami would simply be an unquestioning servant. In the end, it was a lack of proper communication between the two that brought their downfall.
• Gonk: From the Yellow Box scene onward he's barely recognizable as human.
• Gorn: His bloody suicide in the anime, with High-Pressure Blood galore.
• Harmful to Minors: He was around the same age as Light (when Light first got the Death Note) when after years of abuse he began to think the world would be better off without certain people in it. Then all the people he secretly wanted dead died, explaining why they are messed up in the same way.
• Hello, Attorney!: A Bishōnen prosecutor? Yes, please!
• Hates Their Parent: When his mother discouraged his Bully Hunter tendencies (out of genuine concern for him, notably), he came to resent her and wished for her to die. And then she did.
• Hero Secret Service: Protects Light's cover of Kira being blown by taking over the Kira job.
• Hollywood Hacking: In the manga it shows how Mikami uses his hacking skills to cover his tracks when sending messages to Takada.
• I Just Want to Be Special: When people kept coincidentally dying around him he came to believe he possessed the power to delete evil, even before gaining those powers via the Death Note.
• Informed Ability: While he's certainly shown to be smart, considering he has a successful career as a prosecutor and can keep up with Light's plans, he is not quite at the level of savants such as Light or Near. He often defaults to blind obedience to Light's instructions. Ironically, the one time he acts outside of Light's direct instructions is what leads to their undoing.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: He's frequently shown alone; in one scene in his introduction, he's drinking coffee by himself in the corner of the recreation yard.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: When he takes pleasure in his mother being killed in a car accident.
• Knight Templar: Blinded by extreme ideals, zealous, devoted, and insane, even before he gets the Death Note. Most notably, he even targets lazy individuals who don't contribute directly to society, something that disturbed even Light, who believed that it was not the right time to do so.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In the manga, Mikami mysteriously dies ten days after Light's defeat, leading Matsuda to theorize Near wrote in the Death Note so as to restrict his actions, enabling Light's conviction. In the anime, he commits suicide on the spot, which implies no such influence.
• Namedar: He makes the eye deal.
• Nightmare Face: Several of them at the warehouse.
• Not So Stoic: When he's killing and in the Yellow Warehouse.
• Obsessively Organized: His writing is meticulous, consistent and neatly written, his clothes are wrinkle-free, he follows his daily schedule without mistake and only writes one page in the Death Note full per day.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Mikami goes to the bank on the 25th of every month, unless the bank is closed on the 25th. When Mikami goes to the bank on the 25th and again on the 26th, it's so strange that it tips Gevanni off that something went down and it leads him to find the real Death Note.
• The Pen Is Mightier: Both for all the people he kills on Kira's behalf, and for when he commits suicide in the anime.
• Person of Mass Destruction: As a Kira, he kills many.
• Psycho Supporter: Worshipping Light as God does not help Light's problems.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Even more so than Light. While Light's incredibly naive outlook on morality is based on the philosophical pondering of a high school student, Mikami's is based on the the philosophical pondering of a middle school student. And Light at least has the excuse of being a high school student.
• Pure Is Not Good: "Evil should be deleted."
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He took the deal of getting Shinigami Eyes.
• Religion of Evil: He worships Light as God.
• Right-Hand Cat: He has one in the manga.
• Samaritan Syndrome: This + Who's Laughing Now? = his Start of Darkness.
• Schedule Fanatic: Sticks to it religiously.
• Secret-Keeper: For Light.
• Self-Serving Memory: Mikami chooses to believe that his mother told him to stop being a Bully Hunter at school because of his conspiracy theory that she was secretly in league with the bullies, when it's quite clear she was just worried about her son getting bullied and beaten up every day and wanted him to take better care of himself, as any mother would.
• Serial-Killer Killer: The fourth Kira, taking over this job.
• Slasher Smile: Often.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: In his early appearances, he is a very quiet and understated man, but listening to him describe his past during his introductory monologue as the new Kira you can tell he's a man so far in Black-and-White Insanity that he quietly snapped some time in high school and is waiting for an outlet to explode through. Which he does. With great aplomb.
• Spanner in the Works: Leads to Light's downfall by thinking TOO much like him.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He doesn't die in the TV drama. Doubles as a Karma Houdini, as he loses all memories of having ever used the notebook.
• The Stoic: When he's out in public.
• Straight Edge Evil: Murder? Sure - it's for the good of the new world, and evil deserves only deletion. But drink or drugs? No way.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: One of the main reasons Light picked him to be the next Kira. Perhaps the two are too similar: in the end, it costs them everything.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Some consider him to be this, given his resemblance to Light and that his name is basically Light's backwards.
• Tautological Templar: When his mother scolded him for fighting bullies at school, Mikami declares her an enemy of justice, and when she and said bullies subsequently die in a car accident, he's ecstatic, taking it to mean that God was looking out for him. He takes Kira's mission even further than Light himself when he begins to kill reformed criminals and even lazy people.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: While he's nowhere near as socially adept as Light is, Mikami still has a career as a successful prosecutor and has the appearance of a handsome, withdrawn man.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: He will gladly kill hundreds, even thousands of evil people, if it means to rid the world of evil once and for all, so that supreme justice can rule.
• Unequal Pairing: He is often shipped with Light, whom he literally worships.
• Unreliable Narrator: In the anime he himself, rather than an omniscient narrator, narrates the flashbacks to his youth. He thus has an unfavorable view of his mother's advice to stop fighting against the bullies, whereas the manga's narrator noted that she was motivated by genuine concern for his welfare that was largely lost on him.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Played tragically straight.
• Villainous Breakdown: So, so much. Especially towards the end.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Like Light was in the beginning, he only wants to delete evil. But in the enas his insanity grows, he just blindly kills whoever Light tells him to.
• Who's Laughing Now?: All the bullies that were against him all die when he wants them to. And now he has actual control over their lives!
• Wicked Cultured: He's a graduate from a prestigious college, always had perfect grades and is one of the best prosecutors in the city.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: With the Death Note, he goes from a focused, serious lawyer with ridiculously high standards of justice to a monumentally ruthless Ax-Crazy psychopath.
• Would Hurt a Child: In Light Up the New World, he kills Light's son.

L and his allies

L Lawliet

L Lawliet (エル・ローライト, Eru Rōraito)

"Coincidence? No, too convenient. This can only mean that Kira has access to police information. It's obvious now, this is a direct challenge to me."

Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi (JP), Alessandro Juliani (EN), Roger Pera (Spain), Claudi Domingo (Spain (Relight)), Hugo Núñez (Latin America), Sérgio Cantú (BR), Guillaume Lebon (FR)

Played by: Kenichi Matsuyama (films), Kento Yamazaki (TV drama), Teppei Koike (musical - Japan), Kim Junsu (musical - Korea)

"I don't sit like this because I want to. I have to sit like this. You see, if I were to sit normally, my deductive skills would immediately be reduced by roughly 40%."

The Antagonist of the series, but not the villain.

L is the greatest detective in the Death Note world, able to control and work through the police force worldwide and notorious for uncovering seemingly unsolvable crimes, he's called in to work on the Kira (as Light is known) case. Since Kira needs a face and name to be able to kill people and L does not make public appearances and hides behind aliases (L being the most famous) he is the ideal opponent for Kira since neither knows the identity of the other. He establishes Kira's location by tricking him into killing an unknown death row inmate announcing himself as "L" on a live TV broadcast filmed only in the Kanto region of Japan and deduces his age soon afterward by observing his simplistic, somewhat immature concept of justice and out-of-school-hours killings.

Having established which members of the Japanese police department he can trust (which include Light's father) he names Light as a suspect for Kira and with a simple combination of remorseless logic, barely legal methods and sugar intake, he places obstacles for him—and eventually Misa—to prove his theory, leaving them barely able to stay two steps ahead of him.

He is the opposing Deuteragonist of the series. His real name, revealed in an encyclopedia of the series (How To Read 13), is L Lawliet.

