YMMV / Death Note

A-G

• Adorkable:
  • Matsuda. He's (somewhat) dumb and a bit awkward, but also kind hearted and determined to try and prove himself useful. His fanboy moments for Misa in particular highlight how much of a lovable dork he can be.
  • Despite L's obsession with justice and his gangly pale figure, he manages to do this by smiling. During the few times where he's not giving the Kira case his undivided attention, he's this.
  • Near, particularly when his shyness and social ineptitude comes into play. The fact that he's older than he looks certainly helps.
• Adaptation Displacement:
  • "Death Note? Man, I love that anime. What, there was a manga?"
  • Individual scenes are subject to this as well, even amongst fans who know the manga.
    • The infamous "potato chip" scene was understated and matter-of-fact in the manga, but bring up potato chips in reference to Death Note, and people either recall the over-the-top Japanese dialogue from the anime, or the even more ridiculous English dub of the same scene.
    • Notable examples of this are certain Narm-tastic moments such as L's reaction to the second Kira mentioning shinigami and Mikami's death. Just like in the potato chip example, the reactions of the characters were far more understated (and realistic) in the manga. And in the case of the latter, the actual death/suicide happens 10 days later and off-screen.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page here.
• Alternate Self Shipping: The fandom has a small but dedicated contingent which ships Kira Light with mindwiped Light, in an Enemy Within-style thing.
• Americans Hate Tingle: While non-American fans are more or less accepting of Misa Amane, she's loathed in the USA, with her voice actress's performance being perceived as irritating by most fans, and her character seen as shallow, annoying, and stupid. The large number of yaoi fangirls who prefer other ships also have something to do with it.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • It depends from reader to reader, but many feel this around the third arc (see Ending Fatigue) and some even as early as the second arc. This is a series that prides itself on being a "howtocatchem" Gambit Pileup war between two brilliant, strategic characters... and obviously those with low tolerance for endless mind games are going to rage.
    • The second arc, aka the "Yotsuba Arc" is often considered to be solid, but not as good as the first arc. While seeing L and Light be on the same side for once is rather interesting, the entire direction of the show changes from "two super-geniuses try to outwit each other" to "two super geniuses and their somewhat-intelligent colleagues try to stop an idiot from abusing godlike power". The concept of the Yotsuba Arc isn't necessarily bad, but the sharp change in direction is often enough to annoy viewers who came here for one concept but got another. As well, many people decry the arc as Filler in an attempt to prolong the story, as Light comes up with the perfect way to kill L... only for it not to work, forcing him to scrap the plan and give himself amnesia to survive the fallout. L ends up being killed at the end of the arc anyways, in pretty much the exact way Light wanted him to die, rendering a lot of the inbetween material pointless.
    • While the Yotsuba Arc is enjoyed by a good number of readers, the "Near & Mello/L's Successors Arc" is despised by a huge portion of the fanbase. Common complaints include Near's entire character, the omnipresence of Bat Deduction in a series that previously prided itself on logical reasoning, and the pacing grinding to a halt as we switch between two detectives trying to solve the case independent of each other. The biggest complaint is, of course, the fact that L is dead for the entire arc and his two successors simply don't have the charisma or likability of their mentor. Again, people came to watch this show or read this manga because of the mental battle between Light and L- with one of those two dead and L's successors not being as interesting to watch, why stick around? And then there is the divisive finale that follows.
  • Interestingly enough, the Live Action Films have also followed this sentiment, choosing to end it at the first arc. The TV adaptation is...complicated. It foregoes the Time Skip, but keeps most of the events and characters from the second arc.
• Ass Pull:
  • Near, where he was able to pick out Mikami amongst many possible suspects as the X-Kira supporting the true Kira all because Near was currently watching Mikami give a televised speech about continuing to support Kira. Actually an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: the manga makes it clear that Near pieced together Mikami being X-Kira due to him being the only suspect that interacted with Kira's chosen spokesperson, Takada.
  • And in the TV drama's finale, Near was revealed to have faked his Mello personality taking over, all so that Light could become more careless in his deceptions. There was next to no foreshadowing regarding this plot twist, when there was so much more hidden symbolism building up to the Split-Personality Takeover being permanent.
• Awesome Ego: Light Yagami the God of the New World. Also, more subtly L — only the world's top three greatest detectives with his own L-screensaver.
• Awesome Music: So much that Death Note has its own page.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Is Light Yagami an entertaining, genius villain with nuanced motives or an annoyingly smug Manchild who generally succeeds entirely through sheer luck? The former is supported by the fact that he puts a lot of thinking and planning into his plans, and he has some hilariously hammy moments that steer into Narm Charm territory like the potato chip scene and his evil laugh scene in the episode where he runs into L at the university. The latter is supported by the fact that the way he acts in public while trying to cover himself as Kira would make people very suspicious of him, especially the way that he was talking to Naomi Misora and trying to stop her from going to Task Force HQ. It certainly doesn't help that he's incredibly short-tempered, narcissistic, and some of his acts are irrationally stupid for someone who is a "genius".
  • Near. Many view him as a Replacement Scrappy for L, and also view him as a Flat Character considering that one of the only few things that defines him as a character is just being L's successor. Others view him as a worthy replacement for L considering he captures most of L's deduction skills, and they think any other replacement would be viewed as inferior considering how universally acclaimed L was as a character. Said people also give him credit for being one of the people to finally end the Kira case, and for giving Light a very cathartic Kirk Summation about how Light's actions make him nothing more and nothing less than a serial killer.
  • Misa. You either think her childish and dumb personality makes her annoying or makes her comedic.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • In episode 12, L is listening to a message from the second Kira, which at one point refers to shinigami. Upon hearing this word, the normally unflappable L suddenly has a ridiculously over-the-top panic attack. It's never explained why would the mention of "shinigami" upset him so much. Even more strangely, when he finally sees a shinigami, he's as unflappable as usual.
  • Misa's Villain Song comes out of nowhere, has no relevance to the overall story, and is never mentioned again. It feels particularly out of place considering that everywhere else in the story, not a single second is wasted. Furthermore, it's nowhere to be found in the manga.
