Death Note/Headscratchers/Characters' Actions

Warning: Unmarked Spoilers Ahead!!!

L suspecting Light so quickly/bringing Light into the investigation

• While L's intuition and reasoning skills are normally quite excellent, it bugs me that the supposed "Greatest Detective Ever" hones in on Light without any real evidence. In real life, a detective carefully investigates fully before narrowing down to the next stage but L just cuts out more than 95% of the investigation on sheer intuition. For instance, after all the FBI Agents are killed he immediately narrows his search down to just the Yagami's and that other family. Why? I know his reasoning is that Raye Penber only investigated those family's and he's the leak, but isn't it possible that a brilliant mass murderer is clever enough to not use an agent other than the one that investigated him to get the leak? There's no concrete evidence that Kira was someone who Penber investigated, only suspicions. L simply decides that can't be the case at all goes with his intuition. He's undeniably right, but that doesn't change the fact that it shows that the only reason he's the greatest detective is because he guesses really, really well.
  • He doesn't actually hone in on Light until he gets physical evidence on his new girlfriend. Until then, he's just the best lead L has.
    • That's not the point. The point is, L arbitrarily cuts off pieces of the investigation as quickly as possible. I've worked in a police department and investigators try to investigate every possible source before narrowing down a field like that. L follows investigative procedure about as well as Homer Simpson follows safety procedure but because L's intuition just happens to be right, he is able to pass as the "Greatest Detective" when he's really just a good guesser.
      • I suggest you re-watch/read those scenes again. L had a video which showed Raye turning around and pointing back into the train, so L's reasoning was that he was looking at Kira and knew it was Kira (also because he carried an envelope onto the train but left without it). He only starts to seriously suspect those households when Raye's fiance goes missing, because he happened to know her and found it incredibly out of character. From that he managed to deduce that Raye found something he didn't report about during his investigation, Naomi however heard about it and investigated it on her own. That brought her into Kira's path and ended up eliminating her. If Kira wasn't one of Raye's targets, then Naomi wouldn't have gone missing. Naomi knew something that could have only been related to the family's Raye followed, which completely rules out the idea that Kira approached someone else's mark. You also missed the fact that the reason he narrowed in on those families was because they had no other leads. They had no further indication of who the leak was, and no means to narrow it down other than the fact that Raye was targeted by Kira specifically and his fiance suspiciously disappeared.
      • L states a few times (genuinely or not) that they don't have any other leads or clues; evidently he didn't have any other ideas for rounding up more suspects (or he was totally confident it was Light).
      • Plus the investigation team is severely undermanned considering the scope of the crime they're dealing with. Investigating every potential lead probably just isn't possible.
  • Along a similar vein: "Hey I suspect you of being Kira. Want to come be a part of the goddamn investigation case about you?" Seriously, has there ever been an instance of a prime suspect being invited to join the investigation team? I know it puts him within an easy observational distance but it also puts him within easy killing distance of every single member of the team. Shouldn't L be smart enough to not invite the serial killer who doesn't hesitate to kill all who oppose him to meet all the investigators?
  • Also: "I suspect that you are Kira. I am going to handcuff you to me and be as obnoxious as possible..."
    • He knows Kira can only kill people whose name Kira knows, and if we're talking other kinds of killing, well, L is a good fighter, after all.
    • He's a good fighter? I don't remember that part but even if that's true, I doubt he's skilled enough to dodge a handgun.
    • And if, say, Aizawa suddenly drops dead, he'll know who to blame. Which is very effective insurance against that very thing. Both L and Near do this several times, they make sure everyone is aware that Light has information useful for Kira, so if any of that informations in actually used by Kira, Light would be exposed, rendering the information useless.
    • Plus L has no other choice in the matter; he suspects Light but has no other means to try and prove it beyond watching him constantly and hoping he slips up.
    • Serial Killers, particularly narcissistic serial killers, have been known to inject themselves into the investigation. (Although this is usually done by coming forward as a potential witness, not an investigator.) They do this for practical reasons (I.E. finding out what the police know exactly) but also to mock the police - which Light does constantly. So perhaps L extended the invitation to the investigative force just to see if Light would accept, and if he did, it could cause further suspicion.
  • Ray Penbar was the ONLY FBI Agent whose death exhibited noticably unusual circumstances. Besides that, Light would stick out like a sore thumb with both his ridiculous grades, past as tennis champion and personal history with the police. Add to that the standing assumption that Kira was a student. It wouldn't count as certifiable evidence, but reaonably, L should actually have picked up on him sooner.
    • He might have. When L calls the FBI in and is thinking "we'll find our suspect" in both the manga and the anime, L is shown looking at the Yagami file which he has slightly separated from the others. Like in the Yotsuba arc he probably already guessed Kira's identity but he was trying to build a more solid case.

13 day rule

• How exactly does the 13 day rule immediately absolve Light and Misa of any suspicion? Yes, they were in confinement for 50 days, but they could have passed their notebooks onto another user prior to being detained - and to take it further, they could have specifically instructed said person to not start use the note for over 13 days to help clear them (since the new owner wouldn't yet have used it - just like the investigation team can possess the note but not use it once they get ahold of it - and they would be safe from the rule themselves). The investigation team wouldn't know the ins and outs of ownership at this point, so it's really something they should have investigated more thoroughly before just accepting it as a given. Yes, the rule certainly makes Light and Misa look less likely, but considering L was so sure it was them (and, but for that one rule, finding the note put most of the missing pieces together perfectly), and there was actual physical evidence against Misa, AND the ploy of making Light think he was about to be killed was completely debunked (considering he couldn't have written in the note at the time, even if he wanted to), there is still plenty of reason to still keep a very close eye on them.
  • If the new owner hadn't written in it then the old owner would still own it and thus be subject to the 13 day rule (as far as the team knew).

Why don't you just run?

• In the Grand Finale why doesn't Light make a break for it before getting shot multiple times? (Hey look at the distraction!) Just write small...
  • You think Near would actually fall for that? A gushing fountain of blood barely worked.
  • Probably not on Near, (* Face-palming in the background* ) but it wouldn't have to if it worked on everyone else, Near already did the damage he could do for the moment, now the immediate threat is the guys who are physically fit, carrying guns, and inclined to chase after him...

Misa and a female Light

• So what if Light was a woman? Would Misa just go lesbian on her?
  • It seemed that she wasn't attracted to Light until she actually "met" him (IIRC she outright states that she was devoted to Kira, but fell in love with Light when she saw him), which would explain how she still loved Light and remained devoted to Kira during the Memory Gambit. If Kira turned out to be female, she probably would just be insanely devoted (with traces of Les Yay, since we can guess how devoted she would be).

Near's plan dealing with the aftermath

• (Acccording to Near's plan Light won't be missed because he's a serial killer, but as we are shown the world essentially depends on Kira wouldn't his death cause Crime rates to rise rapidly? That being said isn't it in the best interest for the SPK and task Force to pretend Kira is still alive and assign someone to periodically kill criminals to make sure the world doesn't burn to the ground?)
  • If I were Near, I would concentrate on rebuilding the world's legitimate police force. Obviously, Near is in a position to do so. Also remember that at least twice - probably more, to generate false trails during the timeskip - there has been a period where Kira's judgments stopped for a longish stretch only to resume, so I'd give the crime rates a grace period of about a month. Heck, even one year later, some people are still thinking Kira will come back; maybe a month is overly stingy.
    • People are still thinking Elvis Presley will come back. That's one of the things that happens with famous people, and the fact that there was never any actual closure to the Kira case as far as people are aware leaves open the possibility of a return. It's probable that some people will continue believing he may return some day for years, even decades, and even after that, the fanatics will never stop believing; especially the ones that, like Mikami, believe he is an actual Physical God that's descended from the heavens. With that being said, it's probably in the best interest of the police and the SPK to rebuild the police and the SPK, not to continue ruling the world with threat of Death Note to anyone who doesn't do as they say. That's a sure slide to the kind of brutal tyranny that Light represented. There is no point in defeating Kira only to become Kira.
    • Well, in the epilogue in the manga the "world is rotten" again, crime rates are back up, Near is the new L, Kira still has legions of followers waiting for the return of their God, and Matsuda reminisces about the time of Kira almost fondly...

Higuchi

• Higuchi. Sweet, dumbass Higuchi. When someone shows up on TV to out you as Kira, in a live broadcast where the reveal is dragged out for three hours, you think he wouldn't take some basic security measures like writing your name down in case something happened to him? Not that the good guys didn't screw up by a) suspiciously not announcing that they would broadcast your name in case of his death, b) expecting anyone to believe it's a live broadcast and c) failing to nail a guy in their big ol' frame while he's busy shitting bricks after finding out he's been had harder than anyone's ever been had in the history of owning.
  • If Higuchi had TiVo, Matsuda would be dead...
    • In the anime, Matsuda's show appearance was "outed" by one of the remaining seven working for L. Higuchi had no choice but to react to the show.

Color pallette

• Why does the first arc have a predominantly cool pallette, while the second's (with the exception of Near's HQ) is warm? You'd think it would be the other way around, no?
  • One interpretation is that in the first arc, L is in control (All of Light's actions are him reacting to L's actions), so the colors match (He's associated with cool colors, primarily blue), whereas in the second arc, all of Near and Mello's actions are them reacting to the threat Kira prevents, meaning his colors (Warm ones, primarily red) are dominant -- with the exception of Near's HQ, which have cool colors due to him being L's legacy. Inadequately explained, but I hope that answers your question.

"He just came out of nowhere!"

• In the first episode, Light tests the Death Note for a second time when he sees a group of men attempting to rape a woman outside of a convenience store. Light is seen writing in the Death Note and shortly after, one of the men is chasing the woman when he's suddenly hit by a truck. You can clearly hear somebody say "He just came out of nowhere!" implying that the truck was put there because of the Death Note. However, somebody had to be driving the truck. The Death Note can't make people teleport or do anything that's impossible, so how did the truck end up being in the right place at the right time?
  • It's Tokyo. Someone was driving in the area.
  • It didn't literally come out of nowhere, it's just an expression.
  • As I interpreted it, "he" was the guy who got run over. He rode off the sidewalk and into the street, thus "came out of nowhere" from the perspective of the truck driver.
  • It could also be said that he would've been hit either way, but if Light hadn't written his name down, he would've survived.
  • When you write a name in the Death Note with details of the death but not a specific time, you're allowing the book what time it needs to manipulate the victim and other people (in this case, the truck driver) into position. It's just in this case there was a truck close enough.
  • All Light wrote as cause of death was 'traffic accident'. The truck was just the most convenient way - he could have died because of a mishap with the motorbike.

Ringing your own doorbell

• In Episode 3 Light is in his room helping Sayu with her homework when the doorbell rings and Light says "It sounds like Dad's home". Of course "dad" ends up being the head of the Kira investigation, but why in the hell did he ring the doorbell at his own house? Does he not have keys?
  • In the episode where Misa introduces herself to Light, she rings the doorbell and Sayu runs to the door expecting it to be her father. Again, why on earth does Soichiro ring the doorbell at his own home? Is this a Japanese thing or does the guy just not have keys?
  • Considering how extremely overworked Soichiro is, he probably doesn't have enough energy to go digging in his wallet.
  • Perhaps Soichiro is too lazy/tired to fish his own keys out of wherever he keeps them?
  • You guys don't ring the bell at your places? Why? It makes entrance so much easier if someone's inside.
    • Not everyone experiences the same thing. Honestly, unless you're keeping your keys in a bag, such as a purse, I think it'd be far simpler to just open the door yourself as opposed to hoping someone else will open it for you anytime soon, especially considering the various commonly used methods of having keys be easily accessible.
  • That could just be his way of announcing he is home, rather than a request to be let in. Particularly since Light immediately recognizes it as Soichiro
  • Sometimes it's easier to just ring the doorbell then fishing for keys.
  • In Episode 8 Light tries to open the door of their house and finds it locked and is surprised that no one is home yet. So it would seem that they typically have their door unlocked while they're home so it's unlikely that that Soichiro ringing the bell has anything to do with unlocking the door, it's probably just his way of announcing he's home.
• What if the door is latched from the inside?

Mispelling the second victim's name

• Light's second victim, Shibuimaru or "Cool Taku" is mispelled in the Death Note numerous times before Light gets the correct spelling. But anyone who has his name mispelled four times in the Death Note, (according to rule 9,) cannot be killed by the Death Note! (Unless the mispelling was intentional.)
  • We don't know which spelling was correct though. Presumably after he got it right (within the first four tries) the rest made no difference.
    • Yeah, we do. In both the English and Japanese volume one the first name written is correct (Confirmed by How to Read). He just kept writing for 40 seconds to be sure. Nothing to see here, folks.
  • In a Brazilian Portuguese sub the translator note says that he's writing all possible spellings for the name, so the book might have saw that as not misspelling.

Kira and Matsuda

• Matsuda may have not been a proper Kira supporter, but he certainly was sympathetic towards Kira and he was quick to point out the decrease in crime. Matsuda really looked up to Light, to the point of obsession in some cases. Of course Light wouldn't have forseen the end, but he was normally quite quick to exploit people he knew he could easily influence, yet he didn't try to take advantage of Matsuda in any way. Does anyone else find that quite strange?
  • Since Matsuda was usually regarded as The Ditz, maybe Light thought he was too dumb to be useful. He probably regretted that by the end of the series...
  • He riddled Light with bullets the second he found out he was Kira, so it's probably for the best he never tried to use Matsuda. Then again, that was only after Light tried to get Matsuda killed, so that just be retalliation.
    • It wasn't just because of what he did to Matsuda, but what he did to his own father. Matsuda may have admired Light, but he had endless respect for Soichiro. He would not have reacted well to the news that Light is Kira. He may have been "on the fence" about Kira being evil, but that would have pushed him right over it.
  • Matsuda was completely on the fence about Kira and sort of leaning a bit more toward being against him, only showing slight shades of sympathy and saying that Kira's not completely evil. Light likely didn't reveal this to Matsuda out of fear that the sudden revelation would push Matsuda over the fence and have him, I don't know, shoot him?
  • He does try to take advantage... by having Matsuda get the shinigami eyes to attack Mello's hideout. It nearly worked, too, except for his father's strong personal sense of justice.
    • Yeah, that was not as planned. It's explained more in the manga Light was counting on Matsuda to make the eye deal and he never considered that his father would volunteer.

Why don't you just shoot him?

• Okay so after Light sees L's true face, he becomes obsessed over trying to find L's real name so that Light can kill him through use of the Death Note. Why didn't he just kill L in a conventional way (stabbing, shooting, etc.) and get it over with? I know it would've been suspicious but it also would've saved a hell of a lot of time and quickly eliminated the only real threat to Light.
  • Because it's very difficult to get away with murder. Also, Light just isn't that kind of guy.
    • ... right? "I'll kill him... with my HANDS if I have to."
    • It's way easier to get away with murder than all those cop shows would have you believe. In america at least, only about 60% of cases get solved. In particularly crime ridden areas, like Washington D.C., that number drops below 50%. For someone who's apparently a super genius and has a lot of knowledge of how the police system works like Light it probably wouldn't be difficult at all.
    • Really? In Germany the solving rate for murder is at about 98%.
    • You think it's easy to murder a super genius that's expecting to be murdered? I suspect L would have a mic on him or something, so Watari would hear Light saying "Hey L, let's go in this abandoned alleyway."
    • Light's no slouch himself as far as being a super genius goes. It'd probably be easier than the convoluted plot he actually enacted, in any case.
    • Light sort of thought of the whole thing like a game. He enjoyed the contest between him and L.
    • Or maybe he just had a thing for L. Who knows?
    • Or maybe he just realised L would kick his ass, considering that he's been shown to be proficent in a capioera-like martial art.
    • It would have been ridiculously easy to poison L, though, what with all the sweets he's been eating. And then he could have just written the names of the rest of the task force in the Death Note. When there's no one left to arrest him, there's not really a problem anymore.
    • Every member of the task force has been killed besides Light. I'm sure that's going to go down well with the suspicions of anyone not in the taskforce.
    • That was his plan at the end of the series though... He could fake his death or something and start over under a new name.
    • Also, Light knows that the taskforce (who all respect his father, and by proxy him) is actually the main thing keeping him from being seriously considered as a suspect. He doesn't try to get rid of them until late in the series when 1) they begin to turn against him and 2) he's pretty much gone off the deep end.
    • The legal system in Japan pretty much amounts to "if you're accused, you're guilty." And he's in Japan.
  • It is explicity say in the manga that L showing his face to Light was basically his Life insurance. Why? Because only the task force, Watari and now Light, you know, L's main suspect, know that he is L. So if L happens to accidentally die within the weeks of investigation, wouldn't that look bad for Light? Why would anyone, other than Kira that is, kill him anyway? Nobady else know he is L and he is a secluded individual that only goes out to closely watch his main suspect, and I'm sure he doesn't go out without taking safety precautions. Yes, of course, accidents can happen but it would be suspicious at least. In fact, there is even a part when L is checking out the second Kira videos when L tells Soichiro that if he dies on the next days, Light is Kira.
  • L makes it known to the rest of the task force that if he dies, Light is Kira. Although Light knows the names of the task force, he doesn't know Watari's real name or face, and cannot reach him in person. Therefore, even if he murders L and kills the rest of the task force, Watari would survive, with no doubt that he is Kira.

Light's abscence from To-Oh

• All told, the Memory Gambit means Light essentially disappears for two terms of school. Why did To-Oh take him back?
  • I dunno if it is the same in Japan, but universities around here usually allow semester withdrawals for extenuating and well documented circumstances. Considering he had his father and L (the chief of police and greatest detective in the world who is also a millionare with lots of connections) to help him cover up the gambit, it shouldn't have been hard for some strings to have been pulled regarding him getting time off and back, whether that meant some physician on L's payroll documenting a made-up illness or his father speaking to the headmaster(s) of To-Oh directly and telling them his son had to dissapear for secret police business and will they please take him back.
  • Didn't he say that with his grades and all, he could miss up to a year of school with no ill effects?

Mello's photo

• Why did Mello leave that photograph at Wammy's House, anyway?
  • Maybe he didn't know Kira needed to know the face of a person to kill them, and figured it a piece of unnecessary baggage?
  • Isn't it obvious? Near had it (hence why there was nothing else with his picture left, Mello took everything but the picture).
  • In the manga, the Wammy's House student who drew the portrait had it as part of her portfolio.
  • Mello probably forgot that the picture existed, and simply left it there, he left Wammy's house in a fit of rage after all, and Near himself comments on how Mello's tendency to act rashly often leads him to make stupid mistakes like that, he says it talkis specifiaclly of leavig said picture.
  • If Mello knew it was being held by Near, he wouldn't have to worry much, as Near is perfectly capable of looking after something so important.

Shouldn't the FBI

• After the death of Raye Penber, his colleagues and fiancee Naomi Misora shouldn't Steve Mason, head of FBI, know by now that Light is the only suspect left and that they could have simply sent a Meet Cute Honey Trap to finish the job? Same goes for so-called genius L who figures it out, but thinks it's smart to put up surveillance camera's in his bedroom just once, befriend Light, play open card and let him join the investigation team. And where was Peter R. de Vries?
  • Naomi Misora retired; Light was not the only person Penber followed and as Naomi disappeared, Penber was not himself a 100% solid lead, just a likely one; Light is too much a sociopath for a Honey Trap; and as L didn't get anything definite on Light during the surveillance, he figured getting closer was the way to go.
  • Light was quite careful; he made the instructions on the sheet of paper Penber wrote on kill the FBI members after they got the packet with the names and faces, so it's unclear who leaked the information. He also disposed of Naomi by forcing her to kill herself without anyone noticing, preventing anyone from realizing what she knew about him. This reduced the likelihood of him being suspected.
    • But (in the manga, at least) L says he knows the order in which the agents recieved the documents, despite Light's efforts. He later combines this information with Penber's behavior, Naomi's dissapearance, and comes to the conclusion that Kira is one of the people investigated by Penber during that time. However, Penber wasn't just investigating Light; he was investigating two entire families, the Yagamis and the Kitamuras, which is why L installed the cameras to try and pinpoint a specific person.

Four letters

• L's little mind game with the messages Kira left doesn't really make much sense when you think about it. Light was supposed to deduce that there was a fourth letter because the message with the letters in chronological order was incomplete. However, L's completed message was still out of order, and would have been complete without the fourth letter.
  • That's the whole point. L is trying to test whether Light will insist that there should only be 3 messages--because L knows Light probably sent them himself. L knows that if Light is innocent, he won't have reason to insist that L is making up the fourth message, even though it makes more sense with only 3.

Casual reaction to Ryuk

• All right, very minor quibble, but if I were seeing things from Matsuda's perspective, I'd be a bit more jumpy about Ryuk hovering around, disappearing at sporadic intervals, and generally not giving anybody the time of day.
  • A bit more jumpy, hell. Ryuk was explicitly sent as a package with Kira's notebook. Would you like to look as though you're doing anything to solve the case in front of the shinigami? Discussion of meetings with Takada included?

Matsuda at the ICPO conference

• Why was Matsuda at the ICPO conference? Why would the Japanese police send someone as incompetent/ inexperienced as Matsuda, did the NPA just not care?
  • Matsuda may not be a very good detective, but he is far and away one of the most dedicated of the police. Maybe he specifically requested to go.
    • I thought Mogi was the most dedicated and hardworking of the Japanese policemen in the group.
  • I always assumed Soichiro was Japan's official representative and Matsuda just came along as his assistant.
  • The others are doing important police work. Matsuda is free to accompany the chief to an international yakfest because he's not doing anything of value on any current cases.

Interpol at the G8 and why they meet to begin with

• Why was the Interpol meeting regarding the “mysterious criminal deaths” at the G8 summit? These organizations are unaffiliated.
  • G8 nations are all ICPO member states with an interest in the criminal mass murders.
  • INTERPOL had no idea what exactly was going on, or what it was up against. Holding an Interpol meeting under guise of a G8 summit was a reasonable precaution.
  • At the time the many police organizations believed the mysterious worldwide deaths of criminals to be the work of a large international organization. It would be safer not to face a group of that scope, scale, and power out in the open.
  • If anyone in the ICPO was seriously considering even possibility of Kira or something with Kira’s implied abilities existence a clandestine meeting would be entirely reasonable.