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• 20% More Awesome: He occasionally gives statistics about how right he is. The official guide claims that he makes these up to sound more credible, while another claims that whenever he mentions a statistic at all, he's always 99% sure. So all that "5%" or "47%" or whatever meant he was almost totally sure every time, a claim that seems dubious when you consider that L frequently uses these statistics in his inner monologues. However, this makes sense when one considers that his statistics likely only factor in hard evidence. So when he says the likelihood of Light being Kira is near zero, it means he has no evidence at all that Light is Kira since Light is smart enough to leave none at all. However, he realizes from profiling Light that he is almost certainly Kira due to how perfectly he matches Kira's own profile. So when he states these statistics, it is likely just a ruse to get Light to lower his guard.
• Adaptational Dye-Job
  • In the Korean production of the stage musical, he sports short, light brown hair◊ as opposed to long and black.
  • Him being exceptionally pale was a stylistic choice in the anime. He is colored more naturally in the manga.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Is a lot more arrogant and condescending in the TV drama.
• Adaptation Personality Change: This L is calm and collected to the point of apathy with a tendency to rarely actually lose control of his temper. However, his counterpart in the American Netflix movie is a lot more Hot-Blooded and emotional.
• Admiring the Abomination: L only takes on cases that interest him and though understated he finds Kira/Light quite fascinating and regards him as a Worthy Opponent. L gets very annoyed at the appearance of a Second Kira because it's not his Kira and not playing by the same rules. In the live action movies he's clearly entertained by watching Light manipulate Naomi Misora on the monitors.
  Souichiro Yagami: We have to stop this!
  L: We're just getting to the good part.
• Allergic to Routine: Very easily bored, and even prolongs the Kira case just for the rush.
• Alliterative Name: His full name is L Lawliet. This is only alliterative spelling-wise, though.
• Always Someone Better: To Light, in terms of pure intellect. L usually manages to stay a step ahead of Light during their mind games, simply due to Light being unable to grasp the bigger picture. For instance, L's deduction test with the photos of Kira's victims, Light assumes that L is simply trying to bait him into saying something Kira would know. However, he fails to realize that L is actually profiling him with behavior that lines up with Kira's actions. Indeed, Light lets slip that he is a sore loser with a bit of an ego streak, and demonstrates a brilliant intellect that perfectly matches Kira's capabilities, raising L's suspicions. Additionally, Light finds refuge in his ability to play the part of innocence perfectly, but L has the clarity to realize that it is suspicious for a suspect to appear completely immaculate when it is normal for even unlikely suspects to have some traits that suggest guilt. It is this that cements L's hunch that Light is Kira as certainty, and only then does he completely lock on to Light in search of evidence.
• Anti-Hero: Not exactly your ideal type of hero. While he does try to capture Kira because he's a murderer, his main motivation is because he sees Kira as a challenge and willfully prolongs the case, endangering countless lives in the process, simply to have more fun with him. Furthermore, he strongly detests physical contact with anyone and is close to emotionally dead. As far as his morality is concerned, he is willing to achieve the good goal of capturing Kira (Light) with evil means, such as kidnapping, not preventing murder, invasion of privacy and torture.
• Arch-Enemy: To Kira / Light Yagami. He sees his chase as a great challenge.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Alone with Light on a roof in the rain, clearly able to tell he's about to die, he asks Light one question that makes the rain go silent.
  L: Tell me, Light, from the moment you were born has there ever been a moment where you told the truth?
• At Least I Admit It: For all his similarities to Light, L at least has enough self-awareness to be aware of his flaws, even admitting he shares the same childishness and Sore Loser tendencies as Kira in front of the rest of the Task Force. Light, meanwhile, is a perfectionist who would sooner declare himself God than admit he made a mistake.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In the second episode, L is able to deduce several different things about Kira from one televised broadcast. Throughout the show, L is also shown assessing situations, analyzing happenings and their effects, and planning his next move.
• Back for the Finale: Anime-only. In the final episode, he appears before a dying Light. Whether his ghost is actually there, he's Back from the Dead or whether he's just a Dying Dream is never made clear.
• Badass Boast: When first revealing himself to Kira after Light took his bait:
  L:"But I assure you - L is real. I do exist. Now - try to kill me!"
• Badass Bookworm: He's a brilliant detective, and quite able to hold his own in the occasional fistfight with Light.
  L: I'm a lot stronger than I look, y'know.
• Badass Normal: Unlike Light, he does not have a magic notebook or shinigami eyes, and his badassery is largely due to his own intellect and Chessmaster abilities.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The kick he delivers to Light after getting punched was identified by a fan to be a move in Capoeira. The creator decided to make it canon that L is skilled in it.
• Barefoot Loon: Is a brilliant but eccentric detective who has a penchant for going barefoot.
• Batman Gambit: The Do Not Adjust Your Set one being only his first in the series. He was counting on Kira's ego being bigger than his reason.
• Benevolent Boss: As opposed to Light's Bad Boss nature to Misa, Ryuk, and and Rem. L treats his allies very politely and, though far from affectionate, shows genuine concern for their wellbeing while they hunt down the serial killer Kira.
• Big Eater: L is only ever shown eating sweets, and it's all the time.
• Big Good: He fulfills this role as the one heading the Task Force to take down the serial killer Kira, and remains Light's biggest opponent through the series. Subverted in that his reason to do so is not out of morality, but boredom.
• Big Sleep: When he dies in the episode "Silence." L sees the triumphant smirk on Light's face, realizes he was indeed Kira all along, and closes his eyes as he passes.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Sometimes. He apparently takes 2 months off of his own investigation and refuses to work on it again until Light points to the Yotsuba Group as potential suspects.
• Bullying a Dragon: L's main tactic to reveal Light as Kira seems to be to just keep annoying him. Justified in that there really is no evidence other than to test Light's reactions.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: His diet consists almost entirely of sweets, he's permanently unkempt and barefoot, and has too many strange mannerisms to count. He's also the smartest character in the series.
• But Not Too Foreign: He's "...a quarter Japanese, a quarter English, a quarter Russian and... maybe a quarter French or Italian..."
• Celibate Hero: He was never interested in romantic relationships.
• The Chains of Commanding: As L, he lives under constant threat of death, has to contend with people dying on his watch, mistrust from the police and from the public and avoiding choosing a successor. Oh, and no social life.
• Character Catchphrase: "I am JUSTICE!" (Both he and Light have this catchphrase.)
• Characterization Marches On: Prior to his face being shown, L was overall less eccentric and simply seemed to be an extremely reclusive man with a few quirks. Most notably, he is seen sitting more normally, meditating with his back straight rather than his iconic crouch, and seemed to prefer sitting on bare floors rather than chairs. According to Obata, this was somewhat intentional to make him seem more credible as a detective as opposed to a complete loon. Also, his early design had some notable discrepancies, originally having wavier hair and was drawn to be more handsome with a prominent jawline.
• Characterizing Sitting Pose: He has a penchant for sitting with both of his feet in the chair, which helps him to think and demonstrates his eccentricity.
• The Chessmaster: He is the world's smartest detective and has used various strategies and tactics to get even closer to Kira.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He has odd gestures and a very unusual personality. It is unclear how much of it is genuine, however.
• Collector of the Strange: L collects criminals, which is all well and good for a detective, but his way is a bit... creepy. Along with Aiber and Wedy, in the manga, L has an army of peepers at his disposal who do his bidding and help him set up surveillance cameras everywhere. Also in Another Note there's the implication that he steals the names of his vanquished rivals and uses them as his detective aliases.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Official color seems to be blue. According to Obata, his assigned color is gold. Grey also seems to be a recurring color.
• The Comically Serious: He has a dry sense of humor, after all.
• Confirmed Bachelor: He is canonically of the Married to the Job variety as opposed to Armored Closet Gay. Regardless, he shows no interest in romance.
• Consummate Liar: To the point where no one can be sure if L is telling the truth, or lying.
• Covert Pervert: Subverted, perhaps, because he may have grabbed Misa's magnificent ass, but only to steal her phone.
• Crazy-Prepared: He's prepared to use any tactics. He has money and resources set aside for every scenario imaginable... and some not!
• Creepy Good: For a certain definition of good. He has No Social Skills, Looks Like Cesare, and is the good guy.
• Creepy Monotone: The English anime, at least, puts this to good use.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Has these as a result of being The Insomniac.
• Dark Is Not Evil: His appearance is a bit... chilling: he is extremely pale, Looks Like Cesare and has Messy Hair. He's also very stoic. And his name sounds like "low light." However, he's still on the justice's side.
• Dance Battler: He knows Capoeira.
• Dark and Troubled Past: L is an orphan who has been raised to be the world's best detective. He doesn't consider anyone a friend, his lies to Light and Misa aside.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has a very dry sense of humor.
  Misa: I couldn't live in a world without Light!
  L: Yes, that would be dark.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In Another Note it's strongly implied that L takes the names or aliases of his vanquished rivals as trophies: "Ryuzaki" is from the LABB murder case and "Eraldo Coil" and "Deneuve" came out of "detective wars". If things had gone differently in the Kira case, L might have taken to calling himself "Light Yagami".
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Allows himself to be punched in the face before kicking Light hard.
• Determinator: He hates to lose.
• Deuteragonist: He is the second viewpoint character after Light, who is the protagonist and share nearly the same amount of screen-time prior to being killed, likely because the creators realized focusing the story entirely on a person as reprehensible as Light would make it too hard to watch.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: How he's introduced. He basically goes on television and tells Kira through his stand-in Lind L. Tailor where he can put his justice. Kira, of course, kills Tailor immediately, thinking that it's L. Then, L keeps on taunting him anyway.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: He passes away in Light's arms.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: While both the manga and anime have L die by Rem's hands by her writing his name into the Death Note, in the Japanese live-action film series, he avoids this by writing his own name into Misa's. This ultimately allows him to defeat Light, at the cost of dying 23 days later. Thus, he still dies from a Death Note induced heart attack, he does so in a radically different context.
• Didn't See That Coming: He, the master of I Know You Know I Know, didn't realize that he was dealing with an Outside-Genre Foe in the form of the supernatural Death Note and the existence of Shinigami. When he discovers this, he's so surprised he falls right out of his chair, and he continues to be taken off guard because he didn't know all of the rules surrounding Death Notes.
• Ditzy Genius: Quirky, but very smart. He was stated by the author to be the most intelligent character in the series, and has enough idiosyncrasies and few enough social skills that he can barely interact. Generally hyper-competent, he tends to fail in normal conversations and interpersonal relations.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He is killed at the midpoint of the story, and Light reigns over the world as a god for several years before finally being brought down himself by the SPK and members of the Kira Task Force.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: He sets up the initial one of the series, identifying himself as Kira's sworn enemy.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: In the novel, Naomi's sarcastic remarks at the beginning apparently go over his head.
• Do Not Go Gentle: The main plot of L: Change the WorLd involves him solving one last case before he dies (due to how he avoided his original death in the manga and anime by writing his own name into the Death Note).
• Donut Mess with a Cop: L, unsurprisingly, polishes off a whole box by himself.
  • In the live-action adaptation, he creates a donut kebab by placing several on a skewer.
• Driven to Suicide: In the musical, he's killed by Light this way, dying of a gunshot wound to the head.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the manga, he had messy, wavy hair during his first appearance (where his face is obscured) instead of the familiar spikey hair we know and appeared slightly more muscular. The first time he was fully seen (when he reveals himself to the Task Force), he had eyebrows and didn't slouch. He also held things normally and sat in a meditating pose.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: He has an extremely pale skin, and was specifically designed to be unattractive.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: "You can call me whatever you like, but I'm taking your cake."
• Et Tu, Brute?: He realizes that Light, the person he is working alongside with, is once again Kira, moments before his death.
• Everyone Has Standards: He only takes on cases that he's interested in, but expresses an apparently sincere belief that he finds Kira thinking of himself as a god and killing people he doesn't approve of unacceptable.
• Evil Twin: Has one in the form of Beyond Birthday in Another Note, although it's unclear if BB is literally L's twin or not.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: As a consequence of being an insomniac and invoked the presumably exhaustive nature of his work, L has prominent eye bags.
• The Exotic Detective: L is the only member of the task force that isn't Japanese; he was raised in England.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Soichiro Yagami and the other detectives are visibly surprised when they meet L.
• Expy: Of Sherlock Holmes according to invoked Obata. As the most famous fictional detective of all time, L is a bafflingly eccentric detective with multiple talents who's wholly dedicated to his work, and he will be willing to use morally questionable tactics to achieve his goals.
• Extreme Doormat: Despite being one of the most powerful and influential people on Earth, he acts like one. It might (in part) be an act of some sort to lure Kira out as it's also been seen that he can be just as stubborn as Light. In Another Note it's teased that he was raised as some sort of Tyke-Bomb which would go far to explaining this behavior.
• Extremity Extremist: On the rare occasions he fights physically, he mainly uses kicks.
• Face Death with Dignity: In the anime, he attempts to have one last heartfelt conversation with Light that implies he knows his time is not long. As he is dying, he quietly accepts that Light has beaten him, but indicates he had one last contigency before dying.
  • In the Japanese version of musical, his last words before dying are "you haven't won, Yagami." In the Korean version, they are a quiet "I was right".
  • The live-action film series ends with him having one last talk with Sochiro, thanking him for all his help. Change the WorLd expands on this with him opting to solve one last case just before he dies, up until that final chat.
• The Faceless: We do not see L's face for the first few chapters. His face is finally revealed when he officially, and physically, introduces himself to the Japanese Police Force.
• False Friend: To Light and Misa. The creators confirmed that. He always lied.
  • Although this may be more complicated as he knew that they both were False Friends themselves, so he knew they couldn't ever be his friends. It may well be that he wanted to be friends deep down.
  • Also complicated by the Anime-exclusive foot washing scene. To Light's surprise and confusion, L asks if it will be lonely because he and Light will be "parting ways soon," foreshadowing the fact that he will die and that he likely knew about it. He seemed genuinely saddened by the prospect of being separated from Light, and says so in the Japanese dub. It's also possible that he's disappointed that their game is coming to an end. As well, he is the last thing Light sees before he dies at the end of the anime, implying that if it wasn't just a random hallucination, L came to escort him to the afterlife.
• Fatal Flaw: If he hadn't drawn out the case to keep playing mind games with Light because it amused him, he would have lived to the end of the series.
• Fiction 500: He has a hotel built solely to house (and disguise) a heavily secured task force headquarters, pays for everyone on the task force's life insurance, hands them gadget belts, can afford to hire a professional con man and an international thief, and still has enough left over that his successor can just pour a waterfall of hundred-dollar bills out the top of a building.
• Flashback Nightmare: The opening of episode 25.
• Foil: To Light Yagami. Both are extremely intelligent young men who can play others like a fiddle, but while Light uses his smarts to commit acts of tyranny and oppression he believes are for the greater good, L uses his genius to prevent them and/or catch the criminal(s) responsible. Furthermore, both L and Light have a whole reciprocal shadow thing going. Light is the social one, who not only understands but really cares about proper socialization and not being indecorous, but as Kira he's also the one who's the most prolific serial killer in history. L is antisocial and willfully unsocialized, and he doesn't really care about a little thing like illegal detainment, mock executions, and torture, but he's the one trying to enforce the fact that you don't go around killing people, and he means it. Enough to be unwilling to test the Death Note. They're certainly both liars. The primary difference between L and Light — two childish geniuses who hide behind their claims of justice — is that L has emotional intelligence and is capable of accepting and coping with his own and the world's flaws, something that Light absolutely refuses to do.

