Characters: Death Note part 1

Characters: Death Note Main Characters

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Light Yagami

The protagonist of the series.
Light is a genius student who has one major flaw...namely, one hell of a God complex. He has a hatred of the criminal element of the world, but for most of his life took a "whattaya gonna do" approach. Then, he found the Death Note, and his world was turned upside down. He began using it to kill criminals, believing that in doing so, he could scare the world into becoming more law-abiding.
He finds an equal and opponent in L; he ultimately wins, killing L through Rem. This later attracts the attention of Mello and Near, the latter of whom properly corners him. In the end, he dies.
Known aliases: Kira, the second L.

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Tropes associated with Light:

• A Boy And His Shinigami
• A God Am I: After picking up the Death Note, Light sets out to become the God of the New World.
• Affably Evil
• Alas Poor Villain: In the anime; of course, Your Mileage May Vary.
  • Certainly just after Matsuda shoots him. The way he calls out to Takada and Misa, asking what he should do now that he's lost and going to die, is pretty heartwrenching.
  • Also in the manga. He lays bloody on the ground, all allies having died or abandoned him, knowing that his death is coming. As his heart gives out, Light repeats over and over how he doesn't want to die, like a helpless child. Pitiable for some.
• Allergic To Routine - ...now if Light could have found some other intellectually engaging hobby We Could Have Avoided All This.
• Aloof Big Brother: To Sayu.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is he a brilliant, sympathetic, correct anti-hero, or an arrogant, disgusting psychopath with delusions of grandeur? You decide.
  • Why not both?
  • Some people also noticed after Ryuk took away his knowledge of the Death Note, but he regained it later, he acted like he had multiple personality disorder. You can supposedly see it in his eyes: when his eyes are slanted he's Kira and when they're round again he's switched back to Light. Of course, near the end of the series,Kira takes over, and his eyes don't turn round again until the very last episode.Re-watch the scene in the anime when L dies. Light's eyes switch from pointed to wide while he's falling out of the chair, and he suddenly goes insane, grabs L and starts screaming. After Rem dies however, his eyes are pointed again and he's perfectly calm and collected again. Also he does tend to dissociate from his actions as Kira, even when he doesn't need to, for instance, in the manga when he explains to Ryuk: "If I blow it, Kira may have to kill his own family."
    • That last is part of his development across the arc, though. At first, at least when he's not having crazy moments, he draws a clear distinction between himself as Light and his public perception as Kira. Towards the end, he believes his own publicity more and more, until his final declaration of "I, Kira, will have my perfect world!". Light doesn't dissociate from his actions; he accepts them. He approves of them; he glories in his own cleverness, and knows what he's doing and why even at his most sane. Look at all the times - especially early on - when he talks about how he's going to kill the bad guys and make a shiny new world, with thebiggest puppydog eyes you ever saw! The squint isn't an illustration of an alternate personality; it's an illustration of ego. It's him elevating himself above the world.
• Alternate Character Reading – Light's name is very unusual (as in what were his parents smoking) and this is Lampshaded by several characters. It is read as Light but spelled with the kanji Tsuki or moon making it a Meaningful Name since the kanji has four strokes and Light Is Not Good. Also a bilingual pun on "moon light" (which is enough to justify everything he does during the series. Honestly, if your child's name involves a pun, you had better instill a Code of Harry into the poor thing.... And let's not even get into the potential trauma caused by the last name...)
• Amateur Sleuth: Before picking up the Death Note...
• Americans Hate Tingle: And Italians Hate Light Yagami.
• Antagonist In Mourning: Despite the Psychotic Smirk after having L killed, there are several hints suggesting that he really misses him afterwards.
• Anti Hero - Type V. Until he dives over the edge and becomes a straight up Villain Protagonist.
• Appropriated Appellation: "Kira," the Engrish pronunciation of "killer."
• Asexual: Quite possibly, but see Ambiguously Straight Gay for another interpretation. Let's just say it's a subject of speculation.
• Awesome Mc Cool Name
• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Badass
• Badass Bookworm
• Badass Longcoat - in some of the manga artwork◊... and so Light destroyed The Matrix and created a New World...
• Bad Dreams - (at least) during the first week of judgements in the manga, also has a psychotic Nightmare Sequence in Relight 2 (complete with "holy shit" Scare Chord.)
• Base Breaker
• Batman Gambit
• The Beautiful People
• Big Brother Instinct: Initially... (in fact in the manga this is part of his initial justification for using the Death Note...) one of the many things forgotten by the Dark Side.Poor, poor Sayu.
• Big Sleep
• Bishonen: Very much so.
• Bitch In Sheep's Clothing: He acts polite, understanding, and caring towards the people around him, but in reality he's a Manipulative Bastard with a god complex. And boy when that facade drops, can he get nasty.
• Brad Swaile: English-dub voice actor.
• Brainy Brunette
• Broken Ace
• Brown Eyes
• Calling Card - "L do you know..."
• Celibate Villain - Subverted and played straight? Dates as many as four women at a time to deflect suspicion, and has romantic trysts with Takada after becoming the second L in order to manipulate her into doing his bidding. However, he doesn't really care about romance or sex, so played straight in that regard.