• Why are the police investigating this case in the first place? As far as I can tell, anyone with no knowledge of what a Death Note can do would automatically assume the death of criminals through mostly natural causes to be a happy coincidence. In fact, logically it would seem even less suspicious in the cases where the cause of death wasn't natural (as one would be unable to even link the causes of death to imply that those behind them all were the same person). Whilst I can sort of understand L's ability to link Light to Kira as down to his being The Rainman, I'm not entirely sure that the police would or would even see this as a good enough reason to bother him.
  • Because the continuing deaths of hundreds of people, all by heart attacks in identical types, fitting a few patterns (i.e., deaths only occur out of school hours, deaths are concentrated in Japan, only affects criminals (heart attack rates among civilians remaining fixed)) among healthy young men is more than just a happy coincidence. You could call 5 heart attacks possibly a coincidence, but 500? Especially since nowadays, there's paperwork and databases that have to be filled in every time someone dies in a prison, and a sudden, sustained jump in heart attacks could be instantly noted when measuring statistics, would at the very least invoke an inquiry to make sure there isn't a conspiracy planting heart attack drugs in prison food.
    • But doesn't that sort of imply that the prisons are failing the criminals in some way? Sure it might make sense to investigate the prisons themselves but getting high ranking detectives involved doesn't seem necessary as there would be no possible way that someone with no links to the prisons would be able to cause the deaths.
    • That's not taking into account all the criminals dying on the run or mid-hostage situation or whatnot, which is definitely one of the factors for the ICPO conference.
    • But taking that into account would mean the only way to link the victims would be the fact that all of them were criminals (and as I'm pretty sure not all of them were convicted, a policeman couldn't necessarily use that link either). And when you consider that there's a slight chance that criminals could put themselves under enough stress (from their hostage situations and escape plans) to have heart attacks in the right conditions there doesn't seem much reason to investigate too much...
    • A slight chance. When it just keeps happening like it did, with fugitives, hostage-takers, and prisoners all dying one after the other from heart attacks, the police are going to get suspicious.
    • But the problem is, while it's reason to believe there's something going on, it would be fare more likely for a MEDICAL conference. Until someone claimed responsibility, all these people dying of heart attacks would be considered a possible epidemic. Also, keep in mind that not all of them were in prison, in fact I am sure most of them were, "have you seen this man? If so contact the police" things. So to justify a police conference, it would have taken Kira claiming responsibility. And while it could be said that in itself that's stretching it because it would be absurd to believe that one person could possibly be committing all these acts, the fact that he would know about the situation, which was most likely kept out of public eye to keep mass panic from occurring, would be enough to bring in an ICPO conference. Otherwise, it makes no real sense to involve the police for any other reason than diagnostic efforts.
    • But this is a) happening worldwide and b) only happening either to imprisoned criminals or those that are already linked to a crime. And there are probably thousands of deaths. There is simply no way to call that a natural disease anymore. This has to be guided somehow. And also remember that the police forces from around the world ARE completely baffled by these killings and don't know what do to with conventional means - that's why they turn to a maverick detective.
    • One can assume that once dozens of their prisoners started dying left and right from heart-attacks, the prison officials immediately ordered autopsies, quarantined the prisons, and brought in the HAZ-MAT suits. Of course these investigations would turn up nothing. All of the victims would be found perfectly healthy prior to death, and no pathogens, molds, or toxins would be found in the prisons or the food. The possibility of a freak accident would be plausible if it happened to one prison, but the fact that it happened all over the world would make it impossible to be coincidence. Also, the fact that the only connection between the victims is that they all have criminal histories is very suspicious in and of itself, since they are one subset of the population most likely to be targeted for revenge or "judgment". I agree L's theory that Kira is one person implausible, since even if it was correct L should have no way of suspecting supernatural means, and without the Death Note a large and dedicated force would be necessary to pull off all the murders committed by Kira.
    • I still don't understand how anyone determined that Kira was one person. L seems to think this from the very start, without having any evidence other than that the killings fit the schedule of a student.
    • In the movie, they acknowledge some of these things. The police consider turning the case over to the Board of Health (or something) but decide against it. L shows the police a graph showing that larger crime conspiracies have a lower success rate, convincing them it's one person. Personally, I think it would take a lot longer for the police to be convinced of something like that, but never mind.
    • Let's not forget that L is also the three greatest detectives in the world so for someone like him to figure out that Kira was one person, and to suspect any regular high school student of being capable of these mass killings with little to no real evidence, wouldn't be as farfetched as it seems. How else would he have became the greatest detective if he needed something so insignificant as you know, real evidence?
      • Expanding on the above: L probably thinks that a crime this large couldn't be done by a large group of people. A group capable of pulling this off naturally (i.e. no Death Note or supernatural help) would be a corporation, using some kind of chemical substance. We can assume two things: 1) that the prisoners have been autopsied and no evidence was found to suggest poison or other substance capable of causing a random heart attack. 2)an operation this large would have without a doubt left evidence somewhere^[1]. There's simply no way this could be done by normal means. A project this big would go wrong quickly if it was done by a large group because there's just so many factors envolved. L is therefor taking the only logical explaination: The killings are being done by one person, likely someone as intelligent as he is. L is from Wammy's House, and is very aware of the fact that there are people in the world that are as smart as him. After calling out Kira on tv, the idea that Kira is one person is basically proven in L's mind. This stunt showed to him that: 1)Kira is most likely one person. 2)Kira thinks like L.^[2] 3)Kira needs a name and a face to kill. Although his logic seems crazy, it's the only explaination available using the information that he has.

Amnesiac Light's reaction to the Kira questions

• During Light's memory gambit, he and L have a discussion about whether Light was willingly Kira or being manipulated by Kira. Light concludes that he has to have willingly been Kira, and L says that he feels much better for talking about it. But shouldn't Light have freaked out at this? Doesn't that deduction open up a massive can of worms for him?
  • I think that particular can of worms is already open for him. He spends quite a lot of time worrying about how similar his ideals are to Kira's, both before and after this conversation.
    • Yup. It did bother him. But he didn't know his memories would return when he touched the note. If he had figured it out, he would have never asked to touch it.

L and honorifics

• In the manga, how come L is the only character that uses honorifics?
  • Are you sure no one else does? Well many of the characters are very close to each other so there would be no need for honorifics. But I think at least Light calls his father "otou-san" or doesn't he?
  • This question is most likely referring to the English release. It's just that L referring to Light as "Yagami-kun" can't be translated properly, so it's left as is. A similar instance is observed in Azumanga Daioh with "Chiyo-chan" being called such in the English dub.

Near figuring out that the second L is Kira

• What, in Near's view, made the second L more likely to be Kira than the other members of the task force?
  • Probably because he (correctly) doubts that anyone else could have outmaneuvered the first.
  • He notices that L seems a little too incompetent at catching Kira (contrasting the first L finding out as much as he did with the second L finding very little in the few years), and finds it suspicious that Kira helped the task force recover the notebook. That's when he starts truly focusing his efforts on Light.

Takada's knowledge of Mello's real name

• How did Takada know Mello's real name?
  • Light likely told her; the Task Force found out his name via Soichiro's Eyes.
  • But then what was with Light's insistance on getting Soichiro to write the name in? Was it was because only Soichiro knew his face?
    • Exactly- Light never saw Mello beyond the sketch, which isn't enough by Death Note rules.
  • The obvious solution: Takada made the eye deal.
    • No, only the Death Note owner can make the eye deal. Takada didn't own one. Light probably told her after learning from Soichiro.
    • Anyone in the presence of the shinigami that owned the note before can make the eye deal.
    • Though how she was able to get the spelling right seems kind of impressive. Somehow I can't see the dying Soichiro telling light how Mello's real name is spelled letter-by-letter. And it's not really something that seems like it can be solved by sounding it out.
    • Soichiro spoke Mello's name letter by letter over his radio as he saw Mello's face during their standoff.
    • In the manga, when Takada is on the motorcycle, she remembers Light showing her both a sketch of Mello and his name on a piece of paper during one of their wiretapped-only hotel meetings. Light knew it because Soichiro spelled it out, but only Soichiro, Takada and the SPK ever saw Mello's face.

Near's mask and fingerpuppet of L

• If there are no pictures or physical descriptions of L anywhere, and Near had never seen him, how did he make the fingerpuppet and mask of him?
  • It's only after the second Kira arises that L says that he destroyed all photographs of himself, so it's possible that there were some at Wammy's House before that time.
    • L also made visits to Wammy's House, as mentioned by Near in the story set after the end of the manga. During that time L also took questions from the children there, with Near and Mello being the only two who didn't ask any. Near had seen L before.
    • But he took questions over his laptop with the voice synthesizer and "L" on it. No dice.
    • Well B obviously knew L well enough to be able to copy his appearance and mannerisms.
    • Near figures out everything else without being physically present, doesn't he? Getting L's face right might have been a lucky guess, just like with everything else. Seriously, though, he probably saw a photo at the orphanage, before L had them all destroyed.
  • Just because there are no pictures of L doesn't mean there aren't vague physical descriptions. Really, all Near needed to know to make his masks and puppet was that L was white (a reasonable assumption if he knew that he grew up in Wammy's house and was therefore an Englishman) and that he had green hair. The mask and puppet don't seem to resemble L beyond that, but since green hair is rare in the Death Note world Light immediately drew the conclusion that the mask was of L, due to being the only person with that trait who made sense in context.
    • Wait, L's hair is green? What?
    • Its black, it just has some green tints to itsometimes.
    • ...it looks dark green to me. Am I missing something?
    • Looks black to me, although to be fair Gimp's colorpicker shows a little tiny bit of green in some of the lighter areas. Old monitors sometimes overdrive the green. Check your monitor.
    • Is L even white? I thought the writer of the anime said he was, like, one quarter Japnese, one quarter Russian, one quarter English and one quarter something else. So not white.
    • I think they may have ment his pale skin tone.
    • I don't think his specific geneology was an important detail to reproduce on the finger-puppet.
  • When Near was investigating Light Yagami, he received information that Light and another student, "Hideki Ryuga", were often seen on the Toh-Oh campus together. He theorized that Ryuga was the original L, and was probably able to get a physical description of him from others who were at the university at the time.

Light explaining away the Death Note

• When Ryuk tells Light that if someone else touch the Death Note that person will be able to see him Light says that he had been planning on telling anyone who asked about the Death Note that he had been keeping track of the Kira case. Did he forget that the rules are written inside, not to mention the fact it says Death Note on the cover?
  • Well, the second point he could have explained away by saying something like "It's a note(book) of all the deaths related to the Kira case. As for the first... beats me.
  • Maybe he stapled blank pages over the rules so that no-one could see them.
  • Or maybe none of his friends or family know English, so he could just make a b.s. explanation about what the words on the cover say.
  • Well, at this point it wouldn't have really mattered. He would have just claimed that the rules inside are a joke, maybe that the note was a silly present from a friend and he used it for keeping track of the criminals because he considered it fitting. Sure, it would seem creepy and all, but at this point, with his father not told by L that Light was a suspect, it would have just been passed off as a joke. Also, it was highly unlikely that someone found the notebook if he didn't look for it. We know that Light had means to check if someone had entered his room - and if this would happen all the time (because his mother is cleaning it or whatever), he would've already stopped doing it - because it would be pretty pointless if you know that someone enters.
  • "Death Note" could be passed off as some sorta.. death metal band name, and he could've claimed it was just a piece of novelty paraphernalia.
    • "Death Note" doesn't sound nearly as odd to a Japanese-speaker as it does to us. They just shortened notebook, as the Japanese are prone to do.

Why isn't Misa's friend a suspect?

• Misa told Light that she had a friend handle the Kira tapes she sent to Sakura TV and that the friend didn't know what was really on the tapes, so its safe to assume her friend's fingerprints would be on the tapes so why isn't her friend ever a suspect.
  • 1) They didn't know who those fingerprints belonged to. 2) If they found out, they investigated her off-screen and realized she didn't fit the profile.
  • L mentions at one point that he found various evidence from Misa's room that matches the tapes.

Kira's Notebooks I

• IIRC, there were four Death Notes in the series: Ryuk's, Sidoh's, Rem's and Gelus's. By episode 25, Ryuk had his, Gelus's was being used by Misa, Sidoh's was with the police, and after Rem died, Light picks up her note. My question is, what happened to Rem's note for the rest of the series? For the rest of the series, Light only has Gelus's note at his disposal, and Sidoh's is either being stolen by Mello or with the police. Couldn't he have had some use for it?
  • You remember incorrectly. Light gives Rem's notebook to his father to catch Mello. Sidoh takes his notebook back. The notebook in the police's possesion after that is the one Soichiro was given. The notebook Light kept is the one he gives to Mikami.

Why did Rem kill L?

• Why did Rem kill L? Disproving the 13 day rule would put Light in as much danger of Misa (more in fact since he asked to be locked up) so if Rem didn't kill L, Light would have been forced to do something to stop it from being tested.
  • If Light had been jailed or executed, Misa would have been driven to depression and- most likely- suicide. Rem killed L because it was the only way to ensure Misa's happiness.
    • Also according to the manga, after spending time with Higuchi, Rem came to like Light and sympathize with his cause.

Why did Light kill healthy prisoners with heart attacks?

• Here's a question: Light's first action is to kill off prisoners. The thought that an en masse killing of reasonably healthy men (with no signs of heart trouble) with heart attacks suspicious never crossed his mind?
  • He doesn't just want to kill, he wants to scare other potential criminals. Making all the deaths seem natural would be much less suspicious, but it would also make them less of a deterrent to others. In other words, Light wants to be noticed - it's the cornerstone of his plan.
  • Yeah, watch the end of episode 1 again. This is what Light and Ryuk's conversation is all about, right from Ryuk's observation that he didn't write any causes of death, and concluding of course with "I will be the god of the new world!"

What did Hideki Ryuuga ever do to L?

• What the hell did Ryuga Hideki do to piss L off? Considering that L's plan when he meets Light is to give that name, so that if Light tries to write it then Hideki will die and the case is resolved. But why him? I understand the fame and that everyone will know him, but it still seems a little distasteful.
  • That was a fake name. There is no Ryuga Hideki.
  • No, Ryuga Hideki is a famous singer in the Death Note universe, who's name L uses because if Light tries to kill him, he will almost certainly kill the famous Hideki instead, proving the that Light is almost certainly Kira (since he's the only suspect who knows that the guy calling himself Ryuga is L). As to why L picked Hideki in particular, I have no idea.
  • I'd suggest the possibility of Ryuga having been involved in some not-so-great stuff (more so than your average idol), but considering L's personality, it's entirely possible his name was chosen at random. Not So Different, you know - he is callous enough.
  • It was a pseudonym, so Ryuga Hideki was actually named something else and was in no danger.
    • But, the whole point of using the name "Ryuga Hideki" was so that Light might accidentally kill him while trying to kill L. It must be his real name.
  • Ryuga Hideki was most likely chosen at random from a pool of famous people that were unlikely to have a heart attack any time soon. Not that it matters; he was not in danger at any point, as L probably knew Light would know L would realize Light was probably Kira if Ryuga Hideki died suddenly, and that Light wouldn't even bother trying that name.
  • Ryuga Hideki may possibly have been selected because of when L installed the secret cameras and bugs. Having observed the Yagami family L knows that Light is familiar with that particular idol due to Light's sister's infatuations, therefore by selecting someone he knows Light knows, the real Ryuga Hideki's face will stop L from being killed.
  • Light realizes immediately the implications of the name- that it would be impossible to right the name without thinking of the idol's face, and thus impossible to test if it really is a pseudonym or not. Which makes it obvious that it is a pseudonym. L also knows that Kira would not risk killing an innocent needlessly, nor would he risk letting himself be discovered, which killing Ryuga would certainly lead to. So L knows that he's safe. I think the point is more that if Light was Kira he'd get all of this immediately, and his immediate reaction would help point to his guilt or innocence.
    • This just bring up another thought that Just Bugs Me. What if Hideki HAD died during that span? Even if it hadn't been Kira's fault, it wouldn't have mattered, and Light would have been arrested. If L was REALLY that intelligent, he would have realized that such a thing would be useless in the long run, but apparently not even Kira can go THAT far into analysis.
    • Hideki's death would actually have benefitted L because he could use that as a convincing excuse to arrest Light. Though Light could have then tried to kill L with the notebook, it wouldn't have worked because L's real name is something different - and that's if Light even tried it. If he saw any sort of report that Hideki had died, he might have suspected that Hideki was co-operating with the task force to fake his death and thus lure Kira into a false sense of security so that Kira would try to kill L using the name Hideki and thus possibly accidentally kill the real Hideki.
  • Maybe there's some unknown back story here. Like there was a time where Hideki went to school with L, and one day he just gave L a funny look or borrowed his favourite pencil and never returned it. But in all seriousness, I have to agree with the theories of the above tropers. L is The Rainman and The Chessmaster (although Death Note is filled with Chessmasters so that just seems to be the norm) so it's not like he wouldn't have forseen all the likely possibilities that Light's reaction would be. Since there's no doubt that Light is no Kira, L knows either Light will completely avoid testing the name in the Death Note because he's afraid to expose himself by accidentally killing the famous Ryuga Hideki, or he'd be foolish enough to try it, get the famous Ryuga Hideki killed on accident and giving L the exact proof he needed to convinct Light for being Kira. Either way, the situation would seem beneficial to L. Considering his personality, he probably has already thought of the chance that Ryuga Hideki could be killed, so either he knows it's probably a fasle name so the Death Note won't work, or he sees it as if one person dies it does not matter as long as in end he's preventing Kira from killing millions. Remember, he does only take cases of his own preference, not because he has some self righteous motive to save all the innocence from evil.
  • Sigh. L had no grudge against the idol. L knew Kira was intelligent enough not to attempt the kill. He was, of course, correct.

The Fake Rule - Soichiro may try to destroy it anyway.

• When the team get the Note, a fake rule says that if they destroy it they will all die. But Soichiro is insane about justice, and L makes plenty of gambits and risky moves. How could Light be sure they wouldn't just destroy it and leave a message behind saying what they'd done? Light would have been in big trouble then.
  • Not necessarily. He could just have said "Looks like Higuchi made up some fake rules." Hell, he could have used that as evidence that the Death Note was a Red Herring to throw L completely off the trail.
    • However, that would bring the 13 day rule into question and thus neither Light nor Misa would be able to act as Kira.
    • As for the possibility that Higuchi made those fake rules, it was stated later (much later) that the rules were written with a material that wasn't of this world.
    • But who would have known about the material at the time?
  • Relatedly, they could have cut the Death Note into pieces that were large enough to technically be usable (some people can write on rice grains) but to small for most people to write on.
    • The task force knew that there was a second notebook. If they took the chance of destroying the notebook and they did all die, there'd be no-one to look for the other note. Also, the notebook was fairly safe under Soichiro's stewardship until Mello turned up.
    • They could have simply thrown the book into the ocean. Book not destroyed but lost forever. Problem solved.
    • The fake rule doesn't say that it's if they destroy it they'll die, it says that if the note is made unusable they'll die. Soaked through might count as unusable. Plus, what if someone fished it out?
    • It's also stated that tearing it can cause people's deaths, which was intended to prevent them from learning about the ability to use scraps of paper. L, however, doubted this after seeing part of it torn off, and realizes that if it were a fake rule, it would put Misa and Light under suspicion. Near notes that this ability enabled Light to succeed at critical junctures (Naomi, Higuchi, Takada and others).

What's up with that foot rub?

• What the heck was with L's foot rub? Or, for that matter, his sentimental rant just before that? The whole thing seems to clash with L's character.
  • The anime team decided they hadn't had their required dose of symbolism yet. That scene is completely absent from the manga. (I found the bit with the bells quite effective, too.)
  • It was a symbolism thing related to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, including the one that planned to betray him (Judas). When you know that story it makes more sense and is less of a Ho Yay moment. Considering L and Light were working on the same team for a while, it would have been seen as a betrayal. In other words, L knew Light was going to kill him. Or at least had an idea.
  • But what was it ABOUT? The bell part in particular. I couldn't decide if L was lamenting his lack of a social life or he was depressed because it turned out that Light wasn't Kira. (Which was false, but whatever). Either way, it doesn't seem like something L would do.
    • He knew Light was Kira. He knew it, but couldn't prove it. He also knew that Light would probably kill him soon. That's why he was so depressed in the rain, and asked Light if he had once told the truth. He knew... but couldn't prove anything.
    • If he knew, why didn't he write Light's name in the Death Note, then his own, to literally take him with himself into the grave? If he knew his death was imminent anyway, it's not like this would change anything for him.
    • Two things, check out The Movie and two this would have made L Not So Different, though you could say that he was verging on this already with that prisoner plan. I'd make the argument however that the prisoner plan was a good deal less freedom removing then anything Light did.
  • The bells have a dual meaning: his impending death, and Wammy's House. That's why the bells and stained-glass windows made a second appearance in episode 30 - just sort of a wordless we're on the same side.
  • I understand what the bells themselves symbolized. If I didn't at first, I did in the episode after next, when you see Mello and Near. What I'm curious about is L's behavior during that segment.
    • Um... maybe this will clear things up...
    • L is letting Light know that he knows Light is Kira, that he's 100% certain, that he's so much more brilliant than Light that he's already deduced the next step of Light's plan, that it is unavoidable, but that ultimately Light's defeat at the hands of L will still come about.
  • L realises he has lost and that it is up to his successors to stop Kira. He decides to use his last hours on earth to mess with Light's head and maybe just make him reconsider. It fails.

How could Near have been a match for Light?

• How could Near have known that the real Death Note was in the safety deposit box? For that matter, how could an eight-year-old like Near be anywhere near a mental match for the great Light Yagami?
  • Not sure about the safe-deposit box, but as for the mental match: Near was already a prodigy to begin with, and then was raised in an environment designed to ensure he would be as intelligent as humanly possible. If I'm not mistaken, he's also a few years older than eight, making things a bit more plausible.
  • Quite a few years older, actually - post time skip, he's eighteen.
  • I believe he found out by keeping a close eye on Mikami during the whole Takada-abduction bit. Bear in mind that I've only seen the anime once.
  • He saw Light's apprentice grab it during the abduction. He let himself be followed when he wrote down the names of the very people Light killed.
  • Expanding on the above, Mikami rushed off to write Takada's name in the Death Note to keep her from talking. In doing so he broke his rigid schedule. Curious, Near searched his deposit box and found the Death Note.
    • There's also Matsuda's theory that's exclusive to the manga, which in short claimed that Near used the Death Note to manipulate Mikami's actions and point to Light.
    • It Just Bugs Me that I've seen at least three people put this idea forward. It should go without saying that Near couldn't use the Death Note that he stole from Mikami to get Mikami to reveal the location of the Death Note so Near could steal it. Unless the SPK was intentionally trying to fool the audience, Near never had contact with the Death Note before it was switched. Matsuda himself doesn't reference this idea, either; he puts forward an explanation for why someone as careful as Mikami wouldn't test the Death Note before coming to the warehouse, coupled with the fact of Mikami's death.
    • But that's not the theory. The theory is that Near used the Death Note after he made the switch, to keep Mikami from testing the fake one on his way to the warehouse at the end. It's probably false in the anime, in which Mikami kills himself. In the manga, it's very likely.
      • On that point: while Word of God states that readers are meant to draw their own conclusions, Obata describes Near as "dishonest" in Japanese How to Read 13.
      • Also, Ryuk says that humans who use the Death Note experience fear, pain and misery, and while it's arguable whether or not everyone who ever used the notebook felt like this, it's certainly noteworthy that they all died. Near is still alive 3 years after the Kira case concludes, so this might indicate he didn't use the Note, at least not personally. Besides, it'd be illogical if nothing else if Near insisted on beating Light fairly and then sinked to his level. Indeed, he may then have just cut to the chase and killed him and Mikami off. Matsuda's other theory about Near manipulating Mello, though, is something I could find much more believable. Near could've been enough of a liar to fake the whole "together we're as capable as L!" thing, in my opinion, and it would've allowed him to kill two birds with one stone, since despite his apparent affection for Mello, the guy was a criminal worthy of the death penalty. Keep in mind that he is L's successor, and that he becomes more L-like in the one-shot. Learning to apply L's dishonest/harsh form of justice may have been part of the evolution, like claiming Mello's habit of eating chocolate at the end of the manga.
  • As stated he found the notebook because Mikami was acting weird and he saw the name of Takada in it (He wouldn't know Light also wrote it) and came to the conclusion that this was the real one. I mean why would Mikami hide a fake notebook and go out of his way to write Takada's name in it if he had the real one? Also, when Light suggests that the real notebook is fake at the end Near looks like he genuinly failed to consider that possibility but figures Light is desperate and bluffing.
  • How does Near even pick out Mikami from the thousands of other psychopathic kira supporters anyway? His actions don't make him any more obvious than they would be. Are we looking at a case of deus ex machina just to finish the series? It just made Near seem less belivable (and likable) than L.
    • The manga explains this a lot better - Mikami appeared on two of Takada's shows, giving him enough time to get to know her, Mikami's insistence on people contributing to society to their fullest on one of the shows echoes Takada's "use your skills or DIIIIIEEE!" message, and, most importantly, after the emergence of X-Kira, Mikami made a speech that Near recognized as subtly asking Kira for instructions on what to do next.
    • As the above troper says, the manga explains it in a lot more detail than "Near's eyes turn white, the room revolves around him, and he magically narrows his suspicions down to Mikami Teru." You can begin reading that part here.
    • Honestly... Even in the manga, it's really a stretch. Certainly not as egregious as the anime version of the scene, but still not all that believable.
      • How so? Mikami is meant to be someone Near would conclude as being the second-Kira, that was his entire role. Both Light and Near had the exact same amount of information regarding him, and Near would be looking at the qualities Kira would want in an accomplice; Mikami publically stated he thought Kira was God in a survey, he has a high devotion to justice, and most importantly of all he publically stated that people should live their lives to their fulliest potentia, which lined up with X-Kira's MO. The more you looked at the guy the more you saw that he was fanatically devoted to Kira and his ideals. Plus again, he also pretty much asked Kira to tell him what to do on public TV .

