Death Note/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Okay, maybe it's not that brilliant. But why heart attacks? Well...how else would you simply stop living other than your heart stopping?
  • The two-week period of confinement where the killings stop? Two weeks amount to just over thirteen days.
  • The Relight version of the Sakujo scene was all planned out by Light: At first glance it just looks like a Gorn-fest by Mikami, but there's a Call Back right before where Aizawa asks Light why he keeps checking his watch (suggesting that, unlike in the original series where it was Mikami acting on his own, Light has his hand in this.) Light must have controlled the first guy making use of the 23 day rule, having him join the Anti-Kira faction then during the broadcast collapse and break the glass that was screening the faces of the Anti-Kira people. He also controlled and killed the broadcasters so that the broadcast would keep going. He left the rest to Mikami probably with instructions like "get creative, this is a show of Kira's power on Live TV, a demonstration of what happens when they cross me."—feral.
  • The whole idea of writing people's names in a book to kill them might sound strange, until you consider that "gami" could also be used for a kanji that means "Paper" (like origami).
• This editor has had nothing but a twisted love for Death Note, but thought of it merely as a victory when Light finally kills L. He didn't realize the sheer magnificence of it until he mentally recapped the situation. Light manipulates a God of Death who absolutely hates him into willingly sacrificing itself to kill the one man (at the time) capable of stopping him, knowing all along that it was doing exactly what he wanted and cursing his name as it dissolves into dust. I hate you, Light, but I love you. --Socran
  • Not really the anime version, but they wouldn't really fit as well elsewhere. 1) My sister was playing with the DVDs of the movies and asked about the title of the second when it suddenly clicked. The title, The Last Name, doesn't just refer to Light's search for L's real name which as it turns out is only a search for a last name. It also refers to the fact that despite everything Light does, in the end it's all pointless as the last name written in the death note is his. 2) I was always annoyed at the end of Another Note when Naomi finally meets L and he introduces himself as Ryuzaki. It seemed like a stupid, dangerous stunt to prove that he was the real L, something which she was never supposed to realize, and that he was only using the name to gain her trust. But then I realized: it's a trophy. After beating Danuve and Eraldo Coil, L started using their names as aliases. B didn't just fail to surpass L, he was relegated to being just another conquest. If things had been a little different, L could have been known as Light Yagami instead of the other way around.—Polly Nim
    • I always interpreted the "last name" as the last name in the death note, and didn't realize this until he read the example. It also helps that he saw a fan trailer that used footage from the anime's Yotsuba arc that posed the question Light, L, Misa- Who will be the last name in the death note? -- Rampulus
    • Not knowing Japanese, I did not know until after I had finished the series that Kira also meant dark.
  • KIRA; more, really, kira-kira, is an onomatopoeia for 'sparkly'.
  • Currently watching Death Note on Adult Swim (after having already read the manga a few years ago) I've been struck by how odd it is that Light's personality changes so drastically during the time that he forfeits ownership of the Death Note. Maybe I just have a different (more cynical) worldview now, but it seems unlikely that someone could do the kind of things he does without being pretty twisted to begin with. But then I realized that the purpose of this arc could be seen as demonstrating that even someone who is perceived as "evil" can have good in them or the genuine desire to do good - which even FURTHER supports the case that Kira's ideology is WRONG. - Ikari 911
    • I took it as something along the lines that the Death Note corrupted Light, who was essentially a good person to begin with. Once the means to do evil in the name of good were with him, he slipped into evil, and the only way that he became good again was by losing all memory of what had caused his fall into evil. Once he got the Death Note back, he was evil again, even though he shouldn't have lost the memories from after he had first lost his memory. In this sense, it actually justifies "Kira's ideology", since it shows that those who become evil become irredeemably so.
      • So that's why Light-as-Kira is a Social Darwinist with a God complex and a need to kill opposition (what he did with Lind L. Taylor, no matter how idiotic he was about it). If he doesn't keep himself steady, somebody can do something about thinking he's doing evil, and then he would get punished and there goes his plans. In this sense and various other senses, Kira's ideology is a threat to itself, also justifying It Gets Easier. (Takada's death, anybody?)