• Character Alignment: Lawful Neutral —> Lawful Evil —> Neutral Evil. He started off as lawful neutral before arguably crossing the Moral Event Horizon in episode 2 with the Lind L. Tailor incident. After that, he slowly became less lawful and more evil over the course of the story. (Though in the first five minutes of the series and when helost his memories you could make the case for him being Lawful Good at those times...)
• The Chessmaster
• Chick Magnet
• Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive
• Color Coded For Your Convenience: Official color seems to be red. Also wears a lot of black and white.
• The Conscience: Memoryless!Light is ironically this for L.
• Consummate Liar
• Cool And Unusual Punishment/Karmic Transformation: The first Relight special hints that after he dies, he becomes a shinigami.
• Cosmic Plaything
• Cradling Your Kill
• Cram School
• Crazy Prepared
• Creepy Awesome
• Crucified Hero Shot – The cover art of Volume 12 of the manga (being subtle).
• Cursed With Awesome – though he doesn't think of it as a curse...
• Curtains Match The Window
• Dark Messiah
• Darker And Edgier: When compared to Taro Kagami, the kira from the pilot chapter.
  • Ye gods, Light in the live-action movies! It makes his anime counterpart seem downright cuddly in comparison.
    • Really? Damn...
• Darwinist
• Death Glare
• Deep Cover Agent - He acts as his own Manchurian Agent.
• Desk Jockey
• Determinator: "Childish and hates to lose."
• Devil In Plain Sight
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu / Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Light manipulates Rem into killing L and Watari in order to save Misa. Because this deliberately lengthened Misa's life — a big no-no for Gods of Death — it ensures that Rem will die as well.
• Disproportionate Retribution - Light IS the trope.
• Dissonant Serenity
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: He and Misa set several of these up throughout the course of the series, sometimes on national TV, sometimes on private laptops.
• Don't Tell Mama: "You told my father that I'm a suspect?!"
• Doom Magnet: Complete with Lampshade Hanging
• Double Consciousness / Secret Identity Identity: "Don't panic. I have to act like Soichiro Yagami's son Light would act." Also made obvious with the fracturing image symbolism in the second opening credits.
• Draco In Leather Pants: God, some of the members of his fan base...Seriously people, he's the bad guy. And an Axe Crazy lunatic to boot.
• Dressed To Kill
• Dull Eyes Of Unhappiness - Seen in episode 1 before finding his "purpose." Also in episode 26 when trying to adjust to a world without L in it.
• The Dutiful Son: Subverted when he uses his father in an attempt to kill Mello.
• Dying Alone: Although in the anime, there is an appearance from what appears to be L's ghost. This may or may not be a Dying Dream.
  • Averted in the film.
• Escapist Character - He's handled well enough to be this, rather than a Villain Sue.
• Estrogen Brigade Bait
• Et Tu Brute – when the taskforce begins to turn against him in Season 2, it's clear he sees it as a betrayal. Also the end of the series, "MATSUDA, I thought you understood!" The manga finishes it up with Mikami screaming "YOU'RE NOT GOD!!"
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones – he genuinely cares about his family (not that that would ever stop him from going through with his plans...)
  • Well, in season 1 anyway. By season 2 when he attempts to manipulate his dying father into killing Mello, while expressing no real regrets about his death, it's safe to say that this has passed.
  • No, that's largely Adaptation Decay. The manga makes Light's discomfort with the use of his father very clear - he has to cast it as a mercy killing. And if you're going purely by anime canon, what about Sayu?
• Even The Guys Want Him: There's a Running Gag in Fandom that Light is a Stalker Magnet.
  • Let's see, you've got like every background character in episode 1, Ryuk has to follow him around everywhere, Raye Penber The Stalker, L and his weird obsession and surveillance cameras, Misa showing up on his door step, Takada apparently asked him out, Matsuda and Mikami the Fanboys, and Near with his creepy smiles and he keeps calling and hanging up...
• Evil Counterpart:To L.
• Evil Gloating - He just can't resist it...
• Evil Is Sexy
• Evil Laugh - He's got some evil chuckles spread out throughout the series and the one in the Grand Finale is LEGENDARY!
  • Not to mention the one he comes out with after L pwns him for the second time, at his university entrance ceremony.
• Expressive Hair
• False Friend
• Fatal Flaw: Pride.
• Fluffy Tamer - "You shinigami are so cute!" (Parodied in this doujinshi.◊)
• Foe Yay: Most prominently with L.
• Fountain Of Memes
• Gadget Watches: Light hides a piece of his Death Note inside his watch, meaning he can kill anyone at any time as long as he's not being watched carefully.
• Giggling Villain
• Glowing Eyes Of Doom
• Go Karting With Bowser
• Good Eyes Evil Eyes
• Gut Feeling
• Hair Colors
• Hannibal Lecture: Light delivers one after he's exposed as Kira. As noted below, Near responds by saying Shut Up Hannibal. See also / Motive Rant, below.
• Harmful To Minors - Death Note: Keep Out of Reach of Children ANYONE!!!
• Hates Being Touched
• Have You Tried Not Being A Monster
• He Who Fights Monsters - It takes only one chapter for him to become a monster (i.e. killing Lind L Taylor).
• Heel Face Brainwashing
• Heroic Sociopath: To his fans / supporters. Obviously an in-universe example, as his opposition regards Kira as merely a mass murderer.
• Hey Its That Voice - He is not in any way, shape, or form the young king of a jungle.
  • You also have wolf-Kira Kiba demanding to know "What's wrong with killing!" and would like you to know that "your rules are ROTTEN!"
