Characters / Death Note - Light Yagami

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

Light Yagami / "Kira" / The First Kira (夜神 月, Yagami Raito)

"Just as planned."

Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (JP), Brad Swaile (EN), Sergio Zamora (Spain), Manuel Campuzano (Latin America), José Leonardo (BR), Alexis Tomassian (FR)

Played by: Tatsuya Fujiwara (films), Masataka Kubota (TV drama), Kenji Urai/Hayato Kakizawa (musical, 2015, 2017), Ryouta Murai/Shouma Kai (musical, 2020)

"This world is rotten, and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Someone has to do it, so why not me? Even if it means sacrificing my own mind and soul, it's worth it. Because the world can't go on like this."

Character subpage for Light. Warning! Unmarked spoilers ahead!

The Protagonist of the series, but not the hero.

Light is a genius student who has one major flaw... namely, one hell of a God complex. He has a hatred of the criminal element of the world, but for most of his life took a "what can you do" approach. Then, he finds the Death Note dropped by the Shinigami (Death God) Ryuk and his world is turned upside down. He begins using the notebook to kill criminals, believing that in doing so, he could scare the world into becoming more law-abiding. At first the authorities are powerless to stop Light's spree of vigilante justice, and with no clue about his hidden identity the public nicknames him Kira, a Japanese pronunciation of the English word "killer".

Light finds an equal and opposite in L, the elusive international detective hired to find and prove the identity of the person behind the mysterious string of murders. As the two of them try and outwit the other in an escalating game of cat and mouse, everyone else gets swept up in the ensuing chaos.

