Headscratchers / Death Note Characters Actions

The others.

Warning: Unmarked Spoilers Ahead!!!

What if Rem just told the truth about Kira? Would she still be alive?

• The big decision Rem had to make was sacrificing herself to kill L, or letting Misa be caught. But why even have to make a choice there? If she wanted to protect Misa from Light killing her it would have been the wisest choice to just say that Misa is Kira, and if they try to do anything to Misa she'll kill them. Only Light knows that Rem will die if she actually goes through with it, so what can the rest of them do if a real live shinigami is declaring protection for a human? Misa probably wouldn't like it since it would implicate Light as well, but Rem can just seemingly disprove L's theory that Kira's power can only be switched by the person using it by claiming she was controlling them into acting as Kira, making them both seem like victims rather than willing participants. I wonder how Light would have reacted if his carefully constructed plan got derailed this way. He certainly wouldn't like that L wouldn't be killed, but at the same time if Rem got him off the suspect list he'd at least be happy with that. He'd be able to openly act as Kira and the task force couldn't do anything about it since he'd seemingly just be a puppet, and even if they wanted to stop him the threat of Rem killing them for interfering would force them to stand down.
  • Rem is too noble for her own good. She got scared when faced with the threat that Misa would die if she let L live, so she took the path of least resistance and killed him and Watari at the cost of her own life rather than take time to plan out an alternate strategy such as you suggested.

Why can't humans see their own lifespans or be told them?

• Rem says that "you never know what a human might do if they know they only have a short time left" as one of the reasons, but considering how extreme everyone who got a Death Note acted, nearly conquering the world, I don't really see how much worse they could possibly get, or why the Shinigami should care. Really, with this and my question right below this one, the rules of the Shinigami just seem arbitrary.
  • You think Light Yagami was insane normally? There was something that held him back; the ability to lose. Take someone like Light Yagami, give them a Death Note, and confirm to their face that they have nothing to lose.
  • I assumed that telling someone of their lifespan would make them conscious/suspicious about their fate and drive them to do something else to change it, thus altering their lifespan (for better or for worse). The way I saw it, it's not that it's forbidden to tell a human their lifespan, it's that it's pointless to do so because the lifespan would be changed if revealed anyway.
    • That's incorrect though, because it is forbidden for a Shinigami to tell a human their own lifespan.
  • Your argument is basically, "Why do we lock doors? People can pick locks anyway." Yeah, sure, but some barrier is better than no barrier. Similarly, just because humans with Death Notes can go nuts anyway doesn't mean we should add fuel to the flames. And as the first reply pointed out, the rule could very well be making a much greater difference than you think.

Why is it wrong to extend a human lifespan/kill without using the Death Note?

• For the first part I get it, but at the same time why does it matter? If a Shinigami is meant to take lives then killing someone who is going to cause someone else's life to end is still accomplishing that. It seems weird that they're punished with death for that despite that the dead Shinigami's lifespan is added to the human's lifespan afterwards, and that most Shinigami barely do their jobs anyway. As Ryuk says, they only write down names because they don't want to die, and you're mocked if you even bother. Some Shinigami haven't bothered for so long they died naturally, but if they deliberately extend one life it's game over?
  • And that brings us to point two. The rules say that killing a human without use of the Death Note is the most extreme violation of Shinigami law and is a death sentence, but if they're meant to kill humans then why is this a restriction? Maybe it has to do with not revealing the existance of supernatural elements, or maybe it's simple bureacracy. Like, if X is killed they'll have a written record of it, while a Shinigami could forget to mention they killed X by snapping his neck.
  • The Shinigami are meant to take the lives of humans, but they are also bound to a non-intervention policy. A typical Shinigami just hangs about in the Shinigami realm, taking pieces of or all of the remaining lifespan of a human. Otherwise, they are not supposed to intervene. A Shinigami murdering a human without using a Death Note, and a Shinigami saving and by extension prolonging a human life are in direct violation of the Alien Non-Interference Clause.
    • It is also for this reason that Shinigami who drop a Death Note into the human world *must* stalk the human. They have to make sure of two things: 1) That the Death Note is used for its intended purpose of killing people, and 2) that the Shinigami can reclaim the Death Note one way or the other.
  • Well, why do human societies have rules about things that seemingly don't matter? Why do humans have honour codes? Because that's how societies are.
  • The Shinigami King makes the rules, and the 2020 oneshot proved that he's petty enough to make up a new one on the fly just because the person selling the notebook didn't use it first. Odds are he just likes things done a certain way.

Why do the SPK members freak out when Mikami shows up if they know he has a fake notebook?

• As stated. Through his out of character behavior the SPK finds out about the real notebook and swap it out with a fake copy. And yet when Mikami comes to the warehouse and they're made aware of his presence they all (except Near, of course) look like they're actually about to die. The guys are all sweating, and Hal even has her eyes clenched shut. It doesn't seem like they're aware the Death Note still works if you cut out a page until Near asks Ryuk later, so there really shouldn't be any reason for them to be so afraid of Mikami.
  • They're the only ones who know it's fake. That's the whole point. Now put yourself in everyone else's position. If you saw that the SPK was totally unfazed by Mikami's arrival, you'd know something was up.

Light: I don't want Misa to seem suspicious. Better start dating three other girls. Nothing odd there.

• This is one of the biggest leaps of logic that Light ever makes to me. He tells Misa that if they come in contact, and the way the two Kira's act suddenly changes, that would make them both seem suspicious to L. He says he doesn't want their time together to stand out, so he'd need to see other girls, but doesn't seem to clue in that suddenly going from never leaving his room outside of school to suddenly becoming a ladies man seeing a bunch of girls in a short period is, in itself, suspicious. I guess the logic he's going for is that college can change a persona and make them more experimental, but if he's EXPECTING L's team to be always watching him then he should also expect that such a drastic change in his behavior would only draw attention.
  • He's going to be scrutinized no matter what he does. Why make it easy for them to identify which new girl is the one they should be worried about?
  • Both the bus jacking and the Ayoyama steak out prove that even though it is not shown much, Light does have an active enough social life that he can call up people on short notice to hang out or go on a date. So it would not be a complete personality change for them to see him enter romantic relationships.

Would failing the 3 notes test actually prove ANYTHING?

Recently been rereading Death Note, and I just have to wonder what the point of the 3 note test by L was. Even if Light got the 'wrong' answer it wouldn't have proven jack. Light acts like he'd be finished for coming up with the correct message, but anyone who is given 3 notes for clues and decided to look at the first word of every line would come up with "L, do you know Gods of Death love apples?" Or maybe "Gods of Death love apples. L, do you know?" It's the most logical conclusion to make, so there's nothing suspicious about it. Even if you factor in the print numbers it still doesn't change anything. We clearly know L had them printed out of order. I mean, who ever said all those pictures were printed at the same time? If Light wasn't Kira he should have no knowledge of the investigation, so he could think the "Love Apples" note was part of a shorter list of a particular days evidence while the "Gods of Death" one was from a longer days evidence. And even if you factor in the made up fourth note it just sounds dumb. "Gods of Death have red hands?" Sure. But "L do you know love apples?" That's what L is trying to pass off as the 'correct' answer? Either it's a nonsense phrase or L thinks Kira is a caveman. Kira or not, I think anyone would get frustrated at being told the right answer had some atrocious grammar. All in all, it's a very underwhelming trap that isn't as clever as L thinks it is and isn't as damning as Light thinks it is.

• The whole point is that as Light Yagami is not supposed to have informations about the case and he is a good detective, he should have asked if there is an additionnal note, which he didn't.
  • And why would he expect a fourth note, Kira or not? That's my question. With three notes you get an actual coherent statement. With four notes you get a messed up first sentence. Compare "L do you know Gods of Death love apples?" to "L do you know love apples?" Whatever a hypothetical fourth note said, it wouldn't make the first sentence make any more sense, so L's logic is wrong. And even if "love apples" is some kind of code Kira used, Light wouldn't know about it since he "has no classified information." Thus, the only logical step is to say that the three notes are just in the wrong order, not that there's a fourth note.
  • The sentence is only messed up in translation. In the original Japanese, it still makes perfect sense. The authentic three-notes message reads えるしっているか 死神は りんごしかたべない, which translates to "L do you know that Gods of Death eat nothing but apples?" The fake four-notes version reads えるしっているか りんごしかたべない 死神は 手が赤い, which translates to "L do you know that Gods of Death who eat nothing but apples have red hands?"^note Japanese doesn't have relative pronouns like "who", so it can't form relative clauses like "the man who is running". Instead, it uses attributive verbs to say "the running man"; the verb "running" acts like an attributive adjective that modifies the noun "man". In exactly the same way, the verb phrase りんごしかたべない ("eat(s) nothing but apples") acts like an attributive adjective that modifies the noun 死神 ("Gods of Death"). An ambiguous sentence (is the relative clause restrictive or non-restrictive?), but a perfectly sensible one.
  • The point of the 3 notes test wasn't to see if Light was Kira. It was to agitate Light and bait him into taunting L. When asked how Light would try to prove that someone were Kira; "I would probably get him to say something that wasn't made public, something only Kira could know...kinda like what you were doing just now." L knew a key aspect of Kira is that he hates losing, where Kira can't resist taking an opportunity to metaphorically slap L for trying to beat him. By setting up a test Light/Kira couldn't win, Light was less cautious when taking an opportunity to restore his self-esteem.
• Light fits the profile they have so far. L passes it off as an intelligence test, and Light knows that and has to play along. He is an honorary member of the police force because he is so smart, after all. He can't just not pretend to try to solve the problem. L watched him for signs he realized he had changed the message.

• No, it doesn't prove anything — and it isn't meant to. L is just getting a read on Light.

In what universe is a faceless, nameless man given authority to control police forces around the globe?

• I don't care if L has solved every single unsolved case indisputably with concrete evidence. NO ONE is going to give one person that much power. The fact that a majority of countries in several continents all somehow agree to this just baffles me. Without a face and a voice filter scrambling his voice he could be impersonated at any time, which is what ends up happening when Light takes on the mantle of L after he kills him.
  • You make it sound like everyone unanimously decided to let L control everyone, but that's not how it works. L doesn't have authority over anyone; he's ultimately just a consultant. He asks people and organizations for their individual cooperation; they individually decide whether to give it or not; and they can withdraw it at any time (which is exactly what the NPA eventually did). Either way, the head of the organization is still the head of the organization, and doesn't have to do everything or even anything L says; recall that the task force more than once vetoed L's more unethical ideas. He can't solve cases (at least, not as easily) without their cooperation, so they have to weigh the risks of potentially not solving the case against the risks of granting an anonymous entity control over their personnel and access to their resources; but ultimately, it's their own decision. (This is the whole reason L revealed himself to the task force — they threatened stop working with him otherwise.) Apparently many of them decide it's worth the risk; but they do that as individual organizations making their own decisions, not as a single global entity. (Of course, with L's skills and resources, he can often get what he needs even without permission, but that falls outside the purview of your question.)

L: I am justice... even though I don't care about justice and am more interested in the thrill

• When the manga was turned into an anime a lot of L's earlier reactions that didn't reflect the character he became were removed, such as looking genuinely upset and shocked at the death of the FBI agents, as well as the completion of Light's 'Gods of death love apples' message. So I find it curious that they kept the "I am justice" line, when it's established by the authors that L is only interested in exciting cases that capture his interest and 'winning.' He's not out to be some paragon of virtue, just to ease his boredom with something that is a fit match for his genius. He's alone when he says this line, and it's after he cut the connection with the live broadcast, so that line was said without anyone else but him to hear it. I know it's used as a parallel to show that he and Light are very similar, but L saying that just comes off as odd and a little out of character.
  • The angry reactions doesn't really mean he fights for justice, he was just pissed at Kira taunting him and at how disadvantageous the agents' deaths were. "I am justice" doesn't mean he's fighting for justice; remember that a theme in the series is that those in power shape justice, so he's more so just declaring his status as someone powerful and great.

How L could have possibly escaped the effects of the Death Note

• In Rule XXXV, it is stated that if a name is misspelled over four times in the Death Note, they will have immunity from any Death-Note caused deaths. If so, could L possibly have used his name's (L Lawliet) difficult spelling and pronunciation to trick someone into trying to kill him with the Death Note ("Please write on this paper four ways someone could possibly spell the name L Lawliet on this paper while thinking hard about my face")? It would be a gamble, but if he found someone he thought might be incapable of figuring out the spelling and would not connect the name with the great detective, he would gain immunity from the Death Note. Not saying it's the best idea, but could it have plausibly worked?
  • Yeah, probably. But he didn't and couldn't even know of that rule, so.
  • He could even have given them wrong clues as a safeguard, like "I spell my name with an H". There's nothing in the rules that says you can't.
  • Way, way too risky, even with safeguards. And more importantly, as mentioned, he didn't know about that rule.
  • Even more so, it won’t really work. If I remember correctly, there was some clarification that the misspelling immunity is only regarding the Death Note, where it happened. Rem would write it in her own Death Note, thus it would end the same way.

Light could have easily won at the finale if he had been just a little smarter about things

• Even as everything was crashing down around him Light could still have had the last laugh if he had just done the opening his watch bit differently. He talks to Near about the possibility of the notebook being fake to buy time to get some distance from the others. If instead he feigned another breakdown(Near knows that Kira hates losing, and the time was fast approaching for them to lock him up since no one was buying into his motive rant) and fell down to the ground pounding it and screaming about how 'I'm Kira, I'm God, I can't lose, etc' while facing away from everyone that would both hide his hands and the noise would cover the opening of his watch. Now, while he appears to be trembling over his loss, he's actually writing down everyone's names. If he wrote down suicide(by gunshot wound) he wouldn't even have to worry about being shot. Since Near so helpfully showed him the page with all the real names of his team on them it would have been game over for Near.
  • I doubt Light's ego would allow him to feign indignity like that. Throughout the series, his intellect is always at odds with his less-than-bright pride, and in the end, pride wins out and he gives a grand Motive Rant followed by a calm walk.
    • OP here. Light has NO other options here. Even the authors admit that Light knew his plan of just trying to write Near's name in plain sight and then trying to trick the others was impossible. If it's between humiliating himself and DEATH I think he'll go with humiliation, especially since he can immediately get revenge with the satisfaction of ripping victory right from the edge of defeat.
    • If you care about what the author says, that statement only hurts your case; it demonstrates that they were fully aware that Light was putting his pride above his life, and intended that interpretation. Also, regardless of what the author says, literally the entire plot demonstrates that Light not only frequently but pretty much constantly puts his pride above his sense of self-preservation; the entire Kira charade is essentially made of that tradeoff, as much as he tells himself he's being smart and careful about it. So I don't know why you think this situation would be any different.
  • I don't know if that'd work. Eight people were watching him intently and they would probably notice, especially since he'd have to do it quickly enough and make it legible while pounding the ground and moving swiftly.
    • OP here. The pounding is just to get him on the floor where his hands will be out of sight and cover the sound of him opening the watch. Once that's accomplished he doesn't need to do it anymore. If he's curled up enough the distance from the others will basically render what he's doing invisible.
  • I mean, maybe he just didn't think of that? You have to see a better way before you can do it.

Why did Mikami do NOTHING at the yellow box warehouse after his death note was revealed to be a fake?

• This is another thing that bugged me. True, Mikami failed in his duty by being duped, but after being handcuffed (FROM THE FRONT!) he just passively sits there for the rest of the encounter until Light gets shot repeatedly, before he either calls out Light as not being God(manga) or commits suicide upon seeing his God go down so pathetically.(anime) Why does he act so hurt when Light claims not to know him? With a room full of people that suspect him does he expect Light to treat him like a dear friend? I don't think Mikami is terribly strong, but c'mon! He spends all that time at the gym. If he's THAT fanatically devoted to Light he should have caused a ruckus to protect him, even if it cost him his life. Try to grab the gun from Gevanni or Rester, or as least distract their attention off Light by giving one of them a hit to the gut with your elbow. Try to strangle one of them by using the handcuff chain. DO SOMETHING! Maybe this would only buy a minute or two of time, but it would have been the EXACT opening that Light could use to implement the plan I illustrated right above. With everyone's attention on Mikami it would have given Light time to write some things down in his death note scrap.
  • The theory that Near used the notebook on Mikami perfectly explains any oddities with his behaviour past the 26th of January.
  • We don't even have to assume that Mikami was being controlled; we can explain his actions perfectly well by his mental state. By the time he was handcuffed (hell, even before that), Mikami's sanity was just barely intact. Realizing that he was duped (and by extension that Light was duped) would be a huge blow, and is more than enough to explain his mental paralysis (to say nothing of seeing Light continue to slip off his pedestal, which wouldn't exactly help matters). Hell, for most people it wouldn't even take nearly that much to paralyze them into inaction.

What if Ryuk didn't kill Light at the end of the anime?

• Ignoring the manga where Ryuk kills Light in front of everyone, in the anime Mikami's suicide is enough of a distraction for Light to escape the warehouse and evade the taskforce. If Light somehow survived his injuries AND wasn't captured by the force... what then? Ryuk kills Light because if Light is locked up for the rest of his life he'd be boring. Somewhere on another headscratcher someone hypothesized that if Light actually DID completely stop crime that Ryuk would kill him just for the delicious irony of it all. Conversely, letting Light live post the YBW scene would be just as cruelly ironic. If Light was just bluffing about hiding the real death note then Near has both of his death notes, and he doesn't have any scraps left. He'd have to watch the world he so carefully set up revert right back to what it was, all the while knowing he could do nothing to stop it. All the deaths he was responsible for would now be for nothing. His Godly ego would be thoroughly crushed with his defeat and the loss of the only thing that granted him power. As emotionally strong as Light was his mind would break fully, as he was already teetering on the edge on the way to the warehouse, leading him to go catatonic or commit suicide. It would be a fate worse than death, and Ryuk would probably laugh it up all the while. (In the manga Ryuk gives a sure, why not when Near guesses that Ryuk will tell him if the notebook is fake or not after they capture Light. In the anime no such exchange happens, so in all likelihood the notebooks still exist, which means Light's memories wouldn't be erased)
  • Ryuk didn't care whether or not Light faced justice for his actions. Ryuk's only purpose as far as Light Yagami was concerned was to motivate him to use the Death Note, and he could not leave for the Shinigami Realm until Light either died or willingly gave Ryuk the notebook back. The bottom line is, Ryuk is obligated to confirm Light Yagami's death. If he didn't die from his gunshot wounds and was captured, Light would have been kept in custody and kept alive until his as of then lifespan ended, to which Ryuk said "I don't want to wait that long". Ryuk wasn't in it for the long game, just his amusement.

Rem lives?

• Light arranges things so that the only way things can proceed is for Rem to kill L, thus killing herself in the process. BUT WAIT! Couldn't Rem have put a stop to everything by simply using the threat of death on everyone? "I agree with Kira's vision, so if you continue to investigate Kira I will wipe out the entire task force." Something like that. What could they do? Rem is untouchable and can back up her threat. Granted, L likely would have tried to continue the investigation in secret using Watari or some others like Aiber or Wedy, but with that threat at the very least the 13-day rule would never be exposed since Rem wouldn't allow the notebook to be tested. How would Light move then?
  • A second idea is: What if Rem secretly CONFIRMED the 13-day rule? Now, this one is iffy. Rem writing down the criminals name at the end of 13 days to 'verify' the 13 day rule likely wouldn't affect Misa's life span because L just can't accept that he's wrong. Even having an enchanted notebook with writing materials from another world didn't dissuade him from his belief that Light and Misa were guilty. Using this method, if it in fact doesn't affect Misa's lifespan and thus Rem doesn't die, it will definitively prove that Light and Misa are innocent, and thus none of them will let L look into them any further. Of course, even if Rem did try these methods Light would definitely find a way to swing things in that direction to FORCE her into making the sacrifice, as he has no other way of getting rid of L.

Why do so many people in-universe find the concept of Shinigami hard to believe?

• Granted, we can just write this off as natural human skepticism, but it's something that bugged me on a recent rereading of the series. You have a notebook that reads your thoughts of a persons face and kills/controls the victims written within. And yet the SPK members (minus Near, of course) say it's impossible. If you genuinely believe that the notebook is legitimate, then you have to accept some sort of supernatural element actually exists in the world. Otherwise, how would it even exist in the first place? Black magic? The occult? It leads back to the same source, because a being of some kind would have to bestow the power upon the book.
  • Not really? Just because something must have a supernatural element, that doesn't mean a living being had to have had anything to do with it. It's "just" a book that kills people.
    • It's one thing to accept a strange weapon that operates outside of your understanding. It's another to accept *gods* of death.
• Or, on the other hand, why would a logically minded genius well footed in reality be so accepting that he's actually seeing Ryuk, a mythical monster, instead of thinking he's hallucinating or suffering severe mental issues?

How was L going to confirm Naomi's identity if she wanted to keep it a secret?

• Like the one right above this, this bit of fridge logic hit me on a recent rereading. Naomi's thought process: "My husband was killed for revealing his real name, so I'll use an alias." And yet, while talking to Light, she specifically says something to the effect of, "I thought if I gave them (the taskforce) my name they'd let me speak directly to L." She says she considers the police and the taskforce all suspects, and the only one she truly trusts is L, but in order for her plan to work she would have to give out her real name in some form. Otherwise, how would they confirm that she is who she says she is? I suppose it might have worked out if she gave out specifics of the case she had worked with him that wouldn't be publicly available, but the issue is her contradicting herself, first hiding her real name and then saying she was going to give out her name.
  • She didn't say she doesn't trust the Task Force, just the NPA. In the manga at least, when Light claimed to be a member of the Task Force, Naomi was satisfied, having told her theory to someone in the Task Force.

Why doesn't Light just bring a gun to the warehouse?

• Near says Kira knows the name and face of every person on either team in episode 36, except for his own. Why doesn't Light just write all their names in the Death Note to die on the date of the warehouse meeting and then shoot Near? Or better, threaten Near at gunpoint, come up with a less suspicious death for him, then have Mikami write his name? It's not out of the question for a detective to have a gun. Matsuda has one, after all. Yes, then he has to deal with the suspicion of being the only survivor, but his original plan had all of them dying anyway. This method seems to me much more foolproof.
  • Because of one of two possible reasons... he was too insane by that point to even think of it, or he did not want to be an actual "murderer" by killing Near with a firearm, instead wanting to take the easier way out and simply write his name down.
  • Also Values Dissonance. As Light points out earlier, gun control in Japan is very important and no civilian is supposed to have one, even when Light was involved in the case. Japan also has a very strong cultural phobia of guns and killing, even in self-defense. Light is just maintaining his traditional beliefs and views guns as ugly weapons, the use of which is beneath him anyway.
  • Remember, Light knew that everyone suspected him of being Kira by that point. Coming to the warehouse unarmed would make him less of a threat to the others and they would therefore be more willing to go through with the meeting. Some of the SPK members also had guns, so a shootout wouldn't end in Light's favor and Near would immediately be suspicious if his teammates suddenly decided to leave their guns behind.
  • The Task Force wouldn't let the suspect hold a gun, and the SPK would still be there, meaning Light would just be shot to death.

How Light could have found L much sooner?

• Light doesn't know that in the beginning Watari communicated with the police for L, but he has access to all the police officers' names and knew they didn't trust L, so it wouldn't be unrealistic for one of them, like Matsuda, to try to follow Watari after he leaves to find where L is. So Light could use the Death Note to make him do that and tell Mr. Yagami, because he trusts him, but make Matsuda tell him at his house - where Light could overhear him - then have him get run over by a car or something like that so it isn't so suspicious. Light now at least knows where Watari is, which is plausibly where L is, which gives him an advantage.

Light the Terrible Planner

• Alright, here's what I would do if I got my hands on a Death Note. I wouldn't start massacring random criminals. I'd kill certain major leaders — terrorists, dictators, maybe Vladimir Putin or someone, but people in power — in a clearly supernatural fashion, and have them leave a message. "I am Kira. You now work for me. If anyone attempts to take over [X]'s position, he will be killed in the same way. Await further orders." Then leave another message (by killing some random Mook or something), giving information on how to contact me, but telling the people who find it not to reveal it to anyone. Head off to Russia, set up my new kingdom, and bam. Doesn't matter if some taskforce knows who I am, because I now rule a third of the civilized world. If I want, I can start killing criminals at my leisure. How did Light miss this?
  • Because there are a million ways this can go wrong and he is too smart to even consider it. For a start, unless you know how to run a country - let alone the largest country in the world (whose language, culture, and politics are no doubt alien to you) - you probably don't want to kick things off by taking one over. Secondly, if people know your identity, they will try to kill you, and since you have zero support beyond the fear you have induced, you are probably going to die (the fact that people would be so afraid of you makes them more, not less, likely to try to kill you the first chance they get). And third, the more you expose yourself, the more likely it is that someone will figure out that you yourself are incapable of killing anyone and all the power is in the book you carry, so yet another reason to turn on you. Light did not kill random criminals - he specifically looked for those he considered deserving of death (at first, at least) and worked from there, and on a routine basis. His main problem was his ego and his need to show off, which got him exposed and put him under surveillance; had he made more effort to hide his power or genius, L would never have caught onto him in the first place, let alone discovered the existence of the Death Note. Light's "terrible planning" made him the de facto ruler of the entire planet by the time of the time skip, so really his way is best - safer, more secure, and more efficient; you rule the world and nobody even knows it. If he wasn't such an egomaniac, he easily could have won.
  • Also, the Death Note can't make people write or say what they don't know or have never thought of, so the major leaders and other people you proposed would not be able to leave any of the messages you mentioned.
  • There is also the factor of Ryuk's boredom to take into consideration. Light essentially became Moriarty to prevent Ryuk from becoming bored and killing him. If Light did something that completely destroyed the cat-n-mouse game with the law, he'd likely be killed by a bored Ryuk pretty quickly. Light needed to be in a perpetual state of entertaining war in order to survive.
  • You're right, Light went about it in a pretty dumb way, driven by his ego. But your idea has several problems, which the other replies have already outlined.

How in the heck did L miss the obvious signs of tampering of the death note from before Higuchi took over?

• Unless someone can come up with a reasonable answer for this, this has to be one of the biggest plot holes in the entire series. When Light gives Rem the Death Note back, it's the original Death Note Ryuk gives him that goes to Higuchi, and he tells her that he made sure that nothing like his fingerprints or handwriting would be found in it. Keep in mind by this point that Light has killed hundreds of criminals, and thus used up a lot of pages. To completely erase his handwriting from the notebook, no matter what method he used, would be extremely obvious to leave signs of tampering. He either would have had to rip all those pages out, erase all the names (he always writes in pen and it sure doesn't look like an erasable pen), or white all the names out. No matter how he did it, there would be signs of tampering, and if there were names hidden before the time Higuchi started killing, that in and of itself should only make L more suspicious of Light since he believed that Light passed on Kira's power to someone else with the plan to have it returned to him.
  • Well, the Death Note is an evil magical artifact that never runs out of pages. Maybe if he ripped out all the used pages the notebook just grows new ones to replace them, hiding any signs of tampering?
    • Indeed, I think this is what we're supposed to assume.
  • The rules of the Death Note (fully detailed in How to Read) state that the Death Note can never run out of pages. The rule at the back was also designed to keep the Death Note from getting destroyed, so the investigation team would rule out someone ripping the page's out on account of the magical threat of death. L did find the whole thing suspicious, which was the entire point of the ruse. To get L to put the 13 Day Rule to effect and force Rem to kill herself by killing him.
    • The 13-day rule only applies to making the Death Note unusable. If it were a real rule, merely ripping out pages wouldn't invoke it.

They jumped the gun and got in the front seat without even thinking

• Light's words on the way to Takada/Mello, and I'm pretty sure he pulled something similar at another point? Do Japanese people not look in the rear view mirror ever? (Or have peripheral vision for that matter, especially in the passenger seat, double-especially considering they both kind of suspect him by now.) You would think pulling out a paper from your watch and writing a fairly long message would be pretty conspicuous. It was clear from the scene it was a normal car and not a limo or anything with the back seat blocked.
  • A rear-view mirror isn't meant to get your passengers to be fully visible. It's to make sure your rear window is visible. At best, they'd have seen Light looking down and figure "Oh, he's just looking at his watch, checking the time maybe."

How did Light get Aiber and Wedy's real names?

• This is something that's been bugging me for a while, simply because it's not explained at all. Light never had the Shinigami Eyes, and Misa lost hers before meeting them, only getting them back after Aiber and Wedy stopped coming to the task force headquarters. So... where did he get the names?
  • He's become the new L, and has access to all surviving records that L had in the building. Even if L was smart enough to not put those details down to paper, he managed to track down and identify both of them once and Light is smarter than L is. He has all the means and tools to track down their true names at his own leisure.

Near's hypocrisy on Light's 'reluctance to cooperate'

• So this bugs me a bit. Near tells the SPK that he's been suspicious of the new L from the start, finding it strange that he was so reluctant to cooperate. However! Isn't it the complete opposite? In the anime Near straight-up tells Light about Mello and Wammy's house, so it doesn't apply here, but in the manga Light wants to know the suspect Near has in mind that took the notebook, so the NPA can search for him too. Near responds by belittling the Japanese task force, calling them useless, saying that the only thing he wants from the new L is to threaten to announce the names and faces of the kidnappers to get them to give the notebook back, and outside of that, the new L is worthless. Now, assuming Light wasn't Kira, how in the heck is Light at fault here? Light offers to cooperate, and Near shuts him down, then Near complains that Light doesn't want to cooperate? It's stated that Near finds the new L suspicious because the investigation went nowhere after L died and the new L took over, but isn't it possible that it could be the same thing they told Mello? L was a super-genius and the best detective in the world. Would it be that unreasonable for no one else in the task force to compare to L, and that L2 was simply a mouthpiece so that no one would know L was dead?
  • "On second thought, L, I give you full authority on this." In Near's opinion the new L must be either Kira or useless—in either case he has no qualms in setting things up so that Light takes the blame when Mello steals the notebook so that Near can seize control of the investigation because Near is a dick like that.

Where did Takada get all those pages?

• Near the end of the series where Mello kidnaps Takada, she kills him with a piece of the death note she had hidden in her bra. Presumable she had a second phone hidden there too or in... some... other... place. But look at how much Mikami writes per day. She was expected to kill for at least two or three days worth of names? With what? That little piece of the Death Note she had in her bra?
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment?
  • She had plenty of pages safely hidden back at her home. She only took that little piece in her bra with herself for emergency situations like this one. She also did not need to have a phone, she saw his face and name in person.

L suspecting Light so quickly/bringing Light into the investigation

• While L's intuition and reasoning skills are normally quite excellent, it bugs me that the supposed "Greatest Detective Ever" hones in on Light without any real evidence. In real life, a detective carefully investigates fully before narrowing down to the next stage but L just cuts out more than 95% of the investigation on sheer intuition. For instance, after all the FBI Agents are killed he immediately narrows his search down to just the Yagami's and that other family. Why? I know his reasoning is that Raye Penber only investigated those family's and he's the leak, but isn't it possible that a brilliant mass murderer is clever enough to not use an agent other than the one that investigated him to get the leak? There's no concrete evidence that Kira was someone who Penber investigated, only suspicions. L simply decides that can't be the case at all goes with his intuition. He's undeniably right, but that doesn't change the fact that it shows that the only reason he's the greatest detective is because he guesses really, really well.
  • He doesn't actually hone in on Light until he gets physical evidence on his new girlfriend. Until then, he's just the best lead L has.
    • That's not the point. The point is, L arbitrarily cuts off pieces of the investigation as quickly as possible. I've worked in a police department and investigators try to investigate every possible source before narrowing down a field like that. L follows investigative procedure about as well as Homer Simpson follows safety procedure but because L's intuition just happens to be right, he is able to pass as the "Greatest Detective" when he's really just a good guesser.
    • I suggest you re-watch/read those scenes again. L had a video which showed Raye turning around and pointing back into the train, so L's reasoning was that he was looking at Kira and knew it was Kira (also because he carried an envelope onto the train but left without it). He only starts to seriously suspect those households when Raye's fiance goes missing, because he happened to know her and found it incredibly out of character. From that he managed to deduce that Raye found something he didn't report about during his investigation, Naomi however heard about it and investigated it on her own. That brought her into Kira's path and ended up eliminating her. If Kira wasn't one of Raye's targets, then Naomi wouldn't have gone missing. Naomi knew something that could have only been related to the family's Raye followed, which completely rules out the idea that Kira approached someone else's mark. You also missed the fact that the reason he narrowed in on those families was because they had no other leads. They had no further indication of who the leak was, and no means to narrow it down other than the fact that Raye was targeted by Kira specifically and his fiance suspiciously disappeared.
    • L states a few times (genuinely or not) that they don't have any other leads or clues; evidently he didn't have any other ideas for rounding up more suspects (or he was totally confident it was Light).
    • Plus the investigation team is severely undermanned considering the scope of the crime they're dealing with. Investigating every potential lead probably just isn't possible.
  • Along a similar vein: "Hey I suspect you of being Kira. Want to come be a part of the goddamn investigation case about you?" Seriously, has there ever been an instance of a prime suspect being invited to join the investigation team? I know it puts him within an easy observational distance but it also puts him within easy killing distance of every single member of the team. Shouldn't L be smart enough to not invite the serial killer who doesn't hesitate to kill all who oppose him to meet all the investigators?
    • That's the point. If any of the investigators die, then L knows who the killer is. Inviting him to investigate traps Light, in that he can't kill any of the investigators without being suspected.
    • The problem falls almost entirely on Light's own hubris. Had he just relented and accepted Ryuk's Eye Deal, he would have had all the time in the world to write down the investigators' names (starting with L and Watari), fake his own death in a way that would fool the inspectors (likely using Misa or Ryuk's help), then slowly kill off the rest of the team in various ways that didn't point to Kira being the culprit. Basically, his own refusal to cut his life short was what resulted in him cutting his life short.
  • Also: "I suspect that you are Kira. I am going to handcuff you to me and be as obnoxious as possible..."
    • He knows Kira can only kill people whose name Kira knows, and if we're talking other kinds of killing, well, L is a good fighter, after all.
    • He's a good fighter? I don't remember that part but even if that's true, I doubt he's skilled enough to dodge a handgun.
    • And if, say, Aizawa suddenly drops dead, he'll know who to blame. Which is very effective insurance against that very thing. Both L and Near do this several times, they make sure everyone is aware that Light has information useful for Kira, so if any of that informations in actually used by Kira, Light would be exposed, rendering the information useless.
    • Plus L has no other choice in the matter; he suspects Light but has no other means to try and prove it beyond watching him constantly and hoping he slips up.
    • Serial Killers, particularly narcissistic serial killers, have been known to inject themselves into the investigation. (Although this is usually done by coming forward as a potential witness, not an investigator.) They do this for practical reasons (I.E. finding out what the police know exactly) but also to mock the police - which Light does constantly. So perhaps L extended the invitation to the investigative force just to see if Light would accept, and if he did, it could cause further suspicion.
  • Raye Penber was the ONLY FBI Agent whose death exhibited noticeably unusual circumstances. Besides that, Light would stick out like a sore thumb with both his ridiculous grades, past as tennis champion and personal history with the police. Add to that the standing assumption that Kira was a student. It wouldn't count as certifiable evidence, but reaonably, L should actually have picked up on him sooner.
    • He might have. When L calls the FBI in and is thinking "we'll find our suspect" in both the manga and the anime, L is shown looking at the Yagami file which he has slightly separated from the others. Like in the Yotsuba arc he probably already guessed Kira's identity but he was trying to build a more solid case.

13 day rule

• How exactly does the 13 day rule immediately absolve Light and Misa of any suspicion? Yes, they were in confinement for 50 days, but they could have passed their notebooks onto another user prior to being detained - and to take it further, they could have specifically instructed said person to not start use the note for over 13 days to help clear them (since the new owner wouldn't yet have used it - just like the investigation team can possess the note but not use it once they get ahold of it - and they would be safe from the rule themselves). The investigation team wouldn't know the ins and outs of ownership at this point, so it's really something they should have investigated more thoroughly before just accepting it as a given. Yes, the rule certainly makes Light and Misa look less likely, but considering L was so sure it was them (and, but for that one rule, finding the note put most of the missing pieces together perfectly), and there was actual physical evidence against Misa, AND the ploy of making Light think he was about to be killed was completely debunked (considering he couldn't have written in the note at the time, even if he wanted to), there is still plenty of reason to still keep a very close eye on them.
  • If the new owner hadn't written in it then the old owner would still own it and thus be subject to the 13 day rule (as far as the team knew).
  • The investigation team actually DOESN'T know about the rules of ownership: Misa and Light both heard about it from Rem. So for them, if a person uses the Death Note, that person dies after 13 days if he/she doesn't write another name. Also, while the 13 day rule was there to make the investigators lose their suspicion, its other purpose was to make L SUSPICIOUS and test the rule, resulting in Rem killing him.
  • Even if the team had known about ownership — which they didn't — the 13-day rule had nothing to do with ownership. You don't write another name in 13 days, you die, period. Ownership doesn't matter.

Why don't you just run?

• In the Grand Finale why doesn't Light make a break for it before getting shot multiple times? (Hey look at the distraction!) Just write small...
  • You think Near would actually fall for that? A gushing fountain of blood barely worked.
  • Probably not on Near, (* Face-palming in the background* ) but it wouldn't have to if it worked on everyone else, Near already did the damage he could do for the moment, now the immediate threat is the guys who are physically fit, carrying guns, and inclined to chase after him...
  • I don't think that would work, the only reason Mikami distracted them was Light being practically dead. If for example it was done after his evil laugh, I don't think anyone would care. Maybe one person would go to help Mikami. But... it'd be interesting if Light actually escaped. In episode 33 or 34, Matt is killed only for assisting Mello in kidnapping Takada, and he's killed instantly by the police and they say "Being against Kira is a crime punishable by death", so if Light went to a police station, or something like that, Near & co would be screwed.