  • As for the English dub, why is Quatre Raebaba Winner killing people?
• High School Sweethearts: Or rather, College Sweethearts. With Kiyomi. Or so he would have you believe — see also Asexual and Ambiguously Gay, above, and The Sociopath, below.
• Hollywood Hacking
• Holy Halo – on the manga cover art. Also gets Holy Backlight in the first episode when he first declares he's going to become God of the New World.
• How Do I Shot Web: Light being Light, he proceeds more intelligently than most.
• Ho Yay: With L. See also Foe Yay, above.
• I'm Having Soul Pains- "Ryuuzaki, let me see it!"
• I Did What I Had To Do - see the spoiler in Hannibal Lecture
• I Have Come Too Far
• I Have Many Names: Light Yagami, Kira (the Saviour, the Messenger from Hell, etc.), Light Asahi, "Mr. A an office worker", L (number two), God.
• Ignore The Fanservice
• Ignored Epiphany
• Implausible Deniability
• Incriminating Indifference
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
  • Although, any "isolation" we see is purely self-imposed; Light is in fact so popular that he can summon several friends/ a girlfriend whenever and only because they are needed. It's clear to the audience that he thinks he's above most people, confirmed by Word Of God.
• It Gets Easier
• It's All About Me
• Its Probably Nothing - Light's reaction during the Yotsuba arc when thinking about how the ideals of the original Kira are disturbingly close to his own...
• Jekyll And Hyde
• Jerkass Dissonance
• Jerkass Woobie: If you've given him a pair of leather pants.
• Jumped At The Call: Once Light finds the Death Note, it doesn't take him long to use it to start changing the World.
• Just A Kid - In the live action movie it is outright stated that his dad doesn't want him working on cases yet for this reason...
• Karmic Death
• Kick The Morality Pet - Light and his family, also arguably with L.
• The Kira Becomes the Killed
• Knight Templar: Poster boy.
• Kubrick Stare
• Large Ham: "I will be the GOD of the NEW WORLD!!!"
  • The intro to Relight is even hammier.
• Launcher Of A Thousand Ships: Fandom takes the above confusion to mean Anything That Moves provided it is tactically advantageous (or L-sexual).
• Lean And Mean
• Light Is Not Good: *Ba-dum ching!*
• Lonely At The Top
• Magnificent Bastard: How half the fandom sees him. (The other half see him as a Smug Snake.)
• Magnetic Villain - his cult of personality is so strong that he gets three other people (four if we count Higuchi) to commit mass murder on his behalf. He gains Rem'sloyalty as well despite the fact that she hates him ( because his motives are more pure than Higuchi's).
• Manipulative Bastard
• Mamoru Miyano: His seiyuu.
• Memetic Molester: For evidence, see the deleted scene of L's funeral. Not to mention his Slasher Smile as he says:
• Memetic Mutation: JUST AS PLANNED!
  • "Plan" means "keikaku".
  • Also, He'll take a potato chip AND EAT IT![1]
  • He also works as a swimming instructor .
• Memory Gambit
• Mind Game Ship: Basically with everyone.
• Mirror Scare – the sinister Kira reflection at the end of Relight in the Taskforce HQ's Hall Of Mirrors.
• Moral Myopia
• Motive Rant: See also Hannibal Lecture, above.
• Name Of Cool
• Names To Run Away From Really Fast
• Necessarily Evil – He arguably starts out this way determined to sacrifice himself for the greater good. However, less than a week later he's squeeing over his promotion to godhood It doesn't keep him from occasionally toying with the concept of himself as selfless and self-sacrificing, though.
• Never Hurt An Innocent - initially...
• Nightmare Fetishist - Has referred to Shinigami as "cute" and finds all that Ryuk will tell him about Shinigami quite fascinating.
• Non Action Guy - Well, he only writes people's names in the Death Note, and has never done physical harm.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now
• Obfuscating Stupidity - What's that, Rem? I don't understand... could you explain to me the rules of ownership again?
• Obliviously Evil
• Omniscient Morality License: When he kills a criminal as Kira, he's NEVER wrong about his victim. Ever. Presumably, he's just that intelligent. (But it seems hard to believe he only got real ones...)
  • His faith in the accuracy of Japanese and other justice systems, and the news reports on them, is touching.
  • The confession and conviction rate of the Japanese justice system is terrifying in itself—well over 90%. And Light has grown up worshipping his father to such an extent that he plans to follow in his footsteps. It makes more sense of his certainty that anyone arrested must be guilty—as ever, he's not as smart as he thinks.
• Ordinary High School Student
• Paper Thin Disguise: Light wears a hoodie and beanie when manipulating Raye Penber which renders him unrecognizable to both Raye and the investigators that view the surveillance cameras.
  • Though Raye never sees him until it's too late, and the chances are he doesn't recognise Light's voice because he's already under the effects of the Death Note.
• Pay Evil Unto Evil
• Person Of Mass Destruction
• Playing With Puppets: When testing the extent to which he can control victims with the Death Note.
• Possession Sue - When Fan Fic writers get ahold of Light Yagami it's usually this along with a side order of Villain Sue and Mary Tzu...
• Pride: Boy howdy.
• Principles Zealot - falls under this trope during the Yotsuba arc. The entire Kira-mission falls under this as well...
• Prophetic Names
• Properly Paranoid
• Psychopathic Manchild
• Pure Is Not Good
• Rasputinian Death: In the final episode of the anime, Matsuda shoots Light five times, but Light survives long enough to escape the warehouse and stagger around the industrial park for a short time before Ryuk kills him by writing his name in his Death note.
  • In the manga, however, Light only manages to crawl a few feet before Ryuk finishes him off.