  • The famous potato chip scene. In a triumphant moment when Light is taunting L for getting outsmarted by a potato bag (where Light, knowing about the surveillance, has hidden a mini-TV so he can still see the names of criminals), he suddenly takes out a potato chip and eats it in slow-mo complete with dramatic music and narration. Now, Light eating from the potato bag is important to the plot because it throws L off his trail, but there was no need for him to suddenly narrate about eating a freaking chip when he had already explained a few seconds before what he is using the chips for.
• Broken Base:
  • The death of L in the original. The fanbase is split between it being one of the most emotionally impactful moments and a tragic loss and those who feel that the death threw a massive wrench into the character dynamics and weakened the series in a way it could never recover from. Some people even prefer the Live-action adaptations for having L win and die after the series.
  • Which ending is better, the anime or manga? Some that feel Light's send off in the manga was more fitting where he dies a pathetic, whiny death to highlight how much of a worm he was. Others feel the anime was better with Light having a more emotionally resonant Alas, Poor Villain moment which some argue manages to swing the anime back up from its Seasonal Rot. The endings clearly go for different tones and radically change how one's supposed to view Light and one's opinion on him (a Base-Breaking Character if there ever was one) will probably dictate one's feelings on the ending.
  • The name changes and other cultural adaptations for the American Netflix version. Many people decry They Changed It, Now It Sucks! as expected, but others recognize them as a Pragmatic Adaptation of sorts (for example, Light's first name is unchanged and many of the other Japanese names are retained), especially with Japanese actor and fellow geek Masi Oka helping to head the series.
  • Is the story a genius demonstration of intellectual warfare with interesting ethical dilemmas, symbolism and intriguing plot twists or is it a jumbled mess of faux-iconography, plot armor and contrived coincidences that hides behind a mask of competence?
• Catharsis Factor: Light finally being exposed as Kira by Near and the SPK after years is very much this for his haters, and especially with Near ripping Light a new one with a Kirk Summation, stating that his actions aren't creating peace and justice and he's nothing more than a serial killer.
• Complete Monster: Light Yagami is a brilliant, egotistical student who finds the titular Death Note and soon embarks on a quest to become the God of a "perfect" world he will create. After killing multiple criminals with the Note, Light flies into a rage when a man denounces his public name of "Kira" on TV, gleefully murdering the man on the spot. Once FBI agents investigate, Light tricks one of them into killing the others, revealing himself to one agent to gloat and later forcing the man's fiancée into suicide, cruelly taunting her while doing so. Later, to eliminate his chief pursuer and rival L Lawliet, Light pulls a Memory Gambit where he has the Death Note given to a man he knows will misuse it and pulls off a scheme that kills multiple people, including L. After L's death, Light reduces the global crime rate through sheer volume of murders, with a body count stated to be worse than any genocide. Not even lovers or family members are immune, as Light uses one of his two girlfriends as bait for another rival and forces her to burn herself to death, also eliminating any evidence along with her and contemplates murdering his own sister the moment she becomes a liability. When exposed, Light attempts to justify himself as well-intentioned, but is revealed as "nothing more than a crazy Serial Killer''.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Ryuk is a shinigami that looks like a combination between a corpse, a scarecrow and a heavy-metal music fan, who passes out artifacts of doom to humans he thinks will be entertaining.
  • Mikami has some great moments. Killing Demegawa and his cohorts in the anime is accompanied by writing even more epic than Light's. The eagle sound effects and flashing multicolored lights aren't the things that make the scene; that smile of his, however, is.
• Crossover Ship: Light is often set to face off against Lelouch, who is seen as a Worthy Opponent to him.
• Cry for the Devil: Deserving or not, Mello, Takada, Light (at least in the anime), Mikami, and Misa all had very sad deaths.
• Die for Our Ship: Misa and Takada get flack for getting in the way of L and Light. Takada gets this from Light/Misa shippers as well, some of whom actually cheered when Light killed her, even though he was only using both of them. To a lesser degree, Halle for getting in the way of Mello and Matt or Mello and Near.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Despite the fact that the manga itself emphasizes that we should not support him, Light Yagami gets a lot of sanitizing from the audience, generally from young men. While he does have some complexity, he has hordes of fans both in-universe and out who think that he's a misunderstood visionary, or a good guy underneath it all with fans out-universe who think the power of the Death Note corrupted him. It just ain't so. The boy is a Glory Hound and a narcissistic jerkass who casually kills people for the sake of a childishly self-defined sense of a justice, and he's had this mindset of the world and criminals even before he found the notebook. But some people like him nevertheless, possibly because of the extent to which he has charisma and enjoys being who he is. If you consult some forums about the series, some even consider him a role model. Anyway, who could blame them? Light has style, is handsome, likes to walk impeccably neat, is a perfect athlete, perfect student, a Chick Magnet, is loved by everyone around him, and certainly fits the ideal man that many young men want to be. On the other hand, this is ignoring the fact that Light is incredibly childish and irrational with things related to his ego. In other words, much of his appeal comes from his morally questionable sense of justice and the character itself, possibly coming from people who feel identified.
    • The anime itself even plays with this interpretation. While it inevitably comes down on the side that Light was wrong in what he did, it not only takes most of the series for it to eventually take that stance, he's generally portrayed as less of the Villain Protagonist that he was in the manga, and more like a Tragic Hero whose fatal flaws dragged down his ideals. It removes a lot of Light's more reprehensible aspects like a segment early on where he suggests using the Death Note to kill "unproductive" members of society who otherwise don't committ any crimes once he's finished killing all the criminals.
    • There is a variant of the fandom that is aware that Kira is a monster by the end of the series, but they consider it a case of corruption that occurred little by little, and that in the initial stages of the series, Light could be considered a well-intentioned anti-hero. This decides to ignore that almost from the beginning he was willing to kill policemen, and an apparently innocent person (L's decoy) just because he insulted his ego.