  L: "Kira is childish and he hates losing... I am also childish and I hate to lose. That's how I know."

• Freak Out: He starts screaming hysterically when it's suggested that Shinigami are behind the Kira killings.
• Friendless Background: L has no friends.
• Friend to All Children: Despite his poor social skills, L is pretty nice with kids, especially at Wammy's House, and children treat him with a beloved reverence, except Near.
• The Gadfly: L will often say things he doesn't mean just to get a reaction.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: He's a genius and he always has something sweet nearby. The justification for this is that he thinks so hard all the time that his brain literally burns every calorie he ingests almost as soon as he eats it, so he needs to constantly supply himself with high-calorie meals.
• The Glomp: Glomps Naomi at the end of Another Note. It's his way of thanking her for her efforts.
• Godzilla Threshold: L backs Light into such a tough corner that he has to resort to manipulating Rem into killing L just to get rid of him.
• Good Counterpart: To B.B. / Beyond Birthday. While L is a Cloudcuckoolander Anti-Hero, B.B. is an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer who looks exactly like him.
• Good Is Not Soft: L is not above using torture and treating other people like mere tools, even if he recognizes the immorality of a Serial Killer.
• Great Detective: The top three, actually.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: Even after his death, L's influence on Near and Mello (his allies and mentors) still lived.
• Guile Hero: Relies on his keen intellect.
• Gut Feeling: He is suspicious of Light from the moment he meets him. Guess what, L, you were right.
• Hates Being Touched: Zig-zagged. He tenses up and trembles when Aizawa roughly grabs him by the shoulder in one instance. But in another, when Misa kisses him on the cheek he responds rather positively to the gesture, blurting, "I could actually fall for you." It might depend on context.
• The Hero: He's the one who starts the chase against Kira.
• Hero Antagonist: As opposed to Light.
• The Hero Dies: L, one of the most epic heroic antagonists in Shōnen who nearly took down Kira, ends up murdered by Kira himself.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The public and the police don't trust L because he hides behind a computer screen.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the Alternate Continuity, Death Note: The Last Name. He writes his name in the Death Note with the longest possible time until his death, and is able to survive and catch Light before he dies.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: A completely falsified version with Light. They attend the same college, are constantly hanging out and later on begin living together, with L calling Light the only real friend he's had in his entire life. In reality, all of this is a sham and both are simply playing mind games with the other to further raise the stakes of their battle.
• Hikikomori: Justified by Mello on the grounds that L's life was always in danger, due to his line of work.
  • Subverted in the "L: One Day" mini-manga, where it's shown that he goes to amusement parks, concerts, and out for walks in his free time.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: The Yotsuba Group attempts to hire Eraldo Coil, the world's second greatest detective, to hunt him down. L is not worried... because he is Eraldo Coil. Both the second and third greatest detectives in the world are aliases of L.
  L: I've found that people who try to find me usually fall for this.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": In The Last Name, it's revealed that his first name is actually L.
• Hollywood Heart Attack: Averted. When Rem kills him with her Death Note, instead of the chest-clutching dramatics other characters go through, he simply falls sideways off of his chair, living just long enough to realize Light really was Kira the entire time.
• Honor Before Reason: He's almost certain it's Light from the very beginning but instead of say nabbing him in the middle of the night or just shooting him, he insists on waiting until he has 100% proof before making an arrest. Of course, killing him without evidence that he's right would pretty easily turn the police against him, especially since the police chief is Light's father.
• How Did You Know? I Didn't: L didn't expect that the "fake worldwide Interpol broadcast" plan, done in order to lure Kira out, would work as well (well enough to know where he lived with only a single broadcast) as it did.
• Hurricane Kick: Ow, Light, that looked like it hurt.
• Hypocrite: He tells Light that it's illegal to murder outside of the law, but he does plenty of illegal things, like spying, kidnapping, and torture, in his efforts to catch Kira. He's even willing to let both criminals and the innocent die just to prove Kira's identity during the investigation of Yotsuba. Granted, he's never murdered someone outside of the law.
• I Am a Monster: Says this almost word for word in a flashback in Relight 2 when one of the children at Wammy's asks him what he's afraid of.
  L:"Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters. (...) If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it. Because in truth, I am that monster."
• I Am the Noun: "I am JUSTICE!"
• I Did What I Had to Do: Many times.
• I Have Many Names: Besides L, he's also known as Ryuzaki, Eraldo Coil, Deneuve, and Hideki Ryuga. In Another Note, Mello estimated the amount of aliases that L possessed to be in the three digit range, and wonders which one of them finally killed him (not knowing that it was none of them), or if L himself even knew.
• The Insomniac:
  Aizawa: So, when does Ryuzaki sleep?
  Matsuda: I once saw him sleeping in a chair in that position ... No, really!
• Insufferable Genius: He seems confident enough in his abilities that he thinks he can keep a supernatural killer an arm's length close to him. Exaggerated in the TV drama, wherein the pilot episode has him behave impolitely to Soichiro's face.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: To the point where very few people have actually seen him in person; most of his interaction is done via a computer screen and a voice changer.
• Interpol Special Agent: Interpol agrees to bring in L for the Kira case.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what little Ls are made of. In one of the Omakes, he got some 3D nail art done (And for someone who bites his nails a lot, he always manages to look nicely manicured!). Plus he has cross-dressed for cases before as shown in the novel, where he dresses as a woman to pass as Maki's mother and goes all out with it, flirting with the FBI agent with them, even calling him "darling".
  • It's also worth noting that in Japan, sweet foods are coded as "feminine", and L notably has a major sweet tooth
• It Amused Me: His main motivation revolves around this trope. He mostly goes after Kira simply For the Lulz. In fact, part of L's reputation is that he refuses to take on a case that doesn't interest and challenge him, even though he's leagues above the rest of the world's police.
• It's Personal: His reason for getting involved with the Beyond Birthday case; ordinarily, L only takes on cases where there are more than 10 victims and/or more than $10 million at stake.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: His last words are, "Everyone, the shinigami-" The Death Note's effects kick in before he can finish his thought.
• Killed Off for Real: In the manga and in episode 25 of the anime after Light corners Rem into writing down L's name in the Death Note to prevent Misa from being arrested as Kira.
• The Last Dance: In the live-action film continuity, L: Change the WorLd is a whole movie Interquel where L aims to solve one more case before he dies in 23 days, thanks to him writing his name in the Death Note to defeat Light in The Last Name.
• Leitmotif: L's Theme is fast-paced and intense, perfectly representing his thought process as he tries to solve the Kira case. You can practically hear him putting the pieces together in his mind. It has many different variations.
• Legacy Hero: L becomes one of these; Light and later Near adopt his persona and identity, though the "mask" is only a letter on a computer screen. Also played with in that everyone Light passes the mantle of Kira to is just a fall guy.
• Lighter and Softer: His film counterpart in L: change the WorLd.
• Limited Wardrobe: L is almost never, if ever, seen wearing anything but that pyjama-top-and-jeans ensemble. He even shows up at To-Oh University's Opening Ceremony to give a speech dressed that way!
• Loners Are Freaks: Unnerves a lot of people with his appearance and habits.
• Looks Like Cesare: Probably because he's The Insomniac.
• Martial Pacifist: He's a perfectly skilled fighter in Capoeira. However, he would only use these skills in very exceptional cases.
• Manchild: He self-confesses to be rather childish and sore loser, not unlike Kira himself. Unlike Soichiro, L himself doesn't really care particularly for justice, seeing all his cases to be games to be solved for his entertainment. He is not good with interpersonal relationships, requiring Watari, and near exclusively eats sweets as a child would. What differentiates him from Light is that he at least has the self-awareness to realize his faults and is mature enough to realize that actual lives are at stake and tries to protect them as best as possible.
• Manipulative Bastard: Undeniably. L has no problem using people to get the job done. Light of all people calls him out on it when he loses his memories and refuses to go along with L's plan to manipulate Misa.
• Married to the Job: Has no canonical relationships, because his line of work (and lack of charisma) makes it difficult.
• Master Actor: He's able to put on basically whatever persona is needed at the time depending on the situation. Most prominently shown when he acts as Matsuda's slacker friend over the phone when Matsuda is found spying on the Yotsuba Group.
• Master of All: He is the golden standard of the series that everyone strives to surpass. Most notably, he lacks many of the fatal flaws many of the other major player have. For instance, Near and Mello are near-perfect complements. Near has near-perfect control of his emotions but has little initiative or practical skills. Mello is emotionally unstable but is very proactive and street smart. L has both high initiative and a strong hold over his faculties. Light was driven by an endless need to prove himself to the world, which leads him to make very questionable decisions. L had already proven himself to the world many times over and doesn't feel a need to prove his worth to others.
• Meaningful Name: His last name Lawliet, which is pronounced "low-light."
  • While the first part is obviously a reference to his job, the last part "liet" is Dutch for "(one who) left behind".
• The Mentor: To Near, Mello, Matt and every kid in Wammy's house. In Wammy's House, Mello used to walk barefoot, possibly to imitate him.
• Messianic Archetype: In the anime, he washes the feet of Light before he is killed by him - a deliberate reference to Jesus' act of washing *all* of his disciples- including the one who would betray him. (Matthew 26:14-39, Luke 22:24-27, John 13:1-17). Some may also find additional parallels between Christ and L - his choice to gather followers, his lack of attractiveness and his strange demeanor (Isaiah 53:2, Wisdom of Solomon 2:15), his humility leading up to his death (Philippians 2:8) and his choice to leave a successor to guide his followers (John 14:26.)
• Messy Hair: L puts little to no stock into his personal appearance. His hair looks like he's never held a comb or brush in his life.
• Mirror Character: L and Light are ostensibly on opposite sides of the plot, each trying to catch and stop each other, but...honestly, they're more alike than either are willing to admit. L, the detective, is selfish, childish, hates losing, is willing to resort to illegal, unethical means to pursue victory, and sacrifices criminals to do it, and Light is...selfish, childish, hates losing, is willing to resort to illegal, unethical means to pursue victory, and sacrifices criminals to do it. L's name "Lawliet" is even pronounced "low light" in Japanese.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: He's scrawny, but strong enough to knock Light flying across the room with one kick.
• Must Have Caffeine: He is frequently shown dumping sugar into a cup of coffee or tea; when Matsuda asks him how he can be of help, L asks him to go get him coffee.
• Mysterious Past: The taskforce, Light, and the audience never really learn anything about L.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning:
  • With L dead and Light assuming the identity of L unbeknownst to the world, it would seem like Light had won... if not for a countdown timer set up by L to inform his chosen heir of his death if he fails to reset it every month.
  • In the live-action version, L writes his own name in the Death Note, which grants him temporary immunity from Kira, but will kill him in 23 days time. L's backup plan often works like this too, since if he is killed by Kira it will narrow the suspects down significantly.
• My Greatest Failure: L admits that the deaths of the FBI agents and having to reveal his face to the Kira Investigation Force are failures of his that he considers terrible.
  • In the alternate continuity live-action films, he says his greatest mistake was not counting on Rem killing Watari in addition to himself when he made his final gambit to prove Light was Kira.
• Nice Guy: An odd example. Despite his poor social skills and Anti-Hero status, he's fairly polite, accessible, and civil. That, and his soft side with children.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: He's the world's greatest detective (actually, top three detectives), but he only takes cases that interest him because otherwise effortlessly solving countless cases would no doubt get boring after a while. He draws out the Kira case partly to keep having fun, and it costs him his life.
• No Hero to His Valet: Relies on Watari for almost everything.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Coinciding with his No Social Skills.
• No Social Skills: Not good at interacting with people, or conforming to their expectations.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Frequently lampshaded, especially with his true last name: Lawliet, which is pronounced like "low light." The Great Detective L is a nameless, anonymous force of justice / retribution that may strike down when your least expect it. Sound familiar? Sucks to be you, Light.
  L: Kira is childish and he hates losing.
  Soichiro Yagami: Just what do you mean?
  L: (somewhat sheepishly) Well...I'm also childish and I hate to lose. That's how I know.