Misa and a female Light

• So what if Light was a woman? Would Misa just go lesbian on her?
  • It seemed that she wasn't attracted to Light until she actually "met" him (IIRC she outright states that she was devoted to Kira, but fell in love with Light when she saw him), which would explain how she still loved Light and remained devoted to Kira during the Memory Gambit. If Kira turned out to be female, she probably would just be insanely devoted (with traces of Les Yay, since we can guess how devoted she would be).
  • Misa clearly isn't mentally stable and her idea of love really isn't anything close to what it means to the rest of us. Subconciously or otherwise, she was determined to fall in love with Kira before she met him, and the fact that he happened to be an attractive 18-year old lad just made it easier for her. If Kira was a woman, or old, maybe it'd force her to come to her senses but it might have just delayed the moment she convinced herself she was in love.

Near's plan dealing with the aftermath

• Acccording to Near's plan Light won't be missed because he's a serial killer, but as we are shown the world essentially depends on Kira wouldn't his death cause Crime rates to rise rapidly? That being said isn't it in the best interest for the SPK and task Force to pretend Kira is still alive and assign someone to periodically kill criminals to make sure the world doesn't burn to the ground?
  • If I were Near, I would concentrate on rebuilding the world's legitimate police force. Obviously, Near is in a position to do so. Also remember that at least twice - probably more, to generate false trails during the timeskip - there has been a period where Kira's judgments stopped for a longish stretch only to resume, so I'd give the crime rates a grace period of about a month. Heck, even one year later, some people are still thinking Kira will come back; maybe a month is overly stingy.
    • People are still thinking Elvis will come back. That's one of the things that happens with famous people, and the fact that there was never any actual closure to the Kira case as far as people are aware leaves open the possibility of a return. It's probable that some people will continue believing he may return some day for years, even decades, and even after that, the fanatics will never stop believing; especially the ones that, like Mikami, believe he is an actual Physical God that's descended from the heavens. With that being said, it's probably in the best interest of the police and the SPK to rebuild the police and the SPK, not to continue ruling the world with threat of Death Note to anyone who doesn't do as they say. That's a sure slide to the kind of brutal tyranny that Light represented. There is no point in defeating Kira only to become Kira.
    • Well, in the epilogue in the manga the "world is rotten" again, crime rates are back up, Near is the new L, Kira still has legions of followers waiting for the return of their God, and Matsuda reminisces about the time of Kira almost fondly...
  • Considering the VAST number of criminals who got killed over the course of Death Note, which would surely include repeat offenders and from the looks of how crazy Light wound up, plenty of people who he thought weren't being punished harshly enough; the prison population is down, lots of criminals who would train criminals and assist criminals and cause more criminals (like drug dealers and weapons dealers) are likely dead, and people will be living in anticipation of his return for a very long time. It's tough to see how the world would go back to normal THAT fast.
    • And yet according to the ending, that's exactly what it did.

Higuchi

• Higuchi. Sweet, dumbass Higuchi. When someone shows up on TV to out you as Kira, in a live broadcast where the reveal is dragged out for three hours, you think he wouldn't take some basic security measures like writing your name down in case something happened to him? Not that the good guys didn't screw up by a) suspiciously not announcing that they would broadcast your name in case of his death, b) expecting anyone to believe it's a live broadcast and c) failing to nail a guy in their big ol' frame while he's busy shitting bricks after finding out he's been had harder than anyone's ever been had in the history of owning.
  • If Higuchi had TiVo, Matsuda would be dead...
    • In the anime, Matsuda's show appearance was "outed" by one of the remaining seven working for L. Higuchi had no choice but to react to the show.
    • Not only in the anime, that's how it went in the manga too.
  • He is indeed a dumbass, but remember that he was also panicking and on a timer. People tend to not think entirely clearly in such situations.

Color pallette

• Why does the first arc have a predominantly cool pallette, while the second's (with the exception of Near's HQ) is warm? You'd think it would be the other way around, no?
  • One interpretation is that in the first arc, L is in control (All of Light's actions are him reacting to L's actions), so the colors match (He's associated with cool colors, primarily blue), whereas in the second arc, all of Near and Mello's actions are them reacting to the threat Kira presents, meaning his colors (Warm ones, primarily red) are dominant — with the exception of Near's HQ, which have cool colors due to him being L's legacy. Inadequately explained, but I hope that answers your question.
  • Why would it be the other way around? The first arc is a lot calmer and smaller scale. In the second arc, all bets are off. And if nothing else, that's when Light really goes off the deep end like never before.

"He just came out of nowhere!"

• In the first episode, Light tests the Death Note for a second time when he sees a group of men attempting to rape a woman outside of a convenience store. Light is seen writing in the Death Note and shortly after, one of the men is chasing the woman when he's suddenly hit by a truck. You can clearly hear somebody say "He just came out of nowhere!" implying that the truck was put there because of the Death Note. However, somebody had to be driving the truck. The Death Note can't make people teleport or do anything that's impossible, so how did the truck end up being in the right place at the right time?
  • It's Tokyo. Someone was driving in the area.
  • It didn't literally come out of nowhere, it's just an expression.
  • As I interpreted it, "he" was the guy who got run over. He rode off the sidewalk and into the street, thus "came out of nowhere" from the perspective of the truck driver.
  • It could also be said that he would've been hit either way, but if Light hadn't written his name down, he would've survived.
  • When you write a name in the Death Note with details of the death but not a specific time, you're allowing the book what time it needs to manipulate the victim and other people (in this case, the truck driver) into position. It's just in this case there was a truck close enough.
  • All Light wrote as cause of death was 'traffic accident'. The truck was just the most convenient way - he could have died because of a mishap with the motorbike.
  • Firstly, as was mentioned above, "came out of nowhere" is 1) just an expression, and 2) probably referring to Takuo rather than the truck driver. Secondly, the truck was already driving down that street; the Death Note didn't make it appear by magic. All the Death Note did was make sure that Takuo and the truck ended up in the same place at the same time. If Light hadn't written Takuo's name, maybe the girl would have run in a different direction, or Takuo wouldn't have gone after her, or he (or the truck driver) would have driven just a bit faster or slower, or any number of things. The Death Note manipulates circumstances in small ways to make sure the person dies in the manner specified. The truck didn't teleport there, any more than the car that hit the bus jacker. They were already there; the Death Note just made sure they got to their target at the right time.

Ringing your own doorbell

• In Episode 3 Light is in his room helping Sayu with her homework when the doorbell rings and Light says "It sounds like Dad's home". Of course "dad" ends up being the head of the Kira investigation, but why in the hell did he ring the doorbell at his own house? Does he not have keys?
  • In the episode where Misa introduces herself to Light, she rings the doorbell and Sayu runs to the door expecting it to be her father. Again, why on earth does Soichiro ring the doorbell at his own home? Is this a Japanese thing or does the guy just not have keys?
  • Considering how extremely overworked Soichiro is, he probably doesn't have enough energy to go digging in his wallet.
  • Perhaps Soichiro is too lazy/tired to fish his own keys out of wherever he keeps them?
  • You guys don't ring the bell at your places? Why? It makes entrance so much easier if someone's inside.
    • Not everyone experiences the same thing. Honestly, unless you're keeping your keys in a bag, such as a purse, I think it'd be far simpler to just open the door yourself as opposed to hoping someone else will open it for you anytime soon, especially considering the various commonly used methods of having keys be easily accessible.
    • "Not everyone experiences the same thing." Which is exactly why it should be no mystery that some people do ring the doorbell at their own homes. After all, not everyone experiences the same thing.
    • No? Some of us have garages, pets, or other tenants who could get woken up by the doorbell ringing in the middle of the day.
    • The Yagamis don't have any of those things.
  • That could just be his way of announcing he is home, rather than a request to be let in. Particularly since Light immediately recognizes it as Soichiro
  • Sometimes it's easier to just ring the doorbell then fishing for keys.
  • In Episode 8 Light tries to open the door of their house and finds it locked and is surprised that no one is home yet. So it would seem that they typically have their door unlocked while they're home so it's unlikely that that Soichiro ringing the bell has anything to do with unlocking the door, it's probably just his way of announcing he's home.
• What if the door is latched from the inside?
  • Keys exist.

Mispelling the second victim's name

• Light's second victim, Shibuimaru or "Cool Taku" is mispelled in the Death Note numerous times before Light gets the correct spelling. But anyone who has his name misspelled four times in the Death Note, (according to rule 9,) cannot be killed by the Death Note! (Unless the mispelling was intentional.)
  • We don't know which spelling was correct though. Presumably after he got it right (within the first four tries) the rest made no difference.
    • Yeah, we do. In both the English and Japanese volume one the first name written is correct (Confirmed by How to Read). He just kept writing for 40 seconds to be sure. Nothing to see here, folks.
  • In a Brazilian Portuguese sub the translator note says that he's writing all possible spellings for the name, so the book might have saw that as not misspelling.
    • Any spelling other than the correct one for that person would be seen as a misspelling. But as was mentioned above, Light got it right before the fourth try, so there's no mystery here.
  • It has to be misspelled four times. As mentioned above, he spelled it correctly before he got to the fourth attempt.

"If she makes it to the police, I'm finished!" Why?

• All through Episode 7, Light keeps telling himself that he has to kill Naomi, because if she tells the police her theory, he thinks he'll be caught immediately. Okay, let's assume he hadn't met her, and she had made it to the police. There would still be no solid evidence that she's right. She can be as certain as she wants, it's still just a theory. L would probably jump on board, but the others might not. All Light has to do is admit to being on the bus, but claim that it was one of the other passengers who demanded to see Raye's ID. There would be no way to prove anything one way or the other. Even if L did zero in on Light as a result, that would still work to his advantage, since Light has already admitted he wants L to do that so he can get close to him. In hindsight, the way Light handles things isn't particularly smart. And even without Naomi, L deduces one episode later that Kira must be someone Raye was tailing! All in all, was it worth it?
  • Of course it was worth it. Regardless of what L is able to find out anyways, Light eliminated someone he considered a threat. But to address your concerns: Light isn't worried about being caught immediately. He's worried about L narrowing down his list of possible suspects faster than he can prepare for. Also, there was no way to prove Light was on the bus. The only things Naomi would've been able to convince L of are that Raye met Kira and that Kira can kill in ways other than with a heart attack. Sure L figures the former out the next episode anyways, and the latter later on as well, but Light doesn't know this at the time he's with Naomi, and it's to Light's advantage that L doesn't find either of those out. Yes, Light wants to get close to L, but he didn't actually expect L to approach him like he did. Light hadn't actually made his "get close to L" plan when his attention was diverted to dealing with Raye and the FBI. Considering that Light both wanted L to notice him and L not to focus on Raye, it's most likely Light originally intended L to notice him as part of a larger pool of suspects.
  • The ability to kill by other means was a huge trump card. L finding out about it would have very severely limited how Light could respond to unforeseen developments. It also would have caused L to scrutinize unusual deaths in the area, giving him more opportunities to pin something on Light.

Kira and Matsuda

• Matsuda may have not been a proper Kira supporter, but he certainly was sympathetic towards Kira and he was quick to point out the decrease in crime. Matsuda really looked up to Light, to the point of obsession in some cases. Of course Light wouldn't have forseen the end, but he was normally quite quick to exploit people he knew he could easily influence, yet he didn't try to take advantage of Matsuda in any way. Does anyone else find that quite strange?
  • Since Matsuda was usually regarded as The Ditz, maybe Light thought he was too dumb to be useful. He probably regretted that by the end of the series...
  • He riddled Light with bullets the second he found out he was Kira, so it's probably for the best he never tried to use Matsuda. Then again, that was only after Light tried to get Matsuda killed, so that just be retalliation.
    • It wasn't just because of what he did to Matsuda, but what he did to his own father. Matsuda may have admired Light, but he had endless respect for Soichiro. He would not have reacted well to the news that Light is Kira. He may have been "on the fence" about Kira being evil, but that would have pushed him right over it.
  • Matsuda was completely on the fence about Kira and sort of leaning a bit more toward being against him, only showing slight shades of sympathy and saying that Kira's not completely evil. Light likely didn't reveal this to Matsuda out of fear that the sudden revelation would push Matsuda over the fence and have him, I don't know, shoot him?
  • He does try to take advantage... by having Matsuda get the shinigami eyes to attack Mello's hideout. It nearly worked, too, except for his father's strong personal sense of justice.
    • Yeah, that was not as planned. It's explained more in the manga Light was counting on Matsuda to make the eye deal and he never considered that his father would volunteer.

Why don't you just shoot him?

• Okay so after Light sees L's true face, he becomes obsessed over trying to find L's real name so that Light can kill him through use of the Death Note. Why didn't he just kill L in a conventional way (stabbing, shooting, etc.) and get it over with? I know it would've been suspicious but it also would've saved a hell of a lot of time and quickly eliminated the only real threat to Light.
  • Because it's very difficult to get away with murder. Also, Light just isn't that kind of guy.
    • ... right? "I'll kill him... with my HANDS if I have to."
    • It's way easier to get away with murder than all those cop shows would have you believe. In america at least, only about 60% of cases get solved. In particularly crime ridden areas, like Washington D.C., that number drops below 50%. For someone who's apparently a super genius and has a lot of knowledge of how the police system works like Light it probably wouldn't be difficult at all.
    • Really? In Germany the solving rate for murder is at about 98%.
    • You think it's easy to murder a super genius that's expecting to be murdered? I suspect L would have a mic on him or something, so Watari would hear Light saying "Hey L, let's go in this abandoned alleyway."
    • Light's no slouch himself as far as being a super genius goes. It'd probably be easier than the convoluted plot he actually enacted, in any case.
    • Light sort of thought of the whole thing like a game. He enjoyed the contest between him and L.
    • Or maybe he just had a thing for L. Who knows?
    • Or maybe he just realised L would kick his ass, considering that he's been shown to be proficent in a capioera-like martial art.
    • It would have been ridiculously easy to poison L, though, what with all the sweets he's been eating. And then he could have just written the names of the rest of the task force in the Death Note. When there's no one left to arrest him, there's not really a problem anymore.
    • Every member of the task force has been killed besides Light. I'm sure that's going to go down well with the suspicions of anyone not in the taskforce.
    • That was his plan at the end of the series though... He could fake his death or something and start over under a new name.
    • Also, Light knows that the taskforce (who all respect his father, and by proxy him) is actually the main thing keeping him from being seriously considered as a suspect. He doesn't try to get rid of them until late in the series when 1) they begin to turn against him and 2) he's pretty much gone off the deep end.
    • The legal system in Japan pretty much amounts to "if you're accused, you're guilty." And he's in Japan.
    • 'Accused' means a case reached court. Cases where prosecution has insufficient evidence don't simply reach accusation stage. So, this alone tells nothing about chance to evade punishment.
  • It is explicity say in the manga that L showing his face to Light was basically his Life insurance. Why? Because only the task force, Watari and now Light, you know, L's main suspect, know that he is L. So if L happens to accidentally die within the weeks of investigation, wouldn't that look bad for Light? Why would anyone, other than Kira that is, kill him anyway? Nobady else know he is L and he is a secluded individual that only goes out to closely watch his main suspect, and I'm sure he doesn't go out without taking safety precautions. Yes, of course, accidents can happen but it would be suspicious at least. In fact, there is even a part when L is checking out the second Kira videos when L tells Soichiro that if he dies on the next days, Light is Kira.
  • L makes it known to the rest of the task force that if he dies, Light is Kira. Although Light knows the names of the task force, he doesn't know Watari's real name or face, and cannot reach him in person. Therefore, even if he murders L and kills the rest of the task force, Watari would survive, with no doubt that he is Kira.
  • In addition to the above, remember that most of Light's convoluted plan isn't actually to kill L, it's to kill Rem (who can only be killed in an extremely specific way, which requires manipulating her into a situation where she has to break the rules without her realizing that he's doing it.) Rem was (as far as Light knew) far more dangerous to him than L ever was, and definitely far harder to kill. Killing L himself would have derailed the plan.
• Light's pretty... egotistical.

Light's abscence from To-Oh

• All told, the Memory Gambit means Light essentially disappears for two terms of school. Why did To-Oh take him back?
  • I dunno if it is the same in Japan, but universities around here usually allow semester withdrawals for extenuating and well documented circumstances. Considering he had his father and L (the chief of police and greatest detective in the world who is also a millionare with lots of connections) to help him cover up the gambit, it shouldn't have been hard for some strings to have been pulled regarding him getting time off and back, whether that meant some physician on L's payroll documenting a made-up illness or his father speaking to the headmaster(s) of To-Oh directly and telling them his son had to dissapear for secret police business and will they please take him back.
  • Didn't he say that with his grades and all, he could miss up to a year of school with no ill effects?
  • Also, Light's memory 'removal' doesn't literally erase all of his memories since he got the Death Note, only the memories RELATING to the Death Note. He wakes up in L's prison cell, but still knows who L is, that he volunteered to get into the cell, what the Kira case is, etc... and argues his way out by insisting he's not Kira after all. He clearly remembers everything thus far... except the Death Note, and everything directly relating to it (Ryuk, Shinigami in general, the rules of how it works, etc...). Ultimately he forgot nothing of note, otherwise he himself would realise it ('hey, I don't remember passing this exam or making this speech, what the heck happened to me?')

Mello's photo

• Why did Mello leave that photograph at Wammy's House, anyway?
  • Maybe he didn't know Kira needed to know the face of a person to kill them, and figured it a piece of unnecessary baggage?
  • Isn't it obvious? Near had it (hence why there was nothing else with his picture left, Mello took everything but the picture).
  • In the manga, the Wammy's House student who drew the portrait had it as part of her portfolio.
  • Mello probably forgot that the picture existed, and simply left it there, he left Wammy's house in a fit of rage after all, and Near himself comments on how Mello's tendency to act rashly often leads him to make stupid mistakes like that, he says it talkis specifiaclly of leavig said picture.
  • If Mello knew it was being held by Near, he wouldn't have to worry much, as Near is perfectly capable of looking after something so important.
• Next question: What's up with the "Dear Mello" on the back?

Shouldn't the FBI

• After the death of Raye Penber, his colleagues and fiancee Naomi Misora shouldn't Steve Mason, head of FBI, know by now that Light is the only suspect left and that they could have simply sent a Meet Cute Honey Trap to finish the job? Same goes for so-called genius L who figures it out, but thinks it's smart to put up surveillance camera's in his bedroom just once, befriend Light, play open card and let him join the investigation team. And where was Peter R. de Vries?
  • Naomi Misora retired; Light was not the only person Penber followed and as Naomi disappeared, Penber was not himself a 100% solid lead, just a likely one; Light is too much a sociopath for a Honey Trap; and as L didn't get anything definite on Light during the surveillance, he figured getting closer was the way to go.
  • Light was quite careful; he made the instructions on the sheet of paper Penber wrote on kill the FBI members after they got the packet with the names and faces, so it's unclear who leaked the information. He also disposed of Naomi by forcing her to kill herself without anyone noticing, preventing anyone from realizing what she knew about him. This reduced the likelihood of him being suspected.
    • But (in the manga, at least) L says he knows the order in which the agents recieved the documents, despite Light's efforts. He later combines this information with Penber's behavior, Naomi's dissapearance, and comes to the conclusion that Kira is one of the people investigated by Penber during that time. However, Penber wasn't just investigating Light; he was investigating two entire families, the Yagamis and the Kitamuras, which is why L installed the cameras to try and pinpoint a specific person.

Four letters

• L's little mind game with the messages Kira left doesn't really make much sense when you think about it. Light was supposed to deduce that there was a fourth letter because the message with the letters in chronological order was incomplete. However, L's completed message was still out of order, and would have been complete without the fourth letter.
  • That's the whole point. L is trying to test whether Light will insist that there should only be 3 messages—because L knows Light probably sent them himself. L knows that if Light is innocent, he won't have reason to insist that L is making up the fourth message, even though it makes more sense with only 3.
  • In Japanese, the fake four-note message makes perfect sense, while being a clearly incomplete sentence if you remove the fourth note. It's only in translation that the four-note message seems to not make any sense. See "Would failing the 3 notes test actually prove ANYTHING?" above for more details.

Casual reaction to Ryuk

• All right, very minor quibble, but if I were seeing things from Matsuda's perspective, I'd be a bit more jumpy about Ryuk hovering around, disappearing at sporadic intervals, and generally not giving anybody the time of day.
  • A bit more jumpy, hell. Ryuk was explicitly sent as a package with Kira's notebook. Would you like to look as though you're doing anything to solve the case in front of the shinigami? Discussion of meetings with Takada included?
  • I don't get it either. Especially since you know, Rem, the previous shinigami, killed both L and Watari. But I guess there was nothing else for them to do, other than just rolling with it, they couldn't give away the notebook or just its ownership, because they'd forget everything about it.
  • Ryuk acts kind of goofy, aided them a bit during the raid on Mello's hideout, and after hanging out on the couch with Matsuda enough times the taskforce might just have written him off as a Harmless Villain...

Matsuda at the ICPO conference

• Why was Matsuda at the ICPO conference? Why would the Japanese police send someone as incompetent/ inexperienced as Matsuda, did the NPA just not care?
  • Matsuda may not be a very good detective, but he is far and away one of the most dedicated of the police. Maybe he specifically requested to go.
    • I thought Mogi was the most dedicated and hardworking of the Japanese policemen in the group.
    • "one of"
  • I always assumed Soichiro was Japan's official representative and Matsuda just came along as his assistant.
  • The others are doing important police work. Matsuda is free to accompany the chief to an international yakfest because he's not doing anything of value on any current cases.

Interpol at the G 8 and why they meet to begin with

• Why was the Interpol meeting regarding the “mysterious criminal deaths” at the G8 summit? These organizations are unaffiliated.
  • G8 nations are all ICPO member states with an interest in the criminal mass murders.
  • INTERPOL had no idea what exactly was going on, or what it was up against. Holding an Interpol meeting under guise of a G8 summit was a reasonable precaution.
  • At the time the many police organizations believed the mysterious worldwide deaths of criminals to be the work of a large international organization. It would be safer not to face a group of that scope, scale, and power out in the open.
  • If anyone in the ICPO was seriously considering even possibility of Kira or something with Kira’s implied abilities existence a clandestine meeting would be entirely reasonable.

• Why are the police investigating this case in the first place? As far as I can tell, anyone with no knowledge of what a Death Note can do would automatically assume the death of criminals through mostly natural causes to be a happy coincidence. In fact, logically it would seem even less suspicious in the cases where the cause of death wasn't natural (as one would be unable to even link the causes of death to imply that those behind them all were the same person). Whilst I can sort of understand L's ability to link Light to Kira as down to his being a Bunny-Ears Lawyer, I'm not entirely sure that the police would or would even see this as a good enough reason to bother him.
  • Because the continuing deaths of hundreds of people, all by heart attacks in identical types, fitting a few patterns (i.e., deaths only occur out of school hours, deaths are concentrated in Japan, only affects criminals (heart attack rates among civilians remaining fixed)) among healthy young men is more than just a happy coincidence. You could call 5 heart attacks possibly a coincidence, but 500? Especially since nowadays, there's paperwork and databases that have to be filled in every time someone dies in a prison, and a sudden, sustained jump in heart attacks could be instantly noted when measuring statistics, would at the very least invoke an inquiry to make sure there isn't a conspiracy planting heart attack drugs in prison food.
    • But doesn't that sort of imply that the prisons are failing the criminals in some way? Sure it might make sense to investigate the prisons themselves but getting high ranking detectives involved doesn't seem necessary as there would be no possible way that someone with no links to the prisons would be able to cause the deaths.
    • That's not taking into account all the criminals dying on the run or mid-hostage situation or whatnot, which is definitely one of the factors for the ICPO conference.
    • But taking that into account would mean the only way to link the victims would be the fact that all of them were criminals (and as I'm pretty sure not all of them were convicted, a policeman couldn't necessarily use that link either). And when you consider that there's a slight chance that criminals could put themselves under enough stress (from their hostage situations and escape plans) to have heart attacks in the right conditions there doesn't seem much reason to investigate too much...
    • A slight chance. When it just keeps happening like it did, with fugitives, hostage-takers, and prisoners all dying one after the other from heart attacks, the police are going to get suspicious.
    • But the problem is, while it's reason to believe there's something going on, it would be fare more likely for a MEDICAL conference. Until someone claimed responsibility, all these people dying of heart attacks would be considered a possible epidemic. Also, keep in mind that not all of them were in prison, in fact I am sure most of them were, "have you seen this man? If so contact the police" things. So to justify a police conference, it would have taken Kira claiming responsibility. And while it could be said that in itself that's stretching it because it would be absurd to believe that one person could possibly be committing all these acts, the fact that he would know about the situation, which was most likely kept out of public eye to keep mass panic from occurring, would be enough to bring in an ICPO conference. Otherwise, it makes no real sense to involve the police for any other reason than diagnostic efforts.
    • But this is a) happening worldwide and b) only happening either to imprisoned criminals or those that are already linked to a crime. And there are probably thousands of deaths. There is simply no way to call that a natural disease anymore. This has to be guided somehow. And also remember that the police forces from around the world ARE completely baffled by these killings and don't know what do to with conventional means - that's why they turn to a maverick detective.
    • One can assume that once dozens of their prisoners started dying left and right from heart-attacks, the prison officials immediately ordered autopsies, quarantined the prisons, and brought in the HAZ-MAT suits. Of course these investigations would turn up nothing. All of the victims would be found perfectly healthy prior to death, and no pathogens, molds, or toxins would be found in the prisons or the food. The possibility of a freak accident would be plausible if it happened to one prison, but the fact that it happened all over the world would make it impossible to be coincidence. Also, the fact that the only connection between the victims is that they all have criminal histories is very suspicious in and of itself, since they are one subset of the population most likely to be targeted for revenge or "judgment". I agree L's theory that Kira is one person implausible, since even if it was correct L should have no way of suspecting supernatural means, and without the Death Note a large and dedicated force would be necessary to pull off all the murders committed by Kira.
    • I still don't understand how anyone determined that Kira was one person. L seems to think this from the very start, without having any evidence other than that the killings fit the schedule of a student.
    • In the movie, they acknowledge some of these things. The police consider turning the case over to the Board of Health (or something) but decide against it. L shows the police a graph showing that larger crime conspiracies have a lower success rate, convincing them it's one person. Personally, I think it would take a lot longer for the police to be convinced of something like that, but never mind.
    • Let's not forget that L is also the three greatest detectives in the world so for someone like him to figure out that Kira was one person, and to suspect any regular high school student of being capable of these mass killings with little to no real evidence, wouldn't be as farfetched as it seems. How else would he have became the greatest detective if he needed something so insignificant as you know, real evidence?
    • Expanding on the above: L probably thinks that a crime this large couldn't be done by a large group of people. A group capable of pulling this off naturally (i.e. no Death Note or supernatural help) would be a corporation, using some kind of chemical substance. We can assume two things: 1) that the prisoners have been autopsied and no evidence was found to suggest poison or other substance capable of causing a random heart attack. 2)an operation this large would have without a doubt left evidence somewhere^note doing this naturally would require some sort of infiltration into the prison to get the poison to the criminals, tampering with water pipes or something, etc. at thousands of prisons. There's simply no way this could be done by normal means. A project this big would go wrong quickly if it was done by a large group because there's just so many factors envolved. L is therefor taking the only logical explaination: The killings are being done by one person, likely someone as intelligent as he is. L is from Wammy's House, and is very aware of the fact that there are people in the world that are as smart as him. After calling out Kira on tv, the idea that Kira is one person is basically proven in L's mind. This stunt showed to him that: 1)Kira is most likely one person. 2)Kira thinks like L.^note L realizes that Kira is a lot like himself: childish and not at all fond of losing. L quickly recognized the psychological profile of Kira when he responded to Lind L. Tailors declaration immediately by killing him. Tailor was presented as someone trying to catch a criminal for justice. Light killing him showed that Light was mad at Tailor for not agreeing with him and challenging his percieved authority. If Light was purely trying to get rid of criminals, he wouldn't have killed Tailor (a "dedective" that no one has ever heard of and, as far as Light knows, has no leads on this case whatsoever). In fact, if Light had done some research he would have figured out that this person has no detective background and is most likely not at all a threat. 3)Kira needs a name and a face to kill. Although his logic seems crazy, it's the only explaination available using the information that he has.
  • Light outright says he's deliberately killing so many people the world will figure out death on this scale is not possible without someone planning it. He wanted people to come to that conclusion so eventually they did.

Why not hack his site and discover Kira's identity?

• Now, correct if I'm wrong, but that was Light's site he was pointing out to Ryuk, right? Proclaiming to be Kira?

So why the hell didn't the government hack into it, and find him out? Granted, the methods aren't legal, but considering this is a superpowered killer who they're already planning to execute without trial, I don't think legality should be an issue in this instance.

• Because Light didn't make that site. Some fan or fans of Kira made that site. He points it out to Ryuk because he's inordinately pleased that the God of the New World already has an Internet following. Also while Light visited the site and that could potentially be used as evidence against him so did a lot of other people (hence why Light is so pleased) so that alone isn't enough to condemn him. Also Light regularly deletes his Internet history and if it is discovered he visited that site he could claim that he was just investigating Kira.
• Ah... that makes much more sense.

Amnesiac Light's reaction to the Kira questions

• During Light's memory gambit, he and L have a discussion about whether Light was willingly Kira or being manipulated by Kira. Light concludes that he has to have willingly been Kira, and L says that he feels much better for talking about it. But shouldn't Light have freaked out at this? Doesn't that deduction open up a massive can of worms for him?
  • I think that particular can of worms is already open for him. He spends quite a lot of time worrying about how similar his ideals are to Kira's, both before and after this conversation.
    • Yup. It did bother him. But he didn't know his memories would return when he touched the note. If he had figured it out, he would have never asked to touch it.

L and honorifics

• In the manga, how come L is the only character that uses honorifics?
  • Are you sure no one else does? Well many of the characters are very close to each other so there would be no need for honorifics. But I think at least Light calls his father "otou-san" or doesn't he?
    • That just means "Dad". Sure, the "san" is still technically an honorific, but that's just how people typically address their fathers in Japanese. Not really what OP is talking about. Also I think they're referring to the English translation.
  • This question is most likely referring to the English release. It's just that L referring to Light as "Yagami-kun" can't be translated properly, so it's left as is. A similar instance is observed in Azumanga Daioh with "Chiyo-chan" being called such in the English dub.

Near figuring out that the second L is Kira

• What, in Near's view, made the second L more likely to be Kira than the other members of the task force?
  • Probably because he (correctly) doubts that anyone else could have outmaneuvered the first.
  • He notices that L seems a little too incompetent at catching Kira (contrasting the first L finding out as much as he did with the second L finding very little in the few years), and finds it suspicious that Kira helped the task force recover the notebook. That's when he starts truly focusing his efforts on Light.
  • He deduces Kira is within the Task Force from the fact that the Task Force has the notebook even though Kira could threaten them into returning it. It's more likely for L2 to be Kira because he is in a position of power over the Task Force and can ensure the notebook's safety.

Takada's knowledge of Mello's real name

• How did Takada know Mello's real name?
  • Light likely told her; the Task Force found out his name via Soichiro's Eyes.
  • But then what was with Light's insistance on getting Soichiro to write the name in? Was it was because only Soichiro knew his face?
    • Exactly- Light never saw Mello beyond the sketch, which isn't enough by Death Note rules.
  • The obvious solution: Takada made the eye deal.
    • No, only the Death Note owner can make the eye deal. Takada didn't own one. Light probably told her after learning from Soichiro.
    • Anyone in the presence of the shinigami that owned the note before can make the eye deal.
    • No they can't. Only the owner can.
    • Rule V: "The human who becomes the owner of the Death Note can, in exchange of half his/her remaining life, get the eyeballs of the god of death which will enable him/her to see a human's name and remaining life span when looking through them." Takada is not the owner, Mikami is. Therefore, she could not have made the deal.

Also, the borrower cannot trade the eyesight of the god of death

• Though how she was able to get the spelling right seems kind of impressive. Somehow I can't see the dying Soichiro telling light how Mello's real name is spelled letter-by-letter. And it's not really something that seems like it can be solved by sounding it out.
• Soichiro spoke Mello's name letter by letter over his radio as he saw Mello's face during their standoff.
• In the manga, when Takada is on the motorcycle, she remembers Light showing her both a sketch of Mello and his name on a piece of paper during one of their wiretapped-only hotel meetings. Light knew it because Soichiro spelled it out, but only Soichiro, Takada and the SPK ever saw Mello's face.

Near's mask and fingerpuppet of L

• If there are no pictures or physical descriptions of L anywhere, and Near had never seen him, how did he make the fingerpuppet and mask of him?
  • It's only after the second Kira arises that L says that he destroyed all photographs of himself, so it's possible that there were some at Wammy's House before that time.
    • L also made visits to Wammy's House, as mentioned by Near in the story set after the end of the manga. During that time L also took questions from the children there, with Near and Mello being the only two who didn't ask any. Near had seen L before.
    • But he took questions over his laptop with the voice synthesizer and "L" on it. No dice.
    • And does that even happen in the anime? I thought that was just the Relight special, which isn't canon.
    • Well B obviously knew L well enough to be able to copy his appearance and mannerisms.
    • Near figures out everything else without being physically present, doesn't he? Getting L's face right might have been a lucky guess, just like with everything else. Seriously, though, he probably saw a photo at the orphanage, before L had them all destroyed.
  • Just because there are no pictures of L doesn't mean there aren't vague physical descriptions. Really, all Near needed to know to make his masks and puppet was that L was white (a reasonable assumption if he knew that he grew up in Wammy's house and was therefore an Englishman) and that he had green hair. The mask and puppet don't seem to resemble L beyond that, but since green hair is rare in the Death Note world Light immediately drew the conclusion that the mask was of L, due to being the only person with that trait who made sense in context.
    • Wait, L's hair is green? What?
    • Its black, it just has some green tints to itsometimes.
    • ...it looks dark green to me.◊ Am I missing something?
    • The lighter parts are sometimes tinted slightly green for shading, but it isn't literally green. Even in this picture, which you chose as an example, the level of green in his hair is so slight that I'm amazed you even noticed it, let alone took it as his hair being literally green.
    • Looks black to me, although to be fair Gimp's colorpicker shows a little tiny bit of green in some of the lighter areas. Old monitors sometimes overdrive the green. Check your monitor.
    • Is L even white? I thought the writer of the anime said he was, like, one quarter Japnese, one quarter Russian, one quarter English and one quarter something else. So not white.
    • 1/4 Japanese, 1/4 English, 1/4 Russian, 1/4 French. So, mostly white.
    • I think they may have meant his pale skin tone.
    • I don't think his specific genealogy was an important detail to reproduce on the finger-puppet.
  • When Near was investigating Light Yagami, he received information that Light and another student, "Hideki Ryuga", were often seen on the Toh-Oh campus together. He theorized that Ryuga was the original L, and was probably able to get a physical description of him from others who were at the university at the time.
  • In Another Note, Mello mentions that he had met L face to face, so it's also possible that Mello talked about him. Mello's need to prove himself better than Near may have lead him to brag about meeting L and sharing some details about him.

Light explaining away the Death Note

• When Ryuk tells Light that if someone else touch the Death Note that person will be able to see him Light says that he had been planning on telling anyone who asked about the Death Note that he had been keeping track of the Kira case. Did he forget that the rules are written inside, not to mention the fact it says Death Note on the cover?
  • Well, the second point he could have explained away by saying something like "It's a note(book) of all the deaths related to the Kira case. As for the first... beats me.
  • Maybe he stapled blank pages over the rules so that no-one could see them.
  • Or maybe none of his friends or family know English, so he could just make a b.s. explanation about what the words on the cover say.
  • Well, at this point it wouldn't have really mattered. He would have just claimed that the rules inside are a joke, maybe that the note was a silly present from a friend and he used it for keeping track of the criminals because he considered it fitting. Sure, it would seem creepy and all, but at this point, with his father not told by L that Light was a suspect, it would have just been passed off as a joke. Also, it was highly unlikely that someone found the notebook if he didn't look for it. We know that Light had means to check if someone had entered his room - and if this would happen all the time (because his mother is cleaning it or whatever), he would've already stopped doing it - because it would be pretty pointless if you know that someone enters.
  • "Death Note" could be passed off as some sorta.. death metal band name, and he could've claimed it was just a piece of novelty paraphernalia.
    • "Death Note" doesn't sound nearly as odd to a Japanese-speaker as it does to us. They just shortened notebook, as the Japanese are prone to do.
  • "I used it to practice writing English before the Kira case. It's fiction for the sake of variety from what we do at school."

Why isn't Misa's friend a suspect?

• Misa told Light that she had a friend handle the Kira tapes she sent to Sakura TV and that the friend didn't know what was really on the tapes, so its safe to assume her friend's fingerprints would be on the tapes so why isn't her friend ever a suspect.
  • 1) They didn't know who those fingerprints belonged to. 2) If they found out, they investigated her off-screen and realized she didn't fit the profile.
  • L mentions at one point that he found various evidence from Misa's room that matches the tapes.

How did L pose as Japanese?

