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Shinigami, Mu, and Death Notes Kiras and Death Note users throughout history is the reason that the Full Name Ultimatum exists.
The Deathnote is a petition form to the Shinigami King, who is supreme God
All the rules of the Deathnote are the king's made up rules. It all seems like rules SOMEONE made up to make the whole Deathnote 'game' interesting. A game with no rules is not interesting. A game where Deathnotes have official 'owners' is.
The King of the Shinigami is...
There are other kinds of "notes"
First proposed humorously by Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw on his personal site . He speculates that there might be notes for other types of gods besides shinigami. He specifically mentions the Love Note, War Note, Rabbit Note, and Piss Pants Note.
The Death Note is really a mind-control device.
That would explain why Light can manipulate people into doing his wishes before dying. However, Ryuk and the sinigami wrote the instructions so the mind-control devices would remain Death Notes, in case if a Light-like sociopath took control of the world's leaders. (those leaders don't hide their faces, you know)
The real reason behind the ending of Death Note is ....... THE YAOI NOTE.
At the end Mikami possessed a death note and a yaoi note. However he mixed the two up, writing the members of the SPK and the Task Force's names down in the Yaoi note and writing his and Light's name in the Death Note. The Death Note in Mikami's saftey deposit box was also a fake to trick Near, he carried the real Death Note and Yaoi Note around with him all the time.
All the recent celebrity deaths result from someone using the death note.
Michael Jackson died of a heart attack; most likely from the user was trying to make him do something that he couldn't do. Billy Mays was next... also of a heart attack! And then there's this ◊.
A person's natural lifespan is the upper limit to when that person will die (barring suicidal shinigami).
In Another Note, Mello says that Beyond Birthday had an easier time with the physical aspect of killing his victims than most murderers because they were fated to die then anyway. This implies that most murderers kill people whose natural lifespan indicates that they should still be alive. Furthermore, this also explains how Misa was able to commit suicide even though she no longer owned a Death Note and had the lifespan of two Shinigami.
The Shinigami's World is Earth.
The distant future of Earth, or the Earth of another universe... a 'used-up' Earth no longer able to support life. The Shinigami are former humans who have extended their lifespans beyond all reason by the power of Death Notes. Who better to understand the futility of striving?
Shinigami have no idea whether humans have souls or what happens to them after death.
They're just predators of human lifespan who don't even understand half the things their Death Notes can do. It's clear that they have little consensus on the nature of minor things with other shinigami, and sometimes Ryuk just makes stuff up because it's funny. Ultimately, they don't care what happens to their lunch after they eat it.
The numbers displayed by shinigami eyes are meaningless
The rules of the Death Note establish that it can alter the lifespan of a person whose name is written in the note and that such changes aren't shown by the shinigami eyes. So if someone dies before their visible lifespan reaches 0, or doesn't die when it reaches 0, it may safely be assumed that someone used a Death Note to affect that person's lifespan. This, combined with shinigami lacking visible lifespans, makes it impossible to test the accuracy of the numbers. It is thus safe to assume they have no meaning.
Writing a dead person's name in a Death Note makes him or her Deader than Dead
The rules of the Death Note state that a shinigami who brings a Death Note to the human world is obligated to confirm the death of the first human owner and to write that human's name in his or her Death Note. Since it's possible for the owner to die a natural death before his or her name is written in the Death Note, we must conclude that there is a reason for writing his or her name other then killing him or her - such as ensuring he or she stays dead.
Humans can be killed before the end of their lifespan without a Death Note
One of the rules of the Death Note states that it's forbidden for a shinigami to kill someone without using a Death Note. If a person killed by a shinigami was destined to die then regardless of the shinigami's actions, there would be no way to justify this punishment.
The reason Ryuk calls the Shinigami world boring and rotten is human science and population
At the beginning of the series, Ryuk calls the Shinigami world rotten. He also thinks that it is extremely boring. The reason: human overpopulation and weapons technology are fundamentally making his job as a Shinigami worthless. The shinigami are a failsafe to keep the global population down so that we don't end up killing the planet. With all of our scientific advances, our population is growing much faster than it's going down; the Shinigami clearly aren't keeping up on getting rid of the excess people. Modern weapons make the Shinigami's job boring. With the advent of the nuclear bomb, the human race can kill millions of people (and possibly the planet) with a few orders and a handful of people. With all of this unnatural death - that is, humans trying to do what Shinigami do - it's messing up the (super)natural order of things.
The Death Note is merely a novelty item that is not magic at all.
All the deaths happened by chance.
The Shinigami Realm is a Weird Trade Union.
Sure, Death Note Rule #36 is the most notorious for being Internet Rule #34 deterrent; but the others regarding Shinigami conduct reveal much further insight into what is essentially the local monopoly on supernatural causes of death:
The Shinigami of Death Note and the Reapers of The World Ends With You are part of the same organisation
Think about it. They both consume human lifespans to survive, both abide by strict sets of rules, and both have a habit in meddling in human affairs. The Shinigami affect the RG and send people on murderous rampages with the Death Note; the Reapers affect the UG and run the Reaper's Game.
Humans who use Death Notes become Shinigami when they die.
This gels nicely with Ryuk's comment that a human who uses the Death Note can neither go to Heaven nor to Hell. It also explains why shinigami only know bits and pieces of what a Death Note can do — all they know is what they figured out while they were alive.
Death Note owners immediately cease to be human.
It's possible that owning a Death Note transforms you into a Shinigami inhabiting a human body. This would explain Light's Shinigami-like appearances later in the series. When you die, you leave the body as a Shinigami living off the additional lifespan you garnered from lives taken by the Death Note.
The more bug-like shinigami, as mentioned in How to Read (such as the slug-one and Sidoh and possibly Gelus) are the original Shinigami, or at least pre-human; the more human ones (Ryuk and the unnamed shinigami and possibly Rem and Gelus) used to be human.
Shinigami pass on to Purgatory when they "die"
In conjuction with the theory above, when Shinigami use the Death Note in order to save a human life, they redeem their souls, leaving the Shinigami Realm (which is Hell) and finally passing on to Purgatory (and then to Heaven, or the "human" afterlife). Shinigami are formed by usually corrupt and greedy people who have owned and used a Death Note in the past for their own gain (e.g., Light); it usually takes centuries before any ever redeem themselves, if it happens at all, but showing that they come to care for a being other than themselves returns their humanity, reducing them to a form indistinguishable from dust or ashes as they pass on. As per their wishes, the human they have saved receives their remaining life span and lives on while they die so that they won't continue saving them. This is why many don't know how a Shinigami dies, let alone how to kill one: it is rare for it to happen, or for any Shinigami to see it when it does. Rem just happened to be at the right place at the right time when she observed it.
After some period of time, used Death Note pages are erased, repaired, and returned to the note
This is why all of the Death Notes remain the same size.
The Death Note can do the impossible.
One of the rules says, if the written cause of death is impossible, then the victim will die of a heart attack. Taken at face value, this means that the victim will die of a heart attack even if it is impossible for that to occur.
The "fake" Death Notes one can buy online are real.
However, due to the 6 Death Note rule, they aren't functional — yet.
Tom Anderson and/or Mark Zuckerberg own a Deathnote
Death Notes have an opposite number, the Life Notes
They cause instantaneous pregnancies.
All Death Note users (and humans, for that matter) go to Mu when they die.
Sadly, Ark took the last Enbu Pike, so they're on their own.
The Shinigami eyes...
Are really Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. While Shiki had been trained as an assassin at birth, he identified death as 'lines'-something he can cut that is, make happen. To anyone else, however, they simply identify death as an 'event', mostly beyond their control, meaning they can only see a timer counting down until the persons predestined death, and a name to distinguish that death from any other death.
Since the people who gain the eyes aren't the sort to comprehend the 'death' of an inanimate object, they don't get the lifespans of inanimate objects. And since they don't see death in anything but the living, they don't get the splitting migraines Shiki suffers from.
There really is an afterlife
It is just called MU, or nothingness. Naming it that was just one of Ryuk many jokes. And it is not like this series does not already have weird naming conventions.
Humans will be the next shinigami.
In How To Read, it's mentioned that the designs of the shinigami were based on insects. Since there are only 13 shinigami (plus The boss), and at least two shinigami died in the space of a year, there will eventually be no shinigami left. The remaining shinigami will either be bored like Ryuk or infatuated with humans like Gelus, only the Ryuk-like shinigami will make a mistake and get themselves kiled. As Ryuk is the only one to successfully (sort of) pull of a "get more Death Notes" plot, he will replace the god-being once the other ten shinigami bite the dust, and any humans that have or have used death notes and survived, or have received the shinigamis' remaining life spans (see: Misa Will Live For Hundreds of Years above) will replace the shinigami, and frow to be more like the beings that replace humans, as the original shinigami may have grown from insects.
Only as many death notes may be used in the human world as there are shinigami.
Six shinigami died, possibly including Gelus, but Ryuk either didn't know or didn't bother to update the rules after Rem died.
The 23-day rule applies even when the cause of death is a disease.
The reason the rules state that it doesn't apply is due to a misunderstanding about how the 23-day rule works. Rather then having 23-days to kill the victim, the Death Note has 23-days to cause the victim's death. For instance, if the cause of death was a disease that the victim couldn't possibly contract in 23-days he or she would die of a heart attack.
Everyone who dies is reincarnated as a cow.
Mu is just a misspelling of "Moo".
It is possible to kill Shinigami by mundane means
The rules of the Death Note say that shinigami cannot be killed via a stab to the heart with a knife or a gun shot to the head. Note that it doesn't say what would happen if you say shot the in the heart, stabbed themin the head, or nuked them, or well you get the idea. However, due to their ability to become incorporeal, hitting them would be quite difficult.
Shinigami are asexual.
The whole male/female thing is just due to their social behavior and body shape, not due to a presence of sexes. That's why they can't have sex with humans. As for being the receiving side in anal sex... Let's just say it's not compatible, okay? I don't really like to think about that. Neither should you.
The shinigami each correspond to a major character.
Ryuk is L/Ryuzaki; He does all this because he's bored with his power over humans (which "he" doesn;t matter). Mello is Rem, full of rage and emotion to the point he/she/it can't do their job correctly, and hates with a passion Ryuk/L. Gelus is Misa; obsessed with another character to the point of self-destruction (especially if you consider the "after the series" information from How To Read). Near and Sidou are mostly but not entirely paralell: both dull and uninteractive, and want to get rid of their primary opposition (Ryuk for Sidou, Kira for Near), but Near is presumably very smart compared to the others, whereas Sidou is... not. Light, of course, is the Unnamed Shinigami.
The Shinigami King is the unnamed shinigami.
He could have taken on a form reminiscent of Light to mess with Ryuk, something (Ryuk or the Death Note power) pushed Light gently towards similarities to the Shinigami King, or it was just coincidence.
The Death Notes have a kind of influence on their user to ensure they are used as much as possible.
Think about it. Light, mid-Memory Gambit, was much less evil-seeming than he was even in his first couple of days in possession of a Death Note. Nobody corrupts that fast naturally, it just doesn't work. Not to that degree. And then there's Misa, who's much more crafty and overall intelligent when in possession of a note and trying to get to Light than at any other point, even immediately after she surrenders it to Light - as The Ditz, she wouldn't have used it at all, therefore the note made her smarter to encourage use. The notes are meant to be used, and will be. No matter what. (And before you accuse me of crafting Light some leather pants, the only pants I'm interested in are L's. Er... That Came Out Wrong...
Only people who have shinigami eyes when they die become shinigami.
Because by the time they die they already have a shinigami body part (metaphorically speaking). So by that logic, B, Higuchi, Soichiro, Mikami, and the unnamed kid from the three years later affair become shinigami.
The Death Notes are a type of zanpakutou
Think about it. Their wielders are shinigami, and they have special powers. They're just like Ichigo's and Kenpachi's zanpakutou: always released on shikai, which takes on the form of a notebook. They were probably developed by Mayuri as a way of sending pluses to Soul Society without having to bother hunting them down and doing that release ceremony. But something went wrong, and they became able to drain the reiatsu of living humans to their wielders, which then turned evil and went on to live in hueco mundo. Thus, all the Kiras are in fact shinigami, who'll turn into hollows when dead, since their hearts are already lost. One can only wonder how would the death note's Bankai look like.
Humans don't actually have anything written above their heads.
The Shinigami eyes actually link the user to a Magical Database equipped with Facial Recognition Software. However, that database only contains records of living persons. Thus explaining why a person's name and lifespan can only be seen in a photograph if he/she is still alive.