Why does Light have red eyes?

• Why does Light have red eyes when he's particularly pleased with himself?- Yes, it looks cool, but he hasn't traded for shinigami eyes, so they shouldn't look identical to those of someone who has.
  • It's symbolic of how "devilish" or like a Shinigami he has become. Also contrasts with L, who gets blue hues in similar situations.
  • Anime only, it's "Rule of Cool"
  • If it were live action they could probably pull off a similar red eye effect like you get with camera flashes, it's a little odd to hold a cartoon to a higher standard of realism
  • It's also for the purpose of Red Oni, Blue Oni.
  • Well when using a dangerous otherworldy artifact there might be some side-effects. (Side-effects may include insanity, death, and red eyes.)

Why doesn't Light act like a Bond villain?

• Given that he's interested in remaking the world, why doesn't Light I don't know, kill world leaders (who are always on TV) and then take the world hostage Bond villain style rather than wasting his time killing criminals who would be punished in the legal system anyway?
  • Because Bond villians always lose?
  • Because that just isn't his method. Light would rather manipulate the current framework than destroy it and build a new one. He says as much at least once. As for killing criminals, he says early on that it's just step one of the Xanatos Roulette; he uses that to establish the existence of "Kira", and keeps doing it to prevent people from believing Kira has stepped down.
  • Besides, if he does that, there's a much higher chance of someone finding him and shooting him dead
  • Or new leaders with hidden faces being put in charge of the world's governments.
  • He's a person with the mindset of keeping his best weapons hidden. In the event of an emergency which could harm his plans, he has any number of aces - Depending on the time, he's got Misa, Mikami, Takada, a scrap of paper in his watch, the option of trading eyes with Ryuk, knowing the names and faces of his fellow detectives, etc. He doesn't want to threaten global leaders if he doesn't have to, because he wants to be able to hold lots of powerful attacks in reserve. Towards the end of the series, he does in fact force the USA president to do his bidding as you suggest, so it goes to show that he was just waiting until he really needed to play that card. If he hadn't got so cocky and died when he did, who's to say what other things he might have used if people got too close. This attitude of holding back his best attacks was both his strength and his weakness in the end. He'd still be alive if he had traded eyes and just killed the entire investigative team and gone into hiding, for instance, but he always wants to have his cake and eat it too.
    • No he wouldn't. It was pretty obviously near the end of Light's natural lifespan at the end. If he'd traded eyes he would have died even earlier.
    • There is no proof for that. Light died by Death Note, so this had nothing to do with his natural lifespan. He was wounded, obviously, but if he would have been arrested and treated he could have easily survived. And his trial would probably be one of the most difficult in history (given he recovers from his breakdown and wants it that way). After all, he killed by entirely unprecedented means, and laws are simply not written to incorporate the supernatural. This trial could easily last for years, and with pleading insanity he would maybe even survive and just be locked up really good. So we really know nothing about his natural lifespan.
    • Further, Ryuk specifically points out that Light will just get locked away in prison, and he'll become very boring. He wouldn't have killed Light with the Death Note if Light was just going to die then and there anyway; he may not be able to see the future, but being a Shinigami, he can see Light's lifespan well enough to know that Light's still got plenty of time left, and can guess based on how things are going that he's about to get really boring. The very act of killing Light with the Death Note confirms that he still had lifespan in him.
    • Or not. After reading through the rules of the Death Note, Ryuk can only see Light's original lifespan and not the adjusted one caused by the butterfly effect of using the Death Note. So even Ryuk's killing of Light says nothing about whether Light would have died there.
  • What about using it to kill dictators? Kill half a dozen of the world's worst, and save a bunch of lives when their replacements (and the others) become terrified of being next, and become half-decent leaders out of self-preservation. Then again, Light pretty much proved he wasn't that sort of guy when he killed Lind L. Tailor.
  • He probably was doing this offscreen; however, the story was about the battle between Light and L, not fictional dictators being killed off.
  • In the last few episodes, Light states that one of Kira's accomplishments is not just an end to crime, but to war. So it's implied that he has indeed killed off various governing officials.
  • Late in the series, he notes that the problem with the world is not just the crime, but also the fact that crime sets a bad influence for its victims to follow, and that by punishing criminals, he'll be able to break the cycle.

Handwriting analysis

• Two words: Handwriting analysis. This idea escapes the greatest detective who ever lived?
  • Handwriting analysis is bunk.
    • In the pilot, the Death note instructions encourage the user to change handwriting to throw off anyone who might try to analyze it. Note that for the first part of the series, the problem was identifying the notebook as the murder weapon, and in the second, it was getting proof that Light was actually Kira; note that Light didn't write any names in the main notebook after giving it to Mikami.
  • Using handwriting to analyze the writer's personality is bunk. Using handwriting analysis to identify * who* wrote something is effective and acceptable evidence in court.
  • Lesser-known Death Note rule: Anybody attempt to analyze the handwriting of a death note will result in it bursting into flames.
  • For a long time, L didn't know how Kira's powers worked. By the time he got ahold of a Death Note, he had suspected Light for a while and knew what he was up against. And Light must have planned ahead and started disguising his handwriting at least as soon as he thought up the Memory Gambit.
  • And remember, L dies very shortly after he gets his hands on the Death Note.
  • Perhaps he ripped out the original pages and had Misa write in some new ones. He wanted her framed after all, so Rem would kill L! :3
  • The fake rule about the owner having to write a new name every 13 days pretty much absolves Light and Misa, so there's no reason for L to analyse the handwriting.
  • Light outright said that he ripped all the written-on pages out of the note (as well as taking care of fingerprints, etc.) before passing it to Rem. So the only time L had access to a Death Note, all the names in it had been written by Higuchi.

Rewatching the tapes of Misa's confinement

• Three words: Rewatching the tapes. When Misa was in confinement, the moment that she relinquished ownership of the Note, she started crying. Rem was there to wipe the tear away. L, who was watching, took notice of it, but seeing as how he couldn't see Rem, all he saw was a mysterious force that brushed a lock of Misa's hair and made her tear go away. Fast forward to when L gets his hands on the Note and sees Rem. He doesn't look at all surprised, and by this time he has probably already reasoned that Rem exists, only seen or heard by people that have come in contact with the Death Note. Why, then, didn't he at least connect this to Misa's confinement and rewatch the tape to see if Rem was present? Even if by that time, Misa was absolved from guilt with the 13 Day Rule or whatever, he doesn't seem like the character to leave something peculiar alone.
  • You can blame that slight error on the anime team, said scene never happened in the manga.
  • Why didn't L re-watch the tapes? Because...well, he died. I'm sure he would have re-examined all the evidence in light of the existence of Death Notes and Shinigami, had he lived a bit longer.

Why is Light's name written with the kanji for moon?

• Why is Light's name written with the kanji for moon? I mean, there has to be a kanji character for light.
  • There is a kanji for light: 光 (hikari), and the name "Light" itself is probably a direct translation of Hikari, which is a common Japanese name. The question is what his parents were smoking when they named him "written Tsuki but pronounced Light".
  • It would probably be easier to understand if we knew the Japanese naming conventions better. I would make the wild guess that Hikari being more common as female name, they wanted to pick another light-related kanji to avoid people making misunderstandings of the name.
  • "Hikaru" is a variant that's more common as a male name. Too common in fact- several other manga/anime characters have it and the writers probably didn't want to make people think of Shindo Hikaru, or worse yet,Hitachiin Hikaru.
    • Fun fact: Obata was also involved with Hikaru no Go.
  • His name isn't translated; in Japanese sources he's also referred to as "Light" (or "Raito"). It's probably an example of ironic naming meant to make him seem sinister; "Yagami" is written with the kanji for 'night god', after all.
  • In Japan, you can pretty much pronounce any kanji any way you want when using it as a name. You would have to use furigana (the small kana that show the pronunciation of the kanji) whenever you wrote it, but it's prefectly legal.
    • If you need to write his name with a footnote every time, then he shouldn't have died at the end.

Why doesn't Light suffer from Amnesiac Dissonance?

• Why does Light so easily discard his "good" personality after regaining his memories, instead of suffering an Amnesiac Dissonance and having a conflict between "Light" and "Kira" within his mind? Compare his reaction with that of Ke'ra/Linea from Stargate SG-1, for instance. Of course, I understand that Death Note is supposed to be darker...
  • His scream at the moment of transition may indicate that this did happen, but was resolved very quickly when he remembered he had already had this conflict shortly after getting the Death Note. After that, he was just too pleased that his evil plan was moving ahead so nicely.
  • Also keep in mind that all throughout his Memory Gambit, he kept reflecting on how Kira's ideology was very similar, eerily similar to his own.

Why doesn't an owner write their own name in the notebook to die a hundred years from now?

• Why doesn't any owner of a Death Note, including Light, ever write their own name with the time of death reasonably far away (for example, 100 years from now), thus rendering themselves invulnerable to any future Death Note entries? To my knowledge, the rules place no restrictions on how far into the future the time of death can be, except that one cannot prolong someone's lifespan by writing an impossibly-far-away date. In fact, in the movie, L successfully does just that, except that he sets the time to 23 days from the moment of writing (but if he didn't, he would have died even sooner).
  • The complete list of Death Note rules states that "The Death Note can only operate within a 23-day window (in the human calendar). This is called the 23-day rule." Therefore, you can't set anyone's time of death more than 23 days in the future. So while you could theoretically do this, it's suicide unless you otherwise would be certain to die in less time.
  • As, according to the Yotsuba killings, a Death Note can only control a victim's actions ("details of death") for 23 days, you've answered your own question.
  • Also, there's another rule that says you can't set a date in the Death Note that's later then a person's predetermined lifespan. Given that 1) it's a major plot point that a person with a Death Note can never know their own lifespan and 2) writing a wrong date would kill you in 40 seconds; this would mean that someone trying to do this would be gambling with instant death.
  • But, couldn't Light give his Death Note to Misa so that she could see his lifespan and then give the Death Note back to him and tell him his life span?
    • Misa can't see Light's lifespan! That's why she finds out he's Kira, after all.
    • That's because at that time, he owns a Death Note. During the second ark, he doesn't own one for a long time, so she should have been able to see it then.
  • The lifespan is given in Shinigami time units, not human ones. And I believe Shinigami aren't allowed to tell people's lifespans.
  • However, humans with Shinigami eyes are able to understand Shinigami time units.
    • Where is this stated? They ever only comment on being able to see when it ends and the shinigami numbers would presumely reach zero too sooner or later.
    • "Beyond Birthday had the eyes of a shinigami[...] He knew the time of death of every person he met." (Another Note pg. 94).
    • I wouldn't count things from the novels and whatnot as canon, and even Ryuk mentioned in volume one of the manga having to convert it into human time to accurately tell Light's time of death. (He said something to the effect of "... and if I convert it to human time, I'll know exactly when you'll die.")
    • In the anime, L mentions the Los Angeles BB murder cases in episode 8, after he learns of Misora's dissapearance. So I think Another Note is cannon in the anime continuity. See the video linked to from the continuity nod mention here.
      • Maybe the way the lifespan appears depends on where you got the eyes from. If you got them from the shinigami eye deal, you get the lifespan in shinigami time; if you're born with them, you get it in human time.
    • Even if one doesn't count Another Note, there are at least two other ways Misa could understand the numbers. She could 1) have Rem teach her how to read Shinigami time (assumning teaching it to humans isn't illegal) or 2) look at someones lifespan long enough to see one of the numbers change and from that deduce the unit size.
    • Also Beyond is an evil genius meant to be on the same level as L and was born with the eyes- no doubt he figured out how to convert the numbers into human time.
  • They also can't see the lifespan of a Death Note user. me.That's how Misa first identifies Light, remember?
  • Which is why Light would have to give Misa ownership of his Death Note so she'd be able to see his lifespan and then tell it to him after giving the Death Note back to him.
  • Well, if a predestined time of death is to have any meaning, it has to take all of a person's actions into account, including any actions he would take to avoid dying at that time.
  • One of the rules states something to the effect that writing in a Death Note only takes effect if the victim is not already dead, which could imply that the pre-determined deaths (anything not involving a Death Note) take precedent over a Death Note death if it would chronologically take place first.
    • How to Use: LVII -In the Death Note, you cannot set the death date longer than the victim’s original life span. Even if the victim’s death is set in the Death Note beyond his/her original life span, the victim will die before the set time.

How did he get that TV inside a bag of chips?

• How does Light actually put the TV, pen and Death Note inside the packet of potato chips with the cameras watching him - the manga doesn't show this, and even worse, the anime implies that the TV is already in there when he first opens the packet!
  • He's only being watched in the house. He bought the TV and chips while out about town. No doubt he carefully opened the bag, removed some chips, put in the TV, and used a device to reseal the bag. Such devices do actually exist, and since the Japanese are notoriously manic about fresh food they're probably not hard to find.
  • To answer my own question, according to Word of God, Light put the TV in the crisp packet before the cameras were installed. Yes, he's just that good!
  • In doing that, though, wasn't he risking a member of his family opening it and finding the TV?
  • Nope. In fact, Light even stated that he was the only one in the family who liked that particular flavor.
    • Not really a guarantee, though. Unplanned company could be a problem, plus I know people in my house sometimes 'settle' for snacks they don't like much if there's not something better available. Of course, Light probably knew his family better than me and was able to work around them in ways that weren't useful to detail in the story, but I just like the idea of him having to pass off the TV as a Cracker-Jack-box-style prize.
    • He didn't even like the flavor. NO ONE liked the flavor. He deliberately chose a flavor so bad that there was no chance of anyone else getting it.
    • He probably knew that no one in this world would like to eat chips with chicken broth flavor. Also, he could easily have bought his family's favorite snacks so they wouldn't need to settle for disgusting chips.

When Mikami kills that guy on the subway, how does Takada know his face?

• When Mikami kills that guy on the subway, how does Takada know his face?
  • The whole thing was a set-up. Takada had already written "guy gets on subway, bothers girl, dies." Mikami just wrote his name in the fake Note at the right time.
    • Nope. As said below, he used his cellphone.
  • In the manga, he takes a picture of the dude with his cell phone. It's even mentioned later that the guy tailing him forgot this in the excitement of the targeted guy dropping dead!
  • He takes the picture in the anime, too. It's easy to miss.
  • The picture taking scheme is shown in the anime, but not explained in as much detail. One downside to the anime's Adaptation Distillation is that some parts aren't explained completely in the second half.

Why is Namikawa less likely to be Kira?

• What does make Namikawa less likely to be Kira than Ooi, anyway? I'd have to go with Matsuda on that one - Ooi just makes too much of a show of authority, whereas Namikawa is a lot more subtle about it and seems really canny to Kira's workings besides.
  • In a game of word association, "Kira" and "subtle" do go together smoothly, but Yotsuba Kira's profile is... not so subtle.
  • It's later said by two of the other group members that they knew Namikawa wasn't Kira because his position was such that if he were, he wouldn't need to hold those meetings. Presumably L and Light thought the same way.
• Why does Light reveal that he has inside information (aside from the need for a plot to fill the next thirty-some episodes) at the very beginning of the investigation? Sure, there's the whole "childish and doesn't like to lose" thing, but but he must have realized that he was entangling himself in all sorts of tactical skirmishes with L and the police that he couldn't keep winning forever. If he'd continued his original schedule, nobody could ever have said more about Kira than that he was a Japanese student.
  • So he could get to L through the police - he didn't count on the vast bulk of the NPA bowing out so early in. And L would have found something else eventually - he graduated that year, for instance, and when he goes to college, the high-school schedule facade would slip at some point. But that's not the fast-paced mind-gamey series we know and love any more than it is Light's nature to refuse a challenge.
  • More importantly, shouldn't someone as smart as Light realize that not even the greatest detective in the world could find some random guy using a magic notebook to kill people as long as he doesn't do something completely retarded to give himself away, like I don't know...making it completely obvious that he is somehow connected to the police on the investigation?
  • Actually, L had narrowed Light's location down to a specific region of Japan. Also it's important to remember that Light's goal isn't just to kill criminals, but to rule over the world as God, and any tyrant will tell you that it's hard to do that if you let people go around openly opposing you. To conquer the world, Light first has to eliminate those who oppose Kira, and L's at the top of the list. Besides, Light got involved with the Death Note in the first place because he was bored; taking the offensive against L made his plot for world domination a bit more interesting. Just check out the grin on Light's face whenever he manages to one-up L; he enjoys the cat-and-mouse game far too much to play it safe.
  • In the manga at least, L, for whatever reason already had Light's file separated BEFORE the F.B.I. performed their probe of the NPA...
    • Err, incorrect. He had a list of all the task force members and their families, and the panel focused on Light's, but it was clearly apart of a larger pile.
  • Light explains this to Ryuk; by revealing that Kira is receiving leaked information from the police, Light is trying to cause distrust between L and the NPA. This, he hoped, would lead to the NPA trying to ferret out L's true identity, which Light would then use to kill him.
  • Light's plans go way past just killing criminals with heart attacks and letting other criminals get scared. He also says he wants to kill people who are worthless and lazy (without using heart attacks so they won't be connected to the criminals) and later in the series gets spokesmen, manipulates the U.S. president, etc... this is all risky stuff to do, but it becomes much more risky when the best detective in the world is in your trail. L had to be taken out of the picture while he was still in the "violent criminal = heart attack" phase before moving onto his bigger plans for the world.

Why didn't Light make Mikami carry a back-up slip for the final confontration?

• Why didn't Light make Mikami carry a back-up slip for the final confontration? I mean, bloody hell, he had one in his watch, and made Takada carry one in her bra.
  • Light's watchslip was coincidental- he only remembers it after being cornered. Takada didn't have the Note and part of her role in the plan was to have that piece. There simply wasn't any reason for Mikami to have a back-up- the plan was perfect otherwise... only a technicality gives Mikami and Light what happens instead of them getting away with it and having a congratulatory beer.
  • You have to wonder, though, how Light didn't see even the possibility of Near's trick, since it's exactly the same as the strategy Light relies so heavily on. Light could easily have instructed Mikami to perform one test killing on his way to the meeting place, and if it didn't work, abandon the strategy. Then Near's plan would have fallen in a hole, and we would have looked a complete fool -- Light wins either way. Guess he just didn't see the possibility.
    • Alternatively he could just command Mikami to write everyones name on the fake note, Light would have Near's name to finish him off with the piece in his watch and Near would end up looking like an idiot. Since Light remarks at how stupid Near must be to go through with the plan he must of expected something more from him, but didn't take any actions to counter such a move. Just trying to end the series there perhaps?
    • Light may have thought that he had completely cornered Near, and wound up scuttled by his own hubris. He might also have assumed that Mikami would fill his role as Kira's stand-in perfectly and take the initiative to test it himself. Alternately, there's Matsuda's theory: Near may have mind-controlled Mikami with the Death Note, giving him no choice in turning up at the correct place at the correct time and following through with the plan.
    • Light had figured out about Near's replacing the fake notebook, but didn't know that Mikami had done something to compromise himself prior to the meeting.
    • It was also a failed Batman Gambit on Light's part. He knows that L would have considered the possibility of a fake notebook, but doesn't think Near would. He believes that Near wants to win honorably, which is why he never, say, had Jovanni try writing a name in the pages he removed from the notebook. And Light was right...up to a point. Near may have preferred a clean fight, but Mello sure didn't. It was his actions that made Mikami slip up and reveal the location of the real notebook.
    • Light assumed from the beginning that Near would go for a noble victory, and that he therefore wouldn't try to test the Note or kill Light/Mikami (a terrible assumption to put your life and the world's future on line for, but what the hell). On that basis, he could think that even if Near considered the possibility of a fake Note, he wouldn't know where it was, and he probably wouldn't think of it anyway since Mikami made sure to make it look like he was carrying the real one. Light didn't think Mello's actions would reveal the real Note's location (since he specifically ordered Mikami not to make unnecessary moves and since he (Light) already wrote down a specific death for Takada which came true, I guess, but those are still incredibly weak reasons, since this is the great Light). But even if he considered it, the fact was that Near didn't change the date for the meeting, so Light assumed there wouldn't be enough time to fake the Note and that everything was therefore alright. In the end, he may well have underestimated the regular SPK members. Light may not have instructed Mikami to test the note before the final confrontation because he may not have thought there was any reason to do so, or maybe because he thought Mikami would naturally think of it himself (again, terrible assumption). So why did Mikami not test it? He didn't think of it? Was he so confident in Light's plan that he felt there was no need to, or because it wasn't possible to find someone worthy of killing at the moment? Did Near know he'd think like that? How COULD Near be so sure it'd work out, anyway? It would probably still be his victory in a sense since all the Death Note pages were either replaced or too full to add any more names, so Kira's killings would stop once and for all, but he wouldn't catch the culprits if Mikami chose not to arrive...Also, it's obvious that Mikami thought Light wouldn't be bothered with his movements since he'd hear about Takada's death on the news, but how didn't he even consider that he'd be tailed by the SPK on his way to the bank? On the whole, a rather convoluted and broken ending that's probably not worth dwelling on...
  • Forget the final confrontation; why not have Mikami carry a back-up page at all times or have one hidden in his apartment? Then: Mikami, who knows or strongly suspects that he is being watched, uses the back-up page to kill Takada without drawing attention to himself by breaking his routine. Near never finds out about the location of the real note so he can't switch it and/or use it to control Mikami. Everything goes "exactly as planned". Light wins.
    • The answer's in the question. Mikami knows he's being watched. For all he and Light know, Mikami could have hundreds of cameras in his apartment, watching his every move. That's precisely why he had to wander around carrying a fake notebook and writing down names in public. Any deviation from his normal behavior would be noticed.

How did Mello know about B?

• How did Mello know that (Another Note spoiler:) B possessed shinigami eyes?
  • I suppose once he'd got the scoop from Sidoh, he decided it fit with what he knew of B - the clean killings and the ease with which he found the people with targeted names. He stated it as a total, incontrovertible fact because he's a classic unreliable narrator.

Why wasn't L more suspicious about Misa's "discovery"?

• Why wasn't L more suspicious about Misa's "discovery" that Higuchi was the new Kira? She just randomly goes out on a date with the guy who is probably the creepiest of the businessmen, dodging her guard in the process, and on that one date he tells her that he's Kira. That just seems like a few too many coincidences to swallow.
  • Remember that Misa went in to spy and that the Yotsuba board isn't all that large. From L's point of view, she was just reckless as usual and hit the jackpot; or that's the scenario he comes up with since Misa hasn't shown sign of knowing anything about herself being the Second Kira.
  • L was suspicious of Misa all along. When that happened, even if he became more suspicious, he had no more evidence with which to convince the others than he'd had before.

How come Light never noticed he had a piece of the Death Note in his watch?