• Slight Fridge Logic moment, but according to the author, L is 1/4 Japanese and 3/4 European. When Misa reacts with surprise that L's name is supposedly "Ryuzaki", Light gets upset with her. But there's a high chance that L isn't going to look completely Japanese if he's mostly of European descent. Misa's reaction could have just been something along the lines of, "Why does this foreigner have a Japanese name?"
  • But that wasn't the case, and even if it was, Light had no way of knowing that. He wasn't upset, he just didn't want her revealing that she knew it wasn't his real name. So he stepped in to make sure she didn't. (Also, not that it really matters, but L introduced himself to her as Hideki Ryuga, not Ryuzaki.) Not to mention, despite all their scrutinizing and criticisms, none of the To-Oh students attending the freshman address seemed to wonder about L's racial background, or question why he had a Japanese name, so perhaps he looks Japanese enough for most people.

Kira's Notebooks I

• IIRC, there were four Death Notes in the series: Ryuk's, Sidoh's, Rem's and Gelus's. By episode 25, Ryuk had his, Gelus's was being used by Misa, Sidoh's was with the police, and after Rem died, Light picks up her note. My question is, what happened to Rem's note for the rest of the series? For the rest of the series, Light only has Gelus's note at his disposal, and Sidoh's is either being stolen by Mello or with the police. Couldn't he have had some use for it?
  • You remember incorrectly. Light gives Rem's notebook to his father to catch Mello. Sidoh takes his notebook back. The notebook in the police's possesion after that is the one Soichiro was given. The notebook Light kept is the one he gives to Mikami.

Why did Rem kill L?

• Why did Rem kill L? Disproving the 13 day rule would put Light in as much danger of Misa (more in fact since he asked to be locked up) so if Rem didn't kill L, Light would have been forced to do something to stop it from being tested.
  • If Light had been jailed or executed, Misa would have been driven to depression and- most likely- suicide. Rem killed L because it was the only way to ensure Misa's happiness.
    • Also according to the manga, after spending time with Higuchi, Rem came to like Light and sympathize with his cause.
  • Remember that after the 50 days they spent in confinement, L didn't release Light or Misa, they were forced to stay in the building or under surveilance at all moments (Light was literally chained to L). The 13 days rule exonerated both and allowed Misa and Light to finally leave the building free of suspiction. Light of course, stayed on the building alongside L at all times even after this in order to have an alibi when Misa started killing criminals again. Therefore, if L tested the 13 days rule and proved it was false, all the evidence would point at Misa being Kira. At that point she would have been captured, judged and executed. Rem's priority was Misa's life so she had no other option than to kill L to save her. She could have killed Light first of course, but that would have probably pushed Misa to commit suicide. Rem had no other option but to sacrifice herself and kill just L.

Why did Light kill healthy prisoners with heart attacks?

• Here's a question: Light's first action is to kill off prisoners. The thought that an en masse killing of reasonably healthy men (with no signs of heart trouble) with heart attacks suspicious never crossed his mind?
  • He doesn't just want to kill, he wants to scare other potential criminals. Making all the deaths seem natural would be much less suspicious, but it would also make them less of a deterrent to others. In other words, Light wants to be noticed - it's the cornerstone of his plan.
  • Yeah, watch the end of episode 1 again. This is what Light and Ryuk's conversation is all about, right from Ryuk's observation that he didn't write any causes of death, and concluding of course with "I will be the god of the new world!"
  • This also would work to Light's advantage because for a very long time people assumed Kira could only kill via heart attacks or some kind of sudden illness. It was a huge problem around the time Naomi Misora was around that she deduced that Kira didn't have to kill via heart attacks alone.

What did Hideki Ryuuga ever do to L?

• What the hell did Ryuga Hideki do to piss L off? Considering that L's plan when he meets Light is to give that name, so that if Light tries to write it then Hideki will die and the case is resolved. But why him? I understand the fame and that everyone will know him, but it still seems a little distasteful.
  • That was a fake name. There is no Ryuga Hideki.
  • No, Ryuga Hideki is a famous singer in the Death Note universe, who's name L uses because if Light tries to kill him, he will almost certainly kill the famous Hideki instead, proving the that Light is almost certainly Kira (since he's the only suspect who knows that the guy calling himself Ryuga is L). As to why L picked Hideki in particular, I have no idea.
  • I'd suggest the possibility of Ryuga having been involved in some not-so-great stuff (more so than your average idol), but considering L's personality, it's entirely possible his name was chosen at random. Not so different, you know - he is callous enough.
  • It was a pseudonym, so Ryuga Hideki was actually named something else and was in no danger.
    • But, the whole point of using the name "Ryuga Hideki" was so that Light might accidentally kill him while trying to kill L. It must be his real name.
  • Ryuga Hideki was most likely chosen at random from a pool of famous people that were unlikely to have a heart attack any time soon. Not that it matters; he was not in danger at any point, as L probably knew Light would know L would realize Light was probably Kira if Ryuga Hideki died suddenly, and that Light wouldn't even bother trying that name.
  • Ryuga Hideki may possibly have been selected because of when L installed the secret cameras and bugs. Having observed the Yagami family L knows that Light is familiar with that particular idol due to Light's sister's infatuations, therefore by selecting someone he knows Light knows, the real Ryuga Hideki's face will stop L from being killed.
  • Light realizes immediately the implications of the name- that it would be impossible to write the name without thinking of the idol's face, and thus impossible to test if it really is a pseudonym or not. Which makes it obvious that it is a pseudonym. L also knows that Kira would not risk killing an innocent needlessly, nor would he risk letting himself be discovered, which killing Ryuga would certainly lead to. So L knows that he's safe. I think the point is more that if Light was Kira he'd get all of this immediately, and his immediate reaction would help point to his guilt or innocence.
    • This just bring up another thought that Just Bugs Me. What if Hideki HAD died during that span? Even if it hadn't been Kira's fault, it wouldn't have mattered, and Light would have been arrested. If L was REALLY that intelligent, he would have realized that such a thing would be useless in the long run, but apparently not even Kira can go THAT far into analysis.
    • Hideki's death would actually have benefitted L because he could use that as a convincing excuse to arrest Light. Though Light could have then tried to kill L with the notebook, it wouldn't have worked because L's real name is something different - and that's if Light even tried it. If he saw any sort of report that Hideki had died, he might have suspected that Hideki was co-operating with the task force to fake his death and thus lure Kira into a false sense of security so that Kira would try to kill L using the name Hideki and thus possibly accidentally kill the real Hideki.
  • Maybe there's some unknown back story here. Like there was a time where Hideki went to school with L, and one day he just gave L a funny look or borrowed his favourite pencil and never returned it. But in all seriousness, I have to agree with the theories of the above tropers. L is a Bunny-Ears Lawyer and TheChessmaster (although Death Note is filled with Chessmasters so that just seems to be the norm) so it's not like he wouldn't have forseen all the likely possibilities that Light's reaction would be. Since there's no doubt that Light is no Kira, L knows either Light will completely avoid testing the name in the Death Note because he's afraid to expose himself by accidentally killing the famous Ryuga Hideki, or he'd be foolish enough to try it, get the famous Ryuga Hideki killed on accident and giving L the exact proof he needed to convinct Light for being Kira. Either way, the situation would seem beneficial to L. Considering his personality, he probably has already thought of the chance that Ryuga Hideki could be killed, so either he knows it's probably a fasle name so the Death Note won't work, or he sees it as if one person dies it does not matter as long as in end he's preventing Kira from killing millions. Remember, he does only take cases of his own preference, not because he has some self righteous motive to save all the innocence from evil.
  • Sigh. L had no grudge against the idol. L knew Kira was intelligent enough not to attempt the kill. He was, of course, correct.

The Fake Rule - Soichiro may try to destroy it anyway.

• When the team get the Note, a fake rule says that if they destroy it they will all die. But Soichiro is insane about justice, and L makes plenty of gambits and risky moves. How could Light be sure they wouldn't just destroy it and leave a message behind saying what they'd done? Light would have been in big trouble then.
  • Not necessarily. He could just have said "Looks like Higuchi made up some fake rules." Hell, he could have used that as evidence that the Death Note was a Red Herring to throw L completely off the trail.
    • However, that would bring the 13 day rule into question and thus neither Light nor Misa would be able to act as Kira.
    • As for the possibility that Higuchi made those fake rules, it was stated later (much later) that the rules were written with a material that wasn't of this world.
    • But who would have known about the material at the time?
  • Relatedly, they could have cut the Death Note into pieces that were large enough to technically be usable (some people can write on rice grains) but to small for most people to write on.
    • The task force knew that there was a second notebook. If they took the chance of destroying the notebook and they did all die, there'd be no-one to look for the other note. Also, the notebook was fairly safe under Soichiro's stewardship until Mello turned up.
    • They could have simply thrown the book into the ocean. Book not destroyed but lost forever. Problem solved.
    • The fake rule doesn't say that it's if they destroy it they'll die, it says that if the note is made unusable they'll die. Soaked through might count as unusable. Plus, what if someone fished it out?
    • It's also stated that tearing it can cause people's deaths, which was intended to prevent them from learning about the ability to use scraps of paper. L, however, doubted this after seeing part of it torn off, and realizes that if it were a fake rule, it would put Misa and Light under suspicion. Near notes that this ability enabled Light to succeed at critical junctures (Naomi, Higuchi, Takada and others).

What's up with that foot rub?

• What the heck was with L's foot rub? Or, for that matter, his sentimental rant just before that? The whole thing seems to clash with L's character.
  • The anime team decided they hadn't had their required dose of symbolism yet. That scene is completely absent from the manga. (I found the bit with the bells quite effective, too.)
  • It was a symbolism thing related to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, including the one that planned to betray him (Judas). When you know that story it makes more sense and is less of a Ho Yay moment. Considering L and Light were working on the same team for a while, it would have been seen as a betrayal. In other words, L knew Light was going to kill him. Or at least had an idea.
  • But what was it ABOUT? The bell part in particular. I couldn't decide if L was lamenting his lack of a social life or he was depressed because it turned out that Light wasn't Kira. (Which was false, but whatever). Either way, it doesn't seem like something L would do.
    • He knew Light was Kira. He knew it, but couldn't prove it. He also knew that Light would probably kill him soon. That's why he was so depressed in the rain, and asked Light if he had once told the truth. He knew... but couldn't prove anything.
    • If he knew, why didn't he write Light's name in the Death Note, then his own, to literally take him with himself into the grave? If he knew his death was imminent anyway, it's not like this would change anything for him.
    • Two things, check out The Movie and two this would have made L not so different, though you could say that he was verging on this already with that prisoner plan. I'd make the argument however that the prisoner plan was a good deal less freedom removing then anything Light did.
  • The bells have a dual meaning: his impending death, and Wammy's House. That's why the bells and stained-glass windows made a second appearance in episode 30 - just sort of a wordless we're on the same side.
  • I understand what the bells themselves symbolized. If I didn't at first, I did in the episode after next, when you see Mello and Near. What I'm curious about is L's behavior during that segment.
    • Um... maybe this will clear things up...
    • L is letting Light know that he knows Light is Kira, that he's 100% certain, that he's so much more brilliant than Light that he's already deduced the next step of Light's plan, that it is unavoidable, but that ultimately Light's defeat at the hands of L will still come about.
  • L realises he has lost and that it is up to his successors to stop Kira. He decides to use his last hours on earth to mess with Light's head and maybe just make him reconsider. It fails.
  • Obviously L has a foot fetish.
  • It's what the anime team wanted, so it's what we got. As far as they were concerned, it didn't matter if it clashed with L's character, or made the slightest bit of sense, just like it didn't matter if any of the other bonkers changes made any sense. That's really all there is to it.

How could Near have been a match for Light?

• How could Near have known that the real Death Note was in the safety deposit box? For that matter, how could an eight-year-old like Near be anywhere near a mental match for the great Light Yagami?
  • Not sure about the safe-deposit box, but as for the mental match: Near was already a prodigy to begin with, and then was raised in an environment designed to ensure he would be as intelligent as humanly possible. If I'm not mistaken, he's also a few years older than eight, making things a bit more plausible.
  • Quite a few years older, actually - post time skip, he's eighteen.
  • I believe he found out by keeping a close eye on Mikami during the whole Takada-abduction bit. Bear in mind that I've only seen the anime once.
  • He saw Light's apprentice grab it during the abduction. He let himself be followed when he wrote down the names of the very people Light killed.
  • Expanding on the above, Mikami rushed off to write Takada's name in the Death Note to keep her from talking. In doing so he broke his rigid schedule. Curious, Near searched his deposit box and found the Death Note.
    • There's also Matsuda's theory that's exclusive to the manga, which in short claimed that Near used the Death Note to manipulate Mikami's actions and point to Light.
    • It Just Bugs Me that I've seen at least three people put this idea forward. It should go without saying that Near couldn't use the Death Note that he stole from Mikami to get Mikami to reveal the location of the Death Note so Near could steal it. Unless the SPK was intentionally trying to fool the audience, Near never had contact with the Death Note before it was switched. Matsuda himself doesn't reference this idea, either; he puts forward an explanation for why someone as careful as Mikami wouldn't test the Death Note before coming to the warehouse, coupled with the fact of Mikami's death.
    • But that's not the theory. The theory is that Near used the Death Note after he made the switch, to keep Mikami from testing the fake one on his way to the warehouse at the end. It's probably false in the anime, in which Mikami kills himself. In the manga, it's very likely.
    • On that point: while Word of God states that readers are meant to draw their own conclusions, Obata describes Near as "dishonest" in Japanese How to Read 13.
    • Also, Ryuk says that humans who use the Death Note experience fear, pain and misery, and while it's arguable whether or not everyone who ever used the notebook felt like this, it's certainly noteworthy that they all died. Near is still alive 3 years after the Kira case concludes, so this might indicate he didn't use the Note, at least not personally. Besides, it'd be illogical if nothing else if Near insisted on beating Light fairly and then sinked to his level. Indeed, he may then have just cut to the chase and killed him and Mikami off. Matsuda's other theory about Near manipulating Mello, though, is something I could find much more believable. Near could've been enough of a liar to fake the whole "together we're as capable as L!" thing, in my opinion, and it would've allowed him to kill two birds with one stone, since despite his apparent affection for Mello, the guy was a criminal worthy of the death penalty. Keep in mind that he is L's successor, and that he becomes more L-like in the one-shot. Learning to apply L's dishonest/harsh form of justice may have been part of the evolution, like claiming Mello's habit of eating chocolate at the end of the manga.
  • As stated he found the notebook because Mikami was acting weird and he saw the name of Takada in it (He wouldn't know Light also wrote it) and came to the conclusion that this was the real one. I mean why would Mikami hide a fake notebook and go out of his way to write Takada's name in it if he had the real one? Also, when Light suggests that the real notebook is fake at the end Near looks like he genuinly failed to consider that possibility but figures Light is desperate and bluffing.
  • How does Near even pick out Mikami from the thousands of other psychopathic kira supporters anyway? His actions don't make him any more obvious than they would be. Are we looking at a case of deus ex machina just to finish the series? It just made Near seem less belivable (and likable) than L.
    • The manga explains this a lot better - Mikami appeared on two of Takada's shows, giving him enough time to get to know her, Mikami's insistence on people contributing to society to their fullest on one of the shows echoes Takada's "use your skills or DIIIIIEEE!" message, and, most importantly, after the emergence of X-Kira, Mikami made a speech that Near recognized as subtly asking Kira for instructions on what to do next.
    • As the above troper says, the manga explains it in a lot more detail than "Near's eyes turn white, the room revolves around him, and he magically narrows his suspicions down to Mikami Teru." You can begin reading that part here.
    • Honestly... Even in the manga, it's really a stretch. Certainly not as egregious as the anime version of the scene, but still not all that believable.
    • How so? Mikami is meant to be someone Near would conclude as being the second-Kira, that was his entire role. Both Light and Near had the exact same amount of information regarding him, and Near would be looking at the qualities Kira would want in an accomplice; Mikami publically stated he thought Kira was God in a survey, he has a high devotion to justice, and most importantly of all he publically stated that people should live their lives to their fulliest potentia, which lined up with X-Kira's MO. The more you looked at the guy the more you saw that he was fanatically devoted to Kira and his ideals. Plus again, he also pretty much asked Kira to tell him what to do on public TV .
  • Keep in mind that although Near was equal to Light intellectually, he could not have defeated Light on his own as he "lacked the initiative." It took the combined efforts of Near and Mello to bring Light down. L was the only one who stood a chance of defeating Light single handily... and a God of Death had to kill itself to stop him from succeeding!
  • Firstly, where did you get the idea that Near was eight? Second of all, child prodigies exist; in fact, that's the whole point of Wammy's House.

Why does Light have red eyes?

• Why does Light have red eyes when he's particularly pleased with himself?- Yes, it looks cool, but he hasn't traded for shinigami eyes, so they shouldn't look identical to those of someone who has.
  • It's symbolic of how "devilish" or like a Shinigami he has become. Also contrasts with L, who gets blue hues in similar situations.
  • Anime only, it's "Rule of Cool"
  • If it were live action they could probably pull off a similar red eye effect like you get with camera flashes, it's a little odd to hold a cartoon to a higher standard of realism
  • It's also for the purpose of Red Oni, Blue Oni.
  • Well when using a dangerous otherworldy artifact there might be some side-effects. (Side-effects may include insanity, death, and red eyes.)
  • Light doesn't literally have red eyes, it's just for dramatic effect. Also, IIRC, according to How To Read 13, you can't actually tell the difference between normal eyes and shinigami eyes in a person, even when they're using them. Their eyes changing appearance during use was for the benefit of the audience (this time in both the manga and anime, unlike Light's whole red eye thing).
  • What made you think his eyes were literally red?

Why doesn't Light act like a Bond villain?

• Given that he's interested in remaking the world, why doesn't Light kill world leaders (who are always on TV) and then take the world hostage Bond villain style rather than wasting his time killing criminals who would be punished in the legal system anyway?
  • Because Bond villians always lose.
  • Because that just isn't his method. Light would rather manipulate the current framework than destroy it and build a new one. He says as much at least once. As for killing criminals, he says early on that it's just step one of The Plan; he uses that to establish the existence of "Kira", and keeps doing it to prevent people from believing Kira has stepped down.
  • Besides, if he does that, there's a much higher chance of someone finding him and shooting him dead
  • Or new leaders with hidden faces being put in charge of the world's governments.
  • He's a person with the mindset of keeping his best weapons hidden. In the event of an emergency which could harm his plans, he has any number of aces - Depending on the time, he's got Misa, Mikami, Takada, a scrap of paper in his watch, the option of trading eyes with Ryuk, knowing the names and faces of his fellow detectives, etc. He doesn't want to threaten global leaders if he doesn't have to, because he wants to be able to hold lots of powerful attacks in reserve. Towards the end of the series, he does in fact force the USA president to do his bidding as you suggest, so it goes to show that he was just waiting until he really needed to play that card. If he hadn't got so cocky and died when he did, who's to say what other things he might have used if people got too close. This attitude of holding back his best attacks was both his strength and his weakness in the end. He'd still be alive if he had traded eyes and just killed the entire investigative team and gone into hiding, for instance, but he always wants to have his cake and eat it too.
    • No he wouldn't. It was pretty obviously near the end of Light's natural lifespan at the end. If he'd traded eyes he would have died even earlier.
    • There is no proof for that. Light died by Death Note, so this had nothing to do with his natural lifespan. He was wounded, obviously, but if he would have been arrested and treated he could have easily survived. And his trial would probably be one of the most difficult in history (given he recovers from his breakdown and wants it that way). After all, he killed by entirely unprecedented means, and laws are simply not written to incorporate the supernatural. This trial could easily last for years, and with pleading insanity he would maybe even survive and just be locked up really good. So we really know nothing about his natural lifespan.
    • Further, Ryuk specifically points out that Light will just get locked away in prison, and he'll become very boring. He wouldn't have killed Light with the Death Note if Light was just going to die then and there anyway; he may not be able to see the future, but being a Shinigami, he can see Light's lifespan well enough to know that Light's still got plenty of time left, and can guess based on how things are going that he's about to get really boring. The very act of killing Light with the Death Note confirms that he still had lifespan in him.
    • Or not. After reading through the rules of the Death Note, Ryuk can only see Light's original lifespan and not the adjusted one caused by the butterfly effect of using the Death Note. So even Ryuk's killing of Light says nothing about whether Light would have died there.
  • What about using it to kill dictators? Kill half a dozen of the world's worst, and save a bunch of lives when their replacements (and the others) become terrified of being next, and become half-decent leaders out of self-preservation. Then again, Light pretty much proved he wasn't that sort of guy when he killed Lind L. Tailor.
  • He probably was doing this offscreen; however, the story was about the battle between Light and L, not fictional dictators being killed off.
  • In the last few episodes, Light states that one of Kira's accomplishments is not just an end to crime, but to war. So it's implied that he has indeed killed off various governing officials.
  • Late in the series, he notes that the problem with the world is not just the crime, but also the fact that crime sets a bad influence for its victims to follow, and that by punishing criminals, he'll be able to break the cycle.

Handwriting analysis

• Two words: Handwriting analysis. This idea escapes the greatest detective who ever lived?
  • Handwriting analysis is bunk.
    • In the pilot, the Death note instructions encourage the user to change handwriting to throw off anyone who might try to analyze it. Note that for the first part of the series, the problem was identifying the notebook as the murder weapon, and in the second, it was getting proof that Light was actually Kira; note that Light didn't write any names in the main notebook after giving it to Mikami.
  • Using handwriting to analyze the writer's personality is bunk. Using handwriting analysis to identify * who* wrote something is effective and acceptable evidence in court.
  • Lesser-known Death Note rule: Anybody attempt to analyze the handwriting of a death note will result in it bursting into flames.
  • For a long time, L didn't know how Kira's powers worked. By the time he got ahold of a Death Note, he had suspected Light for a while and knew what he was up against. And Light must have planned ahead and started disguising his handwriting at least as soon as he thought up the Memory Gambit.
  • And remember, L dies very shortly after he gets his hands on the Death Note.
  • Perhaps he ripped out the original pages and had Misa write in some new ones. He wanted her framed after all, so Rem would kill L! :3
  • The fake rule about the owner having to write a new name every 13 days pretty much absolves Light and Misa, so there's no reason for L to analyse the handwriting.
  • Light outright said that he ripped all the written-on pages out of the note (as well as taking care of fingerprints, etc.) before passing it to Rem. So the only time L had access to a Death Note, all the names in it had been written by Higuchi.
  • What handwriting? There is no point where L sees Light's handwriting in a Death Note. As the above reply says, Light removed all the used pages from the Death Note before passing it on.

Rewatching the tapes of Misa's confinement

• Three words: Rewatching the tapes. When Misa was in confinement, the moment that she relinquished ownership of the Note, she started crying. Rem was there to wipe the tear away. L, who was watching, took notice of it, but seeing as how he couldn't see Rem, all he saw was a mysterious force that brushed a lock of Misa's hair and made her tear go away. Fast forward to when L gets his hands on the Note and sees Rem. He doesn't look at all surprised, and by this time he has probably already reasoned that Rem exists, only seen or heard by people that have come in contact with the Death Note. Why, then, didn't he at least connect this to Misa's confinement and rewatch the tape to see if Rem was present? Even if by that time, Misa was absolved from guilt with the 13 Day Rule or whatever, he doesn't seem like the character to leave something peculiar alone.
  • You can blame that slight error on the anime team, said scene never happened in the manga.
  • Why didn't L re-watch the tapes? Because...well, he died. I'm sure he would have re-examined all the evidence in light of the existence of Death Notes and Shinigami, had he lived a bit longer.

Why is Light's name written with the kanji for moon?

• Why is Light's name written with the kanji for moon? I mean, there has to be a kanji character for light.
  • There is a kanji for light: 光 (hikari), and the name "Light" itself is probably a direct translation of Hikari, which is a common Japanese name. The question is what his parents were smoking when they named him "written Tsuki but pronounced Light".
  • It would probably be easier to understand if we knew the Japanese naming conventions better. I would make the wild guess that Hikari being more common as female name, they wanted to pick another light-related kanji to avoid people making misunderstandings of the name.
  • "Hikaru" is a variant that's more common as a male name. Too common in fact- several other manga/anime characters have it and the writers probably didn't want to make people think of Shindo Hikaru, or worse yet,Hitachiin Hikaru.
    • Fun fact: Obata was also involved with Hikaru no Go.
  • His name isn't translated; in Japanese sources he's also referred to as "Light" (or "Raito"). It's probably an example of ironic naming meant to make him seem sinister; "Yagami" is written with the kanji for 'night god', after all.
    • OP knows that. (Or at least, there's no indication they don't know it.) That's not what they're asking. They're asking why his parents named him with the kanji for "moon" but decided it should be pronounced like the English word "light", instead of, to give a few examples: Using the kanji for "moon" and pronouncing it the normal way ("tsuki"); using the kanji for "moon" and pronouncing it in a way that is more closely related to its meaning (e.g. pronouncing it like the English word "moon", or like "moon" in some other language); using the kanji for "light" (光) and pronouncing it "light"; using the kanji for "light" and pronouncing it in a normal way (even if they were concerned about naming him "Hikaru", there are other established ways to pronounce it as a male name); naming him "light" purely in katakana (ライト). Using the kanji for "moon" and the pronunciation "light" is bizarre and really arbitrary.
  • In Japan, you can pretty much pronounce any kanji any way you want when using it as a name. You would have to use furigana (the small kana that show the pronunciation of the kanji) whenever you wrote it, but it's prefectly legal.
    • If you need to write his name with a footnote every time, then he shouldn't have died at the end.
    • You don't have to write the furigana. The furigana are just a pronunciation guide. "夜神 月" is how his name is written regardless of whether you know how "月" is meant to be pronounced. (Misa makes this mistake in the movie: misreading his name as "Yagami Tsuki" at first before doing some research on him.)
    • That doesn't address OP's question, though. They're asking why his parents named him that way.

Why doesn't Light suffer from Amnesiac Dissonance?

• Why does Light so easily discard his "good" personality after regaining his memories, instead of suffering an Amnesiac Dissonance and having a conflict between "Light" and "Kira" within his mind? Compare his reaction with that of Ke'ra/Linea from Stargate SG-1, for instance. Of course, I understand that Death Note is supposed to be darker...
  • His scream at the moment of transition may indicate that this did happen, but was resolved very quickly when he remembered he had already had this conflict shortly after getting the Death Note. After that, he was just too pleased that his evil plan was moving ahead so nicely.
  • Also keep in mind that all throughout his Memory Gambit, he kept reflecting on how Kira's ideology was very similar, eerily similar to his own.
  • Light has to believe he's doing the right thing in order to retain what's left of his sanity. He's come too far to stop now.
  • It's also very possible he simply had nothing to be dissonant about - Light might seem like a nice dude during his amnesia, but when it comes down to it, that same "nice" Light became Kira once and there's no reason he shouldn't do it again. Light became Kira in the first place because there was something missing in him, something that made him so empty and desperate that he could latch onto killing people as a way to feel some connection to the humanity he wanted so desperately to change. Light was sick, long before he even knew the Note existed. None of that changed when Light lost the Note - there was never a "good Light". Basically, there could be no conflict between "Light" and "Kira" because they were the same all along.
  • It's also possible this is a bit different from regular amnesia. Not only did it erase his memories, it seemed to erase the person he became after using the Death Note for so long, leaving the good, kind, "Light" back to who he was before. Upon touching the Death Note, the memories and the cruel, callous, personality were essentially downloaded into him, restoring him to "Kira".
  • If anything, the lack of any dissonance can be considered refreshing, since so much popular culture seems to treat amnesia as essentially a get out of jail card. Any crimes committed by an amnesiac character is usually rejected as "not him/her anymore". It's actually nice to see a character that remained the same person still capable of the same crimes.
  • What bugged me the most about the memory gambit was not the lack of dissonance that occurred after Light regained his memories, but the lack of consistency with Light's beliefs/actions while he had amnesia. While he was partly co-operating with the investigation to clear his own name and end his being chained to Ryuzaki 24/7, amnesiac Light also did seem to genuinely want to capture Kira, and said he "couldn't forgive" Kira for the trouble his family was put through because of the investigation. Seems like if Light was still the same person, and considering that he even realized how similar Kira's behavior was to his own, that it would have been natural for him to come to a point where he questioned whether capturing Kira was the right thing, or even where he could have considered helping Kira and undermining the investigation. Memory-less Light being so straightforward in his desire to catch Kira is what really seems like dissonance to me.
  • To expand on the above reply, the real dissonance is what a boy scout Light became when the Death Note memories were erased. While he wasn't openly acting like a psychopath before he got the Death Note, there's also no indication that he was truly a kindhearted person or had genuine empathy for other people. In fact, he showed several signs that he was going through the motions of being a normal person, while in actual fact having no interest in the people around him, his relationships, or his hobbies — which to me sounds like he was either schizoid or a very high-functioning psychopath. We only get a brief glimpse of pre-Death Note Light, not enough to say for sure what his true personality was — but he sure as hell wasn't the starry-eyed boy scout he somehow becomes during the Memory Gambit.
  • Considering the memory erasure specifically only targeted the parts of Light's mind that had knowledge of the Death Note and him being Kira, it's possible that his amnesiac "boy scout" personality was a result of him magically Becoming the Mask. Pre-Death Note, Light never really went out of his way to laud justice and say how much he hates people like Kira. It's possible that when his memories were erased, the force that did it filled in the gaps with the fake Knight of Justice personality he'd been projecting to everyone in order to throw suspicion off himself, a personality that he only adopted after becoming Kira.

Why doesn't an owner write their own name in the notebook to die a hundred years from now?

• Why doesn't any owner of a Death Note, including Light, ever write their own name with the time of death reasonably far away (for example, 100 years from now), thus rendering themselves invulnerable to any future Death Note entries? To my knowledge, the rules place no restrictions on how far into the future the time of death can be, except that one cannot prolong someone's lifespan by writing an impossibly-far-away date. In fact, in the movie, L successfully does just that, except that he sets the time to 23 days from the moment of writing (but if he didn't, he would have died even sooner).
  • The complete list of Death Note rules states that "The Death Note can only operate within a 23-day window (in the human calendar). This is called the 23-day rule." Therefore, you can't set anyone's time of death more than 23 days in the future. So while you could theoretically do this, it's suicide unless you otherwise would be certain to die in less time.
  • As, according to the Yotsuba killings, a Death Note can only control a victim's actions ("details of death") for 23 days, you've answered your own question.
  • Also, there's another rule that says you can't set a date in the Death Note that's later then a person's predetermined lifespan. Given that 1) it's a major plot point that a person with a Death Note can never know their own lifespan and 2) writing a wrong date would kill you in 40 seconds; this would mean that someone trying to do this would be gambling with instant death.
  • But, couldn't Light give his Death Note to Misa so that she could see his lifespan and then give the Death Note back to him and tell him his life span?
    • Misa can't see Light's lifespan! That's why she finds out he's Kira, after all.
    • That's because at that time, he owns a Death Note. During the second arc, he doesn't own one for a long time, so she should have been able to see it then.
    • Knowing his lifespan would make no difference. The rules mentioned above would still prevent him from lengthening his lifespan with the Death Note.
  • The lifespan is given in Shinigami time units, not human ones. And I believe Shinigami aren't allowed to tell people's lifespans.
  • However, humans with Shinigami eyes are able to understand Shinigami time units.
    • Where is this stated? They ever only comment on being able to see when it ends and the shinigami numbers would presumely reach zero too sooner or later.
    • "Beyond Birthday had the eyes of a shinigami[...] He knew the time of death of every person he met." (Another Note pg. 94).
    • I wouldn't count things from the novels and whatnot as canon, and even Ryuk mentioned in volume one of the manga having to convert it into human time to accurately tell Light's time of death. (He said something to the effect of "... and if I convert it to human time, I'll know exactly when you'll die.")
    • In the anime, L mentions the Los Angeles BB murder cases in episode 8, after he learns of Misora's dissapearance. So I think Another Note is cannon in the anime continuity. See the video linked to from the continuity nod mention here.
    • The fact that the BB murder cases happened is canon. The novel about them isn't.
    • Maybe the way the lifespan appears depends on where you got the eyes from. If you got them from the shinigami eye deal, you get the lifespan in shinigami time; if you're born with them, you get it in human time.
    • Even if one doesn't count Another Note, there are at least two other ways Misa could understand the numbers. She could 1) have Rem teach her how to read Shinigami time (assumning teaching it to humans isn't illegal) or 2) look at someones lifespan long enough to see one of the numbers change and from that deduce the unit size.
    • Also Beyond is an evil genius meant to be on the same level as L and was born with the eyes- no doubt he figured out how to convert the numbers into human time.
    • The rules explicitly say that having the eyes does not automatically grant you the ability to understand shinigami time units, and shinigami are forbidden from revealing how to convert them. However, there is nothing that says a human cannot figure out the shinigami time units on their own. Since BB had the eyes from the day he was born, it makes sense he would have learned how those units worked early in his life.
    • Unless something was missed in the translation to English, there is no such rule. The rules are silent on how the time units are displayed, and only say that Shinigami cannot tell a human any human's lifespan.
  • They also can't see the lifespan of a Death Note user. That's how Misa first identifies Light, remember?
  • Which is why Light would have to give Misa ownership of his Death Note so she'd be able to see his lifespan and then tell it to him after giving the Death Note back to him.
  • Well, if a predestined time of death is to have any meaning, it has to take all of a person's actions into account, including any actions he would take to avoid dying at that time.
  • One of the rules states something to the effect that writing in a Death Note only takes effect if the victim is not already dead, which could imply that the pre-determined deaths (anything not involving a Death Note) take precedent over a Death Note death if it would chronologically take place first.
    • How to Use: LVII -In the Death Note, you cannot set the death date longer than the victim’s original life span. Even if the victim’s death is set in the Death Note beyond his/her original life span, the victim will die before the set time.
  • Presumably, even if Misa could see his life span, it would change upon him taking ownership of the Death Note.
  • To outline it all in one place, there are several reasons this wouldn't work. Firstly, there's the rule that you can't set a date of death more than 23 days in advance (unless you specify that they die of a disease that takes longer, and don't specify a time). Secondly, there's the rule that you can't set a date of death beyond the victim's original lifespan. Thirdly, he doesn't know his own lifespan, and while there are ways he could find out, it would be risky to give up Death Note ownership for such a reason, and he probably isn't interested in finding out anyway.

How did he get that TV inside a bag of chips?

• How does Light actually put the TV, pen and Death Note inside the packet of potato chips with the cameras watching him - the manga doesn't show this, and even worse, the anime implies that the TV is already in there when he first opens the packet!
  • He's only being watched in the house. He bought the TV and chips while out about town. No doubt he carefully opened the bag, removed some chips, put in the TV, and used a device to reseal the bag. Such devices do actually exist, and since the Japanese are notoriously manic about fresh food they're probably not hard to find.
  • To answer my own question, according to Word of God, Light put the TV in the crisp packet before the cameras were installed. Yes, he's just that good!
  • In doing that, though, wasn't he risking a member of his family opening it and finding the TV?
  • Nope. In fact, Light even stated that he was the only one in the family who liked that particular flavor.
    • Not really a guarantee, though. Unplanned company could be a problem, plus I know people in my house sometimes 'settle' for snacks they don't like much if there's not something better available. Of course, Light probably knew his family better than me and was able to work around them in ways that weren't useful to detail in the story, but I just like the idea of him having to pass off the TV as a Cracker-Jack-box-style prize.
    • He didn't even like the flavor. NO ONE liked the flavor. He deliberately chose a flavor so bad that there was no chance of anyone else getting it.
    • He probably knew that no one in this world would like to eat chips with chicken broth flavor. Also, he could easily have bought his family's favorite snacks so they wouldn't need to settle for disgusting chips.

When Mikami kills that guy on the subway, how does Takada know his face?

• When Mikami kills that guy on the subway, how does Takada know his face?
  • The whole thing was a set-up. Takada had already written "guy gets on subway, bothers girl, dies." Mikami just wrote his name in the fake Note at the right time.
    • Nope. As said below, he used his cellphone.
  • In the manga, he takes a picture of the dude with his cell phone. It's even mentioned later that the guy tailing him forgot this in the excitement of the targeted guy dropping dead!
  • He takes the picture in the anime, too. It's easy to miss.
  • The picture taking scheme is shown in the anime, but not explained in as much detail. One downside to the anime's Adaptation Distillation is that some parts aren't explained completely in the second half.

Why is Namikawa less likely to be Kira?

