In fact, Matt Lagan as Lind L. Tailor (live action) was kind of hilarious for seasoned Survival Horror gamers - he dubs the majority of the male ghosts in Fatal Frame's first instalment, and Leonard in Silent Hill 3.
Banned In China: They're 'a poison which creates wicked hearts', apparently.
The theme playing at the very beginning of the pilot is a chanted variation of the taize prayer Kyrie Eleison, which is Greek for "Lord have mercy."
The theme that plays at various key moments - the "I am Justice" duet, the capture of the Yotsuba Kira, the revelation of Light's final gambit against Near, and the timeskip montage (where it plays in full) - is a Dies Irae. Oddly, it does not include the fifth verse of said apocalyptic choral number ("The written book will be brought/In which all is contained/Whereby the world will be judged"), but that is covered in "Teleology of Death", which plays when less overblown Ominous Latin Chanting is called for.
In the first episode (blink and you miss it) one of the names written in the Death Note is Uwe Bnote oll?...
One subtle indication of Light and L's opposition: Light uses a PC whereas L uses an Apple Macintosh.
In episode 24, when L pilots a helicopter, he sits normally. There's an in-universe reason for this, as helicopter controls cannot be used from L's usual sitting position.
During the English dub scene in the helicopter in episode 24, when L is holding the Death Note and giving a stream of thoughts showing how this notebook proves that Light is Kira, that last thing he says at the end of the stream is 'Yellow Box'. As this is the name of the abandonned warehouse mentionned and used in episodes 36 and 37, this can either be considered an accidental spoiler or epic Foreshadowing. In original audio he just says "two notebooks".
The "13th" issue of the manga (basically a Death Note encyclopedia) notes that any time L gave a percentage of the likelyhood that Light was Kira, he was lying— it was always 100% - in fact, "any time L throws out a percentage, it basically means that he suspects that person by over 90 percent." It also notes that he was lying when he called Light his friend.
L has enough symptoms to be diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Same with Near, but he doesn't have enough symptoms to be albino.
Even though he is shown mostly sitting, Near is shown standing while meeting with the President.
Minus Takada if you count her as the fifth Kira, the Kiras die in alphabetical order. Higuchi is killed by Light, Light is killed by Ryuk, Mikami dies by Near's actions (I follow the Near manipulated Mikami with the DN theory) and a year after Light's and Mikami's deaths, Misa commits suicide. H,..L, Mik, Mis... Clever, eh?
It's the same with L and his successors. L, then Mello, and eventually Near. So it's L, M, N.
Mello and Near's character designs were accidentally switched during character creation explaining why they have Ironic Codenames-they were originally going to be Meaningful Names-Mello was intended to be the "mello" one and Near was intended to be the Axe Crazy one that was drawing "near."
What Could Have Been: The author originally intended to use Mogi for an awesome and epic plot development, but could never figure out what that would be (beyond it being awesome and epic).
According to How To Read 13, the entire task force were going to die in heroic ways. In the actual story Matsuda, Aizawa, Mogi and Ide all survive.
Ryuk was originally going to look like this: [3]◊ but the creators were worried that if he looked cooler or more attractive than Light then the fans wouldn't pay attention to Light.