---

Tropes #-D

• '90s Anti-Hero: Subverted. Light is a ruthless vigilante who wants to change the world by using the title notebook to kill criminals, which many Nineties Anti Heroes like to do. Unfortunately, Light is far from being actually heroic — his first two kills in the anime were the closest he actually got to being heroic with the book until his decision to become Kira led to him Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and becoming a Knight Templar Villain Protagonist, as the police opposition to his actions and people calling his actions evil was an affront to his overweening Pride.
• Academic Alpha Bitch: Male example, especially after he found the notebook. He is one of the best students in the country, is very popular among his peers and teachers and is very success-oriented. He is also a Control Freak with a God Complex and a Hair-Trigger Temper.
• Academic Athlete: Light is not only the best student at his school but also the best athlete.
• The Ace: Subverted. On the surface, Light is handsome, athletic, and a genius, with incredible skill at getting women. However, for someone who started out as The Ace, Light is very childish, completely lacks emotional intelligence, and unlike L he seems to have no idea how society at large works.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: As if the narcissistic traits he already displays weren't enough, his God complex only gets fed more and more as the series goes on with each and every one of his many successes. Eventually, his ego gets so overinflated that he ends up making uncharacteristic mistakes that bring about his downfall.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Although not necessarily heroism, the anime changes his ending a bit, most notably him showing some level of regret over his actions. He also doesn't desperately try to get Ryuk to kill the SPK members after he gets shot.
  • In the manga, his second victim is harassing a lady but hasn't done anything to her yet, and even Light feels he went too far in killing him. In the anime the criminal is an attempted rapist and the framing of the shot makes it look as though Light is genuinely trying to help the victim.
  • Some of his more cruel acts are toned down a bit as well; for example in the manga he gives Aiber liver cancer, causing him to die a slow, agonizing death surrounded by his family in the hospital while in the anime he gives a quicker death by alcohol poisoning.
  • The films actually manage to make both this and Adaptational Villainy apply to him. In the films, his Protagonist Journey to Villain involves the law being held on a Broken Pedestal, whereas the anime/manga version is a perfectionist. On the same coin, in the films, he ends up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope much sooner than he did in the anime and manga, to the extent that he tried to kill his own father to prevent the Death Note from being analyzed.
  • In the TV drama, he deeply cares about his family (even if he has a strained relationship with his father), actually returns Misa's feelings and is able to save people using the Death Note (getting rid of Jerk Jock Souta and saving his father from his mother's murderer).
  • The version of him in the American Netflix movie is by far his most sympathetic counterpart. While he still kills people, he makes sure to only target criminals. He never takes the initiative in killing the FBI agents who are tailing him, his partner Mia does so behind his back, and he is outraged when Mia voices her desire to kill his father for publicly declaring Kira the enemy. At one point, he is a little apprehensive about using a Kira fansite to find more people to kill since there is a chance that someone might want a person dead for a petty reason such as sleeping with their boyfriend/girlfriend. Even when he writes Watari's name in the Death Note in an effort to get L's real name, he intends to destroy the page with Watari's name on it, which would have prevented the effects of the notebook from taking effect. However, since Mia stashed the page in a calculus book, he is unable to save him in time.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In Jump Force, Light is surprisingly smarter, calm, collected, and fully capable of orchestrating successful plans. He is still as arrogant as ever, but he also lacks the more obnoxious and childish traits the canon version of him was best known for. In fact, this incarnation is brilliant enough to qualify as a invoked Magnificent Bastard.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Downplayed. Light's killing of law enforcement is made somewhat more understandable in the live-action films, as he'd grown disillusioned with the legal system and he viewed their pursuit of Kira as a refusal to admit they'd got it wrong. In the manga and anime he kills them solely because they were bothering him.
• Adaptational Villainy: The films actually manage to make this and Adaptational Heroism apply to him. In the films, he ends up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope much sooner than he did in the anime and manga, to the extent that he tried to kill his own father to prevent the Death Note from being analyzed. On the same coin, in the films, his Protagonist Journey to Villain involves the law being held on a Broken Pedestal, whereas the anime/manga version is a perfectionist who couldn't deal with the fact that he accidentally killed someone (thus, he reasons that it was okay since the dude was an asshole, and that it's okay to kill criminals).
• Age Lift: Every adaptation of the series initially starts off in The Present Day, and thus, in the films, manga, and anime, Light is a child of The '80s. In the TV drama, airing in 2015, his birth year is shifted to as late as 1995.
• All for Nothing:
  • He sets out to be Kira in order to, at least at first, create a better, more just world. By the end, after several years, all he accomplishes is getting himself and his father killed, and virtually everyone else in his personal life either dead or broken.
  • In the Special Chapter, however, we learned that things have worked in some way, since wars have been eradicated, crime has been effectively controlled, and law enforcement technology is extremely effective.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the manga ending, after being shot, Light asks Ryuk to write the names of his last enemies into his Death Note. Instead, Ryuk writes Light's own name into the book and shows it to him.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • In the anime, when he is finally defeated. The way he calls out to Takada and Misa, asking what he should do now that he's lost and going to die, is pretty heartwrenching. The anime even flashes back briefly to when Light was just an Ordinary High-School Student to drive the point home. Lastly, as Light sees himself before he got the Death Note while running away, he starts sobbing, clearly feeling regret in the end.
  • Played with in the manga. He dies pathetically, without any kind of sympathy. To drive the point home, Aizawa asks Matsuda why he's still feeling pity for Light. Nevertheless, it doesn't stop a bunch of supporters mourning over his death.
  • In the film series, he dies an agonizing death in his father's arms, claiming that all he ever wanted was the justice that he taught him.
  • In the drama, Light refuses to give up, even when he's in a burning building. All he could think about was that he wanted to make the world a better place. Unlike the deaths listed above, he dies a much more agonizing death. He burns to death.
• Allegorical Character: He is a walking societal critique of Japan's Lost Generation, children who grew up during the late nineties and early 2000s to find that despite all their hard work, they find themselves in a world with few job opportunities and other cruel hardships, with some ending up joining in the Aum Shinrikyo terrorist attack.
• Aloof Big Brother: Downplayed as he isn't very distant from his sister, but he definitely keeps to himself a lot more considering what he's been doing throughout the series.
• Alternate Character Reading: Light's name is very unusual and this is Lampshaded by several characters. It is read as Light but spelled with the kanji tsuki or moon making it a Meaningful Name since the kanji has four strokes and Light Is Not Good. Also a bilingual pun on "moonlight". Light or Raito is also a bilingual pun on Right or Righteous and Write as in writing.
• Amateur Sleuth: Before picking up the Death Note.
• Ambiguous Start of Darkness: Whether or not Light was a good person before he picked up the Death Note is unclear. While it could be that he numbed himself to death and convinced himself what he was doing was alright, he showed some sociopathic traits beforehand. For his part, Near is convinced that Light was always messed up in the head, arguing that he wouldn't have used the Death Note like he did if that wasn't the case. An in-depth examination of the character makes all of this even more confusing considering that we know very little about his interaction with his peers and his personal life before picking up the notebook. It is vaguely implied that he was adored by his peers and was a model student; however, when his memory is extinguished, we notice that he has an incredible lack of emotional intelligence and a Hair-Trigger Temper, even without the influence of the notebook. However, considering that he was dedicated to stopping Kira after losing his memories he could possibly have traits of a Sociopathic Hero.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Averted; he gives up his memories of being Kira, then his mind-wiped self tries to clear his name by joining a task force devoted to capturing Kira. Although he still keeps his intelligence and says that his thought patterns are similar to Kira's, his personality changes to that of a decent person rather than the self-righteous, prideful Well-Intentioned Extremist/Knight Templar he was before that would be willing to use the Death Note (the most jarring is the difference in how he treats Misa: while he was perfectly happy to seduce and manipulate her when they first met, memory-less Light vigorously opposes L's efforts to do the same). Even if he doesn't sympathize with Kira because he wants to clear his name, the personality change was the series' only notable headache. But when he gets his memories back, there's no dissonance — just a Psychotic Smirk. Everything that happened went "Exactly as planned."
• Amnesiacs are Innocent: A deliberately Invoked Trope during Light's Memory Gambit. Yotsuba Light is warm, open, kind and a Nice Guy because he doesn't remember he is Kira.
• And Show It to You: On the receiving end in the manga ending, but in a not-immediately-fatal way. After being shot and left to bleed to death, Light pleads with Ryuk to write the names of his enemies into the Death Note so he could get away. Instead, Ryuk says that he's finally gotten bored of Light and doesn't want to stay in a prison with him, so he writes down Light's name and shows it to him as a final kick in the teeth to him.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Light is a mass murderer, and his father Soichiro is the police chief trying to stop him. However, Soichiro wants to believe his son is innocent.
• Antagonist in Mourning: While he's initially ecstatic over beating L, to the point of dancing on his grave while gloating over beating him, when he has to deal with L's successors Near and Mello, Light contemptuously regards them as inferior to L, and is actually enraged when he finally meets Near and finds him wearing a mask of L's face.
• Anti-Hero:
  • The TV drama puts him here during the first few episodes as an Unscrupulous Hero, as he uses the Death Note to protect others at that time.
• Anti-Role Model: In strict contrast to most Shonen protagonists, Light is pretty much written as an example of how not to act. His rapid descent into insane villainy is the predominant thrust of the plot's message of He Who Fights Monsters and his Black-and-White Insanity, narcissism, superiority complex and lack of self-awareness are all used to demonstrate traits the authors seem to dislike.
• Anti-Villain: Subverted in most media except the TV Drama, where he genuinely cares for his family, as well as Misa and Teru. Initially, he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist but his excessive narcissism and sadism, as well as his increasingly insane and petty standards for murder quickly take him far away from here. Although he genuinely believes he's in the right, he's quick to kill off anyone who questions him or tries to track him down, deciding that those actions make them just as guilty as criminals for going against him.
• Appeal to Force: He takes full advantage of the Death Note to kill criminals and those who would interfere with his plans, working as an anonymous God and walking deterrent. Within six years, all wars stop and the global crime rate drops by 70% because everyone's scared of being killed by Kira.
• Appropriated Appellation: "Kira", the Engrish pronunciation of "killer," also means "sparkling," "shining," or "glitter" in Japanese. Additionally, Kira is also a Russian name by origin and is the feminine version of Cyrus. Cyrus comes from the Greek Κυρος (Kyros) which is the Greek version of the Persian name Kürush which may mean "far-sighted" or "young" — this, in and of itself, may refer to Light's grand, far-reaching dreams and his own youth and inexperience. Where it gets more interesting, however is that the name is also sometimes associated with the Greek κυριος (kyrios), meaning "lord". Indeed, the Greek word Kyrios means "lord, Lord, and Master" and in religious usage designates God, appearing 740 times in the New Testament referring to Jesus. Consider, though, that one of the songs in the Death Note soundtrack is titled "Kyrie" which is a transliteration of Greek κύριε (kyrie) and a vocative case of κύριος (kyrios). An interesting connection, even if it wasn't done intentionally.
• Arch-Enemy: To L from the very beginning when he mocked Light's ideology, thus earning him this title.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Downplayed in the manga. After everything he's done throughout the story, it's hard to feel bad for his extensive Humiliation Conga and undignified death, but the loss of the person that he could have been is still treated as a tragedy.
  • Averted in the anime. In the end, he shows some regret over his actions before he dies. See Alas, Poor Villain.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: This is his forte; quite a lot of his scenes involve a running inner dialogue where the audience hears him analyzing the scene around him, taking stock of his circumstances and options, and planning his next move. And of course, after his genius plans come to fruition, he has to go over them in detail so that the audience has a chance to figure out what exactly just happened.
• Awesome McCoolname: "Light" is written with the kanji for "moon", part of the reason why Misa finds his name so awesome.
• Badass Arm-Fold: Light has done this pose on occasion when chatting with L.
• Badass Bookworm: He's the top-ranked student in the country and his room is filled with books — though he's only interested in one book in particular.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He always looks professional, you've got to give him that.
• Bad Boss: Light rules his circle of supporters, namely Misa, Ryuk, Takada, and Mikami, with an iron fist. And although he's always polite, accommodating, and courteous to the Japanese Anti-Kira Task Force, there's really no other way to plot their deaths. However... in retrospect, Ryuk was free to do whatever the hell he pleased... and that includes penciling in Light's own name into the Death Note. Misa quite possibly gets the shortest end of the stick. She devoted herself to serving him, gave up half her lifespan for him twice, and endured brutal torture to protect him, and Light still sees her as nothing but a pawn to be manipulated and then disposed of. Justified in that Light is extremely security-conscious, and his success rests largely on the people in his command, both as Kira and the second L, not screwing up. Due to this, he kills or tries to kill almost everyone who helps him throughout the series.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Light was said by Ryuk to be preemptively banned from entering Heaven or even Hell from the moment he finished scribbling the first name in his Death Note. Of course, it turns out there is no Heaven or Hell in the first place, so go figure.
• Bastardly Speech:
  • Gives one after L's death.
  • Following his father's death, when Matsuda is questioning whether capturing Kira is right or wrong, Light says that history will favor the victor; Kira will be seen as a criminal if he's caught, and will be seen as justice if he prevails. While this is meant to come across as a suggestion that the investigation team will be vindicated if they are successful, it also represents Light's belief that the world will soon come to accept him.
• Batman Gambit: He's a master at manipulation. His entire period of amnesia and what followed is a clear example.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: Light never intended to have Ryuk fight his battles for him out of pride. Once Near backs him into a corner, he foregoes that last remaining principle and begs Ryuk to kill his enemies. Taking this as confirmation that Light had officially run out of ploys, Ryuk decides to put him out of his misery
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Deconstructed. In many ways, he seems to be perfect, both physically and intellectually. However, it's that same perfection that leads him to the summit of villainy and narcissism.
• Beauty Is Bad: Undoubtedly. He's a handsome and charming Villain Protagonist facing the unsocial and somewhat wild-looking Hero Antagonist L. Interestingly, though, whenever Light is being particularly evil, his face tends to twist into asymmetrical grins and other bizarre expressions that utterly break his boyish handsomeness.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: When both Light and his father were imprisoned for weeks on end during L's attempt to prove he is not Kira, he never begins to look any worse for it. While Soichiro grows a beard and his hair rapidly turns grey, Light remains cleanly shaven and his hair becomes only slightly disheveled, as any true Bishōnen would. In the live-action film, he grows some slight stubble.
• Becoming the Mask: A much darker variation of the trope. In the beginning, Light makes a conscious distinction between the student prodigy and the mass-murdering Kira personas. By the end, however, Light's self-righteous god complex has spiraled so out of control, the two are indistinguishable.
• Berserk Button: If there is one thing guaranteed to piss him off, it's suggesting that what he is doing as Kira is wrong or evil. When Lind L. Tailor outright states this during the second episode, Light writes his name extra-large in the Death Note.
• Big Bad: Of the whole story. While he is the protagonist of the series, his use of the Death Note quickly turns him into a power-hungry maniac whose murders become the all-encompassing threat to L and the Japanese Task Force and the hunt for him proves the challenge of the work.
• Big Bad Friend: To L and Matsuda. L, who suspected Light as Kira from the very beginning, says he would be disappointed if Light turned out to be Kira because Light's the best friend he's ever had (though the writer states that L is probably lying), whereas Matsuda, who idolizes Light and likes him, has a complete breakdown when he finds out during the finale, shooting Light five times while screaming and crying. It's especially heartbreaking because the audience has known from the beginning that Light is indeed Kira.
• Big Bad Slippage: His entire character arc in the storyline is this, especially after his Kira persona takes complete control of him.
• Big Brother Instinct: Initially, (in fact, in the manga, this is part of his initial justification for using the Death Note) but ends up being one of the many things forgotten by the Dark Side. Poor, poor Sayu.
• Big Man on Campus: He is very popular and has lots of friends. This is shown more in the manga than in the anime.
• Big Sleep: In the anime, at least. When he is killed by Ryuk in front of the police in the manga, he Dies Wide Open.
• Bilingual Bonus: In the 1st live-action movie, he was reading this German book.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He acts polite, understanding, and caring towards the people around him, but in reality, he's a Manipulative Bastard with a God complex. And boy, when that façade drops, can he get nasty.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Falls into this more and more as the series progresses. Justified: People matching the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder use black-and-white thinking, called splitting, as a central defense mechanism; they separate mental concepts into good versus evil, say, as an attempt to stabilize the sense of self in order to preserve self-esteem. Throughout the series, Light certainly does show clear indications of perceiving himself as purely upright or admirable and others who do not conform to his will or values as purely wicked or contemptible.
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: He begins his first week as Kira by killing so many people that Ryuk, a god of death, is surprised.
• Born Lucky: Deconstructed. While Light's Super-Intelligence and being The Social Expert does make him an effective Chessmaster, along with his status as an Academic Athlete and the son of a Police Chief giving him a shield to prevent anyone from strongly suspecting him, sans L, one could make an argument that a lot of his Batman Gambits worked out as they did mainly due to good luck. Case in point, his gambit to learn Raye Penber's true identity through a bus jacking could've gone wrong in a number of ways and it's mostly because of Raye's own incompetence that made Light's gambit work. Furthermore, Light's own Fatal Flaws regarding his prideful and childish personality gives him obvious blindspots to how people, and by extension, the world, works, which doesn't help how his string of successes after the 5-year Time Skip worsen his flaws to the point he can't even fathom the idea that he can lose and it finally cultivated in him being Out-Gambitted by Near.
• Brainy Brunette: A brown-haired Evil Genius.
• Break the Haughty: This happens a bit every time he gets Out-Gambitted by his opponents, although he's fairly good at bouncing back. And, of course, his death counts as a truly epic example.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: In the first volume of the manga it seems people think he's this — Light's teacher throws chalk in his face for spacing out in class. Justified in that he's worried that he just killed someone. Also, normal high-school subjects probably aren't that interesting to a super-genius who already knows the subject material.