• Not So Stoic: When he sees Light's Slasher Smile as he's about to die. Nothing shows this better than episode 11 ("Assault"). Shortly after Ukita is killed by the second Kira live on the news while trying to stop the airing of that Kira's threats towards the task force, L stops Aizawa from impulsively going to the TV station and suffering the same fate. Aizawa is enraged by L's seeming indifference and grabs his shoulder to confront him about it, but he immediately backs off and calms down once he sees that L is literally trembling with anxiety.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: One of his greatest strengths, according to the creators. L's eccentricity makes others believe he is completely oblivious in things unrelated to deduction, but L is fairly emotionally intelligent and is knowledgeable on how the world works. Light often underestimates him due to some of his more outrageous actions, mistaking it for recklessness when it is more often a calculated gamble.
• Oh, Crap!: When he sees Light above him with a huge Slasher Smile as he's dying.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: The older Hero Antagonist to Light's younger Villain Protagonist.
• Older Than They Look: He's twenty-four at the start yet doesn't look much older then the 17 year old Light. If anything, he looks younger. However, his age shows when it is demonstrated time and time again that he is far more emotionally mature than Light.
  • Evoked in the Live-action movies, where L's actor is younger than Light's actor.
• One-Letter Name: In fact, it's his real first name.
• Oral Fixation: The amount of time the guy spend with his fingers/various food substances in his mouth is amazing. Also, he can tie cherry stalks into knots with his tongue.^note This is a reference to the belief that anyone capable of doing this is an amazing kisser, ironically enough.
• Out-Gambitted: By Light; essentially what his death came down to, although he had no way of knowing Rem would kill to protect Misa.
• Papa Wolf: In the Alternate Continuity movie L: change the WorLd, L is very protective of his orphans.
• Paranoia Gambit: When L puts 64 cameras in Light's room and then waits to see what will happen.
• Parental Abandonment: L is an orphan.
• Parental Neglect: Beyond seems to think so.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: With Light, all the time. They subvert this exactly twice, during which Light finally just punches L and a brawl breaks out.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: Given the dark nature of the franchise, the one he gives to K in Change The World is unusually poignant.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He locks people up in solitary confinement and uses sensory deprivation on them for months on end in order to get a confession, and he has few qualms about letting a few dozen people die in order to catch his man (although when presented with a less objectionable option, he did accept it with enthusiasm of an undetermined sincerity level).
• Pet the Dog: His soft side towards kids.
  • When Ukita dies due to Misa writing down his name in her Note, L pleads with Aizawa not to rush onto the scene. As Aizawa reaches over to L to confront him over this, he notices that L is shaking, and his voice sounds on the verge of tears. It's clear that even if he's somewhat withdrawn, L takes the people under his command as his responsibility and feels guilt every time one of them dies.
• Politeness Judo: "Is that alright, Light?"
• Posthumous Narration: The opening of Relight 2 has L summarize the events of the Kira case, even events that occurred after he died.
• Prefers Going Barefoot: L goes barefoot except when outdoors, due to his knack for crouching. Even when he wears shoes, they're ratty sneakers left untied to slip back off at a moment's notice. Word of God says that he even dislikes socks.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: His last name, "Lawliet", is pronounced as "low light".
• Primal Stance: When he and Light get into a fight.
• Private Detective: Is contracted out by police organizations around the world.
• The Profiler: L can be downright psychic when it comes to guessing Kira's motivations. It's vague whether this is thanks to his skills as a profiler and/or because he recognizes a thought process eerily similar to his own.
• Properly Paranoid: Light is Kira, Misa is the second Kira, and they really are out to get L.
  • In Another Note, Mello explains that the reason L doesn't go out much or interact with many people face-to-face is that L's life is perpetually in danger due to his line of work. And as the events of the main series prove, he really shouldn't have shown his face to the task force or gone to work with them in person.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: His fate in the musical: Light writes down his name in the Death Note, and specifies that L blows his own brains out.
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The beginning of episode 25.
• Punch-Clock Hero: He only takes cases that interest him or give him a challenge; in fact, he deliberately prolongs the Kira investigation just to have more fun with it.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: How fangirls see him.
• Real Name as an Alias: L, his main alias, is his real and complete first name, and Lawliet, another one of his aliases, is his real surname. Doubles as Refuge in Audacity.
• Rebel Relaxation: L has his trademarked poor posture.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Light's red.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • He uses his real name as two of his aliases and no one ever notices.
  • When he enrolls in Light's university, he chooses the name of a well-known pop star as his alias and then reveals his true identity to Light. While this does mean that everyone at the university is suspicious of him and Light now has a face, it also means that Light can't kill him without either accidentally killing the pop star or bringing the police right to himself.
• The Rival: The Hero Antagonist to Light's Villain Protagonist for almost the entire story. The conflict between the two drives the story forward and is the most well known aspect of Death Note as a whole.
• Sacrificial Lion: For many people, it wasn't so surprising that L died so much that he died at the half-way point instead of at the end.
• Samaritan Syndrome: L spends all his time solving cases.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: In Another Note, as a reward to Naomi, L not only pays her generously, but also pulls some strings to save her career at the FBI.
• Seriously Scruffy: He doesn't seem to sleep, let alone worry about his appearance, while he's working a case.
• Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains: The disheveled and barefoot Hero Antagonist to Light's "groomed for success his whole life" Villain Protagonist.
• Sherlock Homage: He has a lot of traits in common with Sherlock Holmes, from his brilliance and martial arts skills to his vague non-neurotypicality.
• Shonen Hair: One of the creepiest examples ever perpetrated.
• Shout-Out: Let's see, a billionaire orphan and anonymous detective who's cared for by an elderly butler. Now where have we seen this before?
• Shower of Angst: He is rained on heavily while standing, depressed and resigned, on the rooftop.
• Sickly Neurotic Geek: In the live-action, it's said that he's sensitive to outside air. Watari sprays anyone who comes to see L with disinfectant.
• Significant Birth Date: Halloween.
• Skewed Priorities: In the novelization of L: change the WorLd L is willing to trade away Light's Death Note to terrorists just for a few pictures of Misa.
• The Smart Guy: Unquestionably genius, L is easily the smartest character in the series.
• The Snack Is More Interesting: L is fond of this trope. He claims he needs sugary snacks to maintain his intelligence.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Emphasis on "socially awkward."
• Sore Loser: By his own admission, he doesn't like losing. However, he's at least self-aware of this fact, moreso than Light will ever be, so this doesn't significantly inhibit his detective work.
• The Spock: L is very logical and rather emotionally repressed.
• The Spook: Nothing about him is known to the general public.
• The Stoic: Remains calm in very bad situations.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Light and L will often be shown to be thinking the exact same thing.
• Strawberry Shorthand: "I'll give you this strawberry if you keep it a secret, okay?"
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: A male example. He kind of looks like one and maybe he becomes one. A ghostly L figure appears before Light in the days after he's killed him. This figure appears again in Light's Dying Dream at the end of the anime.
• Superhero Paradox: At least two of L's enemies B and K were created by Wammy's program.
• Sweet Tooth: He can be seen eating various sorts of confections — sweets, cakes, cookies, ice creams — all the time. It goes with his characterization as a Manchild.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: L would qualify as a more serious and less hands on example. As the worlds greatest detective, he early on (correctly) fingers out the main protagonist as the most likely candidate to be the notorious serial killer known as "Kira" and continues to pursue his hunch for the rest of the series, even when circumstances (orchestrated by Light of course) seem to disprove this.
• Tautological Templar: His methods, including violations of privacy, unlawful imprisonment/kidnapping, and physical and psychological torture, seem to be justified, both in-universe and out, because he's the one doing it.
  • In the case of Misa's imprisonment given that he knows she can kill with just a person's face, but does NOT know that she has to have the Death Note to do so, you could say that it is a case of Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures
• Teen Genius: He's several years past his teens by the time of the series, though you have to assume he started that way.
• Thanatos Gambit: He ensures that his successors, Near and Mello, would succeed him after his death.
• That's What I Would Do: He tries to think of Kira's next move using this reasoning.
• Thinking Tic: He often bites his nails, particularly the nails on his thumb.
• This Is Unforgivable!: When he first addresses the ICPO he calls Light's spree "an atrocious murder case I will never forgive!"
• Thousand-Yard Stare: He does this quite a few times.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cake and really sweets of any kind.
• Tragic Bromance: With Light during the Yotsuba arc.
• Trash of the Titans: L in his movie. Justified in that he's only got 23 days to live and he's not going to waste his remaining time cleaning.
• Troll: Does several things completely unnecessary to the case just to screw with Light, like claiming him to be the best friend he's ever had and pretending not to hear him in the rain. Since he knew he was Kira pretty much immediately, it's a given.
• TV Genius: the clues he gets about the Kira case can lead anyone to a multitude of logical conclusions, but as a general rule, he always gets everything right in his deductions.
• Two Aliases, One Character: L is his alias, while L Lawliet is his real name.
• Together in Death: Possibly, but only in the Anime adaptation; As Light dies, an apparition of L bathed in heavenly twilight appears in front of him, seemingly implying that they will meet again in the afterlife. It's also possible that this was just Light's pre-death hallucination, although the framing of the scene seems to suggest otherwise.
  L: Let's explore the World of Nothingness together!
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In the TV drama, he's noticeably more arrogant and stuck-up than his original counterpart. He even installs the cameras and microphones without telling the investigators involved, especially Soichiro.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the films, especially in L: change the WorLd.
• Tyke Bomb: Was trained as this, and started out as such.
• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: L is the strange-looking hero to Light's handsome villain. However, his legion of fangirls disagree.
• The Unblinking: The only notable times he closes his eyes is when he's killed.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Uses some questionable methods, and is not above lying and manipulating others.
• Vocal Dissonance: in the English dub, he has a remarkably deep voice (courtesy of Alessandro Juliani) for such a lithe and unusually pretty man.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: To everyone at first, until Light forces him into a situation where he needs to come out into the open to Light himself and the Kira taskforce members.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The Taskforce yells at him from time to time. Such as for his treatment of the Kira suspects during confinement. Also for wanting to wait around for more people to die (and thus have a more solid case) before making a move against the Yotsuba Group.
  • Also in Another Note the purpose of Beyond Birthday's murderous scheme was ultimately to call out L for the treatment of (and L's lack of interest in) his successors. In particular A who was Driven to Suicide by Wammy's program. It's telling that the only way Beyond could gain L's attention was to create a murder case he'd be interested in.
• When He Smiles: The normally stoic L gets one of these moments when he tells the Task Force "Justice will prevail no matter what."
• Workaholic: He spends all his time solving cases and eating candy. He rarely sleeps.
• World's Smartest Man: In a world where intellect equals strength, L is canonically the smartest of them all. The creators state that he had to be the most intelligent character from a narrative perspective for Light to be truly challenged, and the goal of every major player is to surpass him and his legacy. Indeed, no one comes close to L in terms of sheer ability, with Light being the only person smart enough to challenge him in that regard. His two successors Near and Mello are both forced to cooperate to finally corner Light, whereas L could've done it all by himself.
• Worthy Opponent: Light views L this way, and L views Light this way.
  • This is in direct contrast to Near and Light's relationship, where Near viewed Light as "just a crazy mass murderer" and Light resented Near as being "far below L."
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He's a master of it, as shown when he saves Matsuda from being discovered by the Yotsuba group by having him fake his own death.
• Young and in Charge: He's 24 at the beginning and the world's greatest detective with control over the world's police forces. It's suggested he's been this for several years, back into his teens and possibly even his childhood. In-series, the middle-aged cops of the taskforce answer to him.