Some of the "official" Death Note rules are actually lies made up by Ryuk
Ryuk wrote down the instructions to begin with, and is perfectly capable of writing down false ones as he showed Light. Taking into account that he's not bound by human morals or commitments, it's possible that he made up fake rules to add to his entertainment or cover up what he didn't know. The next three WMGs take this into account.
Death Notes can control people well beyond 23 days before their deaths
In fact, they can influence peoples' lives for years, as long as it ends in their deaths. Ryuk, however, didn't think it would be fun to watch anyone's death drag on for years, and claimed that there was a time limit.
Erasing a name in the Death Note CAN bring someone back to life
...provided not enough time has passed since death and the body is still functional. Of course, doing so would mean forfeiting the user's life. Ryuk never saw the point of this, and couldn't imagine a Shinigami ever trying this, so he simply wrote in the instructions that doing so is impossible.
Killing people with a Death Note can extend the user's lifespan, even if he is human.
Ryuk simply decided not to write it down so that the human wouldn't act like a Shinigami, killing only once every twenty years or so for insurance. Better as many deaths as possible. Because of this, Light could have lived for hundreds of thousands of years - and all of it went to Ryuk after writing down Light's name. Lucky Shinigami never has to work again!
The Death Notes hone in on humans with similar personalities to that of the Shinigami they are attached to.
Let's see you got Ryuk and Light- manipulative liars who don't tolerate boredom well (and bonus points: having the exact same inner monologue at the start of the series! Both believe in "This world is Rotten"), Rem and Misa both have their tragic love, and Sidoh the wimpy Shinigami ends up with Snyder the wimpy mafioso.
Alternatively, the bond with the Shinigami has a subtle influence on the owner's personality.
Light is much more playful when he is attached to Ryuk and more prone to slashy moments when attached to Rem. And in Season 2 after being attached to Ryuk for a few years Misa is even more hyperactive than before and is often complaining about how bored she is.
There really is a Shinigami Wing Deal.
But the trade is for something so horrible that no sane user would ever consider it.
Death Notes regenerate.
It is impossible to permanently destroy them.
Those with shinigami eyes have one of two choices: insanity or suicide.
While it may be handy to have when one has a Death Note, shinigami eyes-and knowing the names and lifespans of everyone one meets-have to take a toll on a person's mental state after a long time, causing them to either lose their minds completely, or killing themselves to make it all stop. Third Option: Blinding oneself Oedipus style. Pretty much all the examples of Death Note-B, Higuchi, Takada (live action only), and Mikami- went insane. (The kid from the one-shot killed himself, but for unrelated reasons, and Soichiro didn't live long enough to get any option.)
Contact with a shinigami erases morals.
This is why Light screamed when he first saw Ryuk; it wasn't shock, it was the pain of having part of his mind/soul/whatever-you-want-to-call-it ripped away. This is also why Misa's reaction to Rem telling her that she and Light were Kira was so amoral even before she regained her memories; simply being able to see Rem did the same to her. When someone loses the Death Note, they aren't being possessed by the shinigami, and they're no longer influenced by them. The shinigami themselves probably don't even know about this, except for possibly the King. This is why shinigami have to stay around the people who are holding their Death Notes. And who knows what the long-term exposure might have ended up doing to the task force?
Only Death Note users who are killed by shinigami can become one
If we're to accept that the unnamed shinigami is Light, then we gotta ask what made him so special out of all the kiras? The answer is all of them, except Misa, were killed by Light and not one of them were killed by a shinigami. Hell, Light or Near probably killed her too
The Death Note could be used as a part of a perpetual motion machine.
The Death Note never runs out of pages. Burning those pages portions at a time could be used to create a fire that would create more energy than what was put into it.
Death Note Shinigami are actually Hollows.
When people die the go to the Pokémon world.
MU is just a misspelling of Mew. When you die you go to the world where Mew lives.
The Death Note really was just a prank.
But when Kurou Otaharada coincidentally died when he tested it out Light was driven insane because he believed he killed someone. The rest of the series is his hallucination with the exception of L who he knows as another inmate (friend / rival / more-than-a-friend) at The Home for the Mentally Disturbed and who Light has incorporated into his delusional narrative.
Mu was actually closer to a proper afterlife once upon a time.
However, the Shinigami stopped giving a crap about their jobs at some point and let the realm fall into disarray. As a result, the afterlife became The Nothing After Death.
L and/or Light L had supernatural powers
L possessed some mind-reading powers and could also predict future, he just needed to focus on something and if this something is human he read his mind (but couldn't see with his eyes), or if it is event or idea he saw near future in third person perspective. However he was smart enough to maintain cover so the problem was not to find who committed crimes, but how to tell others without being suspicious. He could tell that Light is Kira from the very beginning, but had to start investigation to draw no uncontrollable or unwanted attention to himself. However he couldn't read shinigami's minds and probably knew that, this explains his freakout when he learned that shinigamis are real. And yes, he heard all Light's internal monologues but needed irresistible evidence or Light's personal public confession to arrest him, and also it was hard for him to accept Death Note as Light's weapon. While Light was losing to L all the time L missed exact moment Light set events leading to his death in motion but all he could do by that time is to call someone from Wammy's house as his substitute.
In the Wammy's House kids with such abilities were gathered, or normal orphans were infused with such powers and than their development observed. Stronger skills lead to subjects matured much slower.
Near also had such powers, but probably not fully awakened or just a bit weaker than L's, however he was much less subtle with their demonstration because he was less experienced in using them, much less known in the world and had full support of his team, while L was all the time under suspicion by members of Taskforce, despite being stronger. Mello, on the other hand, was much weaker than L, but probably was smarter than Near himself and so was with him almost on par.
This also evens balance of power, making Light's struggle look much more impressive. Sorry for my English
L was born with the Shinigami eyes.
Yes, just like Beyond Birthday. They could be brothers or something. That's why L knew Light was Kira from the very beginning—because he saw no numbers above his head. However he couldn't arrest him just based on that. How would he explain it to the police (and Light's father)? So he had to find the physical evidence in order to substantiate his "hunch."
L is slightly obese
There's no way that someone can eat that many sweets and get away with it. L isn't too fat, but he has a layer of fat that he doesn't want anyone to know about. That's why he avoids tight clothing and spends his time hunched over.
L is on Crystal Meth
He eats insane amounts of sugary foods, and is still really thin. Saying he has an insanely high metabolism is a bit of a stretch. And when you factor in the fact that he never sleeps...yeah. And he says that he burns the calories with his brain activity, yeah right.
Light is stuck in a time loop.
In the last episode he sees his past self. Though more likely than not symbolic for the sake of WMG let's say that when Ryuk said Light couldn't go to heaven or hell that meant that he was stuck in an eternal Groundhog Day Loop of those past six years.
Light is Doctor Horrible.
"The world is a mess and I just need to rule it!"
L is really Lelouch Lamperouge.
Filling in the blanks of L's Dark and Troubled Mysterious Past.
When Lelouch was very young he runs afoul of someone with a teleporting Geass and he lands in an Alternate Universe where the Britannian Empire never existed. He's found by inventor Quillsh Wammy who creates the necessary Applied Phlebotinum to get him home but Lelouch never forgets about that kindly old man or that other world where the people are free.
Flash forward about ten years later after Lelouch goes through with the Zero Requiem plan.
Through someone else's Geass power or some other Applied Phlebotinum he's brought back to life, though he doesn't want to be. Fearing that this will undo what he sought to achieve he escapes into that alternate world he discovered when he was young and reunites with Quillsh Wammy, where he takes on a new identity as the Great Detective L. But he's still very depressed and wants to die. So, he never goes out, his hair grows long and he wears the clothes of a commoner. He spends all his time solving cases and since he has horrific nightmares from the war he tries to avoid sleeping, and begins eating massive amounts of sweets as a nervous habit. He takes on the Kira case partly out of a desire to stop him before he can create an Evil Empire just like Britannia but also out a subconscious hope that Kira will grant his wish.
This is why L zeroes in on Light immediately, he recognizes a kindred soul, a Machiavellian bastard just like him or his family.
'L' was born Elle, a woman
What is the most perfect way to find your identity? Change your gender! Seriously.
The entire series was a hypothetical exercise for L.
Death Note is just a Strategy RPG video game that Light is playing and the different ending of the manga, movie, and anime are the result of his Save Scumming.
Light developed the game himself and the personalities of the enemies are based off his good friends L, Mello, and Near to annoy them. Light tries playing his game and the first time... Fail. Tries again... Epic Fail. Third time... "I can totally make it this, time I have a Phoenix down!" *Tries to outrun the cops as health bar reaches zero* "Aw shit!" And L is there at the end of the anime to tell him he needs to stop fooling around—they have orphans to bake cookies for and besides, it's Matt's turn to use the Xbox-he wants to play Grand Theft Auto and is under no illusions that the cops won't shoot this time.
L is a robot!!
Rem didn't want to kill L, but did so inadvertently by killing Watari. L gave instructions to Watari to delete all data when he died, correct? It's because L is a robot. L needed someone to guide him at all times, and Watari was that person. When Watari pressed the delete button, it stopped L from functioning, which killed him as well.
L's biological parents were fans of The Slayers
They named him after their favorite character, L-sama.
First of all, Misa was throwing herself all over him from the second they met, and he didn't seem to care. Later, she began wearing the skimpiest things imaginable when they're alone; again, he doesn't care. He's never shown any interest in women beyond their usefulness to his plans (Misa and Takada for their willingness to follow him completely, the girl he took to Spaceland, etc.). He even said something to the effect that all the girls in his school want him, but he only sees it as a way to help in his plans. All this is understandable after he obtains the Death Note; all he wants then is world domination. But one would think that, being so popular, he would have had a girlfriend before he found it.
And then there's all the things implied between him and L...
Light is in love with HIMSELF
L has Asperger's Syndrome.
Light realizes what a bland and uninteresting character he is, and sets out to kill anyone more interesting.
The real reason L challenges Light is because of fandom rivalry.
Because Light is a Bishōnen bad boy who has a personality beyond being "mysterious" and that just won't do! Being "mysterious" is L's whole shtick- so very mysterious, and dark, and brooding and mysterious. Yeah, that's L's real plan-to attract scores of fangirls with his troubled brooding and the way he eats sweets.
Light is genuinely working for Justice, and L and co. are servants of evil.
As The Good Book Says, John 3:19-20: This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and will not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Therefore, by seeking to capture and stop Light, L. and company are the real evildoers.
Light is the Antichrist.
His name is written with the kanji for "moon," and thus the pronunciation of his name is simply a way to deceive us. And let's not forget who, in The Bible, the "Lightbringer" was, and who tried to place himself Above the Most High.
L is a body-snatching monster.
The Wammy's House's true purpose is to provide new bodies for L. The best and smartest of L's "heirs" becomes the body L will possess in case he dies. This explains why so many of Near's mannerisms are similar to L's: L just forced poor Near's original soul out and replaced him!
L poisoned Light, making him less intelligent in the second half
Think about it. Light seems like he drops 40 points of IQ between the L and Near arcs, taking a bunch of stupid risks in the latter. Given how smart L is, he would know that, if Watari died, then it would prove Light was Kira, but then L wouldn't have time to implicate him. So, he developed an elaborate booby trap when the computer systems were installed, setting up the core computer systems that would most likely be taken by Light when he left to release poison gas over a long period of time. Given that Light would be working with the computers almost constantly, the poison would degrade his facilities of reason. By being non-lethal, L would avoid killing any innocent members of the anti-Kira group. The gradual dosage would prevent Light from noticing and minimize the effects on the other members. This also has a nice dramatic structure, since the second part can be seen as a two-part plan by L - reduce Light's intelligence considerably and then, when he's been sufficiently softened up, send in the two people most likely to be able to take him down.
L and his successors were "shields"
All of the cases they "solved" were solved by Ryuga Hideki. Furthermore, L using Ryuga Hideki's name was a failed attempt to get Kira to kill Ryuga. Ryuga had information about L that would lead to his demise, which is why L was protecting Ryuga rather then fulfilling his lifelong dream of building the world's largest sugar cube city.
L had a crush on Naomi Misora.
Because, c'mon, that hug at the end of the novel. Plus, a lot of his dialogue in the phone conversations seem like he's trying to impress her and is completely clueless to how annoying she finds him. After she kicks him and he finds out she has a boyfriend, the bad experience causes him to pretty much give up on relationships and become the basement-dwelling Covert Pervert we know today.