  • The Yotsuba arc is actually proof 100% that despite all his protestation to the contrary while he possesses it, it was in fact the death note itself that drove Light to the dark side. He in fact proves himself to be more good than L during that period of time, managing to delay some killings where L was perfectly willing to allow them to continue to gather proof. He demonstrates amazing responsibility with any amount of power less than godlike. Misa, on the other hand, has no qualms about asking Rem to kill an innocent man to "prove she's the second Kira" just to take Higuchi down, even without possession.
  • I got a completely different fridgestroke from that, after Light reverts completely and remorselessly to his prior self upon recovering his memory. If you're paying attention, he spent the Yotsuba arc acting just like he had in the first chapter - the chapter he started with a thought bubble full of "This world is a mess". He *always* had the desire to do something good; Light-as-Kira was raw, righteous, rampaging superego, and the god complex was an attempt at justifying the whole thing to his id. If someone else has you in his power, pray that he is an evil man. - Tinweasel
  • Another one for Death Note. When L is first seen stalking Light in person, at the high-school graduation exams, he is told to sit normally by the examiner. Later on, L explains his strange sitting position by saying that sitting normally would cause his reasoning ability to drop %40. I became an even bigger L-fan when he realized L scored perfect marks in the exams, at %60 of his intelligence. -- Lostprophet
  • Don't put too much weight on this math. L is a liar; it's just as likely that he sits that way solely because it's the way he likes to sit, and he makes the "reasoning" excuse because people hassle him about it. He uses essentially the same excuse for eating too much sugar, and Word of God is that any percentages he rattles off are almost completely meaningless. -- Eru-dition
    • The Word of God about percentage meanings was in context of his suspicion percentages, not those, though.
    • Also, it kind of makes sense that his reasoning skills would drop, because he eats so much sugar. Any normal person would crash, but as L is constantly eating sugar and constantly squatting—which burns more energy than sitting—he just keeps using the energy. Sitting down would cause his metabolism to slow.
  • I loved Death Note, but always found Light's method of dealing with Ray Penber unnecessarily risky. I interpreted it as yet another sign that Light was an arrogant brat trying to play Magnificent Bastard and coasting through on his intelligence despite his obvious flaws and unnecessary grandstanding. It wasn't until I watched it for the third time, marvelling at the risk Light was taking, when I realised that Light had probably written every one of Ray's actions in that scene into the Death Note as part of his conditions of kill. No risk at all; even on the unlikely chance that Light had miscalculated something that would ruin the plan, his quarry would have already been dead. Plus one hundred Magnificent Bastard points for Light!
    • Something that hit me about that scene: not only did Light learn the name of his pursuer, he also accomplished another important goal: seeing if the Death Note could manipulate a Shingami into being part of its scenario. And the answer was yes!
  • I had thought that Light not expecting Mikami to try to kill Takada was an Ass Pull screwing up how Light loses. Then I put in some notes on Complete Monster about the status of all of the Kiras except Higuchi (and Takada, who I can't see being listed anyway unless it's film Takada), and as I did, I talked about how Mikami cared even less about killing Takada than Light did. Then I realize: what if Light realized that killing Takada was such a horrible thing that while he, already having gone so wrong, still wouldn't be phased by it, he would hardly expect even Mikami, loyal as he is, to even think of killing Takada, a fellow Kira loyalist, without getting orders? Perhaps Light wanted to believe what he was doing was even remotely good, to the point of bragging during his Villainous Breakdown about how Kira reduced crime rates by 70% and eliminated war, even if he himself as Kira subtly admitted to the Task Force that he was being evil.
• I always assumed Takada's bodyguards only killed Matt because it would make them seem ruthless as an example of how Kira's followers can be. However, after many repeat viewings of the anime, I noticed this frame for the first time. They killed him because he was hiding a gun! - Sonic Panther
  • They didn't seem to know that, by their dialogue. It does show, though, that Matt was stalling so he could take a few of them down with him. Suddenly, that makes his popularity much more warranted in my eyes.
  • Although if they wanted to kill Matt just for assisting in Takada's kidnapping they would have shot him immediately.
• Soichiro, who was 54, dies soon after making a deal that cut his lifespan.
  • And Misa at 26 after making the same deal twice.
    • It cut their remaining lifespan. Soichiro died shortly after making the deal (a couple of days, I think?) so he didn't have long. Misa got Gelus' reamining years added to her lifespan when he died, so she could have lived for hundreds of years, in theory.