Other versions

In films

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• Adaptational Heroism: In the original manga and the anime, L is explicitly described by the creators as "slightly evil." In his movie L: Change The World, L is a lonely, misunderstood Action Hero guy who cares for sick orphans.
• Antagonist in Mourning: L in his Alternate Continuity movie (L: change the WorLd) seems to miss Light just as Light seemed to miss L back in canon. He too experiences a bizarre sense of loss with the death of his adversary. This is hinted at in the way he kept Light's watch. He’s also very protective of Light's potato chips.
• Composite Character: He ousts Light as Kira and assesses him, much like Near.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side:
  • In the live action movies L's ride is a pink crepe van.
  • In L: change the WorLd, he cross-dresses to pass as Maki's mother.
• Cool Car: L uses a modified pink angel crepe van as his personal batmobile.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He was more of a jerkass in the first film. Near the end of the second film, however, he developed into this, sacrificing his life to stop Light/Kira. And if that weren't enough, L: change the WorLd pretty much shows how much of a nicer guy he can be.
• Race Lift: The very multiracial L is played by a purely Japanese actor.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In L: change the WorLd.

In the Live-Action TV series

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• Adaptational Jerkass: While he's not exactly a perfect hero (the creators even confirm he's "slightly evil"), the TV drama plays up the immorality of his actions a lot more, and he also acts rather condescending.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Subverted with this counterpart, who's more interested in showing off his intelligence and snuffing Light out than trying to keep people from getting killed. However, when he does find out that Light is Kira, he wanted Light to atone for his crimes.
• Mr. Fanservice: His TV drama counterpart frequently changes his white shirt anytime it gets stained. And it's a Running Gag.
• Race Lift: Just like the films, the very multiracial L is played by a purely Japanese actor.

In the American Netflix movie

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See Death Note Characters (2017 film) for more information.

Nate River/Near

Near (ニア;Nia) / Real Name: Nate River (ネイト=リバー;Neito Ribā)

"Keep all important information in your mind only."

^{Click here to see Near three years later, during the events of the One-Shot Special.}

Voiced by: Noriko Hidaka (JP), Cathy Weseluck (EN), Masumi Mitsuda (Spain), Bruno Coronel (Latin America), Charles Emmanuel (BR), Vincent De Bouard (FR)

Played by: Narushi Fukuda (film), Mio Yuki (TV drama)

"If you can't win the game, if you can't solve the puzzle, then you're nothing but a loser".

After L's death, he's the main antagonist of the series, but not the villain.

A detective presented as very similar to L. Characterized by the contrast of his mature conversation with his childlike playing with toys, he runs the SPK, a force from the USA specially designed to unmask Kira. He suspects Light to be Kira and periodically makes life difficult for him both unwittingly and wittingly- the former by reminding Light of L through the style of his speech and analytical skills and the latter by sowing seeds of doubt amongst the Task Force to make some of them suspect Light as well. He soon comes to suspect Mikami and Takada to have something to do with Kira as well.

In the Death Note One-Shot Special, which takes place three years after the end of the Kira case, Near is the main protagonist. In the other Death Note Special Chapter, which takes place ten years later, Near takes more of an interested spectator kind of role.