Yagami Light really is named Raito.
The letter "L" is hard to say in Japanese, for some reason. Light is Japanese. So, for once, maybe that crude Japanese approximation of his name is his actual name? Okay, that's way out there, but it's been theorized before.
The Light Yagami who became Kira isn't the real Light Yagami
The real Light Yagami was a mild-mannered high school student, top of his class, who accidentally discovered the Death Note. He used it twice. After realizing that he had killed two people, he snapped, replacing his real personality with the one that would go on to become Kira.
L hallucinates everything after he sees the second Kira video
The case was real up to a certain point. Then he snaps, which is shown by his overreaction to the mention of 'shinigami' in the second Kira's video, because he hadn't gotten enough sleep.
Light is insane, and the whole series is a hallucination on his part
L dies halfway through it, so it can't be L's hallucination.
Light has a complete mental breakdown partly through the series.
Either after spending a few weeks in solitary confinement, or the instant he gets his death note back. He's certainly under enough stress to have a breakdown. And the universe suddenly starts bending over backwards to bail him out. Rem kills herself and L to resolve a situation that would work out much better if she sold Light out and cutting a deal for Misa; then, even though the only thing keeping Light from conviction is a lack of solid evidence, everyone suddenly refuses to believe that he could be Kira no matter what he does. He gets his own cult, and girls are fighting over him... Granted, it all eventually falls apart on him, but these things always do.
Light was controlling Penber's actions via Death Note on the train
So Raye Penber's kills count as kills for Light.
L has Asperger's Syndrome.
L is pretty much an Asperger's poster boy. He has poor social skills and no friends (he even admits that Light was his first friend ever); he is extremely intelligent; he can't seem to sit still without doing something with his hands (all that obsessive sugar-cube stacking); he has an otherworldly way of looking at things; and he doesn't seem to realize he's bothering people, Misa especially.
Everything that happened in the series was imagined by Light
The Death Note was made as a prank by a random student. When Light wrote the name of the first guy in, he was gunned down by police rather than having a heart attack. Light, disillusioned by the crime in the world, desperately wished to believe he could make a difference; the stress of being number one in everything rendered him unstable. As for the second guy, Light killed him himself using his sports skills and then ran off to avoid retribution; his mind made up a false memory of using the Note. The criminals that he wrote in the following week did not die, but he believed they did. He finally began to hallucinate Ryuk after a week of believing himself to be a murderer.
The investigation of the so-called Kira was imagined by Light and was his inner conscience protesting the killing of criminals. That side of him would be manifested as L, who is essentially exactly like Light in terms of intelligence and skill, but unwilling to conform to societal norms to represent the stress that came with being always perfect.
Misa was already a famous model before Light found the Note; Light only imagined having a relationship with her as part of his repressed sexuality. L, Light's subconscious "good" side, weakened as Light's "evil" side grew stronger and eventually died. Light was put into a coma as part of a failed suicide attempt when the police began suspecting him of killing the gang member.
At the end, when he is killed, it is his moral subconscious, resurrected as Near, rejecting the world he's constructed for himself. He is not sent into nothingness, but the world he lived in is. He spent those eight years in the coma and is now just waking up.
A number of different versions in the fine details of this theory are equally valid, so it is probably not 100% right.
In the Movieverse, L was in love with F.
Which is why he writes his own name in the Death Note right after he finds out about F's death.
L is a werewolf
Okay. Where do I start?...
He constantly sits oddly, in a style that looks like the way a dog sits on their haunches.
He is shown with constantly dialated pupils.
He has shaggy hair.
He has naturally pure black hair.
He constantly hunches over on himself, which could be reminicent of some interpretations of werewolves (gestalt form).
He has an oral fixation.
He looks more and more like he has issues the later on with his eyes. Look at when he's first introduced compaired to the chain incident. The issue is that he has more bags under his eyes later, and his eyes are shown wider and wider.
Now that I'm paying more attention, let me revise some.
He also seems to not sweat (tennis mach, anyone?), he was only shown breathing heavily. This follows, considering actual wolves and dogs can only sweat on their paws. Considering he was in his usual outfit, while Light was in a t-shirt and shorts and he was sweating all over the place.
L is a vampire.
See above. He's thin, pale, dislikes going outside preferring to be the Voice with an Internet Connection and is never seen eating "real food." It also explains why he's insanely wealthy-being immortal he could have saved up for centuries.
Light is a werewolf.
L deliberately manipulated Aizawa into leaving the Kira task force.
L suspected something was up when Light started vehemently proclaiming his innocence, and evidence in support of that claim came up at a convenient time. He deduced the possibility that Light had given up "Kira's power" and his memories of being Kira, as part of a Xanatos Gambit to prove his innocence and ultimately kill L. L knew he needed a backup in the event that he was killed, and when the third Kira's threats meant that the Japanese police would no longer support the task force, he saw his chance. Knowing that Aizawa was the one with the most to lose if he quit his job, and had been distrustful of L and disturbed by his methods for quite some time, he subtly pressed Aizawa into strongly considering whether he was willing to see the investigation through to the end, no matter what. When it became evident that he would, L covertly signalled to Watari to "innocently" remind L of the fund he had set up to support the families of the task force members in the event that they were coerced into leaving the police, bringing Aizawa to the conclusion that L had withheld the information to test his resolve, and resentful of such manipulation would leave the task force.
This would mean Aizawa, a competent investigator, would not be around Light for the months he was unable to remember that he was Kira. L deduced that if Light should kill him and take over the task force, that Aizawa would return to the task force (if he had not already), and thus the task force would include someone most inclined to consider the possibilty that Light was Kira, having not been around him during his temporary "innocence". This would provide L's successor with a clear insight to the workings of the task force, and a vital weapon to use against Light. L may even have left instructions for Near that Aizawa was the surest bet for defeating Kira.
Forget Light, L was the true mastermind, with an incredibly subtle Xanatos Gambit that transcended his own death and went Exactly as Planned.
High school super-genius Light Yagami is really Kira!
Think about it! From the very first transmission L ever made, we know that Kira is in Japan! And Light Yagami is one of the smartest students in all of Japan, more than capable of staying one step ahead of the detectives pursuing Kira! Also, his father works for the police, giving Light tons of access to sensitive information about the criminals he kills!
L becomes aware of his fictionality.
The reason L freaks out when he admits the existence of Shinigami is that in his mind, he comes up with an abstruse proof of the impossibility of Shinigami and the natural conclusion that he is a fictional character in a fictional universe. Despite his mental fortitude and natural intelligence, there's only so much a sleep-deprived youth can take.
L was not actually murdered; he died of natural causes
Rem kills Watari via death note, then dies immediately thereafter. The only reason L dies is because of a NATURAL heart attack brought about by his incredibly poor nutrition. The timing of his death is merely coincidence. Thus, Kira did not actually defeat L.
Light died exactly when he was supposed to according to his number, & went just as planned... by fate.
Think about it - Misa was set to die on Year X, Day X, Hour X, Minute X, Second X. By a murderer. And this was the end of her life as predetermined by her number. This death wasn't because of a disease, accident, old age, or anything else - it was a death caused by another sentient being; therefore, the entire idea of "free will" in the Death Note world is a load of bunk, and everyone except the Shinigami are subject to a law of fate and predetermination! Ryuk even said that he knew when Light was going to die, and with some glee at that; combine this with the fact that he said he would be the one to right Light's name in the Death Note when things got boring for him. While this seems like just a threat on Ryuk's part, perhaps Ryuk forsaw Light's death entirely beforehand, and therefore knew that Light would die exactly when he did, and by Ryuk's hands - it wasn't a threat, it was a prophetic message which couldn't be avoided by a human. Taking this into account, then, everything Light did, L did, Near, Misa, and everyone else did was predetermined from the moment that Light picked up the Death Note. Perhaps Light's death number was different before taking the Death Note, but thanks to Ryuk's meddling (because, as was stated before, the Shinigami are outside the realm of fate - or those that do not interfere in human affairs, at least), and dropping of the Note, Light's number was changed to reflect the exact moment Ryuk wrote his name in the notebook.
L is Shinichi Kudo
You know it's true. Shinichi after turning 10 and starting a new life under the name Conan Edogawa, never managed to go back to his old self, and just grew up as Conan, later becoming L.
Light is adopted.
Light was adopted...from the Wammy's House.
Light was adopted from Wammy's House and he has a brother... Matt.
Clothes and Fanon hair-dye aside they look very similar.
Light is A from Wammy's House.
Maybe A as in Asahi. He's a genius and he's about the right age. That means he survived his suicide attempt but he had such severe mental trauma that he somehow got Easy Amnesia from it. So L or Wammy adopted him out to a nice normal family far, far away on the other side of the planet in an attempt to Give Him A Normal Life without any stress... and holy shit did it go wrong...
If Light was adopted then "Light Yagami" isn't his real name.
So he survived the ending, Ryuk wrote down "Light Yagami" in the notebook to help him fake his death. He was just sleeping there at the ending. You see thanks to spending time with L and being forced into chronic sleep deprivation he's developed narcolepsy or something.
Light is a Bastard Bastard.
Soichiro isn't Light's biological father. It would explain why Light looks nothing like him in an anime, why Soichiro seems to favor Sayu, and why Light and his father seem to have somewhat strained relationship even before Light comes under suspicion of being Kira.
Following above guesses Light would have become a killer anyway even if he hadn't picked up the notebook because he is host to a Dark Passenger.
Light Yagami looks nothing like the rest of his family with his (red-)brown hair but he does kind of look like Dexter. They could be (half-)brothers. Dexter, The Ice Truck Killer and Light could share the same vicious bastard of a biological father. The mother was a Japanese woman and, after Light was concieved, she returned to Japan and either dies after giving birh or abandons the child and, like Dexter, Light is adopted by a police officer but that's where the similarities end. Light is very much "an unchecked version" because unlike Dexter who had Harry and the Code, Light was raised so sheltered and made to adhere to such strict morals that he can't cope with the very idea of evil in the world or himself in any terms other than Kill It with Fire!!!!!111 (or rather heart attacks). However since Light didn't have the same trigger as Dexter of sitting for days in his mother's blood. it took some extra encouragement to trigger his Dark Passanger. Notably when Light forsakes the Death Note during the Yotsuba arc he lacks the same evil and cunning that he has when he uses it. Something similar happens to Dexter when he, for a time loses his Passanger in the Dexter book series.
L is also a host to a Dark Passenger.
L is known to have a Dark And Troubled Mysterious Past so maybe Wammy found L early enough that he could prevent him from becoming a Serial Killer and trained him to control his urges to become a detective instead, and L's many weird quirks are manifestations of his suppressed violent urges. Maybe that's what Wammy's house does: Mello and Near also have some sociopathic tendencies and B could be a less then successful outcome of that program. Like Dexter and Doakes Light and L share an almost psychic connection often thinking the exact same thing, like their Passengers are communicating with each other.
Dexter is an AU counterpart of Light Yagami.
They're both serial killers who kill killers.
Light has a cousin named Ichigo
Because how many auburn-haired Japanese families do you know? (Only like in every anime...)
Some more of Light's relatives train digital monsters.
Tai and Hikari Yagami. And they both have brown hair...
Light is Ryuk's son
Ryuk impregnated Sachiko Yagami, and Light is half-Shinigami. Ryuk didn't drop the DN randomly, he wanted Light to follow in Dad's footsteps.
No, Aizen is Light's biological father.
Just as planned. [5]
Light's physiology is subtly different to a normal human's.
Okay, tring to explain this. At one point, Light eats a scrap of deathnote to dispose of evidence. Deathnotes are made of a substance not found on earth. Normally, an organism's tolerance to a substance is roughly proportional to its occurence where the organism evolved. (Which is why we're rather dependent on some common substances such as water, and sickened by many rarer ones, like radium.)
Light was Dead All Along.
He was dead from the moment he picked up the notebook, he just never noticed (nor did anyone else.) That would explain his Lack of Empathy and apparent lack of sex drive. As to why it affected Light in this way and not the other Kiras well, he had the dull eyed look even before he picked it up. As stated in an above tin-foil hat theory maybe Light is part-Shinigami.
L isn't outsmarting his food...