• The Sakujo scene where Mikami kills Demegawa and his followers. Knowing the Modus Operandum of Kira, why Sakura TV didn't stopped the transmission with the first dead guy, instead of waiting for everyone to die. Maybe should be on the Just Bugs Me page, but it doesn't bugs me, maybe because it was freaking awesome.
  • Because Kira was sending a message. He was already angry enough at what they had done that he felt it neccessary to kill them on air. If they cut the transmission before he was finished, it might have only made him madder.
    • Also, some people theorize that he wrote in the name of the person keeping the broadcast on the air, writing that he wouldn't shut it off.
• look at the names of L's successor's Mello and Near. L,M,N. If L was even more prepared there would be a fourth with an O name.
  • The third smartest child at Wammy's House was Matt, though not quite a successor. Unless he was planning on having a name change, there would have been L, M, N, M...
  • There's also Kira as K. K, L, M, N...
    • Wouldn't that also mean there were A,B,C...?
    • Yes. See Another Note.
• People are upset with Near for being a "ripoff of L." That's the point. He says so himself that he by himself is highly inferior to L but was chosen with Mello in order continue his legacy. Near being sub par to L on his own was done on puprpose.
  • Even if that's the point it still doesn't make him a more likable character.
• Light likes BBQ chips and EATS THEM! Remember, fatty foods are bad for your heart.
• This troper, the first time she saw the scene where L falls out of his chair at the mention of Shinigami, just laughed a little because it was ridiculous. Watching the series a second time through made her realize that everything up to the shot of Light watching behind L as he fell was foreshadowing for how his death would play out.
• What I never got was the fact that DN Shinigami seem to be portrayed differently then in any other anime and, presumably, Japanese mythology. Then I read something that the Death Note was based upon an aspect of the shinigami, where they carried around notebooks to keep track of all of the deaths. Then it came to me: Death Note shinigami are meant to be twisted versions of the familiar! That's why they all look monstrous, whereas other shinigami look like humans in kimonos. - Stinkoman 87
• Mikami's name is basically Light's backwards. Look at them, side by each: Yagami Raito, Mikami Teru. Not only that, but just as Light's kanji means moon, Teru's means illuminated. - User:Nakayama 90
  • You lost me at the part where you ask to look at the names side by side. Do you mean in the kanji for their names or whatever? Because in English you lost me.
  • I mean looking at how their respective names are spelled, side by each. Read it aloud: Yagami Raito, Mikami Teru. Also Light's given name is written with the kanji for moon, and Teru is illuminate.
• If you consider the idea, the plot starts as more or less a way of satirizing the idea of the death penalty. The two opposing sides are those that feel the deaths of the criminals is bad, and the other rides on the belief that they get what they deserve. This spoiler is lost over the course of the manga, but the initial premise shocked this troper the third time reading and the first time realizing this.
• At one point, Matsuda questions where L got the money to build the building used for the center of operations. Later, we find out Watari was an inventor who made a fortune and opened Wammy's House to train L's successor. Is it any wonder where all of L's funding came from?
  • During the Yotsuba arc, L gets them to pay "Erald Coil" 5 million dollars to feed them false information and get them closer to being caught. Considering he's the three smartest detectives in the world right now...
• Someone as scary smart as Light attempting to conform to social norms (i.e. Surrounded by Idiots and bastards) would have had serious issues, maybe even the God complex to begin with, what with knowing he's smarter than everyone else and being excessively praised. It would be inconceivable to him that he was in the wrong because he's never wrong. That's why he yields to the power of the notebook so easily, what he's doing CAN'T be wrong, he's just come to the logical conclusion on how best to protect humanity. Now compare with L who was raised at a school for super-geniuses. He is actually willing to listen to other people's ideas and consider other points of view (even if he thinks he's right and they are dumb). While he's arrogant he doesn't think he's infallible. If Light was raised at Wammy's instead of having a so-called "perfect, normal life" where he's unable to relate to the people around him he probably wouldn't have developed a God complex, have learned to self-reflect, and wouldn't have taken that nosedive off the slippery slope if he ever came into contact with the Notebook... Probably. -- feral
  • Light's delusions of "only I am right, only I am REAL" is Lampshaded within the show itself. You know the theme tune that plays when Light decides to become Kira? It's called "Low of Solipsism."