• If Light had that piece of Death Note in his watch the whole time he was memory wiped, how come he never noticed. If he takes his watch on and off every day and watches frequently bang against things as well as being incredibly easy to absent mindedly fiddle with; the secret compartment should have opened by accident at one point. In addition, since memory wiped Light knows how his thought patterns work and is at least partially suspicious of himself, he should have realised that he might think of hiding something in his watch and checked to make sure.
  • It's a carefully designed mechanism - I believe it takes a precise number of turns and clicks, which would be unlikely to occur by chance and is ruggedly designed. And he didn't know how the Death Note worked, so he wouldn't expect that something as small as a piece of paper would be significant, so he wouldn't bother checking the really small stuff (I'm more surprised he didn't manage to blow up his desk, personally).
    • Yeah, the whole desk thing seemed kinda excessive, especially considering we didn't hear another thing about it after he made it and it played absolutely no role in the plot other than to establish Light's cleverness and paranoia.
    • Not quite. Sometime halfway through the L arc, he offhandedly states that he had defused it to keep L from getting suspicious.
    • Its a reflection of his hubris; in the beginning he was making contingency and backup plans, but at the end he had no Plan B.
  • And if he did manage to open the watch, he would remember why he wanted to keep it closed, then forget as soon as he stopped touching it.
    • Hee hee! "Hey, what's this note in my watch? ...OH. RIGHT. Shit, I'd better close this before someone sees me. ...Hey, what's this note in my watch?"
    • Which would continue until he used up all six memory restorations and thus ruined his plan.
    • As amusing as that sounds, I think only touching the death note itself restores memories, not pieces of it. That's why Misa doesn't have the memory-returning scream when Rem touches her with a piece of the notebook; all it does is enable you to see the associated shinigami.
    • Re-read the manga... Rem says outright that touching a torn-off piece from a page won't restore memories.
  • You have to pull the time-adjusting knob OUT four times within one second for the hidden piece to come out- Light mentions as he's doing it once that nobody would think to do so. It's more of a mind-breaker to think about how he managed to make the thing!
    • But people absent-mindedly play with stuff, often in a repetitive manner. There is a possibility of that happening. And even if it had, he could've taped a square of paper to his skin in order to never stop touching it until he killed Higuchi...
    • I doubt that pulling it out four times in less than a second would even be possible unless you were really, really trying. One second is an insanely short about of time.
    • It's not pulling it out four time in less than one second. It's pulling it out four times with less than one second in between each pull. That's much more believable as an accident.
    • The "four times" part is the main thing, since it's unlikely for him to do it that many times consecutively, much less with one second apart from each other, while merley fidgeting.

Why doesn't Light notice that a worldwide news broadcast is being broadcast in Japanese?

• If Light is so smart, why didn't he notice something odd about the fact that a supposedly worldwide news broadcast given by someone with three Ls in their name was given in Japanese?
  • The first live-action movie addresses this by having the broadcast in English, with a Japanese translator dubbing over it. You could assume this is also what was happening in the manga/anime, but with the former it would have been harder to establish the situation (and probably would have been confusing), and with the latter, it would have been harder to go out and find an English voice actor that you were just going to dub over anyway. That, or everyone in Death Note's world speaks Japanese and Ryuk was an idiot for thinking otherwise (support: both the US president and Interpol use Japanese all the time, for some reason).
    • "Everyone speaking Japanese" is probably just Translation Convention.
  • People get crazy with power when they have guns, which are limited to line of sight. Light getting egotistical with an Artifact of Doom that can kill anyone anywhere with no evidence is easy to excuse.
  • In the manga, at least, the Lind L. Taylor broadcast has in its introduction, "...with Japanese voiceover by interpreter so-and-so."
    • The full line is "We are interrupting the program to bring you a live, globally televised broadcast from Interpol with Japanese voice-over by Interpreter Yoshio Anderson." The Japanese Dub for the anime doesn't have him speaking in English for the same reason why the English dub doesn't have the Japanese talking in Japanese, not everyone can understand the language.

How does Light kill Lind L. Tailor?

• Speaking of Lind L. Tailor, how did Light manage to kill him with the death note in the first place? The middle L is presumably an initial, and is punctuated as though it were one, and Light explicitly writes Lind L. Taylor into the death note. This clearly isn't his full name, so why does he die? If it's simply a case of someone's full name being in the death note regardless, then one could Fanwank it away with some explanation to do with Interpol adding another L into his name for the hell of it, and it not counting, but if that's the case, the misspelling rule should have taken effect...
  • Interesting point. How does the Death Note deal with initials and middle names? Are they necessary to kill the intended person?
    • Unless none of the FBI agents had middle names, the middle names seem to be completely ignored by the Death Note.
  • While we're on names, how does the Death Note handle married names? I mean, if someone looked at Sachiko with Shinigami eyes, would they see 'Sachiko Yagami' or 'Sachiko (maiden name)' because that was the name she was born with?

Why doesn't Rem kill Higuchi?

• When Higuchi becomes a threat to Misa why doesn't Rem just kill him with her Death Note?
  • Remember what happens when Rem kills L, and when Jealous kills Misa's stalker? Yeah Rem's not gonna throw away her life for some guy who MAY be dangerous
  • True, but Higuchi wasn't a threat to Misa's life and thus killing him wouldn't kill Rem
    • Don't forget that Higuchi wanted to marry Misa then kill her.
    • But killing a human only condems a shinigami to death if it is done to increase the lifespan of another human. Presumably, Higuchi would have killed her with his death note, which would mean he wasn't Misa's natural life ender and killing him would not have altered her lifespan).
  • Because if Higuchi suddenly died, I'm thinking that would make Misa look suspicious to L and team. Rem was trying to protect her- but Light went and ruined it for her.
  • Killing Higuchi would have messed up Light's insane memory roulette.
  • That just brings up the question; if the Death God is supposed to confirm the death of the owner of their Note (usually by writing the name themselves), and that owner happens to be a threat to another person, which rule takes effect if the Death God intervenes and kills the person they're following?
    • If it is anything like real laws, then the rule that is stated first is usually the one with higher priority.
  • He was planning to kill Misa, so killing him would have killed her which she knew wasn't necessary as Light promised his plan would keep her safe. In fact, Rem considers in several occasions to take a more active role in the matter, but never does because Light instructed her to just go along with things, it certainly would have messed up the plan, and she would have died sooner.

Why does Light use the television more than the internet?

• Why does Light use the television more than the internet? Getting satellite T.V. would be conspicuous I know, but since Light routinely hacks into the N.S.A., why doesn't he just go to a foreign news source, look up some names and faces, and kill them? This probably would have kept L from ever coming to Japan in the first place. Naturally the story would also be a lot less interesting but still.
  • Actually, I think he does use the Internet a fair bit before his house gets bugged. L tracks him down by noticing that his first victim was in Japan.

Why doesn't Rem cut a deal with L to protect Misa?

• When Light makes it obvious Misa is behind the resumed killings after Higuchi's death, why doesn't Rem cut a deal with L to hand Light over in exchange for letting Misa live the rest of her life? The fact that her lifespan is incredibly short by that point anyway and that Rem knows L's name should easily be enough to convince him.
  • Because L wouldn't agree to such a deal. He was very reluctant to let Light and Misa go even when all evidence pointed to their innocence. If Rem spilled the beans to him, he would be more likely to sacrifice himself but ensure that both Kiras would be turned over to justice.
  • Not quite. In volume four, he wonders if he could get the second Kira off as leniently as possible for turning the original Kira. That showed that he would be willing to make a deal like that.
  • But just how short is Misa's lifespan after all the screwing around given that she's had it halved twice but then also had the lifespans of two Shinigami added to it?
    • The Manga says she died when she was 27. Of course in the anime it's implied she jumps off a building. Now feel free to predict her normal age, assuming no deals.
    • Well, considering that she was supposed to die when that one shinigami saved her, her lifespan equals (1/8 Jealous' lifespan)+ (1/2 Rem's lifespan). At the time Rem could make that prospective deal, it would be 1/8 whatshisname's lifespan. Of course, without knowing a shinigami's lifespan, that could be any length of time.
    • I don't think it's ever explicitly stated that you can't extend your own lifeline by killing someone with the Death Note-otherwise, it'd be totally idiotic to take the Shinigami eyes because no matter what badassitude you pull off with the Death Note, you'll always die in half the time. Events will conspire such that you will die in a shorter period of time, but a Death Note can augment these events again.
    • Actually, it is. Ryuk explicitly states in one of the early chapters that this is one of the major differences between a shinigami and a human with a Death Note. This is also why Light refuses the deal: like you said, no matter what he did with the Death Note, he would have died in half the time.
    • Consider Light's case - if he'd taken the Shinigami eyes, he probably would have lived longer since he was killed by a Death Note.
    • Unfortunately, it actually is. A human who wields the Death Note won't gain any true profit from it (other than the capability to slaughter millions with a ballpoint pen). That's why the Shinigami Eyes are such a gamble. You'll lose half of your remaining lifespan in exchange for a greater killing capability. This, in fact, is the reason Light never chooses to use the Shinigami Eyes. He wants to rule as a god over the world, and cutting your lifespan in half is a good way to cut the ride short. I'm reasonably sure, however, that the Shinigami whose Death Note it is DOES still gain lifespan from it; thus, the purpose of handing a human a Death Note is simply for the kick of watching a human go on a mass murder. However, I'm reasonably sure Light becomes a Shinigami, as the one seen at the end of the Director's Cut who bribes Ryuk with an apple is wearing Light's usual tie as a headband and is wearing his brown coat.
    • Also, Ryuk calls him "Light."
    • However, it is also mentioned that the Death Note can alter peoples lifespans even without their names being written in it and that such changes aren't shown by the shinigami eyes. So it's possible for Light to increase his lifespan just not in the way shinigami do.
    • Where's the 1/8 come in? Surely it's (Jealous' lifespan), then (1/2 NGLS) after deal with Rem, then (1/2 Jealous' lifespan + Rem's lifespan) after Rem's sacrifice, then (1/2 (1/2 JLS + RLS)) after deal with Ryuk giving 1/4 JLS + 1/2 RLS. Wait, when did this become my maths class?
    • When a shinigami dies to save someone, it gives half of their remaining lifespan to the person in question, not the full thing.
    • When the time skip happened, Misa's lifespan consisted of: her own (about 2 seconds) half of Jealous' whom we know had just killed that burglar and half of Rem's which included both L's and Watari's. She going to have a looong life.
    • You don't need to know the Shinigamis' lifespans to know how long Misa would have lived - you only need her date of birth, the dates she traded eyes, and the date she died. I figured out that if she had never met Rem, she would have died on July 14th of 2030, give or take a few days. (assuming that her name is not written in a death note and there are no other ways to prolong or hurry death other than trading eyes.)
    • Okay, you're going to have to explains this to me. Mia was originally going to die the day Jealous saved her. Her own lifespan is not even a day. So what does her date of birth have to do with anything?
    • I don't still have the working-out with me, but I'll try to explain. You don't need to know the shinigamis' lifespans because you know Misa's date of death, which is all knowing the lifespans would've helped figure out. You need to know her date of birth so that you know how long there is between her birth and death. Of course, you need the eye-trade dates (compared to the date of death) to figure out how much longer her life would've been extended by. If you have any further questions about this, please go to my discussion page or Just Bugs Me page to ask, as finding this section of the Death Note JBM takes me ages. (although the latter has not been made yet)
    • Then again, the Word of God says that Misa probably committed suicide just after the story ended, so I guess she didn't have the much time left after all.
• "How to Use: XLII (from Volume 8):
  1. The use of the Death Note in the human world sometimes affects other human’s lives or shortens their original life-span, even though their names are not actually written in the Death Note itself. In these cases, no matter the cause, the god of death sees only the original life-span and not the shortened life-span. "

It seems that Misa's visible lifespan (AKA the amount of life she would have had left had she not killed herself), would have been longer than her actual lifespan. Given how heavily involved she was with Light and his schemes, her life was most likely cut short indirectly by the use of a Death Note.
** Rem REALLY wants Misa to be happy. Had she turned Light in, even had said deal been taken, Light would have been imprisoned/executed, and Misa would undoubtedly had been... unhappy.

• • • I think the implication is that Rem believes that Misa NEEDS Light. Her reasoning at one point is that, if Light were to die or be imprisoned, she would commit suicide.

Why doesn't Rem kill L in a fire that destroys the Death Note and robs Light of his memories?

• When Rem killed L why didn't she write something like "Asphyxia. Dies in a fire that also destroys the Death Note he has touched.", return to the shinigami world, and then write L's name. Thereby robbing Light of his memories and preventing him from getting her Death Note.
  • It wouldn't rob Light of his memories immediately - I recall the period being about two years, at which point he'd have found a way to gain ownership of Misa's Note - and that probably involves her death. But that aside, I think the basic answer is that Rem just didn't think of it.
    • However, in the Movie, she does prevent Light from getting her own Death Note, thereby making it so that Light would be defeated by L in the end because she hated Light.
  • Destroying the notebook L had touched would have disproven the rule about everyone who has touched it dying when it's destroyed, which would lead the investigators to the possibility of other rules being fake, which would lead to the possibility of the 13-day rule being fake, which would throw suspicion right back onto Misa.
  • A better question is, why not just write both L and Light's names in her Death Note? Both are threats to Misa's life, after all. Surely Rem realized that Light would kill Misa as soon as she outlived her usefulness.
    • Because then Misa would commit suicide.
  • Along those lines, Rem knows when Misa will die because of the Shinigami eyes. Let's say this is December 31st, 2040, 10:00 PM. Why doesn't Rem write "Yagami Light, summarily executed by a police officer after confessing to being Kira" and "Misa Amane, December 31st, 2040, 9:59:59 PM, complications resulting from failed suicide attempt years earlier"?
    • Because it's not enough for Misa to live. Rem wants Misa to be happy, and if Light died, that would be impossible.
    • So Rem goes to L at a place where he's reasonably cut off from the outside world, tells him she'll kill him if he doesn't cooperate, and explains the situation. L, genius that he is, comes up with the following plan: Rem helps him fake his own death, leaving behind a false death note made of cut-out pages from her personal one. L vanishes into the underworld to fight Light secretly, since Light would probably figure out the whole plan if he knew L was still alive. L manipulates events from behind the scenes to bring Light to justice. To prevent Misa from killing herself, after Light is dead (remember, she's been told he was killed by Kira) he shows up and feeds her some line about "those with a true sense of justice who have touched a Death Note cannot be killed permanently by it", claims that Light will only be able to come back because of his love for Misa, so she has to stay alive for his sake. Rem ends up saving Misa's life and still killing Light, so she's happy, L ends up bringing Kira to justice, although in a more roundabout way than he'd prefer, and Near is suitably flabbergasted.
    • Rem could have written - Light Yagami, dies immidiately - (whatever Ls name is), dies (insert whatever time she pleases) having spent the remainder of his life convinced Misa Amane is not the second kira - Misa Amane, dies (one second before when she would normally have died) having lived a happy and fulfilling life without Light Yagami
    • Rem would have to write the name of a specific disease for Misa's cause of death to bypass the 23 day rule.

Why doesn't Rem control Light to convince Misa that she would be better off without him?

• For that matter, how come Rem didn't just write something like "Light Yagami. [Date 23 days from now]. Commits suicide after convincing anyone and everyone currently in love with him that they will be better off as an independent person instead of relying entirely on him; and that their parting ways will work out better for them." In other words, if the Death Note can make Naomi want to commit suicide without needing to fill in all the details, why not use it to make Light break up with Misa in such a way that won't devastate her or drive her to suicide? Rem knew the guy was bad news, Misa's insane devotion to him was the only reason she didn't kill him, why wouldn't she just get rid of that?
  • How long did it take you to think of that loophole? I rest my case - Rem is bright, but not one of our resident uber-geniuses.
    • Probably because if Misa were as dependent upon Light as she seems, he'd just die of a heart attack.
  • The death note can't do the impossible. As the above troper says, Misa is so obsessed with Light that it is unlikely anything he could say would ever convince her she is better off without him, which means that there is a big probability the suicide will default to a heart attack and Misa will be miserable for the rest of her life.
    • Problem. Light is perfectly capable of telling Misa she'd be better off without him. Misa's reaction, however, would be an impossible thing to control whether Rem used the Death Note or not. Since it's only LIGHT'S actions Rem would be controlling, there's no problem. And if Rem only had him break up with her and SAY he was going to another country while he was really offing himself, Misa would be happy he was alive, but maybe sad he wasn't "her's" anymore.

How does L deduce that Kira is a student?

• In one of the earlier episodes, L deduces that Kira is probably a student because of the hours he keeps, but based on those hours, couldn't Kira also be a teacher?
  • Teachers hold much longer hours than students, as anyone who's stayed after school for any reason would be able to verify.

Why didn't Light use the notebook to make the taskforce kill themselves?

• Since the Death Note can control a person's actions before death, why didn't Light just have the entire investigation team turn their guns on Near and then kill each other? When his Dad was alive his conscience might have bothered him but once the old man bites the dust there's no reason not to.
  • A Death Note can only kill the person whose name is written. If he wrote "Matsuda: Shot by Soichiro", then it would work. If however he wrote "Soichiro: Shoots Matsuda, then himself", then either Soichiro would just suffer a heart attack, or the shooting of Matsuda would be non-fatal. As he doesn't know Near's name, there's no way of killing him with the note.
    • Actually even that doesn't work - if you write "Matsuda: shot by Soichiro", both Matsuda and Soichiro will die. Soichiro, with no specified time, will die of a heart attack, and that makes his killing of Matsuda impossible, so Matsuda also dies that way. You can do like Light did in the first movie and set up the deaths to interlink - eg. "Matsuda: shot by a colleague" and "Soichiro: shoots a coworker then himself", but there's always a risk of Light getting caught in the crossfire with this method (though he would have the comfort of knowing the shot wouldn't be fatal, due to Rule 29).
    • It might be possible to pull that off if you wrote each name, with cause of death, and fiddled with the details and times. For instance, start with "Matsuda: Gunshot wound" with a set time, then "Soichiro: Gunshot wound, shoots Matsuda then himself" and a time of death just after Matsuda's. This way the Death Note kills each separately, and they interlock.
    • Which is what Light did in the first Movie, what with killing his girlfriend and Naomi Misora.

Did Light's plan ever work at all?

• Did Light's plan, um, ever work at all? You'd think by the third or so day of mass criminal killings that any potential criminals would either a) stop committing crimes at all or b) turn themselves in to avoid the same punishment. Did crime ever go down?
  • Matsuda reported in episode 6 that there had been a masive decrease in crime. The manga Distant Finale had that crime rates increased again only after Kira's death.
  • Higuchi mentions that during the two weeks where Kira isn't killing criminals, crime rates rose above what they were before Kira.
    • That reminds me of those quick weight-loss diets. Even though they may work while you are dieting, right after you stop and start eating normally, your weight will increase abnormally quickly. So that means... yeah, in the end Kira was useless for the world as a whole.
  • Not to mention that death penalty has never in history managed to stop people from committing crimes altogether. Now if Light had a gadget which allowed him to indentify all criminals he deemed unfit to live without needing them to be sentenced or at least identified as guilty by the police, the media or his own investigative efforts, then one could safely say that only lunatics would continue to commit crimes.
  • Light notes that deliberate acts of crime have all but vanished, but crimes of passion remain. The Death Note might cause criminals to rethink the risk, as well as eliminate repeat offenders, but it can't do away with crime.
  • As smart as Light was, he suffered a serious Did Not Do the Research moment when it comes to the effectiveness of capital punishment. Living in a country where the death penalty has been outlawed for almost 30 years, I've bothered to check the satistics for crime and noted there is a great decrease of indictable crimes since it's abolishment. Rate of murder by fire arms alone decreased from 4.8 per 100,000 to 2.6 per 100,000 shortly after the year capital punishment was outlawed. At current in Australia (mentioning the country so that the more skeptic tropers and do the research themselves), only 1.2 per 100,000 deaths are caused from all forms of murder, and the rate of murder has a pattern of dropping each year. Not only that, but the top four safest countries, (in descending order) Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, and Ireland, also have made capital punishment illegal for many years as well (varies depending on which country). Yes, the countries named safest in the world DO NOT NEED TO KILL THEIR CRIMINALS TO REMAIN SAFE. And Light just conveniently DIDN'T KNOW THIS! The fifth safest country, ironically being Japan, does still have the death penalty being a legal form of punishment, however very recently (September 2009) it's under "suspension" meaning it won't be used on criminals of indictable crimes unless the government sees any fit reason to rule against the suspension. It would be interesting to note how this change will affect crime rates in Japan, as we can use this as further evidence whether Light's plan was destined to fail from the start or had some merit to it.
    • All politics aside, I don't think you can draw any parallels between judicially administered capital punishment and Kira's extrajudicial style of "justice". On the one hand, you have death sentences handed down in public proceedings conducted by prosecutors and judges worried (at least in the USA) about getting re-elected. On the other hand, you have Light using an untraceable method to kill criminals and other people who, in his sole opinion, don't deserve to exist. Considering that his ultimate goal is to intimidate the general population into changing their way of life, this is basically terrorism. A better real-world comparison would look at how people have historically responded to large-scale and ongoing terrorism as opposed to capital punishment.
    • Regardless, when it comes down to crimes as severe as murder, criminals don't factor in the consequences of being caught, twenty years imprisonment or death if they expect to be caught they won't do it.
      • However, for some criminals "not getting caught" and "not getting found out" aren't the same thing. Some depend upon having a corrupt legal system on their side or living in a region of the world where law enforcement agencies are relatively weak and out-gunned (terrorist organizations, drug cartels, Somalian warlords, those kinds of people). Plus, while we're given few details about what the criminals Light kills actually did, we do know that, after he killed a purse snatcher during his potato chip gambit, he starts killing minor criminals of that sort on a regular basis, so it's probably safe to say that Light deals out the death penalty more liberally than most countries we have statistics on.
      • Not to mention the deaths of people who were actually found innocent of crimes and were merely accused. Then again, in the anime, when Takada mentions people being killed who are not "contributing to society," Kira says she is revealing his hand too early. We're long past criminality.
    • And then there's the fact that after the time-skip he start relying in people's accusation on the internet, it isn't much of a stretch to simply accuse someone you don't like of a crime and let Kira do your dirty work, after all, I really doubt they had time to check avery single criminal they kill. Then there's the ones that were wrongly accused or autright framed, under Kira's ruled every person accused is undoubtedly guilty and worthy of death. Knowing Light, he peobably considered all this and saw it as "necessary sacrifices" this is all incredibly similar to a terrorist's mindset because he IS a terrorist, the whole point of his plan is make people too scared to commit a crime, which actually worked. However, even after taking out all the bad apples (read: remorslessly slaughter millions) the second Kira is out of the picture crime rises again, proving completely wrong Mikami's theory of "Bad people turn good people bad, take out the bad and the good will remain good" then there's the fact that with millions dropping like houseflies there's bound to be some consecuences, crimminals do more than just commit crime, they work, they spend, they conssume, so Kira probably messed up a bunch of economies. So all in all, it seems that shockingly, mass murder is not the best way to make a better world.