  • In the film, he collapses, and that's pretty much it.
• Red Eyes Take Warning
• Red Oni Blue Oni: Light is red against L's blue. The anime makes this very obvious.
• Red Pill Blue Pill
• Rousseau Was Right – Light believes this. That if he just gets rid of all the bad people, no one will ever do anything evil again.Fridge Brilliance in that this may have actually caused Light to believe Mikami wouldn't even think of killing Takada, despite being loyal. He would have forgot that his God complex seriously fueled why he picked Mikami and this moment of being Genre Blind led to his defeat.
  • Also played straight when he lost his memories of the Death Note and being Kira, which caused him to revert to the state he was before finding the Death Note (though we aren't given any insight into his thoughts at that point).
• Rules Lawyer
• Samaritan Syndrome: this trope through a mirror darkly... "Who else can do it?! That's just it, there's no one!"
  • "Why are you working so hard?"
    • He certainly seems to believes that it's his duty to eliminate evil.
• Savvy Guy Energetic Girl – Light and Misa.
• Sdrawkcab Name - "I'm a gay"
• Self Restraint: Light is the king of this trope.
• Serial Killer Kira
• Shadow Dictator
• Sharp Dressed Man - On rare occasions, which tend to define him in the eyes of the fandom. The school uniform doesn't count.
• Sitting On The Roof - Light does this a couple times, symbolically overlooking his "New World."
• Slasher Smile
• Smug Snake: How half of the fandom see him. (The other half sees him as a Magnificent Bastard.)
  • This fits him more since he hates to lose and all.
• The Sociopath: Meets every requirement as of about episode 2.
• Spell My Name With An S - Light or Raito? YMMV.
• Start X To Stop X
• The Stoic
• Strange Minds Think Alike: With L... and Mikami.
• Super OCD
• Take Over The World
• Talking Your Way Out: With a high success rate.
• Tall Dark Light And Snarky
• Tautological Templar
• Teens Are Monsters
• Teen Genius
• That's What I Would Do
• These Hands Have Killed - In the manga. "I-I've killed two people..."
• Third Act Stupidity: Once he starts buying into his own hype.
• Too Clever By Half
• Took A Level In Dumbass: the way he gets busted, which overlaps with What An Idiot, and clearly demonstrates the dangers of believing your own hype. The film avoids this.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian
• Trademark Favorite Food: barbequed POTATO CHIPS!!!
• Tragic Dream / Tragic Hero: though it's understated he's pretty much doomed from the start: If he managed to create a perfect utopia... Ryuk would get bored...
  • Incidentally, Ryuk comments at one point to the effect that once Light kills off all evil people, he'd be the only bad person left alive (Light promptly handwaves this as dumb).
• Truffaut Was Right
• TV Genius: His cleverness at times reaches beyond the plausible. (Not as extreme as L's, though.)
• Two Aliases One Character
• Ubermensch
• Ukefication - poor, poor Light.
• The Unchosen One
• Unequal Pairing - most Shipping falls under this thanks to the whole A God Am I thing.
• The Unfettered: Debatable.
• Unholy Matrimony - Light and Misa.
• Victory Is Boring
• Vigilante Man
• Villain Protagonist
• Villain With Good Publicity
• Villainous Breakdown: Has a few, his end being the most notable.
• Visionary Villain
• Vitriolic Best Buds - Light and Ryuk, arguably BOTH types 1 (i.e. laughing it off whenever Ryuk reminds him that he's a Death God and that he's going to kill him one day...) and 2 (insulting each other in equal measure).
• Voice With An Internet Connection: As the second L.
• Wake Up Go To School Save Take Over The World
• We Want Our Jerk Back - during the Yotsuba arc, this is in-story with L ("I think I wanted you to be Kira") as well as audience reaction.
  • Your Mileage May Vary on that second one. Quite a few people found those episodes almost Tear Jerker worthy, as we see Light as he should have been.
• Well Intentioned Extremist
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: The potato chip scene is an epic example of this.
• What If God Was One Of Us
• When All You Have Is A Hammer
• Who's Laughing Now? - there are hints of this.
  • You have to really want to see them, though. He considers killing the school bully because he's looking for anyone to test the death note on, and because he has a general dislike of injustice - note that it's not Light they're picking on, and that the crime of the biker he eventually selects isn't all that different in the manga. It's difficult to picture such a popular, confident golden boy as a victim of bullying - he's portrayed as an object of envy, not contempt. And it's not as if he can't stand up for himself.
• Wide Eyed Idealist: "Quite the positive thinker."
• Wide Eyes And Shrunken Irises
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Some people believe Light to go insane after he gets possession of the Notebook.
  • If you look at his response in episode 1, and especially at how he acts during his conversation with Ryuk in chapter 1 of the manga, it seems pretty clear that he does.
• Wouldn't Hit A Girl: Mostly played straight, though he has no problem with writing women's names down.
• Xanatos Roulette: Almost everything that happens to him goes "exactly as planned".
• Yangire: Arguably... Nightmare Fuel has never been◊ so adorable.
• You Can't Please Everyone
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: What he does to Raye Penber and Kiyomi Takada. Also what he would have done to Misa were it not for Rem.
• You Just Told Me - Happens to Raye Penber and (in the manga) the President of the United States.
• You Will Be Spared - Provided someone is useful to him and/or doesn't get in his way. i.e Misa and Mikami. Also the Taskforce for most of season 2.
• Young Conqueror
• Your Mileage May Vary: See Alternate Character Interpretation above.