  • Misa Amane is possibly the second biggest example in the series after Light if not more so. Fans, male and female alike, tend to downplay the fact that she's a near-indiscriminate remorseless mass murderer because Light treats her like shit in spite of her boundless, unhealthy love for him and because she's cute, both of which make her appear to be more sympathetic in the eyes of the viewers. Some fans have even claimed that she deserved better than Light which not only ignores the fact that she's arguably just as bad as him, if not worse in some regards, but also that she went out of her way to seek him out in the first place and stuck by him despite his unmasked lack of interest in her and his blatant disregard for her well-being. It likely doesn't help that the work itself, or at least the characters in it, also downplayed her crimes compared to how they treat Kira likely because she's a girl.
  • Mello gets more than his fair share of fangirls, seeing as he's an incredibly diabolical crime lord... and he's the only one of the characters who actually wears form-fitting leather.
  • Mikami also gets this due to his sympathetic backstory, in which he tried to protect his classmates from bullies even when he got beaten up and no one else would support him. This treatment ignores the fact that he's one of the most blatantly insane characters in the series, believing that "God" killed the people he wanted dead long before he or Light got Death Notes.
  • Despite arguably not being actually villainous, L also receives this treatment from the fanbase. While he isn't a vicious murderer like the competition, he's not above endangering the lives of both convicts (like Lind L. Tailor) and innocents (like Hideki Ryuga) in his numerous attempts to provoke Kira. L is also perfectly willing to let the deaths of criminals and businessmen alike to continue during the investigation of Yotsuba, and orders the torture of Misa Amane. Some support L over Kira (and even believe L can do no wrong, in classic DILP fashion) simply because they find L sexier, or they find his mannerisms to be cute.
  • Beyond Birthday, that Ax-Crazy Serial Killer from Another Note. Most fans try and forget his very gruesome murders and turn him into a fuck-toy for L. Too many fics have been written where Beyond is portrayed as very out of character.
• Ending Fatigue: The second arc too long for many. It's ironic as the series was written specifically to span 108 chapters, partly as a Take That! toward Arc Fatigue which Tsugumi Ohba identifies as a Pet-Peeve Trope.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Matt. He appears in a mere sixteen panels of the manga, but is extremely popular in the fandom, to the point where if you were unfamiliar with the series you'd think he was one of the main characters, or that his relationship with Mello was canonically romantic.
  • Beyond Birthday only appeared in the book spin off "The BB Murder Cases" and had a passing mention in the anime and manga, but became rather popular nevertheless.
  • Naomi Misora for being intriguingly mysterious, and nearly bringing the Kira case to an early end by herself... of course, "nearly" doesn't quite cut it when you're dealing with Light.
• Escapist Character: Light is a perfect student, perfect athlete, capable of attracting popstars to his front door, and matches wits with the world's greatest dectective. Yes, he is definitely someone a lot of young men would like to be.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Light Yagami clearly fits for being one of the most beloved Villain Protagonists ever in manga and anime. A deranged, brilliant, manipulative, and narcissistic high-schooler who uses the titular Artifact of Doom to kill criminals and those he deems unworthy of his utopia, Light brings a delightfully hammy performance and pulls off complicated plans through his wits and charisma.
  • Ryuk also qualifies. Mostly due to his Creepy Awesome design and dark voice as well as being quite Affably Evil despite being a sadistic death god.
  • While Mikami is completely and utterly deranged, he's still rather badass shown best by his opening scene where he kills Demegawa and his followers with the death note in a truly flashy and over-the-top way.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • There's when Light regains his memory and becomes Kira again; some people ignore that and everything that happened afterward, considering Light to have remained L's partner instead. Some ignore what happened shortly afterward, L's death; some accept the previous spoiler, but reject everything that occurred after it; some accept everything until the ending of the series, when Light is killed. Complicating things further, the anime (slightly) adjusts the manga's ending. Light still dies, but he dies with slightly more dignity, managing to escape but then getting killed by Ryuk, who doesn't want to be bored while Light's in prison. In the manga, he has a Freak Out prior to his death.
  • There are also fans who don't like the Foe Romance Subtext added in episode 25, to the point of pretending it never happened. A small fandom accepts it as fanservice while a bigger one hates how it made L look like he accepted defeat.
  • Many fans are displeased by, and choose to ignore, Word of God saying that L calling Light his friend was merely a lie.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Poor Mello actually thinks he looks intimidating in that outfit. It features a fur collar, no sleeves, and exposes his navel. It looks more like he tried to make it himself, and failed miserably.
• Faux Symbolism: The apples. The artist assumed they were there for their religious significance, but the writer just put them there because he thought they were cool. So he claims, anyway.
  • Not to mention the first opening credits that make us think that Light is going to do something really just and noble. Heck, the first time you see him he's reciting Scripture perfectly in class. Two episodes into the series, you know better.
    • Throughout the series, there are a number of images that just happen to resemble crosses. And in the first opening credits sequence, Misora is seen holding the recently killed Raye Penber's body, looking uncannily like La Pieta art.
    • The first opening credits also shows a split-second image of Light laying on what appears to be a stained-glass window (in the second opening, this is repeated, only Light is shown more as a festering corpse).
    • Also in the opening credits is an image of Light handing Ryuk an apple, in what appears to be a crude mimicry of Michelangelo's ceiling painting of Adam and God (With Light as Adam, giving the apple more symbolism, and Ryuk as God, being flanked by Shinigami rather than cherubim). Also note how, in this image, Light has THAT chain handcuffed to his wrist, which leads off-screen. It's speculated to mean that the image may actually be larger, including L attached on the other end.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Tons of it.
  • L seems to get this with all his enemies with Light above all others but also with Misa, and Beyond from Another Note at least on B's side. B is very obsessed with him. As for Light and L the two compliment each other's methods and skills all the time, and regard each other as worthy adversaries. L evokes feelings in Light that he feels for no one else. L is the most important person in Light's life even after he is dead. And in the anime L is the only person on Light's mind when he's dying. And of course, there's that infamous foot massage in the anime, which must be seen to be believed.
  L: It's the least I can do to atone for my sins.
  Light: ...Do as you wish.
  • Also Beyond Birthday has this, mainly with L, Naomi Misora, and A (his rival at Wammy's House). Also frequently with Light who he's never met. [1]. Beyond is also quite frequently shipped with his victims.