• What does make Namikawa less likely to be Kira than Ooi, anyway? I'd have to go with Matsuda on that one - Ooi just makes too much of a show of authority, whereas Namikawa is a lot more subtle about it and seems really canny to Kira's workings besides.
  • In a game of word association, "Kira" and "subtle" do go together smoothly, but Yotsuba Kira's profile is... not so subtle.
  • It's later said by two of the other group members that they knew Namikawa wasn't Kira because his position was such that if he were, he wouldn't need to hold those meetings. Presumably L and Light thought the same way.
• Why does Light reveal that he has inside information (aside from the need for a plot to fill the next thirty-some episodes) at the very beginning of the investigation? Sure, there's the whole "childish and doesn't like to lose" thing, but but he must have realized that he was entangling himself in all sorts of tactical skirmishes with L and the police that he couldn't keep winning forever. If he'd continued his original schedule, nobody could ever have said more about Kira than that he was a Japanese student.
  • So he could get to L through the police - he didn't count on the vast bulk of the NPA bowing out so early in. And L would have found something else eventually - he graduated that year, for instance, and when he goes to college, the high-school schedule facade would slip at some point. But that's not the fast-paced mind-gamey series we know and love any more than it is Light's nature to refuse a challenge.
  • More importantly, shouldn't someone as smart as Light realize that not even the greatest detective in the world could find some random guy using a magic notebook to kill people as long as he doesn't do something completely retarded to give himself away, like I don't know...making it completely obvious that he is somehow connected to the police on the investigation?
  • Actually, L had narrowed Light's location down to a specific region of Japan. Also it's important to remember that Light's goal isn't just to kill criminals, but to rule over the world as God, and any tyrant will tell you that it's hard to do that if you let people go around openly opposing you. To conquer the world, Light first has to eliminate those who oppose Kira, and L's at the top of the list. Besides, Light got involved with the Death Note in the first place because he was bored; taking the offensive against L made his plot for world domination a bit more interesting. Just check out the grin on Light's face whenever he manages to one-up L; he enjoys the cat-and-mouse game far too much to play it safe.
  • In the manga at least, L, for whatever reason already had Light's file separated BEFORE the F.B.I. performed their probe of the NPA...
    • Err, incorrect. He had a list of all the task force members and their families, and the panel focused on Light's, but it was clearly apart of a larger pile.
  • Light explains this to Ryuk; by revealing that Kira is receiving leaked information from the police, Light is trying to cause distrust between L and the NPA. This, he hoped, would lead to the NPA trying to ferret out L's true identity, which Light would then use to kill him.
  • Light's plans go way past just killing criminals with heart attacks and letting other criminals get scared. He also says he wants to kill people who are worthless and lazy (without using heart attacks so they won't be connected to the criminals) and later in the series gets spokesmen, manipulates the U.S. president, etc... this is all risky stuff to do, but it becomes much more risky when the best detective in the world is in your trail. L had to be taken out of the picture while he was still in the "violent criminal = heart attack" phase before moving onto his bigger plans for the world.

Why didn't Light make Mikami carry a back-up slip for the final confontration?

• Why didn't Light make Mikami carry a back-up slip for the final confontration? I mean, bloody hell, he had one in his watch, and made Takada carry one in her bra.
  • Light's watchslip was coincidental- he only remembers it after being cornered. Takada didn't have the Note and part of her role in the plan was to have that piece. There simply wasn't any reason for Mikami to have a back-up- the plan was perfect otherwise... only a technicality gives Mikami and Light what happens instead of them getting away with it and having a congratulatory beer.
  • You have to wonder, though, how Light didn't see even the possibility of Near's trick, since it's exactly the same as the strategy Light relies so heavily on. Light could easily have instructed Mikami to perform one test killing on his way to the meeting place, and if it didn't work, abandon the strategy. Then Near's plan would have fallen in a hole, and we would have looked a complete fool — Light wins either way. Guess he just didn't see the possibility.
    • Alternatively he could just command Mikami to write everyones name on the fake note, Light would have Near's name to finish him off with the piece in his watch and Near would end up looking like an idiot. Since Light remarks at how stupid Near must be to go through with the plan he must have expected something more from him, but didn't take any actions to counter such a move. Just trying to end the series there perhaps?
    • Light may have thought that he had completely cornered Near, and wound up scuttled by his own hubris. He might also have assumed that Mikami would fill his role as Kira's stand-in perfectly and take the initiative to test it himself. Alternately, there's Matsuda's theory: Near may have mind-controlled Mikami with the Death Note, giving him no choice in turning up at the correct place at the correct time and following through with the plan.
    • Light had figured out about Near's replacing the fake notebook, but didn't know that Mikami had done something to compromise himself prior to the meeting.
    • It was also a failed Batman Gambit on Light's part. He knows that L would have considered the possibility of a fake notebook, but doesn't think Near would. He believes that Near wants to win honorably, which is why he never, say, had Jovanni try writing a name in the pages he removed from the notebook. And Light was right...up to a point. Near may have preferred a clean fight, but Mello sure didn't. It was his actions that made Mikami slip up and reveal the location of the real notebook.
    • Light assumed from the beginning that Near would go for a noble victory, and that he therefore wouldn't try to test the Note or kill Light/Mikami (a terrible assumption to put your life and the world's future on line for, but what the hell). On that basis, he could think that even if Near considered the possibility of a fake Note, he wouldn't know where it was, and he probably wouldn't think of it anyway since Mikami made sure to make it look like he was carrying the real one. Light didn't think Mello's actions would reveal the real Note's location (since he specifically ordered Mikami not to make unnecessary moves and since he (Light) already wrote down a specific death for Takada which came true, I guess, but those are still incredibly weak reasons, since this is the great Light). But even if he considered it, the fact was that Near didn't change the date for the meeting, so Light assumed there wouldn't be enough time to fake the Note and that everything was therefore alright. In the end, he may well have underestimated the regular SPK members. Light may not have instructed Mikami to test the note before the final confrontation because he may not have thought there was any reason to do so, or maybe because he thought Mikami would naturally think of it himself (again, terrible assumption). So why did Mikami not test it? He didn't think of it? Was he so confident in Light's plan that he felt there was no need to, or because it wasn't possible to find someone worthy of killing at the moment? Did Near know he'd think like that? How COULD Near be so sure it'd work out, anyway? It would probably still be his victory in a sense since all the Death Note pages were either replaced or too full to add any more names, so Kira's killings would stop once and for all, but he wouldn't catch the culprits if Mikami chose not to arrive...Also, it's obvious that Mikami thought Light wouldn't be bothered with his movements since he'd hear about Takada's death on the news, but how didn't he even consider that he'd be tailed by the SPK on his way to the bank? On the whole, a rather convoluted and broken ending that's probably not worth dwelling on...
  • Forget the final confrontation; why not have Mikami carry a back-up page at all times or have one hidden in his apartment? Then: Mikami, who knows or strongly suspects that he is being watched, uses the back-up page to kill Takada without drawing attention to himself by breaking his routine. Near never finds out about the location of the real note so he can't switch it and/or use it to control Mikami. Everything goes "exactly as planned". Light wins.
    • The answer's in the question. Mikami knows he's being watched. For all he and Light know, Mikami could have hundreds of cameras in his apartment, watching his every move. That's precisely why he had to wander around carrying a fake notebook and writing down names in public. Any deviation from his normal behavior would be noticed.

How did Mello know about B?

• How did Mello know that (Another Note spoiler:) B possessed shinigami eyes?
  • I suppose once he'd got the scoop from Sidoh, he decided it fit with what he knew of B - the clean killings and the ease with which he found the people with targeted names. He stated it as a total, incontrovertible fact because he's a classic unreliable narrator.

Why wasn't L more suspicious about Misa's "discovery"?

• Why wasn't L more suspicious about Misa's "discovery" that Higuchi was the new Kira? She just randomly goes out on a date with the guy who is probably the creepiest of the businessmen, dodging her guard in the process, and on that one date he tells her that he's Kira. That just seems like a few too many coincidences to swallow.
  • Remember that Misa went in to spy and that the Yotsuba board isn't all that large. From L's point of view, she was just reckless as usual and hit the jackpot; or that's the scenario he comes up with since Misa hasn't shown sign of knowing anything about herself being the Second Kira.
  • L was suspicious of Misa all along. When that happened, even if he became more suspicious, he had no more evidence with which to convince the others than he'd had before.

How come Light never noticed he had a piece of the Death Note in his watch?

• If Light had that piece of Death Note in his watch the whole time he was memory wiped, how come he never noticed. If he takes his watch on and off every day and watches frequently bang against things as well as being incredibly easy to absent mindedly fiddle with; the secret compartment should have opened by accident at one point. In addition, since memory wiped Light knows how his thought patterns work and is at least partially suspicious of himself, he should have realised that he might think of hiding something in his watch and checked to make sure.
  • It's a carefully designed mechanism - I believe it takes a precise number of turns and clicks, which would be unlikely to occur by chance and is ruggedly designed. And he didn't know how the Death Note worked, so he wouldn't expect that something as small as a piece of paper would be significant, so he wouldn't bother checking the really small stuff (I'm more surprised he didn't manage to blow up his desk, personally).
    • Yeah, the whole desk thing seemed kinda excessive, especially considering we didn't hear another thing about it after he made it and it played absolutely no role in the plot other than to establish Light's cleverness and paranoia.
    • Not quite. Sometime halfway through the L arc, he offhandedly states that he had defused it to keep L from getting suspicious.
    • Its a reflection of his hubris; in the beginning he was making contingency and backup plans, but at the end he had no Plan B.
  • And if he did manage to open the watch, he would remember why he wanted to keep it closed, then forget as soon as he stopped touching it.
    • Hee hee! "Hey, what's this note in my watch? ...OH. RIGHT. Shit, I'd better close this before someone sees me. ...Hey, what's this note in my watch?"
    • Which would continue until he used up all six memory restorations and thus ruined his plan.
    • As amusing as that sounds, I think only touching the death note itself restores memories, not pieces of it. That's why Misa doesn't have the memory-returning scream when Rem touches her with a piece of the notebook; all it does is enable you to see the associated shinigami.
    • Re-read the manga... Rem says outright that touching a torn-off piece from a page won't restore memories.
    • Light swapped the notebooks prior to his memory gambit, leaving the one with the instructions with Rem. Misa didn't regain her memories because it wasn't her old notebook she was touched with, so all she got out of it was seeing a Shinigami.
    • It actually doesn't matter which notebook you touch. Touching any Death Note will restore your memories. The only thing that relies on owning the notebook is whether you keep the memories after letting go. If you don't own the notebook, you'll lose the memories as soon as you let go. Misa didn't regain her memories because, as mentioned above and as Rem explicitly stated, touching only a torn piece of a page doesn't restore memories.
  • You have to pull the time-adjusting knob OUT four times within one second for the hidden piece to come out- Light mentions as he's doing it once that nobody would think to do so. It's more of a mind-breaker to think about how he managed to make the thing!
    • But people absent-mindedly play with stuff, often in a repetitive manner. There is a possibility of that happening. And even if it had, he could've taped a square of paper to his skin in order to never stop touching it until he killed Higuchi...
    • I doubt that pulling it out four times in less than a second would even be possible unless you were really, really trying. One second is an insanely short about of time.
    • It's not pulling it out four time in less than one second. It's pulling it out four times with less than one second in between each pull. That's much more believable as an accident.
    • The "four times" part is the main thing, since it's unlikely for him to do it that many times consecutively, much less with one second apart from each other, while merley fidgeting.
    • Also, remember Light isn't relying on a random person to never fidget with their watch—he's relying on himself to not fidget with it. If he knows that he doesn't fiddle with the watch, he can be reasonably confident he won't pick up the habit out of nowhere. If you think about it, you could probably come up with half a dozen places in your room or among your possessions where someone would hide a small scrap of paper and you wouldn't notice.

Why doesn't Light notice that a worldwide news broadcast is being broadcast in Japanese?

• If Light is so smart, why didn't he notice something odd about the fact that a supposedly worldwide news broadcast given by someone with three Ls in their name was given in Japanese?
  • The first live-action movie addresses this by having the broadcast in English, with a Japanese translator dubbing over it. You could assume this is also what was happening in the manga/anime, but with the former it would have been harder to establish the situation (and probably would have been confusing), and with the latter, it would have been harder to go out and find an English voice actor that you were just going to dub over anyway. That, or everyone in Death Note's world speaks Japanese and Ryuk was an idiot for thinking otherwise (support: both the US president and Interpol use Japanese all the time, for some reason).
    • "Everyone speaking Japanese" is probably just Translation Convention.
  • People get crazy with power when they have guns, which are limited to line of sight. Light getting egotistical with an Artifact of Doom that can kill anyone anywhere with no evidence is easy to excuse.
  • In the manga, at least, the Lind L. Tailor broadcast has in its introduction, "...with Japanese voiceover by interpreter so-and-so."
    • The full line is "We are interrupting the program to bring you a live, globally televised broadcast from Interpol with Japanese voice-over by Interpreter Yoshio Anderson." The Japanese Dub for the anime doesn't have him speaking in English for the same reason why the English dub doesn't have the Japanese talking in Japanese, not everyone can understand the language.

How does Light kill Lind L. Tailor?

• Speaking of Lind L. Tailor, how did Light manage to kill him with the death note in the first place? The middle L is presumably an initial, and is punctuated as though it were one, and Light explicitly writes Lind L. Tailor into the death note. This clearly isn't his full name, so why does he die? If it's simply a case of someone's full name being in the death note regardless, then one could Fanwank it away with some explanation to do with Interpol adding another L into his name for the hell of it, and it not counting, but if that's the case, the misspelling rule should have taken effect...
  • Interesting point. How does the Death Note deal with initials and middle names? Are they necessary to kill the intended person?
    • Unless none of the FBI agents had middle names, the middle names seem to be completely ignored by the Death Note.
  • While we're on names, how does the Death Note handle married names? I mean, if someone looked at Sachiko with Shinigami eyes, would they see 'Sachiko Yagami' or 'Sachiko (maiden name)' because that was the name she was born with?
  • On that same train of thought, what if someone has their name legally changed. Would the Death Note recognize that change? How is a person's true name determined? Is it what they're legally referred to, the first name they're given (even if they have no memory of it, such as children that are adopted), or is it what a person knows oneself as? I suppose I might be overthinking it.
  • Some people have middle initials that don't represent a full name. In fact, some people have initials instead of a FIRST name.
  • Harry S. Truman's middle name was just S. And in fact, he himself often used a period after his middle initial, as do many writers in the years since.
  • Actually, the "L" is not punctuated with a period. Rather, each part of the name is separated by an interpunct: Lind・L・Tailor. So it's all the more unclear whether "L" is a middle initial, or his actual middle name (as in the Harry S Truman example above). Regardless, I think it's safe to say that as long as they're written correctly (e.g. you don't write "S" when their middle initial is actually "L"), the Death Note simply ignores middle names entirely, and will work regardless of whether you write the middle name, just the middle initial, or no middle name at all.

Why doesn't Rem kill Higuchi?

• When Higuchi becomes a threat to Misa why doesn't Rem just kill him with her Death Note?
  • Remember what happens when Rem kills L, and when Gelus kills Misa's stalker? Yeah Rem's not gonna throw away her life for some guy who MAY be dangerous
  • True, but Higuchi wasn't a threat to Misa's life and thus killing him wouldn't kill Rem
    • Don't forget that Higuchi wanted to marry Misa then kill her.
    • But killing a human only condems a shinigami to death if it is done to increase the lifespan of another human. Presumably, Higuchi would have killed her with his death note, which would mean he wasn't Misa's natural life ender and killing him would not have altered her lifespan).
    • It doesn't matter whether he would have been her natural life ender. Shinigami die if they kill a human to extend the life of another human they favour, period.
  • Because if Higuchi suddenly died, I'm thinking that would make Misa look suspicious to L and team. Rem was trying to protect her- but Light went and ruined it for her.
  • Killing Higuchi would have messed up Light's Memory Gambit.
  • That just brings up the question; if the Death God is supposed to confirm the death of the owner of their Note (usually by writing the name themselves), and that owner happens to be a threat to another person, which rule takes effect if the Death God intervenes and kills the person they're following?
    • If it is anything like real laws, then the rule that is stated first is usually the one with higher priority.
    • Shinigami don't die for killing anyone who's a threat to someone else, only for killing in order to increase the lifespan of a human they love or feel affection for. Also, while the rules say that Shinigami are supposed to confirm the death of the Death Note owner, it doesn't say anywhere that they will be immune from death by doing this. So there's no reason they wouldn't still die if they killed the Death Note owner to save another human they loved.
  • He was planning to kill Misa, so killing him would have killed her which she knew wasn't necessary as Light promised his plan would keep her safe. In fact, Rem considers in several occasions to take a more active role in the matter, but never does because Light instructed her to just go along with things, it certainly would have messed up the plan, and she would have died sooner.
  • Higuchi wasn't a threat to Misa; not an imminent one, anyway.

Why does Light use the television more than the internet?

• Why does Light use the television more than the internet? Getting satellite T.V. would be conspicuous I know, but since Light routinely hacks into the N.S.A., why doesn't he just go to a foreign news source, look up some names and faces, and kill them? This probably would have kept L from ever coming to Japan in the first place. Naturally the story would also be a lot less interesting but still.
  • Actually, I think he does use the Internet a fair bit before his house gets bugged. L tracks him down by noticing that his first victim was in Japan.

Why doesn't Rem cut a deal with L to protect Misa?

• When Light makes it obvious Misa is behind the resumed killings after Higuchi's death, why doesn't Rem cut a deal with L to hand Light over in exchange for letting Misa live the rest of her life? The fact that her lifespan is incredibly short by that point anyway and that Rem knows L's name should easily be enough to convince him.
  • Because L wouldn't agree to such a deal. He was very reluctant to let Light and Misa go even when all evidence pointed to their innocence. If Rem spilled the beans to him, he would be more likely to sacrifice himself but ensure that both Kiras would be turned over to justice.
  • Not quite. In volume four, he wonders if he could get the second Kira off as leniently as possible for turning the original Kira. That showed that he would be willing to make a deal like that.
  • But just how short is Misa's lifespan after all the screwing around given that she's had it halved twice but then also had the lifespans of two Shinigami added to it?
    • The Manga says she died when she was 27. Of course in the anime it's implied she jumps off a building. Now feel free to predict her normal age, assuming no deals.
    • Well, considering that she was supposed to die when that one shinigami saved her, her lifespan equals (1/8 Gelus' lifespan)+ (1/2 Rem's lifespan). At the time Rem could make that prospective deal, it would be 1/8 whatshisname's lifespan. Of course, without knowing a shinigami's lifespan, that could be any length of time.
    • I don't think it's ever explicitly stated that you can't extend your own lifeline by killing someone with the Death Note-otherwise, it'd be totally idiotic to take the Shinigami eyes because no matter what badassitude you pull off with the Death Note, you'll always die in half the time. Events will conspire such that you will die in a shorter period of time, but a Death Note can augment these events again.
    • Actually, it is. Ryuk explicitly states in one of the early chapters that this is one of the major differences between a shinigami and a human with a Death Note. This is also why Light refuses the deal: like you said, no matter what he did with the Death Note, he would have died in half the time.
    • Consider Light's case - if he'd taken the Shinigami eyes, he probably would have lived longer since he was killed by a Death Note.
    • Unfortunately, it actually is. A human who wields the Death Note won't gain any true profit from it (other than the capability to slaughter millions with a ballpoint pen). That's why the Shinigami Eyes are such a gamble. You'll lose half of your remaining lifespan in exchange for a greater killing capability. This, in fact, is the reason Light never chooses to use the Shinigami Eyes. He wants to rule as a god over the world, and cutting your lifespan in half is a good way to cut the ride short. I'm reasonably sure, however, that the Shinigami whose Death Note it is DOES still gain lifespan from it; thus, the purpose of handing a human a Death Note is simply for the kick of watching a human go on a mass murder. However, I'm reasonably sure Light becomes a Shinigami, as the one seen at the end of the Director's Cut who bribes Ryuk with an apple is wearing Light's usual tie as a headband and is wearing his brown coat.
    • Also, Ryuk calls him "Light."
    • However, it is also mentioned that the Death Note can alter peoples lifespans even without their names being written in it and that such changes aren't shown by the shinigami eyes. So it's possible for Light to increase his lifespan just not in the way shinigami do.
    • Where's the 1/8 come in? Surely it's (Gelus' lifespan), then (1/2 NGLS) after deal with Rem, then (1/2 Gelus' lifespan + Rem's lifespan) after Rem's sacrifice, then (1/2 (1/2 JLS + RLS)) after deal with Ryuk giving 1/4 JLS + 1/2 RLS. Wait, when did this become my maths class?
    • When a shinigami dies to save someone, it gives half of their remaining lifespan to the person in question, not the full thing.
    • When the time skip happened, Misa's lifespan consisted of: her own (about 2 seconds) half of Gelus' whom we know had just killed that burglar and half of Rem's which included both L's and Watari's. She going to have a looong life.
    • You don't need to know the Shinigamis' lifespans to know how long Misa would have lived - you only need her date of birth, the dates she traded eyes, and the date she died. I figured out that if she had never met Rem, she would have died on July 14th of 2030, give or take a few days. (assuming that her name is not written in a death note and there are no other ways to prolong or hurry death other than trading eyes.)
    • Okay, you're going to have to explains this to me. Mia was originally going to die the day Gelus saved her. Her own lifespan is not even a day. So what does her date of birth have to do with anything?
    • I don't still have the working-out with me, but I'll try to explain. You don't need to know the shinigamis' lifespans because you know Misa's date of death, which is all knowing the lifespans would've helped figure out. You need to know her date of birth so that you know how long there is between her birth and death. Of course, you need the eye-trade dates (compared to the date of death) to figure out how much longer her life would've been extended by. If you have any further questions about this, please go to my discussion page or Just Bugs Me page to ask, as finding this section of the Death Note JBM takes me ages. (although the latter has not been made yet)
    • Then again, the Word of God says that Misa probably committed suicide just after the story ended, so I guess she didn't have the much time left after all.
• "How to Use: XLII (from Volume 8):
  1. The use of the Death Note in the human world sometimes affects other human’s lives or shortens their original life-span, even though their names are not actually written in the Death Note itself. In these cases, no matter the cause, the god of death sees only the original life-span and not the shortened life-span. "

It seems that Misa's visible lifespan (AKA the amount of life she would have had left had she not killed herself), would have been longer than her actual lifespan. Given how heavily involved she was with Light and his schemes, her life was most likely cut short indirectly by the use of a Death Note.
** Rem REALLY wants Misa to be happy. Had she turned Light in, even had said deal been taken, Light would have been imprisoned/executed, and Misa would undoubtedly had been... unhappy.

• I think the implication is that Rem believes that Misa NEEDS Light. Her reasoning at one point is that, if Light were to die or be imprisoned, she would commit suicide.

Why doesn't Rem kill L in a fire that destroys the Death Note and robs Light of his memories?

• When Rem killed L why didn't she write something like "Asphyxia. Dies in a fire that also destroys the Death Note he has touched.", return to the shinigami world, and then write L's name. Thereby robbing Light of his memories and preventing him from getting her Death Note.
  • It wouldn't rob Light of his memories immediately - I recall the period being about two years, at which point he'd have found a way to gain ownership of Misa's Note - and that probably involves her death. But that aside, I think the basic answer is that Rem just didn't think of it.
    • However, in the Movie, she does prevent Light from getting her own Death Note, thereby making it so that Light would be defeated by L in the end because she hated Light.
  • Destroying the notebook L had touched would have disproven the rule about everyone who has touched it dying when it's destroyed, which would lead the investigators to the possibility of other rules being fake, which would lead to the possibility of the 13-day rule being fake, which would throw suspicion right back onto Misa.
  • A better question is, why not just write both L and Light's names in her Death Note? Both are threats to Misa's life, after all. Surely Rem realized that Light would kill Misa as soon as she outlived her usefulness.
    • Because then Misa would commit suicide.
  • Along those lines, Rem knows when Misa will die because of the Shinigami eyes. Let's say this is December 31st, 2040, 10:00 PM. Why doesn't Rem write "Yagami Light, summarily executed by a police officer after confessing to being Kira" and "Misa Amane, December 31st, 2040, 9:59:59 PM, complications resulting from failed suicide attempt years earlier"?
    • Because it's not enough for Misa to live. Rem wants Misa to be happy, and if Light died, that would be impossible.
    • So Rem goes to L at a place where he's reasonably cut off from the outside world, tells him she'll kill him if he doesn't cooperate, and explains the situation. L, genius that he is, comes up with the following plan: Rem helps him fake his own death, leaving behind a false death note made of cut-out pages from her personal one. L vanishes into the underworld to fight Light secretly, since Light would probably figure out the whole plan if he knew L was still alive. L manipulates events from behind the scenes to bring Light to justice. To prevent Misa from killing herself, after Light is dead (remember, she's been told he was killed by Kira) he shows up and feeds her some line about "those with a true sense of justice who have touched a Death Note cannot be killed permanently by it", claims that Light will only be able to come back because of his love for Misa, so she has to stay alive for his sake. Rem ends up saving Misa's life and still killing Light, so she's happy, L ends up bringing Kira to justice, although in a more roundabout way than he'd prefer, and Near is suitably flabbergasted.
    • Rem could have written - Light Yagami, dies immidiately - (whatever Ls name is), dies (insert whatever time she pleases) having spent the remainder of his life convinced Misa Amane is not the second kira - Misa Amane, dies (one second before when she would normally have died) having lived a happy and fulfilling life without Light Yagami
    • Rem would have to write the name of a specific disease for Misa's cause of death to bypass the 23 day rule.
  • On another note, Rem couldn't rob Light of his memories because Light would eventually have dumped Misa if he wasn't Kira, since the only reason he was with her in the first place was her usefulness for murder. Even if both lived the rest of their lives with no memories of the Death Note, Misa eventually would've been crushed.
  • Not exactly. That was the reason Kira was with her. Light, without the memories of the Death Note, was a decent young man, if a little arrogant. He doesn't exactly act warmly to her, but he doesn't treat her badly, either, and YMMV, but he did show at least one sign that could be interpreted as having a thing for her. "Wh-what!? I'm not shy!" It could've gone either way, really.

Why doesn't Rem control Light to convince Misa that she would be better off without him?

• For that matter, how come Rem didn't just write something like "Light Yagami. [Date 23 days from now]. Commits suicide after convincing anyone and everyone currently in love with him that they will be better off as an independent person instead of relying entirely on him; and that their parting ways will work out better for them." In other words, if the Death Note can make Naomi want to commit suicide without needing to fill in all the details, why not use it to make Light break up with Misa in such a way that won't devastate her or drive her to suicide? Rem knew the guy was bad news, Misa's insane devotion to him was the only reason she didn't kill him, why wouldn't she just get rid of that?
  • How long did it take you to think of that loophole? I rest my case - Rem is bright, but not one of our resident uber-geniuses.
    • Probably because if Misa were as dependent upon Light as she seems, he'd just die of a heart attack.
  • The death note can't do the impossible. As the above troper says, Misa is so obsessed with Light that it is unlikely anything he could say would ever convince her she is better off without him, which means that there is a big probability the suicide will default to a heart attack and Misa will be miserable for the rest of her life.
    • Problem. Light is perfectly capable of telling Misa she'd be better off without him. Misa's reaction, however, would be an impossible thing to control whether Rem used the Death Note or not. Since it's only LIGHT'S actions Rem would be controlling, there's no problem. And if Rem only had him break up with her and SAY he was going to another country while he was really offing himself, Misa would be happy he was alive, but maybe sad he wasn't "her's" anymore.
    • Yes, it's only Light's actions being controlled, but he still needs to be capable of achieving what is written. If he can't achieve what was written because Misa just won't respond that way, then it's an impossible circumstance and he'll just die of a heart attack.
    • Because if Light broke up with her Misa would probably kill herself.
  • Also Rule 34 (no not THAT one but rather one of the rules of the notebook that Light was unaware of) means that Rem was bluffing and couldn't kill Light even if she wanted to because only Ryuk can kill Light... At least at first—Rem might have gained the right to kill Light after Light made Ryuk and Rem switch notebooks.
    • The wording is actually ambiguous regarding that. It says that Shinigami in the Shinigami Realm can't kill Death Note owners; it says that Shinigami who come to the human world for the purpose of killing a Death Note owner will be unable to do so; and it says that only a Shinigami "that has passed on their Death Note to a human is able to kill the owner of the Death Note." It's not clear if this means that a Death Note owner can only be killed by the Shinigami who gave them their Death Note, or if it means that they can be killed by any Shinigami who's given their Death Note to a human.

How does L deduce that Kira is a student?

• In one of the earlier episodes, L deduces that Kira is probably a student because of the hours he keeps, but based on those hours, couldn't Kira also be a teacher?
  • Teachers hold much longer hours than students, as anyone who's stayed after school for any reason would be able to verify.
    • Couldn't he have also just had a day job?
    • Most day jobs would finish up later then when school gets out, and some of them require workers to work on public holidays.
  • It wasn't just the timings of the deaths, but also the way in which Kira was wiping out criminals. L deduced that whoever Kira was, they had a naive, juvenile sense of justice, which also fit the profile of a student perfectly.

How was light able to kill Taco, the rapist?

• The Death Note's rules said he needs a first and last name. Now, for one we have to assume that "Taco" is not an alias, but something he changed his name to, but even so, what about the last name!? This makes no sense!
  • His name is Takuo Shibuaru. It's Japanese. The series takes place in Japan.
  • Yes, but how did Light find that out? At least in the anime, he overhears Taco simply refer to himself as "Taco" before writing his name down. Was this guy already known to the public?
  • Watch the episode again, Takuo Shibumaru introduces himself with his full name before attempting to lead a gang-rape in the middle of the street.
  • Ah... Man, I really ought to brush up. Thanks.

Why didn't Light use the notebook to make the taskforce kill themselves?

• Since the Death Note can control a person's actions before death, why didn't Light just have the entire investigation team turn their guns on Near and then kill each other? When his Dad was alive his conscience might have bothered him but once the old man bites the dust there's no reason not to.
  • A Death Note can only kill the person whose name is written. If he wrote "Matsuda: Shot by Soichiro", then it would work. If however he wrote "Soichiro: Shoots Matsuda, then himself", then either Soichiro would just suffer a heart attack, or the shooting of Matsuda would be non-fatal. As he doesn't know Near's name, there's no way of killing him with the note.
    • Actually even that doesn't work - if you write "Matsuda: shot by Soichiro", both Matsuda and Soichiro will die. Soichiro, with no specified time, will die of a heart attack, and that makes his killing of Matsuda impossible, so Matsuda also dies that way. You can do like Light did in the first movie and set up the deaths to interlink - eg. "Matsuda: shot by a colleague" and "Soichiro: shoots a coworker then himself", but there's always a risk of Light getting caught in the crossfire with this method (though he would have the comfort of knowing the shot wouldn't be fatal, due to Rule 29).
    • It might be possible to pull that off if you wrote each name, with cause of death, and fiddled with the details and times. For instance, start with "Matsuda: Gunshot wound" with a set time, then "Soichiro: Gunshot wound, shoots Matsuda then himself" and a time of death just after Matsuda's. This way the Death Note kills each separately, and they interlock.
    • That second entry still wouldn't work for the reasons outlined above; any name you write is a new entry, so it would just result in Soichiro and Matsuda both dying of heart attacks. However, if you wrote "shoots subordinate and then himself", then it would likely work. As mentioned below, this exact type of ploy was used in the live-action movie.
    • Which is what Light did in the first Movie, what with killing his girlfriend and Naomi Misora.

Did Light's plan ever work at all?

• Did Light's plan, um, ever work at all? You'd think by the third or so day of mass criminal killings that any potential criminals would either a) stop committing crimes at all or b) turn themselves in to avoid the same punishment. Did crime ever go down?
  • Matsuda reported in episode 6 that there had been a masive decrease in crime. The manga Distant Finale had that crime rates increased again only after Kira's death.
  • Higuchi mentions that during the two weeks where Kira isn't killing criminals, crime rates rose above what they were before Kira.
    • That reminds me of those quick weight-loss diets. Even though they may work while you are dieting, right after you stop and start eating normally, your weight will increase abnormally quickly. So that means... yeah, in the end Kira was useless for the world as a whole.
  • Not to mention that death penalty has never in history managed to stop people from committing crimes altogether. Now if Light had a gadget which allowed him to indentify all criminals he deemed unfit to live without needing them to be sentenced or at least identified as guilty by the police, the media or his own investigative efforts, then one could safely say that only lunatics would continue to commit crimes.
  • Light notes that deliberate acts of crime have all but vanished, but crimes of passion remain. The Death Note might cause criminals to rethink the risk, as well as eliminate repeat offenders, but it can't do away with crime.
  • As smart as Light was, he was wide of the mark when it comes to the effectiveness of capital punishment. Living in a country where the death penalty has been outlawed for almost 30 years, I've bothered to check the satistics for crime and noted there is a great decrease of indictable crimes since it's abolishment. Rate of murder by fire arms alone decreased from 4.8 per 100,000 to 2.6 per 100,000 shortly after the year capital punishment was outlawed. At current in Australia (mentioning the country so that the more skeptic tropers and do the research themselves), only 1.2 per 100,000 deaths are caused from all forms of murder, and the rate of murder has a pattern of dropping each year. Not only that, but the top four safest countries, (in descending order) Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, and Ireland, also have made capital punishment illegal for many years as well (varies depending on which country). Yes, the countries named safest in the world DO NOT NEED TO KILL THEIR CRIMINALS TO REMAIN SAFE. And Light just conveniently DIDN'T KNOW THIS! The fifth safest country, ironically being Japan, does still have the death penalty being a legal form of punishment, however very recently (September 2009) it's under "suspension" meaning it won't be used on criminals of indictable crimes unless the government sees any fit reason to rule against the suspension. It would be interesting to note how this change will affect crime rates in Japan, as we can use this as further evidence whether Light's plan was destined to fail from the start or had some merit to it.
    • All politics aside, I don't think you can draw any parallels between judicially administered capital punishment and Kira's extrajudicial style of "justice". On the one hand, you have death sentences handed down in public proceedings conducted by prosecutors and judges worried (at least in the USA) about getting re-elected. On the other hand, you have Light using an untraceable method to kill criminals and other people who, in his sole opinion, don't deserve to exist. Considering that his ultimate goal is to intimidate the general population into changing their way of life, this is basically terrorism. A better real-world comparison would look at how people have historically responded to large-scale and ongoing terrorism as opposed to capital punishment.
    • Regardless, when it comes down to crimes as severe as murder, criminals don't factor in the consequences of being caught, twenty years imprisonment or death if they expect to be caught they won't do it.
    • However, for some criminals "not getting caught" and "not getting found out" aren't the same thing. Some depend upon having a corrupt legal system on their side or living in a region of the world where law enforcement agencies are relatively weak and out-gunned (terrorist organizations, drug cartels, Somalian warlords, those kinds of people). Plus, while we're given few details about what the criminals Light kills actually did, we do know that, after he killed a purse snatcher during his potato chip gambit, he starts killing minor criminals of that sort on a regular basis, so it's probably safe to say that Light deals out the death penalty more liberally than most countries we have statistics on.
    • Not to mention the deaths of people who were actually found innocent of crimes and were merely accused. Then again, in the anime, when Takada mentions people being killed who are not "contributing to society," Kira says she is revealing his hand too early. We're long past criminality.
    • And then there's the fact that after the time-skip he start relying in people's accusation on the internet, it isn't much of a stretch to simply accuse someone you don't like of a crime and let Kira do your dirty work, after all, I really doubt they had time to check avery single criminal they kill. Then there's the ones that were wrongly accused or autright framed, under Kira's ruled every person accused is undoubtedly guilty and worthy of death. Knowing Light, he peobably considered all this and saw it as "necessary sacrifices" this is all incredibly similar to a terrorist's mindset because he IS a terrorist, the whole point of his plan is make people too scared to commit a crime, which actually worked. However, even after taking out all the bad apples (read: remorslessly slaughter millions) the second Kira is out of the picture crime rises again, proving completely wrong Mikami's theory of "Bad people turn good people bad, take out the bad and the good will remain good" then there's the fact that with millions dropping like houseflies there's bound to be some consecuences, crimminals do more than just commit crime, they work, they spend, they conssume, so Kira probably messed up a bunch of economies. So all in all, it seems that shockingly, mass murder is not the best way to make a better world.
  • It's mentioned early on, and several times afterward, that yes, crimes have drastically decreased since Kira appeared.

The Lind L. Tailor incident

• OK, the whole Lind L. Tailor thing bugged the crap out of me. Number one: it was so obviously a trap that a genius like Light should have seen it coming a mile away. Number two: even if Lind L. Tailor had been L, that still would have given the other policemen the information they needed to know. Number three: All Light had to do was not kill Lind L. Tailor, and they wouldn't have been able to determine where he was. Thoughts?
  • He's still a teenager, and as L surmised "childish and hates to lose". He made a bad decision in the spur of moment, because at that time he still hadn't give any serious thought to battling wits with an equal. Remember that this was right at the start of his career; though a genius, he doesn't yet have the experience.
  • Also, he has the whole "ego" thing. He needed to prove that opposition would not be tolerated. In his mind, the pros outweighed the cons. Of course, he still didn't known about the whole "only in the one region of Japan" thing.
  • He didn't even know about the existence of L, you know. And his killing Lind L. Tailor immediately is not so sensible, based on that.
  • It was shown as something impulsive on the Anime. What I don't get is that in the Anime, for forty seconds Lind L. Tailor is shown on television doing nothing and after forty seconds (still shown on-air), he has an heart attack. Wouldn't greedy TV execs complain about lost air time, and return to normal programming before then?
    • If so, it might have gone something like this: "You can't wait another minute to help us catch the most dangerous serial killer in the world?" "No." "Here's a big sack of money." "Okay."
  • Why didn't he ever think to instead write "Lind L. Tailor dies in 40 minutes" or something to that effect so that he wasn't to die immediately and make it so obvious that Kira was watching at that time? Even if he did underestimate his opponent, he still could have killed the person he was tricked into believing was L - eliminating the competetion and satisifying his own ego - and still have saved himself from being exposed that early. Considering the plan was to redo that new announcement in each region, if Light had just specified a later time for Lind L. Tailor to die, it would have been harder for L to determine where Kira was in the first instance. Considering this is L, I doubt he'd fall for Kira being in another region. Since Light wasn't even aware of the scam, there is no way that a random appointed time would kill Tailor in perfect time with an appearance in another region. The death would most likely be delayed or too early, and L would probably assume that there's a way to kill by specifying time, too. So the series could continue as it did, it would just be that Light hadn't given away his position so soon in the series.
    • Because he was pissed off. How dare this mortal stand up to a God (of the new world)? How DARE he call Kira evil when he is putting so much effort into cleansing the world of REAL evil? Let's kill him right now to show him and the rest of world what happens when you don't get behind the effort to end crime and start a new utopia. HAHAHAHA! Now he is gone and... wait, why is there a digitally distorted voice talking? Oh shi-
  • Further more, how did Light kill Lind L. Tailor? He needs to know the face and full name of the person to kill them; however, he doesn't know the full name of Lind L. Tailor. He only knows the given name and surname. He doesn't know what the L stands for in the middle name. So how could this have worked unless Lind's parents were idiots and decided to give him the letter L for a middle name?
    • My guess is that the author meant to have his name be 'Lind "L" Tailor' but accidentally turned his nickname into a middle initial by messing up on English naming conventions (after all this is the guy who named a major villain Beyond Birthday).
    • Except that Another Note had a different author than the main series. You'll notice that a lot of the characters in Another Note have ridiculous names, whereas all the characters that appeared in Death Note have much more realistic names.
    • "So how could this have worked unless Lind's parents were idiots and decided to give him the letter L for a middle name?" I mean, this is the same world where a couple decided to name their kid "kanji for 'moon' but pronounced 'light'", and where L's first name is literally L.
    • I think that either: 1) L was his full middle name; or 2) the Death Note simply doesn't need middle names, and will ignore them unless they're incorrect (e.g. you write "B" when their middle initial is actually "S").
  • It doesn't say he needs the full name, just the name. He didn't seem to need middle names for anyone else.
    • Except everyone at the beginning of the series were Japanese, and in general, Japanese people do not have middle names. The few non-Japanese people Light did write in his Death Note also didn't have any middle names (that I can remember). He wouldn't need to write any middle names for people that didn't have any, so it doesn't explain about Lind L. Tailor.
    • This doesn't refute the idea that middle names are simply unnecessary or irrelevant.
    • How To Use I: The human whose name is written in this note will die. Both the first and last name must be written in order for the effects to take place.