L

The greatest detective in the Death Note world (the three greatest detectives, actually), he's called in to work on the Kira (as Light is known) case. While he nearly corners Light several times, his opponent manages to best him. He is the opposing Deuteragonist of the series until he dies at the hands of Rem, but he had created a deadman switch, which resulted in Near taking over the Kira case. His real name, revealed in an encyclopedia of the series (How To Read 13), is L Lawliet.

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Tropes associated with L:

• Allergic To Routine
• Alliterative Name: His full name is L Lawliet.
• Alternate Character Interpretation
• Alternate Continuity: In the movies, L outlives Light
• Ambiguously Autistic
• Anti Hero: Type IV
• Awesome Mc Cool Name
• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Badass Adorable: Is the world's three greatest detectives and a master of Xanatos Speed Chess. The fandom finds him adorable.
• Badass Bookworm
• Becoming The Mask - Popular interpretation on the "Light-kun is my first ever friend" lie.
• Big Good
• Big Sleep
• Black Eyes
• Blood Knight: More interested in interesting cases than in "right" or "wrong."
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Give L a bowl of candy, and he'll work for two nights straight. Three, if he has to.
• But Not Too Foreign: Word Of God says he's "...a quarter Japanese, a quarter English, a quarter Russian and... maybe a quarter French or Italian...". So he's a gaijin, but he had to come up with a reason he speaks Japanese fluently.
• Capoeira
  • Apparently it's a Sure Why Not, which of course still counts.
• Captain Ersatz: Of Sherlock Holmes somewhat, according to Obata.
• Character Alignment: Chaotic Neutral/Lawful Neutral . He's a freelance detective only interested in the most challenging cases, and willing to use any means to solve them. He does however believe that evil should be punished.
• The Chessmaster
• Color Coded For Your Convenience: Official color seems to be blue.
• Covert Pervert: There are some scenes that imply the fact that L is actually a downright pervert. This is lampshaded by Misa, too.
  • "L never misses an opportunity to install cameras in a bathroom."
• Crazy Prepared
• Creepy Monotone
• Curtains Match The Window
• Dance Battler
• Dark And Troubled Past
• Dark Is Not Evil
• Deadpan Snarker
• Deliberate Injury Gambit
• Determinator: "I am also childish and hate to lose."
• Deuteragonist He is the second viewpoint character after Light, who is the protagonist.
• Died In Your Arms Tonight
• Disc One Final Boss: Assuming you view Light as the protagonist instead of the L and the NPA team
• Does Not Like Shoes and Foot Focus: L goes barefoot except when outdoors. Plus, that infamous anime filler scene between him and Light.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: He sets up the initial one, identifying himself as Kira's sworn enemy.
• Draco In Leather Pants: While he's not evil, people like to overlook his Knight Templar actions.
• Eerie Pale Skinned Brunette
• Erotic Eating
• Estrogen Brigade Bait: Unintentionally so. He was actually designed to be an inversion of the Bishonen, being unkempt and weird instead of poised and beautiful, but still attracted legions of fangirls.
• The Exotic Detective
• Expecting Someone Taller
• Extremity Extremist: On the rare occasions he fights physically, he only uses kicks.
• Flashback Nightmare - the opening of episode 25.
• Freaky Is Cool: According to many fangirls.
• Foe Yay
• Genius Sweet Tooth: Very may well be the Most Triumphant Example.
• Great Detective
• Guile Hero
• Gut Feeling
• Hates Being Touched
• Hero Antagonist
• Hey, It's That Voice!: In the English dub, L is played by Alessandro Juliani, known to Battlestar Galactica fans as Felix Gaeta.
• Hikikomori
• Ho Yay: With Light.
• Hurricane Kick
• I Have Many Names: Besides L, he's also known as Ryuuzaki, Eraldo Coil, Deneuve, and Hideki Ryuga. In Another Note, Mello wonders which of these names finally killed him.
• The Insomniac
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Jerkass Facade – Fridge Logic, among the police L is known as the arrogant prick who will only take on cases he's personally interested in. However "L" is only one of his many detective identities.
• Kappei Yamaguchi: Seiyuu.
• Knight Templar: Approves of torture and such to solve the Kira case.
  • YMMV may vary based on whether this trope actually applies. L correctly guessed that Misa was a mass-murderer and was trying to extract information from her so that more people wouldn't be killed.
    • Not really. Whether or not his actions were right are arguable, but he is undoubtedly a Knight Templar. He advocates the use of extreme measures to take down Kira. It may be entirely justified, maybe even called for, but this trope definately applies.
• Launcher Of A Thousand Ships
• Limited Wardrobe
• Loners Are Freaks
• Looks Like Cesare
• Magnificent Bastard: His moral ambiguity leaves him somewhere between this, and a straight up Guile Hero. He actually fits the requirements even better than Light.
• Manipulative Bastard
• Messy Hair
• Mind Game Ship: With Light, constantly, above all others- the most extreme form of it being when he places Lind L. Taylor in his place so that Kira will prove that he exists by killing him, mistaking him for L- but in other subtle and not-so-subtle ways as well.
  • With Misa, particularly when he has her bound and gagged on suspicion of being Kira.
  • With everyone on the task force investigating Kira, particularly with Light's father, when he toys with him over how guilty his son may or may not be.
  • With the Yotsuba board by making them believe they've seen Matsuda fall from a window.
  • Heck, basically with everyone except (so far as we know) Watari.
• Moral Dissonance: Being a Knight Templar, he will do this when he's on a case.
• Must Have Caffeine
• Mysterious Past
• Name Of Cool
• No Hero To His Valet: Type 2.
• No Sense Of Personal Space
• No Social Skills: He has very poor social skills.
• Not So Different: Frequently Lampshaded.
• Older Than They Look: He's twenty five at the start yet doesn't look much older then the 17 year old Light. If anything, he looks younger.
• One Letter Name: In fact, it's his real name.
• Oral Fixation Fixation: The amount of time the guy spend with his fingers/various food substances in his mouth is amazing. Also, he can tie cherry stalks into knots with his tongue.
• Parental Abandonment
• Posthumous Narration: The opening of Relight 2 has L summarize the events of the Kira case, even events that occurred after he died
• Primal Stance
• Private Detective
• Properly Paranoid
• Punch Clock Hero
• The Rainman: There's considerable debate about whether L is in fact autistic, but he's very weird and he sucks at normal social interaction, so he qualifies regardless.
• Real Name As An Alias
• Red Oni Blue Oni: L is blue against Light's red.
• The Rival: Light's.
• Sacrificial Lion: For many people, it wasn't so surprising that L died so much that he died at the half-way point instead of at the end.
• Shower Of Angst
• Significant Birth Date – Halloween
• The Spock
• The Spook
• The Stoic
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Light and L will often be shown to be thinking the EXACT same thing.
• Strawberry Shorthand
• Super OCD
• Sweet Tooth
• Tall Dark And Handsome: Well, kinda handsome.
• Teen Genius: Several years past his teens by the time of the series, though you have to assume he started that way.
• Thanatos Gambit
• That's What I Would Do
• Too Clever By Half
• Too Cool To Live
• TV Genius: He often seems to deduce things almost out of thin air. As a general rule, he's never wrong about anything.
• Two Aliases One Character
• Tyke Bomb
• Ugly Cute: Takeshi Obata meant to make L look ugly, but oh god, the fangirls...
• Ukefication
• The Unfettered: Debated.
• Unpopular Popular Character
• Voice With An Internet Connection
• Warts And All
• Wild Hair
• Worthy Opponent
• Xanatos Gambit: The Do Not Adjust Your Set one above being only his first in the series.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He's a master of it, as shown when he saves Matsuda from being discovered by having him fake his own death.

Misa Amane

The second Kira, an internationally famous model and pop star who started out as Light's Stalker With A Crush since, as Kira, he killed the burglar that murdered her parents when she was a little girl, thus making her feel in debt to him. Has one hell of a messed up lifespan due to multiple shinigami sacrificing their lives for her and her multiple exchanges for the Shinigami Eyes. She and her shinigami, Rem, helped Light finally outmaneuver and kill L, but not before dragging him through a series of events, both good and bad, started by her carelessness.
In the manga, Misa is stated to have committed suicide a year after Light dies. In the anime, it is implied that she does the same: the last scene of her in the series has her on the other side of the railing at the edge of a building. In the movies, her ultimate fate is left ambiguous; due to the Death Notes being destroyed, she has lost her memory of being the second Kira, as well as Light being Kira. She remembers Light himself, and that she loves him, but knows that there is something missing that she cannot recall.