• Fountain of Memes: Light has inspired numerous memes, mostly due to how over-the-top the anime's direction is. There is his dramatic writing style in his Death Note, the way his hugging Misa is framed as an epic moment, and the infamous, "I'll take out a potato chip....and EAT IT!" scene, among others.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of Death Note and Red Hot Chili Peppers are on relatively good terms. Many RHCP fans who were not into anime became interested in the series after finding out their favorite band providing two songs for two Death Note live action movies in 2006 (Snow (Hey Oh) and Dani California). Likewise, Death Note fans who like RHCP's song became interested to find out more in the band's discography.
  • You can also find many The Promised Neverland fans being fans of Death Note because they are often compared to each other.
  • Since Moriarty the Patriot also follows a criminal murderer mastermind mentally warring with the brilliant detective trying to catch him, there's quite a bit of overlap in fans.
  • While the only real thing Death Note and Chainsaw Man have in common is being darker-toned Shonen Jump series that feature demons of some sort, fans of one latched on to the other as soon as the main antagonist of Chainsaw Man was revealed to be a female villain with many tropes in common with Light, namely being a sharp-dressed Evil Redhead (albeit as her actual hair color rather than a stylistic choice) who relies on her high intellect and manipulations (including a Dumb Blonde character infatuated with her) to enact her plan to Take Over the World, to horrific results. It helps that Maximum the Hormone provided music for both of their anime adaptations, and that they also similarly made more of a splash in the Occidental Otaku community than in their native Japan (partly thanks to an amazing English dub). This was only enhanced when Aya Hirano (the voice of Misa) was announced to be playing Makima in the stage adaptation.
  • Fans of Death Note also tend to adore Breaking Bad, as both series center on a brilliant genius who is dissatisfied with their place in life, come to a source of power that lead them to adopt an alias to secretly carry out ego-fueled crimes, delude themselves into thinking they are doing the right thing, have to deal with hiding their actions from their family, and are fervently pursued by a government agency as they slide deeper into their double lives.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While it was by no means unpopular in Japan, especially upon release, Death Note is considered to be just another semi-popular anime of the mid-2000s in its home country in the over a decade since its release. In the west however (particularly the United States and Canada), it exploded onto the English-speaking anime scene, coinciding with the popularity of the emo subculture at the time, and remains a core memory for many an Occidental Otaku. Even now, it's seen not only as one of the most popular anime, but animated shows period in the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
  • Misa's generally more popular within the Cosplay fandom than the rest of the anime fandom, due to how easy it is to cosplay her and how many people in the cosplay fandom can relate to a few of her less toxic traits. In fact: Francesca Dani, one of the most popular cosplayers in the whole world, has Misa among her most popular cosplays, and she continues to be cosplayed by people of all different body types even well into the 2020s.
  • Some non-French speakers apparently watch the French dub only because they're aroused by the performance of Mello's voice actor, Emmanuel Garijo.

H-R

• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The 2020 One-Shot Special has the president, who is very obviously modelled after Donald Trump, giving 1 quadrillion yen to Minoru, and he uses it to improve Japan's economy. A few months later, the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 occurs. It causes multiple non-essential business to close down and big events to cancel, which could put a huge damper on the economy. To combat this, President Trump proposed a $1,000 Stimulus Package for every tax-paying American citizen to keep the economy stable, though it ultimately didn't actually succeed at doing anything of note to the economy.
  • A certain pratfall toward the end of the first season plays very differently by the end of the second.
• He Really Can Act: Pretty much every single voice actor in the English dub is this, as not only were they all well cast for the roles, but put in such phenomenal effort that makes it no surprise why this is considered one of the best English dubs of all time.
• He's Just Hiding: Pick a character- any character- there's loads of Fix Fic.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Tabitha St. Germain provided the English voice for Naomi Misora in the original anime; in the Japanese live-action films, she was dubbed over by Nicole Oliver. Several years later, they would both go on to play the Royal Sister pair, Luna and Celestia respectively, in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
  • We agree, Ryuk. Humans are fun!
  • When people found out live-action Soichiro was played by Takeshi Kaga, it started jokes about where Light got his potato chip eating skills from.
  • This may or may not have been intentional, depending on when the trend picked up, but Light's name is written with the kanji 月, meaning 'moon'.. It's a kirakira name.
  • Seeing that Shinigamis are the Japanese equivalent of The Grim Reaper, Misa Amane is, in the Latin American dub of the series, the Japanese equivalent of Mandy, as both are blonde girls that have the same voice actress.
  • Higuchi's Porsche 911 (996) suffers from Off-Model in the anime adaptation, where it has a central exit exhaust reminiscent of that found on the Boxster/Cayman models. While the 911 GT3 models for subsequent generations (997, 991, and 992) would feature a central exit exhaust, the Type 2 refresh for the 991 generation would feature, for the first time and only time, a central exit exhaust for a non-GT model, albeit for one specific trim level (Carrera S) and one specific optional package, being part of the Sport Exhaust package.
  • The panels in which Ryuk bugs Light to play Mario Golf with him take on an additional level of funny after The Super Mario Bros. Movie cast Light's voice actor Mamoru Miyano as the titular Mario.
• Hollywood Homely: According to Word of God, L is supposed to be "ugly."
• Hype Backlash: Many fans consider Death Note one of the best anime series ever made. Given the show's use of the Gambit Roulette, its dreary setting, loathable protagonist, and even some fans finding it too longwinded or getting worse, some naturally disagree.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Mello, if to a lesser extent than most examples.
  • Fandom takes Light's canonical ambiguous disinterest in girls to mean he'll do anything that moves, provided it is tactically advantageous or (L-sexual).
  • L is shipped with the Kiras, the Wammys, and the entire taskforce.
  • Likewise Near is shipped with everyone and his toys.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • When Soichiro pulled the trigger on Light, nobody believed it for a second. Light was so high on the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality that there was no way he was getting shot in the back of the car.
• Love to Hate: Light is a delusional Knight Templar and only gets worse with time, but few can deny that he's an intriguing Chessmaster who can match wits with the world's greatest detectives. In fact, his monsterous god complex and cruel manipulations are what make him one of the most iconic protagonists and characters in all of manga and anime.