The Lind L. Tailor incident

• OK, the whole Lind L. Tailor thing bugged the crap out of me. Number one: it was so obviously a trap that a genius like Light should have seen it coming a mile away. Number two: even if Lind L. Tailor had been L, that still would have given the other policemen the information they needed to know. Number three: All Light had to do was not kill Lind L. Tailor, and they wouldn't have been able to determine where he was. Thoughts?
  • He's still a teenager, and as L surmised "childish and hates to lose". He made a bad decision in the spur of moment, because at that time he still hadn't give any serious thought to battling wits with an equal. Remember that this was right at the start of his career; though a genius, he doesn't yet have the experience.
  • Also, he has the whole "ego" thing. He needed to prove that opposition would not be tolerated. In his mind, the pros outweighed the cons. Of course, he still didn't known about the whole "only in the one region of Japan" thing.
  • He didn't even know about the existence of L, you know. And his killing Lind L. Tailor immediately is not so sensible, based on that.
  • It was shown as something impulsive on the Anime. What I don't get is that in the Anime, for forty seconds Lind L. Taylor is shown on television doing nothing and after forty seconds (still shown on-air), he has an heart attack. Wouldn't greedy TV execs complain about lost air time, and return to normal programming before then?
    • If so, it might have gone something like this: "You can't wait another minute to help us catch the most dangerous serial killer in the world?" "No." "Here's a big sack of money." "Okay."
  • Why didn't he ever think to instead write "Lind L. Tailor dies in 40 minutes" or something to that effect so that he wasn't to die immediately and make it so obvious that Kira was watching at that time? Even if he did underestimate his opponent, he still could have killed the person he was tricked into believing was L - eliminating the competetion and satisifying his own ego - and still have saved himself from being exposed that early. Considering the plan was to redo that new announcement in each region, if Light had just specified a later time for Lind L. Tailor to die, it would have been harder for L to determine where Kira was in the first instance. Considering this is L, I doubt he'd fall for Kira being in another region. Since Light wasn't even aware of the scam, there is no way that a random appointed time would kill Tailor in perfect time with an appearance in another region. The death would most likely be delayed or too early, and L would probably assume that there's a way to kill by specifying time, too. So the series could continue as it did, it would just be that Light hadn't given away his position so soon in the series.
    • Because he was pissed off. How dare this mortal stand up to a God (of the new world)? How DARE he call Kira evil when he is putting so much effort into cleansing the world of REAL evil? Let's kill him right now to show him and the rest of world what happens when you don't get behind the effort to end crime and start a new utopia. HAHAHAHA! Now he is gone and... wait, why is there a digitally distorted voice talking? Oh shi-
  • Further more, how did Light kill Lind L. Tailor? He needs to know the face and full name of the person to kill them; however, he doesn't know the full name of Lind L. Tailor. He only knows the given name and surname. He doesn't know what the L stands for in the middle name. So how could this have worked unless Lind's parents were idiots and decided to give him the letter L for a middle name?
  • It doesn't say he needs the full name, just the name. He didn't seem to need middle names for anyone else.
    • Except everyone at the beginning of the series were Japanese, and in general, Japanese people do not have middle names. The few non-Japanese people Light did write in his Death Note also didn't have any middle names (that I can remember). He wouldn't need to write any middle names for people that didn't have any, so it doesn't explain about Lind L. Tailor.
    • How To Use I: The human whose name is written in this note will die. Both the first and last name must be written in order for the effects to take place.

Why didn't Japan declare martial law as soon as Kira appeared?

• Alright, why exactly was there an investigation? There's a guy out there who can kill indiscriminately. He has repeatedly shown that he has no qualms about mass killings. Wouldn't it be in Japan's best interest, to, I dunno, declare martial law until they find Kira?
  • Because then the politicans would die.
    • And that's necessarily a bad thing? The politicans in the series appear quite unless or cowardly.
    • That's not the point. The point is that it would be up to the politicians to declare martial law or a lockdown or something, and they are unlikely to do something that will get themselves killed.

Why does Light react so pathetically when exposed by Near?

• After re-watching the final episode today, I'm hit with the question of why Light reacted so pathetically when exposed by Near. It would seem, if he really is as popular with most of Japan (and probably elsewhere in the world) that he might have a good expectation of being broken out of prison by his supporters or at least getting a very light sentence (on this note, since the Death Note is magic, it would seem hard to convict someone of using it- everyone Light killed died of a heart attack or "suicide"). Granted, it is easy to imagine him being executed fairly quickly because officials worry about this, but as mentioned above, the very fact there is an investigation might imply support for Kira. My own answer to this question is that Light really is a crazy egomaniac who is mislead into thinking of himself as powerful without the Death Note which he actually isn't, and cannot tolerate being anything less than a god. Nevertheless, he really loses his cleverness at this moment.
  • Light breaks down because he is a sociopath who has just been exposed for all to see; his falling apart represents the mask torn off from hiding his madness. There are no more strings to pull and he knows it; there's no way he could be sentenced in an offical trial (he wrote damn names into a notebook!), so most likely he would have faced just a quick field execution.
  • Given that most of the world now seems to take Kira's existence for granted, pinning the deaths to someone shouldn't be that far out there. The only question is whether or not the Death Note itself would be admissible as evidence. Considering that nobody else who learned what the Note was seemed to have a problem with it, that, too, ought to be at least possible, if not an easy trick. Just off the top of my head, if they didn't want to risk the trouble of getting the Death Note officially recognized, they could have pulled a Lind L. Tailor on him - arrested, tried, sentenced and most probably executed in secret by those "in the know."
    • Near says that was his plan.
    • Remember that Near wasn't a good guy by any stretch and had long since demonstrated a willingness to engage in criminal activities to catch Light. There was no reason to expect any outcome but a quick murder.
  • There's a famous saying that applies here. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". It's clear the Death Note is as near as absolute power as one can get in the series (or in the real world for that matter) without being a Shikigami. Imagine the possibilities of being able to just kill by writing a name in a book, especially when you're in a world where magic is not meant to exist. Who wouldn't be tempted with that power? Unfortunately, the allure of that power just changed Light for the worst. As we saw, at the beginning he was only planning on killing criminals to make the world a better place. Then that extended to killing people who were trying to stop him, because in his mind, they were just as bad as criminals. Then it went further as to Light making himself to be the new God of this world. With such power and an extremely high opinion of himself (that was being fed with every win he had, especially after defeating L) when reality finally crashed down on him, it hit him real hard. Doesn't help him that he was practically unstable because of the power feed all of his success seem to be giving him, all it needed was for something to fall apart for him to snap.

Why are the names of even the most ordinary criminals published in TV?

• Why are the names of even the most ordinary criminals published in TV? Once Light kills a friggin' purse-snatcher because no better catch is available; since when were minor thefts reported in the news, much less with the name of the culprit? In most of the world the criminals have a right to privacy, except in the most high-profile cases.
  • I'd blame the Internet, but this was the Epic Chips Incident. Somebody working on that station was Mikami-style batshit, maybe?
  • Maybe this is an an example of Values Dissonance and this actually happens in Japan?
    • Correct. Newspapers and TV broadcasts always give the full name and age of any criminal, even when they are only suspected criminals. There is right to privacy for victims, only. Also, purse-snatching is one of the more common crimes in this country; remember that Japan being much less violent than other places, theft seems relatively worse.
• Why is pretty much all TV live in this universe - much less after the Sakura Incident?
  • The off chance that someone will die on camera boosts ratings? But really, newscasting is traditionally a live medium, and that's what the show is concerned with.

Why is Light portrayed as a genius of L-like levels?

• Why is Light portrayed as a genius of L-like levels? Yes, he could hold off L for a little while, but within ten or so episodes Light is L's prime suspect. In fact, as soon as "Lind L. Taylor" appeared in the Death Note, L had the upper hand, and he could, now that I watch the series again, predict every single move Kira would make. The only reason Light wasn't caught earlier was because he's using a freakin' magic book.
  • That's Mello's take on it in the prequel novels, for a certainty, but his Crazy Prepared tactics, as illustrated best by episodes eight (the surveillance) and thirty-one (passing the notebook preemptively to Mikami), show you the kind of person you're dealing with even when he isn't on the offense - and that fact of his offensive stance is precisely what brought things to a head so soon; he thought of it, ultimately correctly, as more his getting close to L than the other way around. The fact that he's a manipulative son of a bitch may take things a bit out of his direct province, but it doesn't leave any black marks on his intelligence. Quite the contrary.
    • So he's just Crazy Prepared, if I read that right.
    • A more accurate reading would be "weren't you paying any attention?" I suppose the salient point is that Light is not on the defensive until he absolutely has to be - that hardly makes him stupid, though. L has the same mindset in their little tennis match: witness his decision to bring Light into the task force.
  • Don't forget both L and Light get perfect marks on their university entrance exams. Now compare, Light having been going to school and to an academy in order to prepare for this exam, and L just doing it in order to catch Kira.
  • By that same token you have Light coming from a "normal" background, going to a normal school (i.e. Surrounded by Idiots) and he is able to play the game with L--who in all likelihood was brought up at a school for supergeniuses (where genius is the norm, all his peers would be geniuses, and smart is never smart enough)... Now, guess who would be better adjusted--it's no small wonder Light develops a God complex.
    • The thing about perfect marks is, there's no way to know who would have done better. Maybe, if the test had been harder, Light would have won; maybe L would have won. That's part of the beauty of them both scoring PERFECT, instead of just both getting, say, 98%.
  • Its worth noting that the only reason Light becomes L's prime suspect is because of a series of events set into motion by Naomi Misora's death. Naomi Misora's presence was something Light could not possibly anticipate, and until that point he had remained almost entirely in control of the situation, without ever doing anything which could point directly to him. Misora entering the equation was something he had to deal with immediately, otherwise he could be directly implicated, and his ability to effectively improvise with that shows great intelligence. He also could not anticipate that her disappearance would send L along the train of logic that would lead him to suspect Light. Everything only starts going wrong for Light when an entirely unpredictable variable becomes part of the system.
    • Umm, no. Light becomes the primes suspect because of Ray Penbar's death (if only Light gave him back that envelope before killing him) as Ray was the one investigating Light, giving Light a motive to kill him. L only briefly considers Naomi Misora being killed by Kira but then she's never mentioned again. It doesn't necessarily help that he can't confirm her death. L would have zeroed in on the people Ray was investigating whether Naomi died or not. Naomi Misora's death didn't really help the investigation at all.
  • You also need to consider that Light grew up in basically a normal life, with the most "exceptional" thing being that his father was second in command of the police force, whereas L was raised in Wammy's House which specifically groom the orphans there to be the greatest detectives. The fact that someone from an average background like Light managed to stay toe to toe with L says something. Although to be fair, L's real drawback was the team he worked with. If it weren't that they all knew Light and liked him and his father very much (not to mention that his father was on the team!), L would have definitely convicted Light a whole lot sooner, without substantial evidence. Even Light knew that much was keeping him safe, otherwise he wouldn't have tried to get as close to L as he did.
    • Most of Light's criminal career is a crude combination of luck, nepotism, and divine intervention. He has moments of being The Chessmaster, but every single one of his opponents has him handily outclassed at every turn. Naomi gets a brainfart that allows him to kill her. His dad has all of the information on the Kira case on his laptop and never changes his password. At various times, literal gods of death go out of their way to cover his tracks and watch his back. The second deathnote's appearance is a convenient backdoor for him to step out of L's closing trap while ultimately introducing the improbable stalker-like relationship that allows him to use an unstoppable god of death as a supernatural grenade which ultimately defeats L. L isn't outmaneuvered, the rules just change wildly around his head because Light happens to be handsome.

After "winning" Light sits on his rear for five years

• After L is killed, Light had thought he had won. So he sat on his rear end for three years and messed with the investigation team. Why didn't he just kill them all off? There is a slight chance that somebody not on the investigation team would figure out that Light was the only one who survived. So Light could just run away and get himself a new identity.
  • Because then they would just recruit a new team, only this team Light wouldn't have control over them or know their identities in case he had to kill some of them.
    • I thought the Japanese police disowned the investigation team, and they were working off L's savings. If Light had killed them off, it would take quite some time until a group with the funding and determination showed up. Well, it would take three years, but Light didn't know that at the time.
  • Are you forgetting that his father was also on the team? If he was willing to do that, the entire second half of the manga would not have happened.
    • Hell, if L had sent his files to Whammy House instead of deleting them, it wouldn't have mattered. The manga would have ended five days later with Near and Mello showing up on Light's doorstep with a CIA hit squad.
    • But that has its risks. Light could've notice files being send to the Wammy House and be able to locate them.
  • It also had a lot to do with the fact that he was just that confident. As he starts pulling the strings to get his long-term plan into action, he muses that without L around, it's just gotten too easy. No point running the risk of someone deciding, "Oh, hey, the entire Kira investigation team just died except for Light Yagami, wonder if that means anything."
  • He also believed that time was on his side; it's noted that if Near had failed, then the world would have come to accept Kira and there would be no third attempt. He believed that if he could maintain the pretense of investigating Kira, then eventually no one would be willing to oppose him.
  • Doesn't explain why he couldn't have killed them off one at a time over long periods of time. He could have easily quit after the first or second death by some BS about feeling guilty that everyone is dying because of his poor judgement and he thinks it's better he's not on the team, or he could just BS being afraid because he is young with a long life ahead of him (well, only if Ryuk hadn't killed him when he failed in the end) where he had a good future to look forward to so it's not illogical that he wouldn't be scared for his life and I doubt there'd be anyone on the team who'd stop him from leaving if he really wanted. Since he'd "left" the team, there wouldn't be a reason for people to suspect why Kira wanted him dead when he "gives up". That's basically the same reason the police force refused to investigate this case, and you don't see Kira killing them after they gave up. As for his father; we know Light would never kill him (well at that time) so instead as Kira, because he knows his father's weaknesses, he could just threaten Soichiro into giving up, like saying to kill his family or what-not if he didn't leave the team.
  • If he killed them, the game would be over. There's a lingering threat over his head that a lot of people don't notice: Ryuk. If Light killed the task force, there would be no one to oppose him. No more gambits, no more clever disguising of hindrances as helpfulness, no more acting simultaneously as killer and investigator of said killings. No more Xanatosing. Kira rules unopposed and no one can stop him. Bland and, most importantly, boring. And if Light becomes boring, Ryuk will kill him.
  • Ryuk never threatened to kill Light if he became boring. The reason he didn't kill the investigation team is because he knew they were no threat to him. Light was still, in his own mind, a force for good, and killing the investigation team unnecessarily would have been evil.

When Near asks about the fake rules...

• When Near asked which rule Light thought was fake why didn't he suggest that the rule about destroying the Death Note was false?
  • It's one of those mind-games along the lines of the index cards. If Light suggested any other rule on Sidoh's note, it would make considerably less sense, and Near would point this out in front of the NPA.
  • Whoops, reading comprehension. It's because Mello was a twit and only made there out to be one fake rule, and in any case, the 13-day rule is the big 'un. (I suppose confirmation on the destroying rule came from Lidner.)
  • Mello didn't tell Near that two of the rules were fake, just that "at least" one of them was. Light didn't know about Sidoh, so he was led to assume they knew one of them was fake because it had been tested. The real rules had all been proven, and it wouldn't make much sense for Mello and his mafia-buddies to try destroying the Death Note they had to test the other fake rule, so by "process of elimination," he "reasons" that the 13-day rule must be the one if any of the rules are indeed false.

Why did Light kill Takada? / HOW did Light kill Takada?

• Why did Light kill Takada? She wouldn't have told the task force that Light is Kira and the only other way they could have connect Light to Kira is by the fact Takada would need to know Mello's real name to kill him in which case Takada could simply claim she had shinigami eyes.
  • She was still a potential risk, but also lost her usefulness to him once she became arrestable. (Frankly, had the events from 1.28 gone just as planned, I suspect Mikami would have been next in line.)
    • Your suspicions are incorrect. Light made it explicitly clear that Mikami was the ONLY one he would keep alive after his master plan because he was so useful.
  • If Takada were discovered with pages of the Death Note on her, Near might have figured out that she was doing the killing for Mikami and guessed about the fake notebook.
  • While we're on the subject, how exactly do you start a fire when you're locked inside a steel box, stripped naked, with nothing but a blanket and a fragment of Death Note? Is Takada really MacGyver in disguise?
  • There was a motorcycle in the back with her, but still...

Kira's Notebooks II

• Light gave the Kira task force the Death Note that Ryuk was linked to so they could get the Death Note Mello had stolen back. Later they gave the Death Note Mello had back to Shidoh which left the task force with Ryuk's Death Note and Light with a Death Note that wasn't linked to a shinigami. Furthermore, Ryuk's Death Note was put in a safe the could only be opened if every member of the task force was present. So, how was Misa able to send Mikami Ryuk's Death Note?
  • Ryuk's Note never left him; the one he wrote the rules in was Shidoh's, temporarily owned by Ryuk, then Rem, and then taken out of play. Rem's Note was unattached, but Gelus's Note was linked to Ryuk during the switcheroo. Probably sometime offscreen either Light or Misa gave the Note to Ryuk and had him drop it again.

Why didn't Light choose a successor?

• Why didn't Light have a plan in place that would cause someone else to become Kira when he died?
  • Light's whole purpose for inventing Kira was so that he would one day rule over the New World as a God (his stated reason for avoiding the Shinigami eye deal was that he intended to rule for as long as possible). He had no interest in what the condition of the world would be after his death, since he was a sociopath.
  • He might have been planning to get around to it later. Once things settled down, he wasn't in any imminent danger, so he could focus on solidifying his position as Kira. Then procrastination set in...

Why didn't Light have a backup plan for the final confrontation?

• Why didn't Light have a backup plan for the final confrontation? I know, I know, escalating levels of hubris, but still you'd think he'd get some pleasure out of beating Near so thoroughly that he didn't have to play all his cards? For example, he could have written "Matsuda: Head trauma. Killed by pro-Kira forces in the process of successfully rescuing Kira," thus rendering him safe for the next 23 days.
  • Well, that particular plan probably wouldn't work based on the rules. He'd have to be certain somehow that no one in the mob or on Near's team would be killed in the process, or else whoever he wrote down would just die of a heart attack. He probably didn't contact pro-Kira forces because that would require him to reveal himself more publicly, which itself makes him a good deal easier to hunt down by people who aren't even genius detectives. I guess the ego would have to account for not having any backup plan at all, the same way he sort of condemned himself by declaring his victory.

Why did Light give Misa back her notebook? / Why did Rem touch Misa with the notebook?

• Why did Light give Misa back her notebook, and why did Rem touch Misa with the notepaper? Light was terrified by Misa's domination of him before then, and Rem should have noticed that the death note repeatedly caused Misa all sorts of misery.
  • Light gave Misa back her notebook after Rem's death, because Misa was no longer a threat in any way. It was Rem's retribution he had previously feared. He could kill her if he needed to after Rem had died. Also, Rem had touched Misa with the Death Note paper because Higuchi was planning to marry Misa and kill her for the insurance money, so Rem wanted to ensure Misa's safety and Higuchi's capture.

Why wasn't there a massive clampdown on broadcasting people's names?

• Kira should've become almost irrelevant within a couple of weeks due to a massive clampdown. I remember some kind of Hand Wave about "Kira supporters on the internet" and realize the author may have been trying to make a point about how heartless and trashy the news is, but the entire premise is still absurd. Simple social pressure combined with virtually innevitable regulations would mean that no police department or court could mention a suspect's name in good conscience, no jail could reveal its prisoners, and no news gatherer in good standing would dare to investigate crimes. Whistleblowers would live in constant fear of losing their jobs after being branded proxy murderers. Light was a policeman in Japan, but that wouldn't have granted him access to anywhere near enough victims to warrant the fuss still being made over Kira.
  • At one stage one of the task force says that they should stop broadcasting the names of criminals, and L says that if that happened Kira would just start killing civilians.
    • It's unlikely that that would do much to stop the world governments and media. As an above troper mentioned, even reporters would censor names from their reports for fear of legal ramifications (in some countries you can sue for just about anything).
  • During the timeskip, Light, as the second L, orders that the media stop broadcasting the faces of criminals, and in response, people post information about criminals on the internet.
    • Which brings up a major problem I've always had with Light. How does he know most of the people he's killing are guilty of anything? An arrest isn't a guilty verdict: innocent people are arrested all the time. Hell, innocent people go to prison all the time, but Light isn't even waiting for the trial. He just sees a name and face, and starts scribbling. If Richard Jewell were a character in Death Note, he'd never have lived long enough to be vindicated: he would have died at Light's hands for the sole crime of being a hero and then getting questioned by police about it. And if Light's using the names people are posting on the internet after the timeskip... well, what's to stop anyone from simply posting their enemies on the list? Light can't confirm their arrests with the police: if he could, he wouldn't need online supporters in the first place. For all his talk of justice, Light's probably killed more innocent people than he has actual criminals (especially when you add in all the innocent people he's knowingly, even sadistically, killed just for threatening to blow his cover).
    • Or to put it more simply, Light's turned "trial by media" into all-out "execution by media".
    • Yes. Because Light is a sociopath with a god complex, who has appointed himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner. This is just one of the many examples why he is the Villain Protagonist and not The Hero.
  • I had this same realization some time back. But at several poits Light has insisted that he actually weighs factors when making judgements. When proving himself to Pember he explains that man has repeatedly been tried for sexual assault. However each time he was dismissed for lack of evidence. That shows a greater degree of understainding his criminal history than "arrest report was published". Later during the memory gambit, he analyzes Kira's killings and takes note that in contrast with Yotsuba's Kira, who killed accused as soon as they were broadcast, the first Kira didn't make a pattern of killing those with "excusable situations" and the repentant. Now he clearly had a outliers showcased in the progress of events. Such as the various petty criminals he killed while dodging L's survalance, and Kira's enemies. However Light apparently, to an objective obsrver, was more deliberative when making his mass killings. At least before his victory over L.

Matsuda's Theory

• So, what is the likelihood of Matsuda's idea that Near killed Mikami actually being true? Also, did Mello kidnap Takada in cooperation with Near?
  • As for the first, none. It is stated in this very page that Near had no contact at all with the Death Note before Gevanni made the switch.
  • Yeah, but he could have killed Mikami after Gevanni switched them. Matsuda's theory is that he used the Note to control Mikami into not performing any checks on the fake notebook. The creator says that it's up to us to draw our own conclusions, so there's probably no 'real' answer.
  • Isn't it entirely discounted (at least in the anime) by Mikami's Shinigami Eyes showing Near's lifespan?
    • No, because Near didn't own the notebook, he just wrote in it (assuming the theory is true, which, in my opinion, it is).

In Another Note...

• In Another Note, (massive spoilers ahead)...
  • Why doesn't Misora realize that something is wrong when Ryuzaki not only reads off the Roman numerals on the victim's chest instantly, but knows their correct order? We're told earlier that Naomi has to "twist the picture around a lot" to read them at all, so Ryuzaki's ability to list them in order fingers him as the killer.
  • Ryuzaki and Misora come up with an extremely elaborate explanation to explain how the number 22 is connected to the letter B. Kanji are involved. Question: Given that B is the second letter of the alphabet, and two of the victims have the initials "B. B." why doesn't anybody point out the obvious substitution cipher?
  • Why doesn't B expect Misora to mention to L that "Ryuzaki" had possession of a crossword puzzle that he could only possess if he were the murderer or had a secret police connection? It's an absurd risk.
    • I thought the narrative explained that B did expect Misora to tell L about the puzzle, and that that would label him to L as an interesting figure who needed to be watched closely, causing him to instruct Misora to work with him.

Why did Light kill the remaining members of the Yotsuba group?

• Why did Light kill the remaining six members of the Yotsuba Group? Was it for siding with Higuchi!Kira, or for not siding with Higuchi!Kira?
  • Most likely? For knowing too much.
  • That did cross my mind, but I don't know what they could have told anyone that wasn't already known.
  • He could have just thought they warranted killing. Kira lowered his standards by that point.
  • Well, he also killed Aiber and Wedy. All of them were dangerous for his plans.
  • Ummm... HELLO? It's because they were CRIMINALS! They deliberately used the Death Note to kill business rivals. It doesn't matter how they got it, why they used it, whether they were unwilling or scared or bullied into joining the "meetings of death" they used it in an evil, self-serving manner (according to Kira's version of justice) and had to be PUNISHED.
    • Well, that's what I first thought, but then it occurred to me that maybe he killed them because they went against Higuchi in the end, and therefore against the killing of criminals.
  • It was most likely for knowing too much, they knew about a bunch of rules, like all the stuff about killing in ways other than heart attacks, the times, the possibilities etc. Like A Iber and Wedy, they were a liability and removing them from the game was just less pieces to keep an eye on. If you remember, Near learned of the notebook from an officer that was in Huguchi's arrest, which ultimately led to his demise, which goes to prove how important it was for Light to be thourough with the control of information.