He's bulimic. You can't just wish your food away. The amount of food he eats is easily comparable to a binge, yet he's impossibly skinny. It could start easily too: a very young L is stressed out on a case, has no healthy coping mechanism (you can't tell me he would've), eats too much, feels too sick to focus, so sticks his finger down his throat so he can focus on the case instead of his stomachache. Repeat ad infinitum. He cottons on to this, of course, but by this time he's well and truly entrenched and he refuses to go to therapy because that would require trusting people. He might have fought it, but then came the Kira case with way too much stress for him to deal with without the food-based coping mechanism. (When he and Light are chained together, he positions them within chain's length of the bathroom, waits for Light to fall asleep, and then makes himself throw up. If anyone could keep an eye on someone while intentionally making themselves ill, it would be him.)
Light's Not Quite Dead
You see, after he went to Mu, the Shinigami became scared that he'd gain dominion over the Nothing After and use its power (or a well-placed Cosmic Horror) to get revenge on reality, so they made him corporeal and sent him to the alternate timeline of the Code Geass series. Light drops out of the sky and crash lands in the cart, as seen during Code Geass' credits. Lelouch and Light have a Magnificent Bastard Chessmaster contest which results in a tie, causing both to agree to join forces to take over the world. And it was awesome. And FABULOUS once Suzaku joined the party.
Light apparently became less intelligent because he was over-exerting his brain.
This is related to the poison gas theory above. What if the brain-power required to maintain all those Xanatos Gambits, as well as his good grades, was just beyond him, so that he ended up repeatedly straining his brain? The damage from this could have sped up the 'natural decline' in his intelligence.
L survived
This might be an anime-only thing, but...
Normally when a person dies, his/her pupils dilate. L's pupils, however, contract. Unless they were going for a Psycho homage, I can't see this as anything other than a major neon sign pointing out the fact that he's a big ol' faker (if it's just a case of Did Not Do the Research, why did they make such a point of focusing on those shiny grey irises?).
Columbo is L's Maternal Grandfather
Traits they share: Limited Wardrobe, mysterious backgrounds, Hyper Awareness, And Another Thing ... they're both detectives. Since Lamarck Was Right all of this implies that L and Columbo are related. Since Lawliet isn't an Italian name, Columbo's daughter must have married a non-Italian. This, of course, begs for the prequel story in which L learns from the master.
During the Potato Chip sequence, Light choked to death.
The rest of the series was a hallucination that occurred in the seconds before his death. He started acting crazy at the end of the series because his brain had lost too much oxygen flow and was starting to lose coherency. His heart attack was how he perceived his own death. He wouldn't accept that he had been taken down by a snack food.
Light is also a fan of Hideki Ryuuga the pop star.
He dresses like him and uses the same cheesy romantic quotes when trying to impress Takada.
L is Raito's reincarnation!
Maybe Raito, when taken to "Nothingness", tried to find a way out, and he was given a way out? The only way for him to go to heaven or hell was - to stop himself in his madness.
It'll explain all of the Gambit Pileups that were made in the first half. Also, this will explain, why L wasn't really satisfied with his results. And why he still suspiced Raito, even if he couldn't be the murderer. And why he predicted every Raito's move (remember those "fights", that they had?)
Think about it.
L became a shinigami after he died
Let me try to explain this in the least confusing way possible. First of all, let's say lifespan is like energy. It cannot be created or destroyed, only transfered between people or changed to another form. When a human's name is written in a Death Note, all of their lifespan is transfered to the writer and changed to form that only those who have already died can use. This is why shinigami gain lifespan when they write a human's name in a Death Note and other humans don't, at least at first. They gain lifespan only usable in the afterlife, so when the Death Note user dies, he becomes a shinigami when the hidden lifespan becomes active. This is why the shinigami possessing the human is obligated to kill said human before they die, to steal their current and hidden lifespan, preventing them from becoming a shinigami to avoid the possibility of an over population of shinigami.
Now, when Rem killed L with her Death Note, she didn't gain his lifespan because she had already died from killing Watari. L's lifespan didn't have anywhere to go, and had already been transformed by Rem's Note so it stayed with him and became usable to him as a shinigami.
However, even after becoming a shinigami, he couldn't kill Light due to rule XXXIV. And, in the anime, when Light was finally defeated by Mello and Near and dies, L goes down to witness Light's death, his reasons for doing so are debatable.
At one time, L had possession of a Death Note
He couldn't control his curiosity and killed one or two people to test the note out. Unlike Light, however, his conscience got the better of him. Filled with horror at what he had done, he renounced ownership of the note and lost all of his memories. His strange eyes, diet of sweets, bizarre habits and overwhelming fear of Shinigami are the reactions of his Lizard brain to the stress of the murders he committed. His memories of the note are gone, but his desensitization remains, which is why he's willing to take extreme measures to get the job done.
The Death Notes are intelligent
They're not "of this world" because they're a bizarre kind of organism (like a Shinigami maybe). The shinigami's pens have a special interface with the organism. The notes are actually intelligent, and are the real gods.
L has mysophobia
In other words, he's afraid of germs. Am I really the first one to think this? The way he holds things alone is a very big clue that leads to this: It's always with as little actual contact with the surface as possible. He keeps his feet on chairs because they tend to be cleaner than floors. He doesn't wear shoes because feet sweat a lot more like that, feeling very germy. His lack of social skills is a manifestation of his inability to get close to people for fear of what germs they carry.
L's unique way of holding things is to avoid leaving his fingerprints and other evidence lying around because that could lead to his enemies discovering his identity.
L is an ex-smoker.
Bear with me here. The gigantic amounts of candy are a subsitute for cigarettes. The original plan was to cut down on candy after a while. It didn't go so well.
Combine this with the bulimia guess above, and you can get some...interesting fanfic.
"Lind L. Tailor" is the real L
Of course, Lind L. Tailor isn't his real name. The man we think of as L, L Lawliet, was L's bumbling sidekick. "Lind" was so brilliant a detective he had completely deduced everything about Kira, from how he kills, to the existance of Shinigama, to the fact he is Light Yagami. Had he not died, he would have explained all this. Unfortunately, he happened to die of an aortic embolism exactly forty seconds after Light wrote his name in the Death Note. Panicking, his sidekick took over, making up a crazy story about "Lind" being a convict. Everything "L" discovers up until his own death is actually taken from some notes "Lind" wrote on the case, which were regrettably incomplete.
L is a collector of the world's greatest criminal masterminds.
That's why he only takes on cases he's personally interested in and it is straight out stated that he's shielding Aiber and Wedy from prosecution since they are useful to him. Hence why approaching Kira with the expectation that he would confess all if he gets to know him well enough and would want to work for him makes perfect sense. Why wouldn't he want the honor of becoming part of his collection?
Light isn't actually that bright.
Oh, more clever than most people, and definitely than much of the task force, certainly. But throughout the series, his entire career is built on a series of one mistake after the next, many of which are caused by his egotistical pride, beginning with Lind L. Tailor and ending with "Well, Near, it looks like I've won."
Most of Light's victories come about either because he knows the rules of the Death Note better than his adversary, or he just got lucky. Every direct play between him and L end in L utterly dominating the field, such as, again, Lind L. Tailor, or the bait and switch with Misa's cellphone.
Lind L. Tailor is the most obvious point. That was a terrible mistake made out of pride and anger.
Light talked himself up quite a bit about how clever it was that he was letting his enemy know about how he's a member of the police force, in a terrible plan to try and alienate L from them. This did not work at all. The most it did was narrow down the members of the force working with L, narrowing the field of officers Light could be getting information from.
He was able to find the spycams through no fault of his own, because he managed to talk Ryuk into doing it instead. Light's first case of "Victory solely because of supernatural elements no one else knows about".
He was able to kill Raye Penber solely through the advantage of the Death Note (which was in itself a mistake given the attention it drew), but even after his cleverly devising a way to muddy the waters as to which FBI agent Kira was being investigated by, he still wound up giving a helpful clue to L and identifying him. How? Because he just had to stop and gloat on the train, allowing L to deduce that Raye, desperately reaching for him in his final moments, was looking right at Kira.
He stumbled upon Naomi Misora purely by luck. He did cleverly manage to get her real name from her, which allowed him to kill her, and then had to stop and gloat again. What would have happened if she'd married Raye and gotten her ID change? The Death Note would have failed to kill her, and Light would have been apprehended right then and there; even if he'd managed to persuade away his gloating, the question of why he was pretending to be a member of the investigation would be extremely condemning in L's eyes.
He managed to keep a good poker face when L ambushed him at the college; there is no denying that Light is a very good actor, but that doesn't make him a very good Chessmaster.
When the crisis with the second Kira came up, he managed to hook up with Misa. Not because of his own cleverness in outmaneuvering L; L thwarted his hopes of using the investigation's message to her, and it was Misa that came up with the plan to meet at Aoyama. Light put in plenty of planning to go meet her, which only called attention to him from L, something that would come back repeatedly later on down the road. It was because of Misa, her Shinigami Eyes, and an understanding of a mechanic Light didn't know, that they were able to find each other. It had nothing to do with Light; Misa did all the brainwork.
When he devised the plan to kill L, it was thwarted by L's cellphone bait and switch, that so completely defeated Light that he was forced to come up with the Memory Gambit.
The Memory Gambit Xanatos Roulette itself has more than a few holes in it. It was Rem that made it work. Light wins the Memory Gambit on account of supernatural forces no one else can use. Again.
And then he killed L. Only, no, he really didn't. Rem killed L, and that was something that was going to happen one way or another. The moment Rem stepped onto the field, the game became unwinnable for L, because unlike Ryuk, she was willing to act against him. There was nothing he could do short of giving full amnesty to Light and Misa, that would not result in Rem killing him. Light wins solely because of supernatural forces that no one else can control. Again.
Light DID manage to kill Rem (or manipulate Rem into killing herself for Misa), which, while impressive, was also incredibly stupid. Rem would have been a powerful ally, having a more extensive knowledge of the Death Note and its rules than Ryuk possesses, and just generally being a Shinigami who is willing to help Light and Misa's cause, for all that it entails. The final confrontation would have gone completely differently if Light could have had Rem there, instead of Mikami.
There's been a lot of talk about how Light suddenly got stupid for the end of the series, making horrible mistakes that one troper or another wouldn't have made in his shoes. But This Troper proposes that Light didn't just suddenly get bad at playing the game; he was never really that good to begin with.
L is a Luthor.
His full name is actually Lawliet Luthor. In Smallville, at least, Lionel has fathered quite a few children other than Lex and put them up for adoption, it's quite possible that L was one of them, and was taken to Whammy's House. His incredible intelligence and obsession with defeating his opponent are pretty common among Luthors, after all.
Light becoming a shinigami is actually a punishment
So he's a shinigami now, he can take over the world as Kira. But then the his empire will crumble as they always. He'll probably try again. And again. Until he becomes bored as well.
L's real name was Elle.
He was too embarrassed as a child, so he got a name change to something cool-sounding. The reason the Death Note takes it as his "real name"? It was close enough.
L's real name is El.
El Mariachi and he returns from the dead as a vengeful gun-toting ghost to kick ass.
Light reincarnated as the wolf Kiba from Wolf's Rain.
The Actor Rule, and he "can't go to Heaven or Hell..."
L has an enourmous tapeworm in his stomach
Light is an avatar for the Dark Prescence.
The good man, the dark man, the man in black... Also, that means he's not dead. He has many names in many worlds...
Light is Friend.
The virus is really a bluff, and what else is that the Book of Prophecy is a Death Note in disguised.
L is tripping on acid.
Seriously! The dilated pupils, the sugar cubes...
L sits that way because he has nerve damage from sitting and working too long.
There is an actual condition where it becomes painful to sit normally.
Light looked up to L as a kid.
Assume the following statement is true: Light wants to be a detective when he grows up. So his chief role models would be Daddy and, since Light always shoots to be the best, L who would just be gaining prominence as the World's Greatest Detective when Light was old enough to think about such things. This adds another layer to Light's extreme reaction during the Lind L. Tailor incident- It's Personal he was just rejected by his idol and "If I Can\'t Have You..."
Light and L were sleeping together.
No wait, hear me out! That chain isn't nearly long enough for them to have separate beds! Of course L being an insomniac they wouldn't sleep together very well...
L considered the possiblity that Light is able to read minds.
He started considering it when Light began saying exactly what he was thinking, which is why even though he actually thought Light was definitely Kira (the numbers he said were made up), he would still use those percentages in his inner monologues.
During the Yotsuba arc L and Light wore custom-designed velcro shirts that they could put on or take off without undoing the handcuffs.
Otherwise it defeats the pretense er... purpose of keeping Light chained 24/7.
Light is a member of the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.