• Broken Ace: There are hints in the series that Light wasn't entirely stable even before finding the Death Note; being so effortlessly perfect while surrounded by a world that he considered "rotten" while having little ability to fix it left him bored and seemingly depressed. And of course, as the series progresses he uses his near-inhuman charm to cover up his true nature.
• Broken Pedestal: In the live-action films, he holds the law itself as such; he begins acting as Kira out of disgust and frustration that the Japanese legal system is constantly abused by those with connections.
• Brutal Honesty: Although it's a contrast to his usual approach to those around him, Light uses this tactic with Misa, most notably when he is just getting to know her and is sounding her out for motivation, understanding of the situation, and so forth.
• But Not Too Challenging: While Light does enjoy a "battle of wits" against L, and later Near after the 5-year timeskip, he'll never accept losing as a possibility. His refusal to accept loss is justified given that "losing" in his case means that he can kiss whatever goals he has as Kira, his social life, and his freedom goodbye behind bars, assuming that he doesn't get killed beforehand or get the death penalty, it also shows his raging God complex, narcissism, and refusal to admit to any fault. This attitude is what really separates him from L, as by his own admission, he also doesn't like to lose, but the latter's very self-aware of his flaws.
• Byronic Hero: A villainous one. Physically attractive, cunning and intelligent, arrogant with a major God complex, prone to quiet brooding when things don't go his way, very passionate about his ideals, and absolutely convinced that what he is doing is right. He could also be a deconstruction of one: While people in and out of the series think he's misunderstood, he is genuinely evil and dangerous. Of course, the "misunderstood" conception changes at the end, at least in-universe.
• The Caligula: Kira makes for a dangerously ruthless ruler. The God of the New World does not like it when people question the way he does things. Dissenters are likely to find their names in a certain little black book.
• Calling Card: "L, do you know..."
• Calling Parents by Their Name: At the end of the series, Light addresses his late father by his full name while declaring that in a world so rotten, idealists like Soichiro who fight for justice and died trying to stop Kira will always be made out to be fools unless Light can continue to rule.
  Matsuda: What was it all for then? What about your dad? What the hell did he die for?!
  Light: My dad? You mean Soichiro Yagami? That's right, Matsuda! In this world, all those earnest people like him who fight for justice... they always lose! You want a world where people like that are made to be fools?!
• Can't Take Criticism:
  • His biggest flaw (springing directly from his overwhelming Pride). Suggesting or outright stating that what he is doing as Kira is wrong or evil is a very good way to end up dead. He also walks out on a family meeting where his father is calling Kira nothing but a murderer and later he looks visibly upset when the Kira Task Force begins to (rightly) doubt his innocence again. In fact, when Lind L. Tailor insults him on national television, calling what he's doing evil, Light's immediate response is to use the Death Note to kill him on the spot, writing his name extra big in there!
  • Played with as well, when Light decides to "support" his father's decision to pursue Kira despite the imminent danger this puts him in.
    Light: If anything happens to you... I will personally put an end to Kira.
  • And once again, when L introduces himself to Light. Light claims to have nothing but respect and admiration for someone who'd try so hard to hunt Kira down.
• Character Catchphrase: Say it with me everybody...
  • "I am the GOD of the NEW WORLD!"
  • "Just as planned."
  • "I am JUSTICE!" (this one is shared with L.)
  • "I'm not Kira."
• The Charmer: When all else fails he switches to this tactic of manipulation in order to get someone's name or to save himself.
• The Chessmaster: He manipulates and uses pretty much everyone he comes into contact with. He also has a keen mind for strategy and planning which even rivals to the likes of L.
• Chick Magnet: Let's count all of the names that pop up in the manga: Emi and Shiho (whom he mentions to Ryuk), Yuri (Spaceland Girl) and Mayu (whom Misa cites as competition), Kiyomi Takada (who begins her role in the story as the girl who asked him out in college) and of course Misa Amane herself. During college, he had about five or six girlfriends. Plus Shiori, his girlfriend from the films.
• The Chosen One: Subverted. When Ryuk appears, Light asks him why he gave Light the Death Note. Ryuk laughs in his face and tells him he dropped the notebook so anyone could find it. It's the reason the instructions are written in English, the most popular language in the world.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Light betrays, has betrayed, or plans on betraying effectively everyone who was ever close in any way to him.
• Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: He's done this on occasion.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He has shades of this, notably when he is agitated enough or talks about his fantasies in an extremely passionate way.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The official color seems to be red. Also wears a lot of black and white. His more casual attire is an inversion of L's wardrobe, wearing a black shirt with beige pants.
• Complexity Addiction: Something of a defining trait, as established early after he figures out that he needs to hide the Death Note.
• Composite Character: In the live-action series, he is burned alive like Takada was in the manga and anime.
• The Conscience: Memoryless Light is ironically this for L.
• Consummate Liar: L asks Light if he seriously considers himself to be the polar opposite of this while the audience understands that Light is actually this:
  L: Tell me, Light. From the moment you were born, can you honestly say you've never lied?
• Control Freak: When it comes down to it, Light's murders as Kira start to become about him controlling every detail of the world, with everyone's actions being coordinated by fear of his wrath.
• The Corruptible: He starts out as this, though he doesn't manage to hold out through the first episode. Granted, the episode took place over two weeks... but still, he was overwhelmed by the power of the Death Note almost instantaneously. This is implied to be the byproduct of a nasty combination of boredom, solitude, and purposelessness.
• Conveniently Seated: Light gets the symbolic window seat, and it also gives him a great view to the yard where the Death Note gets dropped.
• Cosmic Plaything: He found the Death Note completely at random (if Ryuk is to be believed, though the specific individual to find it seems a bit too perfect) and is heavily hinted to have been doomed from the beginning.
• Couldn't Find a Pen:
  • He writes Higuchi's name in his own blood, justified as he had to write it secretly on the Death Note page hidden in his watch.
  • After Matsuda shoots his pen out of his hand when he tries to write Near's name down, Light attempts to finish writing the name using his own blood. Matsuda doesn't let him.
• Cradling Your Kill: His rival, L, dies in his arms in "Silence". Of course, he does it with a Slasher Smile.
• Cram School: He attends one despite being WAY too smart to need it.
• Crazy-Prepared: Played with. When he starts acting as Kira, he rigs his desk to burst into flame if anyone tries to find the Death Note, has three different ways to tell if someone has been in his room — even before gaining the notebook — and is shown spending hours going over his past actions and future plans, as well as what's been reported in the news. He looks for mistakes and possible holes and memorizes what has been reported, so L can't trip him up. Later, due to his raging god complex and his sense of complete superiority, he starts to view himself as invincible and stops being so well-prepared. It doesn't end well for him.
• Crazy Sane: Light can't cope with the knowledge that he has killed two people. In order to justify his first (accidental) murders of criminals he has to convince himself that they needed to be killed. But then why stop there? So in order to make things right by his own moral code he has to kill more because it's the responsible thing to do, that he'll use this power for "good" — no matter the price. He convinces himself that the real crime would be NOT to use the Death Note to change the world. The God complex swiftly follows, no doubt accelerated by the need to look interesting to Ryuk and L's very public challenging of him. All of this happens with alarming speed, and it explains why Light during the Memory Gambit has such a different personality and is horrified by the possibility that he could be Kira. Without the memory of having killed and what effect it had on his mind (as well as witnessing the impact such a person could have on society), he's a completely different person.
• Crucified Hero Shot:
  • The cover art of Volume 12 of the manga.
  • Also during the second ending theme song's animation, although if you blink you'll miss it.
• Cry Laughing: Played for Drama. It's only exclusive to the Italian dub, but it has Light appear as though he is crying from being exposed as Kira by the Task Force and the SPK members until he breaks out Laughing Mad in his defeat.
• Cursed with Awesome: Though he doesn't think of it as a curse.
• Cute and Psycho: An attractive Bishōnen who's also a serial killer with a huge ego.
• Cuteness Proximity: In the manga Light seems to have this reaction around Ryuk who Light refers to as "cute".
  Light: Ryuk, you're so silly!
• Dark Is Evil: His surname spells "Yami"—the Japanese word for "darkness"—if you take out the middle syllable, and he is a narcissistic Serial Killer with self-delusions of being a god.
• Dark Messiah: Of course he is. The worst part is afterwards where despite all the vile evil he has done, Light is worshiped by the world as the Messiah, even going as far as to declare their support for him, with only a handful of people knowing his true nature.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: While he starts out killing criminals with the idea of it bringing about justice, he starts to slip once the authorities get on his case, as he begins to kill the people investigating him whenever they get to close to the truth simply for trying to stop him; in order words, killing perfectly innocent people simply because they are trying to do their jobs. It gets worse after the Time Skip, where he has fully bought into the idea of being the God of his own new world, and he toys with the idea of also beginning to target people just for being "unproductive".
• Darker and Edgier:
  • When compared to Taro Kagami, the Death Note user from the pilot chapter. Though even he decided to keep his Death Note...
  • Ye gods, Light in the live-action movies! It makes his anime counterpart seem downright cuddly in comparison.
• Death Glare: Don't screw up his plans. Just... don't.
• Death of Personality: Played with, as in his case the death of personality was self-initiated and the result of being driven mad by excessive power. The end of the manga shows that there is absolutely nothing left of the human he once was, though the anime implies a minuscule part still exists. Light still identifies with his old name, but very early on, he starts to describe Light Yagami, son of Soichiro, as a persona, while he identifies as Kira, God of the New World.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • Rem forces him, under direct threat of death, to adopt this mindset towards Misa in regards to his plans during the events that lead up to the Yotsuba arc.
  • As a more genuine example, this is initially Light's attitude towards his little sister, Sayu. However, he considers murdering her at one point, and lets her live only because he opts to gamble with her life — and their father's life — in order to find and kill Mello and get the second Death Note back.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Of the Shōnen hero: a young, justice-loving Chaste Hero (a narcissistic Knight Templar with delusions of godhood) who discovers magical powers (a notebook that can be used to instantly murder anybody) and gains a Spirit Buddy (an amoral embodiment of death), makes a Worthy Opponent rival (a detective trying to apprehend him for his crimes) and picks up a persistent Genki Girl love interest (a vapid pop idol who's fanatically obsessed with him and, despite barely knowing him, is instantly willing to kill for, die for and marry him).
  • He very quickly ends up being one of the Vigilante Man archetypes, showing just how narcissistic and self-serving one would have to be to delude themselves into thinking that breaking the law and killing people, criminals or not, is both moral and beneficial for society. While he sets out to only kill criminals initially, a combination of wounded pride and self-preservation drives him to start murdering innocents and police officers who take exception to his methods and try to bring him to justice, showing how inevitably close these sort of people are to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
• Deep Cover Agent: He acts as his own Manchurian Agent.
• Desk Jockey: We rarely see him leave his desk during either the Yotsuba arc or the second arc, his "investigation" with Kiyomi Takada aside. He inherits this from L.
• Desecrating the Dead: In the compilation special, he dances on L's grave while bragging about having beaten him.
  Light: What do you think of that, L?! This is my perfect victory! That's right! I WIN!!!
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: His state of being as the story begins. He despises the state of the world, finds no challenge or meaning in anything, has no hobbies, views his highest ambitions as a matter of the course of time, and yet always does everything perfectly, like laughing at jokes that aren't funny told by people he may even loathe because good, clean-cut students socialize, and studying for exams he could pass in his sleep. He shows symptoms of a clinically depressed possible psychopath, with reputation-defense and control issues to beat the band. And his egomaniac tendencies begin to dominate his personality after he finds his purpose in conquering the world by fear and murder once he gets his hands on the Death Note.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: Over time, his plans start to become more about becoming a god and less about making the world a better place. However, post-time-skip he once again begins to prominently talk about his "utopia", and thinks that eventually everyone will accept him as the ultimate arbiter of justice.
• Determinator: "Childish and hates to lose." Light as Kira is (from his perspective) on a holy crusade against Evil. He's never going to quit his mission for the sake of his friends, family, or "true love." Sorry Misa.
• Devil in Plain Sight: For the audience, and, later, Aizawa, Mogi and Ide.
• Devoted to You: Misa is hopelessly obsessed with him and will do anything for him. She'd rather die than live any kind of life without him. She does.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Light's machinations cause Rem to kill L and Watari to save Misa's life. Because deliberately lengthening a human's life is a big no-no for Gods of Death, it ensures that Rem will die as well.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Light manipulates Rem, a god of death, into killing L and Watari in order to save Misa.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: An interesting variation; while the manga, anime, live-action film series and musical all end in Ryuk writing Light's name into the Death Note, how he goes out are otherwise very different to one another:
  • The manga has him begging Ryuk not to write his name into the Death Note, to no avail, resulting in his Undignified Death.
  • The anime has him die peacefully in a warehouse while Ryuk muses about their time together, noting (no pun intended) "It's been fun."
  • The live-action film ends similarly to the manga, but not only does Light fail to kill L this time around, he also dies in Sochiro's arms (whom the latter was Spared by the Adaptation).
  • The musical has him killed off just after L dies because Ryuk thinks Victory Is Boring. Again, he begs for his life, to no avail.
  • The drama series has him burn to death in a warehouse, trying to reach another Death Note.
• Dies Wide Open: In the manga, after a bad bout of Ain't Too Proud to Beg and Inelegant Blubbering. It contrasts neatly with L's death, who closed his eyes upon death and managed to look quite peaceful despite losing a battle of wits that would have determined the fate of humanity.
• Dirty Coward: Arguably, his inability to confront his own hypocrisy is what engineers his turn into Kira. Played straight in the manga and downplayed in the anime. In the manga when faced with his own death, he frantically begs Ryuk to save him and at the end, he dies screaming and crying for his life. In the anime, when he is faced with his own mortality, he is also absolutely terrified and starts to beg for someone to save him, eventually crawling away while the others debate on if he is too pathetic to chase after, but ultimately accepts his fate and embraces death at the end (when he doesn't have a choice).
• Disposable Woman: Invoker of this trope, towards his family, Misa, Rem, Takada, and everyone else he dated ("used"). He outright kills Takada (who he outright forgot existed until she became useful again), forces Rem into suicide by risking Misa's life, contemplates killing his sister, ignores that one of his plans for securing the note could potentially kill his family, and isn't even around to console his mother when his plan gets his father killed.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His forte.
  • Basically the entire reason his battle against L goes as far as it does is because the latter's stand-in insulted him.
  • He sentences a purse-snatcher to death.
  • He considers eventually killing people for laziness. "Eventually" being the operative word; when his acolyte Teru Mikami openly declares slackers fair game, Light thinks he's gone too far.
  • The utterly heinous "crime" of getting in his way (See Lind L. Tailor).
  • Though he disapproved of Mikami targeting minor and reformed criminals, Light didn't hesitate to dispose of people like Wedy and Aiber, who were no longer threats to anyone but remained potential loose ends to him.
• Dissonant Serenity: He can remain perfectly calm and go about his daily routine while knowing full well that people are dying by his hand. The anime even shows a sequence, early on, that places scenes of criminals dying, sometimes violently, in between scenes of Light walking to school, playing a game at gym, and opening a bag of chips at lunch.
• Doesn't Like Guns: He refuses to accept a handgun for self-defense in the middle of a car chase. He has some less-than-pleasant experiences with guns throughout the series.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: He and Misa set several of these up throughout the course of the series, sometimes on national TV, sometimes on private laptops.
• Domestic Abuse: Light takes his anger out on, controls, demeans, deceives, and initially plans to kill Misa. For various reasons, he doesn't go with it, and eventually chooses to erase her memories instead. He's not much better to any of his other paramours, putting Yuri in harm's way and leaving Kiyomi to die as soon as she'd fulfilled her purpose. And then there's Shiori from the live-action series.
• Don't Tell Mama: "You told my father that I'm a suspect?!"
• Doomed Protagonist: Kind of a given when you've picked up an Artifact of Death; there's also more Foreshadowing when Ryuk informs Light that humans who come into contact with Shinigami have nothing but misfortune. Light assures him "I'll show you the break in that pattern." The "How to Read" caption on that picture says "Light suffered a pathetic end. This line reveals his arrogance."
• Doom Magnet: Complete with Lampshade Hanging.
• Double Consciousness: "Don't panic. I have to act like Soichiro Yagami's son Light would act." Also made obvious with the fracturing image symbolism in the second opening credits. Also Lampshaded by L when he asks Light how, as a detective, he would go about trapping Kira:
  L: Absolutely amazing. The thing is I've asked countless investigators that same question and it took them minutes to even come up with an answer. But you, Light. You immediately thought of a scenario where Kira was talking directly to the investigators. I'm impressed. You'll make a fine detective someday.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Light refuses the Shinigami Eyes because he wanted to rule as God of the New World for a very long time, but if he had done it, it would have taken out a lot of tension and stakes between Light and L and needed to learn L's true name to kill him. As the climax revealed, he's just plain-old scared of death.
• Dramatic Irony: His very character thrives on this. Very few knew the true depths of his crude, childish greed and excessive Pride. Following the Time Skip, while he's seen throughout the world as a Messianic Archetype set to bring the world's salvation, every single good thing he's done is simply for the sake of PR and he sees the whole of the world as merely a means to reach greater heights. This makes him no different than Satan Himself.
• Draco in Leather Pants: He gets this treatment both in-story and out. invoked
• The Dreaded: By the second half of the series, Kira has become such a terrifying entity that merely the presence of Kira has changed the world on a global scale. Wars have stopped and crime rates have dropped significantly, simply out of the fear of being murdered by a judge outside of the legal system. When Near corners Light at the end of the series, he even notes that he's not the judge of good and evil, and that Kira may have changed the world for the better with fear.
• Drunk with Power: While it's clear that Light always was a bit of a troubled man, had he not picked up the Death Note he would have most likely gone on to live a good clean life simply due to the hold society has on him. After getting the Death Note and being forced to deal with the fact that he unwittingly murdered two people so easily, his darker ambitions take over and drive him towards his God complex, which were enabled and exacerbated by his growing popularity.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Seen in episode 1 before finding his "purpose". Also in episode 26 when trying to adjust to a world without L in it.
• The Dutiful Son: Probably the most horrible deconstruction of this. Light is more or less what is considered to be the perfect Japanese son, and the majority of his god complex seems to be linked to the praise he receives for it.
• Dying Alone:
  • Although in the anime, there is an appearance from what appears to be L's ghost. This may or may not be a Dying Dream.
  • Averted in the manga and film.
• Dying as Yourself: Possibly at the end of the anime. Now that he's finally undone, the weight of everything he's done seems to finally hit him... a little too late.