Why didn't Japan declare martial law as soon as Kira appeared?

• Alright, why exactly was there an investigation? There's a guy out there who can kill indiscriminately. He has repeatedly shown that he has no qualms about mass killings. Wouldn't it be in Japan's best interest, to, I dunno, declare martial law until they find Kira?
  • Because then the politicans would die.
    • And that's necessarily a bad thing? The politicans in the series appear quite unless or cowardly.
    • That's not the point. The point is that it would be up to the politicians to declare martial law or a lockdown or something, and they are unlikely to do something that will get themselves killed.

Why does Light react so pathetically when exposed by Near?

• After re-watching the final episode today, I'm hit with the question of why Light reacted so pathetically when exposed by Near. It would seem, if he really is as popular with most of Japan (and probably elsewhere in the world) that he might have a good expectation of being broken out of prison by his supporters or at least getting a very light sentence (on this note, since the Death Note is magic, it would seem hard to convict someone of using it- everyone Light killed died of a heart attack or "suicide"). Granted, it is easy to imagine him being executed fairly quickly because officials worry about this, but as mentioned above, the very fact there is an investigation might imply support for Kira. My own answer to this question is that Light really is a crazy egomaniac who is mislead into thinking of himself as powerful without the Death Note which he actually isn't, and cannot tolerate being anything less than a god. Nevertheless, he really loses his cleverness at this moment.
  • Light breaks down because he is a sociopath who has just been exposed for all to see; his falling apart represents the mask torn off from hiding his madness. There are no more strings to pull and he knows it; there's no way he could be sentenced in an offical trial (he wrote damn names into a notebook!), so most likely he would have faced just a quick field execution.
  • Given that most of the world now seems to take Kira's existence for granted, pinning the deaths to someone shouldn't be that far out there. The only question is whether or not the Death Note itself would be admissible as evidence. Considering that nobody else who learned what the Note was seemed to have a problem with it, that, too, ought to be at least possible, if not an easy trick. Just off the top of my head, if they didn't want to risk the trouble of getting the Death Note officially recognized, they could have pulled a Lind L. Tailor on him - arrested, tried, sentenced and most probably executed in secret by those "in the know."
    • Near says that was his plan.
    • Remember that Near wasn't a good guy by any stretch and had long since demonstrated a willingness to engage in criminal activities to catch Light. There was no reason to expect any outcome but a quick murder.
  • There's a famous saying that applies here. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". It's clear the Death Note is as near as absolute power as one can get in the series (or in the real world for that matter) without being a Shikigami. Imagine the possibilities of being able to just kill by writing a name in a book, especially when you're in a world where magic is not meant to exist. Who wouldn't be tempted with that power? Unfortunately, the allure of that power just changed Light for the worst. As we saw, at the beginning he was only planning on killing criminals to make the world a better place. Then that extended to killing people who were trying to stop him, because in his mind, they were just as bad as criminals. Then it went further as to Light making himself to be the new God of this world. With such power and an extremely high opinion of himself (that was being fed with every win he had, especially after defeating L) when reality finally crashed down on him, it hit him real hard. Doesn't help him that he was practically unstable because of the power feed all of his success seem to be giving him, all it needed was for something to fall apart for him to snap.
  • There's actually a term in psychology for Light's behavior at the end: Narcissistic rage. When a narcissist's ego is seriously threatened, they lose their self-control and can become violent towards whoever has slighted them. Every time Light lost his cool before was when he was called "evil" or he got one-upped by L, minor things compared to being apprehended and exposed as Kira in front of everyone. His ego has, by the end, reached God complex-levels, so when it is threatened that badly, he can only respond with a severe emotional outburst, with little to no room for logical thinking. Then he gets shot and is rendered completely defenseless, and switches from rage to panic/survival.
  • In addition to what everyone else has said, there is simply no way that someone in Light's position could rely on the mere possibility (and it is a very slim possibility to boot, for reasons others have mentioned) of somehow escaping execution, and thus keep their cool in that situation. Besides, even if he was sure he could escape death, he was still watching his empire, everything he'd worked for years to build, starting to come crashing down around him.

Why are the names of even the most ordinary criminals published in TV?

• Why are the names of even the most ordinary criminals published in TV? Once Light kills a friggin' purse-snatcher because no better catch is available; since when were minor thefts reported in the news, much less with the name of the culprit? In most of the world the criminals have a right to privacy, except in the most high-profile cases.
  • I'd blame the Internet, but this was the Epic Chips Incident. Somebody working on that station was Mikami-style batshit, maybe?
  • Maybe this is an an example of Values Dissonance and this actually happens in Japan?
    • Correct. Newspapers and TV broadcasts always give the full name and age of any criminal, even when they are only suspected criminals. There is right to privacy for victims, only. Also, purse-snatching is one of the more common crimes in this country; remember that Japan being much less violent than other places, theft seems relatively worse.
• Why is pretty much all TV live in this universe - much less after the Sakura Incident?
  • The off chance that someone will die on camera boosts ratings? But really, newscasting is traditionally a live medium, and that's what the show is concerned with.

Why is Light portrayed as a genius of L-like levels?

• Why is Light portrayed as a genius of L-like levels? Yes, he could hold off L for a little while, but within ten or so episodes Light is L's prime suspect. In fact, as soon as "Lind L. Tailor" appeared in the Death Note, L had the upper hand, and he could, now that I watch the series again, predict every single move Kira would make. The only reason Light wasn't caught earlier was because he's using a freakin' magic book.
  • That's Mello's take on it in the prequel novels, for a certainty, but his Crazy-Prepared tactics, as illustrated best by episodes eight (the surveillance) and thirty-one (passing the notebook preemptively to Mikami), show you the kind of person you're dealing with even when he isn't on the offense - and that fact of his offensive stance is precisely what brought things to a head so soon; he thought of it, ultimately correctly, as more his getting close to L than the other way around. The fact that he's a manipulative son of a bitch may take things a bit out of his direct province, but it doesn't leave any black marks on his intelligence. Quite the contrary.
    • So he's just Crazy-Prepared, if I read that right.
    • A more accurate reading would be "weren't you paying any attention?" I suppose the salient point is that Light is not on the defensive until he absolutely has to be - that hardly makes him stupid, though. L has the same mindset in their little tennis match: witness his decision to bring Light into the task force.
  • Don't forget both L and Light get perfect marks on their university entrance exams. Now compare, Light having been going to school and to an academy in order to prepare for this exam, and L just doing it in order to catch Kira.
  • By that same token you have Light coming from a "normal" background, going to a normal school (i.e. Surrounded by Idiots) and he is able to play the game with L—who in all likelihood was brought up at a school for supergeniuses (where genius is the norm, all his peers would be geniuses, and smart is never smart enough)... Now, guess who would be better adjusted—it's no small wonder Light develops a God complex.
    • The thing about perfect marks is, there's no way to know who would have done better. Maybe, if the test had been harder, Light would have won; maybe L would have won. That's part of the beauty of them both scoring PERFECT, instead of just both getting, say, 98%.
  • Its worth noting that the only reason Light becomes L's prime suspect is because of a series of events set into motion by Naomi Misora's death. Naomi Misora's presence was something Light could not possibly anticipate, and until that point he had remained almost entirely in control of the situation, without ever doing anything which could point directly to him. Misora entering the equation was something he had to deal with immediately, otherwise he could be directly implicated, and his ability to effectively improvise with that shows great intelligence. He also could not anticipate that her disappearance would send L along the train of logic that would lead him to suspect Light. Everything only starts going wrong for Light when an entirely unpredictable variable becomes part of the system.
    • Umm, no. Light becomes the primes suspect because of Ray Penbar's death (if only Light gave him back that envelope before killing him) as Ray was the one investigating Light, giving Light a motive to kill him. L only briefly considers Naomi Misora being killed by Kira but then she's never mentioned again. It doesn't necessarily help that he can't confirm her death. L would have zeroed in on the people Ray was investigating whether Naomi died or not. Naomi Misora's death didn't really help the investigation at all.
  • You also need to consider that Light grew up in basically a normal life, with the most "exceptional" thing being that his father was second in command of the police force, whereas L was raised in Wammy's House which specifically groom the orphans there to be the greatest detectives. The fact that someone from an average background like Light managed to stay toe to toe with L says something. Although to be fair, L's real drawback was the team he worked with. If it weren't that they all knew Light and liked him and his father very much (not to mention that his father was on the team!), L would have definitely convicted Light a whole lot sooner, without substantial evidence. Even Light knew that much was keeping him safe, otherwise he wouldn't have tried to get as close to L as he did.
    • Most of Light's criminal career is a crude combination of luck, nepotism, and divine intervention. He has moments of being The Chessmaster, but every single one of his opponents has him handily outclassed at every turn. Naomi gets a brainfart that allows him to kill her. His dad has all of the information on the Kira case on his laptop and never changes his password. At various times, literal gods of death go out of their way to cover his tracks and watch his back. The second deathnote's appearance is a convenient backdoor for him to step out of L's closing trap while ultimately introducing the improbable stalker-like relationship that allows him to use an unstoppable god of death as a supernatural grenade which ultimately defeats L. L isn't outmaneuvered, the rules just change wildly around his head because Light happens to be handsome.
    • Near even mentions this, indicating that his observations of Light and the relationships with Takada and Misa simply told Near that Light was a "lady killer". All he saw was a manipulative person playing off two separate women, who both loved him.
  • Light does come up with some brilliant schemes throughout the series. His Memory Gambit, for instance, is among the best of any characters' plans in that Light would get a positive outcome no matter what occurred. In essence, if they never found the notebook, then Light could never be convicted as Kira. If they found the notebook and didn't test the 13 day rule, then Light would still be off the hook as Kira. If they found the notebook but Light didn't get his memories back, he would still win because Rem would kill L for trying to test the rule as it would place Misa's innocence in jeopardy. In almost any situation, Light had set up circumstances so that he would proven innocent or the threats to him would be eliminated.

After "winning" Light sits on his rear for five years

• After L is killed, Light had thought he had won. So he sat on his rear end for three years and messed with the investigation team. Why didn't he just kill them all off? There is a slight chance that somebody not on the investigation team would figure out that Light was the only one who survived. So Light could just run away and get himself a new identity.
  • Because then they would just recruit a new team, only this team Light wouldn't have control over them or know their identities in case he had to kill some of them.
    • I thought the Japanese police disowned the investigation team, and they were working off L's savings. If Light had killed them off, it would take quite some time until a group with the funding and determination showed up. Well, it would take three years, but Light didn't know that at the time.
  • Are you forgetting that his father was also on the team? If he was willing to do that, the entire second half of the manga would not have happened.
    • Hell, if L had sent his files to Whammy House instead of deleting them, it wouldn't have mattered. The manga would have ended five days later with Near and Mello showing up on Light's doorstep with a CIA hit squad.
    • But that has its risks. Light could've notice files being send to the Wammy House and be able to locate them.
    • Maybe so, but Light didn't notice L's Dead Man's Switch informing others of his death.
  • It also had a lot to do with the fact that he was just that confident. As he starts pulling the strings to get his long-term plan into action, he muses that without L around, it's just gotten too easy. No point running the risk of someone deciding, "Oh, hey, the entire Kira investigation team just died except for Light Yagami, wonder if that means anything."
  • He also believed that time was on his side; it's noted that if Near had failed, then the world would have come to accept Kira and there would be no third attempt. He believed that if he could maintain the pretense of investigating Kira, then eventually no one would be willing to oppose him.
  • Doesn't explain why he couldn't have killed them off one at a time over long periods of time. He could have easily quit after the first or second death by some BS about feeling guilty that everyone is dying because of his poor judgement and he thinks it's better he's not on the team, or he could just BS being afraid because he is young with a long life ahead of him (well, only if Ryuk hadn't killed him when he failed in the end) where he had a good future to look forward to so it's not illogical that he wouldn't be scared for his life and I doubt there'd be anyone on the team who'd stop him from leaving if he really wanted. Since he'd "left" the team, there wouldn't be a reason for people to suspect why Kira wanted him dead when he "gives up". That's basically the same reason the police force refused to investigate this case, and you don't see Kira killing them after they gave up. As for his father; we know Light would never kill him (well at that time) so instead as Kira, because he knows his father's weaknesses, he could just threaten Soichiro into giving up, like saying to kill his family or what-not if he didn't leave the team.
  • If he killed them, the game would be over. There's a lingering threat over his head that a lot of people don't notice: Ryuk. If Light killed the task force, there would be no one to oppose him. No more gambits, no more clever disguising of hindrances as helpfulness, no more acting simultaneously as killer and investigator of said killings. Kira rules unopposed and no one can stop him. Bland and, most importantly, boring. If Light becomes boring, Ryuk will kill him.
  • Ryuk never threatened to kill Light if he became boring. The reason he didn't kill the investigation team is because he knew they were no threat to him. Light was still, in his own mind, a force for good, and killing the investigation team unnecessarily would have been evil.
  • Firstly, his father is part of the team. Secondly, he'd probably have to kill the entire NPA, and Kira is trying to slowly gain everyone's acceptance. Killing the entire Japanese police force wouldn't help.

When Near asks about the fake rules...

• When Near asked which rule Light thought was fake why didn't he suggest that the rule about destroying the Death Note was false?
  • It's one of those mind-games along the lines of the index cards. If Light suggested any other rule on Sidoh's note, it would make considerably less sense, and Near would point this out in front of the NPA.
  • Whoops, reading comprehension. It's because Mello was a twit and only made there out to be one fake rule, and in any case, the 13-day rule is the big 'un. (I suppose confirmation on the destroying rule came from Lidner.)
  • Mello didn't tell Near that two of the rules were fake, just that "at least" one of them was. Light didn't know about Sidoh, so he was led to assume they knew one of them was fake because it had been tested. The real rules had all been proven, and it wouldn't make much sense for Mello and his mafia-buddies to try destroying the Death Note they had to test the other fake rule, so by "process of elimination," he "reasons" that the 13-day rule must be the one if any of the rules are indeed false.

Why did Light kill Takada? / HOW did Light kill Takada?

• Why did Light kill Takada? She wouldn't have told the task force that Light is Kira and the only other way they could have connect Light to Kira is by the fact Takada would need to know Mello's real name to kill him in which case Takada could simply claim she had shinigami eyes.
  • She was still a potential risk, but also lost her usefulness to him once she became arrestable. (Frankly, had the events from 1.28 gone just as planned, I suspect Mikami would have been next in line.)
    • Your suspicions are incorrect. Light made it explicitly clear that Mikami was the ONLY one he would keep alive after his master plan because he was so useful.
  • If Takada were discovered with pages of the Death Note on her, Near might have figured out that she was doing the killing for Mikami and guessed about the fake notebook.
  • While we're on the subject, how exactly do you start a fire when you're locked inside a steel box, stripped naked, with nothing but a blanket and a fragment of Death Note? Is Takada really McGuyver in disguise?
  • There was a motorcycle in the back with her, but still...

Kira's Notebooks II

• Light gave the Kira task force the Death Note that Ryuk was linked to so they could get the Death Note Mello had stolen back. Later they gave the Death Note Mello had back to Shidoh which left the task force with Ryuk's Death Note and Light with a Death Note that wasn't linked to a shinigami. Furthermore, Ryuk's Death Note was put in a safe the could only be opened if every member of the task force was present. So, how was Misa able to send Mikami Ryuk's Death Note?
  • Ryuk's Note never left him; the one he wrote the rules in was Shidoh's, temporarily owned by Ryuk, then Rem, and then taken out of play. Rem's Note was unattached, but Gelus's Note was linked to Ryuk during the switcheroo. Probably sometime offscreen either Light or Misa gave the Note to Ryuk and had him drop it again.

Why didn't Light choose a successor?

• Why didn't Light have a plan in place that would cause someone else to become Kira when he died?
  • Light's whole purpose for inventing Kira was so that he would one day rule over the New World as a God (his stated reason for avoiding the Shinigami eye deal was that he intended to rule for as long as possible). He had no interest in what the condition of the world would be after his death, since he was a sociopath.
  • He might have been planning to get around to it later. Once things settled down, he wasn't in any imminent danger, so he could focus on solidifying his position as Kira. Then procrastination set in...
  • You might have noticed that Light is kind of a deluded individual. He wouldn't WANT to choose a successor because in his mind only HE can do this, his "sacred duty," and he plans to rule as God in his new world for a very long time...
    • That makes no sense, otherwise he would never have given the Death Note to Mikami or pages of it to Takada, since they would not be worthy to do the important, sacred duty that he has.
    • Both Mikami and Takada are just tools to Light. He uses them just as he uses Misa, and he doesn't really care for anyone other than himself (he openly voices his contempt for Misa, he doesn't shed a tear or even show remorse when Takada dies (although she herself cries), and he repeatedly refers to Mikami with adjectives such as "useful" and "valuable" showing evidence that Mikami is an object to him, until the final episode when he tries to shift blame for his failures to Mikami because Light is totally self-centered and likes to believe he is without fault). Even though he uses these people as means to an end, Light is still Kira, and still in control of the situation. The truth here is that he is so totally self-centered that he never bothers to imagine what the world would be like without himself, and so doesn't plan for such a situation.

Why didn't Light have a backup plan for the final confrontation?

• Why didn't Light have a backup plan for the final confrontation? I know, I know, escalating levels of hubris, but still you'd think he'd get some pleasure out of beating Near so thoroughly that he didn't have to play all his cards? For example, he could have written "Matsuda: Head trauma. Killed by pro-Kira forces in the process of successfully rescuing Kira," thus rendering him safe for the next 23 days.
  • Well, that particular plan probably wouldn't work based on the rules. He'd have to be certain somehow that no one in the mob or on Near's team would be killed in the process, or else whoever he wrote down would just die of a heart attack. He probably didn't contact pro-Kira forces because that would require him to reveal himself more publicly, which itself makes him a good deal easier to hunt down by people who aren't even genius detectives. I guess the ego would have to account for not having any backup plan at all, the same way he sort of condemned himself by declaring his victory.

Why did Light give Misa back her notebook? / Why did Rem touch Misa with the notebook?

• Why did Light give Misa back her notebook, and why did Rem touch Misa with the notepaper? Light was terrified by Misa's domination of him before then, and Rem should have noticed that the death note repeatedly caused Misa all sorts of misery.
  • Light gave Misa back her notebook after Rem's death, because Misa was no longer a threat in any way. It was Rem's retribution he had previously feared. He could kill her if he needed to after Rem had died. Also, Rem had touched Misa with the Death Note paper because Higuchi was planning to marry Misa and kill her for the insurance money, so Rem wanted to ensure Misa's safety and Higuchi's capture.

Why wasn't there a massive clampdown on broadcasting people's names?

• Kira should've become almost irrelevant within a couple of weeks due to a massive clampdown. I remember some kind of Hand Wave about "Kira supporters on the internet" and realize the author may have been trying to make a point about how heartless and trashy the news is, but the entire premise is still absurd. Simple social pressure combined with virtually innevitable regulations would mean that no police department or court could mention a suspect's name in good conscience, no jail could reveal its prisoners, and no news gatherer in good standing would dare to investigate crimes. Whistleblowers would live in constant fear of losing their jobs after being branded proxy murderers. Light was a policeman in Japan, but that wouldn't have granted him access to anywhere near enough victims to warrant the fuss still being made over Kira.
  • At one stage one of the task force says that they should stop broadcasting the names of criminals, and L says that if that happened Kira would just start killing civilians.
    • It's unlikely that that would do much to stop the world governments and media. As an above troper mentioned, even reporters would censor names from their reports for fear of legal ramifications (in some countries you can sue for just about anything).
  • During the timeskip, Light, as the second L, orders that the media stop broadcasting the faces of criminals, and in response, people post information about criminals on the internet.
    • Which brings up a major problem I've always had with Light. How does he know most of the people he's killing are guilty of anything? An arrest isn't a guilty verdict: innocent people are arrested all the time. Hell, innocent people go to prison all the time, but Light isn't even waiting for the trial. He just sees a name and face, and starts scribbling. If Richard Jewell were a character in Death Note, he'd never have lived long enough to be vindicated: he would have died at Light's hands for the sole crime of being a hero and then getting questioned by police about it. And if Light's using the names people are posting on the internet after the timeskip... well, what's to stop anyone from simply posting their enemies on the list? Light can't confirm their arrests with the police: if he could, he wouldn't need online supporters in the first place. For all his talk of justice, Light's probably killed more innocent people than he has actual criminals (especially when you add in all the innocent people he's knowingly, even sadistically, killed just for threatening to blow his cover).
    • Or to put it more simply, Light's turned "trial by media" into all-out "execution by media".
    • Yes. Because Light is a sociopath with a god complex, who has appointed himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner. This is just one of the many examples why he is the Villain Protagonist and not The Hero.
  • I had this same realization some time back. But at several poits Light has insisted that he actually weighs factors when making judgements. When proving himself to Pember he explains that man has repeatedly been tried for sexual assault. However each time he was dismissed for lack of evidence. That shows a greater degree of understainding his criminal history than "arrest report was published". Later during the memory gambit, he analyzes Kira's killings and takes note that in contrast with Yotsuba's Kira, who killed accused as soon as they were broadcast, the first Kira didn't make a pattern of killing those with "excusable situations" and the repentant. Now he clearly had a outliers showcased in the progress of events. Such as the various petty criminals he killed while dodging L's survalance, and Kira's enemies. However Light apparently, to an objective obsrver, was more deliberative when making his mass killings. At least before his victory over L.

Matsuda's Theory

• So, what is the likelihood of Matsuda's idea that Near killed Mikami actually being true? Also, did Mello kidnap Takada in cooperation with Near?
  • As for the first, none. It is stated in this very page that Near had no contact at all with the Death Note before Gevanni made the switch.
  • Yeah, but he could have killed Mikami after Gevanni switched them. Matsuda's theory is that he used the Note to control Mikami into not performing any checks on the fake notebook. The creator says that it's up to us to draw our own conclusions, so there's probably no 'real' answer.
  • Isn't it entirely discounted (at least in the anime) by Mikami's Shinigami Eyes showing Near's lifespan?
    • No, because Near didn't own the notebook, he just wrote in it (assuming the theory is true, which, in my opinion, it is).
    • Actually as soon as someone writes a name in the notebook they become the owner, he could've asked Gevanni to write it down though.
    • That is incorrect. Rule XII states that if the notebook is stolen, the owner has 490 days to recover it before ownership is transferred to the thief (unless the owner dies, in which case ownership is transferred to the next person who picks it up). Rule VIII also says that you don't need to own the Death Note in order for it to work, something which comes up frequently in the series as Light appoints other people to take on the role of Kira.
  • "Near controlled Mikami" is very likely. It's very unlike Mikami to not take a page with him when he knew he was being followed to the bank, and he's methodical and intelligent enough to test the notebook before going to the warehouse. It's also unlike Near to simply gamble everything on Mikami not doing these extremely simple acts, and no, no part of Near's principles contradicts this because he merely said he wouldn't kill Light before establishing proof on him. As for "Near manipulated Mello", that's way less likely. For one, he cares about Mello. Secondly, if he suspects the fake notebook and is willing to do this, why not just test it out? Thirdly, how would he guarantee how Mello acts? Fourthly, why set the date for meeting before making sure Mello makes a move? Fifthly, if he's trying to find the hiding place for the notebook, the more simple solution is to look at places where Mikami can just lock the notebook away, and he'd eventually find the bank. Sixthly, he told Halle to stop Mello no matter what. Finally, how does this plan work? Does he specifically tell Halle to tell Mello specific information? No, that doesn't work because he and Halle had a private conversation where Near asks about whether or not she told Mello anything. So then he just anticipated Halle would tell Mello something? That doesn't make sense either, because then how does he guarantee that Halle won't tell Mello about Mikami? (Since, as Near said, everything will fall apart if Mello finds out about Mikami.)

In Another Note...

• In Another Note, (massive spoilers ahead)...
  • Why doesn't Misora realize that something is wrong when Ryuzaki not only reads off the Roman numerals on the victim's chest instantly, but knows their correct order? We're told earlier that Naomi has to "twist the picture around a lot" to read them at all, so Ryuzaki's ability to list them in order fingers him as the killer.
  • Ryuzaki and Misora come up with an extremely elaborate explanation to explain how the number 22 is connected to the letter B. Kanji are involved. Question: Given that B is the second letter of the alphabet, and two of the victims have the initials "B. B." why doesn't anybody point out the obvious substitution cipher?
  • Why doesn't B expect Misora to mention to L that "Ryuzaki" had possession of a crossword puzzle that he could only possess if he were the murderer or had a secret police connection? It's an absurd risk.
    • I thought the narrative explained that B did expect Misora to tell L about the puzzle, and that that would label him to L as an interesting figure who needed to be watched closely, causing him to instruct Misora to work with him.

Why did Light kill the remaining members of the Yotsuba group?

• Why did Light kill the remaining six members of the Yotsuba Group? Was it for siding with Higuchi!Kira, or for not siding with Higuchi!Kira?
  • Most likely? For knowing too much.
  • That did cross my mind, but I don't know what they could have told anyone that wasn't already known.
  • He could have just thought they warranted killing. Kira lowered his standards by that point.
  • Well, he also killed Aiber and Wedy. All of them were dangerous for his plans.
  • Ummm... HELLO? It's because they were CRIMINALS! They deliberately used the Death Note to kill business rivals. It doesn't matter how they got it, why they used it, whether they were unwilling or scared or bullied into joining the "meetings of death" they used it in an evil, self-serving manner (according to Kira's version of justice) and had to be PUNISHED.
    • Well, that's what I first thought, but then it occurred to me that maybe he killed them because they went against Higuchi in the end, and therefore against the killing of criminals.
  • It was most likely for knowing too much, they knew about a bunch of rules, like all the stuff about killing in ways other than heart attacks, the times, the possibilities etc. Like Aiber and Wedy, they were a liability and removing them from the game was just less pieces to keep an eye on. If you remember, Near learned of the notebook from an officer that was in Huguchi's arrest, which ultimately led to his demise, which goes to prove how important it was for Light to be thourough with the control of information.

Light offers to let L lock him up to prove his innocence before he had any allies or other strings to pull

• Early on, Light offers to let L lock him up somewhere with no TV or anything, but L declines. What would Light have done had he accepted? He hadn't met Misa yet, so he had no allies to speak of, and the note can only set the time of death for 23 days in the future. What would stop him being found out?
  • Maybe he was absolutely sure L would decline his offer...
  • I'm sure that it was mentioned before this that Light was writing in victims names weeks in advance of their deaths in case he was hospitalised.
  • Light has it set up so that the deaths will continue for two weeks if he were forced by circumstances to stop writing in the notebook. However L would likely notice that no freshly caught criminals were being offed.

Which of the Wammy's detectives is M, Mello or Matt?

• Which of the Wammy's detectives is M, Mello or Matt? And what letter is given to represent the other one?
  • They probably use lower and upper case.
  • Or a two-letter name; Watari is "W" while Wedy is "We" and Aiber is "A" while Aizawa is "Ai".
    • Isn't Wedy a lowercase "w"?
  • Only four people at Wammy's house have actual letters: L Lawliet (L), Watari (W), Near (N), and Mello (M). Matt is never even stated to be a detective, and is never adressed by or referred to by a letter. As far as we know, he's just helping out Mello. The others who have letters only have them when working with L to make identification easy (i.e. it's not a title that they have, just a temporary codename.)

Did Light really believe that no-one would notice if everyone assigned to the Kira case except him suddenly died?

• In the last episodes, did Light really believe that no-one would notice if everyone assigned to the Kira case except him suddenly died?
  • Who would be left? Near already worked independently from the Unites States, so his death would probably not even be noticed. And even if it would be, only Near and his team knew that they were meeting with L (and that L was Light,) so to everyone else they would have just been killed by Kira. And it's pretty much the same for the Japanese team, who also worked mostly independent. Additionally, even if somebody would notice that L was the only survivor, everyone who knew who L is would already be dead. At best no-one would notice, at worst Light would have to discard his identity as L, but at that point it probably didn't matter, as most of the world had surrendered to him anyway.
    • You have some good points. Still, it was incredibly presumptuous of him to work on the basis that there was no chance of there being any SPK members that Near was keeping in reserve, and that Near wouldn't have left any records (after all, L did), and that there was no way Light's own family would think it was weird that he wasn't found dead with the other task force members.
  • Yes he did, Light is an idiot like that... Light is so focused on defeating uber-genius rivals he often discounts anyone else (like underestimating the taskforce, and Matsuda).
  • He could have faked his death, made it look he died along with everyone else at the warehouse. No one would suspect a dead man and he then could more freely act as Kira under a new identity, as well as cleanly sever all ties with his former life so he wouldn't have to kill anyone he might potentially still care about to protect his identity.
    • For example he could have written in the Note "[Name of taskforce member] dies in explosion (or something similiar) with no possibility of identification of the victim left behind." and that for all members with specification of a place of which he knows there aren't other people who would interfere with the specified manner of death.

Shinigami eyes halve your lifespan so Soichiro would have died anyway?

• If Shinigami eyes remove half your remaining lifespan, does that mean that Soichiro would have died that night even if he hadn't taken them?
  • Misa’s originally scheduled death seems to confirm murders count as ‘natural deaths’ in Shinigami lifespan exchanges. If this is the case Chief Yagami was originally going to live twice as long from the exact moment he made the trade. Bad luck on his part, considering Soichiro had less than a day to live after making the trade.
  • Soichiro would have died later that night because the raid on Mello's base would have gone differently, but still ended fatally for him.
  • Maybe not; the only reason he was at the raid was because of the actions of the Death Note revealing the base's location to him, and one of the rules is that the Death Note can unintentionally extend someone's lifespan.

Rules Lawyering: Could you use the death note to incapacitate an unnamed group of people?

• Just thought of another question, not sure if it was asked above. I know you couldn't use a Death Note to force one person to kill another, but let's say Light had written something like "Matsuda killed in car crash that causes every other member of the Kira taskforce to be seriously injured and in a comatose state"- could you cause that to happen?
  • I suppose so, but then Light would also be put into a coma.
    • Oops, I gave a bad example. I was thinking of a situation where Light could somehow know the name of one of Near's team and kill them and badly injure Near without knowing Near's real name.
    • Probably, as long as the ones whose names he didn't know were kept alive (including Near, of course.)
  • It wouldn't work. The Note doesn't have the power to put people into comas; it either kills them or it doesn't. Therefore the described death would be outside its powers and Matsuda would die of a heart attack.
    • There is no rule that says that the circumstances of death can't result in unrelated people becoming comatose. As long as the circumstances described wouldn't result in anyone else dying, it's feasible.

What is so special about Misa that two shinigami are willing to die for her?

• What is so special about Misa that two shinigami are willing to die for her?
  • She shares their fashion sense.
  • She's adorable in a sufficiently messed-up sort of way.
  • In the Movie, Rem is not in love with her, she only fulfills the promise she made to Gelus of protecting Misa. But still...
    • She's MISA! End of story.
  • Everybody is straight for Misa.

How could a guy who's been shot five times outrun four healthy police officers?

• How did the task force members not catch Light in the last episode? He had a head start of about one minute, had three people after him and had been shot about four times!
  • Just as planned.
  • He might have used that minute's start to take an unexpected turn — enough to keep ahead for a few more minutes. I think Rule of Drama can be applied here, as it didn't make much practical difference whether or not they actually caught up with him.
  • Adrenaline, pure and simple. You'd be surprised what people can do when a sudden rush of adrenaline courses through their body.

Why does no one try to resuscitate L?

• Why didn't anyone try to revive L? I mean, come on?! He's the freakin' leader of the Kira investigation! But has anyone attempted to revive a victim of a Death Note?
  • Personally, I always thought heart disease sufferers walked round with "Please Resuscitate" necklaces in this universe. But as for your original question, they did in the manga. They probably avoided it in the anime for time, and so that there was no break in the staggering dramatic irony.
  • In the manga, they (spoiler in link) try to take him to the hospital.
    • Yeah, the anime just cut that part out for the sake of pacing.

Matsuda gets excited about Light's relationships

• Why was Matsuda so excited about Light dating Takada? I thought he was Misa's friend.
  • He's Misa's fanboy, really, as well as Takada's. Not the scary-zealous sort and so perfectly willing to encourage a friend, but even so, it's not exactly a deep bond of trust going on.
  • He's not really her friend; she doesn't seem to like him.
  • The more I think about it, it seems that Matsuda has an unhealthy obsession with Light, and everything he does. He looks up to his dad, he is both a fanboy of Takada and Misa (whom Light has relationships with)- not to mention interested in Light's sister, he is not 100% turned off to Kira's cause - the list goes on. Mikami might think that Light/Kira is God and worship (in his own oh so twisted way), but Matsuda seemingly want to BE Light. This also explains his rampage at the end when his trust is betrayed.

Would Light have survived if Ryuk hadn't written his name?

• If Ryuk had not written his name in the Death Note, would Light have survived the multiple gunshots from Matsuda? I'm just trying to figure who is ultimately responsible for Light's death in the manga.
  • The implied answer is: yes. Ryuk states in both the anime and manga that he does not want to "wait around" for Light while he is in prison.
    • If you leaf through the rules too much, it complicates the matter significantly. Rule V states that a human cannot lengthen their lifespan using the Death Note, but they can shorten it. Rule XLII states that the use of the Death Note CAN inadvertantly adjust the lifespans of people who are not the intended target, as a result of the butterfly effect, and also that in these cases, the shinigami only sees the original lifespan and not the adjusted one. These two together mean that every use of the Death Note has a small possibility of shortening the user's lifespan, with no possibility of increasing it; it slowly kills you for using it, and even a shinigami cannot see how much time you ACTUALLY still have left. It's entirely possible that Light would have died right then and there; that his overusage of the Death Note ate up his entire lifespan. But Ryuk would have no way of knowing whether that's true, and acted based on what he could see.
  • The lengthening his lifespan relates to how the shingami increase their lifespans by killing, whereas that won't work for humans. That means that the base lifespan can't be increased simply by killing a random person. However, it can be increased by killing someone who is a direct threat to them (such as an assailant with a gun). Basically it boils down to he can unintentionally increase or decrease his lifespan, but he cannot gain another person's remaining time like the shinigami do.
  • Light was shot in the hand, both shoulders and both lower sides. Bullet wounds like that can take days to kill a person, so if the team had cuffed him and taken him to a hospital, then he probably would have survived (unless Near had planned a field execution for him).

Why does Light kill the FBI investigators?

• Why does Light expend so much effort on killing Raye Penber and the other FBI investigators? The only real benefit I can see from the killings is that they scared off the FBI for a while, and that would happen anyway if their investigation turned up nothing. The convoluted method Light uses to kill the FBI investigators makes it easy for L to narrow the search down to Raye's marks. Additionally, it brought Naomi Misora into the mix, a disaster Light only averted by chance; if anyone else came into possession of the knowledge Misora had and made similar deductions, he was done. OTOH, if he doesn't kill Raye, the FBI investigation turns up nothing. Light gets more time to establish plans of action; the FBI is discredited; the mistrust between L and the police builds as the mole isn't found; and everything generally goes more smoothly for Light. What, apart from Light's juvenile impatience and massive overconfidence, justifies his actions here?
  • This could have something to do with the Lind L. Tailor incident. Note that he is impulsive throughout the series. This also has to do with the fact that he doesn't have very much foresight except when he is manipulating everyone. I have the guess that, though he has a genius IQ, he lacks proper planning skills, seeing as he is seventeen and all at the time...
    • It's less that he lacks proper planning skills, and more that he has a huge underestimation complex. After all, that's how he dies.
  • If I recall, what he thought was that if the FBI turned up nothing the first time, they would investigate everyone again, but more in-depth, and he'd be more likely to be caught. So it was a pre-emptive strike, basically.
    • Precisely. His reasoning was that next time they'd be more thorough, and there'd probably be more of them (thus making it harder to kill them all). He felt it was now or never.