• Magnificent Bastard: L Lawliet is the world's best detective and the Arch-Enemy and only intellectual equal of Light Yagami aka Kira. Introducing himself by tricking Light into revealing his location by sacrificing a death row inmate, L goes on to pursue Light with unfettered ruthlessness. With only mundane resources at his disposal, L manages to constantly evade Light's supernaturally-backed attempts to kill him and becomes ever-closer to exposing Light for his crimes. Even when Light deliberately loses his memories of his work as a Serial Killer, L continues to close in on his enemy and is only finally killed when Light convinces a Shinigami to take out L by giving its own life. Having left a fail-safe to inform his successors of his passing, L's posthumous machination leaves Near and Mello the field to finally take down Light, leaving his rival to scream and plead for his life before his own death.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Raye Penber is stalking teenage boys for the F.B.I. Doesn't help that in the anime his signature makes his first name look like it's spelled "Rape." Many jokes have been made on Youtube.
  • Ryuk's permanent rape face.
  • Just LOOK at Near's creepy smiles! Also in the manga, how he wanted to keep Light.
  • Higuchi is a Dirty Old Man in canon.
  • Beyond Birthday often supplies the "hurt" part of Hurt Comfort FanFiction. There's really no good way to take his line in Another Note of "I'm an aggressive top."
  • L never misses an opportunity to install cameras in a bathroom.
  • Light for evidence, see the deleted scene of L's funeral. Not to mention his Slasher Smile as he says "Just as planned."
• Memetic Mutation: Lots.
• Mind Game Ship: Light with practically everyone. The most notable ones are L with Light and Near with Light.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • At its core, as explained by Totally Not Mark, Death Note is a story about the dangers of cult mentality and someone placing themselves above the common man. If you listen to the fanbase however, it's either the story of a noble man purging the world of its sins, or a genius detective trying to catch a serial killer. Mark specifically notes that the main problem with the Netflix adaptation is that, by turning Light into a bullied outcast, it completely misses the point of what the original story was going for. He argues even the anime adaptation ran into this problem by increasing the religious iconographic with Light; Light himself is supposed to be the corruption of the model Japanese youth in the age where being such is not enough to succeed in Japanese culture, and not a figure that should be compared to a God.
  • Kira is just misunderstood/it's the Death Note's Fault./Light and Kira are two different personalities./Light is the hero, Kira is the villain.
    • The second interpretation may not be that far off, given the creator stated "Light's life was ruined when he got the Death Note." Although this refers more to it being a corrupting influence than it being in control of him.
  • L is adorable therefore he can do no wrong!
  • There are people who genuinely agree with Kira's methods and actually believe that Light was doing good with his murders.
  • Then there's a third group that doesn't give a shit about the morality and just want to use the Death Note to kill people for the sole reason that they don't like them. With popular targets including Justin Bieber (to Memetic Mutation at this point) and anyone involved in the production of the American remake. The fact that a number of kids in the US got in trouble in school for making replica Death Notes with the names of classmates they dislike written inside exemplifies the popularity of this misinterpretation.
• Moe:
  • Misa Amane is a walking blob of Moe. Pigtails, Gothic Lolita, Zettai Ryouiki, squealing girly voice, all topped off with a Yandere personality. She's so Moe that she even Shinigami want to protect her. Also, Sayu.
  • Light and L have their moments too. Especially L, thanks to his personality quirks and endearing smile.
  • Near. He looks and sounds like a preteen despite being older, and comes across as childlike due to almost all his scenes having him playing with toys. A paternal extinct is bound to kick in for some viewers.
  • Sayu pre-time skip. Dear god, Sayu. Light's upbeat and adorable little sister. Sweet, caring, innocent, and ditzy. Makes you want to protect her even more when you know how cruel the second series is to her.
• Moral Event Horizon: In a franchise where most people are morally grey at best, the Moral Event Horizon is not unusual in Death Note.
  • Light crosses it with the murder of Naomi Misora. It's not so much that he kills her, but the way he does it (forcing her to commit suicide) and the fact that he tells her that he's Kira the moment before the Death Note takes effect, just to see the look of horror on her face as she realizes what's about to happen. As if that wasn't enough, once the Death Note takes effect, he taunts her with offers to get her in touch with the Kira Task Force, knowing that she can't do anything about it.
  • Beyond Birthday's Moral Event Horizon is when he goes on a killing spree throughout Los Angeles. He kills a young teenage girl in the process.
  • Kyosuke Higuchi crosses it when he kills Hatori for trying to back out (and he coldly informs the poor guy beforehand that he's going to get killed).
  • Hitoshi Demegawa at first seemed to be a Slimeball TV executive cashing in on Kira. Then he leads a riot on SPK headquarters, with the intention of lynching every member of the group. When Demegawa is subsequently killed by Light's new subordinate Teru Mikami, even the Kira Task Force side with Kira in doing so, unanimously agreeing that if anyone deserved to be killed by Kira, it was him.
• Narm: See here.
• Narm Charm: This story is about a teenager with a God complex who gets a notebook that can kill people, the quirkiest detective ever to appear in fiction, and a God of death who starts all this mess because he got bored. Plot points include said death God getting literally addicted to apples, the teenager eating a potato chip with enough ham to feed a small country, and the detective giving the teenager a foot massage. On paper, it's absolutely ridiculous. In practice, it's a fierce competitor for the title of best anime ever made.
• Never Live It Down: Light has rather fewer moments of completely losing his shit than you'd think from talking to fans. It's just that what little we get is just that memorable. Then there is the the potato chip incident.
• Nightmare Fuel: Quite a bit of it.
• No Yay:
  • Ryuk/Light Oh for the love of Kira, NO! (This may have inspired a Death Note rule listed in the manga that Shinigami cannot have sex.)
  • Also Higuchi and Misa's car scene. He's 13 years her senior, has her in the car and is proposing, and looks prepared to rape her.
  • 20 year old Mello and creepy sociopathic mafia leader Rod Ross, who has to be at least twice Mello's age.