Whether or not Light becomes a Shinigami, he'll take over the afterlife.
Come on. He got bored with everyday life; he'd get even more bored with nothingness/the Shinigami realm. Cue Xanatossing! He then fishes L out (possibly Near, Mello and Matt too) because he needs allies to take on the Shinigami, and they agree because anything would top The Nothing After Death. They then all band together to create a proper afterlife, with a new Heaven and a Hell and a Purgatory, and run their Xanatos Gambits against each other to determine who ends up where. Eventually, all the geniuses do in fact collaborate to create their perfect world, and balance it out. (They've got eternity to get it right, after all.)
This exists because it's not impossible per se and because I'm an idealist, and want to have some kind of redemption or happy ending for these people somehow. Besides, Rule Of Cool and (if we have one) Rule of Heartwarming - just picture the reconciliation with his father, the crossovers, the peace they could reach, the other solutions boredom could take... plus an eternity of five-way Xanatos EVERYTHING. How is that not awesome?
L Did touch Misa's butt.
Angry L Fangirls in five...
L faked his death
He struck a deal with Rem. Rem was already fed up with Light Yagami, and L suspected the whole "13 days" rule was a load of bull. So he discussed a plan with her wherein he could fake his and Watari's deaths to fool Kira. So, he decided to either A)have Rem write his name in the Death Note so that he'd have a non-fatal heart attack and die in 10-20 years, or B)take drugs allowing him to slow his heart rate almost to nothing, thereby appearing to be dead. He'd go into hiding, and let his successors catch Kira as a test.
L's identity was kept hidden even pre-series because...
He's the last surviving orphan of a family coming from Innsmouth, Massachusetts. He has the look—the bulging eyes, white-grey skin, his hunched over walk and occasional Primal Stance which means he’s not completely human so the Death Note didn't work on him. He's still alive, he's immortal, he faked his death and is in fact chilin' at the bottom of the ocean...
While he was still attending school at Hogwarts he was sent away for a crime he didn't commit. He managed to escape and clear his name however the corrupt bureaucrats stripped him of most of his magic and memories afterwards. L is later found by Quillsh Wammy who takes him in and trains him to be the Great Detective L. Though L has gaps in his memory he does remember how a Miscarriage Of Justice screwed him over and he hates injustice with a passion. He has enough magic left to Detect Evil and knows immediately that Light is Kira.
Light Yagami has the powers of Haruhi Suzumiya
Like Haruhi, Light is unaware of his powers. Wishing for a way to cleanse the world of scum and villainy, he subconsciously created the Death Note, as well as Shinigamis.
L became Ulquiorra.
Just look at them side by side. I rest my case.
Light is a descendant of Miyako Toudaiji.
Most of her life, Miyako appears to be an Amateur Sleuth who wants to make the world a better place. However, the thing is she's distant to almost everyone except Maron. She secretly despises of what the world has become: rotten. Her world is already perfect, if it wasn't for the demons that Jeanne fought against keeps on ruining it. The most likely evidence of this is when she is possessed by Fin into killing Jeanne in episode 43. Somehow, despite of defeating her possession, there is still remnants of it to infect the Yagami bloodline. This is why Light has become the Villain Protagonist that he is. He has somehow manages to control the urges of Miyako's possession until he found the Death Note, giving into to these urges.
Yeah, this idea has been done... A LOT but it would explain a lot of L's behaviors: The Aloner, Extreme Doormat who Hates Being Touched and considers no one to be a friend. It also explains why L thinks of himself as a monster-not only because he must deal with the moral greyness that comes with his profession but because he has internalized the abuse. This also explains why he would want to bury his Dark and Troubled Mysterious Past even before meeting Kira.
, [8] but it fits. Suicidal people sometimes resemble really bored people and he might have felt alienated being so scary smart he can't really relate to the people around him. Light sees the world around him as "rotten" and for all his genius he feels useless to fix it and doesn't really perk up until after he's found what he thinks is his "purpose." It also explains why he's so drawn to the Death Note, his fascination with Shinigami, and then why he keeps risking more and more-it's out of a subconscious deathwish. The only other time he seems truly happy is during the Yotsuba arc when he's relinquished his memories because then he also has a purpose- to catch Kira and Clear His Name and since he is always in L's company he isn't lonely and bored anymore.
After the events of the series Light moved to Castlevania.
See here: [9]. He took Misa along with him. And then Near, upon discovering that Kira is still alive, follows them, wearing glasses as a clever disguise.
Light was actually raised in 311 Kinderheim
Light is an evil genius just like Johan Liebert from Monster thus it would be no surprise to me if they both knew each other at an early age. However, Johan is much smarter than Light.
L is a descendant of Detective Meguro.
Let's see the results. Highly eccentric detective? Check. Obsessed of finding his target? Check. Being a genius? Check. Constantly making some gestures? Check.
L will grow up to be Inspector Runge.
They are both highly eccentric detectives, both quickly become obsessed with finding their target (L with Kira, Runge with Dr. Tenma), both are (In Runge's case, supposedly) at the top of their field, both are basically geniuses, L is constantly doing something with his hands while Runge is doing the typing thing.
Ryuk lied about Mu,Light and L got reincarnated(perhaps backwards) as Watson and Sherlock Homes respectively
L has diabetes.
Come on you can't eat that much sugar without consequence! That would also explain why L doesn't wear socks-because he doesn't want to restrict the blood flow to his feet.
L is Batman.
Watari is Alfred, Mr. Yagami is Comissioner Gordon, The pink angel crepe van is the batmobile, Near is Robin, Mello is Azrael, Wedy is Catwoman, Aiber is the Penguin, Misa is Harley Quinn, Rem is Poison Ivy, Beyond is the Riddler, Ryuk is the Joker and Light/Kira is Ra's Al Ghul, Mikami is Harvey Dent/Two-Face?
Mello and/or Matt Death Note: Another Note was Mello's suicide letter
Mello knew, and even planned, to die after kidnapping Takada. He fabricated the entire story as a way to reflect on his own life. Look:
L had Mello learn about the events of Another Note in an attempt to Scare Him Straight.
L was probably trying to teach him "See, this is what happens if you take your rivalry too far." Though it seems to have backfired as it sounds like Mello found Beyond to be Unintentionally Sympathetic.
Mello is a FTM transsexual
It makes sense, sort of. When Mello is introduced, his clothes and body are androgynous. Then he leaves, saying he will live "his own way," far from everyone he used to live with. Next time we see him, he dresses and talks masculine, but he still has feminine features. His figure leaves room for doubt (is he just well muscled, or are those bound breasts?). Then he gradually becomes more masculine just a few years too late to chalk it up to puberty (he can't be that late a bloomer). He also keeps his gun in the front of his pants, which is easier to do without a penis, and lacks a bulge in the area even though his pants are so tight that it's a wonder he can still sit. And transsexuals are cool.
The confusion over Mello's gender was either planned, or the creator wasn't sure what he wanted Mello to be.
In the manga, Mello isn't referred to by any gender pronoun for quite some time. Besides one of the gang members, who I'm convinced had a massive unrequited crush on Mello, Mello isn't shown attracted to anyone or in a romantic situation for a long time. Some might say he never is. Granted that simply puts him in the same class as many other characters, but if the creator wasn't sure if Mello was a boy or girl, it makes sense not to give him any sort of love interest. It also makes sense not to do so if the plan was to make people wonder. Since Rem seems to be the only character with openly homosexual feelings, seems to be because there are people have argued that her love for Misa is platonic, maybe the creator assumed everyone would consider Mello heterosexual, and therefore, his love interest would give away his gender.
Mello is a girl.
S/he's crossedressing because s/he feels that s/he wouldn't be taken seriously as a girl. If you think about it, it explains a lot.
Maki of L: Change The World grows up to be Mello.
Think about it, it makes sense if the Boy is Near. She is the emotional one that believes in Revenge Before Reason, readily willing to sacrifice her own life and everyone else's for the sake of justice/revenge. She either gets a sex-change operation later (see above Guesses) or we accept that it's an Alternate Continuity
That explains how a fourteen year old kid can join the mafia instead of getting his ass kicked. It also explains why he's in an orphanage- either L took Mello into protective custody or, being criminals, Kira killed them all. Or both.
Mello is the child of River Song and the Doctor
Roger wanted Mello and Matt dead.
You know that Roger hates children? Roger send Mello and Matt away from the Wammy House so they would die from the Kira case and Roger could become Watari for Near. Oh, and Near was the only child Roger liked simply because he stayed out of his way.
Matthew is Matt's middle name.
Let's face it, Mail Jeevas is an embarassing name. And it's not uncommon for someone to go by their middle name. So Matt just chose a shortened form of his middle name as his codename.
Matt is a figment of Mello's imagination.
Matt is a male Diclonius.
It fits! He's an orphan and according to Fanon he has pink hair. Also he is incredibly loyal to one human (Mello) who seems to be his only friend. So that's why he wears the goggles-it's to hide his horns. This also means he survived getting shot up by Takada's bodyguards seeing as the Diclonius species seems to be Made of Iron.
Matt saved Mello from the rubble after Mello blew up his own base.
Matt doesn't appear until after Mello is on his own again and someone must have gotten Mello medical attention.
Mello wore a magic gas mask.
Mello only wears a little gas mask for protection when he's in the middle of a massive explosion. Yet later he's only scarred on his face! [10] So it must have been a magic gas mask, an Artifact of Doom with a price to using it
this Magic Gas Mask dropped by a Scaragami prevents the wearer from coming down with a case of dead but it takes it's payment by eating away at the flesh of the user's face.
Matt is actually the smartest of L's successors.
But he deliberately scores "average" for Wammy's Program and refuses to apply himself because 1) he doesn't want to step on Mello's toes and 2) he doesn't want the responsibility that would come with L's title. As for Matt's major scene in the anime, well, even genii can have errors in judgment...
Matt took out some of the bodyguards on his way out
After watching Matsuda pump Light with bullets, and then seeing the latter be able to cover all that distance and finally die of a heart attack, it's only logical to assume that Matt wasn't killed right away. He may have had at least enough time to pull out his gun when the guards were close enough before finally expiring. And even then, he may have been wearing a bullet-proof vest, though this is unlikely. The footage was cut because it lacked significant plot relevance.
Mello is Johan.
The Actor Rule. Also both are blonde chessmasters indoctrinated at an orphanage for a nebulous purpose and kill people.
Why not? Both are thin, blonde, overdramatic, and have a preference for gothic clothing.
Matt's (Mail Jeevas's) code letter would be J.
Because Mello already has "M" and "J" isn't taken yet. (The Wammy's letters already taken are A, B, F, K, L, M, and N.)
Near Near is an intelligent robot
He doesn't appear to age, unlike Mello; and he survived. The Death Note Mikami used was real, but the Death Note can't kill robots. It didn't work on anybody else because...either they're robots too, Mikami is a horrible speller, or, ummmm...they're all robots.
Near is autistic
He's an eighteen-year-old genius who spends most of his time sitting around playing with toys and refuses to get on a plane on his own.
In the anime, Near didn't write the 'Dear Mello'
In the manga, Mello shows surprise when he sees it. In the anime, however, he gives no reaction, which, given that this Mello, I find it hard to believe he wouldn't react to the person he despises writing something like that. Given that Near is never seen writing anything, his handwriting can't compared to that of the Dear Mello. My guess is that someone in the past or Mello himself wrote that for some reason and he was checking to make sure it was there.
For the record, I happen to strongly believe Near is in love with Mello, but the above WMG has nothing with any sort of shipping be it for or against N/M.
Near is a savant.
Near is the result of an experiment similar to the one described in Ender's Shadow, the companion novel to Ender's Game.
This experminet:
-Increases intelligence to amazing levels.
-Slows down physical growth.
-Decreases lifespan. (Near's lifespan was pretty short compared to the others when we saw it.)
Is anyone else noticing similarities here?
Near knew Ratt was Mello's spy, and gave him the alias 'Ratt' to warn him he knew.
Though, I admit Near lacks that kind of subtly.
Taking Matsuda's Theory a step further, Near didn't just control Mikami with the Notebook but Light as well to ensure a confession and make him look crazy...er. That's why he didn't bother chasing after him.