Dying in your arms tonight

• What was that weird flying tackle that Light gave to L? What purpose did it serve?
  • Proper gloating position.
    • Didn't the other task force members find it a bit odd, though?
    • I thought it fit well with the whole "NOOOOOO" thing he had going, myself.
  • You mean the flying tackle from episode 25? He was trying to catch L as he fell off his seat.

Odd names in Another Note

• In Another Note, what is the deal with the victims' names? They all seem rather odd, especially Backyard Bottomslash.
  • NISIOISIN likes weird names. Just look at the one he himself uses.
  • "Backyard Bottomslash" I lol'd.
  • When writing "English" names for the original manga, Ohba deliberately made up names he thought sounded English while not being actual names (to avoid possibly offending anyone who coincidentally had the same name as one written down in a fictional killer notebook). The author of Another Note tried to do the same, but was apparently much less experienced with the English language, and seemed to just be flipping through a dictionary for English words.

Why didn't Light know that Near knew that he knew that he knew that something was up?

• In the final show down, what did Light think that Near thought that Light was thinking? Near wouldn't have come unless he replaced the Death Note with a fake. Light would know that, and thus wouldn't come unless the Death Note that was replaced was also a fake. Near would know that, and thus wouldn't come unless he replaced both the fake and the real one. That should continue forever making the final confrontation impossible, but somehow, Light missed that last step, and Near missed the one after that.
  • Also, what was Near thinking was going to happen when he arranged the meeting? Unless he knew when he arranged the meeting that Mikami's notebook was fake (which, admittedly, is possible, and Matsuda even suggests that Near subtly orchestrated Mello's kidnapping because he suspected the trick), he would've been assuming that Light would find it perfectly reasonable for Near and co to just sit there impassively while their names were being written into Mikami's notebook, and that wouldn't lead to Light or Mikami suspecting a trap.
    • Ah, but Light didn't suspect that Near would learn about Mikami's REAL Death Note! Light thought that Near believed that Mikami would bring the (fake) Death Note with a "fake" page that Near replaced, thinking it was the real Death Note—with a fake page. However, if it went according to plan (which it didn't) Mikami would actually bring the real Death Note, which Near didn't know about (or so he thought). Light thought that Near thought that Light thought Mikami was bringing the real Death Note, when in actuality, Near knew Light's real plan all along. Light didn't consider that Mikami would unwittingly allow Near to learn about his real Death Note, when he retrieved it to kill Takada. Near then replaced the real one with a second fake Death Note. Light was convinced that Mikami still had the real Death Note, and would retrieve it to kill them all (except Light), while believing Near to have a false sense of security, when in fact Mikami had brought a fake Death Note that Near's helper made...Simple!
    • They had both played their scheme, they were both utterly convinced that they knew which Death Note was actually the real one and the other did not, and if correct, they would win the game. As it turned out, Near was correct and Light was not.
  • Light: "Near thinks he's won because he replaced the pages on the notebook—but it was a fake in the first place! Mikami hid the real one! Near doesn't know that I already knew that Near replaced the pages. He thinks I'm wrong in thinking I've won, but I actually have!"
  • Near: "Light thinks I'm mistaken in thinking I've won, but I actually have! Light doesn't know that I learned the notebook whose pages I replaced was a fake. I have found Mikami's real one, and replaced it with a second fake! Furthermore, I know everything Light is thinking."
    • That's about as clear as I can make it. Both people believed themselves victorious, and knew that the other believed it, too. Furthermore, they each knew the other believed that they themselves believed themself victorious. * phew* They were both counting on it. Light came because he believed Mikami's real Death Note was safely hidden. He believed Near came because Near was under the impression that the (first) fake Death Note was the real one, and Light believed that Near believed that they wouldn't die because he (Near) replaced the pages. In actuality, Near came because he found and replaced the REAL Death Note with a fake of his own. (We've got two fakes now. Mikami's, and Near's.) Near knew Light believed himself victorious, and that Light believed they would all die. Near sort of pulled a double-reversal on Light, with both the trick of the page replacing AND the revelation that he found the real Death Note. Sorry if it's still not enough. It is admittedly a bit hard to follow...
  • It didn't appear that hard to follow. The concept was pretty basic, for the final plan on both parties. Simply, it was Light giving Mikami a fake Death Note to mislead anyone that would try to tamper with it. Predicting that Near would tamper with the book, it was essential to make the fake book appear like the real one. So Near had replaced one of the fake note book's pages with a plain piece of paper. Meanwhile the real Death Note was kept safe until Mikami brought it to the final confrontation. Unfortunately they slipped up, so Near end up finding out about the real Death Note. Thus Near switches the real one with a fake, to trick Light and Mikami. As I said, the concept was basic.
    • If the notebook was never tampered with, Near wouldn't have gone in there. Light knows this, so unless he decide to write on an untampered-page, he wouldn't have gone in there. Near knows this, so unless he replaced the whole notebook, he wouldn't have gone in there. Light knows this, so unless he made a red-herring notebook, he wouldn't have gone in there. Near knows this, so unless he replaced the second notebook, he wouldn't have gone in there. If you do this long enough, it means that in order for them to both go in, there must have been an infinite number of fake notebooks. It looks makes sense for the final plan. It's the meta-meta-hypothetical one that doesn't make sense. The problem is, the final plan is hinging on the meta-meta-hypothetical one at least making sense.
  • The whole fake page thing only adds one layer. If Near thought he was safe because he added a fake page, that would mean that he thought Light would expect him to just come in and get his name written in the Death Note.
  • Another attempt for those who still might not get it: Near: "Light Yagami will want to gather us all and then have X-Kira peek at the meeting and write down our names. But I got ahead of him, since I know that X-Kira is Teru Mikami! I'll arrange the meeting right away." Light: "Near will surely pinpoint Mikami as the one acting in my stead, I can confirm as much by telling Mikami to pay attention to people tailing him. Near will think he got ahead of me and he'll try to fake the pages starting from January 28. Instructing Mikami to keep pieces of pages would be troublesome since the SPK could find them, and I don't know to what extent he'll be observed...I'll tell him to create a fake notebook and keep the real one in a safe place. I'll have him pretend the one he's carrying is real by having him send pictures and names of criminals to Takada and having her kill them. Even if Near suspects a fake notebook, he won't know where to look for the real one, and I can gain insight on his thought by paying attention to whether or not he changes the date for the meeting." This is the basic premise. It goes to hell from there since it's never made clear how Mikami and Light could've been so ridiculously overconfident and careless in the end, and nothing really makes sense.
  • I think I understand the complaint now. It helps to think of it in terms of layers of deception.
    • Zero Layer: No deception involved. The meeting at the warehouse really is just a friendly meeting between allies; no one's trying to kill or arrest anyone else.
    • First Layer: Light instructs Mikami to come to the warehouse and write everyone's names down. Near, not expecting this betrayal, reacts to Mikami with hostility.
    • Second Layer: Near expected that Mikami would come to kill him, so he tampered with Mikami's Death Note ahead of time. If Near does not try to stop Mikami from writing down names, Light should realize what Near must have done, so it's Light that's gonna be freaking out.
    • Third Layer: Light expected that Near would tamper with the Death Note, so he had Mikami create a fake Death Note and keep the real one hidden away until that night. In this scenario, Light expects Near to let Mikami write down their names, so he doesn't freak out. But Near should expect to see Light freak out; when he doesn't, Near will realize he's been out-foxed and try (even if it's too late) to stop Mikami.
    • Fourth Layer: Near knew that Light had created a fake Death Note, so he took measures to find the real one and replace it as well. So Mikami shows up at the warehouse to kill them all. Near expected this, so he doesn't try to stop Mikami. Light expected Near not to do anything, so Light doesn't react. Near expected Light not to react, so Near doesn't react either. But Light should still expect Near to react to Light's lack-of-reaction. As far as Light knows, the deception's only three layers deep. When he gets no response from Near, he should realize that a fourth layer of deception has come into play and that Near has won.
    • The problem is that they are not working with the same information. Light doesn't know that Near discovered the real notebook, much less that he replaced it. He believes that Near has only gone as far as switching out the already-fake notebook, and crucially, he also believes that Near thinks this is sufficient. So contrary to what's described in "Second Layer", it makes perfect sense to Light that Near isn't freaking out. Meanwhile, Near is confident that Light doesn't know the real notebook was replaced. So it makes perfect sense to him that Light isn't freaking out. Neither side is expecting the other to freak out, because they both know that the other thinks they've got it all figured out. Crucially, they also know that the other knows this, so they also aren't expecting the other to expect them to freak out. They both think they have all the information; it's just that only one of them actually did.

Barred from Heaven and Hell?

• The rules of the Death Note state that if someone uses it, they will go to neither heaven nor hell. As Raye Penbar used the Note unwittingly, is he barred from heaven or hell?
  • The manga reveals that it's not just the Death Note users - everyone, user or not, goes to nothingness when they die. So Penber will go to nothingness but that would have happened whether or not he used the note.

Why aren't Misa and Light traumatized after being confined for fifty days?

• Misa was tied up and blindfolded for FIFTY DAYS! She did an exceptional job keeping her sanity, and was pretty damn quick to forgive L. Everything's all just fine afterwards. It's like the whole ordeal never happened. I can understand the memory gambit, but Misa's super-quick recovery from her imprisonment is the one part of the story that snaps the string suspending his disbelief.
  • When you come to mental sanity, Misa is a poor excuse for a human being. From the very start she is nuts and self-centered. Even her blind love for Light is egotistical; she can't notice that he is not in love even when he doesn't care to act it up. Recovery? Recovery of what?
  • Light as well. Think about it- a genius that does not tolerate boredom well is tied up, unable to move in a small cell... What totally should have happened after Light has been confined for 50 days... (shades of The Yellow Wallpaper...)
  • I'm more bugged by memory-wiped Light being so willing to forgive L after not only imprisoned him for 50 days, but convinced his father to threaten to murder him for a crime he (in his mind) didn't do. Even though he wasn't Kira at this point, Light is still an exceptionally prideful guy. Even I'd take a long, LONG time to warm up to L (and everyone else involved) again after that. But Light forgets all about it on the very same page.
  • Memory-wiped Light still remembers that it was him who asked L to keep him locked up and under observation, even if he can't remember the reason so he is all like "what was I thinking?!" for those days. So he probably won't be too mad at L for something he realizes was his own damn fault. I dunno about the spoilered bit, though.
  • Even taking the above into account Light still has a perfectly valid reason to be upset with L for making his father perform a mock execution, pretending to shoot him in the head. After that any sane person probably wouldn't be too eager to be friends with L but Light is all like "I'm working with L! Awesome! I'm so happy, BFFs forever!" on the very next page. Light is most likely either utilizing his acting talents or the "sane" part still doesn't apply to him.
  • Considering how easily he forgives L and how eager he is to be working with him memory-wiped Light seems to be L's Fan Boy.
  • Misa is shown to act different after losing her memories of the Death Note when she's being held in confinement. A certain amount of times passess after being captive, and Misa totally breaks. She's shown crying, screaming, begging for death, and attempts to bite her tongue off. Then Rem shows up and asks Misa if she wants to lose her memories of the Death Note. Misa says yes, then faints. At this point she's lost all memories relating to the Death Note, being a Kira, having met the Kira, and Rem and Ryuk. She's also unaware of why she's being held in confinement. After she wakes up she's bubbly and normal(?). She refers to L as 'Mr. Stalker' and offers to kiss him ^note It actually makes some sense. When being held captive in a way that makes escape impossible, it's typically agreed upon by law enforcement, phsycologist and survival experts that the best thing to do is to comply with the captors wishes and not actively attempt to anger them. Although her attitude seems overly cheerful, that's considered 'cute' in Japan and is almost a requirement for female Japanese idols. She thinks L is some sort of obsessive fan, so acting like the 'Misa-Misa' that the public knows is arguably her best chance for survival. She's forgotten most of the trumatic events she went through up to that point, because it was done specifically because L knew she was the second Kira. L explains to her that he's not a stalker, and that she is being held by police under suspicion of being the second Kira, which she denies. Not too much long after, she is released. So at this point she doesn't have much reason to be angry with L, or she is angry and is just hiding it. ^note Her first appearances in the manga and her meeting with Light show her to be far more intelligent than many see her as, and it one point in the manga she's seen actively thinking about hom much emotion to put into what she says.

At the warehouse couldn't Light have talked his way out of it?

• When Mikami gave Light away at the end, couldn't Light have talked his way out of it? After all, Mikami (correctly) thought Light was Kira because Light owned a Death Note. But it was common knowledge to the Investigation Team that they * had* a Death Note that they kept in the safe, and indeed brought it to Near. Light could say that by some technicality, even though Aizawa was holding it, that Light was technically the owner. That's why Mikami mistook him for Kira. The story could at least buy him some time, couldn't it?
  • "Well Near, it looks like I win." That's a confession, yo.
  • Plus, revealing the rules about notebook ownership would give him away as Kira, wouldn't it?
  • I suppose his "victory" line was pretty much a confession. I'm still not sure Near's plan was foolproof though—if Light hadn't confessed by declaring his victory. Couldn't he at least "theorize" that he was the owner because he was holding it when Soichiro died? It still seems like a flaw in Near's plan. Someone in the Task Force has to be the owner, right?
    • Um, previous troper here. Disregard that. I realize now that the fact that Mikami showed up at all, and knew Kira would be there, and wrote all the names except Light, was the proof that Light was Kira.
    • There was, however, the possibility that Mikami could have anticipated such and wrote down Light's name along with the others, without thinking of his face (admittedly a rather difficult feat of concentration, but it can be done).
    • It's an extremely dangerous proposition, though. If Light's face pops into mind at any point while he's writing it, he'll kill Light.
  • He tried to bluff his way out with a claim that Aizawa's notebook is fake (and perhaps, someone out there has another real notebook and might be yet another Kira), but Near sees through that, and he goes for using the watch to kill Near instead.
    • Strictly speaking, he might have been able to bluff by saying that Mikami was actually working for Near, and that Mikami had knowingly come there with a fake Death Note, and had been instructed by Near to write everyone's names but Light's, in order to frame Light when he was apprehended. However, this would definitely require Near to be the real Kira, as otherwise he wouldn't want to frame Innocent!Light. It might've been enough to convince Matsuda, and the chaos from that might've been enough to let him escape, but I can't really expect him to come up with that rather convoluted and unreliable plan on the spot.
    • Actually, that was exactly the plan I came up with when I saw Near pulling out the real notebook. The very moment that no one died and Near identified the only name not written as Light's, Light's next words should have been something like, "So you have come to kill me, Near? Matsuda, Mogi, seize Kira and search him." Yes, it would have seemed like a stretch, but they were all shocked to be alive, and in a sense, Light's assertion would have been no more farfetched than Near's.

Did Light notice that his plan was impossible to succeed?

• Did Light notice that his plan was impossible to succeed? Even if he had won against Mello, Near, Zombie L and whoever he could go against, eventually he would have died of old age... And during this time he would have ruled a would by fear (ie. the worst way possible, as once he had made a little slip, anyone would have been at his throath) with half of the world population against him. You hope a genius like him should have been genre savy enough to know this.
  • You say Ruling by fear as if that's bad. Light's pretty darn Machiavellian. Not to mention, it would be the fear of God. If it's good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for you.
  • In the first place, Machiavelli never said that a Prince mus rule by fear (actually, quite the opposite, only attacking when strictly necessary). Plus, no, it's not good enough, as God does not rule by fear, and seeing how many God Is Evil story are, I think that take out a God whose lifespan is 100 years at best is not a big deal. Also, Light DID kill a God of Death (Rem), why can't all the humanity can?
    • He believes that he's not only dealing with criminals, but also dealing with the conditions that cause them, thinking that criminal acts cause the victims to believe that unscrupulous means are the only way to get by. He thinks that if no one commits crimes, everyone will be free to live virtuously, and the vicious cycle will be eliminated. Whether they will continue to do so without the fear of death by Kira is another matter, though.
    • God doesn't rule by fear? Have you read The Bible? Heard an old fashioned fire and brimstone sermon? Heard someone use "Godfearing" as a synonym for morally upright? Did you know that Christians tend to distrust atheists because they don't believe people will try to be good unless they're being watched?
  • Once he is done killing his genius rivals, he can start looking for and grooming a successor so the world will always be ruled by Kira. Hell, maybe he would finally consummate his marriage with Misa and produce the next God of the new world himself!
• One factor (often overlooked in this troper's opinion) is that even if Light's plan was doomed to failure, Light needed to believe in it at all costs for his own sanity. During the Yotsuba arc, Light notes that even though Kira's ideals are similar to his own, that he doesn't believe he would become a murderer to achieve them. And that's exactly the problem — Light accidentally became a murderer and could not rationalize the deaths. Certainly not the death of the biker, whose crime was merely harassing a girl (and Light points this fact out himself in the manga). Light's very black and white worldview means that he basically forces himself to believe that he is God and Kira is Justice, otherwise, he is (by his own estimation) the lowest scum on the Earth. And Light can't live like that, having grown up as the "perfect" son.

Did Near set up the final confrontation with no knowledge that Mikami's notebook was a fake?

• Did Near set up the final confrontation with no knowledge that Mikami's notebook was a fake? When I watched episode 35 I thought that they tested his fake gym notebook by replacing it with their own fake and noting that the deaths continued, thus there must be a real one hidden somewhere. But judging from the finale, they only noted how many pages he wrote per day and used that to replace the page(s) they figured he'd be writing on for the meeting date. Why leave it to that much chance? If they could create a replica of the real book after finding out about it purely by Mikami's mistake, why didn't they do the same for the fake one before that?
  • Whether or not Near knew when he arranged the meeting is left ambiguous. He himself claims that he didn't, but Matsuda theorizes that perhaps he suspected it and that he intentionally had Lidner leak information to Mello so that Mello would kidnap Takada, thus causing Mikami to slip up and reveal the location of the other notebook. Also, it's harder to duplicate the entire book. If they tried that and messed it up, it would have ruined their plan. Of course, since they just replaced some of the pages, had the notebook been real, Mikami could have just written on other pages, so it was a gamble either way.

Who was the informant that contacted the Task Force about Naomi Misora's disappearance?

• Who was the informant that contacted the Task Force and told L about Naomi Misora's disappearance? The only people I can think of that would notice she was gone would be her parents, but how would they reach the conclusion "Our daughter is missing! It must be Kira!"?
  • The manga said it was her parents.
  • I'm not sure about this, but wasn't it public knowledge that Kira killed the FBI agents, including Raye, Naomi's finacee? If so, maybe Naomi's parents realized that Naomi must have gone after Kira and put two and two together.
  • Naomi's mother called, and she never thought it was Kira. She simply told L of the disappearance, and that caused L to infer that Kira killed her.

How did Mello kidnap the same guy Near's agents were planning to see?

• At the beginning of the Near/Mello arc, how did Mello just happen to kidnap the very director that Near's SPK was planning to see? Isn't that quite a coincidence?
  • I have no knowledge of how Japanese Police are organised, so I could be wrong, but I figured the Director was basically the top police officer for the Kanto region, so it would make sense to talk to him about it.
  • But the timing doesn't seem to make much sense, though. Mello going after the director? Sure. Mello going after the director at the same time that Near wants to see him? Either that's a coincidence, or Mello somehow knows about the movements of Near and the SPK, and I don't remember the latter being established.
    • Ratt of the SPK was a spy for Mello.

Where does Mello get a hidden underground missile?

• From where does Mello get a hidden underground missile?
  • The Mafia are very well connected.
  • Black market purchase. It probably originally came from some corrupt military officials in some third/second world country selling some stuff on the side for extra cash.
    • In reality it would take so much in the way of training, resources and specialized equipment that it would be A. next to impossible and B. far easier to just find another method. However, in fiction we just have to accept this sort of thing or suddenly every show involving terrorists with missiles would fall apart.
  • If we accept that Mello is the third smartest person in Death Note, is it that hard to believe that he managed to aquire a missle? He already has the Mafia obeying his every call, and it's not like the real life Mafia hasn't obtained illegal weapons before. As far as operating it goes, it essentially relies on computers; all he needs to do is assemble it correctly and program it to aim in the right direction.

Why can't Kida be Kira?

• In the manga, Namikawa says that they know Kida's not Kira because he was made to hire "Coil" and take care of the monetary issues. How is that evidence against Kida being Kira?
  • as mentioned earlier in the series,kira is boosting the wealth of yotsuba...why would kira waste so much money with such ease on a detective that might not work out if he cares about money so much.

The Watch

• The watch. Just... the watch. When an how does Light install the secret compartment in it? No, he didn't buy it, he modified the watch his father gave him for graudation. Oh, yes, Light is brilliant, but he's not a Gadgeteer Genius (the fire trap in the desk was a very clever trick, but after all it's just an electrical circuit... now we are talking about an itsy-bitsy mechanism, hidden in a wristwatch, which is triggered when you pull the time-adjusting knob four times within one second)
  • Are you SURE he modified it? I thought it was just a feature of that watch model.
    • Then... did his father know about the secret compartment? And don't forget the whole "fiddling with the knob" thread above: if it was a feature of that watch model, Light could have accidentally read the instruction manual and begin the "Hey, what's this note in my watch?" loop ;)
    • His dad possibly knew, but it didn't matter. L wasn't able to pry a word from Rem's lips about detached pieces of the notebook working, the notebook was never tested after L's death, and Light had already been cleared under the fake 13 day rule, so it wouldn't have made any difference. As for the instruction manual, I think the genius Kira would have known enough to throw it into the garbage before beggining the memory gambit. Besides, why would he oppen it if he didn't have anything to put there? That kind of fiddling with nearby stuff between one's fingers is more of L's shtick. Light is very calm, refined, and deliberate in his motions, stance and behavior.

Rem wants Misa to have a happy life so why give Misa an Artifact of Doom?

• Let us take this following statement as truth: "Rem wants Misa to live a long and happy life". Let's look at two rules of the Death Note. "A person can shorten his or her own life by using the note" and "The human who becomes the owner of the Death Note can, in exchange of half his/her remaining life, get the eyes of the God of Death". And according to Ryuk, the Death Note condemns the user to a life of misfortune. So, if Rem wanted Misa to be happy, she should have never given her the very thing that would send her down a path of near-self-destruction and suicide. Guardianship fail, Rem.
  • Why? Giving her the death note lets her have more options on how to lead her life. She can shorten her lifespan, yes, but isn't likely to do so unless she thinks it will make her happy, so it is just trading happiness for longevity (or, as Higuchi said, choosing the short and dense life). What she wanted most was the meet Kira, and it was the death note and eyes that made it possible for her to do so. As for what Ryuk said, that sounds more like a superstition at worst, or a piece of folk wisdom at best, neither of which is necessarily true.
  • In addition to the options it provides her, making Misa a Death Note owner shields her from being killed prematurely by most or possibly all shinigami apart from Rem. Rule XXXIV stipulates that "Only a god of death that has passed on their Death Note to a human is able to kill the owner of the Death Note." Depending on how you interpret it, this might mean that a Death Note owner can only be killed by the shinigami currently possessing them; that a Death Note owner can only be killed by a shinigami currently possessing some Death Note owner; or that a Death Note owner can only be killed by a shinigami who has ever possessed a Death Note owner.^{Side note}It's worth noting that if it's the first one, then Rem could not have made good on her threat to kill Light if he killed Misa; and if it's the first or second one, then she also could not have made good on her threat to kill Light if he didn't free Misa. It's possible that the author didn't think of this, but one can easily imagine that Rem was bluffing, relying on Ryuk's lack of knowledge of the rules. If you go by the narrowest interpretation, Rem has ensured that no other shinigami can kill Misa. But even if you go by the broadest possible interpretation, Rem has still massively shrunk the pool of shinigami who can snuff Misa out early. Rem is shown to hold Misa's longevity as one of her highest priorities, and she seems to be quite knowledgeable about the rules, so it's not out of the question that she gave Misa the Death Note specifically to lower her chances of being killed by a shinigami.

The final Takada plot

• I still don't understand the final Takada plot at all.
  • Why did Light and Mikami both decide to kill her? Couldn't she just burn her scraps of the note, or eat them? After all, if she ate the note, then people would just figure Kira killed Mello.
    • They didn't trust Takada's capabilities enough; using the Death Note control was the only way to be sure all the evidence would be destroyed. Light and Mikami considered her a liability anyway: they had already been planning to kill her once Kira's opposition had been crushed.
  • For that matter, was Mello's plan seriously that (1) Takada would kill him, (2) the Kiras would kill her to prevent her from being caught, and (3) in the process, X-Kira would give away the location of the real note to Near? If so, all Takada had to do was write "without contacting anyone other than Takada, Mihael Keehl (sp?) gives Takada her clothes back, drives her to a train station, gives her the fare, apologizes, releases her unharmed, drives at least 100 km away while doing his best to evade capture, hides his car and body to the best of his ability, then dies of a heart attack at time x, date y", and he would have been screwed.
    • Replace "Takada" with "the prisoner he's guarding" (as it's difficult to write your own name without some level of self-awareness unless you're signing it, and the person whose name is written in this note will die) and she may have had a chance. However, one would assume that Mello wouldn't give her time to write a novel while she's under that blanket. Although, he probably doesn't have much experience with undoing a brassiere, so she could use that as an excuse...
    • Mello plan probably wasn't very specific. Mello was supposed to be very impulsive, and at the moment his aggression and desperation had clouded his rational mind even more than usual. Mello thought that at this rate Kira was going to win, and he felt that he should do something, anything, to shake things up and possibly change the situation.
  • Finally, if Mikimi had hidden a back-up sheet of paper and used that instead of the note, Mello's plan would have failed.
  • a) Takada had a snippet with her b)they'd be suspicious of Mello's corpse.

How did Light and Mikami happen to write the same extraordinary cause of death?

• How did Light and Mikami happen to write the same extraordinary cause of death?
  • I can't read Japanese, so I'm not sure if it was the same cause of death - Light's was definitely the one that actually took effect - but I'd wager it was, because their primary goal in killing Takada was to destroy the evidence.

Why didn't Light use a conventional method to free Misa from L?

• Why didn't Light just use a conventional method to free Misa from L? L isn't official police, he's a private investigator, and as such had no right to hold Misa the way he did, and would thusly be considered a kidnapper if he did. Even if he did have police powers, the way he held her was completely illegal; as she was restrained in a device that didn't let her move, she wasn't offered a lawyer at all, L had no solid evidence to even come close to justifying such methods, etc. All Light had to was get the real police to confront L on kidnapping charges.
  • The only 5 policemen in the force with the integrity to risk their lives working on the case had already seen and accepted Misa's imprisonment. What makes yout think the remaining men, of lower convictions, would have dared to go against L in order to help a suspect he is sure is Kira (or a Kira, once it was established there was more than one).

Why did Light think Ryuk would be on his side at the end?

• What made Light think that Ryuk would have killed the investigators instead of himself? Did he forget what happened with Rem and how she died as a result of saving the life of a human? Did he think Ryuk would put Light's life above his own?
  • On the one hand, Light's life probably wasn't in danger from Near and the gang: they were just going to arrest him, and while Ryuk would've been helping Light by killing them, he might not have been prolonging his lifespan by doing so (you never know - maybe Light continuing as Kira would've somehow gotten him killed sooner than the arrest and trial). But also, Light was desperate at that point, in the middle of the mother of all Villainous Breakdowns and really not thinking clearly anymore. Even Ryuk was amused that Light was actually expecting him to step in and help.
  • This was after he asked Misa to do it, when he knew full well she wasn't there. At that point, he was beyond reason.
    • And Takada, who was dead. Yeah, by this point Light had clearly said bye-bye to reality.
    • And Mikami, who was restrained and handcuffed right in front of him. Really, asking Ryuk for help was the sanest thought Light had at this point, since Ryuk was at least technically capable of doing it - ignoring the fact that he never actually would is small potatoes at this point. You can actually see how Light thinks he's had some great epiphany here: after three increasingly desperate pleas to people who are in no position to help, his face actually lights up out of sheer cleverness as he goes, "Hey Ryuk, my bestest friend, surely you can lend me a hand here".
  • I don't think it's necessarily the case that Ryuk would have died by saving Light from the investigators. Firstly, a Shinigami is only in danger if they "love" the person they're saving. The rules (as translated into English) are a bit more ambiguous and say "favor", so it's not totally clear how much a Shinigami has to care about a human before saving them becomes dangerous. Having said that, while Ryuk may have liked Light and enjoyed his company, I think it's safe to say that he never truly cared about him, but only saw him as a source of entertainment. If he had decided to help Light escape, I think it would have been because he expected to get some entertainment out of it, not because he cared about him or even liked him. Secondly, and on a related note, he wouldn't be doing it to extend Light's life as an end in itself, so he'd probably be safe for that reason as well. Lastly, if Ryuk thought he was in danger of dying by saving Light, I think he would have mentioned that, and he didn't.

L's reaction to Shinigami

• If L pondered if Kira was god early on, why was he shocked enough to fall out of his chair at the mention of Shinigami in Misa's journal?
  • He didn't seriously consider the notion, and seems to think (viz. a monologue late in the Yotsuba arc) that shinigami have way more control over fate than they actually do. Also, Takeshi Obata really wanted to draw a scene where L falls on his butt.
  • Mello tells us in Another Note that B had the shinigami eyes, either through working it out after finding out about the eyes or because B said so. This means it is quite likely that L had heard about it, but dismissed it as more of B's insanity. Upon coming across more refrences to shingiami eyes and their existence he is forced to realise there true. At least that was my interpretation.

L letting the suspect handle the murder weapon.

• It really bugs me that the only reason Light's Memory Gambit worked is because L, the last character who should ever do so, decided to give the Idiot Ball a whirl. The entire thing would have collapsed on him if L had done the most in-character and sensible thing he could after Light grabbed the Death Note: take it back from him. Light is the primary suspect in the Kira Investigation and L strongly suspects that he gave up the killing power and memories with the probable intent to recover them. He should not be allowed to touch the murder Macguffin. It was a stupid mistake that cost L his life.
  • L didn't know anything about the intricacies of Death Note ownership, or about the watch. What did he think Light was going to do, write in the book right in front of him?
    • That's exactly the point. He doesn't know anything about the Death Note, but if Light is Kira, then Light does. Light knows more than he does on the subject at this juncture, which makes letting him handle it, for any reason, dangerous. You don't have to know how a gun works to know that it kills people, and that even if it looks unloaded to you at the moment, someone else might still be able to shoot you with it.
    • "Are you◊ alright, Light-kun?◊"
  • Light's working with him on the investigation, and it'll be massively inconvenient to have him not even touch the notebook once, when everyone around him is casually doing so. He also has no reason to believe touching the notebook can return the memories and he knows Light wouldn't use the notebook in front of everyone.
    • As pointed out above, he doesn't need to fear a return of Light's memories (which as far as he knows might not actually be gone to begin with) in order to have the basic level of caution that would tell him not to let Light touch the very thing that L has every reason to believe he has previously used to kill thousands of people. Having said that, Light grabbed it from him when his mind was racing, before he could react. Yes, L could have grabbed it back, but at that point he had no reason to think that would make him safer. One could say that he should've taken it back just out of principle, but we know L doesn't put much stock in doing things purely out of principle, and furthermore he's quite fond of taking risks if there's any chance he can learn something from them. He's also always approached the Kira investigation from the angle of trying to goad Kira into revealing himself, and letting Light hold the Death Note would play into that.
  • Personally, I also think, part of L wanted to entertain the idea that Kira might have been a malicious force, possessing people and making them "Kira" motivated. Had we not been privy to the events from Light's POV, I'd have said it's not a bad alternate theory to the memory loss. L thought that it's a big waste for Light to be Kira, that would've made him innocent. I think, such thinking could've influenced L subconsciously, even if he had never truly believed it to be the truth, he had wanted to, at least a part of him had. And he let Light to be a bit closer than he should have...

Copying the notebook in one day

• There was one piece of the story that just shattered my suspension of disbelief: How did Near manage to make a perfect duplicate of the real Death Note in a single day? The sheer volume of handwriting required should realistically take at least a few days to copy in and of itself, to say nothing of the wear and tear on the book that needs to be replicated.
  • I do not recall it being made in a single day. Maybe he's that good.
  • It wasn't Near, it was Gevanni.
    • And it's even pointed out how impressive a feat it was. They also bring up the possiblity that Near wrote Mikami's name in the Death note and controlled his actions so he wouldn't check the Death Note's power, and thus never notice that the handwriting is different.
  • In the manga it is explained that it was made on a single night by Gevanni, and it is pointed how impressive it was, even taking into account that he already had the necessary materials and skills from having altered the fake note (It is also explained that he used the same type of pen and copied his handwriting exactly so as to make it virtually indistiguishable from the real one) even with all that is pretty incredible that someone could manage sucha feat. In conclussion, just as with Near having singled out Mikami from the videos there are some small justifications, but in the end you are jus expected to believe that SPK is that good

Light and the Task Force

• Why didn't Light kill off the whole Task Force after L died? If he didn't do that, Near would've never been able to connect Kira to the Task Force because no one out side of it didn't know Light was apart of it.
  • This is addressed in Volume 13 - he believed they no longer posed a threat, and regarded them as pretty decent guys.
  • Furthermore, for all his sociopathy, Light has always being reticent in killing his own family. That was partially what allowed Mello to take the Death Note, after all. Evey time he even consider killing his father, he feels bad and start thinking in other solution. Even when Soichiro did the change for the eye he hesitated before allowing (he wanted Matsuda to do that instead).

Why did L ask the FBI to investigate in Japan?

• Why did L ask the FBI to send agents to Japan? Wouldn't the CIA be a better choice?
  • Kira's essentially a serial killer. It's the FBI that deals with serial killers.
  • L's asking the FBI to investigate is a simple mistake on the writer's part.
  • CIA Evil, FBI Good? Maybe L was protecting Light from being assassinated reasoning that if he sent in the CIA they'd assassinate anyone who they THOUGHT was Kira and/or try to steal Kira's power for themselves.
  • Maybe the FBI owed L some favours that he was calling in.
    • Most of the above answers are incomplete or incorrect. Firstly, the CIA is purely an intelligence agency, and would have nothing to gain from being involved (plus, they do not investigate crimes). The FBI on the other hand is first and foremost a law enforcement agency which specializes in investigations (even though it does work with intelligence, it's a subset of its greater law enforcement purpose). Additionally, the fact that CIA officers are present in any country outside of the US, while obviously true, is not officially acknowledged by virtue of international espionage rules, so L would be risking too much controversy by putting CIA officers at risk. The FBI also has extraterritorial jurisdiction in Asia through the Los Angeles field office, and also has several representatives including Special Agents at the Legal Attache office in Tokyo. The FBI as a law enforcement agency regularly offers its assistance to international law enforcement partners, so asking the FBI to help would be a perfectly reasonable step to take, though in real life it should happen through official channels. Of the above suggestions, only the idea that L was owed a favor by the FBI makes sense; he probably helped them out greatly before. Nonetheless, it wouldn't have to be a main reason for the FBI to investigate. After all, Naomi worked under L as an FBI agent in America.
    • Kira was killing a lot of American prisoners. This was stated in the manga.

Rem seeing Misa's lifespan

• According to the rules of the Death Note (as I recall), it states that Shinigami can only see the original lifespan of a person, not their current one if it was changed. Yet, when Light considers threatening Misa with death, Rem says that the moment Light writes Misa's name in, she will see that her lifespan had change so she would immediately write Light's name in. Am I mistaken, or was Rem bluffing?
  • She was referring to Misa dying, not her lifespan changing She would kill light if Misa died.
  • But Rem sees (and reacts) when Misa's lifespan was halved again...?
  • "The use of the Death Note in the human world sometimes affects other human's lives or shortens their original life-span, even though their names are not actually written in the Death Note itself. In these cases, no matter the cause, the god of death sees only the original life-span and not the shortened life-span." So Shinigami can see when lifespans have been halved, they just can't see indirect changes caused due to the butterfly effect from the use of the Death Note.

In the Mello-arc the Taskforce should have known that Kira wouldn't have a notebook.

• Sorry to ruin the Tear Jerker that is Soichiro's death, but there's something that bugs me about it. Soichiro (with the eyes) mentions that he can see his son's lifespan, meaning that he doesn't own a deathnote (which he didn't at the time), in Soichiro's mind, this confirms that Light can't be Kira, because surely Kira would have a Death Note in his posession......It bugs me because in this case, Kira WOULDN'T have a Death Note, he handed it over to the Japanese police force? I can understan Soichiro not piecing it together because it was his last and only chance to die happy, but surely the others could've pieced it together, I mean come on, their detectives, even i noticed this
  • I'm not sure how well they understood the rules of ownership, but if they did, they probably thought Kira merely lent them the Death Note while retaining ownership. Does that hold water?
  • He knew Kira had a spare Death Note, since the punishments didn't stopped after they got the Note.

L Confines Misa with flimsy Evidence

• How did L find evidence to put Misa in custody? He examines some hair that they found on the tapes, but how would he know that he needs to look in her room of all the other homes in the town to match the hair. And she gets arrested as soon as they meet.
  • L suspected that Light was Kira and would want to get in contact with the Second Kira, so he had the other task force members follow Light around and see if there was anyone new in his life, and they found Misa. L probably already knew the results of the forensic tests before he met Misa; I think he just went there so that he could see if Light would try calling Misa to have L killed.

Why did Near use real money when he's dealing with morons?