  • Near/Light. No. Just no.
  • There are a legion of fans who interpret this for Light/L as well, feeling like most fans miss the point of the foot massage scene which potentially holds biblical symbolism; in ancient Israel such an act was recognized as humbling work done by a slave to his master, something of which Jesus did to his disciples to teach them a lesson in humility. This theory is supported by the fact that L says "our time together is short", which Jesus said shortly before his execution. In vein of this interpretation, and Word of God confirming L to be asexual, the Foe Yay Shipping is looked upon much less favorably by some.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • This reporter:
  "As much as I fear for my own life in saying this...this is right. Alright, my name is..."
  • Don't forget Matt's epic scene of Noble Self-Sacrifice. 16 panels in the manga, less than 2 minutes of screentime in the anime, and yet his character is one of the most popular in the fandom.
  • Linda (the only female student seen at Wammy's house), has a fan following despite her minor role. She appears very briefly in the manga, and not at all in the original anime series.^note However, she might make a very brief appearance Relight 2: L's Successors as the student who asks L what he fears; the character is unnamed, but this is a plausible bit of Fanon.
• Pandering to the Base: The anime included a great deal of Padding in the episode before the climax of the first season, virtually all of it homoerotic intimacy between L and Light that adds little to the story, ruins the pacing, and arguably works against both characterization and themes built up to that point, but was meant to delight at least one section of the audience that everyone knows were a huge factor in the series' success and did so. It also changes the ending so that Light goes out with a certain degree of dignity, and cuts out the finale chapter closing it all off, seemingly to appease the Misaimed Fandom who wanted their "hero" to get a better send off.
• Paranoia Fuel: Your life can be ended at anytime just by having some Japanese god write your name in a notebook. Moreover, it's implied that this happens all the time. And, the only fate that awaits you or anyone, for that matter is nonexistence.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The most horrifying part of Light's character, far eclipsing his more absurd god complex and mass-murder, is the fact that he is 100% absolutely convinced at all times that he is in the right and morally justified despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, and is able to use that delusion in order to justify increasingly reprehensible and heinous crimes under the notion of creating an "ideal world". While few real-life dictators would engage in his excessive hamminess, they absolutely do this mindset that their ends justify their means no matter what, and that in order to secure this ideal future, they coincidentally have to solely hold onto power.
• Recurring Fanon Character: Dark Yagami is an Original Character who is the long lost twin brother of Light and first appeared in Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami, a So Bad, It's Good Crack Fic. Dark is depicted as a Marty Stu, superior to his brother in every way. He has appeared in other fics, fanart, and parodies due to his original fic’s popularity.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Near, along with Mello. Some fans are not fond of L's succesors. In fact, Near gets even more bashing than Mello, and even the author said that he was more and more unlikable as the story went on. In-Universe, even Light considers Near to be this, personally disliking him and regarding him as being unworthy of succeeding L.
  • K for Light in the movie-verse.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Mello gets better and better as the second half of the story progresses once he stops angsting and becomes the awesome leader of the mafia. Not to mention his faaaaaabulous fashion sense. Some also feel this way about Near as it becomes increasingly clear that he has a distinct moral opposition to Light in stark contrast to L and Mello.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Some fanfics turn Soichiro Yagami into an Abusive Parent and Corrupt Cop in order to give Light a Freudian Excuse.
  • Ryuk is the Greater-Scope Villain of the series, but many fanfics defending Light depict him as The Corrupter who drove Light to his acts of villainy, downplaying Light's own villainy. This is plausible in regards to the TV series, where Ryuk deliberately dropped the book for Light to find, but in the original Light was left on his own for a week and came up with his plan all on his own.
  • While L is indeed an Anti-Hero who is willing to use questionable means to achieve his ends, some Light-centric fics take it a step further and demonize him into a dirty detective and obsessive yandere who will go as far as to murder Light in cold blood or even rape him.
  • In general, large sections of the fanbase claim that Light was always completely psychopathic and would have turned out to be a serial killer or other ignoble profession even if the Death Note never appeared. While he clearly had extreme issues that would lead to his descent into evil, the creators have explicitly stated that Light became evil because he was too pure to understand the Death Note and would have been worked in a team with L and been a virtuous person without it, which the entirety of the Yotsuba Arc is dedicated to demonstrating.
• Rooting for the Empire: A case could be made that supporting any of the series' major characters involves this trope, since the primary protagonist is a mass murderer with a God complex, and his various antagonists, while they have lines they refuse to cross, are all rather ruthless in their pursuit of him.

S-Z

• Sacred Cow: L. He's not only considered by many to be the best character in Death Note, but also one of the best anime characters of all time, and it makes sense given how much he stands out compared to the rest of the cast for his traits such as a Genius Sweet Tooth and a Great Detective who's very on the nose with his deductions. So much that his death has caused many to turn away from the series, Near and Mello ended up falling into Replacement Scrappy territory for some due to being L's replacements, and many fans cheered that the live-action movie series has him win against Light.
• Seasonal Rot: Arguably averted in the manga, but the anime is a bit of a different story. Apart from the final episode, the second part of the anime, that is, everything after L's death, is considered by many to be inferior to the first largely due to rushed pacing and plot developments. Whether this means "quite good, just not as good" or "so bad it never happened" depends on who you ask.
• Ship Mates: Many fans ship Light/L with their Mello/Matt or Mello/Near.
• The Ship's Motor: During the time period when L and Light were handcuffed together, it is not mentioned how they did things such as sleep, bathe etc. It's quite possible (and likely) that they were unhandcuffed and someone else kept an eye on Light- but slash fic writers have decided they definitely slept in the same bed and bathed together.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: L/Light vs Light/Misa (or L/Misa). Also, the Mello/Near shippers once got into a nasty fight with the Mello/Matt ones.
• Signature Scene:
  • The first episode's montage of Light killing multiple criminals in quick succession. It serves as the catalyst for Light’s descent into madness, and features “Low Of Solipsism” a Signature Song of the anime.