Tropes E-K

• Engineered Heroics: Well, he's perfectly happy soaking up lots of praise from the Task Force for working to stop Kira... while being Kira.
• Et Tu, Brute?: When the task force begins to turn against him in Season 2, it's clear he sees it as a betrayal. Also the end of the series, "Matsuda, I thought you understood!" The manga finishes it up with Mikami screaming "YOU'RE NOT GOD!!"
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Downplayed in that Light sheds away his initial care for his family after his descent in morality. When his father died, he was just frustrated that he failed to deliver Mello's real name but otherwise never mourned him. When his sister was kidnapped by Mello, he seriously considered killing her with the Death Note and only relented because it would frame him as Kira. On top of that, he threatened his girlfriend Misa to kill her and had his other girlfriend Takada burn herself to death. That being said, he never wants to kill any of his family, and likely would've let them live had he been in control of everything.
  • Averted in the film The Last Name, in which he writes his father's name into the Death Note in order to stop it being analyzed. It doesn't work - and what's worse, Soichiro gets to watch while he does it. Even Misa was horrified at that and broke down in tears. Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, it did: Light ultimately dies in his father's arms, begging him to believe that he acted as Kira to put justice into effect.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Light looks quite shocked when Misa offers to kill her friend who helped her distribute the Kira tapes.
  • It's also possible that he felt pain when his father died and Light would never intentionally kill his own father.
  • In general Light is disgusted by any crime (unless of course he's the one doing it; in which case it's perfectly justified).
  • In the TV drama, he wasn't feeling comfortable with killing Raye Penber (or so he thought was his name) because he had a fiancée. It took Ryuk's goading to write his name down.
  • Genuinely thought Teru went too far when he ex-criminals who already served their time. Even Light knew that's pointless and counterproductive. He also believed Teru announcing he'll kill people simply for being lazy was a step too far. The latter bit is eventually subverted though; Light later admits that he is indeed toying with the thought of also targeting "unproductive" people at some point, and his main problem with Teru doing it was he made the move "too soon".
  • While Light starts off the series with many standards (such as targeting the worst criminals at first and slowly getting rid of the rest through more humane means than a heart attack), over the course of the series Light subverts them to the point where even his few genuine standards come across as more hypocritical than redeeming. By the end of the series, Light is little more than just a crazy serial killer as Near says.
• Even the Guys Want Him:
  • In the first episode of Death Note, a surprising number of men seem to be checking out Light. At each crossing he stops at, someone is giving him a sideways glance. And then there's his slightly too agog teacher when he listens to Light translate some lines to Japanese.
  • Let's see, you've got like every background character in episode 1, Ryuk follows him around everywhere, Raye Penber the Stalker, L and his weird obsession and surveillance cameras, Matsuda and Mikami the fanboys, and Near with his creepy smiles and he keeps calling and hanging up... Kira is a wanted man.
• Evil All Along: Although he kept up the act of being a friend, or at least a decent co-worker, to L, Matsuda, and the rest of the task force, he is the mass murderer they've all been searching for. And although he would rather not kill off the task force, preferring instead to manipulate and deceive them, he will not hesitate to get rid of them if he feels that he needs to.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Sochiro tries to negotiate with Mello, despite the fact that Mello had kidnapped and traumatized Sayu, Light is flabbergasted and confused as to why he won't just write his name in the Death Note and be done with it.
• Evil Genius: Unquestionably genius, and unquestionably evil.
• Evil Gloating: He practically dances on L's grave while bragging about his victory over the Great Detective. Also, when he writes Naomi Misora's name in the Death Note, he openly admits to her that he's Kira just to see the look on her face before she dies. This winds up backfiring when he finally meets Near face to face and puts his endgame into action, only to realize he was outwitted with him being told straight up that by declaring "I win," he pretty much implicated himself. Even then, he openly gloats to the police about his God complex, merely as a matter of pride to show how confident he was that he had successfully tied up all remaining loose ends.
• Evil Is Angular: If you pay attention, you may notice that his physical design becomes more angular as the show progresses. For example, his eyes become more squinty and his face becomes a little less rounded than when he was innocent.
• Evil Hero: He has good publicity and has influenced hundreds of people who sincerely believe in his justice. Unfortunately, he is also a narcissistic sociopath with a Hair-Trigger Temper who would be more than willing to kill innocents, FBI agents, lovers and even relatives.
• Evil Is Hammy: He is such a ham that he'll "take a potato chip... and EAT IT!"
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Ryuk dropped a Death Note close by for Light to pick up, basically giving him a chance to kill people by the stroke of a pen. And for the majority of the series, Ryuk more appears like a Harmless Villain, looking creepy but ultimately spending his time watching Light's antics, eating apples or playing Mario Golf. It isn't until the end, when Light has been exposed as Kira and has "become boring" that Ryuk proves that he's still a Shinigami and writes Light's name into his own Death Note, just as Ryuk told him he eventually would.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: His bedroom always seems to be dark, save for the light from his computer and television; as you can imagine, he has several eerie Face Framed in Shadow moments.
• Evil Is Petty: For all his loftier ambitions, Light often indulges in unnecessarily cruel and petty acts either because someone criticized him or just because he can.
  • Most notably, he kills Lind L. Taylor on national television simply because he was pissed at Taylor for telling him that what he was doing was evil.
  • Then there's his murder of Naomi Misora, in which he tells her that he's Kira the moment before the Death Note takes effect, just to see the look of horror on her face as she realizes what's about to happen, and taunts her with offers to get her in touch with the Task Force, knowing that she can't do anything about it. Unlike all of his other victims, Light did all of that for no other reason than to be cruel.
• Evil Laugh: He's got some evil chuckles spread out throughout the series and the one in the Grand Finale is legendary.
  • English version.
  • Italian version.
  • Not to mention the one he comes out with after L bests him for the second time, at his university entrance ceremony.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: A Bishōnen whose facial expressions become noticeably twisted whenever he's angry or excited. This certainly gets worse over time. His features do coarsen a bit the older and nastier he becomes.
• Evil Overlooker: A few times, such as during the opening and closing themes, symbolically and literally overseeing his New World.
• Evil Plan: Motive Decay changes it from the well-intentioned 'eliminate crime' to the insane 'become god of a new world'.
• Evil Redhead: Light's hair is stylistically colored blood-red when he's feeling particularly vile, along with his eyes, but even when that's not the case, his hair is closer to auburn than brown and the reddest in the cast.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: As part of his Memory Gambit, Light makes sure that L reads the rules of the Death Note so that his own fake rules, in the context of the other real rules, come across as legitimate.
• Expressive Hair: Whenever he freaks out, his normally tidily combed hair becomes wild and messy.
• Expy: Much like L being an Expy of Sherlock Holmes, Light Yagami shares a lot in common with Professor James Moriarty from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novels. Similar to Moriarty, Light possesses a genius-level intellect, having discarded the idea of being an ordinary civilian to embark on a campaign and plan outside the bounds of the law, solely to establish himself as the greatest adversary his arch-nemesis (L to Light; Holmes to Moriarty) has ever faced. Ultimately, Light, just like Moriarty, also undertakes this campaign and wave of murders largely because he's bored and seeks to inflate his ego.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Whenever he needs to keep up appearances every time someone is critical of Kira, an example being that his father calls Kira evil at the dinner table, he'll hide his eyes behind his bangs, The Tell that he doesn't want anyone to see his eyes.
• The Extremist Was Right: During his Motive Rant, Light says that wars have stopped and crime has dropped 70% because of Kira's presence. He succeeded in scaring the shit out of most of the world as an anonymous "God" and walking deterrent. Downplayed in that he's still clearly insane.
• Face Death with Despair: Light, who has spent the entire series killing people without so much as batting an eye, is entirely undignified when it's his turn to go out at the very end, reduced to abject terror and begging for his life when Ryuk puts Light's name into his own Death Note, as he told Light he would do at the very beginning of the series. The knowledge that his fate would be no different from the legions of criminals and dissenters he'd personally executed clearly did a number on his psyche.
• Face Death with Dignity: Anime version only. After his plans are foiled and he escapes into a nearby warehouse, he spends his last moments looking content before Ryuk writes his name into the Death Note and he drifts off after silently succumbing to a heart attack. A far cry from how he spent his final moments in the manga.
  • Strangely, he intended to do this at first, as he assumed that Ryuk had come to kill him when the Shinigami introduced himself. Ryuk scoffs at this and says he's just an observer, which helps enflame Light's ambitions.
• Face–Heel Turn: Before he picked up the Death Note and became Kira himself, he used to be so nice, caring, good, and angelic to everyone around him, including his family.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: He's pretty good-looking for an evil mastermind.
• Fallen Hero: Light used to be an idealistic Amateur Sleuth who helped his father and the police solve difficult cases. Then he picked up the Death Note.
• False Friend:
  • A mutual example with L. Their supposed friendship is completely insincere on both sides.
  • His relationship with Matsuda is probably closer than any of the other detectives since he believes that Matsuda is a Black Shirt who believes in Kira's justice. He was wrong. And of course, Light didn't hesitate to have Matsuda killed along with the other detectives.
• Family-Values Villain: Light doesn't approve of any crime. He is also a firm believer in the credo "respect the police and pressure them into murdering your enemies."
• Fangs Are Evil: By the end of the first Relight special (everything after the funeral scene) Light seems to be sporting fangs in addition to perpetually glowing red eyes.
• Fatal Flaw: His overwhelming Pride. He also has three other flaws which stem from his pride:
  • His massive God complex, which leads him to underestimate his opponents and blinds him to the point where he refuses to even consider the possibility that he could ever lose.
  • His refusal to accept criticism. Even as early as the second episode Light's ego starts hurting him when he kills Lind L. Tailor out of spite for calling him a criminal and what he is doing evil, instantly narrowing L's search from worldwide to a region in Japan.
  • And finally, his propensity for Evil Gloating when he's about to kill an enemy because he has to make sure they know he beat them. He got away with telling Naomi that he was Kira right before the Death Note kicked in and compelled her to walk off and kill herself. He got away with sneering down at L as he died in Light's arms. But when he smugly told Near "I win" just before Mikami's (fake) Death Note conclusively failed to kill all his enemies, he threw away any possible chance of salvaging the situation for himself, sealing his fate.
• Fate Worse than Death: In the manga, Near expresses what kind of fate he has planned for Light: imprisoned for the rest of his life in a room without sound or sight as he is made aware of the world going back to normal. Ryuk decides to skip this process for him.
• Faux Affably Evil: He puts up a cool, polite, and friendly act, but in reality, he looks down on everyone around him. A particular example is when he's just written Naomi Misora's name in the Death Note. The moment she realizes that he is Kira and the Death Note takes effect, he asks her what the matter is and casually turns his phone back on, telling Naomi she can speak to his father now.
• Fluffy Tamer: "You shinigami are so cute!" (Parodied in this doujinshi.◊)
• Foil: While no one in the series is The Ace to be a proper Good Counterpart, he certainly shares some traits with some characters:
  • To L: 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."
  • To Near: Like Near, he's incredibly smart, cunning, smug, and arrogant. The big difference is that while Light has social skills and is perfectly capable of socializing, Near absolutely lacks social skills.
  • To Mello. Like Mello, 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 is 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.
  • To Minoru Tanaka: The fact that both are killed by Ryuk 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 excels at everything he puts 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 by thousands of people in his country. Another purpose of his character seems to be an answer to all the praise that Light has received from fans for more than ten years and to everything his archetype represents, letting Minoru himself 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. Especially a Kira whose motivation was to just get rich over instilling any justice.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Sayu and Light, though subverted once Light becomes Kira.
• For the Evulz: It's subtle, but it's still there. Indeed, there are very few justifiable reasons for Light to do what he does throughout the course of the story. There are no personal or particularly tragic events that, at the very least, justify his malice and his quest for power, beyond his disdain for the state of the world and his desire to shape it in his own way and to his own form. His malice, sadism, and malignant narcissism are not the result of Freudian Excuses. From the outset, we learned that he comes from a very functional family that always cared for him, and he never had anything resembling real problems. He was always a child who was given everything and never had to suffer anything. Instead, he seeks an excuse for thousands and millions of people to praise him and submit to his whims. The fact that everything he did, he did because he was bored and to inflate his ego doesn't help.
  • His murder of Naomi Misora, being just cruel for cruelty's sake. He tells her that he's Kira the moment before the Death Note takes effect, just to see the look of horror on her face as she realizes what's about to happen, and taunts her with offers to get her in touch with the Task Force, knowing that she can't do anything about it.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Choleric. As an individual, Light is decisive, commanding, action-oriented, and a born leader. He also possesses a Hair-Trigger Temper, which is common in some choleric individuals.
• Freak Out:
  • Suffers one of the most famous in all of anime upon finally being caught red-handed.
  • He has several smaller ones whenever it looks like his plans might fail.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Averted in the anime and manga. Light's home life is devoid of any drama and his good looks and genius intellect ensure that he won't have to struggle too much in life.
  • In the live-action movie, Light overheard a thug bragging about how the legal system was so flimsy he could get away with murder. Said thug noticed light eavesdropping and threatened to stab him then and there. Light's misanthropy then kicked into overdrive.
  • In the TV drama, his mother dies when he is young, and due to his father's absence he is forced to act as Sayu's parental figure.
• Friendless Background: Though he's very popular, Light doesn't seem to be particularly close to anyone. This varies somewhat from the manga to the anime. In the manga, Light is seen casually joking while walking home with friends, while in the anime, Light is shown pointedly declining an invitation to hang out and eat lunch alone. He had many friends though, and he was able to get a large group together when going out looking for the Second Kira.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He was just a brilliant, yet disaffected, Ordinary High-School Student before he found the Death Note. With it, he became a notorious mass murderer whose mere presence has stopped wars and vastly dropped the global crime rate within six years.
• Gadget Watches: Light hides a piece of his Death Note inside his watch, meaning he can kill anyone at any time as long as he's not being watched carefully.
• Gambit Roulette: A number of his plans rely more on luck and coincidence than genuine planning; so much so that this trope was once called the Yagami Gambit. The most famous of his plans being, of course, the Memory Gambit.
• Genuine Imposter: Light is secretly Kira, and is working with the anti-Kira task force. When a second Kira shows up, L asks Light (who he suspects of being the first Kira) to pretend to be Kira and send a message to the second Kira.
• Gentleman and a Scholar: Light is considered one of the most prodigious students in Japan and has no problems in socializing. That said, as soon as we know him more thoroughly, the "gentleman" factor is nothing more than a facade; in fact he is a childish opportunist with a Hair-Trigger Temper and a misogynist whose treatment towards Misa is absolutely despicable. Not to mention his Villainous Breakdown at the end of the story...
• Giggling Villain: He does this a lot, especially in his inner monologues. And when he does, your guts will squirm.
• Glory Hound: While he believes he's doing humanity a favor by eliminating criminals, actually he's just a narcissist who sees himself as "perfect" and wants to be praised.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Such pretty red eyes.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: He and L do this throughout the first arc.
• A God Am I: The trope's page image. Eventually, he declares himself to be God, at least in his own mind. By the final few chapters, Light has become so convinced of his own superiority to everyone else that he can't even comprehend the idea that he might fail. Even after he's caught, he outright declares himself God to the police.