• Why didn't Near use counterfeit money instead of real money when he's dealing with a stupid mob that probably couldn't tell the difference upon immediate inspection and his organization is labelled as terrorists anyway?
  • I immediately assumed that he did indeed use counterfeit money when I saw this. According to someone elsewhere in this wiki, it was real money, but I can't find any source information to support it. Anyone?
  • In How To Read it says that it's the inheritance from L. As to why he didn't use counterfeit money...why would he have counterfeit money lying around?
    • For the same reason he had real money lying around prepared to be dropped like that. He had anticipated this kind of trouble. Light realizes this.

Why is Kira considered bad?

• Why was Kira even considered bad? He was murdering criminals, but its okay when L used a criminal on death's row to pretend to be him?
  • Don't put your question on the top. L used a criminal on death row that was sentenced to die that day. On the other hand, Kira murdered over a hundred criminals at that point, many who were on the run, on trial, and sentenced for life. L only commited one case of unusual punishment, while Kira was commiting serial vigilanism of the worst kind through supernatural means. Kind of put things in perpective.
    • It also helps that it's implied that the criminal agreed to it, seeing as how if he DIDN'T he would be executed that day anyway, and if he DID and SURVIVED, he would be pardoned.
    • Um...fourteen former FBI agents beg to differ with the questioner. Plus, he's killing purse snatchers. Even backwards dictatorships don't kill people who take your purse.
    • Recall that the purse snatcher thing was because he was under surveillance and hence was not capable of fully getting the picture about what their crime was.
  • Kira is considered bad in terms of that justice and the punishment of crimes should not be in the sole hands of a single person. While on one hand, his actions are helpful in that it does lower premeditated crimes and, at the very least, Light held himself to some standards in that he would not write the names of people down who had committed a crime out of self-defense or showed proper remorse for what they had done, can be considered good... the downside is that, as is depicted in the series, the world becomes fanatical about him, going into an almost dictatorship-like world where they simply love Kira, though they don't even know what he is: is he a human who can kill people, is it a deity descended from above or just the conception of Justice that is finally pulling their hard weight around and making things "better" for humans? If Kira is left to his devices and allowed to go along, it would eventually end up worse because all trust in the Government and National Police would be lost because, well, what does the population care about them, they aren't doing anything. Kira is doing everything, much faster and much clearner. So on a human-based idea of moral and a view on that, Kira can be considered good but it might lead to the destabilization of civilization.

Does Misa like L?

• Does Misa even like L or not? She seemed pretty fond of him when they first met, and then came to hate him after she was suspected of being the Second Kira. Afterwards, with no memory of the Death Note and now working with him, she really seemed to like him, despite finding each other annoying at times. All in all, she treated him like a normal friend. So...after Light sent her to the woods, dig up the Death Note, making her regain her memories, and a note explaining how they'll both end L and begin a New World, why was she now so desperate?? Light said in the note, "Do you remember my friend at the Universaty?" making me think that he was telling her to kill some random dude she met once. Or was she like, "Okay, I'll kill him just because Light - my one true love - told me to!" Either way, she clearly showed no hesitation in wanting to kill someone she once considered a "friend", which is what made me hate her from then on (including not even thinking nor talking about Rem).
  • Misa, is for lack of a better term: OUT OF HER FUCKING MIND!! Wanting to be around Light is testement enough to that. My best answer is that she likes L, but LOVES Light a crap ton more (remember when they first met, she offered to kill all the friends who helped her out?

How is it possible that Beyond Birthday was born with the Shinigami eyes?

• How is possible that Beyond Birthday was born with the eyes?
  • Well you see, when a human and a Shinigami love each other very much...
    • Is that even possible?
    • No.
    • The fact there is a rule forbidding it is a good reason to believe it is possible in spite of the rule that says it isn't. Even if we assume the rules are true whatever mechanism distinguishes between normal physical contact with a human and sexual contact with a human would certainly have to be artificial in nature and thus Beyond could have been conceived before the rule was made.
    • Which was a point someone made on the WMG page when this very theory was suggested: the rule exists for some reason, and if it was impossible for humans and shinigami to breed together, then why have the rule in the first place?
    • Look again. It says "it is not permitted, nor is it possible." It can't happen period.
    • And now we've argued all the way around in a circle:
  • Argument 1: It's not possible the rules say so.
  • Argument 2: It might be possible BECAUSE there is a rule forbidding it. Because if it wasn't possible WHY bother having a rule forbidding it?
  • Argument 3: it's not possible the rules say so.
    • As they say in Anthropology class if you want to know a civilization's problems look at the rules they had on the books. The things that are forbidden are the issues a society has probelms with. So you can either take the rule at face value and assume it's impossible or you might assume that the Shinigami have had this problem in the past and that that is why there is a rule against it. Though it might have been something as simple as many Shinigami falling in love with humans and dying for them left and right without them ever consummating it.
    • The rules of the Death Note don't forbid Shinigami having sex, it says it isn't possible. The rules of the Death Note aren't really laws that need to be obeyed, but an explanation of how the Death Note works and various other things. If for example, you were reading a manual for a videogame, and it said that you can't save during boss fights; that doesn't mean you can save during boss fights but the developers just don't want you to, it means "you can't save during boss fights" because it's not possible.
    • But it doesn't just say it's not possible. It says "it's not permitted, nor is it possible". But if it's truly not possible, it's kind of nonsensical to say it's not permitted. That's like saying that humans aren't permitted to sprout wings and fly. You don't need a rule saying that if humans are already incapable of doing it. I'm not saying it's definitely true that Shinigami can have sex with each other, just that the argument for that viewpoint has at least some merit. Having said that, my interpretation has always been, "Even if they could have sex with each other, they're not allowed to."
    • I think the argument above has a point. Trying to include both points, so I have a theory. What if there was a precedent where a human and a shinigami tried THAT and the results were horrible for both? a) both were maimed or worse b) it actually turned out really impossible in the end c) it offended the Shinigami King (we know he can create a rule on a whim from the 2020 special chapter)

Why does Kira alwyas target Sakura TV?

• Why does Kira alwyas target Sakura TV?
  • Because Demegawa the Jerkass Attention Whore is sure to air anything Kira sends him for the free publicity.

Why can't Misa remember an odd name like L Lawliet?

• When Misa gets her memories of the Death Note back, she says she doesn't remember L's real name because she only saw it once, months ago, and since she didn't know he was L at the time she had no reason to remember his name out of the hundreds of others she was seeing. Initially this makes perfect sense. But then you read the databook and find out that L's real name is L Lawliet. Just seeing a guy with the first name L should have at least gotten her attention. When that guy is hanging around with Light (and Misa did know that Light was in contact with L somehow, otherwise the "have Rem kill L" plan couldn't work) and going by an assumed name, it should probably have ocurred to Misa that this guy might be L. Her getting arrested by L immediately after meeting him should have turned that suspicion into almost a dead certainty. Some ditzy moments aside, Misa isn't actually dumb, just not a super genius like Light or L; she can still put some obvious clues together.
  • Maybe that says about the strange names people give their children, and Misa had seen far more far-fetched names, like BLT Gilly Birthday.
    • That doesn't change the fact that his name gives away that he's L and that there's no way somebody dead set on killing L would forget that. Ohba probably just couldn't think of a name until How to Read.
    • Wow, Misa is even more of a ditz than we thought!
    • In her defense: she's presumably seeing the name in English letters with characters underneath that; if she's not fluent in English that's harder to remember. It would be like me seeing a name in Japanese for a few seconds and then being asked to write it down; I'd likely get it wrong, because I don't recognize what any of it means— each character just looks like weird lines to me. If I were in that situation, my thought line would probably be His name isn't Ryuzaki. His real name isn't a Japanese one. Light is standing in front of me now.
    • A trendy 20-year-old Japanese woman is not going to be unfamiliar with Latin characters. Japanese people learn the Latin alphabet in elementary school, and Latin characters are used in various contexts in Japan. Someone as socially and professionally active as Misa is scarcely going to get through a single day of her life without being exposed to Latin characters and English words.
  • Actually I think it's pretty simple - she forgot L's name because she'd only meet the guy with the weird name and the alias 50 days later, after her confinement ended. Only then she learned that guy was L, and by then, even disregarding giving up the Death Note, she forgot his name; until then, it was nothing worth remembering.
    • That was already addressed above; given the situation, she had every reason to conclude that this "Hideki Ryuga" she just got introduced to actually was L, and it's kind of baffling that she didn't.
  • She could've forgotten how exactly his surname was written. Given she really saw it for a few seconds, if I was her, I know I would've a) been distracted by the weird first name, and b) forgotten how to spell the surname in a few days. Now then, imagine what would've happened if she told him "yeah, I don't remember the surname, but his first name was L"? Light would've been furious with her and would've never believed she wasn't messing with him. And since she's afraid he would dump her and never talk to her again if she wasn't useful, she comes up with excuses: it was a long time ago, and she only saw it once, and she didn't even know it was L, and all that stuff. Then Light is mad at her, but it's not unsolvable.

Wouldn't being the sole survivor of the Kira investigation be really suspicious?

• Wouldn't being the sole survivor of the Kira investigation be really suspicious?
  • If Light somehow won his standoff with Near he be the only survivor of the Kira investigation, wouldn’t that be ridiculously conspicuous? By the end of Death Note the Japanese government doesn’t sanction yet is (peripherally) aware of the former task force. Both American and Japanese authorities are explicitly aware of Light Yagami’s involvement in the Kira investigation. Does Light actually have a plan to deal with this?
  • It's Light, he probably would have thought of an after plan. I don't think anyone beyond the taskforces had any idea about the Death Note, so while it would be very suspicious that only Light survives a mass heart attack spree they would still have no evidence that he was Kira seeing as they don't know what to look for. (Besides, he could simply say that Kira wouldn't know his name since he went by the alias of the second L after the time jump.)
    • Remember that the Special Provision for Kira knew about the Death Note’s existence from unknown sources in the Japanese police. Japan’s National Police Agency is somewhat aware of the Death Note (although not specific details beyond killing notebook) after Higuchi’s death (confirmed by the police official kidnapped by Mello and the Mafia). So, yeah. . . both American and Japanese authorities know about the Death Note.
  • Nobody even knew Light was working with the Task Force anyways, both before and after the time skip. At best, he would be suspected since his father was apart of it.
    • After the time skip Light is a member of Japanese Police Force's Intelligence Department working for his father who is known to be heading the Kira investigation. Moreover the NPA knows that Soichiro Yagami was supposed to be protecting Higuchi’s Death Note. So, yeah. . . the Japanese Police kind of knows about Light's involvement.
    • Also by that time in the series Light has gotten crazier and is not really thinking about the consequences. Normal police? No match for the GOD of the New World!
    • The fic New World Without End has a solid plan for how to deal with the aftermath: 1) Add an extra corpse to the pile at the warehouse. 2) Use the notebook to give Near a lingering death and control how the bodies will be destroyed at the time of death so that they can't be identified by dental records. 3) Add copious amounts of gasoline and torch the warehouse. 4) Release the name "Light Yagami" among the dead police officers and go into hiding. 5) Live out the rest of your life in peace.

Why would America's President allow a teenager to command a secret intelligence agency?

• Why would America's President allow a teenager to command a secret intelligence agency?
  • Isn't Near a little young to be commanding the Special Provision for Kira? Isn't President David Hoope putting something like America’s response to Kira in the hands of a teenager a little off?
  • He's eighteen, so he barely counts as a teenager, and even then he's a damn smart one at that. Considering his first meeting with the President was to show off all the evidence he had previously gathered regarding Kira the President probably didn't see his age as too much of a problem.
• Near was eighteen after the time skip, meaning America’s president formed an entire agency around a fifteen year old!
  • Keep in mind this is still a Shōnen series and follows it's conventions for the most part. It may look like it wants to be realistic, but it's ultimately a story about superpowered underaged boys in a Battle of Wits.
  • The Special Provision for Kira wasn't formed until four years after L's death; Near was 18. It probably also helps that Near had the Director of the FBI with him, who told the President that Near was the rightful successor to L (who also has the ability to gather law enforcement under his command). The case full of evidence Near brought with him definitely didn't hurt, though. And it's not like it was just Near doing everything in the SPK; they have FBI, CIA and former Secret Service members in it.

When criminals are dropping dead why does everyone immediately think supernatural serial killer?

• When criminals are dropping dead why does everyone immediately think "supernatural serial killer" when they should have first considered that the Kira-phenomenon might be caused by one of the following factors:
  • An unknown pathogen.
    • Too targeted. A pathogen would affect other people besides just criminals.
  • Drug use.
    • A simple autopsy would discredit this pretty quickly.
  • The prisons are serving inmates too much fried foods.
    • It would become obvious very quickly that these are not normal heart attacks caused by unhealthy eating. When criminals who have no history of heart disease start dropping like flies when they have no medical reasons (high cholesterol, high blood pressure) to explain why, people will get suspicious. While with normal heart attacks people will exhibit signs like chest pain for hours or even days beforehand, when criminals die within seconds of the first sign they are having a heart attack people will get very suspicious.
  • Criminals live very stressful lives.
    • True, but why the sudden spike of heart attacks all of a sudden? We don't see criminals dropping dead by the hundreds of stress-related heart attacks today.
  • Chuck Norris
    • Consider the fact that criminals from all over the world are dropping dead. It is unlikely the first one would have a sense of morality, every criminal couldn't have been using the same drug, not just prisoners were dying, the fort factor would've been in play a long time ago, and Chuck Norris's powers wouldn't work according to Death Note's Magic A Is Magic A.
• This is addressed in the film, but diseases often affect populations according to standard curves. The way criminals were dying was far too targeted for it to be natural and when the data was plotted, it produced sharp, distinct spikes of mortality. It couldn't be some sort of toxin in their food or drink considering it was happening all over the world. The only logical conclusion would eventually be that it was by an organization/individual of some sort. However, with so little evidence, I imagine the probability of an organization would have gradually lowered given how difficult it is to keep such a thing secret with so many people involved.
• Addressed in both the series and the movie, to varying extents. In the series we see people arguing back and forth at the ICPO on whether or not these sudden heart attacks could be a freak coincidence, or some disease. In the movie, the possibility of a disease is raised repeatedly, but the fact that criminals and only criminals are dying of it looks too suspicious. In both cases, once L pulls off the Lind L Tailor broadcast, the "supernatural serial killer" theory was effectively proven.

Why didn't Light warn Takada about Halle?

• So Light apparently debriefs Takada on Mello's appearance and real name. Seems like a reasonable thing he'd do for anyone he's issuing the death-paper to. But why, then, would he not also inform her that her bodyguard is in Near's employ? I mean, the Mello thing is a this-could-come-in-handy, but Halle is a something-is-clearly-brewing-here, and should have taken a higher priority.
  • In the manga, he does tell her that there's a chance the SPK will try to get someone on her team of bodyguards, and everyone immediately realizes which one of the new bodyguards is a member of SPK. But at that point, Near was already pretty sure that Light was Kira, and Light knew that Near knew he was Kira, so there was really no reason to do anything about Lidner. It would be way too suspicious to kill or even fire her, given that SPK and the task force were supposedly working on the same side, and that Light had so much influence over Takada.

Does Light like L?

• Does Light like or respect L at all? I mean sometimes he talks like L is a pathetic worm beneath his feet, other times he looks back on him almost fondly, like with Near. Has there ever been Word of God on this? Or is there something I'm missing?
  • Personally, I think Light gains a greater appreciation for L after he’s dead.
  • I think there's a clue in the Yotsuba arc. When his memories are wiped Light is very happy to be working with L, seems to admire him, and easily forgives him for his incarceraton and having his father put on a mock execution. It's likely that Light the Amateur Sleuth liked and admired L the World's Greatest Detective before he became Kira but after Light becomes Kira he sees L opposing him as a betrayal and of "standing in the way of true justice."
  • Remember when Rem tells Misa when she wipes her memories that even though she won't remember being a Kira "those feelings will remain." Even when Light is Kira and hates L for getting in the way of his New World he also admires him and enjoys playing against him-he's having fun pretending to be L's friend. So when Light wipes his memories he no longer has a reason to hate L and only knows that he admires L and enjoys having him as a friend.
  • Inversely, L is a pathological liar according to Volume 13, and when he says Light is his first friend, he is almost certainly lying to throw Light off guard. Additionally, L's "ten percent" suspicion about Light's identity was probably closer to 90%, if not absolute certainty. Everything he told Light in confidence was most likely complete BS.
  • There's also the implication that they are both so very smart that they've never had a challenge, never had someone to play against on an equal level before. So it's like when you have two like-minded assholes who latch onto each other to the exclusion of all others in a toxic relationship that only ends when one of them is dead...

Mello's Stupid Sacrifice

• During the Takada kidnapping, instead of sacrificing his life to prove that Mikami had a notebook, Mello could have just found some random criminal and forced Takada to write his/her name down. Then he could have forced Takada to make a phone call to Light telling him she's writing names down. Light and Mikami would believe her, and do the same things they did in the original. Then the finale would have been the same, except with Mello surviving. The question is, why din't anyone think about that?
  • But did Mello ever figure out that it was Light? According to the manga Mello thought Matsuda was acting as the current L and he didn't get any new information from following the Misa-lead since her memories were wiped.
    • That's not the point. The point is, Mello's Heroic Sacrifice was unnecessary.
  • He probably would have done that once he was sure he had evaded the police and had Takada at a secure location, but she wrote his name on her scrap of the Death Note before he could.
    • If that's the case then why didn't Mello do a better search of Takada?
    • Maybe because Mello is human and humans make mistakes? He didn't search her thoroughly enough and he paid for that.
    • Mello's defining character trait is that he's too emotional and let's that affect his judgement, and he had just learned that Matt had died. He wasn't thinking as clearly or as paranoid as he needed to, and it cost him his life.
    • Word of God says he needed to carry the Idiot Ball in a few instances, or he would have been too effective and solved the Kira case. But if you want to rationalize it from a non-meta point of view then the above is a very good point: he's just seen the death of his Only Friend, and Mello's a very emotional person; his judgement would be clouded at best. It's even possible he wouldn't want to survive anymore, considering that if his plan succeeded, he wouldn't even have beaten Near, they'd have taken Kira down together; and seemingly the only person in his life he cared for and had a healthy relationship with is now dead. He might have felt he had nothing left to live for.

Mello handing Takada the blanket when he did.

• When Mello had Takada undressing (presumably, to make sure she had no tracking bugs, weapons, whatever) why did he hand her the blanket before she'd gotten rid of her clothing completely? As we all saw, the page of the Death Note was in her bra, which is the best place to hide something like that, especially when she'd been forwarned about how she might be in danger. Don't get me wrong, I love Mello's character. But this, to me, seemed a little bit too obvious of an oversight for someone who is, allegedly, a genius.
  • Some people hold that Mello's plan was to get himself killed in the hopes that kidnapping Takada would get Kira to make a mistake and that's why he gave Takada the blanket-to give her an opportunity to kill him.

Misa's Suicide

• At the end of the anime, as Light dies, it shows Misa on a train and then on the other side of a safety railing on top of a building while wearing the same outfit. In the manga it's stated she commits suicide on Valentine's Day the year after Light dies, but it looks like in the anime she commits suicide at nearly the same time Light dies. Did she psychically detect his death or what? There's no other reason for her to kill herself out of nowhere, and there's no indication that there's a timeskip before that scene.
  • Well, Light died on January 28th, so it would be about a two week gap. They probably did it like that for dramatic effect.
  • Time skips are not always clearly indicated. There's no reason to think that scene doesn't take place a year later. But as the above person said, even if it was the same year, it would have been a little over two weeks after Light died. That's more than enough time for someone like Misa to be so overcome with grief that she would kill herself.

Why didn't the Task Force realize they had lost all leads while the prime suspect was in charge?

• Why didn't the Task Force members realize that after L's death, they lost all leads on Kira and his influence grew out of control - all while L's prime suspect was in charge?
  • Light is very good at assigning busy work so it LOOKED like they were making progress in the investigation. There's a bit in the manga right before L's death where Light suggests that they need to go through all the data on everyone who's had a heart attack... wait no all sudden deaths since Kira first appeared and compile it in spreadsheet records. That would have kept them busy for a while.

Was Light saddened by his father's death?

• Was Light actually saddened by the death of his dad? Or was he just pretending?
  • I think he was. I also think he was more upset by the fact that he didn't kill Mello, but yeah, he definitely would have preferred to kill Matsuda if it came down to enforcing the Thirteen-Day Rule.
    • According to the author, his tears were real and the set up had to play out the way it did because, again, the author said Light would never kill his own father. Take that as you will.

Raye Penber fails as an FBI agent.

• It must be said that Raye Penber is really not a very good FBI agent. Now, we can forgive not suspecting Light, considering how good he apparently is at acting normal. We can forgive him not recognising Light's voice, as it was implied this was specified in the death note. We can even barely forgive him thinking the busjacking was just a coincidence. However, he makes numerous stupid mistakes throughout his investigation which make you wonder why he still had a job (and, before anyone says anything, being controlled by the death note isn't an excuse, since one still seems to have free will outside of fulfilling what's written, and Light probably wouldn't have specified these mistakes).
  • First off, he gives his real name to the guy he's following. I don't care if he's probably innocent, that's just not something you do. Sure, he needed to give him an ID, but he's an intelligence agent, surely he must have at least one pseudonym to use for situations like this.
  • Second, simply dismissing Naomi's analysis. Suggesting she not think about the case since she's not professional anymore? A bit of values dissonance, but okay. Ignoring the very valid point she's already made? Not so understandable. Any investigator worth their salt will tell you that you use any resource you have at your disposal during an investigation. It doesn't matter if a point of analysis comes from yourself, a colleague, a relative or a frakking fortune cookie, if it's useful, you consider it.
  • Next, did he really not see anything suspicious in Kira's "example" of his power ("I will kill that man"). Ignoring the fact that basic psychology tells us that an unnecessary and frankly obsolete display of power like that is usually more to cover up weaknesses than show strengths, there's the fact that it was fairly obvious that Kira had already decided to kill that man and only that man, and then even displayed knowledge about the man, which practically screams "I previously arranged this to make myself look powerful". I understand that he was afraid (although I'd expect an FBI agent to at least try to keep his cool), but he should have at least questioned it.
    • What's suspicious? Killing the man gives proof that he's Kira and not just some crackpot, and killing only that man and displaying prior knowledge fits Kira's MO. Kira, especially that early on, would never kill anyone he didn't have reason to suspect was guilty of committing a major crime, as Penber knew. It was a display of power, but it did serve more purpose than that.
    • In addition to the above reply, Light offered to kill anyone else Raye wanted if he needed more proof. Raye declined, which Light may have been counting on, but even if he had asked for more proof, I can only imagine Light was equipped to deliver.
  • Then there's the fact that, upon an extremely vague threat to the unspecified people close to him, he immediately gives away that he has someone close he wishes to protect. The stupidity of that one speaks for itself.
    • Who doesn't?
  • And last but by NO means least, there the fact that, in the dub I saw anyway, Light made a MASSIVE mistake during his communcation with Penber - one thaty cannot be attributed to misspeaking or error and should have painted the words "I AM BLUFFING" in hundred foot tall, blazing, green letters - which Penber spectaculaely fails to notice. At one point Light says, and I quote:
  Light: If I even suspect that you are not telling me the whole truth, your girlfriend is as good as dead
  • The only problem? Naomi isn't Penber's girlfriend, she's his fiancee and the intonation was not ironic, he genuinely meant it as his girlfriend. (For that matter, Light assuming that a female loved one automatically means a girlfriend is kinda dumb in and of itself, when it could be a wife, sister, mother, daughter, etc). This should have been a MASSIVE clue that Light didn't really know about her or their relationship, but Penber ignores it like a champ! I mean, I'd hardly expect the guy to be infallible, considering he was assigned to such an important and dangerous case, I'd hope for a bit of competence!
    • Light looked Penber up in the FBI database. Presumably he found out all he could about his family and concluded that a girlfriend was the most likely candidate, which isn't that unreasonable. We know Penber has no wife and we can reasonably assume he doesn't have a daughter, and a grown man is more likely to be close to, and protective of, a girlfriend than a sister or mother. Besides which, a fiancee is a girlfriend, and will be until they either get married or break up. If Light had been talking about a girlfriend and they were already married, it would be a different story.
    • In the Japanese dub Penber uses the word 'kanojo' when asking who Light means by loved one, kanojo just means 'she' but is often used to mean girlfriend. Light used the same word later. He was just using the same terminology Penber used to prevent suspicion. What's dumb is Penber should have noticed Light never told him anything specific.
    • "Girlfriend" and "fiancée" are not mutually exclusive. Naomi was both his fiancée and his girlfriend. Besides, viewing this from Raye's perspective, Kira doesn't need to know that Naomi is his fiancée in order to kill her; he just needs to know who she is. Kira calling her his girlfriend instead of his fiancée wouldn't mean a thing in Raye's mind.
  • As pointed out here [1] How about wearing a Conspicuous Trenchcoat every day on a high school campus!? "Raye Penber can't even stalk his victims properly!"

Why were they discussing executing Kira when they believed he would die anyway?

• Why were they discussing executing Kira once they found him, if they believed he would die after 13 days without the book, anyway? Seemed like a contrived plot device to get Rem to intervene.
  • Light brought it up, remember? "Can we really legally convict him for mass homocide?" And of course Matsuda reacted and Rem panicked.

Takada could have freed herself.

• Light probably never told Takada about the manipulative capabilities of the Death note, but it must be noted that she had all the tools available to free herself from Mello and do it with style. She should just have written: "Miheal Keehl gives his prisoner her posessions back and returns her safely to the NHN building. Then he apoligises in front of the cameras for opposing Kira and shoots himself in the head." It would have been a powerful media event showing off Kira's omnipotence as well. Too bad women aren't allowed to be this badass in Death note...
  • This is covered towards the very beginning of the series; the Death Note can not force someone to take an action he or she wouldn't ordinarly do. In this case Mello would never aborted his plans after the death of Matt, he would never apologise to Kira for anything and he would never stop being paranoid enough to give her back her possessions. In that case he would just die of a heart attack.
    • Actually, no. What was actually established was that the Death Note cannot force someone to do something that is impossible, such as come up with information they could not possibly know, or do something that is physically impossible. The Death Note can most definitely force someone to do something they wouldn't normally do, as evidenced by the many suicides throughout the series, most notably Naomi Misora.
    • Word of God in "How To Read" is that suicide is something that is inherrently tied to everyone's being so it counts as something they could do, specifically in relation to what is considered impossible. The wording of it still keeps the "the Death Note can't force someone to do something they wouldn't ordinarily do" aspect. Even discounting that, it still wouldn't have worked since the scenario requires a lot of variables to work correctly (that Mello could drive back to the building in time without being stopped or running out of fuel, that cameras are present, that he wouldn't be shot on sight by the trigger-happy Kira guards, etc. etc.) and if even one of those things failed to occur (such as Mello being caught in a roadblock that prevents him from reaching the building by the designated time) he would just suffer a heart attack. Even Magnificent Bastard Light only pulls off gambits by relying on a lot less variables at any one point, there's no way Takada could have orchestrated such an implausable turn of events. It's a moot point anyway since she was previously told my Light to kill him if she got the chance and she was expecting someone she thought was in love with her to come and save her, which is why she didn't write a simplier cause of death like "accidently frees his hostage and dies in an accident trying to recapture them."

In the Yotsuba arc how come L and Light never figured out that it was the Notebook?

• In the Yotsuba arc: How come L and Light never figured out that the method of murder was a notebook before Higuchi told them? I'm specifically reffering to the fact that Higuchi said, IN HIS CAR, the line "even if I forget about the notebook..." Considering L's biggest assumption so far was that passing on Kira's powers made you forget about being Kira, combined with the fact that he wrote down Matsuda's fake name in a notebook a few seconds later, I couldn't believe that eiter of them didn't pick up on that. Also, since L still suspected Light, then he must have believed that Light was able to kill the purse snatcher and the embezzler during the potato chip incident. If that was the case, then he SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT KIRA's KILLING TECHNIQUE WAS SUBTLE AND LOW KEY!! Not over the top and flashy (like what L was apparently expecting)
  • They never figured it out because there was nothing to tip them off that the notebook was how it was done. It was a supernatural power they had not the foggest idea as to how anything about it worked beyond the name and face requirement, that it could be triggered using a notebook is as plausable as it being triggered by him saying his name out loud or checking his watch or any of a hundred different things.

Yoshida Productions

• Another Yotsuba query: Forgive me if this one's more obvious, but who was the president of Yoshida Productions that Higuchi called? Was he one of L's employees? Because he was giving Higuchi awfully precise instructions, and knew the last name of Matsuda's second alias, if he didn't mention that name, then Higuchi wouldn't have been able to find Matsuda's file at Yoshida Productions.
  • Mogi intercepts the call at first, then transfers Higuchi to Watari (who pretends to be the president of Yoshida).

Higuchi must have known about the 13-day rule.

• Yotsuba Question the 3rd: Higuchi MUST have known about the 13 day rule (he had the only notebook with that rule in it) Why was his first reaction to Rem's offer of giving up the Death Note not: "That'd be fucking stupid, I'd fucking DIE if I stopped writing down names" instead of: "My reputation would be ruined"?
  • Maybe Rem told him? Or maybe Higuchi, idiot that he is, never read the back cover.

That girl in the manga epilogue.

• One detail from the manga: Was that girl you see in the epilogue Misa? It would make perfect sense if it was her, but something about her looked different.
  • How To Read 13 said it was NOT Misa and that she was just another Kira supporter though it being Misa is still a popular fan theory.

Slight flaw in Light's master plan.

• So how exactly was Light's master plan really supposed to stop crime and war? Even if we assumed that the impact of apparently divine executions would decrease the amount of crime in the First World that didn't account for the vast amount of murder everywhere else with little chance of the killer ever being named or photographed. Even if Light did kill warlords and national leaders tied to crime^note  which couldn't possibly account for all of them and would be more likely to spark off new wars it wouldn't take the average Somali pirate, Columbian hitman or Afghan insurgent long to notice that very few of their friends were being killed. Heck, in a worst case scenario they might come to the conclusion that 'God' is just punishing the West and encouraging everyone else!
  • Here's a hint. Light is crazy and Didn't Think This Through. Or to put it another way Step 1) Kill criminals Step 2) ???? Step 3) Become God.
  • Isn't it mentioned that a lot of Light's info on criminals doesn't come through official channels, but rather people ratting them out over the Internet?
    • Yeah, especially in the second arc where as L; Light suggests the media stop broadcasting the names and faces of criminals but he continues to judge by reading "concerned citizens" strongly worded letters.
    • ...Then how the heck is he supposed to be accurately 'judging' anyone? All he's got are the biased opinions of unknown people who would see an obvious temptation to have Kira get rid of the people they don't like. The more you think about it, the less intelligent Light seems.
    • That's the point. He's insane and certain he is right...

Light ignoring Misa's advances

• Light always ignores Misa when she's being sexy and most people think he is just not interested. But would you want to indulge in some hanky panky while Ryuk is grinning at you all the time?
  • Its hinted that even pre-series he wasn't interested in girls. That the girls keep asking him out and he keeps making up excuses not to go on dates. There's Yuri's (the spaceland girl's) line: "I thought you said you weren't going out until exams were over!" Also during the Yotsuba arc Ryuk's grinning face was nowhere to be seen. Sure he was chained to L which presents the same voyeur problem but even so Light shows absolutely no interest in Misa. When Misa is right out asking him for sex his response: "Whatever" *talks excitedly with L.*
  • Light had to buy porn for his cover strongly implying he didn't have any already and he browses through it with such a bored look on his face...
  • Also Light seems kind of bitter when he explains dating to Ryuk: "Skill has nothing to do with it. It's your looks that count" and it seems he gets unwanted attention regularly (In the first episode the girls giggle as he passes and when he walks down the street several guys seem to be checking him out). If this is the case he probably considers Misa to be just another shallow, two-faced hanger-on that doesn't truly appreciate him for his genius or his vision - only for his looks.
    • While it doesn't weaken your argument much, the scene where some girls giggle as he passes by is specific to the anime.
  • Also with Light's narcissistic tendencies he might be more interested in kissing his own reflection.

How's Light Going to Kill Everyone Who Knows About the Death Note?

• Light makes it clear that after killing off the SPK he's going to kill everyone who knows about the Death Note. At this point in the series Light knows that at a minimum President-elect George Sairas, elements of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, non-taskforce police involved in the Higuchi incident, and various chiefs of Japan's National Police Agency are aware of the Death Note – not including whoever else might have come across this information via any these groups. That's a lot of ground to cover without guaranteeing suppression of knowledge about the Death Note.

Doesn't being AWOL from the NPA complicate Light's final plan?

• After the time skip Light is a member of the Japanese Police Force's Intelligence Department, disappearing would likely qualify as being AWOL from the NPA - wouldn’t the Japanese Police kind of notice? Especially when Light was known to be working for his father who was known to be guarding Higuchi’s Death Note (confirmed by the Japanese chief interrogated by Mello’s mafia knowing about the killing notebook).
  • This only really complicates Light's plans to keep a low profile following the final confrontation.

Speaking of Naomi....

• Okay, so we all know how Naomi died. But my question is how L missed the clues that Light left. First, he SIGNED IN so he could leave the change of clothes for his father. Second, he LEFT THE BUILDING with Naomi and it was CAUGHT ON CAMERA. But Naomi may have signed in as well so she could talk to someone from the Task Force. And then we all know how pushy and insistent she was that she speak to someone immediately. AND THEN! Someone from said Task Force enters the office not long after Naomi left with Light. You'd think that the people at the desk would've told him "Hey, this half crazy chick came in and demanded to speak to one of you. But she left with the CHIEF'S SON." HOW DID THEY MISS THIS?! This is a plot hole the size of TEXAS!
  • She was a civilian, she wouldn't have signed in. Light had to do it because he's taking something and leaving it in the building which is a pretty big security concern. The people at the desk have no reason to know the identities of those working in the Task Force since the police HQ for a major city is going to have at least a few thousand employees working for it, while the person from the Task Force is just an average detective. No plot hole; the security guard at the front didn't know anyone from the Task Force so he couldn't pass on the message and ended up forgetting about it. If he ever did remember it well Light was with her so if it was important he surely would have told his father right?

Light and Namikawa: who tricked who?

• When Light (as L) called Namikawa the second time and Namikawa said, "So Higuchi is finished" and Light acted all surprised that he knew, who slipped up and who was bluffing who? Did Light slip up as L said? Or did Namikawa slip and then try to cover up by saying he tricked L?
  • Light slipped up. He shouldn't have reacted like Higuchi was the actual killer. He should've just ignored the comment or dismissed it.

Ryuk drops the Death Note randomly "somewhere"?

• Shortly after Ryuk visits Light for the first time, he explains why and how he dropped the death note. He says he dropped it somewhere around that place and Light happened to pick it. He also says he wrote the rules in English because it is the most widely used language in the world. Throwing it randomly "somewhere" is more likely to land it in the ocean, and Ryuk wouldn't want to do that (Rememeber, he had been scolded by the shinigami "boss" (or someone like that) for dropping his note earlier). For that matter, the area of inhabitable landmass in even less. (If the note were to fall in the Sahara Desert, Ryuk would have to go pick it up.) This would mean Ryuk would have to be able to approximately choose an area where it would land. So Ryuk chose to throw the note somewhere in Japan. Why would he then bother writing the rules in the most widely used language in the world? I am not saying he shouldn't have written it in English, but just that why would he even think about the world if he was going to drop in Japan? I think it is reasonable to assume that Ryuk would at least know that Japanese is the most common language used in Japan. He is a shinigami after all.
  • As per Wild Mass Guessing Ryuk is a known liar. It's more likely that he deliberately chucked the notebook at a school in the hopes of finding someone who would actually use the notebook and that he deliberately targeted Light. Remember Ryuk is an immortal monster: he might be doing this again and again and never be punished for it. If so he would know what traits in a human would make it likely to use the notebook and be an entertaining toy. If he was watching Light than he would have seen him doing well in English class and so wrote the rules in English in order to intrigue him.
    • The fact that Ryuk knows Light is "so smart" even when first meeting him is also suggestive of the fact that he has been watching Light for a while.
  • The "again and again" bit raises an interesting possible connection to the pilot, which revolved around elementary school kid Taro Kagami using the Notebook on bullies. A Notebook which was dropped by Ryuk. (It would only be possible for the pilot to come after the series and one-shot however, since in Taro's future, the "Death Note" story is an urban legend, and part of pop culture.)
  • One problem with that though is that Ryuk in the pilot chapter has a different personality than Canon!Ryuk-not to mention he dropped his own notebook. Canon!Ryuk may be a bit of ditz at times but he's not THAT stupid. So unless he got brain-damaged overdosing on apples or something...
  • My personal theory is that he wrote a bunch of major world cities on slips of paper and drew one from the Shinigami equivalent of a hat.
  • I think most people would understand that when he says he dropped it randomly somewhere, that doesn't mean he didn't discount obviously non-viable locations like the ocean, uninhabited areas, etc. And just because he dropped it in Japan doesn't mean he specifically decided that he was going to drop it in Japan. He could've used any number of techniques, like Amidakuji, eeny-meeny-miny-moe… Either way, he almost surely wrote the rules in English before he chose where to drop it.

Why didn't Light use Sidoh to kill Mello?