  • "I'll take a potato chip... (deep breaths) AND EAT IT!", a line from a scene deemed as iconic due to the sheer amount of Mundane Made Awesome it exudes.^note This almost exclusively applies to the dubbed version
• Signature Song:
  • "What's Up, People!", the second opening of the anime.
  • Also, "Alumina", the first ending.
  • In the show proper, "Low of Solipsism" is this.
  • Also in the show proper, "L no Theme" and its variations
• Spiritual Adaptation: This is probably the closest we’re going to get to a Japanese adaptation of Crime and Punishment as both lead characters have very similar motivations and arcs, with the exception of Light’s tale ending without redemption.
• Spoiled by the Format: L's appearance is purposely kept hidden until Episode 6, but once the second episode sets up his relationship with Light, it becomes obvious that L is the guy in the opening that's always staring Light down.
• Squick: Higuchi's plans to make Misa his bride.
• Strawman Has a Point: In-universe, crime rates drop 70% worldwide and wars come to an end as Light's work goes on. Those in dangerous or crime-ridden places might find themselves agreeing with him, or at least forgetting that he plans to move on to killing lazy and unproductive people afterward. And, of course, since he only targets people the police have actually caught, whether or not this has any basis in what would happen in reality is obviously extremely dubious.
• Superlative Dubbing:
  • This is considered one of the best English anime dubs ever, though arguments still occur over which is superior.
  • The Mexican Spanish dub is not a slouch in this department either, leaving aside some minor spelling mistakes with Teru Mikami's name.
  • Ditto the European Spanish dub, which is considered the gold standard to this day. Special mention to Sergio Zamora as Light and Roger Pera as L, considered two of the best anime performances ever done in Spain.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The tune that plays when Aiber and Wedy are introduced sounds suspiciously similar to the Mission: Impossible theme tune.
  • Apparently, Hideki Taniuchi is a big fan of IDM scene. Taikutsu borrows the main riff from Turquoise Hexagon Sun by Boards of Canada, Near's Theme is pretty much an instrumental rendition of Aphex Twin's Nannou, and Suiri sounds suspiciously like Cliffs, another track by Richard D. James. Also, L's theme (at the start, anyway) is uncomfortably close to Tubular Bells from The Exorcist.
• Theme Pairing: Predictably enough (for being the main leads of the anime), Light and L are paired together — they are both highly intelligent individuals who feel intellectually unchallenged by the world as well as the Chessmasters of their respective sides. On top of that, they are rivals.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Many a fan's reaction to the liberties taken by the TV drama. Especially Light's transformation from a resident genius to a much more average individual, with a habit of catching idiot balls every chance he gets. Then there is L, whose quirks have been completely changed from his manga/anime version, and his Jerkass tendencies were magnified and the amorality of his actions more focused on.
  • The American adaptation was hit by this before production even began: apart from a couple of name changes, many were upset over the whitewashing of the Asian characters into white ones. They became even more upset when they found out the actor playing L was neither white nor Asian.^note Not that he was all of either to begin with... There have been reports that these whitewashing accusations have even reached the crew of the film itself.
  • The anime's adaptation of the Near/Mello arc has gotten this reaction from a sizable portion of the fanbase, as many major character scenes and moments were cut out of the anime, with Near and Mello themselves suffering the worst of it. According to analyses by manga readers, the anime removed roughly 10 chapters worth of content from Near and Mello, partly resulting in their Base-Breaking Character status for anime watchers.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Naomi Misora and Matt are viewed as characters that were greatly underutilized.
  • Amongst the fanbase, Mello is considered the more interesting character between him and Near since to many, Near just comes off as an L 2.0 knockoff while Mello is portrayed as a dangerous Mafia member. Something that makes his character completely unique compared to L and Near. However, Mello ends up becoming mostly Out of Focus just to continue building up the Light vs. Near rivalry, especially in the anime. The anime cut out several of his calmer moments of surveillance and deduction, as well as him leading Mogi to Near's headquarters, which eventually resulted in the SPK being attacked by Demegawa, Aizawa and Mogi turning on Light, and Near's eventual deduction that the original L's suspect must have been Light Yagami, and therefore Light Yagami was the current L and Kira.
  • From the Drama we have the Mello puppet. Its concept was so bizarre and and mind-boggling, but somehow it was crazy enough to work. Too bad they do next to nothing with it.
    • To add to that, it's more than a bit jarring that Matt is not in it all. You'd have thought that the creators would've wanted to give one of the fan favorites a time to shine, but due to how the story was adapted, he was written out entirely.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Due to the uniqueness of the Japanese justice system (described under Values Dissonance), the idea that any of Light's victims were wrongfully convicted doesn't ever get mentioned. If it did, it would've thrown an extra layer of grey onto Light's actions.
  • Light defends his usage of the Death Note by citing how wars have ceased entirely since the rise of Kira. Aside from this one comment, the intriguing prospect of Light using the note to end global wars is never elaborated upon.
  • During his incarceration, Light theorizes that another Kira might be controlling him. This is actually a very interesting concept and would've turned the entire series on its head if it had been true.
  • The rivalry between Mello and Near is only slightly touched upon.
  • The whole idea of Mello being Near's split personality in the drama.
  • Light becoming a megalomaniac after just his first couple of kills robbed the story of a potential drama from seeing a more nuanced Protagonist Journey to Villain as he steadily rationalizes his increasingly heinous actions.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • L, one of the most epic, most badass heroic antagonists in Shōnen who nearly took down Kira, ends up murdered by Kira himself. For many fans, he was even cooler than Light and many of them refused to see Death Note after his death.
  • Light himself. While he was nothing more or less than a delusional Serial Killer whose comeuppance was to be expected, it’s hard to not be impressed by his extreme intelligence and manipulation skills at the very least a little, and the fact that he had to fight two matching intellectuals. Helping this matter is also that Near wasn’t as well liked as L.
  • This applies to pretty much all the characters that meet bad ends, but especially Naomi and Matt.
  • Naomi was actually an invoked case of this, as she was intended to last longer, but then Ohba realized she was so good at her job that it would strain suspension of disbelief too much that she hadn't caught Light within a few chapters.