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• '90s Anti-Hero: Possibly more ruthless and cold than L, he doesn't hesitate to employ morally questionable tactics to stop Light. Even if you set that aside, he has a rather creepy, serious, stoic, and robotic demeanor, complete with his Kubrick Stare. But make no mistake, compared to Light, he is quite decent and heroic.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the TV drama, he's involved from the start.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Far more benevolent in the TV drama (which, ironically, makes L a case of Adaptational Jerkass).
• Always Someone Better: Mello felt that he was this to him. After coming out on top in the series finale, Minoru, ten years later, proves himself to be this to Near himself, soundly defeating him. However, this was because Minoru was uninterested in playing games with anyone and didn't even give Near an opportunity to play whereas Light was obsessed with proving his own superiority.
• Ambiguously Evil: At first. With his Kubrick Stare, his robotic, stone-cold personality... it's hard to tell how good Near really is. However, much of his goal is to avenge his mentor L, and "How to Read" confirmed that he is a sensitive person. Matsuda theorizes it is possible Near used the death Note to guarantee his victory then burned it so no one can prove otherwise.
• Anti-Hero: Downplayed as he is motivated by a sense of justice via a moral opposition to what Kira is doing.
• Arch-Enemy: He sees Kira / Light Yagami as one.
• Author Filibuster: His Shut Up, Hannibal! summation of Light is meant to be a reflection of writer Ohba's personal beliefs.
• Badass Adorable: He's a lot more traditionally cute than L and just as cunning.
• Badass Bookworm: He's cunning, intelligent, and clever.
• Bat Deduction: In the anime, Near's eyes turn white and he has the clues he needs. The manga avoids this but does show his photographic memory and ability to watch and listen to a room full of TV sets showing as many different news items and taking them all in at once.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Theorized by Matsuda. In the end, he uses the Death Notes to find out which is the real and fake ones that he can trick Mikami into taking.
• Brains and Brawn: The Brains to Mello's Brawn. It was Mello who took all the risks to inconvenience Kira, while Near was able to make his deductions based on the outcomes of Mello's actions.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Near loves playing with toys just as much as L loves sweets. He stacks dice and matchsticks just as L stacks milk-pots and sugar-cubes.
• Cain and Abel: Both him and Mello were the successors of L. Near is the Abel to Mello's Cain.
• Celibate Hero: Just like L, he was never interested in romantic relationships.
• Character Tic: Near is always doing something with his hands. If he isn't playing with toys or stacking things, he's twirling his hair.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Looks like the c: emoticon, transposed onto a human being.
• The Chessmaster: Just as good as L and can go toe-to-toe with Light and Mello.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He has odd gestures and a very unusual personality.
• Combat Pragmatist: Though he rejects offhand the idea of "just shooting him" as dishonorable. Although, it is still argued on whether or not he used the notebook to control Mikami in the final confrontation.
• Color Motif: Light Blue. Probably to show that he's still new to being L's Successor, L's color being dark blue.
• Creepy Child: Played with. Near is 13 when he's first introduced and 17-18 by the end of the story, but he gives off Creepy Child vibes all the same.
• Creepy Monotone: He speaks in a rather monotonous voice pitch.
• Crosscast Role: In the TV drama, he's portrayed by actress Mio Yuki.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Like all successors, he's an orphan, making it likely he witnessed his family die, with apparently no remaining family that could have (or wanted to) adopt him, and was groomed from an extremely young age (likely being confronted with very graphic crime scene evidence during the process) to succeed the world's greatest detective, and actively being pushed to compete with his peers no matter the cost to his mental health. No pressure.
• Deadpan Snarker: Just like his mentor L, he is shown to have a dry sense of humor, stating that Light was "popular with the ladies."
• Decomposite Character: He's the stoic, logical half of L. He's never shown having moments of over-the-top theatricality, and he lacks the trademark love for sweet foods.
• Defective Detective: He has the minimal possible rank in the "Ability to Live Everyday life" part of his stats in "How to Read", in the slot that indicates a character's special talent or significant weakness.
• Deuteragonist: After L's death, he's the opposing deuteragonist to Light.
• Epic Fail: During one phone call Near is shown throwing a dart at a board that completely misses. A few scenes later and the viewer is given a top-down view of the dartboard showing a large pile of darts on the floor and none stuck into the board itself.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Toward the end, he points out that he doesn't believe in an absolute code of right and wrong, but doesn't like Kira killing people in the name of justice.
  • He also acknowledges that at least some of Kira's followers truly do believe in the cause he himself is fighting but voices a low opinion of people he sees as just taking the "Kira" flag as a personal excuse to make noise and cause mayhem.
  • He also doesn't see possessing the Death Note as being something evil or illegal in itself, instead considering that it's the actions people take with it that turn them into criminals. Which is why he doesn't actively pursue people holding a Death Note if they're not doing anything illegal with it.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: Develops one of these eye bags◊ once he becomes L's successor.
• Foil: To Light Yagami. Like Light, he's incredibly smart, cunning, and motivated by a sense of justice. The big difference is that while Light has social skills and is perfectly capable of socializing, Near absolutely lacks social skills. The warehouse sequence also reveals another stark difference between the two: while Light has the arrogance to consider himself as a god at the expense of others, Near is revealed to be more humble and values the opinions and actions of others.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: In the epilogue of the manga at least, in which he's seen eating a chocolate bar. It's thought he's doing it in memory of Mello.
  • Also, in the drama, he is fond of Watari's cakes, much in the same way L is in the anime/manga.
• Graceful Loser: He accepts defeat with a soft smile at the end of the 2020 Special Chapter. Although it's also implied many times that he wasn't trying hard to solve the mystery since he believed there wasn't anything illegal happening.
• Guile Hero: Outwits Kira.
• The Hero: After L's death, he's the first in line to succeed L and the mastermind behind the S.P.K.
• Hero Antagonist: Following L's death, he serves as the main antagonist for the rest of the series against Light.
• Hero Protagonist: In the Death Note One-Shot Special.
• Hidden Depths: The How to Read volume suggests that he cut his ties with the outer world because he's really sensitive.
• Identical Stranger: He and L could be mistaken for brothers given their similar appearances and quirks, but they aren't blood-related.
• The Immune: In the Alternate Continuity film L: change the WorLd he is the only one to survive The Plague that afflicted his village.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Was a loner from the beginning.
• It's Personal: Much of his dialogue and attitude towards Light seems to largely imply that he is genuinely motivated, at least in part, by avenging L, in addition to completing his work.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While his partners don't always like working alongside him, they do agree with him and his plans, especially when he tells Light that he is nothing more than a serial killer.
• Kirk Summation: He rejects Kira's ideals entirely, especially after confronting an implicated Light:
  Near: No. You're just a murderer, Light Yagami. And this notebook is the deadliest weapon in the history of mankind. If you had been a normal person and had used this notebook once out of curiosity, you would have been surprised and scared of what had happened, regretted what you had done, and never used this notebook again. To speak of extremes, I can actually understand those who would use this notebook for their personal interests and kill a couple of people, and even think that they're normal. But you yielded to the power of the notebook and the Shinigami and have confused yourself with a god. In the end, you're nothing more than a crazy Serial Killer. That's all you are. Nothing more... and nothing less.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In the One-Shot Special, Minoru/A-Kira covers his tracks so thoroughly that Near is forced to concede there's no way to catch him.
• Kubrick Stare: His default expression.
• Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: So Light, you thought you'd gotten rid of L, huh? Say hi to his successors.
• Light Is Good: Though not as morally questionable as Light himself, Near wears white pajamas, and his hair is white - white being the color of death in Japanese culture, though whether he knows this is debatable. It's not really delved into in the story, but How to Read suggests that he's cut himself off from the world because he's "overly sensitive".
• Loners Are Freaks: Has closed himself off from the world, and seriously creeps Light out.
• Looks Like Cesare: In the Death Note One-Shot Special, Near is shown to have sharp bags under his eyes, probably because he's The Insomniac (just like L).
• Manchild: He's 17-18 in the post-time skip (21 in the post-series one shot and 28 in the second post-series one shot) and he's always seen playing with toys.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His real name, Nate River, is supposed to symbolize how his talents flow from L like a river flows from Canada to Alaska.
  • Also, "Nate" (and not "Nathan") is a very close homonym to "night".
• Messy Hair: Well, messy and somewhat wavy. Ten years later his hair not only is incredibly messy and wavy but also extremely long.
• Mind Rape: Just look at chapters 103 and 104 of the manga.
  • In the one-shot Japan-only sequel he drives the next Kira to suicide with his words alone.
• Non-Action Guy: Unlike L, it is completely unknown if he can really know some kind of martial discipline (eg, L knows Capoeira), and his abilities come solely from his own deductions and intellect.
• No Social Skills: Even more so than L, to the point where he is apparently unable to make his own travel arrangements. How To Read, the series encyclopedia, points out that this is a significant weakness, as he can only make full use of his brilliant mind when surrounded by support because his basic social and living skills are so bad.
• Mirror Character: Near's like a more grounded version of Light. He shows cunning and manipulative tactics from time to time, but ultimately lacks the arrogance and depravity of his rival.
• Offered the Crown: Given the title of L's successor by Mello in a fit of sour grapes before the latter storms off.
• Oh, Crap!: His surprise to Light pulling out the last trick up his sleeve, the piece of the Note in his watch. His expression is clear in the manga, but remains absent in the anime.
• Older Than They Look: Many assume he's ten or so by his appearance, behavior, and voice: he's 17 or 18 by the end. He looks about 15 three years after that and still looks like a teenager with long hair by the age of 28. He's even referred to as a "boy" by the President of the United States.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: He spent his entire appearance clothed in PJs, although in the anime this appears to have been changed to a PJ top and jeans.
• Parental Abandonment: Like all the other Wammy's kids, he's an orphan.
• Pet the Dog: Despite the fact that he doesn't express his emotions and tends to be cold and robotic, his loyalty and friendship towards L and Mello are unquestionable. In fact, he shows considerable respect for L, and that's one of the reasons he's motivated to catch Kira.
• Planning with Props: Uses his toys for this sometimes.
• Politeness Judo: Very passive-aggressive.
• Pragmatic Hero: He's willing to get his hands dirty, though not quite as much as L or Mello. Though if Matsuda's theory is correct, he took the extra step by writing in the Death Note that Mikami would avoid testing the false notebook he was given before arriving at the warehouse in his attempt to kill him, the SPK, and the Task Force (thus arguably ensuring all of their safety).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Gives an epic one to Light at the end.
  • He also gives one to C-Kira which drives him to suicide.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Mello's red. While he and Mello are geniuses, Near's more calm and logical.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: He has even poorer social skills than L and white hair.
• The Smart Guy: Just like L, he's incredibly smart and calculating.
• Socially Awkward Hero: Extreme emphasis on "socially awkward."
• Sole Survivor: In the Alternate Continuity film L: change the WorLd Near is not only orphaned but is the last survivor of his village. Also in canon, he is the only Wammy’s Kid to challenge Kira and survive.
• Split Personality: Appears to have one in the live-action series.
• Taking Up the Mantle: When L died, his disciples did their best to take over the job, eventually it was Near who took the codename L after Kira's death.
• The Spock: Operates almost completely on logic, and is a brilliant strategist.
• The Spook: Very little is known about his past.
• The Stoic: Rarely, if ever, shows any emotion.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: As with L before him, he is shown to be thinking exactly the same thing as Light when planning out his strategy for defeating his opponent.
• Techno Wizard: Seems to have turned into one by the age of 28. Claiming he was working on a facial-recognition system for Shinigamis.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Look at him◊.
• Tranquil Fury: He never loses his stoicism, even when he's annoyed.
• Übermensch: As he put it, after Light responds to his withering complaint towards his personal character:
  "Nobody can tell what is right and what is wrong, what is righteous and what is evil. Even if there is a God and I had His teachings in front of me, I would think it through and decide if it was right and wrong myself. I'm no different to you. I believe in what I think is right, and believe that to be righteous. You are no god. And I find the whole idea of you setting the path for all the people to follow is neither peaceful nor righteous. And anybody who claims to be a god and kills people from left to right is neither peaceful nor righteous."
• The Un-Smile: Sometimes he gives an extremely unnatural smile like looks like a living version of the "c:" emoticon, in a great contrast to L's When He Smiles moments.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: As "N".
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about L's successors without giving away the fact that L himself dies.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Quite literally. He gets a full list of his toys in the 'How To Read' book, complete with their price and how difficult they were to obtain.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Downplayed. Near has natural white hair and he's a morally ambiguous Anti-Hero.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • While at first he viewed Light as nothing more than a crazy mass-murderer, by the time of the epilogue he has come to view Kira in a better light, refusing to consider C-Kira as an equal to the original Kira.
  • He also came to respect A-Kira as an equal, or even better, for handling the selling of the Death Note so brilliantly to the point that he didn't want to find him to pull any charges but just to meet him in person.
• You Monster!: A variation of this trope. In the Death Note One-Shot Special, he calls C-Kira an "abominable murderer."
• Young and in Charge: Is still in his teens (and looks much younger) and heads the SPK, which consists of several experienced FBI agents.
• Young Conqueror: Defeats Light at the age of 18.

Mihael Keehl/Mello

"I wanna eliminate my competition. I will be the best. I don't care what it takes."

^{Later in the story (SPOILERS AHEAD)}

Voiced by: Nozomu Sasaki (JP), David Hurwitz (EN), Manuel Gimeno (Spain), Javier Olguín (Latin America), Marcos Souza (BR), Emmanuel Garijo (FR)

Played by: Mio Yuki (TV drama)

A handsome but dangerous young man with a massive inferiority complex. Briefly after the timeskip, having resigned himself to the fact that he cannot work with Near, he sets up a gang of Mafia members even Kira hasn't noticed who abduct the head of the Japanese police department from whom- following a spot of torture- he deduces that there are two Death Notes within the human world and vows to acquire both of them to stop Kira once and for all before Near does.

Besides being in the manga and anime, Mello also appears in the spin-off prequel novel, Another Note, where he acts as the narrator.

In stark contrast to Near and L, Mello is extremely dynamic and a ruthless mob boss, but just as brilliant as Near. Also, he likes chocolate.