---

Tropes associated with Misa:

• Adaptation Dye Job: Her eyes are apparently naturally brown in the manga but blue in the anime.
  • Not to mention she's blonde in both manga and anime but a brunette in the movies.
  • Her eyes switch between brown and blue in the anime depending on whether she's on the job as an Idol Singer. It's probably color contacts.
• Affably Evil: She'll kill you without hesitation if you get in her way or cause trouble for Light, but other than that, she's a genuinely sweet girl.
• Alas Poor Scrappy
• Americans Hate Tingle: She's way more accepted in Japan, Europe and South America than in North America.
• Aya Hirano: Her seiyuu.
• Ax Crazy: When her Berserk Button is pushed.
• The Baldrick
• Base Breaker
• Berserk Button: If anyone screws around with Light behind her back...even Light isn't safe from her wrath if this happens.
• Blondes Are Evil
• Blue Eyes or Eyes Of Gold
• Bottle Fairy
• Bound And Gagged
• Character Alignment: Chaotic Neutral —> Chaotic Evil depending on if she has the memories or not.
• Clingy Jealous Girl
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Color Coded For Your Convenience: Her official color seems to be light blue.
• Creepy Awesome
• Creepy Cool Crosses: She wears them in the manga and live action film series, though the anime eliminated them. They can be seen in her early turnaround designs though and the first opening, which suggests the change came later in production.
• Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: She really is a lot smarter than she usually acts.
• Curtains Match The Window
• The Cutie
• The Dark Chick
• Dark Mistress
• Deadly Upgrade: Twice, for that matter.
• Die For Our Ship: L x Light fans detest her.
• Draco In Leather Pants
• The Dragon: until Light has her Death Note given to Mikami
• Driven To Suicide: What finally happens to her.
• Dumb Blonde: Then again, near to L or Light pretty much anyone would look dumb by proxy.
  • Mind you, this doesn't stop her from outmaneuvering both Light and Higuchi with only a little help from Rem. If she'd wanted Light dead instead of being able to serve him, this would have been a much shorter series.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita. She dresses like this when she becomes more famous - and in the anime, when she's about to jump off to her death after Light dies.
• Even The Girls Want Her: In story. Rem is in love with her, and Light's sister Sayu pretty much drools over her says when they meet. Too bad she's Light-sexual, huh.
• Evil Counterpart: To Light at first, Lampshaded when Light and L are building a profile of the Second Kira.
  Light: ...this Kira isn't idealistic.
  L: Yes. I really don't like the way he operates. It's not like Kira.
• Evil Diva
• Evil Eye: Just... look at her when Light tells her that he'll be dating other girls to keep up his image.
• Evil Is Sexy
• Expy: Shares quite a few similarities with Harley Quinn.
• Femme Fatale: In the Yotsuba arc.
• Fetish Fuel Station Attendant
• First Name Basis
• Genius Ditz: Had enough smarts to channelize her child-like charm into her very succesful model and Idol Singer career. Also, she figures out how to expose Higuchi as the Yotsuba Kira to the police without revealing Rem's presence. She's actually quite clever, she's just more energetic and not as smart as the downright superhuman Light and L.
• Genki Girl
• Girlish Pigtails
• Hair Colors
• Hair Of Gold: Subverted. Her character fits the Blondes Are Evil archetype, but it can be argued that her blonde hair is supposed to give her the appearance of innocence.
• Harmful To Minors - her parents were murdered right in front of her.
• Hero Protagonist Secret Service -
  Misa: (swooning) I would gladly die if it were for you, Light!
  Light: (sweat-dropping) We just met.
• Horrible Judge Of Character: Even during those times when she claims she understands that Light doesn't give a damn about her, she still swoons for him.
• The Idiot From Osaka
• Jack The Ripoff
• Jerkass Woobie: If we take out the Ax Crazy side, she's actually quite sympathetic.
• Karma Houdini: In the live action movies.
• Kawaiiko
• Lady Macbeth
• Large Ham: She even overacts in-universe!
• Lean And Mean
• Loony Fan: Towards Light.
• Love Martyr
• Mad Love
• Meaningful Name: from How To Read, it says her name comes from Kuromisa meaning "Black Mass."
• Moe
• Ms Fanservice: That wardrobe of hers. Many viewers wish they were Light, if only for the sake of Misa Misa.
• Namedar - Misa has the eyes.
• The Nicknamer
• Nightmare Fetishist - "What a beautiful way to kill!"
• No Place For Me There - asked in the ending of "Misa no Uta"
• No Sense Of Personal Space
• Obliviously Evil
• Obfuscating Stupidity - sometimes. she's at least smarter than she acts most of the time.
• Older Than She Looks - Lampshaded when a character (in the second arc, no less) believes her to be a teenage girl between 14 and 20 years old. She happens to be in her twenties at that particular point.
• Odd Friendship: Most obviously with L, though the extent to which theirs is a "friendship" is negotiable. However, by she second arc, she's actually won over Mogi, a man her polar opposite, and the two seem quite close.
• Parental Abandonment: Her Freudian Excuse, as explained above.
• Perky Female Minion
• Perky Goth: Her attire.
• Person Of Mass Destruction
• Ping Pong Naivete
• Plucky Comic Relief: albeit not to the same extent as Ryuk.
• Poisonous Friend
• Psycho For Hire: Basically how Light uses her throughout the series. Even better, since she loves him, she's a Psycho For Hire who works for free.
• Psycho Supporter
• Psychopathic Manchild: Acts like a sweet and perky child, despite her madness.
• Rapunzel Hair: Depicted with this sometimes, such as on the Volume 4 manga cover, although most of the time her hair is medium-length.
• Red Eyes Take Warning
• The Renfield
• Rescued From The Scrappy Heap - YMMV during the Yotsuba arc when she successfully outmaneuvers and controls Higuchi.
• Savvy Guy Energetic Girl – Light and Misa.
• Secret Keeper
• Serial Killer Kira
• Spanner In The Works: For both Light and L.
• Spared By The Adaptation: The Live Action Films
  • This actually becomes an important plot point in the noveltization of the spinoff film, L: Change The World
• Stalker With A Crush: Towards Light again.
• Stalking Is Funny If It Is Female After Male
• Sympathetic Murderer: Misa evokes quite a lot of sympathy from Kira's pursuers, considering all she has done.
• Third Person Person: Mercifully, this was omitted for the most part in the English translation of the manga, and completely eliminated in the English dub of the anime.
• The Cutie
• The Scrappy: How DARE a Genius Ditz Genki Girl get involved in a battle between TV Genius Bishonen! HATE! HATE!!
  • Is also because fans find her annoying, which she is but Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not that's something to hold against her.
  • Half the fandom doesn't find her annoying though, as pointed out above.
• Uncanny Valley: Her Volume 4 manga cover artwork.
• Unequal Pairing
• The Unfettered
• Unholy Matrimony - Light and Misa.
• Unkempt Beauty - After she was released from captivity, she spent her next scene in pj's, without makeup and with her hair down (more or less like this◊). More than one viewer thought she looked quite nice like that.
• Used To Be A Sweet Kid: Had her parents not been killed when she was a little girl, she would've possibly grown into the same Idol Singer... without the Ax CrazyYandereness.
• Villain Song: "Misa no Uta", sung while she's killing people, nonetheless.
• Wig Dress Accent: Used to avoid attracting attention while tracking down Light and later Higuchi.
• Woman In Black
• Yandere and Yangire