Near was controlling Light with the Death Note
Matsuda was right about Near controlling Mikami. However, what he didn't realize was that Near was also controlling Light's actions.In the Death Note, he wrote something along the lines of: "Light Yagami, heart attack, announces that his victory seconds before it is revealed that the notebook used by his subordinate is a fake, goes insane and explains his motives, attempts to write his enemy's name on a scrap of the notebook but is shot at by a member of the Japanese police, dies at 1:15 on January 28"
This explains why Light, who never loses his cool, suddenly goes insane and admitts everything. It would be very important for Near to have a confession. Near's morals are questionable enough that he might control Light in order to win the case. He cares a lot for his own safety and he would want to ensure that he wasn't killed before Kira could be brought to justice. Near knows when Light is writing his name on a scrap of the notebook, despite that he isn't really even looking in that direction, and Light is good enough with that scrap in his watch that L didn't even notice when he was using it during the Yotsuba arc. Near would want to prove that Light is Kira, while proving to everyone that Kira is evil, and he might not see any other way to do it, as Light is devilishly clever and wouldn't make mistakes like that on his own. As for Ryuk writing Light's name, that was just because he had promised that he would do so. He saw that Light had only 40 seconds to live and wrote his name down. After all, it's kind of surprising that Ryuk wouldn't help Light and kill everyone. He seems to think Light is interesting and he no doubt knows that if Near wins he will destroy the notebooks and Ryuk will have to return to the Shinigami realm, which he hates. Unless Light's death was a foregone conclusion, it would make much more sense for him to help Light. He may not be on Light's side, but he is selfish and would want to stay on Earth, since he finds it interesting.
Near becomes the next Kira.
He used the notebook on Light and Mikami. He burned a fake. He kept the REAL notebook and he made a deal with Ryuk to stay out of sight until the time is right. He waits until legions of followers are crying for Kira's return. He gets rid of everyone who remembers the first case and then when there is no one left to stop him...
Near's final plan really was just a set up
Oh sure, he found out about the notebook that Mikami was hiding and came up with the story about faking that one too... but that story was fake. In reality, Near was shocked by Gevanni's discovery and decided that his initial plan was too risky, as that notebook could have also been a fake. Therefore, he came up with a new one. He had his anti-Kira grunts hide near the Yellow Box warehouse once the task force members entered, then when Mikami came, they grabbed him and tied him up inside another warehouse. They then had one of the anti-Kira grunts who looked very similar to Mikami and also had lots of make-up to make it more convincing enter the warehouse with a fake notebook and act out his whole part. The "you're not God!!" part was either Near or the actor milking it. But then, how did the actor see everyone's names? Because he was really greedy and took the real notebook from the SPK's HQ and replaced it with a fake and hid the real notebook on himself. He then shot Mikami after he was captured. Ryuk, with the great hearing he said he had in volume 9, was able to hear the gunshot all the way over in the Yellow Box warehouse and left to go investigate during the 30 minutes of waiting. The task force members had their backs turned so they didn't notice. The SPK did but they didn't say anything, so as to not alert Light. The actor then made the shinigami eye deal with Ryuk, having already shot all of his associates inside the second warehouse. All of the actor's inner thoughts, such as 'God!' were in fact referring to Near, since he knew that Near had won by using such an underhanded plan, which he greatly respected. His thoughts about Light not being able to move freely were just him trying to understand Mikami's actions. So Light was right, it was all a set up but he blew it by declaring his victory. Near burned a fake notebook when he burned the one he hid in his clothes, planning to use the one at HQ as a contingency against other Kiras that could pop up but he remained unaware that the real notebook was with the actor playing Mikami all along, who decided to keep a low profile and just killed a few people now and then for personal benefit.
Misa Misa will live for hundreds of years, and possibly become a shinigami.
Misa is a fiendish confidence trickster and serial killer
Misa is Really 700 Years Old, and her behavior is really Obfuscating Stupidity to cover up her true Magnificent Bastard personality and fool shinigami into falling in love with her and sacrificing themselves one after another. Gelus and Rem are just the latest in her inconceivably huge list of victims.
When Misa commited suicide, she became reincarnated shortly after.
Misa didn't commit suicide at the end of the anime
She just happened to be wearing gothic loli and wanted to see the city..Yea. That's sounds good. She still dies one year later
Ryuk Ryuk saw Jealous and Rem mooning over Misa before he ever dropped the Death Note.
So, he investigated the Japanese police, found one with an attractive male child Misa's age, and gave him the Death Note. Ryuk figured that this boy would be able to hunt down Misa when she got her Note if he knew about the Death Note, forcing Rem to sacrifice herself. Things worked out better then he ever expected, to his unending amusement.
The events of the series were a massive Xanatos Roulette by Ryuk for the purpose of obtaining additional Death Notes.
He starts the series with two, and he would have had four at the end if Shidoh hadn't shown up and taken one. He's just waiting to pick them all up after the events transpire.
Before becoming a Shinigami Ryuk was an intergalactic bounty hunter.
Before becoming a Shinigami Ryuk's father was a drinker and a fiend...
Why so serious?
Ryuk didn't toss the notebook at random. He deliberately chucked it at a school. Oh, he claims it was all just an accident, but he's a known liar. It's as Light explains in the manga when he and L are building a profile for Kira- a teenager would be the most likely to use the notebook the way Kira did, anyone younger would be too scared to use it and anyone older would just use it on occasion to kill people they didn't like. Ryuk knew this. Ryuk isn't very bright but he is immortal. Who knows how many times he has done this before? He might even know exactly what type of human would make the most amusing toy—someone who has never known hardship so psychologically can't cope with having killed someone other than to SNAP in an amusing way... Ryuk might have even specifically targeted Light despite what he says: "you think I chose you because you’re so smart or something?" He knew Light was "so smart" before even meeting him.
Ryuk made sure Gelus' Death Note fell into Misa's hands.
Ryuk introduced Gelus to Misa, and Rem to Gelus, so Misa would meet whoever gets the Notebook first. Oh, and Ryuk drops the Death Note near Light on purpose.
Ryuk is the first shinigami psychopath, and Kira was just a side-effect of a sadistic game he was playing.
Shinigami generally operate on Blue And Orange morality, but there is very clearly something wrong with Ryuk compared to the others. Ordinary Shinigami display few emotions, just apathy (some of them give so few fucks they nearly die from not writing enough names) or compassion (Rem and Jealous). Ryuk, on the other hand, appears to find human death and suffering hilarious and is noted as being considered a weirdo by Shinigami because he diligantly wrote down a lot of names in his notebook all the time. The other Shinigami killed intermittently because it's their job and life source; Ryuk killed lots of people because he enjoys it. However, just writing down human names apparently got boring for Ryuk after a while, and he turned his mind towards something else; murdering his own kind. Ryuk mentions offhandedly that he wrote down the names of all his "friends" in the Shinigami world a number of times, but they didn't die, so he was actively attempting to kill the others before Light met him, he just didn't know how, being unaware of how Jealous bit it. Once it became clear his usual M.O. wasn't going to work on Shinigami, Ryuk decided to play a more subtle game by stealing some dumb chump's (Sidoh's) notebook and electing to play "keep-away" with it until Sidoh ran out of lifespan and died, using the general apathy of his fellow Shinigami to steal their notebooks and starve them to death since he couldn't kill them outright. To this end, he hurled Sidoh's notebook into the human world to get it as far away from him as possible, and planned to amuse himself by racking up as big a body count among the puny humans that picked it up as possible until Sidoh ran out of time and he scored his first Shinigami kill. Things didn't go as planned for Ryuk, and Sidoh's alive and well, but Ryuk doesn't mind; his diversion amused him for a while, and there is nothing to stop him from trying again later.
Mikami Mikami is L
Rem was (understandably) pissed about being made to sacrifice herself. So, she writes in her Death Note, "L Lawliet. Suicide. Apparently dies of a heart attack, escapes from his grave with his memory destroyed, adopts an alias, starts a new life and becomes obsessed with Kira. He is devoted enough to gain Kira's trust, but fails at a critical jucture, causing Kira's defeat. He commits suicide out of shame afterwards." However, Rem filled in few details of L/Mikami's behavior post-amnesia other than his obsession with Kira, leading to a methodical, obsessively followed schedule.
Mikami was followed by a Shinigami for large periods of his childhood
During Mikami's time in high school, the 4 bullies and his mother were all killed in the same accident, as well as the "coincidental" times when "he wished for a deletion, it would come". All this points to a sympathetic Shinigami's involvement. Furthermore, none of these killings would have extended Mikami's lifespan, allowing the Shinigami to remain alive.
Mikami had a Death Note before the start of the series
Most Shinigami don't seem to care much for the human world beyond increasing their own lifespan (aside from Rem, Gelus, and Ryu - Shido doesn't count, since he's only there to retrieve his note). So, to explain all the coincidental deaths and deletions around Mikami, he used to have his own Note, which he gave up at some point.
Taro Kagome from the pilot chapter grows up to become Teru Mikami.
After the incident in the pilot he changes his name when he's like put into witness protection or something. He forfeits ownership, loses his memories, and later regains them at some point because Ryuk thought it would be funny. He then goes on to write the story of Death Note once the world has fallen under Kira's control for the sake of plausible deniability.
Mikami pulled a Heel Face Turn before he died
After Light said "I Don't Know This Guy" in the last episode, Teru Mikami finally realised that he had been used, and saw how evil Light had become. Upon realising that he'd dedicated his life to serving someone who, in his mind should be DELETED, he broke down and killed himself
Mikami and Light are Childhood Friends.
But they lost touch after Mikami's mother died and Mikami was shuffled off to some orphanage and went to a different school. That would explain why Light chose him so quickly when he saw him at the Kira Rally. Light could have even been one of the kids that Mikami saved from bullying!
The Task Force Ryuuga Hideki is Ide
Apparently, Ide's surname, is, in fact, Hideki. Isn't that a rather odd piece of happenstance? My theory is that Ryuuga Hideki doesn't actually exist - it's Ide impersonating an idol as part of some kind of case, a deception which he continued after he would have normally ended it in order to get closer to Misa. Ryuuga's face, not Ide's, is in fact the real one. The reason Ide mistrusts L is part of a long-standing rivalry between the two - that's why L called himself Hideki when he met Light, in order to trick Light into killing Ide. Ide came onto the task force in the end because he was so fed up of having to deal with Misa that even working with L would be preferable.
Matsuda really liked Light
Yes, that way. The last chapter provides the strongest evidence for this.
The entire series fell into place exactly as planned...by Matsuda
No, this makes no sense whatsoever. But wouldn't it be so freaking cool?
The series was actually a hallucination/desperate escapist dream by collegestudent!Matsuda.
Think about it. Matsuda is a young college student, interested in law and detective work and studying for it at a Tokyo college. L is an extremely intelligent young man at the college who Matsuda is baffled yet intrigued by. Light is a popular boy who is similarly intelligent as well, with flocks of girls at his feet. Matsuda is becoming intolerant of the world in general. As such, he begins clinging to escapism as a means to escape the disappointing world around him, being fueled by self-doubt and stress. His 'Death Note' mental universe becomes more real and eventually he becomes entranced by the 'dream'. He also becomes significantly more conflicted about issues and becomes more attached to L and Light. All the events in Death Note had somewhat pertinence to Matsuda's life- L's death was a manifestation of Matsuda's fear that the only seemingly sane person in his life would die, and it was partially Matsuda's fault to boot. Light's death was more of a guilt-trip for Matsuda, as a manifestation of his self-doubt about his detective skills and as a partial guilt-trip for L's Death Note death (Matsuda feels as if L died because of his lack of detective work and common sense). College!Matsuda slowly becomes more and more antisocial, conflicted and over all scared. The tension only mounts more when, in a law class, they get into a debate about what justice really is. Of course, L and Light have conflicting views. This causes Matsuda to question his very morals. Do I hear yays or nays?
Everything in the series happened because Ryuk wrote it in his Death Note.
Ryuk, out of boredom, wrote down the events of the series in his Death Note, dropped his other Death Note in the human world, and kicked back to watch the show. As time went on, he continued to write things in his Death Note, finally ending with Light's death. It would certainly help to explain why, as a kind-of important character, he's never actually seen doing anything- as the "director" of sorts to the chain of events, he wouldn't have to.
Mogi was working for Near or L from the very beginning.
As improbable (and awesome) as Matsuda running the show, yes, but his dedication to behind-the-scenes work certainly opens up the possibility that, say, Mogi was a former acquaintance of L's, similar to Naomi Misora, and would thus have connections that expedited L's initial movements in the Kira investigation. If his influence wasn't THAT good, then he'd at least have known of the true purpose of Wammy's House and found a way to contact Roger in secret after LADIES NIGHT, confirming the notification from the inactivity timer on L and Watari's computers. Either way, he would eventually set up his capture by the SPK to leak the more Light-centric information on the case.