• Okay, this might have been obvious to everyone else but I just realized that with Mello's plan how he drove the truck into a church because he knew he was going to die. -- feral
• L's real name, Lawliet, when spoken aloud it would be pronounced Low Light! Talk about Not So Different! Light is really lucky he had Rem to do the deed because if he somehow discovered it earlier and tried to write that name himself he might have accidentally killed himself. -- feral
• After Misa gives up her memories, she offers to kiss her captor/"stalker" on the cheek. Several episodes later, she actually does.
  • He could actually fall for her.
• Fridge Brilliance: Call me a ditz for not coming to this sooner, but when you consider how A) L is the world's three greatest detective s, and B) has taken on well over 3,000 cases (according to Another Note), it hit me that, if he is 24 at the start of the series, then he'd have had to be working as a detective from his early teens, if not younger! -Stoogebie
  • In one of the books (I can't remember which one off the top of my head), it says that he prevented World War III at age eight.
• Fridge Brilliance: Light believed that he would be punished by the owner of the Death Note for using it, that's why he did what no-one else had ever done and wrote so many names in such a short amount of time. He was (while he could) trying to do as much good as possible before the other shoe dropped. In fact, it's clear in his little speech in his head that he felt that whatever consequences came from using the note were worth it if he could kill some of the world's worse criminals before they could cause anymore harm, even if it cost him his very soul. This is a stark reminder that there was a good man if somewhat Knight Templarish man under the Ax Crazy Complete Monster Magnificent Bastard. You could argue that it was finding out there were no consequences (of a spiritual nature) to his actions that broke down the final wall to Light's dark side. When a supernatural being like a god of death tells you you can do whatever the fuck you want, what meaning do the rules of man have anymore?
  • You and I can do whatever the fuck we want - just without a Death Note. The same rules that apply to us also apply to Light. If he gets caught he will suffer the consequences his society dictates. I myself don't believe in any spiritual consequences for being evil. Doesn't mean that I am.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. Albert Einstein

• Fridge Brilliance: Light didn't just beat L in terms of killing him first. He beat him when he proved that without the Death Note to screw him up, he's a better person than L is, in addition to being as smart.
  • He is not as smart as L - at least, he doesn't act as smart. Somewhere here (I can't find it right now) was a statement about how Light acts exactly like a 17 year old, a lot of his schemes only working through luck or because he has a magic notebook, while L really approaches the case cleverly.
  • It's more than that, though. Light didn't even think he'd die until he'd lived in his utopia for a "very long time". L realized that he could die at any time, from any cause, for any reason. He was prepared with backups before he even took on the Kira case, as is confirmed by "Another Note". That, to this troper, was a true mark of L's brilliance. Any genius can start thinking they're immortal or beyond human limit just because of said genius. But true brilliance means you know you're still human, like everybody else.
• Misa proves quite the Karma Houdini in the second live action film, as she is shown to be released from custody despite having kiled Mogi, who here dies in place of Ukita. But think about it: the police couldn't convict her without exposing the existence of the Death Note. Plus with the Note's destruction, she won't remember having ever been Kira, or having used the notebook.
• When Light does his potato chip trick, it seems awfully convenient that he's ambidextrous, able to write down math equations with his (seemingly dominant) right hand while writing down criminals' names (quickly, legibly, and without attracting any attention) with his left. But then you learn that, in Japan, most left-handed children are actually forced to use their right hands instead. So odds are Light is a natural leftie, but had to learn how to write right-handed to please his parents and/or teachers.
• Rem threatens to kill Light if he ever does anything to harm Misa or make her unhappy but according to the rules of the notebook, Death Note owners are protected from other Gods of Death meaning Ryuk is supposed to have soul rights to Light's name and is the only Shinigami allowed to kill him. So odds are Rem was bluffing him and it worked. It would also explain why she doesn't take an alternative (such as killing Light) when she discovers Light's plan for her. -- feral
• This may not have been intentional, but remember where L installed all those cameras in Light's room? And the part where he takes a potato chip and eats it? You could say that L was watching him masticate!