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• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the TV drama, he's involved in the story from the start, due to being Near's Split Personality.
• Adapted Out: Downplayed in the TV drama, as in that he doesn't actually exist aside from being Near's Demonic Dummy / Split Personality.
• Affably Evil: While Mello does have severe problems with anger, he's genuinely charming and charismatic, and while he's ruthless he isn't a cruel person.
  • In particular, the way he speaks to Takada, and lets her cover up with a blanket when he makes her remove her clothes.
  • Also, the fact that he does genuinely care about Matt and views him as a friend as well as an assistant, and expresses genuine sorrow over Matt's death.
  • Even before that, he offers Sidoh some of his beloved chocolate.
  • He's very polite towards Soichiro as well and is genuinely sorrowful and remorseful when he's forced to cause Soichiro's death to save himself. Even to the point of saying "For what its worth I never wanted to kill you"
• Agent Peacock: The aforementioned fur-lined coat and massive amount of leather makes him stand out, even among his Mafia subordinates.
• Always Second Best: The reason for his rivalry with Near, he thinks Near is always better than him and hates it.
  • In the novel Another Note, Mello sympathizes with Beyond Birthday because of this.
• Ambiguously Christian: He wears a rosary necklace ^note  Even though wearing one as a necklace is not technically correct. But, then again, Mello never was one for playing by the rules! , as well as a matching bracelet, and crosses and even a Virgin Mary graphic appear on his clothes occasionally. He also has a crucifix on the wall, a little cross charm on his gun, and a small Marian shrine on the mantle in his personal living space. He also refers in Another Note to The Almighty. And when he dies, the rosary is seen going through the steering wheel, in a way that could pretty much only happen if Mello were touching the rosary beads, which is how they are meant to be used while reciting the Rosary prayer. This, and a real name Mihael Keehl that marks Mello as being possibly from a predominantly Catholic country or ethnic background, leads many fans to believe that he is a practicing Catholic. It would also be a plausible reason to fight against Kira besides besting Near, whom he technically gave the role of L's successor to in a fit of sour grapes. However, it is never actually confirmed In-Universe if Mello actually is a Catholic, or if he was one but is not anymore, or is one In Name Only, or if he's some other type of Christian (real or made-up) that's similar to Catholicism but isn't, or if he just thinks the crosses, and such look cool.
• Ambiguous Gender: Particularly in his first manga appearance, where he had a rather androgynous figure and hairstyle, and wore pretty plain, gender-neutral clothing. And it took several pages for other characters to start referring to him as a male. Many readers assumed he was a woman. Backed by Obata, who described Mello's character design as "calm and feminine."
• Anti-Villain: He's ruthless in his goal of taking down Kira, and is more interested in being the best than in serving justice. However, the author says Mello is "not purely evil", citing his reluctance to kill Yagami even when he was prepared to write Mello's name, and his sorrow at Matt's death. Lidner later suggests that he engineered his own death in order for Mikami to switch the notebooks and ultimately get Light caught, an interpretation the anime seems to favor. And he has the decency to let Takada cover herself with a blanket when stripping for him.
  • Possibly subverted. Another Note shows that Mello does have a great sense of justice, but it's primarily directed as rage toward Kira and those who stand in the way of it.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Just like L, Near and Light, he can follow potential situations and think of alternative routes to take.
• The B Grade: He's the second-top scoring student at Wammy's House, but all that matters to him is that he's not the top scoring student.
• Badass Biker: Rides a cool motorcycle
• Badass Bookworm: He's the second best student at a school for genii. He eats chocolate and blows stuff up.
• Beta Test Baddie: Becomes a villain (or Anti-Villain, depending on your interpretation) because he can't handle being outranked by Near.
• Bowdlerised: In the manga, Mello wears a rosary as a necklace, and he has a matching bracelet, a little cross charm on his gun, a crucifix and a small shrine to the Virgin Mary, and occasionally cross motifs on his clothes. ^note  In any other series, Mello would be a Church Militant! In the anime, all of Mello's crosses are edited away, and the crucifix and shrine he has in his living space are never seen. Special mention goes to the rosary, where the crucifix is turned into a nondescript red stick charm.
  • Also, in the manga, he tends to lick his chocolate bars quite suggestively before actually biting into them. While he still eats chocolate bars in the anime, he doesn't lick them beforehand, especially not in that fashion.
• Brains and Brawn: The Brawn to Near's Brains. It was Mello who took all the risks to inconvenience Kira, while Near was able to make his deductions based on the outcomes of Mello's actions.
• Byronic Hero: He's handsome, passionate, ruthless and very rebellious.
• Cain and Abel: Both him and Near were the successors of L. Mello is the Cain to Near's Abel.
• Celibate Hero: He doesn't seem particularly interested in the opposite sex. He's the only one of the mafia leaders not seen cuddling up with a girl, and he ignores a stark-naked Halle Lidner's attempts at flirting with him when he sneaks into her apartment.
• The Chessmaster: Especially in his first couple of episodes.
• Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: The creators say he plays this role to Matt, although it's probable that the reverse is also true.
• Combat Pragmatist: Which arguably accounts for his effectiveness. Light seems to have trouble dealing with someone who refuses to play by the rules. Near, too—whilst knowing him well enough to keep track of him—does not anticipate his kidnapping of Kiyomi Takada or their subsequent fiery deaths.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: While L was a quiet, reserved man who could infiltrate a Japanese university, Mello is a loud, hot-blooded European. While L ate all sorts of sweets, Mello's Trademark Favorite Food is chocolate. While L employed a few petty crooks, Mello bent a mafia gang to his will. While L eventually died at Rem's hand, Mello took down Light with a Thanatos Gambit.
• Creepy Doll: Appears as a ventriloquist's dummy in the live-action drama. It remains to be seen whether the dummy is merely a representation of Mello, or is Mello, or both, or neither...but either way it's creepy.
• Cute and Psycho: He's a downright pretty young man with a borderline psychotic temperament.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Enlists the help of The Mafia in his quest to catch Kira...and becomes either its leader or second-in-command.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Like all successors, he's an orphan, making it likely he witnessed his family die, with apparently no remaining family that could have (or wanted to) adopt him, and was groomed from an extremely young age (likely being confronted with very graphic crime scene evidence during the process) to succeed the world's greatest detective, and actively being pushed to compete with his peers no matter the cost to his mental health. No pressure.
• Death by Disfigurement: Not long after acquiring a large burn scar, he goes on a Suicide Mission that ends up leading to Kira's undoing—but not before Takada kills him.
• Death by Pragmatism: He's the only one of Kira's opponents that doesn't "play by the rules" of Kira's game. Despite being smart enough to avoid it, he still ends up being killed by Takada anyway, not realizing that she had a scrap of the Death Note with her. Or did he?
• Decapitation Presentation: At the tender age of 15, he presented Rod with the head of one of his biggest rivals. He also keeps skulls in his living space (and shows one of them off on a manga cover), though it's unknown if they are the heads of Mafia rivals he is keeping as trophies, or if they're fake and purely decorative.
• Decomposite Character: He represents L's brash, impulsive side. He has a severe temper and often acts without thinking, as well as having close emotional attachment to his comrades. Additionally, he has a trademark love of sugary sweets, though it's limited to chocolate, unlike L's general love of everything on the sweet side.
• Defeat by Modesty: Inverted. Mello is defeated because he allows Kiyomi Takada to preserve her modesty under a sheet, letting her smuggle a piece of the Death Note she had hidden in her bra and kill him with it.
• Defective Detective: Mello is a very capable detective. He just happens to have a lot of personal issues, is all.
• Demoted to Extra: In the Relight movies and the live-action drama series. The live action films excise him entirely, while the anime series cuts a few of his smarter plays.
• Determinator: Does not give up easily, and works very hard.
• Deuteragonist: After L's death, Mello and Near become the opposing deuteragonists to Light.
• The Don: Rod Ross is the head of The Mafia, but he answers to Mello.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Eats chocolate with Sidoh, a Shinigami.
• Dies Wide Open: Dies of a heart attack at the wheel of a truck, landing on the steering wheel with his eyes open.
• Driven by Envy: Wants to catch Kira, not so much to be L's successor (and in fact technically gives up that role), but to be able to say he outdid Near for once—though vengeance also plays a part.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: He's often mistaken as a very flat-chested girl when readers or viewers first see him. At least until his survival of bombing the mafia hideout, then he gets more of a Face of a Thug
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: After finding out that Matt was killed.
• Erotic Eating: Whenever he eats his chocolate.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He definitely cares about Matt, and expresses genuine sorrow when he founds out he was killed in a police shootout. He also admired L, which Near attributes much of his determination to, and Mello's statement that he doesn't underestimate revenge as a motive seems to back that up.
• Everyone Has Standards: This is ultimately what gets him killed—he tells the kidnapped Kiyomi to strip naked so he can get rid of any tracking devices she has on her, but allows her to cover herself with a blanket while she removes her underwear to preserve her modesty, allowing her to palm the scrap of a page from the Death Note hidden in her bra without him seeing, and ultimately kill him with it. If he'd been just a bit more ruthless and inconsiderate, he might have lived.
• Evil Brit: Downplayed. He was raised in Winchester, but it's as likely as not that he's actually from the UK.
• Evil Virtues: Mello is intelligent, passionate, and works hard for everything.
• Eyes Are Unbreakable: Although badly burnt on the entire left side of his face in an explosion, his left eye is apparently just fine.
• Face of a Thug: His survival of bombing the mafia base had left his face horribly scarred, making him more menacing.
• Foil: To Light Yagami. Like Light, he's incredibly stubborn, short-tempered, arrogant, childish, refuses to listen to others, is extremely passionate, very intelligent, good-looking, and is not afraid of performing unethical acts to carry out his plans. The big difference is that while Light pretends to be on the side of the law, Mello pretends to be on the side of The Mafia and uses it as a resource. Where Mello has a rebellious appearance, Light is always impeccably dressed. Just think of Mello as a more rebellious version of Light.
• Fur and Loathing: He wears fur-lined jackets and his villain lair is decorated in zebra / tiger-stripe prints.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: Pretty much lives on chocolate, much like L and his cakes and candies. (And, like L, manages to stay thin in spite of his diet.)
• Good is Not Nice: His tactics are quite ruthless.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Gets a large facial scar from an explosion he caused.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Pretty much only wears leather.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Almost always portrayed this way with Matt by fandom (minus the Heterosexual part).
• Hollywood Healing: Manages to recover from a third-degree burn in a matter of days, and goes across the country to demand his photo from Near like nothing happened. In Real Life, a burn like Mello's would take months to sufficiently recover from.
• Horrifying the Horror: Sidoh, a Shinigami is scared of him.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Holds Sayu hostage, in order to get his hands on the notebook.
• Hot-Blooded: Because of his intense rivalry with Near and drive to get ahead, he does some seemingly-irrational (or at least extremely risky things).
• I Have Your Wife: A daughter variant. Says this pretty much word-for-word to Soichiro, in a bid to get the notebook.