Light offers to let L lock him up to prove his innocence before he had any allies or other strings to pull

• Early on, Light offers to let L lock him up somewhere with no TV or anything, but L declines. What would Light have done had he accepted? He hadn't met Misa yet, so he had no allies to speak of, and the note can only set the time of death for 23 days in the future. What would stop him being found out?
  • Maybe he was absolutely sure L would decline his offer...

Which of the Wammy's detectives is M, Mello or Matt?

• Which of the Wammy's detectives is M, Mello or Matt? And what letter is given to represent the other one?
  • They probably use lower and upper case.
  • Or a two-letter name; Watari is "W" while Wedy is "We" and Aiber is "A" while Aizawa is "Ai".
    • Isn't Wedy a lowercase "w"?
  • Only four people at Wammy's house have actual letters: L Lawliet (L), Watari (W), Near (N), and Mello (M). Matt is never even stated to be a detective, and is never adressed by or referred to by a letter. As far as we know, he's just helping out Mello. The others who have letters only have them when working with L to make identification easy (i.e. it's not a title that they have, just a temporary codename.)

Did Light really believe that no-one would notice if everyone assigned to the Kira case except him suddenly died?

• In the last episodes, did Light really believe that no-one would notice if everyone assigned to the Kira case except him suddenly died?
  • Who would be left? Near already worked independently from the Unites States, so his death would probably not even be noticed. And even if it would be, only Near and his team knew that they were meeting with L (and that L was Light,) so to everyone else they would have just been killed by Kira. And it's pretty much the same for the Japanese team, who also worked mostly independent. Additionally, even if somebody would notice that L was the only survivor, everyone who knew who L is would already be dead. At best no-one would notice, at worst Light would have to discard his identity as L, but at that point it probably didn't matter, as most of the world had surrendered to him anyway.
    • You have some good points. Still, it was incredibly presumptuous of him to work on the basis that there was no chance of there being any SPK members that Near was keeping in reserve, and that Near wouldn't have left any records (after all, L did), and that there was no way Light's own family would think it was weird that he wasn't found dead with the other task force members.
  • Yes he did, Light is an idiot like that... Light is so focused on defeating uber-genius rivals he often discounts anyone else (like underestimating the taskforce, and Matsuda).
  • He could have faked his death, made it look he died along with everyone else at the warehouse. No one would suspect a dead man and he then could more freely act as Kira under a new identity, as well as cleanly sever all ties with his former life so he wouldn't have to kill anyone he might potentially still care about to protect his identity.
    • For example he could have written in the Note "[Name of taskforce member] dies in explosion (or something similiar) with no possibility of identification of the victim left behind." and that for all members with specification of a place of which he knows there aren't other people who would interfere with the specified manner of death.

Shinigami eyes halve your lifespan so Soichiro would have died anyway?

• If Shinigami eyes remove half your remaining lifespan, does that mean that Soichiro would have died that night even if he hadn't taken them?
  • Misa’s originally scheduled death seems to confirm murders count as ‘natural deaths’ in Shinigami lifespan exchanges. If this is the case Chief Yagami was originally going to live twice as long from the exact moment he made the trade. Bad luck on his part, considering Soichiro had less than a day to live after making the trade.
  • Soichiro would have died later that night because the raid on Mello's base would have gone differently, but still ended fatally for him.

Rules Lawyering: Could you use the death note to incapacitate an unnamed group of people?

• Just thought of another question, not sure if it was asked above. I know you couldn't use a Death Note to force one person to kill another, but let's say Light had written something like "Matsuda killed in car crash that causes every other member of the Kira taskforce to be seriously injured and in a comatose state"- could you cause that to happen?
  • I suppose so, but then Light would also be put into a coma.
    • Oops, I gave a bad example. I was thinking of a situation where Light could somehow know the name of one of Near's team and kill them and badly injure Near without knowing Near's real name.
    • Probably, as long as the ones whose names he didn't know were kept alive (including Near, of course.)
  • It wouldn't work. The Note doesn't have the power to put people into comas; it either kills them or it doesn't. Therefore the described death would be outside its powers and Matsuda would die of a heart attack.

What is so special about Misa that two shinigami are willing to die for her?

• What is so special about Misa that two shinigami are willing to die for her?
  • She shares their fashion sense.
  • She's adorable in a sufficiently messed-up sort of way.
  • In the Movie, Rem is not in love with her, she only fulfills the promise she made to Gelus of protecting Misa. But still...
    • She's MISA! End of story.
  • Everybody is straight for Misa.

How could a guy who's been shot five times outrun four healthy police officers?

• How did the task force members not catch Light in the last episode? He had a head start of about one minute, had three people after him and had been shot about four times!
  • Just as planned.
  • He might have used that minute's start to take an unexpected turn -- enough to keep ahead for a few more minutes. I think Rule of Drama can be applied here, as it didn't make much practical difference whether or not they actually caught up with him.

Why does no one try to resuscitate L?

• Why didn't anyone try to revive L? I mean, come on?! He's the freakin' leader of the Kira investigation! But has anyone attempted to revive a victim of a Death Note?
  • Personally, I always thought heart disease sufferers walked round with "Please Resuscitate" necklaces in this universe. But as for your original question, they did in the manga. They probably avoided it in the anime for time, and so that there was no break in the staggering dramatic irony.
  • In the manga, they (spoiler in link) try to take him to the hospital.
    • Yeah, the anime just cut that part out for the sake of pacing.

Matsuda gets excited about Light's relationships

• Why was Matsuda so excited about Light dating Takada? I thought he was Misa's friend.
  • He's Misa's fanboy, really, as well as Takada's. Not the scary-zealous sort and so perfectly willing to encourage a friend, but even so, it's not exactly a deep bond of trust going on.
  • He's not really her friend; she doesn't seem to like him.
  • The more I think about it, it seems that Matsuda has an unhealthy obsession with Light, and everything he does. He looks up to his dad, he is both a fanboy of Takada and Misa (whom Light has relationships with)- not to mention interested in Light's sister, he is not 100% turned off to Kira's cause - the list goes on. Mikami might think that Light/Kira is God and worship (in his own oh so twisted way), but Matsuda seemingly want to BE Light. This also explains his rampage at the end when his trust is betrayed.

Would Light have survived if Ryuk hadn't written his name?

• If Ryuk had not written his name in the Death Note, would Light have survived the multiple gunshots from Matsuda? I'm just trying to figure who is ultimately responsible for Light's death in the manga.
  • The implied answer is: yes. Ryuk states in both the anime and manga that he does not want to "wait around" for Light while he is in prison.
    • If you leaf through the rules too much, it complicates the matter significantly. Rule V states that a human cannot lengthen their lifespan using the Death Note, but they can shorten it. Rule XLII states that the use of the Death Note CAN inadvertantly adjust the lifespans of people who are not the intended target, as a result of the butterfly effect, and also that in these cases, the shinigami only sees the original lifespan and not the adjusted one. These two together mean that every use of the Death Note has a small possibility of shortening the user's lifespan, with no possibility of increasing it; it slowly kills you for using it, and even a shinigami cannot see how much time you ACTUALLY still have left. It's entirely possible that Light would have died right then and there; that his overusage of the Death Note ate up his entire lifespan. But Ryuk would have no way of knowing whether that's true, and acted based on what he could see.

Why does Light kill the FBI investigators?

• Why does Light expend so much effort on killing Raye Penber and the other FBI investigators? The only real benefit I can see from the killings is that they scared off the FBI for a while, and that would happen anyway if their investigation turned up nothing. The convoluted method Light uses to kill the FBI investigators makes it easy for L to narrow the search down to Raye's marks. Additionally, it brought Naomi Misora into the mix, a disaster Light only averted by chance; if anyone else came into possession of the knowledge Misora had and made similar deductions, he was done. OTOH, if he doesn't kill Raye, the FBI investigation turns up nothing. Light gets more time to establish plans of action; the FBI is discredited; the mistrust between L and the police builds as the mole isn't found; and everything generally goes more smoothly for Light. What, apart from Light's juvenile impatience and massive overconfidence, justifies his actions here?
  • This could have something to do with the Lind L. Taylor incident. Note that he is impulsive throughout the series. This also has to do with the fact that he doesn't have very much foresight except when he is Xanatos-ing everyone. I have the guess that, though he has a genius IQ, he lacks proper planning skills, seeing as he is seventeen and all at the time...
    • It's less that he lacks proper planning skills, and more that he has a huge underestimation complex. After all, that's how he dies.
  • If I recall, what he thought was that if the FBI turned up nothing the first time, they would investigate everyone again, but more in-depth, and he'd be more likely to be caught. So it was a pre-emptive strike, basically.

Dying in your arms tonight

• What was that weird flying tackle that Light gave to L? What purpose did it serve?
  • Proper gloating position.
    • Didn't the other task force members find it a bit odd, though?
    • I thought it fit well with the whole "NOOOOOO" thing he had going, myself.
  • You mean the flying tackle from episode 25? He was trying to catch L as he fell off his seat.

Odd names in Another Note

• In Another Note, what is the deal with the victims' names? They all seem rather odd, especially Backyard Bottomslash.
  • NISIOISIN likes weird names. Just look at the one he himself uses.
  • "Backyard Bottomslash" I lol'd.

Why didn't Light know that Near knew that he knew that he knew that something was up?

• In the final show down, what did Light think that Near thought that Light was thinking? Near wouldn't have come unless he replaced the Death Note with a fake. Light would know that, and thus wouldn't come unless the Death Note that was replaced was also a fake. Near would know that, and thus wouldn't come unless he replaced both the fake and the real one. That should continue forever making the final confrontation impossible, but somehow, Light missed that last step, and Near missed the one after that.
  • Also, what was Near thinking was going to happen when he arranged the meeting? Unless he knew when he arranged the meeting that Mikami's notebook was fake (which, admittedly, is possible, and Matsuda even suggests that Near subtly orchestrated Mello's kidnapping because he suspected the trick), he would've been assuming that Light would find it perfectly reasonable for Near and co to just sit there impassively while their names were being written into Mikami's notebook, and that wouldn't lead to Light or Mikami suspecting a trap.
    • Ah, but Light didn't suspect that Near would learn about Mikami's REAL Death Note! Light thought that Near believed that Mikami would bring the (fake) Death Note with a "fake" page that Near replaced, thinking it was the real Death Note--with a fake page. However, if it went according to plan (which it didn't) Mikami would actually bring the real Death Note, which Near didn't know about (or so he thought). Light thought that Near thought that Light thought Mikami was bringing the real Death Note, when in actuality, Near knew Light's real plan all along. Light didn't consider that Mikami would unwittingly allow Near to learn about his real Death Note, when he retrieved it to kill Takada. Near then replaced the real one with a second fake Death Note. Light was convinced that Mikami still had the real Death Note, and would retrieve it to kill them all (except Light), while believing Near to have a false sense of security, when in fact Mikami had brought a fake Death Note that Near's helper made...Simple!
    • Maybe I'm just dense, but I still don't think it makes sense.
    • It was a clash of Xanatos. They had both played their scheme, they were both utterly convinced that they knew which Death Note was actually the real one and the other did not, and if correct, they would win the game. As it turned out, Near was correct and Light was not.
  • Light: "Near thinks he's won because he replaced the pages on the notebook--but it was a fake in the first place! Mikami hid the real one! Near doesn't know that I already knew that Near replaced the pages. He thinks I'm wrong in thinking I've won, but I actually have!"
  • Near: "Light thinks I'm mistaken in thinking I've won, but I actually have! Light doesn't know that I learned the notebook whose pages I replaced was a fake. I have found Mikami's real one, and replaced it with a second fake! Furthermore, I know everything Light is thinking."
    • That's about as clear as I can make it. Both people believed themselves victorious, and knew that the other believed it, too. Furthermore, they each knew the other believed that they themselves believed themself victorious. * phew* They were both counting on it. Light came because he believed Mikami's real Death Note was safely hidden. He believed Near came because Near was under the impression that the (first) fake Death Note was the real one, and Light believed that Near believed that they wouldn't die because he (Near) replaced the pages. In actuality, Near came because he found and replaced the REAL Death Note with a fake of his own. (We've got two fakes now. Mikami's, and Near's.) Near knew Light believed himself victorious, and that Light believed they would all die. Near sort of pulled a double-reversal on Light, with both the trick of the page replacing AND the revelation that he found the real Death Note. Sorry if it's still not enough. It is admittedly a bit hard to follow...
  • It didn't appear that hard to follow. The concept was pretty basic, for the final plan on both parties. Simply, it was Light giving Mikami a fake Death Note to mislead anyone that would try to tamper with it. Predicting that Near would tamper with the book, it was essential to make the fake book appear like the real one. So Near had replaced one of the fake note book's pages with a plain piece of paper. Meanwhile the real Death Note was kept safe until Mikami brought it to the final confrontation. Unfortunately they slipped up, so Near end up finding out about the real Death Note. Thus Near switches the real one with a fake, to trick Light and Mikami. As I said, the concept was basic.
    • If the notebook was never tampered with, Near wouldn't have gone in there. Light knows this, so unless he decide to write on an untampered-page, he wouldn't have gone in there. Near knows this, so unless he replaced the whole notebook, he wouldn't have gone in there. Light knows this, so unless he made a red-herring notebook, he wouldn't have gone in there. Near knows this, so unless he replaced the second notebook, he wouldn't have gone in there. If you do this long enough, it means that in order for them to both go in, there must have been an infinite number of fake notebooks. It looks makes sense for the final plan. It's the meta-meta-hypothetical one that doesn't make sense. The problem is, the final plan is hinging on the meta-meta-hypothetical one at least making sense.
  • The whole fake page thing only adds one layer. If Near thought he was safe because he added a fake page, that would mean that he thought Light would expect him to just come in and get his name written in the Death Note.
  • Another attempt for those who still might not get it: Near: "Light Yagami will want to gather us all and then have X-Kira peek at the meeting and write down our names. But I got ahead of him, since I know that X-Kira is Teru Mikami! I'll arrange the meeting right away." Light: "Near will surely pinpoint Mikami as the one acting in my stead, I can confirm as much by telling Mikami to pay attention to people tailing him. Near will think he got ahead of me and he'll try to fake the pages starting from January 28. Instructing Mikami to keep pieces of pages would be troublesome since the SPK could find them, and I don't know to what extent he'll be observed...I'll tell him to create a fake notebook and keep the real one in a safe place. I'll have him pretend the one he's carrying is real by having him send pictures and names of criminals to Takada and having her kill them. Even if Near suspects a fake notebook, he won't know where to look for the real one, and I can gain insight on his thought by paying attention to whether or not he changes the date for the meeting." This is the basic premise. It goes to hell from there since it's never made clear how Mikami and Light could've been so ridiculously overconfident and careless in the end, and nothing really makes sense.
  • I think I understand the complaint now. It helps to think of it in terms of layers of deception.
    • Zero Layer: No deception involved. The meeting at the warehouse really is just a friendly meeting between allies; no one's trying to kill or arrest anyone else.
    • First Layer: Light instructs Mikami to come to the warehouse and write everyone's names down. Near, not expecting this betrayal, reacts to Mikami with hostility.
    • Second Layer: Near expected that Mikami would come to kill him, so he tampered with Mikami's Death Note ahead of time. If Near does not try to stop Mikami from writing down names, Light should realize what Near must have done, so it's Light that's gonna be freaking out.
    • Third Layer: Light expected that Near would tamper with the Death Note, so he had Mikami create a fake Death Note and keep the real one hidden away until that night. In this scenario, Light expects Near to let Mikami write down their names, so he doesn't freak out. But Near should expect to see Light freak out; when he doesn't, Near will realize he's been out-foxed and try (even if it's too late) to stop Mikami.
    • Fourth Layer: Near knew that Light had created a fake Death Note, so he took measures to find the real one and replace it as well. So Mikami shows up at the warehouse to kill them all. Near expected this, so he doesn't try to stop Mikami. Light expected Near not to do anything, so Light doesn't react. Near expected Light not to react, so Near doesn't react either. But Light should still expect Near to react to Light's lack-of-reaction. As far as Light knows, the deception's only three layers deep. When he gets no response from Near, he should realize that a fourth layer of deception has come into play and that Near has won.

Barred from Heaven and Hell?

• The rules of the Death Note state that if someone uses it, they will go to neither heaven nor hell. As Raye Penbar used the Note unwittingly, is he barred from heaven or hell?
  • The manga reveals that it's not just the Death Note users - everyone, user or not, goes to nothingness when they die. So Penber will go to nothingness but that would have happened whether or not he used the note.

Why aren't Misa and Light traumatized after being confined for fifty days?

• Misa was tied up and blindfolded for FIFTY DAYS! She did an exceptional job keeping her sanity, and was pretty damn quick to forgive L. Everything's all just fine afterwards. It's like the whole ordeal never happened. I can understand the Xanatos gambits, even the memory gambit, but Misa's super-quick recovery from her imprisonment is the one part of the story that snaps the string suspending his disbelief.
  • When you come to mental sanity, Misa is a poor excuse for a human being. From the very start she is completely nuts and self-centered. Even her blind love for Light is completely egotistical, to the point that she can't notice that he is not in love even when he doesn't care to act it up. Recovery? Recovery of what?
  • Point taken.
  • Light as well. Think about it- a genius that does not tolerate boredom well is tied up, unable to move in a small cell... What totally should have happened after Light has been confined for 50 days... (shades of The Yellow Wallpaper...)
  • I'm more bugged by memory-wiped Light being so willing to forgive L after not only imprisoned him for 50 days, but convinced his father to threaten to murder him for a crime he (in his mind) didn't do. Even though he wasn't Kira at this point, Light is still an exceptionally prideful guy. Even I'd take a long, LONG time to warm up to L (and everyone else involved) again after that. But Light forgets all about it on the very same page.
  • Memory-wiped Light still remembers that it was him who asked L to keep him locked up and under observation, even if he can't remember the reason so he is all like "what was I thinking?!" for those days. So he probably won't be too mad at L for something he realizes was his own damn fault. I dunno about the spoilered bit, though.
  • Misa is shown to act different after losing her memories of the Death Note when she's being held in confinement. A certain amount of times passess after being captive, and Misa totally breaks. She's shown crying, screaming, begging for death, and attempts to bite her tongue off. Then Rem shows up and asks Misa if she wants to lose her memories of the Death Note. Misa says yes, then faints. At this point she's lost all memories relating to the Death Note, being a Kira, having met the Kira, and Rem and Ryuk. She's also unaware of why she's being held in confinement. After she wakes up she's bubbly and normal(?). She refers to L as 'Mr. Stalker' and offers to kiss him ^[3] She's forgotten most of the trumatic events she went through up to that point, because it was done specifically because L knew she was the second Kira. L explains to her that he's not a stalker, and that she is being held by police under suspicion of being the second Kira, which she denies. Not too much long after, she is released. So at this point she doesn't have much reason to be angry with L, or she is angry and is just hiding it. ^[4]

At the warehouse couldn't Light have talked his way out of it?

• When Mikami gave Light away at the end, couldn't Light have talked his way out of it? After all, Mikami (correctly) thought Light was Kira because Light owned a Death Note. But it was common knowledge to the Investigation Team that they * had* a Death Note that they kept in the safe, and indeed brought it to Near. Light could say that by some technicality, even though Aizawa was holding it, that Light was technically the owner. That's why Mikami mistook him for Kira. The story could at least buy him some time, couldn't it?
  • "Well Near, it looks like I win." That's a confession, yo.
  • Plus, revealing the rules about notebook ownership would give him away as Kira, wouldn't it?
  • I suppose his "victory" line was pretty much a confession. I'm still not sure Near's plan was foolproof though--if Light hadn't confessed by declaring his victory. Couldn't he at least "theorize" that he was the owner because he was holding it when Soichiro died? It still seems like a flaw in Near's plan. Someone in the Task Force has to be the owner, right?
    • Um, previous troper here. Disregard that. I realize now that the fact that Mikami showed up at all, and knew Kira would be there, and wrote all the names except Light, was the proof that Light was Kira.
    • There was, however, the possibility that Mikami could have anticipated such and wrote down Light's name along with the others, without thinking of his face (admittedly a rather difficult feat of concentration, but it can be done).
    • It's an extremely dangerous proposition, though. If Light's face pops into mind at any point while he's writing it, he'll kill Light.
  • He tried to bluff his way out with a claim that Aizawa's notebook is fake (and perhaps, someone out there has another real notebook and might be yet another Kira), but Near sees through that, and he goes for using the watch to kill Near instead.
    • Strictly speaking, he might have been able to bluff by saying that Mikami was actually working for Near, and that Mikami had knowingly come there with a fake Death Note, and had been instructed by Near to write everyone's names but Light's, in order to frame Light when he was apprehended. However, this would definitely require Near to be the real Kira, as otherwise he wouldn't want to frame Innocent!Light. It might've been enough to convince Matsuda, and the chaos from that might've been enough to let him escape, but I can't really expect him to come up with that rather convoluted and unreliable plan on the spot.
    • Actually, that was exactly the plan I came up with when I saw Near pulling out the real notebook. The very moment that no one died and Near identified the only name not written as Light's, Light's next words should have been something like, "So you have come to kill me, Near? Matsuda, Mogi, seize Kira and search him." Yes, it would have seemed like a stretch, but they were all shocked to be alive, and in a sense, Light's assertion would have been no more farfetched than Near's.

Did Light notice that his plan was impossible to succeed?

• Did Light notice that his plan was impossible to succeed? Even if he had won against Mello, Near, Zombie L and whoever he could go against, eventually he would have died of old age... And during this time he would have ruled a would by fear (ie. the worst way possible, as once he had made a little slip, anyone would have been at his throath) with half of the world population against him. You hope a genius like him should have been genre savy enough to know this.
  • You say Ruling by fear as if that's bad. Light's pretty darn Machiavellian. Not to mention, it would be the fear of God. If it's good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for you.
  • In the first place, Machiavelli never said that a Prince mus rule by fear (actually, quite the opposite, only attacking when strictly necessary). Plus, no, it's not good enough, as God does not rule by fear, and seeing how many God Is Evil story are, I think that take out a God whose lifespan is 100 years at best is not a big deal. Also, Light DID kill a God of Death (Rem), why can't all the humanity can?
    • He believes that he's not only dealing with criminals, but also dealing with the conditions that cause them, thinking that criminal acts cause the victims to believe that unscrupulous means are the only way to get by. He thinks that if no one commits crimes, everyone will be free to live virtuously, and the vicious cycle will be eliminated. Whether they will continue to do so without the fear of death by Kira is another matter, though.
    • God doesn't rule by fear? Have you read The Bible? Heard an old fashioned fire and brimstone sermon? Heard someone use "Godfearing" as a synonym for morally upright? Did you know that Christians tend to distrust atheists because they don't believe people will try to be good unless they're being watched?
  • Once he is done killing his genius rivals, he can start looking for and grooming a successor so the world will always be ruled by Kira. Hell, maybe he would finally consummate his marriage with Misa and produce the next God of the new world himself!

Did Near set up the final confrontation with no knowledge that Mikami's notebook was a fake?