• Godhood Seeker: After picking up the Death Note, Light sets out to become the God of the New World. As he hits his stride, he starts legitimately believing he is one.
• Godzilla Threshold: In the manga and live-action films, he hits it during the final confrontation after being shot by Matsuda. Having run out of plans and been exposed as Kira, Light begs Ryuk to help him by writing the names of Near and the task force in his Death Note. Instead, Ryuk writes Light's own name in the Death Note, outright saying that since Light was desperate enough to turn to him for help instead of having a backup plan, it was all over for him (not to mention that Ryuk would have died himself had he actually saved Light, so even if Light had continued in his schemes Ryuk wouldn't have been around to witness them, which was his whole reason for dropping the Death Note in the first place).
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Before he jumps off the deep end and when he gives up his memories and becomes truly innocent, his eyes are wide. When he is acting as Kira, contemplating and executing murder plots and plans for godhood, his eyes are noticeably narrower.
• Greater-Scope Villain: In the Death Note Special Chapter. With Ryuk occupying the title of Big Bad and Light becoming a posthumous villain, Light's influence is still prominent in the universe of the series. In fact, his mere existence is the reason why humanity has changed considerably, why Japanese detectives are terrified of the Shinigami, and why Kira's name is so relevant to humanity in general. Ultimately, Light is who triggers the events of the Special Chapter and is ultimately responsible for Ryuk's interest in humanity.
• Gut Feeling: Among other situations, if Light hadn't felt this about Naomi Misora, the story would have had a very different ending.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He is very aggressive with things related to his ego. In fact, messing with his ego is probably the most dangerous thing you can do.
• Hannibal Lecture: Light delivers one, Motive Rant style after he's cornered and exposed as Kira. Near responds with a Kirk Summation.
• Harmful to Minors: Death Note: Keep Out of Reach of Anyone.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Light fakes being this with both L and Matsuda whenever he benefits from it. It's mutual with L, but Matsuda genuinely believes them to be best friends.
• He Who Fights Monsters: It arguably takes only one chapter for him to become a monster (i.e. killing Lind L. Taylor), and he keeps on going from there. As the crusader against criminals, Light becomes the worst of them all. Ryuk even lampshades it, remarking that Light will most likely eventually be the only evil person left in the world once his plan succeeds.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: Which he pulls on himself via supernatural notebook.
• Heel–Face Turn: He gets rid of his memories and becomes far nicer. It doesn't last, though.
• Helpless Good Side: Yotsuba!Light is a Technical Pacifist who believes he's not even capable of killing and won't even accept a handgun for self-defense.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Hates women, believing them to be an annoyance or a distraction, and minimizing their intelligence and cares. And, while Misa is often considered annoying, her planning and foresight, including in finding him, give her signs of being a Genius Ditz. Plus, he believes this even after meeting Takada, his mother, sister, who have shown him nothing but appreciation, and the female Rem, who he had to manipulate because she was too intelligent not to.
• The Hero Dies: Inverted. He's the villainous main protagonist of the series, which ends upon his death.
• High-School Sweethearts: He's college sweethearts with Kiyomi.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: Exaggerated when he becomes the new L. It's one thing to string along a group of detectives for years while pretending to chase the mass murderer you secretly are. It's another thing to get a paycheck for it.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Downplayed. While Ryuk did indirectly put Light onto the path of becoming a Serial Killer, it's also Light's own Detrimental Determination, growing arrogance and madness, and his refusal to believe he's not infallible that ultimately lead him to his humiliating defeat and his death.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After spending the entire series killing people by writing down their names in his Death Note, Light himself goes out when his own name is written down in a Death Note by Ryuk, as Ryuk had warned him that he would at the very beginning. In addition, Light dies with the same kind of heart attack that he'd killed countless people with.
• Holier Than Thou: He thinks himself morally superior to everyone else around him and that alone gives him the right to decide who deserves to live or die. Near isn't having it after exposing him as Kira and calls Light a murderer, pointing out that this attitude makes him worse than someone who would kill for money and power.
• Hollywood Hacking: How he is shown getting information from various sources over the course of the series.
• Holy Halo: On the manga cover art. Also gets Holy Backlight in the first episode when he first declares he's going to become the God of the New World.
• Horror Struck: There's a brief but powerful image at the very beginning of the manga when Light is coming to grips with the power of the Death Note. He's shown huddled in bed, wrapped in a blanket, with this stricken look on his face.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Light, being Light, proceeds more intelligently than most.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The ending leaves Light broken both physically and mentally, with all his sycophants either dead or not having a clue who he is. The anime scene with him running sobbing from the warehouse to be killed by a heart attack a few minutes later is the nice version of his death, and within a few years, the world's gone back to normal. In the original manga, he's killed while writhing in agony and whining that he doesn't want to die.
• Humanoid Abomination: If he really does end up becoming the Unnamed Shinigami, though he's approaching becoming a non-supernatural version before his death.
• Humiliation Conga: Most explicit in the manga: Light is outwitted by Near and given a thorough verbal beatdown. After nearly killing Near in a desperate move, he's shot up and nearly killed by Matsuda, a man he has only ever looked down upon as something of a pet. Begging Mikami to come to his aid, Mikami instead angrily screams Light is no god and has completely ruined his life. Now drowning in a pool of blood and facing arrest, Light begs Ryuk to write the names of his enemies down. When Ryuk instead writes Light's name down, surmising his life is already finished, Light goes out screaming and cursing he doesn't want to die.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Kira is a vigilante who hunts criminals, and then he quickly becomes the target for a nationwide hunt.
• Hypocrite:
  • He considers all killings to be crimes, even if he carries them out himself or they're done on his orders...though he still thinks he shouldn't be punished for killing people himself. Especially since his victims include plenty of innocent people, killed to tie up loose ends, because they were trying to stop him, or in one case when they used the Death Note to kill people for profit - even though he gave it to them and expected them to do exactly that.
  • When Misa is introduced, she's killing innocent newscasters and police officers for simply speaking out against Kira; Light is anything but pleased with her for doing so, but he himself did much the same by killing FBI agents. Misa even lampshades it, defending herself and retorting, "Isn't that what you did?"
  • He also killed Naomi (an innocent woman) in an unnecessarily cruel manner and was more than willing to kill his own sister when she becomes a liability and only relents because of the scrutiny it will draw. And he is supposed to be a man of "justice".
  • He has no qualms against killing thousands of people, criminal or otherwise, for the sake of his plans, but at the end of the manga, when he's been outed as Kira and faced with his own death, he absolutely freaks out and begs for at least someone to save him.
  • He chastises Mikami for killing reformed criminals, even though he had previously killed the Yotsuba group who had intended to redeem themselves.
  • One of his most glaring examples comes from the official databook, which states that Light views both Mikami and Takada as murderous criminals (which, given his nature, implies he planned on killing both of them from the start). Completely ignoring the fact that they're both committing murders under his orders. This also demonstrates Light's horrifying lack of self-awareness.
• Hypocrite Has a Point:
  • L and Near call Light out for using the Death Note to execute criminals while declaring that his methods are justice. However, even if Light's intentions were less than pure (or at least became as such over time), he still points out that his campaign as Kira led to a drastic decrease in crime and ended wars.
  • In the live-action films, he correctly points out that many criminals use their connections to escape justice, yet he does the same by using his connections with the police to hide his identity as Kira.
• I Am the Noun: "I am Justice!"
• I Did What I Had to Do: When he's outed as Kira near the end of the series, Light attempts to justify his actions with this, claiming that the world had to be fixed and that no one else would have the guts to keep going as long as he did. Neither the SPK nor the Japanese task force buy it, and Near categorically dismisses Light's justifications, claiming that he is just another petty Serial Killer. This just pushes Light even further into his Villainous Breakdown.
• I Have Many Names: Light Yagami, Kira (the Saviour, the Messenger from Hell, etc.), Light Asahi, "Mr. A an office worker", L (number two), God.
• I'm Having Soul Pains: "Ryuuzaki, let me see it!"
• Ignore the Fanservice: In one scene in the second arc, Light walks into a room containing both Misa Amane dressed in lacy knee-highs, a corset, and very little else and a computer with information on it. Guess which one he immediately focuses on and which one he completely ignores?
  • In an earlier scene Misa comes into a room with the entire task force in it wearing a skimpy nightdress. Matsuda, Ide, Mogi, and Aizawa are clearly affected by it, but Light doesn't even look at her.
  • When Light first meets Misa, she is dressed in black lace, a very short skirt, and a tight black corset. His reaction? "Everything she does is ridiculous."
• Ignored Epiphany: At the very beginning. He is completely overcome when he realizes that the Death Note does indeed work and that he's just murdered two people — dry heaving, shaking, even a hint of tears. Then he starts thinking that this is exactly the opportunity he's been waiting for, that killing people off via the notebook is the perfect means to force the world towards his vision for it. Over the course of the next few days, he proceeds to kill so many people that Ryuk, a god of death, is surprised.
  Light: I killed two men. Those were human lives, it won't be overlooked! Besides, who am I to pass judgement on others? ...No. No, wait. Maybe I'm wrong. This is exactly what I've been thinking about lately. This world is rotting, and those who are making it rot deserve to die!
• Improbable Age: He's only 17 at the start of the series yet manages to be an even match for the world's greatest detective.
• Implausible Deniability: At the end of the series, after irrefutable evidence to his being Kira was presented, his first answer was the insistence that he was framed and it was all a setup, to which Aizawa told him to give it up. Understandably, given that this evidence consisted of Light shouting "I win!", and his name being the only one of the people besides Mikami's not being in the notebook. Justified; as the Real Life section notes on the trope's page, clinical psychopaths have a tendency to never admit guilt even when faced with undeniable proof of their actions.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: He's often very well-dressed and at one point he wears a pink shirt when hanging with Matsuda in Aoyama when he's trying to meet the second Kira (who he and the investigators assumed was male). When hiding pieces of the notebook Ryuk remarks on Light's sewing skills. He wears a pink butterfly belt-buckle in the first anime opening, and at one point in the manga he wears a corset in order to hide the Death Note (while in the anime he just shoves it down his pants).
• Indirect Serial Killer: In the second half of the series, he mainly has Mikami, Misa, and Takada do his killing for him since Near is watching him.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Light seems to be living his life under the assumption that he has to be perfect. Perfect student, perfect son... and then he kills two people by accident just to satisfy his curiosity and his boredom. That ruins everything. It makes him a murderer, evil. The only way to become "perfect" again is to become Justice, to become God. In his own words "If Kira is caught, then Kira is evil. If he wins and rules the world Kira is justice." He gets caught. Also as per the trope at times he comes off as desperate to prove himself - especially in his interactions with L, where he seems to get overly-excited even when he gets simple answers right. And "feeling better about themselves by putting others down"... does the whole world count?
• The Insomniac: Though he's easily overshadowed by L in this department, Light often pulls all-nighters to keep his plans running smoothly.
• Insufferable Genius: It's mostly well-hidden, but Light is not only well aware of his brilliance but considers himself to be superior to most people because of it. We mostly only hear about in internal monologue, but every now and then, it slips through the cracks and is shown briefly to the other characters, too. It gets more prominent just before Light dies.
• Ironic Name: His forename is "Light", but Light himself is anything but light in personality, being a Villain Protagonist.
• Irony:
  • He largely favored Mikami over Misa and Takada. Mikami's screw-up at the end of the series leads directly to Light's ultimate downfall.
• It Gets Easier: Early in the manga, Light is shown wrapped up in a blanket, wide-eyed and trembling, wondering if he has the guts to go through with his plan, after killing just two people. Days later, he's proudly showing off his pages of written names to Ryuk.
• It's All About Me: This is why he's ultimately a villain. Even if you agree with him that criminals should be exterminated, as far as he's concerned, even Kira supporters are just tools to be manipulated and discarded if they end up outliving their usefulness. Especially since before long, he seems just as focused on stroking his own ego as he does on building his "utopia".
• It's Probably Nothing: Light's reaction during the Yotsuba arc when thinking about how the ideals of the original Kira are disturbingly close to his own.
• I've Come Too Far: He says this nearly word-for-word at one point.
• Jekyll & Hyde: When he gives up the notebook and his Kira memories he goes from being a complete jerk to being the nicest guy you could ever know. Then, of course, he regains his memories and goes back to being evil again but the change is so extreme that some fans consider Light and Kira to be two different entities.
• Jerkass: While he's very good at hiding it, Light is nevertheless a narcissistic bastard who treats most of his followers/subordinates like tools.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: In general, whenever Light shows a softer side or does a "good" deed, it's nothing more than a cover-up for his own selfish purposes or murder plots. He even goes so far as to think to himself he's willing to kill his own sister or father if it will assist him in his plans.
• Jumped at the Call: Once Light finds the Death Note, it doesn't take him long to use it to start changing the world.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: He begins using the Death Note to rid society of criminals, but soon his black list expands to include anyone who stands in his way for any reason, starting with the FBI. Along the way, he coolly manipulates the feelings of both people and shinigami. Repeatedly stating that he plans to become the god of the new world he is trying to create doesn't help matters, either.
• Just a Kid: In the live-action movie, it's outright stated that his dad doesn't want him working on cases yet for this reason.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After having killed his rival L and getting away with the murder of innocent people, he finally meets his fate in the final episode.
• Karmic Death: What Light's deaths in the original manga and subsequent adaptations have in common is that, after spending the whole series to kill others with the Death Note, he too winds up dying by the Death Note when Ryuk writes his name in. It's especially apparent in the original manga where he, the exact same person who previously wrote names in the Death Note without even batting an eye at his victim's fate at times, begs Ryuk to save him and cries out he doesn't want to die.
• Karmic Transformation: The first Relight special hints that after he dies, he becomes a Shinigami.
• Kick the Dog: Once he picks up the Death Note, he starts doing this at least 3 times out of 4. Some noteworthy examples include him cruelly taunting Naomi Misora as she dies, having Kiyomi Takada set herself on fire after she called him tearfully begging for help, and murdering Lind L. Tailor simply because he insulted him and told him what he's doing was evil (and that was just before finding out that Lind L. Tailor was actually a death row inmate acting as the real L's stand-in.)
• Kick the Morality Pet: He was more than willing to kill his own sister when she becomes a liability and only relents because of the scrutiny it will draw.
• Kill Him Already!: His reaction when Soichiro hesitates to write Mello's name in the Death Note:
  Light: What are you doing, hurry up and write his name down!... Now's the time to kill him! Kill him right now!!
• The Killer Becomes the Killed: At the end of the story.
• Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: The fact that early on when Light tells Ryuk that if he's not careful, "Kira will end up killing his entire family", should tell you what levels of depravity he had reached.
  • In fact, when Sayu is kidnapped by Mello, Light contemplates killing Sayu, his own sister, to protect his secret, only relenting because of the scrutiny it would draw. While he doesn't directly kill his father, he still has no regrets over being responsible for his death at Mello's hands, and later dismisses him as an idealistic fool.
  • In the live-action movies, Light does try to kill Soichiro in order to prevent the Death Note from being analyzed; even Misa is shocked to tears.
• Knight Templar: He claims to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist but all he's doing is forcing the world to submit under his reign as an omnipotent dictator. He shows this early on when he immediately kills Lind L. Tailor just for questioning what he's doing.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: He really does love his little sister, Sayu, and is quite protective of her. When L and he are profiling Kira, and L suggests that Sayu is the one who best fits the profile, Light briefly loses it.
• Kubrick Stare: He does this quite a few times.