• Tough Act to Follow: For many readers/viewers, Near and Mello (particularly the former) are inferior follow-ups to the nearly-universally liked L. However, others feel that they're not bad characters on their own, it's just that they have the bad luck of being follow-ups to the nearly-universally liked L. Almost anybody would've come off as a disappointment after him. It is worth noting that there are readers who even prefer Near or Mello, but not the majority.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Most of the shinigami. Also L — Takeshi Obata meant to make L look ugly, but he has plenty of fangirls.
  • Beyond, seeing as he's L's evil doppelganger.
• Unintentional Period Piece: This series firmly dates itself in the early-to-mid '00s when it was written. A general example is how the characters, even wealthy people like L or the Yotsuba executives, use flip phones instead of smartphones. Technology Marches On rears its ugly head by the end of the series, which takes place in 2010 (and 2013 in the anime), and there's not a smartphone to be seen.
  • As pointed out in this video, with cyber security being more strictly enforced than it was in 2003, Light's search history for criminals to write down in the Death Note would narrow down suspects much easier.
  • L was able to narrow down Kira being in Tokyo due to playing the Lind L. Taylor broadcast in different locations at different times. Today, with social media being more commonplace than before, Light would have potentially found out about the Lind L. Taylor broadcast before it could air in Tokyo and would have written his name down then.
  • L was able to figure out Kira was a student due to Light not writing names down while he was at school. If Light had a smartphone with internet access, he could just write names down during bathroom or lunchbreaks, if not during class.
  • When L has cameras rigged all over the Yagami house, Light wouldn't have needed to put a portable TV in a bag of chips today. He could just leave the house with a smartphone, find a secluded spot to look at the news, and write criminals names down in advance. If he needed a criminal to act and die during a live broadcast while L was watching him, he could have orchestrated that too.
  • Higuchi wouldn't have needed to go to the Sakura TV station to look at Matsuda with the Shinigami eyes. The frosted glass falling over during a live broadcast about Kira would have instantly trended on social media and multiple people who had the foresight to record it would have posted the clip. Matsuda's potential demise would have been a Twitter search away.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Light Yagami. The fact that no matter how cruel his methods are, the story frequently making note that The Extremist Was Right. He was portrayed as a decent person when he loses his memory, making it hard not to see him as a victim of circumstance on some level. This caused Light to have had many viewers knowingly and unironically Rooting for the Empire. The anime chose to deliberately play to this audience, including multiple scenes seemingly based around giving him qualities his sociopathic and manipulative manga counterpart did not possess, and completely reworked the finale to let him go out showing a degree of self-reflection and regret he didn't have in the manga.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Raye Penber. Ironically, showing his relationship with his fiancee shortly before he's killed was probably meant to inspire sympathy for him. For many readers/viewers the effect was just the opposite when they saw his treatment of her as controlling and misogynistic.
• Unpopular Popular Character: L is seen as a deviant weirdo and Matsuda as a foolish and easily-manipulated putz by the other characters. Outside the source material, L was a massive Breakout Character for his off-beat design, weird charisma, and over-the-top detective style, while Matsuda is appreciated with several action hero moments under his belt, having a solid moral compass in a murky world, and for being the one who takes out Light in the end.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Many Western viewers take offense at what they perceive as Raye Penber's paternalistic and condescending attitude toward his fiancée, retired F.B.I. agent Naomi Misora — and, worse, her seemingly contented acceptance of it. Then again, that attitude gets him and his coworkers killed, so he's not exactly portrayed as being in the right. (In the DVD Commentary, her English-dub voice actress Tabitha St. Germain said that that scene was particularly difficult for her.)
  • A more pervasive one is that the Japanese legal system tends to only prosecute cases where a conviction is assured. Hence, people in countries with higher acquittal rates can find it odd that the series never once brings up the idea of wrongful conviction, with Light always assuming that people accused or incarcerated really did commit those crimes. This is made worse by the fact that the manga stated explicitly in the second chapter that "Kira's" highest total kills by country to that point took place in the United States, a country with a particularly ugly history of Miscarriage of Justice. Tsugumi Ohba does attempt to handwave this with a statement that Light researches his targets before killing them, but realistically he only has so many hours in a day and, particularly in the early 2000s when the story was being written, there's only so much you can do on the Internet from half a world away.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • Mello, in the manga. Rem is female but looks androgynous. Also, Near who is male but is voiced by female VAs in both the original and the English dub.
    • Interestingly, Mello's original name was Near, and vice versa, but an editing error at Shonen Jump saw their names switched around.
  • Near is even more of this in the drama, where he is actually played by a girl.
• Wangst:
  • Light is pretty much this in general. Whether when it comes to his goals of wanting to kill criminals and create a utopia, constantly preaching about them while stating he stands above everyone else in the world, angsting and complaining whenever his plans fail, and when he whines and cries when Ryuk is about to kill him with the Death Note after the SPK have successfully proved that he was Kira. L couldn't have been even more correct when he described Kira as an individual who is very childish and hates to lose.
  • Mello: "IT'S TIME I START LIVING MY OWN LIFE!" *door slam!*
  • THAT'S IT, I'M LEAVING TO TAKE OVER THE MAFIA.
  • Aizawa's "I hate Ryuuzaki and his way of doing things!"
  • Misa often spends her time whining about Light not loving her, and at the same time, acting like a womanchild who is still a bratty daughter of her deceased parents.
• The Woobie:
  • Matsuda, Rem, Gelus, and especially Soichiro and Sayu. From the movie, Shiori.
  • Light and Misa, when their memories were erased and were left confined and later tricked into believing that they were going to be executed. Light qualifies in general during the Yotsuba arc, given how innocent he is and how you know his Kira persona is just waiting in the wings for him to regain his memories.
  • Poor Sachiko Yagami. Just a regular housewife who puts her family above anything, but ends up having to care for a catatonic daughter, while her husband and son both wind up dead. And she has no idea about the real reasons for all her family's misfortune.
• Woolseyism: Death Note is a story so intricate that it leaves very little room for changes of any kind... and yet, the anime's dubbing team somehow snuck in this little gem:
  Misa: I would never dream of living in a world without Light!
  L: Yes, that would be dark.

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