Mogi has PDD-NOS.
Which could explain his discomfort in showing emotions and his hesitancy to interact with others.
The Yagami Family Sayu Yagami was somehow behind everything.
For one, she is one of the few characters that who can manipulate Light and live to tell the tale.... ("I totally don't get this, could you do my homework... I mean show me how?" "But mom, I'm going out with friends today!")
Soichiro Yagami is L's father.
It's not mentioned when Soichiro married Sachiko, and it's not impossible for him to have had sex with other people before marrying, possibly helping conceive a bastard child. L is older than Light, and there's no indication how soon Light was born after their wedding.
Some say that he got his start doing incest hentai, and that his son is secretly Kira.
All we know is, Soichiro Yagami is the Stig.
Ide: Do you remember what happened to the first Stig?
Matsuda: He got shot by Mello.
Ide: Because-
Matsuda: Because we used nitrous.
Light and Sayu have a repressed incestuous attraction to each other
The girl Light dates when he meets Ray Penber looks like an older Sayu, and later on, one of the girlie pictures he looks at again looks like his sister. Meanwhile, Sayu fangirls the movie star Hideko Ryuuga, who bears a passing resemblance to Light.
Yagami Soichiro was about to be assassinated.
Yagami Soichiro would've gotten fatally wounded in the assault on Mello's warehouse.
The Shinigami eyes cut a person's lifespan in half, but Soichiro died only a couple hours after getting the eyes. Also, remember, he didn't do the eye deal until they were already poised for attacking Mello. Here's my theory on the "original timeline"; if Soichiri hadn't gotten the eyes, they would've all rushed in, and attacked Mello in a more conventional manner, I.E. by shooting him, or trying to anyway. However, Soichiro still would've gotten shot up pretty badly since he would've hesitated shooting, as he apparently hasn't killed anybody before (or maybe it was the believed 13 day rule that made him hesitate, who knows?).
If Soichirou hadn't assumed the Death Note, he would have committed suicide the next day.
Pretty straightforward.
It would explain why Misa and Takada don't arouse him, by any means, and why, even after becoming completely sociopathic under the Death Note's influence, he would continue to protect his little sister. Until their parents died and he finally had the chance to put his hands on her. Note that I specifically used the term "woman', so....
The unnamed shinigami in the first Re-Light special is Soichiro Yagami.
Due to Soichio's unique circumstance of owning and using the Death Note (by making the eye trade) without actually writing in it, he was granted an equally-unique afterlife: being reincarnated as a shinigami.
He completely remembers his life as a human. He is seeking out Ryuk to find out how the Death Notes get into the world. Being the decent guy he is, he plans on using this to find a way to prevent any shinigami (including himself) from ever entering the human world again. He doesn't want another Kira to emerge. Ryuk honestly thought he was Light, and Soichiro (for the sake of his greater plan) didn't correct him.
Sayu becomes a Kira.
According to Word Of God Light probably switched the notebook that was in police custody and considering his escalating hubris at the time he may have hidden it in his own house. Sayu is just recovering from her kidnapping and the deaths of her father and brother when she stumbles upon Light's hidden notebook. Sayu hero worshipped her big brother and after she pieces together what happened she starts killing criminals because no one should have to go through what she went through at the hands of the mob and she wants to avenge her brother and by acting as Kira she will flush out the ones who killed him and she probably succeeds too, seeing that no one suspects the ditzy-looking traumatized cute girl who is, according to the guidebook, actually a genius who is as smart as Near.
Beyond Birthday B is a shinigami
He committed some crime; as punishment, he had his memories erased and was turned (mostly) human. That's why he has shinigami eyes and lacks a visible lifespan despite not owning a Death Note.
B is part shinigami.
I know, there's already a guess for B being a shinigami, but this one says he's only part shinigami. One-sixteenth shinigami, for example. There's a rule that shinigami can't have sex. Before that rule was in place, a male shinigami went to Earth, interacted with a female human, and eventually had sex with that human. That female gave birth to a human born with shinigami eyes. Hence, the rule banning sex was made. Now, it could be as close as B's father was really a shinigami, or this could be an inherited trait, such as every other generation from the initial half-shinigami inherited shinigami eyes.
Beyond Birthday is a Reincarnation of the dark wizard Raistlin Majere.
Both are genius Chessmasters with eyes that see how everything dies that will do anything to further their goals.
The Beyond personality came about because L became so emotionally repressed thanks to being put through Wammy's Program. He needed Misora's help because his opponent was both too alien and too similar to his own thoughts and so this was one opponent he couldn't beat himself.
What a twist!
He doesn't have any burns afterwards because Wammy's estate is that wealthy and has access to leading edge and nonexistent technology and medical care.
Beyond Birthday is L's clone.
B is the result of one of L's enemies, an Evilutionary Biologist cloning L spliced with a little bit of Shinigami DNA (so that he has the Shinigami eyes and can see L's real name) to create for L an ultimate enemy. The Evilutionary Biologist then leaves the clone on Wammy's doorstep and watches the ensuing chaos.
Beyond Birthday is not his real name.
Because seriously. Beyond. Birthday. When Mello narrated the book, he wanted to hide BB's real name so people wouldn't be able to use the information to piece anything about L or Wammy House together. This meant renaming him and, since his initials were a major part of the murders, everyone else with initials that pointed to him. Mello gave the people weird names to emphasize this and to confuse people. Beyond Birthday's real name was something like Nathan Nolan, his victims were Natalie Newhouse, Nick Neilson and (since their initials upside should resemble a lower case "nn") Ulrika Ulverston.
Wammy's House Wammy's House is in fact the central organization from Men in Black.
Well, with all the One Letter Names around, there ought to be a connection. They're both top-secret, as well. Also, the Shinigami are aliens.
Wammy's House is The Academy.
Think about it. A creepy place that takes kids and creates creepy teenagers and young adults out of them, with abnormal abilities, who also end up being pretty much broken, with weird quirks and actions, along with the ability to torture and kill without remorse. Both fit that perfectly.
L's successors' growth was intentionally stunted by the Wammy House, giving them their youthful appearances
Mello looks like a little girl at 17 years old. When Near's about 19 years old, he still looks about 7. This is because of the Wammy house's experience with L, who was not only extremely intelligent, but also very strong, making him a hazard and a complete loss if he ever decided to escape. Because of this, the Wammy house drugged L's two successors with an anti-growth hormone, making them too weak to escape or cause as much damage as L potentially could have. Mello still exercised and remained strong. Near played inside on the floor with his puzzles, leaving him incapacitated and making it extremely difficult for him to even move off the floor. While he remained extremely intelligent, the Wammy House's drugging has left him immobile and parasitic to whatever organization takes care of him.
Wammy House feeds its charges from L's generation and later APTX-4869 when they are old enough for their bodies to handle it. It didn't work well on L, or they hadn't perfected it. It worked better on Mello and Near.]]
All the chairs at Wammy's House have really strange design.
That would explain why everyone from Wammy's sits so bizarrely. L's pose is famous, but his successors don't sit normally either. Near seems to kneel or lie down most of the time, and Mello sort of lounges. Admittedly, I myself don't really sit normally, but still...
The Wammy House is a genetic engineering laboratory.
This would explain why so-called orphans that shared unusual idiosyncracies would congregate in the same agency. The story about the orphanage is just a deterrent to industrial saboteurs. L is a prototype, and Mello and Near were made from modifications on his template. This also explains why Near was talking about being his "heirs" and surpassing him.
Wammy's House is a Division of the Company.
A morally grey organization that trains / experiments on special children (i.e. superintelligence, Shinigami eyes, etc.) for an equally ambiguous purpose of becoming the next L and "fighting the forces of evil."
Wammy's House is one of the Peterson Schools.
A top secret program that rounds up genius kids who all, "coincidentally," one day become superheroes or supervillains...
Wammy's House is a training branch of VFD.
I mean, think about it. Whammy's House takes orphans and trains them to be detectives. And all of the people who leave go by an initial, like VFD members. It's fairly obvious.
V was trained at Wammy's House.
Let's see... British guy, a mad genius who fights against a dystopian state, who hides his identity and is only known by a letter... and Remember, remember the 5th of November-that's the day of L and Watari died!
The Death Note Universe EVERYONE is still alive.
They are hiding out as extras in Full Metal Panic! [12].
The previous universe of Death Note was Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Think about it! L is Gendou, Near is Rei, Light is a twisted form of Shinji and Kaworu, Mello is Asuka... This works because L shows Gendou-like secrecy and Chessmasterness, while Near is a tykebomb which has been effectively trained by L since his childhood (albeit indirectly), and Near and Mello have their conflict...
Think about it. Despite being a dark crime thriller with a megalomaniacal mass-murderer for a protagonist, when you get down to it it contains all the basic elements of a typical shonen series, albeit in forms twisted nearly beyond recognition: a young, justice-loving Chaste Hero Chosen One (a narcissistic Knight Templar with delusions of Godhood/being the Chosen One) who discovers magical powers (a notebook that can be used to instantly murder anybody) and gains a Spirit Buddy (an amoral embodiment of death), makes a Worthy Opponent rival (a detective trying to apprehend him for his crimes) and picks up a persistent Genki Girl love interest (a vapid pop idol who's fanatically obsessed with him and, despite barely knowing him, is instantly willing to kill for, die for and marry him). If the satire was intended on the part of Tsugumi Ohba, he/she sure hasn't let on.
There are so many weird names in the Death Note universe, because people try to confuse death note users
Even though the concept of Kira didn't exist before the events of the story, there were other Death Note users, and people got used to that revealing one's true name can get them killed. So, in the same way as certain tribes used to give infants weird names to confuse evil spirits, the inhabitants of the Death Note Universe subconsciously got into the habit of giving confusing names like "Merrie" for Mary, or "月 (tsuki)" for "Raito", to decrease the risk of heart attacks.
The Death Note universe is The Inkworld a few milennia in the future.
Between the events of The Inkworld Trilogy and Death Note, somehow the White Women were mutated into Shinigami and each had their lifespans bound to modified White Books that would later be known as Death Notes. The reason it's so much like our universe is because of Meggie, who was able to influence history through her inventor husband Doria.
All the events of Death Note were one massive Xanatos Gambit by Orpheus to get revenge on Mo and Dustfinger.
Basically, after running away, Orpheus read aloud something he wrote about the White Women being bound to corrupted White Books that could only kill, then read that, generations later, a descendant of Dustfinger's would use one of these Books to kill a descendant of Mo's, only to die defeated and alone shortly afterward. Then, a few milennia later, Light uses a Death Note (he technically used the Shinigami whose Death Note it was, but it still counts as 'using' the Note) to kill L, only to die a few years later of a heart attack after being shot five times and being utterly crushed by Near.
Death Note shares the same universe as Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.
The second arc never happened.
It was all Light's nightmare or a simulation he had during the Yotsuba arc and he became so unnerved by it he decided to give up the notebook and remain as L's partner. Yeah...
Nineteen Eighty-Four is what would have happened if Light had won.
Time Lord Ryuk is a Time Lord.
Amazing this hasn't been brought up yet.
The Shinigami are Time Lords
Specifically, they're a bunch of renegade Time Lords having used up their regenerations. They've been experimenting with genetic engineering for this. The Death Note has both TARDIS and Chameleon Arch technology in it,allowing them to feed.Part of their reason for this is that, like the Weeping Angels, they feed on your potential lifespan-only they just straight up kill you. Ryuk is a clone of the Master.
The Shinigami are cousins of the Weeping Angels
They "gain" lifespan in a similar way as the Angels do (the Angels transport you to a different timeline and feed off the potential energy. The Shinigami kill people and gain more lifespan). Their powers are only limited to humans, so the Time Lords don't care (who cares about the cosmic equivalent of cavemen?)
The death note is a Tardis.
It's bigger on the inside (it has an infinite amount of pages) and it can manipulate events in time and space but it's malfunctioning so that it always brings about the death of those that go inside it.
Aiber is A from Wammy's House
A is a Time Lord who committed suicide to escape Wammy House. However, he still wished to beat L and tried to do so by both exceeding his detective skills (while using the name Eraldo Coil) and by being a con-man that L wouldn't be able to catch. Unfortunately, he failed on both fronts thus losing the right to use the alias "Eraldo Coil" and being forced to either help L when needed or spend a great deal of time in prison. Hence why Aiber uses an "A" to identify himself and is able to act as Eraldo Coil during the Yotsuba arc without anyone noticing any discrepancies between his behavior and Eraldo Coil's known behaviors.