Tropes L-R

• Lack of Empathy:
  • After picking up the Death Note, Light casts away his empathy for anyone but himself; to him, everyone else is either a pawn to be manipulated and then rid of, enemies, people to kill to instigate plots to mess with the authorities, or some combination of the three.
  • Downplayed as even without the Death Note's influence and the eventual maliciousness he developed after repeated use, as seen with the amnesic persona after giving up ownership for the first time, Light is shown to have an incredible lack of emotional intelligence though he still cares for his family and stop crime.
• Large Ham: "I will be the god of the new world!!!"
  • "I'll take a potato chip... and eat it!!!"
• Lean and Mean: His official stats are 5'10", 119 lbs, making him quite thin.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Zigzagged. Light Yagami's Kira, years after the main events, is referred to in teachings as an evil mass-murdering terrorist, but at the same time, others still revere him as a god.
• Leitmotif: Kuroi Light and Light's Theme.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • In the television drama, the pre-Kira Light is much more extroverted and friendly (as opposed to his reserved and somewhat brooding anime/manga counterpart), is so disgusted with himself over the first murders that he nearly commits suicide over them, spreads out the subsequent deaths at a much slower pace, and genuinely cares enough about Misa to deliberately target the man who killed her family.
  • Played straight in the American Netflix movie.
• Light Is Not Good: Literally. He wears lots of white, his name is Light, but he's a psychopath and without question the single most prolific murderer in human history.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: As lampshaded by Rem, while Light is certainly no saint, he's still better than Kyosuke Higuchi. Not that it excuses any of his depravity. This ends up getting subverted when Light eventually becomes far worse than Higuchi ever was.
• Limp and Livid: After getting shot by Matsuda in the finale.
• Living with the Villain: Soichiro, Sayu, and Sachiko all live with Light in the first season (which makes for some really awkward family discussions).
• Lonely at the Top: Sure, lots of people worship him from a distance. But he either screws over or emotionally distances himself from pretty much everyone he knows.
• Love Is a Weakness: Light believes this. In the manga when Light meets Misa, who is madly infatuated with him, he thinks "I can't develop feelings for her. That's how idiots get caught."
• Made of Iron: Rather impressively, especially for such a thin guy, Light both stood up and managed to run for quite a distance after being shot 5 times. Not that it saved him from the grip of the Death Note shortly thereafter, though. Ryuk even stated he didn't want to wait a long time till Light died in prison, deeming it a Mercy Kill.
• Magnetic Hero: Inverted as Magnetic Villain Protagonist: His cult of personality is so strong that he gets three other people (four if we count Higuchi) to commit mass murder on his behalf. He gains Rem's loyalty as well even though she hates him (because his motives are more pure than Higuchi's).
• The Man Behind the Man: In manipulating both Misa and Higuchi; Mikami and Takada both count, too. He is the original Kira, functioning through a series of proxies and decoys throughout the series.
• Mangst: He does feel emotional pain for his sister's kidnapping and his father's death. And maybe even for betraying his "good friend" L, it's just very subtle and well-hidden.
• Manipulative Bastard: Whoo boy. Deceit and manipulation pretty much define all of Light's relationships. He even manipulates himself through a carefully planned Memory Gambit. The crowning moment of his manipulations is when he manages to get Rem to kill L in order to save Misa's life, thereby ending her life as well.
• Mask of Sanity: The Trope Codifier, no less. Light seems to be a calm, stable ace, but in reality, possibly even before the series started, he has some serious mental problems.
• Master Actor: According to the guidebook, his acting skills are 10/10.
• Memory Gambit: He allays suspicion by exploiting the rule that anyone who relinquishes the ownership of a Death Note also loses all memory of owning it unless that person later touches the same Death Note later, even counting on his amnesiac self to genuinely join the side of good in tracking down the new owner of the Death Note. This leads to the popular phrase "Just as Planned," eight episodes after putting his plan in motion.
• Meaningful Name: Done ironically seeing as Light Is Not Good. Also Yagami (夜神) means "Night god" or "Dark god", so his name is "Light Dark God". But the important thing is the god part.
  • It also ties into his Satanic Archetype. Say, what does Lucifer mean again?
  • The kanji for "Light" translates to "moon". Just like the moon, Light sees himself as a bright and shining beacon surrounded by darkness with only specks of light that pale in comparison to his majesty. Of course, when the moon appears during the day it's nowhere near as brilliant, just like how Light is far from ideal when you scrutinise his behaviour.
• The Mentally Disturbed: If you think Light can keep his grasp on his sanity once he gets a hold of the Death Note, you haven't been watching the series nearly as close enough as you should.
• Mirror Character: L and Light are ostensibly on opposite sides of the plot, each trying to catch and stop the 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.
• Mirror Scare: The sinister Kira reflection at the end of Relight in the Taskforce HQ's Hall of Mirrors.
• Misanthrope Supreme: An interesting variation of this trope. As a narcissistic perfectionist who believes he is superior and a better person than all humans, he believes that the world must be perfect and in his image and likeness, completely unable to realize that all humans have flaws.
• Mistaken for Masturbating: Light deliberately invokes this trope to conceal the fact he's killing people with a magical notebook.
• Mocking the Mourner: Light Yagami tries to justify his heinous actions by saying that in such a Crapsack World, a world without Kira, idealists like his father Soichiro Yagami will continue to look like fools. This prompts his erstwhile comrade Matsuda, an ardent pupil of Soichiro and until this moment Light's biggest fan, to shoot him five times, nearly killing him.
• Mole in Charge: During the Time Skip, he is in charge of the task force investigating his murder spree.
• Moral Myopia:
  • He claims that L is evil because he used another human being as a scapegoat in Episode 2... despite the fact that the man in question was on death row and scheduled for execution the next day, as well as the fact that Light himself was the one who killed him, as well as countless others.
  • He objects to Misa killing innocent newscasters and police officers for just speaking out against Kira, but he himself did more or less the same thing when he killed FBI agents. When Misa defends herself and retorts, "Isn't that what you did?", Light just gives her a withering Death Glare, seemingly angrier that she called him on it than the fact that she killed people.
  • In general, Light is a perfect example of this trope, at least in the beginning, as he endeavors to kill all the criminals and bad people on the planet but sees nothing wrong with killing thousands upon thousands of people because he's a good guy. When Ryuk mentions at one point that Light will be the only evil person left on the planet should he succeed, Light has no clue what he means.
  • The amount Light objects to the morality of an act, apart from the part in which he loses his memories of the Death Note and is not acting as Kira, tends to depend on how much it affects his plans. Even his disapproval of Mikami killing people he didn't think necessarily deserved to die yet is largely based on how it makes Kira look.
  • Towards the end of the manga, Light chews out Mikami for killing reformed criminals who've already served their sentence. Of course, this never stops Light from killing people who've never committed a crime in their lives just because they bad mouthed him.
• Moral Sociopathy: He has a moral code based upon perfectionism. He gets perfect grades in school? That's good. He's athletic, intelligent and charismatic? That's good. He just murdered a man using an Artifact of Doom? That's... it's... It is good. It has to be good. He has to be good. He has to be perfect, and if the only way to ensure that he is perfect is to establish himself as God by forcing his brand of justice upon the world, in the process murdering everyone who is imperfect and bad according to him, then so be it. When one of his followers starts killing people for the "crime" of being unproductive to society, Light's reaction is that it is wrong. Why? Because there are are still criminals to take care of; it's still too early to kill off people just for being unproductive.
• Motive Decay: Invoked throughout the series. His megalomania causes him to completely lose sight of his original goal (to improve the world by removing its criminal element) and degrade into using the Death Note to become "The God of the New World" and destroy his enemies, as well as clean up any undesirables; by the final chapters, he's starting to seriously entertain the idea of killing people simply for being "unproductive". He also turns from a Manipulative Bastard who carefully plans everything out into a Smug Snake who is so sure of his own success that the very concept of his own failure seems to confuse him. Many a character points out that Light is just another Serial Killer by the end, but Light's so blinded by his pride that it takes his impending death for him to catch on. This is more apparent in the live-action films, where his Well-Intentioned Extremist side is played up in the beginning, only for him to attempt to kill his own father, the person who inspired him to seek justice.
• Mundane Made Awesome: He's not the title page character for this trope for nothing. The potato chip scene is an epic example of this.
  • Light and Misa share an epic hug in the anime, including views from several different angles, creepy music, and a shaft of light.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: This is the impetus for why Light uses the notebook in the first place. If someone becomes a nuisance he first thinks something along the lines of, "I have to kill him!" Admittedly, it's the only hammer the man has, but he treats everyone from mass murderers to interfering politicians like nails.
• Murder Makes You Crazy: He's an Ordinary High-School Student until he writes the first name. After that, he develops delusions of grandeur and wants to cleanse the world of evil (leaving himself as the only evil person, as Ryuk points out). In the manga, the reader first sees how Light has already killed numerous targets before flashing back to his first kill for maximum shock value and to show how far he has already fallen in such a short time.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Implied in the anime. In the manga, Light remained a remorseless monster to the bitter end, but the anime goes for a more sympathetic approach by having Light lament his past self for having ever picked up the notebook that ruined his life, and hinting that he regrets his actions to some degree. He is also initially horrified upon testing the Death Note, though this soon fades when he decides to become a god.
• Mysterious Past: Despite being the Big Bad and the main protagonist of the series, there is little known about Light Yagami's life before the Death Note. We don't even know what his personality was from a more complex perspective, his childhood, his general relationship with his peers, or at least what motivated him to be so self-centered beyond the praises he received on a daily basis. While Mikami has a backstory that largely explains why he's like this, Light doesn't, though it's strongly implied to be a result of severe daddy issues.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • Night god, anyone? Also, his first name is a name that real parents in Japan would never give to their child because the character for moon is written with four strokes, meaning his adult life would be dominated by death.
  • Also his Go-to Alias "Asahi" means "morning sun" or "morning star". Light Morningstar. Think about that for a moment.
• Narcissist: Quite possibly one of the most accurate depictions of a malignant narcissist in modern anime. The creators confirm that Light sees himself above most other people; he's a popular, handsome genius, and he knows it. Once he gains power over life and death, it takes him less than a week to develop a raging God complex.
• Necessarily Evil: Starts out this way, determined to sacrifice himself for the greater good. However, less than a week later he's squeeing over his promotion to Godhood. It doesn't keep him from occasionally toying with the concept of himself as selfless and self-sacrificing though, and in his climactic Motive Rant, he claims that his ascent to Godhood and becoming Kira was a purely selfless and altruistic act on his part.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: He thinks of himself as this; his stated intention is to kill all the criminals in the world to make it safe for innocents. But he's really bad at that in practice. As soon as he hears that L plans to stop him, he shifts right into "all who oppose me must die" mode.
  • He manages it alright during the Yotsuba Arc, where it's shown (as if we weren't already aware) that his morals when he doesn't own a Death Note are an almost direct lift from his father — which brings them both into conflict with L.
• Never My Fault: Light refuses to admit guilt or take responsibility for anything he does. As far as he's concerned, everything he does as Kira is necessary to make a better world, he himself is justice, and anyone who opposes him is evil for going against him and has it coming. His Start of Darkness is even rooted in this; Light accidentally killed two people with the Death Note, and decided to declare himself God rather than simply admit he made a mistake. This is what separates him from L; while Light refuses to accept or cope with his own and the world's flaws, L is fully capable of doing both.
• Nice Guy: Downplayed prior to getting the Death Note and when he loses his memories. He's assumedly a good person, but the feelings of Black-and-White Insanity and narcissism that would be advanced when he gets the Death Note are still clearly present.
• Nightmare Face: He makes the mother of all these in the manga when it appears Ryuk has written the names of his enemies down.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Light has referred to Shinigami as "cute," finds all that Ryuk will tell him about Shinigami quite fascinating, makes jokes about how being a shinigami might be interesting, and his fascination with the Death Note is a little... eerie.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: If Light didn't effortlessly coast through life on his perfect grades, athletics, intelligence, or good looks, he probably would not have been bored or dissatisfied enough to fall so quickly and wholeheartedly for the power and purpose the Death Note offered.
• No Love for the Wicked: He uses love and sexuality as a cover for his schemes, dating as many as four women at a time to deflect suspicion, and has romantic trysts with Takada after becoming the second L in order to manipulate her into doing his bidding, and the writer confirms that Light is probably incapable of love. He also, while using a Porn Stash as a cover story while being watched, finds the porn to be incredibly boring. The disconnect to something people usually find humanizing and only using it to further his evilness further alienates him from the audience.
• Non-Action Big Bad: This is his game plan. When his ego starts to balloon out too far, he forgets this was how he saved himself time and time again. Inevitably, Light steps out into the open... and makes the worst mistakes of his life.
• Non-Action Guy: Well, he only writes people's names in the Death Note, and has never directly harmed anyone with other weapons.
• Noodle Incident: Death Note: Light Up the New World reveals that he had a child in the film continuity. Who the child's mother was, and their whereabouts in the movie, is never addressed, even in the novelization.
• No Place for Me There: Played with. Ryuk asks Light if he believes in this philosophy. When Light rejects this in favor of becoming the god of his new world, it's the audience's first hint he isn't just a Well-Intentioned Extremist. On the other hand, How To Read reveals that he does think there's no place for Takada or Mikami, who have used the Death Note on his orders.
• No Sense of Humor: Other than making a "joke" about wanting to trade away half of his life for shinigami wings, he lacks any sort of sense of humor.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: "If Kira is caught, then Kira is evil. If he wins and rules the world, Kira is justice."
• "Not So Different" Remark: Frequently lampshaded. Both he and L are genius Chessmasters that holds vast power by remaining anonymous — L solves criminal cases behind his computer screen, Light judges humanity from the comfort of his bedroom. They're two sides of the same coin: Light has great ideals and no integrity. L has great integrity and no ideals.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Even before his Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, Light is fascinated with becoming the god of the new world he plans to create. As time goes on, it becomes clear his actual plan is for a global totalitarian regime where he is treated as the sole authority. It's not helped that he also readily kills or tries to off anyone who questions him or tries to stop his plans on the grounds that he's justice and thus anyone who opposes him is evil for going against him. When he's outed at the very end of the series, Near states outright that Light is nothing more than a crazy Serial Killer and his rationalizations and justifications for his crimes are just self-serving nonsense.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: The second-to-last episode ends with Light boasting "Looks like I win," and by that revealing himself as Kira, while thinking the SPK members are going to be killed by Mikami's Death Note. However, when Near and the other SPK members don't die, it becomes clear that Light has finally been Out-Gambitted.
• Nothing Up My Sleeve: He has a small piece of the Death Note concealed in his wristwatch, and desperately tries to use this to kill Near in the finale.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: "What's that, Rem? I don't understand... could you explain to me the rules of ownership again?"
• Obliviously Evil: He consistently views himself as a Dark Messiah Well-Intentioned Extremist whose actions are justified and necessary. When Ryuk remarks that he'll be the only evil person in the world left should his plans succeed, Light is perplexed and states outright that he has no idea what Ryuk is talking about. He's also a good example of how this trope does not remotely excuse a character by its mere existence, as his complete inability to recognize himself becoming increasingly sadistic and crossing moral event horizons left and right arguably makes him worse than if he simply murdered people for money or power, as Near points out during his Kirk Summation.
• Obviously Evil: He seems to get creepy red eyes a lot, at least in the anime.
• Odd Name Out: Light is the only Yagami not to have a name that starts with "S" (Sochiro, Sachiko, Sayu).
• Offered the Crown: L unexpectedly offers Light his title as the "Great Detective L" should he die. Light (who no longer remembers that he is Kira and at the moment genuinely likes L) refuses for as comrades chained together by a common destiny they would die together anyway, but then he realizes it was just another test.
• Omniscient Morality License: When he kills a criminal as Kira, he's never wrong about his victim. Ever.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Done in epic fashion when L asks Light how as a detective, he would go about trapping Kira, Light's secret Serial Killer alter-ego. Once Light has given L his answer, L "praises" him by pointing out that while it usually takes professional investigators several minutes to even come up with an answer to that question, Light immediately responds with an answer that a serial killer talking directly to the investigators would give.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Both the anime and the manga introduce Light at school; he notices the Death Note fall because he's staring out the window, bored.
  • Not quite ordinary since he's The Ace at the start.
  • Even less ordinary considering it's made clear that he was likely already mentally unwell, which is the reason he so quickly takes to using the Death Note, and uses it for an incredibly unrealistic utopia instead of throwing it out or using it for personal gain.
• Out-Gambitted: By Near at the end thanks to Mikami's screw up.
• Out-of-Character Moment: An off-screen example, from Light Up the New World. Knowing his views regarding women, it's quite surprising to learn that he had a child, especially since the mother's identity is never hinted at.
• Outside-Context Problem: While it's easy to forget due to L seeming to be mostly superior to Light during their battle of wits, in reality, L was almost certainly doomed from the moment he first revealed his face to Light; the world's greatest detective or not, L had no real defenses against the supernatural and reality warping powers of the Death Note. If anything, the fact that he survived for so many months against three Kiras and came very close to catching all of them is a massive testament to his genius.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Light wears a hoodie and beanie when manipulating Raye Penber, which renders him unrecognizable to both Raye and the investigators who view the surveillance cameras.
  • Though Raye never sees him until it's too late, and the chances are he doesn't recognize Light's voice because he's already under the effects of the Death Note.
  • And L does note that Kira likely examined the subway beforehand and made use of the blindspots of the cameras.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Under Kira, nearly any crime is punishable by death. In his defense, it's not like he can do anything else.
• Peaceful in Death: Surprisingly, despite everything Light did throughout the series, the anime adaptation allows him to die in a relatively peaceful manner; He collapses on a staircase from his gunshot wound, and Ryuk, rather than risking Light’s arrest and eventual death in prison, chooses to write Light's name in the Death Note right then. However, Light's death is not immediate, as he is alive long enough to be greeted by an apparition of Ryuzaki in a heavenly twilight, seemingly offering him some form of comfort and suggesting that they will be Together in Death. As well, unlike the Manga adaptation, in which Light dies in horror and agony from a rather brutal heart attack, Light appears to be in no pain, only weary, and dies quietly.
• Perfection Is Impossible:
  • His inability to accept this fact is pretty much the root cause of everything that happens in the series, from his descent into villainy, to the lives he destroys. If he just simply acknowledged at the start that killing was wrong, that he of all people made an honest to goodness mistake (granted, killing someone, even if they're an Asshole Victim, is a hell of a mistake to make) and went through with getting rid of the Death Note as he initially considered, the entire story would never have come to pass.
  • In the live-action films, Light's initial motives for killing was because the legal system was abused by those with connections. Soichiro acknowledges that imperfect people will create imperfect laws, but calls out Light for thinking serial killing will lead to perfect justice.
• The Perfectionist: The crux of his beliefs and moral code runs around his perfectionism, taken to extremes and applied to the entire world.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He kills hundreds if not thousands, of people^note If MatPat's calculations are correct, he kills about 242,000 people himself.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He often helped Sayu with her homework, but this was partially done to throw suspicion off him.
  • His possibly genuine love for his family might count. This changes later when he contemplates killing his sister, and only stopped (at least according to him) to prevent suspicion. He never seemed interested in hurting his mother, however.
  • When he kills the attempted rapist in Episode 1 of the anime, the framing of the shot makes it seem that he genuinely did so to help the victim, not just to confirm that the Death Note was real.
  • When his memory is erased and he's helping with the investigation, he notes that Kira never killed anybody who had already served their sentences, displayed genuine remorse, or had seemingly justifiable reasons for their crimes.
  • In the manga, he objects to Mikami's intent to kill reformed criminals, saying that those who have turned their lives around don't deserve punishment.
  • In the Anime-Only foot washing scene, he notices L's hair is still dripping wet from the time they spent talking in the rain storm and helps dry him off. It's a small gesture that did nothing to throw Ryuzaki off his scent as a Kira suspect, giving the impression that he did it simply because he could.
• Playing with Puppets: When testing the extent to which he can control victims with the Death Note.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: Light may be a cold and manipulative mass murderer with a huge god complex, but he's still almost always polite and well-mannered. By contrast, L, the detective trying to stop him and bring him to justice, is usually very blunt and has little regard for others' feelings.
• The Power of Acting: According to the guidebook, his acting skills are 10/10.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When Mikami begins targeting lazy individuals who don't contribute directly to society, Light disapproves, but not out of any moral grounds. Rather, he believes it's too soon for them to do so; once all the criminals are dead and Kira is regarded as God, Light fully intends to prune out other "undesirable" elements from "his" world. After all, showing lenience towards those who repent would help sell his image as a god that should be worshipped.
• Precision F-Strike: His language, for the most part, consists a lot of "damn", "hell" and "bastard". However, a few times in the series (or at least the original Japanese), he has uttered the word "fuck" once or twice, especially in the finale.
• Pretender Diss: He looks down on L's successors, Near and Mello, contemptuously regarding them as inferior to L and unworthy of the mantle. He's especially enraged to see Near wearing a mask of L's face.
• Pride: His defining characteristic, and his Fatal Flaw:
  • Light shows an utter lack of ability to rise above any insults and slights against his ego. While he certainly has the capacity to be patient and wait for the right moment to strike, he cannot simply let go of his grudges and almost pathologically feels that he needs to avenge himself against anyone who dares to challenge him, and while he is usually smooth and calm, bruising his ego is a surefire to get his temper to flare up and get the better of him. It is how L reveals that Kira is indeed real and living in Japan in the first place; when L's stand-in during a press conference directly accuses Kira of being evil, Light becomes furious and kills him, thereby tipping his hand to L.
  • Much of the reason the story progresses the way it does comes from the fact that Light wants his feats to be famous and recognized, despite his schemes hinging on absolutely nobody being able to connect his plans to him. Hence, he uses a Calling Card (the Death Note's default heart attack) to immediately create the impression that something is behind the deaths—had he not done this, and instead tried to Make It Look Like an Accident, he may never have been caught.
  • As the story progresses, Light quickly loses sight of his original goal as he begins to buy into his own hype of being an important godlike figure whom the world needs.
• Principles Zealot: Falls under this trope during the Yotsuba arc. The entire Kira campaign falls under this as well.
• Promotion to Parent: In the TV drama he is forced to take up this role after Sachiko's death, especially since his father is rarely home.
• Properly Paranoid: After all, they are all out to get him.
• Prophetic Names: Light Yagami = Light Dark God.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: The series chronicles Light's life as he goes from a relatively well-intentioned person who seeks to change the world for the better to a manipulative, sadistic lunatic who kills to fuel his raging god complex.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He qualifies as Type C (flirting with D). When L details the psychology of Kira to the police, one of them suggests that they could stop him by no longer publishing the names of convicts in the news, as he clearly was getting the names of his victims from the media. L states that won't work because Kira will then simply start killing people he thinks are guilty and will further blame the police for any innocent people he kills, specifically identifying his childlike personality as the reason for this. Sure enough, Light does display lots of childlike evil throughout the series, such as killing the fake L for insulting him on national television and his need to gloat to L and Near when he thinks he's beaten them. His Villainous Breakdown at the end takes the form of a blatant childish fit.
• Psychotic Smirk: He's very fond of giving these when things go according to plan.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: When L offers to share his cake. "Er... no thanks." In the manga during the second arc, Takada remarks that Light takes his coffee black but will take one sugar cube in his tea.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Light does wear a pink shirt when hanging with Matsuda in Aoyama. Also, fear the God of the New World's mad sewing skills! Light also wears a pink butterfly belt-buckle in the anime opening, and a corset in the manga in order to hide the Death Note.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: After he gains the Death Note, the anime makes a point of catching his eyes so that they have a red cast to them — despite Light outright rejecting the Shinigami Eye deal. This is made even more obvious when he is contemplating something particularly nasty, and the anime colors his eyes, metaphorically, bright red.
• Regularly Scheduled Evil: Early in the series it is explained that Light had set aside specific time slots in which to kill criminals, in order to provide himself with a healthy balance of sleep, homework, and death.
• Religion of Evil: His cult worships him, a ruthless mass murderer, as a god.
• Repressive, but Efficient: At the end of the series, it's revealed that Light's actions as Kira have put an end to all wars and dropped the global crime rate by 70% within six years, because everyone's terrified of being killed by him. Near, despite making it clear that he views Light as nothing but a crazed Serial Killer, admits he's not the ultimate judge of good and evil and that Light may very well have changed the world for the better with fear.
  • This is again mentioned in the Death Note Special Chapter. According to Minoru, Light eradicated wars and drastically reduced crime, so in a way, his morally questionable methods worked in a certain way despite ending up being the infamous monster he's historically known for.
• Rousseau Was Right: Light believes this during the Yotsuba arc when he loses his memories of the Death Note and being Kira, which causes him to revert to the state he was before finding the Death Note (though we aren't given any insight into his thoughts at that point). He whole-heartedly argued that the members of the Yotsuba group other than the 3rd Kira shouldn't be prosecuted since no doubt Kira was coercing them into cooperating. In other words, they aren't evil — circumstances pushed them into being evil and once the evil is removed, i.e. arrested, they will live good lives. Doesn't stop him from killing them all after his memory returns though.
• Rules Lawyer: Light uses the rules of the Death Note in ways even Ryuk had never thought of before.
  • He has a hard time coping with the Near-and-Mello situation because Near and Mello aren't particularly inclined to play by the rules.