    Main characters - second half 

Mello

One of L's two successors, a handsome and dangerous young man whose real name is Mihael Keehl.Briefly after the timeskip, he kidnaps Light's little sister, Sayu, in hopes of forcing the Task Force (which Light's father is on) to hand over the Death Note. Though he succeeds, the task force leads a raid on his hideout and takes the note back from him. However, he indirectly kills Light's father.
As the raid concluded, he set off a bomb in the warehouse where he and his gang were, giving him a huge scar across his face (not that it deters his fangirls). He and Matt (the third most-likely successor to L) kidnap Kiyomi Takada, which leads to Mikami's screw-up and Light's downfall. Both of them die in the process.
Besides being in the manga and anime, Mello also appears in the spin-off prequel novel, Another Note, where he acts as the narrator.
In stark contrast to Near and L (the latter of which he worships), Mello is extremely dynamic, a ruthless mob boss, but just as brilliant as Near. Also, he likes chocolate.

---

Tropes associated with Mello:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is he an overly-emotional Chaotic Good guy with an inferiority complex who's tired of being Always Second Best, or is he an evil selfishAx Crazy Manipulative Bastard? Or both? Yeah...both.
• Always Second Best
• Ambiguously Gay: Open for debate.
• Anti Hero: Type V.
• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Axe Crazy
• Badass Biker
• Badass Bookworm
• Bishonen
• Blond Guys Are Anti Heroes.
• Blue Eyes or Black Eyes
• Bob Haircut
• Character Alignment: Neutral Evil. Mello is solely dedicated to being the one to stop Kira and is more than willing to become a mob boss, kidnap innocent girls, and in the manga, even threaten the President into sabotaging Near so said rival can't catch Kira.
  • An Alternate Character Interpretation could be him as Chaotic Good. Or Chaotic Neutral.
• The Chessmaster: Especially in his first couple of episodes.
• The Combat Pragmatist: Which arguably accounts for his effectiveness. Light seems to have trouble dealing with someone who refuses to play by the rules.
• Creepy Cool Crosses: In the manga.
• Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster
• Dark Is Not Evil
• Demoted To Extra - in the Relight movies.
• Determinator
• Deuteragonist After L's death, Mello and Near become the opposing deuteragonists to Light.
• Draco In Leather Pants: Aside from literally wearing tight-fitting leather, Mello has many fangirls, despite (or maybe because of) being responsible for killing Light's father Soichirou indirectly, mentally scarring his younger sister Sayu to the point of sending her into catathonia, threatening the president of the US with nuclear war in the manga, and generally being a pain in the ass to the Task Force, and Near.
• Everything's Better With Chocolate
• Evil Counterpart: To Near
  • ...are we sure it's not the other way around?
• Evil Is Cool
• Evil Is Sexy
• Genius Sweet Tooth
• Good Scars Evil Scars
• Foe Yay: Fangirls have the tendency to pair him with Near, compiling lists of "proof". Many Die For Our Ship instances result from the debate over pairing him with Matt or Near, with one group of fans insisting the opposing character is a threat to their preferred pairing. And let's not even mention his supposed "het option", Halle Lidner.
• Heel Face Turn
• Hell Bent For Leather
• Heroic Sociopath
• Ho Yay: Other fangirls however, have a tendency to pair him up with Matt, despite the latter being in the manga for less than twenty panels. Must be the hair and the clothes...
• Ignore The Fanservice
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Large Ham
• Laser Guided Tykebomb
• Launcher Of A Thousand Ships
• Lean And Mean
• Load Bearing Boss
• Long Haired Prettyboy
• Mad Eye
• The Mafia: Mello leads one, having brought in the head of a mob boss at fifteen.
• Magnificent Bastard: Becomes one with his final actions.
• The McCoy: Specifically, Mello is The McCoy to Near's Spock.
• Morality Pet: Matt. He's the only person who's death Mello expresses a moment's regret over.
• My Death Is Just The Beginning
• Not So Different - his methods more closely resemble Kira's than L's.
• Not So Harmless
• Nozomu Sasaki
• Parental Abandonment
• Person Of Mass Destruction - when he briefly gets control of one of the notebooks.
• Pretty Fly For A White Guy: Mocked in Death Note Abridged "Quit talking like that! You're from an orphanage in England for Christ's sake!"
• Redemption Equals Death: He does something useful, and gets killed for his efforts.
• Revenge - "I don't underestimate revenge as a motive." There's the implication that getting revenge for L is another of his motives (along with being Number 1.)
• The Rival: Mello is Near's rival, and a bit more unhinged.
• Red Oni Blue Oni: Him and Near. Mello is overly-emotional impulsive and Ax Crazy while Near is a cold intellectual and seemingly emotionless. The only thing they have in common is that they are both geniuses.
• Salieri Syndrome
• Scars Are Forever
• Second Place Is For Losers
• Slouch Of Villainy
• Teen Genius
• Teens Are Monsters: Fortunately, not as monstrous as Light.
  • Well...
• Teeth Clenched Teamwork: He hates to acknowledge that practically speaking, he and Near are on the same side.
• Too Cool To Live
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate bars.
• Two Faced
• Ukefication
• The Unfettered: Will do whatever it takes to beat Near and capture Kira.
• Unknown Rival: Near actually isn't that interested in beating him, and expresses no problems with working with him. Light's lucky Mello isn't quite as open-minded.
• Unreliable Narrator - Mello tells the story of Another Note.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Moreso in the manga than the anime, but due to Takeshi Obata drawing him rather 'feminine' in various panels, his habit of wearing tight-fitting leather, and his haircut, there were more than a few readers who mistook him for being a girl initially, up until his gender was actually stated by one of the mob characters. In the anime, he was slightly redesigned to look less effeminate and given an overly-masculine voice, but that still didn't stop the confusion.
• Wangst - "IT'S TIME I START LIVING MY OWN LIFE!" * door slam!*
  • THAT'S IT, I'M LEAVING TO TAKE OVER THE MAFIA.
• Well Done Son Guy - there are hints of this in the way he sympathizes with Beyond when telling Another Note