• How To Read 13 gives the timeline: 12/31/03 L meets the taskforce for the first time (this happens while Light meets Naomi Misora) and 1/21/04 Beyond Birthday is killed by the power of the Death Note. Light must have come across the L.A.B.B murder cases while researching Naomi Misora (making sure there would be no more avenging relatives calling for his head) but waited a month to kill Beyond Birthday in order to deflect suspicion.
• L has made it clear that in certain situations, "If I die now, Light is Kira." Well, if an outsider was Kira, an invisible assassin that had access to top secret information and probably bugs all over the place, wouldn't that be the perfect time to kill L and frame Light for it? The fact that L hasn't been killed because he said that tips L off even more that Light is Kira. In short, he combined I Know You Know I Know with Reverse Psychology to ensure that he lives long enough to confirm Light's identity as Kira. Brilliant!

Fridge Horror

• Ryuk is the source of tons of this.
• Ryuk could be doing this again and again and never be punished for it.
  • Ryuk might have been lying when he said this was all just an accident—he might have deliberately targeted Light:
    • Word of God calls Light the first "victim" of the Kira case.
    • Ryuk knew Light was "so smart" before ever meeting him.
    • Ryuk has at least been watching him and followed him home.
    • Ryuk wrote the instructions in English and dropped it outside Light's English class.
    • A teenager would be the most likely to use the notebook to try and change the world. Anyone younger would be too scared (i.e. Taro in the pilot chapter) and anyone older would use it to kill people they didn't like (i.e. Higuchi).
    • In the Japan-only bonus chapter Ryuk berates another Shinigami when he complains that his time in the human world was short and boring; Ryuk suggests that the other Shinigami should have followed his example and choose carefully who they give a notebook to.

• There's an entire world of Death Gods that feed off human lifespans ALL THE TIME! Most of them just randomly kill whoever they happen to see. One could be cutting your life short right now...
• Not only does Light manipulate Raye into unwittingly killing his collegues, but he does this with the Death Note, making Raye a Death Note user. Raye, an innocent, loses both his life and his afterlife to Kira.
  • Some fans theorize the fact that Raye didn't deliberately use the Death Note (where the other Kiras did) may have had an influence on his fate after death, but Word of God states that there is no afterlife for anyone in the series.
• At a certain point, Light and his minions started killing people who had killed as recently as the day before, as soon as they were reported on the media. Sometimes the media and the police are wrong. What if later evidence was found that exonerated that person? What if they had been a victim of rape or abuse from the person they killed? What if the murder was later found to be a suicide? Kira could have killed hundreds or thousands of innocent people!
  • Not quite as bad as one might think...Light admits that he is aware of this, and does research on the criminals before he kills them after he's aware of what he's doing. He admits that he doesn't kill those who have killed out of self-defense.
• Who's to say whole thing (all the mass murdering that can occur with a Death Note) won't be repeated the next time Ryuk gets bored? Or if another Shinigami drops his/her notebook to the human world?
  • At the very beginning of the series, before Light had rigged the Death Note to burn if anyone but him tried to retrieve it, he's casually talking to Ryuk about how it would be bad if anyone touched the note and saw him. Specifically, his line is "My little sister would have a heart attack if she saw you." He says it so casually that it just seems like a turn of phrase... until you remember how he typically kills people. And then you remember that like 40 seconds before this, he said "If Kira isn't careful, he'll end up killing his own family..."
• I can't be sure if this is a rather Knight Templarish take on things, but after seeing this motivational poster (Warning: Spoilers!), I started to realize that every character in Death Note who smokes ends up dying. Ukita was shown smoking once in the manga, Wedy was a smoker, and, as the poster indicates, so was Matt. A few others who I can't name also smoked, but...Anvilicious or mere coincidence? Seriously?
• One for L: Change the World: L, YOU FOOL! YOU'VE DOOMED US ALL! Ryuk being bored and having nothing better to do, has probably has been watching your last days alive and he no doubt has seen you save the crazy lady who wants to exterminate the human race and he's probably thinking something along the lines of That one will be damn entertaining if I can get my claws on another Death Note. Nice Job Breaking It L, you should have killed her!