Tropes S-Z

• Sadist: As he gets in the habit of killing, he starts to really enjoy it and often smiles and laughs as he slaughters people by the score. He also appears to get off on being a Manipulative Bastard, and can't resist the urge to gloat to his enemies that he's literally signed their death warrant, or take cruel pleasure in discarding and betraying his own allies, even girlfriends. Some of his kills are needlessly nasty as well (e.g. said girlfriend was forced by the Death Note to set herself on fire), and on several occasions, he takes a moment to watch his victims die; for example, when he writes Naomi Misora's name in the Death Note, he reveals himself as Kira to her just because he wanted to see the look on her face.
• Samaritan Syndrome: An evil, (if not the evilest) version. Because Light found the Death Note, he HAS to commit to his mission no matter what. His obsessiveness towards it comes off as a mixture of narcissism and guilt.
• Sanity Has Advantages: While Light Yagami is an intelligent young man, his god complex, arrogance, narcissism, and his Sanity Slippage cause him to make increasingly detrimental mistakes that would eventually lead to his undoing. Killing Lind L. Tailor just because he called his methods evil allowed L to confirm Kira's existence and narrow down his location, his bad habit of Evil Gloating ends up exposing him as Kira, and his arrogance leads him to underestimate his opponents to the point he won't consider the possibility of losing at all, making him more careless and leaving him completely unprepared when he's finally Out-Gambitted.
• Sanity Slippage: He gets crazier with every passing episode barring the time he loses memory of the Death Note.
• Satanic Archetype: Light has a very Luciferian element to his character. As Christian tradition describes it, Lucifer represents a Fallen Angel, an example of beauty, talent, and intelligence, but his own fatal flaws caused him to lose heaven, eventually giving himself up to evil. All this context is related to Light: an attractive, intelligent, talented young man who was born in the light (he was raised by Good Parents, after all), but blinded by his arrogance, pride, selfishness, and thirst for power, he ended up being a threat to humanity. There's also the fact that "Lucifer" means "Lightbringer".
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy Guy to Misa's Energetic Girl, and although Light's family and co-workers seem to think that there's No Accounting for Taste, a few people do comment on their unlikely relationship.
• The Scapegoat: Light has a pathological need for scapegoats so he can maintain his delusions of moral superiority. Compare his original persona pre-Death Note where he's lethargic and even somewhat depressed with his drama-free existence. Once Light gives himself Death Note-amnesia, he displays far more determination and a level of moral fibre that would make it implausible that he'd ever think of using the Death Note, largely because the existence of Kira gave him someone to stand against and convince himself that he was the hero.
• Scare 'Em Straight: This is essentially what he's trying to pull on the entire world. As it turns out, with a supernatural, godlike entity willing to kill you if you commit a crime, people are much less likely to commit crimes. The rate drops accordingly.
• Scheherezade Gambit: Light knows that Ryuk is only here because he's bored and he can kill him at any time. Ryuk wants to be entertained and if he gets too bored, he'll just kill Light and go home. Light constantly reminds Ryuk how entertaining he can be. It works for six years.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • In general, L gets on Light's trail early on because Light can't help but respond every time L goads him into a challenge of some form, no matter how minor the competition. Light knows that L has profiled Kira as hyper-competitive and every challenge is obvious bait to profile him, but because he's so... hyper-competitive, he can't help himself.
  • He falls for one of L's easier mental traps in episode 8; after L bugs the Yagami household with dozens of cameras and plays a fake message intending to rile up Kira, Light muses how stupidly obvious and cheap of a ploy it is to try and get a reaction out of him. However, despite recognizing this, he basically falls for it anyway because he can't resist taunting L by loudly pointing out how obvious it is, thus ultimately giving L the reaction he wanted and making himself more suspicious.
• The Scourge of God: Light's mission statement, though he will also kill anyone who comes after him i.e. defies Kira's will.
• The Scream:
  • Lets out a huge one when he gets his memories back.
  • He does this again in the manga when being ousted as Kira by Near before devolving into his iconic Evil Laugh.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Light knows that his father's position is what is protecting him from being seriously considered a suspect by the normal police. Once Soichiro is gone, it doesn't take long for Near and Mello to suss him out, corner him, and take him down.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: When he becomes fully aware of Ryuk and the Death Note again and remembers that he asked Ryuk to put a couple of fake rules on the Death Note (which L must then assume to be real), he goes into a little mental rant about how he is basically a god because he can change the rules like that. It's no longer clear how fully he recognizes that he didn't change the rules.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Yotsuba!Light is a variation on this with the twist that Kira!Light did it to himself.
• Selective Obliviousness: Light is in denial about quite a few things:
  Ryuk: But if you did that, you'd be the only bad person left.
  Light: Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about, Ryuk.
• Serial Killer: By the end of the story, Light's body count is estimated to be around 100,000!
• Serial-Killer Killer: Kira only kills awful criminals like serial killers. At least, that's what the general public thinks. The rest of the cast knows better.
• Seven Deadly Sins: While Light's pride is the most obvious, Light's personality manages to be a nasty combination of almost all of them.
  • Cares only to get as much power as he can and him alone, and betrays and backstabs anyone who has enabled him once they're done (Greed)
  • Flies into numerous fits of murderous rage whenever someone criticizes him or throws a wrench into his plans (Wrath)
  • In the second part at least, has his men do his dirty work for him and uses his Death Note whenever he murders his victims as using it requires no effort (Sloth)
  • Develops a sick pleasure in killing people and craves admiration (Lust) 
  • Has made the rule of Kira consume much of the world and has snubbed out any possible opposition. He also murders well beyond his would-be targets (Gluttony)
  • Once he achieves a world where crime has stopped and war no longer exists, he still decides the world is rotten and he has to have more targets (Envy)
• Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains: The "groomed for success his whole life" Villain Protagonist to L's disheveled and barefoot Hero Antagonist.
• Shadow Dictator: He becomes this in the second arc.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Light is always impeccably dressed and groomed to such an extent that he seems to evoke the appearance of a model. This makes sense, since Light may want to reflect his perfection in all possible aspects, even in his clothes. According to Obata, he encountered difficulty imagining the clothing of "a brilliant person", so he looked through fashion magazines. Obata envisioned Light as a "smart and formal guy" who wears formal shirts. Most of Light's clothing in Death Note is "fitted" and Obata avoided jeans.
• Sitting on the Roof: Light does this a couple times, symbolically overlooking his "New World."
• Slasher Smile: He pulls quite a few of these over the course of the series, highlighting his descent into psychopathy.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Light's actions earlier on in the series could be considered a combination of exceedingly ruthless schemes and Pet the Dog moments. Then, as the series goes on, he finds new allies, who are almost sycophantic in their devotion to him, and whom he treats as inferior and expendable, becomes ever-more consumed by his god complex as the world slowly falls under his grip, and resorts to increasingly extreme and cold-blooded means to cover his ass and maintain his reign on the world.
• Small Name, Big Ego: While calling him a small name is going too far, Light immediately believes himself to be the only person worthy of purging the world of evil simply because he's the Big Man on Campus at his high school.
• Smug Smiler: The God of the New World takes to showing an insufferably superior expression when no one but the audience is looking.
• Smug Snake: Unlike many Smug Snakes, Light is highly intelligent, but his massive god complex, pathetic Freak Outs ("he got me!"), borderline sociopathy, and tendency towards kicking dogs can and do cost him the sympathy of many, while his sheer ego and tendency towards underestimating his opponents (and the incompetence of his own allies) can sometimes derail his plans and ultimately do get him killed. His arrogance gets in the way of him giving some of his opponents as much credit as he should. After the Time Skip, he's completely bought into his own hype and is completely incapable of considering the possibility he could ever fail.
• Social Darwinist: Averted in that he begins as protecting the weak by paying evil unto evil before jumping off the slippery slope. Ironically, given his god complex, he would consider it divine natural selection.
• The Social Expert: Light lasts as long as he does largely by manipulating those around him for information he needs or putting them in situations where they're likely to do what he wants. He'll even do this with himself, at one point removing his memory of the Death Note in a Memory Gambit to remove suspicion from himself.
• The Sociopath: A particularly interesting example, since Light acquires sociopathic/psychopathic characteristics when the notebook controls his life. invoked The creators have explicitly stated that Light was not born evil or heartless, after all. However, as soon as the notebook controls his life and he gets into the habit of killing people, he exhibits all the characteristics of a high-functioning sociopath: he displays highly developed social skills, is exceptionally adept at gaining the trust of relatively naive and/or stupid people (superficial charm), has inordinate self-worth to such a degree to believe that he is a God and an excellent person, gets bored easily, frequently lies and cheats to achieve his goals, frequently manipulates and betrays; He lacks remorse, guilt or empathy; He pretends to have feelings for Misa to manipulate her emotionally, tends to throw a tantrum or physically attack people when things are not going his way, and is controlling and possessive. Even Light's plan to establish a utopia is an absurdly childish and unrealistic goal, which is common for sociopaths to have unrealistic goals. Considering that the Death Note can't directly psychologically affect him, he can't really qualify as a true sociopath (since it's either there from birth or a result of childhood trauma), which implies he managed to manually make himself stop caring and ends up making him even worse.
• Softspoken Sadist: Among other examples, Light's voice is chillingly calm and pleasant even when taunting Naomi Misora after revealing himself as Kira. "My father's phone is back on, didn't you want to talk to him?"
• Someone Has to Do It: Part of his motivation for being Kira. He even quotes the trope word for word.
  Light: This world is rotten, and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Someone has to do it, so why not me? Even if it means sacrificing my own mind and soul, it's worth it. Because the world can't go on like this.
• Sore Loser: Light pitches a fit after L directly confronts him at college. He also dies weeping and screaming like a madman (in the manga) after Near thwarts his plan to do away with the Kira task force and the SPK. L even describes Light/Kira as someone who's "childish and hates to lose."
• Spared by the Adaptation: Light survives the events of the Netflix adaptation, manipulating events to kill off his increasingly unstable partner Mia as well as throw suspicion off himself. However, L does go on to discover a page of the Death Note in Light's home, and what he does with it is left ambiguous.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: At the end, he tries justifying his actions by claiming that in a world so rotten, idealists like his own father, who died trying to stop Kira, will always be made out to be fools unless Light can continue to rule. He says this right in front of Matsuda, who idolized Soichiro and gets shot five times for it.
  Matsuda: You led your own father to his death, and now that he's gone, you call him a fool?!
• Spell My Name With An S: Light or Raito? Also odd is his name is written with the kanji for moon (月) rather than the kanji for light (光).
• Start X to Stop X: He commits mass homicide to put an end to all crime. Well, at least at first.
• Stepford Smiler: He presents himself as positive, thoughtful, and cheerful to the world, but at the beginning of the series he's so bored and empty inside that a quest for a new world and godhood seems like a great idea; and of course, as the series goes on, that smile hides an increasingly unstable and cruel personality.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Inverted. He's a Villain Protagonist; he's a TV Genius, instead of being Book Dumb; he doesn't have to go through Training from Hell to unlock his true potential, he just finds a magic notebook randomly; his strong sense of justice leads to him turning into a monster; he's cool and calculated instead of Hot-Blooded; where most Shōnen protagonists are proponents of The Power of Friendship who can redeem and befriend certain enemies, Light is almost completely sociopathic and kills anyone who so much as looks at him the wrong way; and rather than having a To Be a Master plotline, he instead has a quest to get himself worshipped as a god via a prolonged mass-murder spree.
• Straight Edge Evil: He's never shown drinking, doing drugs or smoking, unlike Misa, the mafia and Matt, respectively.
  • Subverted with the Netflix movie where his American live-action counterpart is seen smoking.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: With L and Mikami.
  • With Misa as well, considering their opinions on how to go about creating a New World. "To defeat evil, there must be sacrifices, right?"
  • Also with Ryuk in the first episode when they both contemplate how rotten their respective worlds are.
• Stronger Than They Look: While he did once play competitive tennis and is still physically fit as seen in his match against L, it's still surprising for someone of his slender appearance to send someone flying across the room with a single punch. Then again, given his public status of being the son of a respected Police Chief, it makes sense that Light would have some training in self-defense.
• Super-Intelligence: In How To Read 13, Light is described as abnormally intelligent in the character quiz, even ranking a 9/10 in Intelligence.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: One of his catchphrases is "I'm not Kira."
• Take Over the World: Well, he wants to become its God, and that's pretty much the same thing.
• Taking You with Me: In his first week as Kira, Light was expecting some sort of punishment for using the notebook but decided it's Worth It if he can make the world a better place by taking out as many bad guys as possible before he's killed or his soul is dragged off to Hell. Then Ryuk informs him there is no punishment, he wasn't Chosen or anything, and it's all a joke. Light does not take it well — in the Manga Light has his first crazy laugh of the series after that particular revelation.
  • He also tries this in the finale, when his Hannibal Lecture falls through: Light makes a mad scramble for the clipping in his watch and begins writing — first in ink, then in blood. He gets just over halfway through Near's real name before he's disarmed completely.
• Talking Your Way Out: With a high success rate. Near dares him to do this in the finale.
• Tareme Eyes: Flip flops between these or Tsurime Eyes depending on his mood, especially in the beginning before Art Evolution kicked in and when his memories are wiped.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Though the exact circumstances vary depending on the adaptation, he always dies as a result of Ryuk writing his name in the Death Note once it becomes clear he's completely run out of escape plans.
• Tautological Templar: He's firmly convinced that everything he does, up to and including mass murder, is justified and that he himself is justice, and refuses to see otherwise. This contrasts him with L, who freely admits when he engages in Dirty Business.
  Light: "Me? Evil? I am justice! Those who oppose me — they're the evil ones!"
• Teen Genius: He's the top-scoring student in all of Japan. Not to mention that he manages to stay on L's level and focus on schoolwork.
• The Tell: Whenever he has to keep up the appearance that he isn't Kira, but those around him are critical of Kira, he'll hide his Eyes Out of Sight using his bangs.
• That's What I Would Do: He freaks out his father pretty badly when he voices this to L.
• Theory Tunnel Vision: Light is firmly convinced that he's a good guy and that everything he does as Kira is necessary to create a better world, and refuses to see that his actions make him no better than the criminals he's trying to rid the world of. Heaven help you if you so much as suggest that what Light is doing is evil.
• These Hands Have Killed: In the manga. "I-I've killed two people..."
  • In the last episode, while he's arguing his side, the camera pans up from a shot of his open hands.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Light being the smart, charming, supposedly kindhearted honor-student son of the Chief of Police makes it difficult for many of the characters to take L's accusations seriously. L seems to be the only one who really believes that Light is Kira until very close to the series' end.
• Third Act Stupidity: He starts out being Crazy-Prepared and doing everything possible to preserve his secret, but as he starts buying into his own hype, he starts viewing himself as invincible and stops being so careful, allowing Near and Mello to expose him and take him down.
  • After the Time Skip. Light goes from erasing his own memory, trusting in the brilliance of his planning to ensure L's death while cementing his own complete innocence... to hiding the Death Note in storage and really hoping no one finds it while he's not looking.
  • The whole Mello and Near arc has Light nerfed down hard, making great mistakes apparently to balance the odds. He loses the note, he loses Sayu, he loses his father... and one of his "best" responses is to confirm to Near he's Kira by sending a mass of stupid people at the exact location (and only there) of Near's anti-Kira organization with the great expectations that they'll lynch someone of L's level. An extended period of complacency between arcs with no intellectual rival, and belief in his own hype likely have something to do with it, as does the fact that Near and Mello have far more information to work with than L did.