Near

L's true successor, named Nate River, and the one who truly takes down Kira in the end. Runs the SPK, a force from the USA specially designed to unmask Kira. Like L, he also suspects Light to be Kira (and suspects Mikami and Takada to have something to do with him as well), yet despite having every right to do so, refuses to incarcerate Light and Mikami and use the lack of deaths following as evidence.
The closest thing that the one-shot comic three years later has to a main character, he drives C-Kira to suicide with words alone.

---

Tropes associated with Near:

• Adult Child
• Alternate Continuity: Let's just say that Near is really really different in L: Change The World
  • Well, he's already got the annyoing part down, all he has to do is dye his hair and become a Jerk Ass and we're good to go...
• Ambiguously Autistic: In a different but similar way to L (just as the character is different but similar to L generally) and seemingly to a more severe level.
• Anti Hero: Type IV
• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Badass Adorable: Amongst those Death Note fans who can find it in their hearts to like the character after L's death it is often noted that Near has a soft, cute appearance. However, neither he nor most of the male characters are exactly what you could call "cuddly" in nature (except maybe Matsuda).
• Base Breaker: Despite all the comments about his being The Scrappy, Near does have his fans, especially among the anti-Light crowd.
• Bat Deduction – In the anime Near's eyes turn white and he magically has the clues he needs. The manga avoids this.
• Beat Them At Their Own Game
• Black Eyes
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Near loves playing with toys just as much as L loves sweets.
• Cathy Weseluck
• Character Alignment: True Neutral. Near goes after Kira because that's what he does, not for any ethical or moral imperatives, although he does personally express disgust toward him and his followers. As with L, there are rules he will not break, and lines he will not cross, though it's ambiguous whether he used the Death Note to defeat Kira.
• The Chessmaster: Perhaps the most archetypal example, right down to the unemotionality, and the hatred of adjusting plans.
• The Combat Pragmatist: Though he rejects offhand the idea of "just shooting him" as dishonorable, he is still a cheating little bastard: It is still argued on whether or not he used the notebook to control Mikami in the final confrontation.
• Creepy Monotone: In the anime, certainly.
• Cross Dressing Voices: Near is voiced by women in both the Japanese and English versions of the anime.
• Deuteragonist: After L's death, Mello and Near become the opposing deuteragonists to Light.
• Guile Hero
• Gut Feeling
• Heroic Albino: Although you'd have to use the term "heroic" very, very loosely.
• Insufferable Genius: In addition to many fans hating him, there aren't many people in the story itself who can stand Near.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Jerk Ass: Arguably, although he does have his fans.
• Laser Guided Tykebomb: So Light, you thought you'd gotten rid of L, huh? Say hi to his successors.
• Launcher Of A Thousand Ships
• Man In White
• Manipulative Bastard
• Meaningful Name: His real name, Nate River, is supposed to symbolize how his talents flow from L like a river flows from Canada to Alaska.
• Messy Hair: Well, messy or maybe just curly; it's a little hard to tell.
• Mind Game Ship: With Light, even in their first conversation over the phone where he makes him feel like he's talking to L and in the ways in which he exposes both Light and Mikami as Kira.
• Mind Rape - just look at chapters 103 and 104 of the manga.
• Noriko Hidaka
• No Social Skills: Even more so than L, to the point where he is apparently unable to make his own travel arrangements. How To Read, the series encyclopedia, points out that this a significant weakness, as he can only make full use of his brilliant mind when surrounded by support because his basic social and living skills are so bad.
• Older Than They Look: Many assume he's ten or so by his appearance, behavior, and voice: he's 17 or 18 by the end. He looks about 15 three years after that. He's even referred to as a "boy" by the President of the United States.
• Pajama Clad Hero: He spent his entire appearance clothed in P Js, although in the anime this appears to have been changed to a PJ top and jeans.
• Parental Abandonment
• Punch Clock Hero
• The Reason You Suck Speech: Gives an epic one to Light at the end. Might just count as his Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
• Replacement Scrappy: He just ain't L, and some fans can't quite accept that.
  • In defense of his anti-fans, it sure didn't help that his first lines consisted of him dispassionately calling L a loser.
    • I thought he was referring to Mello.
    • Though he could have called him a loser in the sense he lost the game.
    • Sonova...
    • also, he doesn't physically meet Light until their final showdown, so there's no humour in the exchanges between the two like there is with L and his relationship with the police officers working under him is likewise different.
  • What's funny is that if you turn the sound off while you watch, he's not nearly as similar to L. L's body language is eccentric. Near's screams "please don't hit me."
• Shut Up Hannibal: He rejects Kira's ideals entirely, especially after confronting an implicated Light. "No. You're just a murderer."
• The Spock
• Super OCD
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute
• Teen Genius
• Victory Gloating: especially in the manga.
• Voice With An Internet Connection
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys: Quite literally.
• White Haired Pretty Boy: One of the very few (sort of) non-evil anime examples.