• This just struck me. During the Yotsuba arc, Team L use Sakura TV to broadcast Matsuda's expose of the Yotsuba Kira. This would have required the physical presence of some, if not all, of the team. This is the same station where Ukita was murdered during the takeover of the Second Kira. Think of how L, Aizawa, Soichiro, Mogi, and Matsuda must have felt, stepping foot on, viewing, or even just knowing that they were using the place where Ukita died. Damn. It's especially jarring when you see Team (Amnesiac) Kira working alongside Team L and get smacked in the face with a very real reminder of the divide between the two.
  • Who's Ukita?

Fridge Logic

• Mello's hair is indestructable. But the face mask does nothing. —feral
• Fridge Logic for the layout of Volume 13, How To Read.... If they wanted L's real name to be such a secret that it was included in its own envelope that had to be cut open, why was it also simply listed on his character page, where the authors gave more details on him?
  • In case someone didn't want to know L's real name, and so they wouldn't be able to see it unless they really wanted to.
• Fridge Logic: The Death Note user needs a name and face to kill, right? Well, when Light wrote in Lind L. Tailor, it hit me; how could it still work even with an Obscure Middle Initial? Does it require a full name, or just a first and last name to work? And also...wouldn't a legal name change count as effectively changing one's "real name", thus granting immunity? -Stoogebie
  • Same poster, with Fridge Brilliance: If there was a character with a really weird name, they could have managed to defeat Kira by telling them their real name, and just wait for Light to misspell said name four times before he drops dead. Or misspell it three times...anyway, the one character whose name comes to mind is Mail Jeevas, because it's spelled "mail" but pronounced like "mile", and fans mispronounce it all the time. So in a sense, Matt could have defeated Kira. Doesn't that mean he was Too Cool to Live?
    • You only die if you intentionally misspell a name four times. If you just don't know how to spell a name and accidentally misspell his/her name four times, that person becomes immune to death by the Death Note. This does provide another case of Fridge Brilliance: Light didn't know how to write the name of the second guy he killed, so he tried a few different ways. Since the guy died, one of the first four was apparently correct. But if the first four had all been wrong, Light would have thought that the Death Note is fake and thrown it away, and nothing would have happened!
    • What about women with married names? For instance if Naomi got married to Raye and gave her name as Naomi Penber would she have been immune?
    • What if you have identical twins with the same name? Or clones? Since the Death Note seems to have some magical mechanism against targeting multiple humans with the same name if you were to clone yourself would you be immune?
  • Speaking of names-Light's name would have afforded him some protection if he ever went up against another Kira without the Shinigami eyes. If the other Death Note user only heard Light's name spoken aloud they wouldn't have guessed how to spell it (with "Light" written with the character for "moon") and would have tried various combinations of "Light" or "Raito" or the character for "light" (Hikari? Hikaru?) until all four tries were used up. The other Kira then would no doubt start screaming "Why Won't You Die?" as Light calmly penned his/her name down and informed them that "I am God."
• Fridge Logic/Fridge Horror/(probably digging too deep here): Alright so Shinigami eat for recreation (apples, chocolate, etc.) but what about it, you know coming out the other end? Are there like invisible piles of Shinigami poo around the Yagami residence? Or if their organs have degraded and their digestive system has shut down are they like binge eating to throw it up later or something? (Meaning invisible puddles of Shinigami vomit). You'd think L would be clued in by the smell...
  • Shimigami don't eat for recreation, they kill for it using the Death Notes. Were the food goes after Ryuk eats it is anyone's guess because we don't know what the insides of a Death God are like.
    • Maybe they can convert the entire apple to energy or whatever, which is something they can usually do with air?...
• Light's desk trap. What if you like just... tipped it on its side?
• The investigation team puts 64 cameras in the Yagami house but they don't go through his trash? You'd think L would be mighty interested in those potato chips, all things considered.
  • Light made sure that the bag (including the television) made it to the trash truck with nobody seeing it. Ryuk even makes a comment about it.
• Mentioned in a joke on the main page, but seriously—L and Light are chained together for several episodes/chapters, and Light appears to have changed clothing during that time period. How could he change shirts/jackets without un-handcuffing? (unless L let him take it off while L was still watching him carefully). L on the other hand probably just kept his clothes on.
  • Maybe L got him some custom shirts with velcro or hidden zippers that could be taken off around the cuffs?
  • It isn't too difficult to work fabric underneath handcuffs. Not only that, but fabric under the handcuff would be desired as a shield against chafing.

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