• 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.
• Too Clever by Half: He's impossibly clever, charming and manipulative. But for all his great plans, he ends up falling victim to his own pride too often. By the end of the series, Light is so blinded by his own ego that he can't even consider the possibility that he'll fail.
• Too Dumb to Live: In the manga, when Light is exposed as Kira and shot by the last person he expected to turn on him, in his desperation, he makes the serious mistake of begging Ryuk to write down the names of everyone else in the room, forgetting that Ryuk is on no-one's side and doesn't care who wins as long as he's provided with entertainment. Ryuk, who had expected Light to think of a way out of his predicament, realises that Light can no longer give him the entertainment he craves, and writes down Light's name in his Death Note instead.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After regaining his memories of the Death Note, Light becomes more Machiavellian and sadistic than ever. This only gets worse for the rest of the series.
• Took a Level in Kindness: When he relinquishes his Death Note memories during the Yotsuba arc. It doesn't last.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: He wants to create a New World where only kind, good people will live.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Barbeque-flavored potato chips. He exploits this by hiding a mini LCD TV in a bag of barbecue chips because he's the only one in his family who eats that flavor.
• Tragic Hero: Initially, all he wanted to do was create a perfect world. Unfortunately, his Lack of Empathy and overwhelming god complex get him killed in the end.
• Tranquil Fury: Kira's default mood.
• Treacherous Advisor: Light works alongside L and the task force despite being Kira, and is often the only one whose intellect and deductive abilities are of use to L's investigation.
• Tsurime Eyes: Flip flops between these and Tareme Eyes depending on his mood, and shown when he's feeling particularly murderous or devious. He switches into them permanently near the end of the series and doesn't switch out until the end of the anime, and never does in the manga, where he's completely gone at that point.
• TV Genius:
  • His cleverness at times reaches beyond the plausible. (Not as extreme as L's, though.)
  • Averted when it comes to social skills since he's The Social Expert.
• Two Aliases, One Character: By the second arc, he's playing the role of both L and Kira.
• Übermensch: One interpretation of his character. He certainly sets up the laws by which he lives.
  • Completely averted later in the series. He breaks his own rules at his convenience and even condemns other Kiras for what he regularly does.
• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: Light is the handsome villain to L's more... "unique-looking" hero.
• The Unchosen One: When Light asks Ryuk why he chose him, Ryuk notes he didn't; the notebook just happened to land where Light picked it up. However, Light never acknowledges that he wasn't chosen; all through the plot, events fall into place for him, and at the very end he swears blind that he was chosen.
• Undignified Death: Manga version only. At the very end, he goes out whining, cursing, and pathetically begging for mercy in a puddle of his own blood.
• The Unfavorite: Mr. Yagami is absolutely certain that Sayu can't be Kira but isn't so certain about his son. Even though it's true that Light is Kira, it does hint at Parental Favoritism. Ultimately played with, however, and to Mr. Yagami's credit, he does admit to this bias and is always shown to be in great distress at the idea that his son is Kira.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Misa.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Downplayed. His main weapon, the Death Note, lets him kill almost anyone with barely any effort and he usually prefers to be a Non-Action Guy who relies on his brains in most situations. While he doesn’t have L’s level of martial arts training, he does reveal early on in the series of knowing self-defense techniques in regards to disarming a person wielding a weapon (which makes sense given his status as the son of a respected Police Chief) and throws stronger haymakers than one would expect, considering his profile.
• Unwitting Pawn: Averted. Light knows exactly that Ryuk sees him as entertainment, therefore he keeps providing it while working on his own goals. That being said, he still makes the mistake of begging him for help once he's out of ideas in the manga and live-action films, forgetting this important detail and leading Ryuk to write Light's name down in his Death Note as promised.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Light consistently and sincerely believes that he can bring about an ideal new world free of evil. Even when, post-time-skip, the world is slowly becoming a totalitarian place ruled by propagandistic TV channels and secret executioners, he's very happy about it because he thinks people are finally starting to come around to his vision. Throughout the series, when he's trying to stay ahead of those fighting against him, he says he's doing so to protect "his utopia".
• The Vamp: How he gets Misa and Takada to serve him. Or rather continue serving him, given that they were Kira loyalists from the outset.
• Victory Is Boring: When Near and Mello appear on the scene, Light, after first being enraged and frustrated, remarks that "Things are getting interesting again!"
• Vigilante Man: Death is the only punishment he can dish out. Early on, he states that he's going to create a world filled with only good-hearted people he approves of. He's simply going to start with the criminals... and he quickly crosses over into "bad" vigilante man territory, when in the fifth episode he leaps off the slippery slope and begins to target and kill all those who oppose Kira, including law-enforcement officials.
• Villain Ball: As per his Fatal Flaw, if Light's pride is injured or if he has a chance to show off, he'll grab it hard.
  • He kills Lind L. Taylor out of spite for calling him a criminal, allowing the real L to significantly narrow down where he might be. Though it would have been tough to see such a gambit coming, given that Light was unaware of L's existence prior to his televised appearance.
  • When his father suggests that based on the times in which the deaths occur, Kira's true identity is probably a student, Light decides to use the Death Note to schedule deaths to happen at all hours. L quickly realizes that this means Kira has some kind of police or law enforcement connections. Light claims to be doing this deliberately, since he wants to get involved in the investigation to uncover L (a plan which did eventually pay off), but this actually narrowed things down far more than L's aforementioned gambit—prior to that point, L's only leads were that Kira lived in the Kanto region and was probably a student. It's largely due to his repeated attempts at challenging and toying with L that the search narrows down from millions of suspects to only a couple dozen, then a small handful, and finally more or less just him.
  • He kills the FBI agent Raye Penber, thinking that Penber would only come after him harder in the future if he wasn't disposed of quickly. Not only does he neglect to check whether his wife may have been an FBI agent herself, but Penber was ready to strike his name off the suspect list had he just left him alone rather than killing him and the rest of the agents.
  • He admits he is Kira to Misora when he's written down her name in the notebook in front of her, in broad daylight on a city street. Had Aizawa been paying slightly more attention before he walked out of earshot, or had he not been using an umbrella due to the providencial snow, Light would've been caught.
  • The final time leads to his downfall: when he believes that the SPK task force are about to die because Mikami has written their names in his notebook, he gloats that he's won... except, unfortunately for him, they don't.
• Villain Has a Point: Light may be a mass murderer who constantly lies to and manipulates everyone who cares about him, but his campaign as Kira put an end to all wars and reduced global crime by 70%. Nobody contradicts him when he says this, and Near, despite making it clear he views him as nothing but a petty Serial Killer, even admits that Light may have changed the world for the better with fear. In fact, a good part of his in-universe support derives from this.
• Villain Protagonist: To L's Hero Antagonist. Light is intelligent, charismatic, attractive, and cunning. However, he's also a condescending, manipulative, prideful, spiteful madman who has no problem killing thousands of people if it fits his vision for the world. After he's caught, Near says that, for all of Light's justifications and rationalizations that he's the "god of the new world," it's all just self-serving nonsense. Light is just a crazy serial killer, nothing more and nothing less.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • As Kira, Light gradually gains more and more public support. In spite of being a mass murdering vigilante, he is admired by many for reducing crime rates through fear and power as if he were some deity smiting the wicked (which happens to be exactly how he sees himself). During the Time Skip, entire nations announce that they endorse Kira.
  • Light, as Light, is actually a straighter example; he's a popular, intelligent, charming ace son of the police chief, who's revered and admired by the people around him... who also happens to be a crazy Serial Killer.
• Villainous Breakdown: Has a few towards the end of the series, once he realizes that the jig is up. He's even on that trope's picture of the Anime & Manga subsection for that reason.
  • After forty seconds pass and no one dies, Light realizes he's been tricked. Too bad for him that he just said "I win, Near." right before that, so now everyone in the room knows he's Kira.
  • His Motive Rant begins with a fierce Evil Laugh, along with how he's become "justice." Near promptly shuts him up by summarily rejecting all of Light's justifications. This prompts Light to try and kill them with a hidden piece of the notebook, only to nearly be shot to death by Matsuda.
  • After he's been shot, all Light can do is flee, bleeding and terrified. And in the end, Ryuk writes Light's name in the Death Note, which ends Kira for good. In the manga, Light's final moments are spent sobbing and screaming "I don't want to die!" over and over again.
• Villain Song: Nearly all of his numbers in the stage musical qualify as one, but the most notable ones are "Where is the Justice?" and "Death Note". ^note named "Hurricane" in the original English version.
• Villains Want Mercy: Upon his defeat at the end of the series, Light freaks out and desperately begs for someone, anyone to save him, because despite having killed thousands of people, he's scared shitless at the thought of dying himself.
• Virtue Is Weakness: When Soichiro chooses to try to arrest Mello rather than kill him with the Death Note as Light expected him to do, despite the fact that Mello had kidnapped and traumatized Sayu, Light is angered and openly declares it an act of stupidity. Light's way of thinking comes back to bite him hard when, after being exposed as Kira, he mocks Soichiro and his way of thinking as foolish right in front of Matsuda, who promptly loses his temper and shoots him five times.
• Visionary Villain: He really believes in that new world of his.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Light and Ryuk, arguably both types 1 (i.e. laughing it off whenever Ryuk reminds him that he's a Death God and that he's going to kill him one day.) and 2 (insulting each other in equal measure).
  • Also with L during the Yotsuba arc.
• We Have Become Complacent: After defeating L, Light spends the next several years comfortably dispensing his brand of justice without any intellectual opposition, feeding his god complex to the point he becomes reckless and prideful enough to believe he'll never lose. This likely factored into why Near and Mello were able to bring about his downfall.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Light has daddy issues. His father is always out working to catch the bad guys and hardly ever sees his family. It's been speculated that this might be the real reason he hates criminals with such a passion - they stole his father away from him. Also how he walks out on the family meeting where his dad is talking about catching "that evil bastard Kira." Also it's well established that Light is the top-ranked student in the country but his father is still surprised that he can keep up with L. Later that instance of his father pretending to shoot him in the head on L's orders might have added to the dysfunction as well.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Initially, his goal is to rid the world of crime for selfless reasons. It doesn't last, as a result of a combination of a fear of being caught and his increasing narcissistic delusions, to the point that Near calls him out on it and says that he's just a lunatic at the end of the series. The degree to which he sincerely desires to do the right thing is to your discretion.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!: During the Yotsuba arc, with L ("I think I wanted you to be Kira").
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Light has very pretty long-lashed Bishōnen eyes and the anime pays them special focus being kind of a tell in letting the audience know what he's really thinking and having them change color from brown, to goldish/amber, to red. They lose their appeal when he's especially unhinged.
• What If God Was One of Us?: It would end badly. Textbook example of The Prince, though he imagines himself as The Shepherd.
• What Is Evil?: Light eliminates evil... by using a magic notebook that causes anyone whose name is written in it to die. He ultimately wants to turn the world into a crime-free utopia and believes anything he does is justified by his noble goal. The main antagonist is a world-famous detective determined to get to the bottom of a suspicious rash of unexplained deaths, and he realizes it's all the work of a supernaturally prolific serial killer who must be stopped at all costs. Both claim to be motivated by a strong sense of justice. Though the writer says L is actually not motivated by justice at all, he is nonetheless the more heroic of the two, because Kira is hanging out in the deep end of the Knight Templar pool.
  • Ryuk points out early on that when Light achieves his goal, the only evil person left will be himself. Light has no idea what Ryuk is talking about, being completely incapable of seeing anything he does, including mass murder, as evil.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: All his obstacles look like nails that are in need of being hammered down, due to the only punishment he can dish out being the death penalty.
• White Shirt of Death: He ends up having blood on his white shirt underneath his coat when Matsuda shoots him.
• Wicked Cultured: He can sometimes come across this way, as a sharply-dressed, well-educated Person of Mass Destruction, with a tongue so silver it convinced a god of death to kill herself and evil so faux-affable it sucked good folks into his madness. Another character even comments that Light looks and acts "like he's been groomed for success his whole life", but this mature and intellectual exterior actually masks a childish genius who wants to watch heads roll and doesn't know what it means to be wrong.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: This happens to him quite frequently. The first examples are once he discovers the notebook's powers are real and when he laughs manically after killing Lind L. Taylor.
• With Us or Against Us: Light's primary mentality. As far as he's concerned, his actions are completely justified, he himself is justice, and everyone who doesn't support and worship him is against him and therefore evil.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: There are hints that Light wasn't entirely sane even before he gained the power to kill anyone in the world at any time, but his sanity certainly heads downwards from the minute he gets the Death Note.
• Workaholic: During the first arc, Light devotes all of the time that he's not working on work for school or cram school to killing criminals as Kira; in the anime, he turns down offers to hang out with other students, something Ryuk comments on. And let's give the kid some credit: keeping up four girls at once isn't exactly easy, even if it is for a relatively brief period of time.
  • And in the second arc, when he's balancing his jobs as L and Kira, he often goes without sleep to keep his schemes running smoothly. At one point, Matsuda calls Light's ability to work endlessly "amazing."
• Worthy Opponent: Considering how upset he is when he first meets Near in person and considers him to be nothing compared to L, it's likely he holds his former rival in high regard.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Mostly played straight, though he has no problem with writing women's names down. In episode 14 he says "this is the first time in my entire life I've seriously wanted to hit a girl" after being glomped by Misa.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Similar to how Misa seems to be under the impression she's living in a Romance Novel, Light seems to think he's living in a Shonen Manga which, while technically true, he's an idealist living in a cynical world. Light sees himself as The Hero and The Chosen One - through the sheer power of determination and his genius plans that are always right he will make this world a better place. He thinks of the Death Note as just a tool, no different than a gun. Heroes can use guns on bad guys and still be considered the heroes. So why would people ever think what he's doing was wrong?
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He's a master of this.
• You Are What You Hate: Ryuk points out in the first episode when Light explains his plan to get rid of all the bad people that there will always be one bastard left.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: What he does to Raye Penber and Kiyomi Takada. Also what he would have done to Misa were it not for Rem. In the end, he himself is subject to this by Ryuk, who writes his name in his own Death Note at the end of the series, as Light no longer proves entertaining.
• You Just Told Me: Happens to Raye Penber and (in the manga) the President of the United States.
• You Should Have Died Instead: An interesting case as Light is the one who engineered Rem's death, but later comments that he wishes Ryuk had died instead.
• You Will Be Spared: Provided someone is useful to him and/or doesn't get in his way, i.e. Misa and Mikami. Also the Taskforce for most of season 2.
• Young and in Charge: He is 18 when he assumes L's name and control of the Japanese Taskforce after L's death, and even at twenty-three in the second season he remains both its youngest member and leader.
• Young Conqueror: He is youthful idealism at its darkest.

---

"Who else could have done it and come this far?! Would they have kept going?!"