• Idiot Ball: Ohba says he needed to carry it because he ended up finding out too much about the notebook too early on, and if he'd been the one closing the case, much of the suspense would be gone. He believed Soichiro when he said Matsuda was the Second L despite Matsuda not being anywhere near intelligent enough, and when he made Takada strip to remove any weapons, phones, or tracking devices, he let Takada keep her underwear and cover herself with a blanket. Making Takada strip was a smart move, but only if she stripped all the way, so Mello brought about his own death at her hands. Not to mention that Mello also removed his helmet in her presence, despite being able to reasonably deduce that her boss, Kira, knew his name.^note In the manga, Mello concluded by this point that Light Yagami = L = Kira, using Near's deductions that L = Kira and deducing himself that Light Yagami = L, based on his surveillance of Misa and Mogi. Since he knew Light's father learned him name shortly before he died, it's not unreasonable to guess that Light knew his name. What he probably didn't know was that Light showed Takada a sketch of him, allowing her to put his name to his face once she saw it in real life.
  • Also, How to Read: 13 reveals that the reason his hideout was found was because he left boxes of fancy imported chocolate lying around.
• Ignore the Fanservice: In response to Halle Lidner showering in front of him and offering him a place to stay in a seductive manner, he instead points a gun at her, demanding her to bring him to SPK headquarters.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: The only friend he seems to have prior to leaving Wammy's is Matt. Even while at Wammy's, he's shown by himself a lot, though this may be because Matt was an afterthought on the part of the creator.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Wears lipstick in some of the colorized manga and nail polish, as well as form-fitting, midriff-baring leather clothes, and fur-and-feather-lined coats.
• Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: Was being trained as this.
• Lean and Mean: Even though he's always eating chocolate, he manages to stay thin (though not to the point where he looks sickly, unlike L).
• Leatherman: A much younger and more Bishounen example than the standard.
• Limited Wardrobe: Averted; he does have some costume changes, though they are often subtle.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Blows up his own hideout when cornered
• Mad Eye: Does this during his encounter with Sidoh, to the point where the God of Death is creeped out by him.
• The Mafia: Mello leads one, having brought in the head of a mob boss at fifteen.
• Meaningful Name: His real name, Mihael Keehl. Mihael means "there is no one like God", or essentially, "I am at most second best". While he doesn't seem like the type to keel over, that's pretty much how he plays his own Heroic Sacrifice.
• Motor Mouth: In his narration of Another Note, he's a bit long-winded at times. (In the series proper, he's not exactly quiet, but not a chatterbox either.)
• Morality Pet: Matt. He's the only person whose death Mello expresses regret over. Also, to an extent, Soichiro Yagami. He didn't intend to kill him, but justifies it due to his alliance with Kira in using a Death Note against him.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: His last move is to kidnap Takada, before he was killed.
• Narrator: In Another Note. Specifically, he's a First-Person Peripheral Narrator, as he was not present for or involved in any of the events he describes (L told him about it after the fact). It's his physical and temporal distance that allows him to muddy the waters in preparation for the twist at the climax. He also has elements of a Lemony Narrator, with the way he gives up on an arch narrative tone one paragraph in and mocks the reader for not expecting the aforementioned twist, and is a bit of a First-Person Smartass, occasionally snarking on Ryuzaki's and Naomi's dialogue.
• Nerdy Bully: In his days at Wammy's House. He is seen punting a soccer ball at another boy's head at his first manga appearance, then tugging on yet another boy's hair as the kids go back inside from recess. Later, he becomes practically the head of a criminal organization.
• Nominal Hero: Does want to bring Kira to justice, but more for the sake of besting Near and avenging L than for actual justice's sake.
• Noodle Incident: Back at Wammy's, he got to meet L in person once. L tells him 3 stories: The LABB Murder Case (which Mello does share in Another Note), the story of how L bested Eraldo Coil and Deneuve in another Noodle Incident, the Great Detective Wars, and how L arrived at Wammy's. Mello chooses not to share how he met L, or how and why L came to tell him these stories, though he calls it his most valuable memory. (Nor does he share the Detective Wars story or the story of how L arrived at Wammy's.)
  • The aforementioned incident where Mello took down one of Rod's rivals and presented Rod with the head of said rival as proof.
  • How he lost his family and arrived at Wammy's house.
  • How he came to the US with little more than the clothes on his back.
  • Heck, Mello's entire existence seems to be either one big Noodle Incident or a string of them!
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: When he breaks into Lidner's apartment he's not phased by her stripping and showering, looking more annoyed than anything.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When he puts down the chocolate bar, it's a sign that he knows that he and Matt likely won't survive the mission he's planned out.
• Only Friend: The only person he has anything even close to a functional, normal, and healthy relationship with is Matt, and it would seem that the reverse is also true.
• Parental Abandonment: Somehow lost his parents and ended up at Wammy's House.
• Person of Mass Destruction: When he briefly gets control of one of the notebooks.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He cites that he "doesn't underestimate revenge as a motive" as a reason that killing Chief Yagami would cause him more trouble than would be worth. Later on, Mello justifies his killing of Yagami because Yagami was prepared to use the Death Note against him.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Note that he loses this speech pattern after the explosion. It's possible that he affected it to blend in with the mafia, and, after the explosion, reverted to his regular way of speech because there was no need to maintain the act.
• Psychotic Smirk: Particularly before the explosion, or when dealing with Near.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Near's blue. While Mello is a genius like Near is, Mello's more emotional and impulsive.
• The Resenter: Is jealous of Near.
• The Rival: Mello is Near's rival, and a bit more unhinged.
• Satellite Character: To Near, in the drama. In the anime/manga series, he has one in the form of Matt.
• Scars Are Forever: After he blows up his base.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Does this in his first appearance, leaving Wammy's House at the age of 14.
• Second Place Is for Losers: Believes this.
• Self-Immolation: Takada's involuntary suicide forces her to burn herself, and everything around her, including Mello's corpse.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Compare his clothes to Near's. Interestingly, after the explosion, Mello starts covering up a bit more... and also being more willing to cooperate with Near.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Views himself as this, and introduces himself as "the best dressed" in Another Note.
• Shout-Out: In Another Note, he gives one to The Catcher in the Rye.
• Sinister Sweet Tooth: Is addicted to chocolate, has allied himself with the Mafia, and has set up his own gang of kidnappers.
• Slouch of Villainy: This guy can't even drive a car sitting straight.
• The Social Expert: The one area where Mello is unequivocally more talented than Near and L put together is social skills. L and Near are both tolerated by their teams due to their genius, but Mello is capable of engendering loyalty if he bothers to try. He makes sure that the people who help him benefit from it, and Halle and Near himself both regard him postively despite him pointing a gun at their heads.
• Sophisticated as Hell: In Another Note, particularly.
• Spanner in the Works: Near and Light planned a meeting to finally settle the score, but in a fit of I Know You Know I Know, Near's team tampered with a fake Death Note Light had Mikami plant ahead of time. Because Mello took action two days before their meeting that caused Light and Mikami both to kill the intermediary they relied on to communicate, Near and his team discovered the true hidden notebook and swapped it with their own faked copy.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He doesn't die in the TV drama due to being Near's split personality.
• Split Personality: In the live-action drama, he is a split personality of Near, rather than a distinct entity.
• Straight Edge Evil: If the viewer/reader considers him to be evil, that is. Unlike other members of the mafia which he leads, he never drinks, smokes, does drugs, or enjoys the company of women. As far as we know, he has no indulgence except chocolate.
• Teen Genius: He is from Wammy's House, after all.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He hates to acknowledge that practically speaking, he and Near are on the same side. He tries to avoid working with him because he'd rather best him, but if Near does go out of his way to help him, Mello will give him some help in return so as not to be in his debt— though likewise, if Near uses him, Mello has no problem turning the tables and using Near right back.
• Technical Pacifist: If his reluctance to kill Mr. Yagami is anything to go by, he may be this.
• Thanatos Gambit: Likely. His death ultimately engineers Light's downfall; the ambiguity lies in whether or not everything he did was intentional. However, Near's eyes not being in view while he says "Even if he didn't surpass me... Even if he didn't..." may hint at what he thinks about it.
  • Lidner certainly seems to believes so: the final time they called and she fed him information, he said the rather ominous last words, "Then I guess I'll have to do it." to her. After hanging up, he bowed his head, chocolate abandoned, and looked rather forlorn, with a similarly grim-looking Matt watching him. Near, however, dismisses this theory— Mello wasn't looking to help Near, Mello was looking to bag Kira himself by using Takada as bait, and had to act fast if he was going to beat Near. Still, it does illustrate more clearly the tragedy: Mello's methods were effective at generating evidence, and if he and Near had worked together, they might have had more control over the results.
• Teens Are Monsters: He runs away when he's almost 15 years old, and when we see him again at 19 he's running a criminal organization.
• Together in Death: Dies very shortly after Matt.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate? Did you say chocolate?
• Two-Faced: By the base he blew up while he was still inside.
• Unfazed Everyman: Is hardly surprised by the idea of a killer notebook, and offers a Shinigami chocolate.
• The Unfettered: Will do whatever it takes to beat Near and capture Kira.
• Unknown Rival: Near actually isn't that interested in beating him and expresses no problems with working with him. Light's lucky that Mello isn't quite as open-minded.
• Unorthodox Holstering: He carries a gun in the front of his pants.
• Unreliable Narrator: He tells the story of Another Note. Because the clinical style of narration he started with bores him. Unreliable because he's very biased in favor of his idol, L, and states openly that he sympathizes with B. Also because he's telling a story that he's heard from L, who heard the details from Naomi, and is filling in a lot of blanks he couldn't possibly know.
  • Hell, as far as Another Note can take us, we don't even know if Mello is even alive.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about L's successors without giving away the fact that L himself dies.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: There are hints of this in the way he sympathizes with Beyond when telling Another Note.
• Wild Card: This is spelled out more clearly in the manga, but what makes him so dangerous to Light is that Light can't predict his moves, and he spends a lot of time trying to kill him specifically for this reason. Light can usually figure out what L or Near are thinking and actually would have had Near and the SPK dead to rights, but because Mello is willing to go places and do things that L and Near won't, he can catch Light off guard and ferret out information that Near, who never leaves his headquarters, wouldn't otherwise be able to get.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Does this to everyone directly involved in the notebook exchange as well as his mole in the SPK. He had explosives planted in the Mafia headquarters for quite some time before the raid planned by Kira, which suggests he would eventually do the same with his Mafia allies after solving the Kira case.
• Young and in Charge: Heads a Mafia crime syndicate while not yet out of his teens.

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