• Did Near set up the final confrontation with no knowledge that Mikami's notebook was a fake? When I watched episode 35 I thought that they tested his fake gym notebook by replacing it with their own fake and noting that the deaths continued, thus there must be a real one hidden somewhere. But judging from the finale, they only noted how many pages he wrote per day and used that to replace the page(s) they figured he'd be writing on for the meeting date. Why leave it to that much chance? If they could create a replica of the real book after finding out about it purely by Mikami's mistake, why didn't they do the same for the fake one before that?
  • Whether or not Near knew when he arranged the meeting is left ambiguous. He himself claims that he didn't, but Matsuda theorizes that perhaps he suspected it and that he intentionally had Lidner leak information to Mello so that Mello would kidnap Takada, thus causing Mikami to slip up and reveal the location of the other notebook. Also, it's harder to duplicate the entire book. If they tried that and messed it up, it would have ruined their plan. Of course, since they just replaced some of the pages, had the notebook been real, Mikami could have just written on other pages, so it was a gamble either way.

Who was the informant that contacted the Task Force about Naomi Misora's disappearance?

• Who was the informant that contacted the Task Force and told L about Naomi Misora's disappearance? The only people I can think of that would notice she was gone would be her parents, but how would they reach the conclusion "Our daughter is missing! It must be Kira!"?
  • The manga said it was her parents.
  • I'm not sure about this, but wasn't it public knowledge that Kira killed the FBI agents, including Raye, Naomi's finacee? If so, maybe Naomi's parents realized that Naomi must have gone after Kira and put two and two together.

How did Mello kidnap the same guy Near's agents were planning to see?

• At the beginning of the Near/Mello arc, how did Mello just happen to kidnap the very director that Near's SPK was planning to see? Isn't that quite a coincidence?
  • I have no knowledge of how Japanese Police are organised, so I could be wrong, but I figured the Director was basically the top police officer for the Kanto region, so it would make sense to talk to him about it.
  • But the timing doesn't seem to make much sense, though. Mello going after the director? Sure. Mello going after the director at the same time that Near wants to see him? Either that's a coincidence, or Mello somehow knows about the movements of Near and the SPK, and I don't remember the latter being established.
    • Ratt of the SPK was a spy for Mello.

Where does Mello get a hidden underground missile?

• From where does Mello get a hidden underground missile?
  • The Mafia are very well connected.
  • Black market purchase. It probably originally came from some corrupt military officials in some third/second world country selling some stuff on the side for extra cash.
    • In reality it would take so much in the way of training, resources and specialized equipment that it would be A. next to impossible and B. far easier to just find another method. However, in fiction we just have to accept this sort of thing or suddenly every show involving terrorists with missiles would fall apart.
  • If we accept that Mello is the third smartest person in Death Note, is it that hard to believe that he managed to aquire a missle? He already has the Mafia obeying his every call, and it's not like the real life Mafia hasn't obtained illegal weapons before. As far as operating it goes, it essentially relies on computers; all he needs to do is assemble it correctly and program it to aim in the right direction.

Why can't Kida be Kira?

• In the manga, Namikawa says that they know Kida's not Kira because he was made to hire "Coil" and take care of the monetary issues. How is that evidence against Kida being Kira?

The Watch

• The watch. Just... the watch. When an how does Light install the secret compartment in it? No, he didn't buy it, he modified the watch his father gave him for graudation. Oh, yes, Light is brilliant, but he's not a Gadgeteer Genius (the fire trap in the desk was a very clever trick, but after all it's just an electrical circuit... now we are talking about an itsy-bitsy mechanism, hidden in a wristwatch, which is triggered when you pull the time-adjusting knob four times within one second)
  • Are you SURE he modified it? I thought it was just a feature of that watch model.
    • Then... did his father know about the secret compartment? And don't forget the whole "fiddling with the knob" thread above: if it was a feature of that watch model, Light could have accidentally read the instruction manual and begin the "Hey, what's this note in my watch?" loop ;)
    • His dad possibly knew, but it didn't matter. L wasn't able to pry a word from Rem's lips about detached pieces of the notebook working, the notebook was never tested after L's death, and Light had already been cleared under the fake 13 day rule, so it wouldn't have made any difference. As for the instruction manual, I think the genius Kira would have known enough to throw it into the garbage before beggining the memory gambit. Besides, why would he oppen it if he didn't have anything to put there? That kind of fiddling with nearby stuff between one's fingers is more of L's shtick. Light is very calm, refined, and deliberate in his motions, stance and behavior.

Rem wants Misa to have a happy life so why give Misa an Artifact of Doom?

• Let us take this following statement as truth: "Rem wants Misa to live a long and happy life". Let's look at two rules of the Death Note. "A person can shorten his or her own life by using the note" and "The human who becomes the owner of the Death Note can, in exchange of half his/her remaining life, get the eyes of the God of Death". And according to Ryuk, the Death Note condemns the user to a life of misfortune. So, if Rem wanted Misa to be happy, she should have never given her the very thing that would send her down a path of near-self-destruction and suicide. Guardianship fail, Rem.
  • Why? Giving her the death note lets her have more options on how to lead her life. She can shorten her lifespan, yes, but isn't likely to do so unless she thinks it will make her happy, so it is just trading happiness for longevity (or, as Higuchi said, choosing the short and dense life). What she wanted most was the meet Kira, and it was the death note and eyes that made it possible for her to do so. As for what Ryuk said, that sounds more like a superstition at worst, or a piece of folk wisdom at best, neither of which is necessarily true.

The final Takada plot

• I still don't understand the final Takada plot at all.
  • Why did Light and Mikimi both decide to kill her? Couldn't she just burn her scraps of the note, or eat them? After all, if she ate the note, then people would just figure Kira killed Mello.
  • For that matter, was Mello's plan seriously that (1) Takada would kill him, (2) the Kiras would kill her to prevent her from being caught, and (3) in the process, X-Kira would give away the location of the real note to Near? If so, all Takada had to do was write "without contacting anyone other than Takada, Mikael Kael (sp?) gives Takada her clothes back, drives her to a train station, gives her the fare, apologizes, releases her unharmed, drives at least 100 km away while doing his best to evade capture, hides his car and body to the best of his ability, then dies of a heart attack at time x, date y", and he would have been scr* wed.
    • Replace "Takada" with "the prisoner he's guarding" (as it's difficult to write your own name without some level of self-awareness unless you're signing it, and the person whose name is written in this note will die) and she may have had a chance. However, one would assume that Mello wouldn't give her time to write a novel while she's under that blanket. Although, he probably doesn't have much experience with undoing a brassiere, so she could use that as an excuse...
  • Finally, if Mikimi had hidden a back-up sheet of paper and used that instead of the note, Mello's plan would have failed.

How did Light and Mikami happen to write the same extraordinary cause of death?

• How did Light and Mikami happen to write the same extraordinary cause of death?
  • I can't read Japanese, so I'm not sure if it was the same cause of death - Light's was definitely the one that actually took effect - but I'd wager it was, because their primary goal in killing Takada was to destroy the evidence.

Why didn't Light use a conventional method to free Misa from L?

• Why didn't Light just use a conventional method to free Misa from L? L isn't official police, he's a private investigator, and as such had no right to hold Misa the way he did, and would thusly be considered a kidnapper if he did. Even if he did have police powers, the way he held her was completely illegal; as she was restrained in a device that didn't let her move, she wasn't offered a lawyer at all, L had no solid evidence to even come close to justifying such methods, etc. All Light had to was get the real police to confront L on kidnapping charges.
  • The only 5 policemen in the force with the integrity to risk their lives working on the case had already seen and accepted Misa's imprisonment. What makes yout think the remaining men, of lower convictions, would have dared to go against L in order to help a suspect he is sure is Kira (or a Kira, once it was established there was more than one).

Why did Light think Ryuk would be on his side at the end?

• What made Light think that Ryuk would have killed the investigators instead of himself? Did he forget what happened with Rem and how she died as a result of saving the life of a human? Did he think Ryuk would put Light's life above his own?
  • On the one hand, Light's life probably wasn't in danger from Near and the gang: they were just going to arrest him, and while Ryuk would've been helping Light by killing them, he might not have been prolonging his lifespan by doing so (you never know - maybe Light continuing as Kira would've somehow gotten him killed sooner than the arrest and trial). But also, Light was desperate at that point, in the middle of the mother of all Villainous Breakdowns and really not thinking clearly anymore. Even Ryuk was amused that Light was actually expecting him to step in and help.
  • This was after he asked Misa to do it, when he knew full well she wasn't there. At that point, he was beyond reason.
    • And Takada, who was dead. Yeah, by this point Light had clearly said bye-bye to reality.

L's reaction to Shinigami

• If L pondered if Kira was god early on, why was he shocked enough to fall out of his chair at the mention of Shinigami in Misa's journal?
  • He didn't seriously consider the notion, and seems to think (viz. a monologue late in the Yotsuba arc) that shinigami have way more control over fate than they actually do. Also, Takeshi Obata really wanted to draw a scene where L falls on his butt.

L letting the suspect handle the murder weapon.

• It really bugs me that the only reason Light's Memory Gambit worked is because L, the last character who should ever do so, decided to give the Idiot Ball a whirl. The entire thing would have collapsed on him if L had done the most in-character and sensible thing he could after Light grabbed the Death Note: take it back from him. Light is the primary suspect in the Kira Investigation and L strongly suspects that he gave up the killing power and memories with the probable intent to recover them. He should not be allowed to touch the murder Macguffin. It was a stupid mistake that cost L his life.
  • L didn't know anything about the intricacies of Death Note ownership, or about the watch. What did he think Light was going to do, write in the book right in front of him?
    • That's exactly the point. He doesn't know anything about the Death Note, but if Light is Kira, then Light does. Light knows more than he does on the subject at this juncture, which makes letting him handle it, for any reason, dangerous. You don't have to know how a gun works to know that it kills people, and that even if it looks unloaded to you at the moment, someone else might still be able to shoot you with it.
    • "Are you alright, Light-kun?"

Copying the notebook in one day

• There was one piece of the story that just shattered my suspension of disbelief: How did Near manage to make a perfect duplicate of the real Death Note in a single day? The sheer volume of handwriting required should realistically take at least a few days to copy in and of itself, to say nothing of the wear and tear on the book that needs to be replicated.
  • I do not recall it being made in a single day. Maybe he's that good.
  • It wasn't Near, it was Gevanni.
    • And it's even pointed out how impressive a feat it was. They also bring up the possiblity that Near wrote Mikami's name in the Death note and controlled his actions so he wouldn't check the Death Note's power, and thus never notice that the handwriting is different.
  • In the manga it is explained that it was made on a single night by Gevanni, and it is pointed how impressive it was, even taking into account that he already had the necessary materials and skills from having altered the fake note (It is also explained that he used the same type of pen and copied his handwriting exactly so as to make it virtually indistiguishable from the real one) even with all that is pretty incredible that someone could manage sucha feat. In conclussion, just as with Near having singled out Mikami from the videos there are some small justifications, but in the end you are jus expected to believe that SPK is that good

Light and the Task Force

• Why didn't Light kill off the whole Task Force after L died? If he didn't do that, Near would've never been able to connect Kira to the Task Force because no one out side of it didn't know Light was apart of it.
  • This is addressed in Volume 13 - he believed they no longer posed a threat, and regarded them as pretty decent guys.
  • Furthermore, for all his sociopathy, Light has always being reticent in killing his own family. That was partially what allowed Mello to take the Death Note, after all. Evey time he even consider killing his father, he feels bad and start thinking in other solution. Even when Soichiro did the change for the eye he hesitated before allowing (he wanted Matsuda to do that instead).

Why did L ask the FBI to investigate in Japan?

• Why did L ask the FBI to send agents to Japan? Wouldn't the CIA be a better choice?
  • Kira's essentially a serial killer. It's the FBI that deals with serial killers.
  • L's asking the FBI to investigate is a simple case of Did Not Do the Research on the writer's part.

Rem seeing Misa's lifespan

• According to the rules of the Death Note (as I recall), it states that Shinigami can only see the original lifespan of a person, not their current one if it was changed. Yet, when Light considers threatening Misa with death, Rem says that the moment Light writes Misa's name in, she will see that her lifespan had change so she would immediately write Light's name in. Am I mistaken, or was Rem bluffing?
  • She was referring to Misa dying, not her lifespan changing She would kill light if Misa died.
  • But Rem sees (and reacts) when Misa's lifespan was halved again...?

In the Mello-arc the Taskforce should have known that Kira wouldn't have a notebook.

• Sorry to ruin the Tear Jerker that is Soichiro's death, but there's something that bugs me about it. Soichiro (with the eyes) mentions that he can see his son's lifespan, meaning that he doesn't own a deathnote (which he didn't at the time), in Soichiro's mind, this confirms that Light can't be Kira, because surely Kira would have a Death Note in his posession......It bugs me because in this case, Kira WOULDN'T have a Death Note, he handed it over to the Japanese police force? I can understan Soichiro not piecing it together because it was his last and only chance to die happy, but surely the others could've pieced it together, I mean come on, their detectives, even i noticed this
  • I'm not sure how well they understood the rules of ownership, but if they did, they probably thought Kira merely lent them the Death Note while retaining ownership. Does that hold water?
  • He knew Kira had a spare Death Note, since the punishments didn't stopped after they got the Note.

Fans: "He could have won if he waited two more seconds."

• This is more towards fans than the actual manga/anime itself. Just WHY do people keep claiming that if Light had waited two more seconds during his confrontation with Near in the finale, he would've won? I've found nothing to suggest why and even watching the anime itself hasn't shed light on this.
  • I am pretty sure that the people who claim that are referring to him saying "Near, I won" before the 40 seconds ran out. Sure, the investigators would not have died anyway, and the evidence would still be pointing to Light, but those words he said to Near were as good as a confession. If he had not said them he could have continued playing his Xanatos Speed Chess, denying everything and claiming that he had been framed. Matsuda could probably fall for it and not go on a rampage, giving Light an opportunity to write their names into a real Death Note later. Personally I think that it's more correct to say that he could have won if he had kept his mouth shut, rather than that he "would've won", especially considering how much of his sanity he had lost by then.

L Confines Misa with flimsy Evidence

• How did L find evidence to put Misa in custody? He examines some hair that they found on the tapes, but how would he know that he needs to look in her room of all the other homes in the town to match the hair. And she gets arrested as soon as they meet.
  • L suspected that Light was Kira and would want to get in contact with the Second Kira, so he had the other task force members follow Light around and see if there was anyone new in his life, and they found Misa. L probably already knew the results of the forensic tests before he met Misa; I think he just went there so that he could see if Light would try calling Misa to have L killed.

Why did Near use real money when he's dealing with morons?

• Why didn't Near use counterfeit money instead of real money when he's dealing with a stupid mob that probably couldn't tell the difference upon immediate inspection and his organization is labelled as terrorists anyway?
  • I immediately assumed that he did indeed use counterfeit money when I saw this. According to someone elsewhere in this wiki, it was real money, but I can't find any source information to support it. Anyone?
  • In How To Read it says that it's the inheritance from L. As to why he didn't use counterfeit money...why would he have counterfeit money lying around?
    • For the same reason he had real money lying around prepared to be dropped like that. He had anticipated this kind of trouble. Light realizes this.

Why is Kira considered bad?

• Why was Kira even considered bad? He was murdering criminals, but its okay when L used a criminal on death's row to pretend to be him?
  • Don't put your question on the top. L used a criminal on death row that was sentenced to die that day. On the other hand, Kira murdered over a hundred criminals at that point, many who were on the run, on trial, and sentenced for life. L only commited one case of unusual punishment, while Kira was commiting serial vigilanism of the worst kind through supernatural means. Kind of put things in perpective.
    • It also helps that it's implied that the criminal agreed to it, seeing as how if he DIDN'T he would be executed that day anyway, and if he DID and SURVIVED, he would be pardoned.
      • Um...fourteen former FBI agents beg to differ with the questioner. Plus, he's killing purse snatchers. Even backwards dictatorships don't kill people who take your purse.

Does Misa like L?

• Does Misa even like L or not? She seemed pretty fond of him when they first met, and then came to hate him after she was suspected of being the Second Kira. Afterwards, with no memory of the Death Note and now working with him, she really seemed to like him, despite finding each other annoying at times. All in all, she treated him like a normal friend. So...after Light sent her to the woods, dig up the Death Note, making her regain her memories, and a note explaining how they'll both end L and begin a New World, why was she now so desperate?? Light said in the note, "Do you remember my friend at the Universaty?" making me think that he was telling her to kill some random dude she met once. Or was she like, "Okay, I'll kill him just because Light - my one true love - told me to!" Either way, she clearly showed no hesitation in wanting to kill someone she once considered a "friend", which is what made me hate her from then on (including not even thinking nor talking about Rem).
  • Misa, is for lack of a better term: OUT OF HER FUCKING MIND!! Wanting to be around Light is testement enough to that. My best answer is that she likes L, but LOVES Light a crap ton more (remember when they first met, she offered to kill all the friends who helped her out?

Soichiro's Morality

• I disagree with Word of God claiming Soichiro is moral. He allowed another human being to be tortured. Perhaps he couldn't have stopped L, but he was aware of L was doing, he continued to work with L, and he never tried to stop it. He might have voiced objections, but in the end, he showed himself to be implicitly if not explicitly condoning of torture. Beyond that, some might argue he participated in torture himself. Leading a person to believe their loved one is about to be killed while that person must helplessly watch is enough to potentially give that person permanent psychological trauma. Doing so to a person who has strapped in an upright position for twenty something hours for weeks, if not months, blindfolded, tortured, possibly drugged, denied the right to use the bathroom and be clean, and been spoken only by a mechanical voice that never said a kind word is- Well, it'd be interesting to hear what arguments those who argue that isn't further torture use. And that's just what he did to Misa. He had his own son believe that his father was going to kill him, commit suicide, and that said son's girlfriend, who would have to see both men die with no way to stop it, would soon be killed, too. Potential serial killer or not, there are right and wrongs ways to treat people, and Soichiro not only let others choose the wrong way, he himself choose it, too.
  • I think it means more that Soichiro had the purest intentions, i think the line was "Soichiro is Justice" He was the only one who wanted that and nothing more. Light was an egotist who wanted to be god. L wanted justice aswell but he saw his struggle with Kira more as some sort of game. Near was a more extreme version of L and Mello just wanted to be better than Near. Soichiro voicing objections against L's methods alone makes him more Moral than half the people in this show. Fact of the matter is, he wanted justice to be served to Kira, and he wasn't smart enough to do it on his own. L made it clear that he doesn't put up with complaining for long, and they needed his smarts. Also, regarding Misa, They had evidence that linked her to the greatest Serial Killer in human history, and any psychiatrist could take one look at her and go "Insane" They were getting NOTHING out of her via normal Interrogation, what would you have done? Ask her Nicely to rat out the love of her life? Sometimes you need to bring up compromise, torturing one person until they give you information (they had no possible way of knowing that her memory was gone)?, or thousands of people being murdered and the world becoming a Police state run by a Narcississtic Monster?
    • They had her in a position where she couldn't do anymore harm. I'd keep her in that position (isolated, unaware of where she is, who has her, movements heavily restrained), though in a less abusive way than the straight jacket, and keep trying to find other ways to gain information from different sources. Torturing one person for the greater good opens the doorway for lazy and/or cruel agents who don't want to take the time to actually pursue all available avenues or who are simply bullies to make the same claim and torture more people. Sometimes, lines do have to be crossed, and sometimes, such in the case of torture, the line should never be crossed.

How is it possible that Beyond Birthday was born with the Shinigami eyes?

• How is possible that Beyond Birthday was born with the eyes?
  • Well you see, when a human and a Shinigami love each other very much...
    • Is that even possible?
      • No.
        • The fact there is a rule forbidding it is a good reason to believe it is possible in spite of the rule that says it isn't. Even if we assume the rules are true whatever mechanism distinguishes between normal physical contact with a human and sexual contact with a human would certainly have to be artificial in nature and thus Beyond could have been conceived before the rule was made.
          • Which was a point someone made on the WMG page when this very theory was suggested: the rule exists for some reason, and if it was impossible for humans and shinigami to breed together, then why have the rule in the first place?
            • Look again. It says "it is not permitted, nor is it possible." It can't happen period.
            • And now we've argued all the way around in a circle:
  • Arguement 1: It's not possible the rules say so.
  • Arguement 2: It might be possible BECAUSE there is a rule forbidding it. Because if it wasn't possible WHY bother having a rule forbidding it?
  • Arguement 3: it's not possible the rules say so.
    • • • • • As they say in Anthropology class if you want to know a civilization's problems look at the rules they had on the books. The things that are forbidden are the issues a society has probelms with. So you can either take the rule at face value and assume it's impossible or you might assume that the Shinigami have had this problem in the past and that that is why there is a rule against it. Though it might have been something as simple as many Shinigami falling in love with humans and dying for them left and right without them ever consummating it.
    • The rules of the Death Note don't forbid Shinigami having sex, it says it isn't possible. The rules of the Death Note aren't really laws that need to be obeyed, but an explanation of how the Death Note works and various other things. If for example, you were reading a manual for a videogame, and it said that you can't save during boss fights; that doesn't mean you can save during boss fights but the developers just don't want you to, it means "you can't save during boss fights" because it's not possible.

Why does Kira alwyas target Sakura Tv?

• Why does Kira alwyas target Sakura Tv?
  • Because Demegawa the Jerkass Attention Whore is sure to air anything Kira sends him for the free publicity.

Why can't Misa remember an odd name like L Lawliet?

• When Misa gets her memories of the Death Note back, she says she doesn't remember L's real name because she only saw it once, months ago, and since she didn't know he was L at the time she had no reason to remember his name out of the hundreds of others she was seeing. Initially this makes perfect sense. But then you read the databook and find out that L's real name is L Lawliet. Just seeing a guy with the first name L should have at least gotten her attention. When that guy is hanging around with Light (and Misa did know that Light was in contact with L somehow, otherwise the "have Rem kill L" plan couldn't work) and going by an assumed name, it should probably have ocurred to Misa that this guy might be L. Her getting arrested by L immediately after meeting him should have turned that suspicion into almost a dead certainty. Some ditzy moments aside, Misa isn't actually dumb, just not a super genius like Light or L; she can still put some obvious clues together.
  • Maybe that says about the strange names people give their children, and Misa had seen far more far-fetched names, like BLT Gilly Birthday.

Wouldn't being the sole survivor of the Kira investigation be really suspicious?

• Wouldn't being the sole survivor of the Kira investigation be really suspicious?
  • If Light somehow won his standoff with Near he be the only survivor of the Kira investigation, wouldn’t that be ridiculously conspicuous? By the end of Death Note the Japanese government doesn’t sanction yet is (peripherally) aware of the former task force. Both American and Japanese authorities are explicitly aware of Light Yagami’s involvement in the Kira investigation. Does Light actually have a plan to deal with this?
  • It's Light, he probably would have thought of an after plan. I don't think anyone beyond the taskforces had any idea about the Death Note, so while it would be very suspicious that only Light survives a mass heart attack spree they would still have no evidence that he was Kira seeing as they don't know what to look for. (Besides, he could simply say that Kira wouldn't know his name since he went by the alias of the second L after the time jump.)
    • Remember that the Special Provision for Kira knew about the Death Note’s existence from unknown sources in the Japanese police. Japan’s National Police Agency is somewhat aware of the Death Note (although not specific details beyond killing notebook) after Higuchi’s death (confirmed by the police official kidnapped by Mello and the Mafia). So, yeah. . . both American and Japanese authorities know about the Death Note.
  • Nobody even knew Light was working with the Task Force anyways, both before and after the time skip. At best, he would be suspected since his father was apart of it.
    • After the time skip Light is a member of Japanese Police Force's Intelligence Department working for his father who is known to be heading the Kira investigation. Moreover the NPA knows that Soichiro Yagami was supposed to be protecting Higuchi’s Death Note. So, yeah. . . the Japanese Police kind of knows about Light's involvement.
    • Also by that time in the series Light has gotten crazier and is not really thinking about the consequences. Normal police? No match for the GOD of the New World!