L is a Time Lord
He regenerates into Near. Now, one might ask why Near would have to deduce certain things all over again when he already came to that conclusion as L. The answer is that, like the eighth Doctor, Near is suffering from partial amnesia.
The time lord that is L/Near is a regeneration of Mytho from Princess Tutu
Near, who resembles Mytho is already a regeneration L and Aeon. L and Near have cut out parts of their heart in order to defeat Kira. Notice that neither are ever scared or lonely or loving or anything that might get in the way of their duties. In fact, all they might have is Curiosity. After that, Near reconstructs most of or all of his heart and becomes Aeon.
L is a Time Lord and Naomi Misora was once L's Companion.
They had many adventures of horror and wonder together but she eventually returned to get married to Raye.
Light is also a Time Lord
Because a watch is an essential part of the memory restoration process. ...Ergo Light is the Master.
Light is the 10th Doctor. The TIME LORD VICTORIOUS!
For so long he lived in boredom and despair. There was so much that was rotten but there was nothing he could do. But then one day he realizeed the rules, time, this world-they are his to manipulate! Being the only one of his kind (super genius) around didn't make him some freak, it made him VICTORIOUS!
Light is a Time Lord and Ryuk is his Companion.
Who says Companions always have to come from Earth?
Light Yagami is a Time Lord and he regenerated into Lelouch Vi Britannia.
Who in turn regenerated into Paul Atreides...
L is Light's regeneration gone back in time to stop himself.
However he doesn't remember everything from his past regeneration.
Mello is a Time Lord.
I think Mello is the child of River Song and the Doctor
Mikami is a Cyberman.
It's so OBVIOUS! DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!
L is The Master
In the episode where he dies L mentions that he can hear bells. While everyone assumed that this was something to do with his human past due to the opening flashback with Big Ben, that isn't necessarily true, and if it is, may actually be part of the fabricated memories implanted when he chameleon arched. When The Doctor psychically connects with The Master in EOT, The Drums...don't really sound like drums. If they were quieter, they could easily be mistaken for bells, and they might well be slightly dulled by the chameleon arch. While this may lead some fans to think that, due to Chameleon Arch personality flips, this makes Light The Doctor, it is my opinion that Aiber is actually The Doctor. What's the one piece of character development we got about him? He hates guns. It's entirely possible that, (Although not true every time due to 10 training his students in rifles and machine guns as John Smith) that the flip's severity varies, and that when they chameleon arched for whatever reason, The Doctor got a very mild one which put him on the wrong side of the law but left him a mostly peaceful man who despised killing, thus his willingness to work the Kira case, while The Master got a somewhat more severe flip which, while it still left him a somewhat cold manipulator, brought him much closer to good.
Other L named Near and Mello as practical jokes
Near is a distant and detached savant. Mello is incredibly emotional and crazy. L thought it was funny to name them what they weren't and to make their names start with the letters that follow L, M and N.
The theme naming goes much further than this
This really is trivial, but: Kira, L, Mello, Near? Coincidence? I doubt it. The authors are Ohba and Obata. Can we keep this up?
All the confusion over Tsugumi Ohba's gender is EXACTLY AS PLANNED.
It seems that a lot of people consider Ohba-san male when evidence exists to the contrary. A lot of indirect quotes attributed to Ohba are printed as "he said" rather than "she said," so much that it has to be intentional confusion to keep readers from suspecting that a woman can create such a dark tale as Death Note.
Death Note is based on the They Might Be Giants song "No One Knows My Plan"
Seriously, the song perfectly shows Light's thoughts when is imprisoned by L.
MOST of the main characters have traits of mental disorders, if not the mental disorders themselves.
Light is almost certainly a psychopath, at least when he possesses the death note. Mello has low emotional control. Misa falls in love with Light in an absurdly jealous way and says she won't hesitate to kill anyone Light even PRETENDS to go out with. Near and L are both on the autism spectrum. And Teru sticks to rules and obeys authority without question. Read up on the DSM's personality disorders, then compare.
The sequel manga chapter was not done by the original creators.
Certainly, Takeshi Obata didn't do it.
Everything was just as planned... by Rem.
Realizing what Light was up to, Rem decided to cut a deal with L. Rem and L fake their own deaths, and L works in the shadows to take down Light. L is smart enough to realize that if he dies it would be impossible to ensure that Light gets taken down (it seems like it required a pretty big Idiot Ball to do him in). When Light finally is killed, L can show and explain to Misa about how touching a Death Note gives someone with a strong sense of justice the ability to eventually come back from the dead. That keeps Misa from committing suicide, since she'll want to see Light again, Rem manages to kill off Light without dying in the process, and L can work from the shadows to bring down Light.
Obviously, the plan wouldn't work if Light knew L was still alive, so L is forced to use extremely indirect methods (like sending a message to Wammy's house from his Mac), and possibly even posing as a Kira supporter named... Mikami. The data deletion Watari did was to cover up the preparations for L to fake his own death. L obviously hid some sort of temporary coma-inducing drug in his tea (you can see the teacup just before he "dies"), and had Rem dig him back up once it wore off.
The Death Note anime is a Xanatos Gambit in the style of...
...Douglas Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. In one of the chapters, he points out that it's impossible to hide the end of a story from the reader simply because of the number of pages left to be read. They can't be left blank, either, because then it becomes equally obvious for anyone who flips ahead. His proposed solution is to end the story before the number of pages run out, and then keep writing, incorporating things like Character Derailment, Idiot Ball, Villain Ball, introduction of new characters, unforeshadowed plot twists, Genre Shift-ing, and other story-killing devices to let the perceptive reader know where the real story ended. And this is exactly what happened in the second half of the Death Note anime.
Death note's creator is a Nietzsche Wannabe
That would explain the Crapsack World, Karma Houdini Shinigami, lack of an afterlife, Black and Gray Morality, and ambiguity surrounding whether what Light is doing is truly evil.
The main characters represent the seven deadly sins
Main characters meaning the four Kiras and the three detectives
In the pilot chapter, Taro Kagami writes Death Note.
Fast forward to the ending, and you see people gushing over the newest 'in' thing, Death Note. An older Taro is seen smirking and looking over a quiz about it in a magazine, while Ryuk looks over his shoulder. While others speculate over whether it's real or not, Taro KNOWS it's real, and is capable of writing a story around it, which later gets picked up for movies and television.
The next human to have a Death Note will take advantage of the unlimited pages.
He or she will tear out a few hundred pages (or a few thousand depending on patience) and deposit them in random recycling bins. Maybe leave a bunch of pages with the margins carefully cut off on different bulletin boards, write a petition or "leave your name and phone number for [purpose]" on the main part of the page and a date of death on each line in the removed margin, or do the same thing with one of those "write your name and send it forward" chain letters to eradicate more specific (gullible/annoying) people.
The Whole thing was one big Prank
a rather powerful friend of lights or a friend with connections organized the whole thing fake news reports, blanks, the works and even hired some actors to portray Shinigami and paid off others to pretend they didn't notice. and in the end Ryuk looks in to Lights face and whispers "surprise"
Light, L, and Misa were named as Shout Outs to the original Macross.
Think about it. "Light" is the English translation of "Hikaru", "Misa" is well, "Misa"...and "L" really stands for Lynn Minmei.
Watari and the King of the Shinigami are at war
Light is manipulated by Ryuk to fight for the King of the Shinigami. L was raised by Watari to fight the Death Note users. Light builds up a group of Death Note users in Misa, Hirugushi, Teru, and Kiyomi. Watari has the detectives of A through Z with L being the leader. In the all out war both L's and Light's groups continue to fight until they are all dead.
Death Note is an experimental MMORPG
in anime style. The Shinigami are admins/developers, and their world is a developer isle of sorts. That you go to "Nothingness" when you die is a way of saying that your character is deleted/sakujo'd when it dies. Mikami's blood fountain in the last episode is the result of a glitch. Feel free to add to this.
The actual Starboarding chain is: Rem -> Gelus -> Misa -> Light
Rem's attachment to Misa was her way of honoring Gelus's memory.
Tsugumi Ohba is a woman.
Why else would he/she emphasize that his/her gender was a well hidden secret? Most Writers Are Male so that suggests that any mystery being intentionally attached to Ohba in regard to gender would be a hint that he/she is a woman. Also, reading through the interview in How To Read 13 creates the distinct mental image of a woman. I've tested this by showing it to friends then asking what gender they think the interviewee is.
Death Note is seemingly sexist as a plan by Ohba.
Ohba is actually a woman, but doesn't want to make that obvious. So she writes the gender roles as she thinks a male would, and it turns out it can be viewed as sexist. But its not sexist, just a female trying to imitate how a male would view females. And I suppose the plan worked anyway, because many believe that the writer is male due to the gender roles in the story. Exactly as planned.
When the American Live-Action Remake hits theaters, The Asylum will release a movie called "Death Book"
Near and Ryuk were working together.
Somehow, Near and Ryuk made a plan together to overthrow L so Near would be the greatest detective in the world and Ryuk would ease his boredom.
Misa has Rem's Death Note in the finale, and Near retreives it later.
Somehow, Light switched the Death Note in the safe for a fake, but then Misa switched the real Death Note for a fake later. Therefore, when Light died, Misa had a Death Note. However, she bounds it to Ryuk, so he could stay in the human world. When Misa commits sucide, she has the Death Note with her, and Near or one of his allies, retreives it and locks it up.
Roger and Watari are boyfriends.
You wonder how Roger hates children and yet runs the Wammy House? This is why.
The unnamed shinigami is Tai
Look at that hair and those goggles
Naomi actually didn't die.
She was unknowably pregnant with Raye's baby, granting her immunity to the Death Note for nine months. Light's confession to Naomi turned out differently. She considered suicide, but after finding out that she was pregnant, she changed her mind. Naomi then assumes a new identity and raises her child in the outskirts of Japan, so Kira wouldn't kill both her and her child. That is why her body was never found.
The Finale scene was mostly Bilingual Dialogue.
Near understands Japanese, and the NPA learned English in school and on the job. Enough said.
Oh, and the SPK didn't really know what they were saying.
Upon confirming that the death note was real, Light's first victim was Hannibal Lecter.
A and B are really...
Alice and Bob of TV Tropes...
Why didn't L just call Batman?
And the whole thing would have been solved in a few days. In fact the finaly episode of the anime would be two episodes of Batman figuring the whole thing out and then twenty minutes of Batman making Light his bitch.
The unnamed Shinigami from Relight is Matt.
Because the Goggles Do Nothing!
When Rem killed L, some of her lifespan was transferred to Light
Rem dies after killing L because she does it to extend Misa's life. But since she's also knowingly extending Light's(keeping him from being outed as Kira and executed), he gets some, too. That's why he gets a Rasputinian Death. He wouldn't have died if Ryuk hadn't written his name down, because of his extended lifespan.
The reason there are so many weird names in Death note
The unnamed Shinigami is Light, as well as the REST of Kira aswell.
It is entirely possible that after "he" died, Kira became a Shinigami. However, since "Kira" is an identity refering to Light, Misa, Teru Mikami, and that one guy from the Yotsuba Group, the "Kira" Shinigami is reflective of ALL of those people. Since Light was the "brains" behind Kira, he is the dominant basis for the new Shinigami. Light, Misa, Teru, and Pervy all ended up in Mu after they died, but they essentially "live on" through this Shinigami for some reason.
Aiber is A from Wammy's House
A's "suicide" was committed in such a way that the body either wouldn't be found or would appear dead long enough for him to be buried. This allowed him to drop off of Wammy's radar. However, he still wished to beat L and tried to do so by both exceeding his detective skills (while using the name Eraldo Coil) and by being a con-man who L wouldn't be able to catch. Unfortunately, he failed on both fronts, thus losing the right to use the alias "Eraldo Coil" and being forced to either help L when needed or spend a great deal of time in prison. Hence, Aiber uses an "A" to identify himself and is able to act as Eraldo Coil during the Yotsuba arc without anyone noticing any discrepancies between his behavior and Eraldo Coil's known behaviors.
The pilot is the REAL Death Note story. Everything else is the manga mentioned at the end of the pilot, making it a story within a story
If THAT isn't enough, Taro is the author of the manga.
The newest Kira is the mastermind the Suicide Club
The Subliminal messages were a red herring. Someone just took advantage of the unlimited pages by making a note system like the one Light used on Ray Penber and making each suicide random.
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