• After the task force got the notebook back from the mafia, why didn't Light ask Sidoh to kill Mello with the notebook in exchange for them returning it? He was even discussing a plan like this with Ryuk before the attack on Mello's HQ but dropped it because he thought he could use Matsuda to kill Mello instead. But when Mello was still alive after Soichiro's death, he didn't even try to use Sidoh. Mello deliberately kept Sidoh from getting his notebook back and Sidoh needed to write a name, so I really can't see him saying no to a request to kill him. Sure, he would be asking in front of the other members of the task force but he had already asked Soichiro to do it so being so upset about his father's death that he was insistent on Mello dying wouldn't seem strange. Even if it did, it was a direct way of killing Mello. A few odd looks for being so bloodthirsty about avenging his father are nothing compared to eliminating such a threat. He wasn't just caught up in the emotions brought on from losing his father either-the very next chapter, he's going over how he wasn't able to kill Mello through other means but doesn't bring up Sidoh at all. In other words, it appears that the author just didn't think of it and Light looks dumber as a result.
  • In the manga it's explained that Light was afraid that Sidoh would say something incriminating and he wanted to get him away from the taskforce as soon as possible but yeah, that does seem like a wasted opportunity that could have led to Kira's victory.
  • Also, notice his father just died and he's Mangsting about it so his Chess Master skills are not up to par in that scene.
    • Even so, it's not even addressed later on. And come to think of it, why did Light even ask the task force to come outside if he was fearing Sidoh's words so much? Why not just say "I need some fresh air" and then talk about it with Sidoh, in private. Hell, why is a kooky shinigami who was working for Mello saying something incriminating such a big deal anyway? Mello's survival was the only thing that allowed Near to do anything against Light. Even if the task force became suspicious of him as a result of Sidoh's words and could no longer be used as bait for Near since they need to be gotten rid of... so what? Near hadn't even achieved anything at that point. He was a threat for what he could find out. Take away his sources of information and he's barely worth worrying about. On the other hand, Mello knows vital information. It's much more logical to take the risky way of getting rid of an extremely major threat and then have a harder time of stopping a minor threat than to avoid the risky way and be left with two extremely major threats and almost the entire task force suspecting you. Honestly, when I think of it like that, how the hell did Light not see his defeat coming? It was like he wanted to lose.
    • Because Sidoh knew the two rules in the back were fake, which was what ended the question about whether or not he was Kira to the investigation team. If he mentioned that then Light's in trouble, if he goes to talk to Sidoh in private (who at this point the entire team knows about) and then Sidoh vanishes that would be suspicious. If he goes and asks Sidoh to kill Mello and Sidoh says no for any reason he's fucked, and he still has to play the part of L who would want to get rid of the Death Note as soon as possible. As far as Light knows Sidoh has no inclination to do anything but take the Death Note and go home, for all he knew Sidoh could turn around and kill him the second he got the notebook back out of spite for being extorted. There is just no way Light could actually expect to hold Sidoh to any deal since he can go the second he gets his notebook back in his possession.

L's name; or, WTF was he thinking?

• If "L" is, in fact, L's actual first name, why would he, the world's greatest detective, use it as an alias when there's even a remote chance of it being used against him?
  • It was a double bluff- "L" doesn't sound like a real name and he was no doubt counting on Light to make the assumption that surely someone who was confronting a Kira suspect would never tell that suspect his real name, right?
  • Because the best hideout is the one that is on plain sight.
  • It's also implied he uses other aliases at least as often as he uses L.
• "L" was L's alias long before the Kira investigation started. He couldn't have known in advance that a case would crop up where this might be relevant, and switching to another alias partway through the investigation would be really suspicious.
• Not to mention that, even if Light somehow figured out that L's first name really was L, the chances of him discovering his last name (Lawliet) were next to nothing.

He took a potato chip...AND ATE IT!!!

• Is there a reason Light is so dramatic about eating a chip, or is he just thinking that line as he does it to say "See how much of a normal student I am"?
  • I thought it was more of an Inner Monologue thing so the audience doesn't get bored watching Light eat potato chips.

How'd Light see the TV, and how did L MISS it?

• This really bugs me and makes no sense at all. When Light is eating those potato chips and trying to kill people by using the TV he hid in the bag, how did he see the TV? He didn't look in the bag. It was at the worst possible angle for him to try peeking into it. And if he was able to see it in such detail through the bag, L would have seen it too. But wait! How the heck did L NOT see that? The camera was at an angle that L should have seen it, but not Light.
  • Obviously they're magic potato chips.
  • A potato chip bag has, by necessity, a narrow opening. Draw a line from the screen of the TV to that opening. Now extend the line into the airspace of the room. All Light has to do is make sure his face is the first thing that line hits, and he can see the TV - and none of the cameras can.
  • It's only in the anime that the TV is shown being visible from behind Light. In the manga, he specifically mentions that he can block the bag from the cameras by simply placing himself directly behind it.

Near's lie treated as an unbeatable super-genius tactic

• Why exactly is Near's lie of "Mr. Mogi died of a heart attack, I'll hand the body over to the police in a few days" treated by Light as some unbeatable plan that will cause unavoidable suspicion and force him to give the notebook to Mikami? Well, I know why, Ohba wanted the plot to go in a certain direction so Light had to chug stupid pills... but let me explain why this is dumb. Sure, it seems like a really clever move from Near at face value but think about it. Near suspected Light. He was basically begging the task force members to believe him every chance he got. Something like "Hold on, why a few days, Near...? Now that I think of it, it's just like you to lie about something like this when you suspect me so much. And even if I was Kira, why would I kill Mogi now, at the worst possible time?" could work. Aizawa no longer convinced to give information to Near, Near stuck looking like a jackass, a battle of wits where Near actually loses for once.
  • Because there are a lot of excuses Near could bring up as to why he hasn't handed the body over yet, such as performing an autoposy themselves to see if it was just a heart condition, removing evidence that would identify their current location, etc. Plus Light doesn't have any proof that Near is lying, so he comes across as grasping at straws and possibly trying to divert attention off himself. So if he calls Near out on his lie he ultimately gains nothing; Near can easily deflect any attempt back at Light (such as "If Mogi knew something critical there was no other time to kill him. But if you're not Kira why are you so worried if you'll be vindicated in the end?") and ultimately Near just has to put the idea in the task force's head
  • But that doesn't change the fact that Near's lie is instantly believed by everyone on the investigation team. This is Near, someone they had never seen before and was not exactly the most friendly person to them before. Being told by someone like that of an officer's death when said officer is in his hands is one of the things that should never be taken at face value.
    • And it's worse when Aizawa calls Near shortly after and Near tells Aizawa that he lied and that Mogi is alive and that is when Aizawa actually doubts Near's words because that is all he has to base things on! So when he tells you the first thing, you believe him but the second thing must be doubted for it is certainly a lie?

L concluding that Naomi Misora had been murdered

• They never found Misora's body, since Light arranged that she would kill herself in a way that prevented her body from being found. So why, when he received the call about Misora being missing, did L immediately conclude that she had been killed by Kira? He didn't even have proof that she was dead.
  • He had worked with her before and knew her well enough to know she would have gone looking for Kira on her own, and since her fiancé was the most probable one who had been made by Kira she might know something that would have helped her along. Since she could handle herself when L knew her he could rule out she got killed by some random thug (and that would leave a body), and he knew she was too strong willed to commit suicide (under normal circumstances), so her completely disappearing into thin air for so long makes no sense unless she was either kidnapped and held hostage or dead.

L's trick with Lind L. Tailor relied too heavily on luck

• I've heard people describe the trick that L uses to pinpoint Kira's location as "brilliant," but it seems to me to rely far too heavily on a specific set of circumstances playing out to seem legitimately intelligent. L's plan is to demonstrate that Kira is in a specific area by seeing if Lind L. Tailor is killed during the local broadcast. But this plan is completely and utterly dependent on Kira being in a situation where he can immediately kill when this is not necessarily going to be the case. What if Light had seen the broadcast while eating dinner with his family for example? There's no way he would have been able to kill Tailor right then and there considering he didn't have the Death Note on hand and it would be suspicious to leave his family and then for Tailor to immediately die as soon as he's gone. Or what if Light had been at prep school? Or working on a group project? Or asleep? Or sick? Or...anything really? L's plan on works if Light is immediately able to kill Tailor but there's a plethora of ways that he might, in reality, be delayed in doing so. In the meantime, L would have to broadcast to other areas of the world and there's also the issue of the broadcast turning up on the internet. Quite frankly, it seems like L got exceptionally lucky in this case. What exactly is so intelligent about this plan?
  • That is Fanfic Fuel right there. There are many for-want-of-a-nail fics out there where Light just doesn't watch the broadcast and that totally puts a Spanner in the Works for the entire plot. L's entire plan relied on Light being at home, watching TV! So unless L somehow had Light in mind as his suspect from the very beginning...
  [Light] had his face pressed into the notebook, drooling. Ryuk laughed, the teen had fallen asleep at his desk.
  • L had every TV in the area tuned to the broadcast, including big screens in public areas. And he did know that Kira would be watching TV somewhere; by that point he had already figured out that Kira was killing people at very specific time periods during the day, including criminals who would have only just been announuced that day meaning he had to have a means of finding out about these criminals that would include criminals who would only be announced on local networks. By this point in time Light's already worked up a routine that has continued non-stop since he first decided to use the Death Note on such a huge scale, so it's a safe bet that he'll continue that routine the day L pulled his gambit, baring something out of the ordinary incapacitating him that would be so unlikely at that point.
  • There are many reason that wasn't luck:
    • 1. L had already guessed that Light is a student, based on common time of death for other victim, and that let him know the time that Light is most likely available.
    • 2. Since the trick was performed in daylight, and Light was at home, it's safe to assume that the trick was performed in Sunday, people would either stay at home with TV, or go outside and get caught by public screen.
    • 3. The broadcast was made so bizarre that it will caught attention from people who aren't watching TV at that time (caused a big commotion).
    • From those point above, it was safe to assume that 99% of people in the area watch the show. And Light was most likely available. So the trick might still fail on the off-chance that Light changed his schedule and decide to sleep-in and join the 1% minority. But that's to say that misfortune foil the plan, not that the plan require luck to success.
    • The problem I have with these explanations is that they would make more sense if L had announced his plans to make a broadcast ahead of time — thus ensuring that Kira would have time to prep himself — but he didn't. He suddenly interrupted a regularly scheduled program. Light is even all "What the hell?" about it. So it is still an amazing stroke of luck. Because again, let's say that Light was eating with his family — he couldn't very well just leave in the middle, get his Death Note, and write the name without drawing attention to himself. Or what if he was in a library working on a school project? Or cram school? Or in the bathroom? Then, he would definitely be delayed in getting to the Death Note. In the meantime, L's broadcast would likely be put up on the internet, at which point, it would be impossible for L to pinpoint Kira. To be honest, most people at any given time aren't watching TV — there's a plethora of places they could be where they won't have access (a changing room in a mall, a swimming poll, playing video games, etc.). L's plan succeeded purely based on luck — because it had to for the plan to go forward. If Light had had the TV off in his room, it would have failed.
    • This is actually addressed in the Live Action Movie version: here, Light's TV is off at the time of the broadcast. However, he's subscribed to a "Kira News" website that texts his phone when something Kira related happens in the media, so when the broadcast goes off, he is prompted to turn on the TV. Also, if I recall, L didn't think this plan of his would work as well as it did. In fact, he didn't think Lind L. Tailor would actually die, since he didn't necessarily believe Kira had psychic killing powers ("I had to test it just to make sure, but I would never have believed this if I hadn't just witnessed it myself!"). He just thought that the broadcast would provoke Kira into taking some kind of action, perhaps over the next few hours or days, but he struck the jackpot when Light killed Tailor right then and there.
  • Yes, it is luck… and so what? L himself acknowledges first thing that he didn't really expect it would work nearly as well as it did. In the anime, his first word after Lind L. Tailor dies is "信じられない！" ("I can't believe it!")
  • I may remember things wrong, but wasn't the broadcast shown during the time Kira was usually watching the news to find his victims? Light had kind of a schedule with killings: he turned on the news after school, wrote the names of the criminals, and then 40 seconds later they were gone. L may have made the connection that killings always occur during the same time and the criminals dying were mentioned in the news at this particular time. Still doesn't make the plan foolproof... But L didn't really expected it to work flawlessly.

Why could Rem not simply tell Misa L's name?

• After Misa got out of confinement in L's tower, Light uses her as a puppet to kill as Kira. And he bets on the fact that Rem will need to kill herself to kill L and leave himself free of her wrath in the future. So why did rem not simply tell Misa L's real name so she could kill him herself? Rem would have lived, L is dead, and everything is good.
  • The only reasons I can think of myself are that there would still be Watari and I think Misa may have never seen him with the eyes and that maybe telling the names of humans to other humans by a shinigami would also kill them.
  • Shinigami aren't supposed to tell humans the name but then Rem is willing to break the rules. I've seen a fanfic The Killer In You where Rem gets around that restriction and gives Light L and Watari's names by writing in Leet Lingo: "'Ryuzaki: L L a 2u l i e t, 2uatari: Q u i l l s h 2u a m m y" because then she didn't technically give the name.
  • Rem telling Misa how and when to kill him is effectively Rem killing him, and least in a legal sense. It likely wouldn't make a difference.
  • Shinigami are forbidden to tell humans the true names (or lifespans) of other humans. This is one of the ironclad rules they all must follow. If Rem were to break that rule and tell Misa L's real name, Rem would still die as punishment, so it's the same result.

Light getting careless when on camera?

• The first meeting of Light and Misa inside the towers foyer, after Light got his memories back, Light treats all the cameras like all-seeing eyes and watches his every move to not raise suspicion. The second time they meet however, after Misa regained her memories, they speak openly as if they are not aware of the cameras. Why would Light be so careless at this point? He knows L is watching.
  • Well, familiarity breeds contempt and you might have noticed Light has a slight problem with arrogance... but there are strategic reasons why he might do so-in the manga it's explained that Light knows where all the cameras are and that he's worked out where to stand so that L can't read his lips or pick up what he's saying. Also at that point Light wants L to be suspicious of him and Misa so that he'll test the 13 Day rule.
  • In the manga at least, he very specifically mentions that he's speaking low enough that the mics won't pick up his voice.

If Light was capable of controlling one of Mello's henchmen into sending him the direction, why couldn't he have controlled him into sending the note instead?

Let me be a little more concise, first of all, Light knew the names and faces of many of Mello's accomplices, he could have easilly used one of them to send him pictures of Mello and the rest of the gang, then kill all of them and have the last one mail the Death Note back to him (posibly using other criminals as middlemen). That way he 1) would get rid of Mello who knew too much 2) wouldn't have risked further exposure and 3) he would have snatched away the one piece of evidence that linked him to the murders, all of it without putting Near on his track. Why give away his note when he could have easily recovered the other one free of remorse??

• Because if he tried to control the mobsters and for whatever reason it wasn't possible for them to get to the notebook (like if Mello took any security precautions with it) they would simply die of heart attacks and that would be a big tip off that Kira knew what the taskforce knew at the same time and at least to Mello and Near that would be as good as admitting that the new L was Kira.

Kira's actions do not fit the criteria of godhood

• Despite being the page image for A God Am I, Kira's actions don't really qualify him on the same level as one would expect from someone who believes he has the divine right to bring justice on the world as he sees fit. Other than his (fairly) impressive intellect (at least compared to most other characters who are not L or Near), the only thing Kira has to back up his power is his Death Note, which is only there because some bored Shinigami dropped it to see what random shit would happen, and even then it obviously has limitations. He can't kill a person if he doesn't know their true names, and most of the power he has over the country is because the people have absolutely no idea what he is or what he is capable off. In addition, even if he has the power to determine the life and death of his subjects, he cannot control how he himself will live or die (unless he writes a specific requirement in his notebook). He could get killed at any time in any situation that he has little preparation for. For a guy with straight A grades, I would expect him to figure out that he has limitations and not go overboard with being the "god of the new world" thing.
  • The Japanese concept of "god" (or, more accurately, "kami") is very different from the traditional Western view. A kami need not be immortal or all-powerful, all that is required is that the kami is the embodiment of something, be that an ideal, an object, or whatever else. If Light had succeeded, and the world uniformly accepted Kira as the embodiment of "justice", then he would qualify as a god by their standards. And since the concept of justice could be said to be one of the central driving forces of human society, he that controls and embodies justice could be said to effectively rule the entire human race, which is what Light is thinking of when he says "god of the new world".
  • Also, it's a pretty significant piece of characterization that Light is conceited and thinks much more highly of himself and his abilities than he should. Just because a person is smart doesn't mean they don't make mistakes that look very stupid in hindsight.
  • He doesn't believe he's a literal god. He believes he's "the god of the new world". This is like asking why people call Michael Jackson "King of Pop" when he wasn't really a king.

Lind L. Tailor's cooperation

• Why did Lind L. Tailor agree to go on TV and pretend to be L? The dude was going to die that day anyway, and I'm pretty sure L doesn't have the authority to bribe someone with a pardon.
  • L did offer him a pardon, if he survived. Whether or not L had the authority is up in the air, though L has been shown to get away with quite a lot.
    • It's quite likely he got the permission of whoever was holding Lind L. Tailor. He gets stuff done by asking for cooperation from various organizations and agencies, and they often agree because they know how good he is at getting results.
  • I'd always thought that perhaps he was offered a significant sum for his family, or some cause he cares about, like an instant life-insurance policy. All he had to do was wear a suit and broadcast his challenge to Kira from region to region, until either he had a heart attack or they ran out of regions, in which case he would be executed anyway. Perhaps his final thought as his heart stopped was "Now my family's future is secured".

Mikami confirming Light is "God"

• Apologies if this was specifically addressed in the manga or dialogue that I missed. In the final episode Mikami writes down all names except for "God". He identifies Light because he is the one who does not have a lifespan above his head, as Misa had done in the first half of the show. However less than 10 episodes prior, Soichiro confirmed that Light was not Kira by seeing his lifespan and acknowledging this meant he did not own a Death Note. Did Light take ownership over the Task Force's Death Note when they removed it from the safe deposit box? It's the only thing I can think of that makes this make sense.
  • Yes, Light took back ownership of Rem's notebook after his father's death. It would be very inconvenient not to mention dangerous not to—after giving up ownership of his notebook he had to keep Misa's notebook on him at all times so he didn't lose his memories. If the taskforce got wise and decided to do a surprise strip search during that period he would have been finished.

The Notebook's Fake Pages

• This does not work. A person cannot simply perfectly copy another person's handwriting. That would take a lot of practice and, hence, quite some time to accomplish. Gevanni didn't have all that much time for it. He saw Mikami enter the bank on the 26th, when he already did it on the 25th. So in a very short amount of time, Gevanni needed to get the real notebook and re-write all the names to perfectly fit Mikami's handwriting and put a replacement back, without Mikami noticing. There's no way he could've perfected Mikami's handwriting. One thing that could've been done is to photocopy the pages that Giovanni took pictures of, with all the names on it and put those in... but that is impossible, too, because the pages would feel very different from the blank ones and they would lack the texture and imprints of having been written on. How is the reader supposed to swallow that this plan actually worked? Or did I happen to misunderstand something?
  • You didn't misunderstand anything. It's an incredible feat, which Near mentions. But as far as physical capability, it's only somewhat more incredible than Light's potato chip ploy, or him writing Higuchi's name in his watch. All of these feats severely strain suspension of disbelief. I think we're just supposed to accept that in this version of reality, being a super genius equates to having ridiculous physical abilities and superhuman dexterity.

Light's Pronoun

• A small thing, but why does Light use Boku? It sort of makes sense for him to use it during the beginning of the first chapter or the Yotsuba arc, but once he obtains the notebook and definitely once his ego and head get super inflated, wouldn't he switch to the dominant and much more masculine Ore? Or even, given his high opinion of himself, Ore-sama? (Like Zack from Dead or Alive)
  • Light is constantly wearing a mask for the people around him. "I am just an ordinary high school student and absolutely nothing has changed." It's a small thing, true, but people still might notice if he changed pronouns from "I a non-threatening man" rather than "I a tough young male." It isn't in Light's best interest to be perceived as a threat. Also Light is childish.
  • "Ore" isn't the "best" pronoun, it's just the most arrogant. Light might view it as unrefined or rough, which would definitely not fit with either his image of himself or the image he wants to present to others.
  • In the 2015 TV drama, Light uses "ore" from the start.

Kira's sudden morality change

• Whenever Light took care of criminals, he researched and made sure that he got criminals who were not remorseful for what they did. After all, if someone was showing remorse for having done harm to someone else or had harmed someone in self-defense, Light left them alone. So Kira was seen as, yes, someone who kills criminals but ultimately seems to have their standards. Misa's Kira appearing changes things up, being able to kill without knowing the name and just needing the face, and she refers to herself as a second Kira, so the public can easily tell that this is a different Kira. But what about Mikami? Suddenly, Kira kills every criminal, even small criminals, bullies and even lazy people. Don't people think that this is very different from what Kira originally did and wonder if something went on, like this is a different person doing the Kira thing? (Ignoring the fact that Light was eventually thinking of killing lazy people, but we don't know how long that would've been, he might not have done it for years to come.)
  • Light himself took notice and told Mikami to stop doing that.

Gelus and the 12 minute rule

• Misa's stalker said that he'd kill both Misa and himself, suggesting that he would die right there. If the Death Note won't affect those destined to die in less that 12 minutes, how could Gelus have killed the stalker?
  • Probably either the stalker was destined to survive his attempt to kill himself, or after killing Misa he would have lost the nerve to go through with his own death.

Ryuk's actions in the TV drama

• One of the bigger differences in the TV drama and the anime is that Ryuk wanted Light to find the Death Note in the drama. In the original series, Light believed that he was chosen with the power to kill people and it was denied when Ryuk said that he didn't choose him for any reason that Light believed. However, he specifically dropped the Death Note behind the drama incarnation of Light. While he still dropped the notebook out of boredom, it's unknown why he went after Light. Plus, it should be noted (no pun intended) that he doesn't immediately mention the Shinigami Eye Deal after telling Light that he's being followed in the pilot. Instead, it's at episode 3 that he finally mentions it. Even though he'd profit off of half of Light's lifespan, it doesn't make sense why he waited so long to bring it up. Did he not remember that deal or was he trying to wait when Light would need the eyes to kill Raye?

L's relationship with Near in the TV drama

• Like the original series, L and Near already know about each other and the former's line of work. Unlike the original series, though, Watari constantly informs L about Near's whereabouts and when he wants to talk to him. L's even informed of Near leaving the house and he doesn't look too happy about it. Is he Near's caretaker or is there another relationship there?

Why are you still here

• so after the time skip and L is dead and light is the new why is matsuda and the rest of the task force excluding lights dad still alive i would assume eliminating the only cops willing to try find you would be a priority and it would be simple have one be killed by car accident one in a cop related thing and one be a standard kira heart attack and do a performance where he cries like he did for L i mean if he did Aizawa wouldn't have investigated him and matsuda wouldn't have shot him
  • Light was concerned that having the entire task force die except for him would look too suspicious. Besides, he had the task force believing his every word and eating out of the palm of his hand; as far as he knew, they were no threat to him. He had no reason to suspect another super-genius detective was going to show up in a few years and corner him.

why not just fake suicide ?

Why didn't Light after he suspected they where on to him fake his death and continue killing criminals under the safety of having "died" ? leave a suicide note like , all there pressure on him to be perfect was too much and he could not take it anymore and then toss his school jacket into the river or something ?

• Such a plan wouldn't fool L for a second. Even if Light managed to convincingly fake his own death (L would probably be very tough to trick with such a tactic), as soon as Kira continued killing criminals L would realize what Light did. It would actually be more evidence towards L's theory that Light is Kira, since Light only did this when L started suspecting him. He'd still be hot on Light's trail.
  • If Light was smart, he would have faked suicide. Sure, L would still know he was alive and suspect him even more, but HOW would L find him? Light could change his name, get a complete makeover, move to the countryside, and have zero contact with people. NO ONE would know him. That guy with the mohawk, bad face acne, and a totally anonymous and common name? How could Light be found that way? No one would connect someone like that to the handsome perfectionist that committed suicide in Tokyo. Even if L suspected...well, surely Light wouldn't be the only weirdo living alone in Japan. Makeup and a name change beats death any day. Or Light could go even further. He's brilliant. So why not do a little hacking and...well, identity theft. You are now legally somehow else. Even better if you choose someone dead. Hack into whatever and delete the death certificate. Too bad Light didn't think ahead that much. He could have been living happily on a remote apple farm (gotta keep the Shinigami happy) while silently ruling his utopia. No stupid Misa, L blunders around like an idiot, Near and Mello end up doing nothing, Matsuda trips in the shower and dies, the rest of the task force decide to just forget it and accept Kira...only Light's family would be upset. Soichiro might believe L about Light being alive, but he'd also have no way of proving it.
  • You're forgetting another crucial part of Light's character: he's egotistical and hates losing. He doesn't want to avoid L, he wants to kill L. And the best way to determine L's identity is to get close to him: get on the Task Force and work with the man. Would it be more intelligent to go into hiding? Maybe so, but Light does have a habit of letting his ego override his common sense at times.

What Was Light's Deal Anyway?

• I realize that Light was an egotistical narcissist with a god complex but... why exactly? Was it ever really explained why he had such a mindset to begin with? Why it was so easy for him to go from wanting to kill bad people to being "God" of this new world? If a normal person would have just killed one person with the Notebook and never use it again like Near said, then why was Light not normal to begin with? How did he get that way? These are obviously very fucked up things with his head that wouldn't have just popped up overnight for no reason. Was there something in how he was raised or something that actually messed with his head prior to the start of the story? While I actually do really Like Death Note, I think it kinda dropped the ball on trying to explain just why Light turned out the way he did.
  • I think this was explained better in the TV drama....where it says that using the death note twists someone's mind and perverts their morals.
    • But also it could be that Light was raised to be perfect in every way....we see his mother reach for his test scores...not out to hug him, when he first walks through the door, showing she was more eager to see how well her son did on his tests, than simply offer him love at the start, Japan has a HUGE problem with pressuring their youth to achieve and excel at EVERYTHING, so Light's mind snapped when he did something "not perfect" (killing someone) then tried to justify his actions and that twisted itself into trying to become a perfect being (a god)
  • Why does there have to be a reason? We don't always know why other people become serial killers, either. Sometimes they were abused or whatever, but sometimes there's no reason that anyone can find. Some people are just wired that way.
  • Warning: this troper believes Light was always a psycopath and builds their theories on this. Having said that, sometimes psychopats are just born that way. There is no abuse, no head trauma, no psychological trauma - they are just what they are from the beginning. Psycopathy can also be very different from person to person: some of those afflicted could be all Patrick Bates, some of them may have no empathy at all, but also not have a desire to hurt others, and some even have a strong feeling the way they feel isn't right. The thing is, most psycopaths live normal lives and sometimes even have no idea they are psycopaths, and I think Light was one of these people. If not for the Death Note, he would have probably had a boring life where he would just wonder why everyone is so inferior to him and why nothing gives him a thrill. But then he gets a power that shows him the thrill he never knew... And it acts like a drug. Light is bored out of his mind, and he wouldn't just let the thrill go. Especially when the bonus is being the greater good everybody worships (in his head).

In what world is broadcasting such classified information a good idea?

So L has successfully trapped Kira and has deduced his MO, limitations, and his geographical region. (I'm assuming that the broadcast only played on a channel that served Kanto, so there was no way nobody outside of Kanto could have say, watched it.) Why why oh why did you tell your target what you just learned?! This is prime information that you can use to trap the real Kira! And since Kira now knows that you're really alive... he'll keep up his guard and look over his shoulders for you! If he thinks you're dead, he's much more likely to slip up! Seriously, this is Ambition levels of incompetency here.

• L was the famous "world's greatest detective". He couldn't possibly hide the fact that he's still alive, and he knew it. And the spectacle had a double purpose. To show the world that Kira isn't omnipotent. That it's a person doing this, and not an unstoppable god. A person who, despite their phenomenal powers, have their limitations and weaknesses. And to scare the real Kira by showing him what he's up against. Kira "keeping up his guard" still offers lots of opportunites for him to slip up - which is indeed what happens on several occasions, letting L get closer and closer to Light each time.
• Remember, Light's single most defining characteristic ("childish and hates losing") also applies to L.
  • So “L” is childish and hates losing - but being older, he should know that people in his line of work are expected to act like adults. Even if it’s a case of “Tolerated for their skills” (Very much Truth in Television), the second it becomes a detriment, such as, say, broadcasting information that should be classified while millions of people are watching, you’ll either get tossed out of the investigation or worse. This is why PR and coaches exist. When people are in charge of an organisation and have traits like this, it can cause a lot of problems.
    • Obviously L wasn't interested in changing this trait or mitigating it with PR and coaches, otherwise he would have just done that. (And "expected to act like adults"? When has L given you the impression that he cares about what other people expect of him?) The way he talks about it, he clearly doesn't consider it something he's better off without. Besides, this is only one of the reasons he revealed his knowledge. As mentioned above, he had other reasons.

L couldn't have concluded that Kira is a student

Early in the Anime, L concludes that Kira is a student because the times of his victims' deaths coincide with when a student would have free time, but at the beginning of episode 2, we see Light writing names even while he's in class. If he was making a habit of doing this, then people would be dying even when he didn't have free time. The only way L could have concluded that Kira was a student is if he arbitrarily excluded these victims from consideration.

• It wasn't just the times of death, but also the modus operandi. Only dangerous, violent criminals being killed off sounds like something a student might suggest, in a form of childish, idealistic sense of morality as L cites it. The combination of the victims [ie; how much of a criminal they are] and the times of deaths are generally within the hours of when a student would be free to operate in Japan.
  • Did he really say that? I only remember he mentioning the times of death, and even then, I think this reasoning doesn't make sense, we see after that Kira gains plenty of supporters, adults included, and they're not in few numbers, when he says Kira is childish, I never interpreted it as him actually believing that Kira is a literal child/edgy teenager, and he says he's childish himself.
• Firstly, that scene only happens in the anime. (And possibly not even then. In the scene you're referring to, I'm pretty sure he's just writing notes, not using the Death Note.) Secondly, L would still notice that statistically there were very few deaths during times when students would be in class.

Matt Death Noted by...Mello?

Apparently there's a fan theory going around somewhere that Mello wrote Matt's name in some Death Note (which is odd considering at the time of Takada's kidnapping, I'm pretty sure Mello didn't even have one) and that's why Matt was completely decimated despite being perfectly reasonable and willing to go with the cops. But...Mello specifically says that he never meant for Matt to die, so why is this even an idea?

• I doubt Matt was death noted. The Japanese police acted like Kira fanatics for their own safety by then, and what's the point of arresting someone when all arrestees die anyway, plus he was a co-conspirator in the kidnapping of Kira's mouthpiece. They may have feared that if they didn't kill Matt, they would all be killed. Matt relied on an outdated stereotypical notion about the Japanese police.
• I was under the impression that the people who shot Matt were not police officers, but rather Takada's own small army of bodyguards. That certainly explains their ruthlessness and speaks volumes of how above-the-law everything Kira-related has become.

Light keeps the evidence

• Light comes up with an elaborate solution for safekeeping the Note and for destroying it in case it's found. But why does he keep it as it is at all? Why wouldn't he immediately burn the pages after he fills them with names? And since separate pages, or even their pieces, work just as well as the complete Note does, why wouldn't he simply tear out the pages, destroy the binder, and keep the anonymous pages separately? Maybe insert them in ordinary workbooks, distribute them among several hiding places, mail them for on demand pickup etc. I think he starts doing that near the end of the series, but why not from the beginning?

Why not just cross out your name L?

Movie-verse headscratcher, in the film L writes his own name in the death note and this saves him for a temporary period since he can't die via any other way till the 23 day period passes and he dies peacefully of a heart attack, so he defeats Light and ...just burns the notebook the next film....why not look and see if he can save himself? it SAYS in the notebook itself that you can save someone from death via crossing out their name before death occurs, so WTF L?

• Firstly, I don't know where you got the idea that you can save someone from death by crossing out their name. No rule says that, and in fact it explicitly says that you can't save a victim once their name has been written. You might be getting mixed up with the rule that says you can change the time and cause of death by crossing them out with two straight lines. Secondly, even if your method were possible, it's important to note that most of the rules we see are not written in the Death Note. Only the first five rules are written in there.

Why didn't Misa die from a heart attack?

What would be the point of having someone killing her since she didn't have her memories of the Death Note. Why write that she commits suicide instead of just letting her die of a heart attack? Was it Takada during her last moments wanting Misa commit suicide after Light dumped her on tv/announced Takada as his Goddess and writing it down for some self-satisfaction when Light did it?

• Misa killed herself of her own accord. After Light died, she saw no point in living any longer.
• Not every death in the series is Death Note-induced.

Where did Light keep the Death Note during the first days?

Did he keep it on his person all the time, going to school and all? Or did he leave it in his room? He hadn't even met Ryuk yet, and he later says he can justify having all those names written by saying he's investigating the killings...

• He kept it in his desk drawer.

Why does L not follow up on seeing Rem move Misa's hair?

While Misa is confined, Rem moves a strand of her hair which shows up on camera as it being moved by some unseen force. L sees it and clearly reacts interested, yet never seems to follow up on this at all. Was he still in denial that something supernatural was involved? It seems weird because he normally paid attention to every little detail.

• Firstly, Rem only does that in the anime. Secondly, how would he follow up on it? What lead would he follow? If you mean after he learned about shinigami, even someone of L's genius may have forgotten it, and besides he learned about shinigami only slightly before learning that Light and Misa supposedly can't be Kira.
• Considering his brilliant mind and how thorough he is with his investigations, it is really surprising that L didn't go through all the clues of the case after he had learnt shinigami were real. Particularly noteworthy are the facts that the second Kira had stated on TV that both Kiras would be able to recognize each other thanks to their shinigamis (invisible to all but them), and also that in the interrogation room Misa clearly started having a one-sided conversation (or was talking to something only she could see). This last bit, even without having the strand of hair moving on its own, should have stood out to L's attention in hindsight. The true question then is whether Rem would have been caught on camera or not, and if so, then the game is truly over since she mentioned Light by name.

Why doesn't Ryuk get bored of Light during the 3 year timeskip?

Ryuk is really only in the whole thing for entertainment, and when L dies, he is immediately worried that this means nothing interesting will happen anymore to which Light announces no, the real fun has just begun. But then we get the 3 year time jump during which... nothing, really, has happened that should interest Ryuk much. There is no real opposing force to Light and the investigation makes no progress at all for years. Ryuk normally gets bored easily (and in the finale, the second Light seems defeated he doesn't hesitate to kill him and leave). Yet he is content to wait around for 3 years?

• Probably enjoyed watching the world change in response to Kira's unfettered rule, watching Light act as L, and watching Light "pursue" Kira. In order to convincingly pretend to be L going after Kira, he would have to create and then follow fake leads.

Why does Near just let Light go?

After Light was shot a few times and escapes the warehouse, Near just lets him go with the reasoning that 1. Light won't make it far with those wounds and 2. he probably doesn't have any more Death Note pages. This seems like a huge gamble. There's really no telling on how far Light can still live with his wounds, but none of them seemed so fatal that it would clearly kill him in the next minutes. And why so sure that Light has no more scraps hidden? Although it proved true, it seems like exactly what Light might do - who says he didn't have another emergency scrap hidden in his shoe or something? For such a supposedly genius person it seems odd to just discard the chance that Light could hide somewhere and write down the entire taskforce, as he now has even Near's name.

• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole. This only happens in the anime.
  • It's not a plot hole, it's just Near being stupid, geniuses can be idiots sometimes.
    • I wasn't being perfectly literal. Regardless of whether you view it as a plot hole (and there are certainly people who would), my point is that it only happens in the anime.

Why don't they use some reverse engineering on Misa's tapes?

When Amane sends her tapes to the police, why don't they just use some software in order to revert the audio back to the original recording with her real voice? It sounds much easier rather than focusing on Light's acquaintances.

Why is Light being L seen as him being unbeatable?

This is mentioned during an argument between L and Light during his Memory Gambit, they say that Light being Kira and L at the same time is the ideal scenario, but how? L's objective is to catch Kira, if he is L and Kira at the same time, he couldn't catch Kira, but L and Light are geniuses, wouldn't become increasingly suspicious seeing the time pass while the Kira's case's investigation is not making any progress even when a genius is there? Someone out there (Near maybe) would eventually figure it out, having some control over the police is good, sure, but more so if he had some puppet there that he could kill anytime he messed up something than Light himself taking over the controllers. Honestly I see the moment he accepted L's proposal to work with him the worst decision he ever made.

Where did Raye get his certifications from?

Because regardless of the whole bus hijacking incident, shouldn't he know that it's not a good idea to identify yourself to a suspect? Sure, we know why it was a bad idea as Light needs the name and the face while he doesn't, but part of Raye's training as an undercover agent should have included knowing that you do not have to identify yourself if someone asks "Are you a cop?". Sure, maybe he could have simply said "Watch this. FREEZE! FBI!" instead of handing Light his creentials and simply be reassigned as Light knows that person works for the FBI and can identify his physical features.

How does Ryuk not know when Light is going to die?

After Light escapes the warehouse Ryuk says he doesn't know how long it's going to take before Light dies in prison, but couldn't Ryuk just look at Light and see how long he has left? I know he'd probably just kill him anyway out of boredom, but Ryuk's final monologue gives the impression that he's incapable of figuring it out, rather than just unwilling to wait.

• The numbers over a human's head only change when the Death Note has directly altered their lifespan, such as when their name is written in it or when they make the Eye Deal. Any changes made to a person's lifespan indirectly, such as a person who would have been randomly killed in a week by a drunk driver who is killed by the notebook, don't have their numbers change. Light's lifespan has been doubtlessly altered from his time with the notebook, but since it was never directly shortened by it, Ryuk still sees his old death date, which he knows is useless to him at this rate.

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