Why would America's President allow a teenager to command a secret intelligence agency?

• Why would America's President allow a teenager to command a secret intelligence agency?
  • Isn't Near a little young to be commanding the Special Provision for Kira? Isn’t President David Hoope putting something like America’s response to Kira in the hands of a teenager a little off?
  • He's eighteen, so he barely counts as a teenager, and even then he's a damn smart one at that. Considering his first meeting with the President was to show off all the evidence he had previously gathered regarding Kira the President probably didn't see his age as too much of a problem.
• Near was eighteen after the time skip, meaning America’s president formed an entire agency around a fifteen year old!
  • Keep in mind this is still a Shonen series and follows it's conventions for the most part. It may look like it wants to be realistic, but it's ultimately a story about superpowered underaged boys duking it out. Xanatos style.
  • Actually, the Special Provision for Kira wasn't formed until four years after L's death; Near was 18. It probably also helps that Near had the Director of the FBI with him, who told the President that Near was the rightful successor to L (who also has the ability to gather law enforcement under his command). The case full of evidence Near brought with him definitely didn't hurt, though. And it's not like it was just Near doing everything in the SPK; they have FBI, CIA and former Secret Service members in it.

When criminals are dropping dead why does everyone immediately think supernatural serial killer?

• When criminals are dropping dead why does everyone immediately think "supernatural serial killer" when they should have first considered that the Kira-phenomenon might be caused by one of the following factors:
  • An unknown pathogen.
  • Drug use.
  • The prisons are serving inmates too much fried foods.
  • Criminals live very stressful lives.
  • Chuck Norris
    • Consider the fact that criminals from all over the world are dropping dead. It is unlikely the first one would have a sense of morality, every criminal couldn't have been using the same drug, not just prisoners were dying, the fort factor would've been in play a long time ago, and Chuck Norris's powers wouldn't work according to Death Note's Magic A Is Magic A.

Why didn't Light warn Takada about Halle?

• So Light apparently debriefs Takada on Mello's appearance and real name. Seems like a reasonable thing he'd do for anyone he's issuing the death-paper to. But why, then, would he not also inform her that her bodyguard is in Near's employ? I mean, the Mello thing is a this-could-come-in-handy, but Halle is a something-is-clearly-brewing-here, and should have taken a higher priority.

Does Light like L?

• Foe Yay aside, Does Light like or respect L at all? I mean sometimes he talks like L is a pathetic worm beneath his feet, other times he looks back on him almost fondly, like with Near. Has there ever been Word of God on this? Or is there something I'm missing?
  • Personally, I think Light gains a greater appreciation for L after he’s dead.
  • I think there's a clue in the Yotsuba arc. When his memories are wiped Light is very happy to be working with L, seems to admire him, and easily forgives him for his incarceraton and having his father put on a mock execution. It's likely that Light the Amateur Sleuth liked and admired L the World's Greatest Detective before he became Kira but after Light becomes Kira he sees L opposing him as a betrayal and of "standing in the way of true justice."
  • Remember when Rem tells Misa when she wipes her memories that even though she won't remember being a Kira "those feelings will remain." Even when Light is Kira and hates L for getting in the way of his New World he also admires him and enjoys playing against him-he's having fun pretending to be L's friend. So when Light wipes his memories he no longer has a reason to hate L and only knows that he admires L and enjoys having him as a friend.

Mello's Stupid Sacrifice

• During the Takada kidnapping, instead of sacrificing his life to prove that Mikami had a notebook, Mello could have just found some random criminal and forced Takada to write his/her name down. Then he could have forced Takada to make a phone call to Light telling him she's writing names down. Light and Mikami would believe her, and do the same things they did in the original. Then the finale would have been the same, except with Mello surviving. The question is, why din't anyone think about that?
  • But did Mello ever figure out that it was Light? According to the manga Mello thought Matsuda was acting as the current L and he didn't get any new information from following the Misa-lead since her memories were wiped.
    • That's not the point. The point is, Mello's Heroic Sacrifice was unnesscary.
  • He probably would have done that once he was sure he had evaded the police and had Takada at a secure location, but she wrote his name on her scrap of the Death Note before he could.
    • If that's the case then why didn't Mello do a better search of Takada?
      • Maybe because Mello is human and humans make mistakes? He didn't search her thoroughly enough and he paid for that.
    • Mello's defining character trait is that he's too emotional and let's that affect his judgement, and he had just learned that Matt had died. He wasn't thinking as clearly or as paranoid as he needed to, and it cost him his life.

Mello handing Takada the blanket when he did.

• When Mello had Takada undressing (presumably, to make sure she had no tracking bugs, weapons, whatever) why did he hand her the blanket before she'd gotten rid of her clothing completely? As we all saw, the page of the Death Note was in her bra, which is the best place to hide something like that, especially when she'd been forwarned about how she might be in danger. Don't get me wrong, I love Mello's character. But this, to me, seemed a little bit too obvious of an oversight for someone who is, allegedly, a genius.
  • Some people hold that Mello's plan was to get himself killed in the hopes that kidnapping Takada would get Kira to make a mistake and that's why he gave Takada the blanket-to give her an opportunity to kill him.

Misa's Suicide

• At the end of the anime, as Light dies, it shows Misa on a train and then on the other side of a safety railing on top of a building while wearing the same outfit. In the manga it's stated she commits suicide on Valentine's Day the year after Light dies, but it looks like in the anime she commits suicide at nearly the same time Light dies. Did she psychically detect his death or what? There's no other reason for her to kill herself out of nowhere, and there's no indication that there's a timeskip before that scene.
  • Well, Light died on January 28th, so it would be about a two week gap. They probably did it like that for dramatic effect.

Why didn't the Task Force realize they had lost all leads while the prime suspect was in charge?

• Why didn't the Task Force members realize that after L's death, they lost all leads on Kira and his influence grew out of control - all while L's prime suspect was in charge?
  • Light is very good at assigning busy work so it LOOKED like they were making progress in the investigation. There's a bit in the manga right before L's death where Light suggests that they need to go through all the data on everyone who's had a heart attack... wait no all sudden deaths since Kira first appeared and compile it in spreadsheet records. That would have kept them busy for a while.

Was Light saddened by his father's death?

• Was Light actually saddened by the death of his dad? Or was he just pretending?
  • I think he was. I also think he was more upset by the fact that he didn't kill Mello, but yeah, he definitely would have preferred to kill Matsuda if it came down to enforcing the Thirteen-Day Rule.

Raye Penber fails as an FBI agent.

• It must be said that Raye Penber is really not a very good FBI agent. Now, we can forgive not suspecting Light, considering how good he apparently is at acting normal. We can forgive him not recognising Light's voice, as it was implied this was specified in the death note. We can even barely forgive him thinking the busjacking was just a coincidence. However, he makes numerous stupid mistakes throughout his investigation which make you wonder why he still had a job (and, before anyone says anything, being controlled by the death note isn't an excuse, since one still seems to have free will outside of fulfilling what's written, and Light probably wouldn't have specified these mistakes).
  • First off, he gives his real name to the guy he's following. I don't care if he's probably innocent, that's just not something you do. Sure, he needed to give him an ID, but he's an intelligence agent, surely he must have at least one pseudonym to use for situations like this.
  • Second, simply dismissing Naomi's analysis. Suggesting she not think about the case since she's not professional anymore? A bit of values dissonance, but okay. Ignoring the very valid point she's already made? Not so understandable. Any investigator worth their salt will tell you that you use any resource you have at your disposal during an investigation. It doesn't matter if a point of analysis comes from yourself, a colleague, a relative or a frakking fortune cookie, if it's useful, you consider it.
  • Next, did he really not see anything suspicious in Kira's "example" of his power ("I will kill that man"). Ignoring the fact that basic psychology tells us that an unnecessary and frankly obsolete display of power like that is usually more to cover up weaknesses than show strengths, there's the fact that it was fairly obvious that Kira had already decided to kill that man and only that man, and then even displayed knowledge about the man, which practically screams "I previously arranged this to make myself look powerful". I understand that he was afraid (although I'd expect an FBI agent to at least try to keep his cool), but he should have at least questioned it.
    • What's suspicious? Killing the man gives proof that he's Kira and not just some crackpot, and killing only that man and displaying prior knowledge fits Kira's MO. Kira, especially that early on, would never kill anyone he didn't have reason to suspect was guilty of committing a major crime, as Penber knew. It was a display of power, but it did serve more purpose than that.
  • Then there's the fact that, upon an extremely vague threat to the unspecified people close to him, he immediately gives away that he has someone close he wishes to protect. The stupidity of that one speaks for itself.
    • Who doesn't?
  • And last but by NO means least, there the fact that, in the dub I saw anyway, Light made a MASSIVE mistake during his communcation with Penber - one thaty cannot be attributed to misspeaking or error and should have painted the words "I AM BLUFFING" in hundred foot tall, blazing, green letters - which Penber spectaculaely fails to notice. At one point Light says, and I quote:

Light: If I even suspect that you are not telling me the whole truth, your girlfriend is as good as dead

• • The only problem? Naomi isn't Penber's girlfriend, she's his fiancee and the intonation was not ironic, he genuinely meant it as his girlfriend. (For that matter, Light assuming that a female loved one automatically means a girlfriend is kinda dumb in and of itself, when it could be a wife, sister, mother, daughter, etc). This should have been a MASSIVE clue that Light didn't really know about her or their relationship, but Penber ignores it like a champ! I mean, I'd hardly expect the guy to be infallible, considering he was assigned to such an important and dangerous case, I'd hope for a bit of competence!
    • Light looked Penber up in the FBI database. Presumably he found out all he could about his family and concluded that a girlfriend was the most likely candidate, which isn't that unreasonable. We know Penber has no wife and we can reasonably assume he doesn't have a daughter, and a grown man is more likely to be close to, and protective of, a girlfriend than a sister or mother. Besides which, a fiancee is a girlfriend, and will be until they either get married or break up. If Light had been talking about a girlfriend and they were already married, it would be a different story.
  • As pointed out here How about wearing a Conspicuous Trenchcoat every day on a high school campus!? "Raye Penber can't even stalk his victims properly!"

Why were they discussing executing Kira when they believed he would die anyway?

• Why were they discussing executing Kira once they found him, if they believed he would die after 13 days without the book, anyway? Seemed like a contrived plot device to get Rem to intervene.
  • Light brought it up, remember? "Can we really legally convict him for mass homocide?" And of course Matsuda reacted and Rem panicked.

Takada could have freed herself.

• Light probably never told Takada about the manipulative capabilities of the Death note, but it must be noted that she had all the tools available to free herself from Mello and do it with style. She should just have written: "Miheal Keehl gives his prisoner her posessions back and returns her safely to the NHN building. Then he apoligises in front of the cameras for opposing Kira and shoots himself in the head." It would have been a powerful media event showing off Kira's omnipotence as well. Too bad women aren't allowed to be this badass in Death note...
  • This is covered towards the very beginning of the series; the Death Note can not force someone to take an action he or she wouldn't ordinarly do. In this case Mello would never aborted his plans after the death of Matt, he would never apologise to Kira for anything and he would never stop being paranoid enough to give her back her possessions. In that case he would just die of a heart attack.

In the Yotsuba arc how come L and Light never figured out that it was the Notebook?

• In the Yotsuba arc: How come L and Light never figured out that the method of murder was a notebook before Higuchi told them? I'm specifically reffering to the fact that Higuchi said, IN HIS CAR, the line "even if I forget about the notebook..." Considering L's biggest assumption so far was that passing on Kira's powers made you forget about being Kira, combined with the fact that he wrote down Matsuda's fake name in a notebook a few seconds later, I couldn't believe that eiter of them didn't pick up on that. Also, since L still suspected Light, then he must have believed that Light was able to kill the purse snatcher and the embezzler during the potato chip incident. If that was the case, then he SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT KIRA's KILLING TECHNIQUE WAS SUBTLE AND LOW KEY!! Not over the top and flashy (like what L was apparently expecting)

Yoshida Productions

• Another Yotsuba query: Forgive me if this one's more obvious, but who was the president of Yoshida Productions that Higuchi called? Was he one of L's employees? Because he was giving Higuchi awfully precise instructions, and knew the last name of Matsuda's second alias, if he didn't mention that name, then Higuchi wouldn't have been able to find Matsuda's file at Yoshida Productions.

Higuchi must have known about the 13-day rule.

• Yotsuba Question the 3rd: Higuchi MUST have known about the 13 day rule (he had the only notebook with that rule in it) Why was his first reaction to Rem's offer of giving up the Death Note not: "That'd be fucking stupid, I'd fucking DIE if I stopped writing down names" instead of: "My reputation would be ruined"?
  • Maybe Rem told him? Or maybe Higuchi, idiot that he is, never read the back cover.

That girl in the manga epilogue.

• One detail from the manga: Was that girl you see in the epilogue Misa? It would make perfect sense if it was her, but something about her looked different.
  • How To Read 13 said it was NOT Misa and that she was just another Kira supporter though it being Misa is still a popular fan theory.

Slight flaw in Light's master plan.

• So how exactly was Light's master plan really supposed to stop crime and war? Even if we assumed that the impact of apparently divine executions would decrease the amount of crime in the First World that didn't account for the vast amount of murder everywhere else with little chance of the killer ever being named or photographed. Even if Light did kill warlords and national leaders tied to crime^[5] it wouldn't take the average Somali pirate, Columbian hitman or Afghan insurgent long to notice that very few of their friends were being killed. Heck, in a worst case scenario they might come to the conclusion that 'God' is just punishing the West and encouraging everyone else!
  • Here's a hint. Light is crazy and Didn't Think This Through. Or to put it another way Step 1) Kill criminals Step 2) ???? Step 3) Become God.
  • Isn't it mentioned that a lot of Light's info on criminals doesn't come through official channels, but rather people ratting them out over the Internet?
    • Yeah, especially in the second arc where as L; Light suggests the media stop broadcasting the names and faces of criminals but he continues to judge by reading "concerned citizens" strongly worded letters.
    • ...Then how the heck is he supposed to be accurately 'judging' anyone? All he's got are the biased opinions of unknown people who would see an obvious temptation to have Kira get rid of the people they don't like. The more you think about it, the less intelligent Light seems.
    • That's the point. He's insane and certain he is right...

Light ignoring Misa's advances

• Light always ignores Misa when she's being sexy and most people think he is just not interested. But would you want to indulge in some hanky panky while Ryuk is grinning at you all the time?
  • Its hinted that even pre-series he wasn't interested in girls. That the girls keep asking him out and he keeps making up excuses not to go on dates. There's Yuri's (the spaceland girl's) line: "I thought you said you weren't going out until exams were over!" Also during the Yotsuba arc Ryuk's grinning face was nowhere to be seen. Sure he was chained to L which presents the same voyeur problem but even so Light shows absolutely no interest in Misa. When Misa is right out asking him for sex his response: "Whatever" *talks excitedly with L.*
  • Light had to buy porn for his cover strongly implying he didn't have any already and he browses through it with such a bored look on his face...
  • Also Light seems kind of bitter when he explains dating to Ryuk: "Skill has nothing to do with it. It's your looks that count" and it seems he gets unwanted attention regularly (In the first episode the girls giggle as he passes and when he walks down the street several guys seem to be checking him out). If this is the case he probably considers Misa to be just another shallow, two-faced hanger-on that doesn't truly appreciate him for his genius or his vision - only for his looks.
  • Also with Light's narcissistic tendencies he might be more interested in kissing his own reflection.

How’s Light Going to Kill Everyone Who Knows About the Death Note?

• Light makes it clear that after killing off the SPK he’s going to kill everyone who knows about the Death Note. At this point in the series Light knows that at a minimum President-elect George Sairas, elements of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, non-taskforce police involved in the Higuchi incident, and various chiefs of Japan’s National Police Agency are aware of the Death Note – not including whoever else might have come across this information via any these groups. That’s a lot of ground to cover without guaranteeing suppression of knowledge about the Death Note.

Doesn’t being AWOL from the NPA complicate Light’s final plan?

• After the time skip Light is a member of the Japanese Police Force's Intelligence Department, disappearing would likely qualify as being AWOL from the NPA - wouldn’t the Japanese Police kind of notice? Especially when Light was known to be working for his father who was known to be guarding Higuchi’s Death Note (confirmed by the Japanese chief interrogated by Mello’s mafia knowing about the killing notebook).
  • This only really complicates Light's plans to keep a low profile following the final confrontation.

Was Naomi Misora really that dumb?

• The fandom seems to consider Naomi a massive idiot for falling for Light's manipulations. I wonder if this is really the case. The way I see it: she was clearly rendered unstable by Penber's death, and was looking for someone, ANYONE to cling to. Since Light was so incredibly similar to L, I don't blame her, especially after Light weaved that impressively elaborate lie to fool her. And it wasn't like she went down without a fight. Her mini-arc kept Light on his toes for ages, and all around she came across as highly intelligent.

Speaking of Naomi....

• Okay, so we all know how Naomi died. But my question is how L missed the clues that Light left. First, he SIGNED IN so he could leave the change of clothes for his father. Second, he LEFT THE BUILDING with Naomi and it was CAUGHT ON CAMERA. But Naomi may have signed in as well so she could talk to someone from the Task Force. And then we all know how pushy and insistent she was that she speak to someone immediately. AND THEN! Someone from said Task Force enters the office not long after Naomi left with Light. You'd think that the people at the desk would've told him "Hey, this half crazy chick came in and demanded to speak to one of you. But she left with the CHIEF'S SON." HOW DID THEY MISS THIS?! This is a plot hole the size of TEXAS!

Light and Namikawa: who tricked who?

• When Light (as L) called Namikawa the second time and Namikawa said, "So Higuchi is finished" and Light acted all surprised that he knew, who slipped up and who was bluffing who? Did Light slip up as L said? Or did Namikawa slip and then try to cover up by saying he tricked L?
  • Light slipped up. He shouldn't have reacted like Higuchi was the actual killer. He should've just ignored the comment or dismissed it.

Ryuk drops the Death Note randomly "somewhere"?

• Shortly after Ryuk visits Light for the first time, he explains why and how he dropped the death note. He says he dropped it somewhere around that place and Light happened to pick it. He also says he wrote the rules in English because it is the most widely used language in the world. Throwing it randomly "somewhere" is more likely to land it in the ocean, and Ryuk wouldn't want to do that (Rememeber, he had been scolded by the shinigami "boss" (or someone like that) for dropping his note earlier). For that matter, the area of inhabitable landmass in even less. (If the note were to fall in the Sahara Desert, Ryuk would have to go pick it up.) This would mean Ryuk would have to be able to approximately choose an area where it would land. So Ryuk chose to throw the note somewhere in Japan. Why would he then bother writing the rules in the most widely used language in the world? I am not saying he shouldn't have written it in English, but just that why would he even think about the world if he was going to drop in Japan? I think it is reasonable to assume that Ryuk would at least know that Japanese is the most common language used in Japan. He is a shinigami after all.
  • As per Wild Mass Guessing Ryuk is a known liar. It's more likely that he deliberately chucked the notebook at a school in the hopes of finding someone who would actually use the notebook and that he deliberately targeted Light. Remember Ryuk is an immortal monster: he might be doing this again and again and never be punished for it. If so he would know what traits in a human would make it likely to use the notebook and be an entertaining toy. If he was watching Light than he would have seen him doing well in English class and so wrote the rules in English in order to intrigue him.
  • My personal theory is that he wrote a bunch of major world cities on slips of paper and drew one from the Shinigami equivelant of a hat.

Why didn't Light use Sidoh to kill Mello?

• After the task force got the notebook back from the mafia, why didn't Light ask Sidoh to kill Mello with the notebook in exchange for them returning it? He was even discussing a plan like this with Ryuk before the attack on Mello's HQ but dropped it because he thought he could use Matsuda to kill Mello instead. But when Mello was still alive after Soichiro's death, he didn't even try to use Sidoh. Mello deliberately kept Sidoh from getting his notebook back and Sidoh needed to write a name, so I really can't see him saying no to a request to kill him. Sure, he would be asking in front of the other members of the task force but he had already asked Soichiro to do it so being so upset about his father's death that he was insistent on Mello dying wouldn't seem strange. Even if it did, it was a direct way of killing Mello. A few odd looks for being so bloodthirsty about avenging his father are nothing compared to eliminating such a threat. He wasn't just caught up in the emotions brought on from losing his father either-the very next chapter, he's going over how he wasn't able to kill Mello through other means but doesn't bring up Sidoh at all. In other words, it appears that the author just didn't think of it and Light looks dumber as a result.
  • In the manga it's explained that Light was afraid that Sidoh would say something incriminating and he wanted to get him away from the taskforce as soon as possible but yeah, that does seem like a wasted opportunity that could have led to Kira's victory.
  • Also, notice his father just died and he's Mangsting about it so his Xanatosing skills are not up to par in that scene.

L's name; or, WTF was he thinking?

• If "L" is, in fact, L's actual first name, why would he, the world's greatest detective, use it as an alias when there's even a remote chance of it being used against him?
  • It was a double bluff- "L" doesn't sound like a real name and he was no doubt counting on Light to make the assumption that surely someone who was confronting a Kira suspect would never tell that suspect his real name, right?
  • Because the best hideout is the one that is on plain sight.

He took a potato chip...AND ATE IT!!!

• Is there a reason Light is so dramatic about eating a chip, or is he just thinking that line as he does it to say "See how much of a normal student I am"?
  • I thought it was more of an Inner Monologue thing so the audience doesn't get bored watching Light eat potato chips.

How'd Light see the TV, and how did L MISS it?

• This really bugs me and makes no sense at all. When Light is eating those potato chips and trying to kill people by using the TV he hid in the bag, how did he see the TV? He didn't look in the bag. It was at the worst possible angle for him to try peeking into it. And if he was able to see it in such detail through the bag, L would have seen it too. But wait! How the heck did L NOT see that? The camera was at an angle that L should have seen it, but not Light.
  • Obviously they're magic potato chips.

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1. ↑ doing this naturally would require some sort of infiltration into the prison to get the poison to the criminals, tampering with water pipes or something, etc. at thousands of prisons
2. ↑ L realizes that Kira is a lot like himself: childish and not at all fond of losing. L quickly recognized the psychological profile of Kira when he responded to Lind L. Tailors declaration immediately by killing him. Tailor was presented as someone trying to catch a criminal for justice. Light killing him showed that Light was mad at Tailor for not agreeing with him and challenging his percieved authority. If Light was purely trying to get rid of criminals, he wouldn't have killed Tailor (a "dedective" that no one has ever heard of and, as far as Light knows, has no leads on this case whatsoever). In fact, if Light had done some research he would have figured out that this person has no detective background and is most likely not at all a threat.
3. ↑ It actually makes some sense. When being held captive in a way that makes escape impossible, it's typically agreed upon by law enforcement, phsycologist and survival experts that the best thing to do is to comply with the captors wishes and not actively attempt to anger them. Although her attitude seems overly cheerful, that's considered 'cute' in Japan and is almost a requirement for female Japanese idols. She thinks L is some sort of obsessive fan, so acting like the 'Misa-Misa' that the public knows is arguably her best chance for survival.
4. ↑ Her first appearances in the manga and her meeting with Light show her to be far more intelligent than many see her as, and it one point in the manga she's seen actively thinking about hom much emotion to put into what she says.
5. ↑ which couldn't possibly account for all of them and would be more likely to spark off new wars