Death Note/Headscratchers/Various

Warning: Unmarked Spoilers Ahead!!!

Gevanni's fan base

• Why is Gevanni's fan base so very limited, compared with characters like Matt? Come on, Gevanni's a complete stud muffin! Not to mention vigorously intelligent. Yet I have yet to come across another Gevanni fan.
  • I freaking love Gevanni, and often wonder just how he picked up all his mad burglary and forgery skills. Also, there's a quite good incomplete fanfic on FFN; it's an epistolary of Gevanni's diary. I've got a similar complaint about Namikawa, though. Seriously, he's on a par with Naomi Misora, and (I think) the best-looking dude in the show - why does nobody else remember him?
    • I'll fix that with my fanfiction.

When Mikami was pretending to kill criminals how did Takada know their names?

• In the anime, while Gevanni is following Mikami and the two are on the train, Mikami sees a man harassing a young woman, takes a picture of the culprit, sends it to Takada, and then proceeds to write his name in the fake Death Note. My question is, how did Takada know the guy's name? I am positive that she did not have the Shinigami eyes, and we don't see Mikami texting her the name, only taking the picture. Are we to assume that he texted her the name, or am I missing something here?
  • Mikami probably texted her the names.
  • She DID have the eyes. Notice how she found out Mello's name.
  • Light told Takada Mello's name. He got it from his father when he spelled it out over the headset but he couldn't use it to kill Mello because he didn't have his photo and never saw him in person.

Creepy Cool Crosses

• In Death Note Relight, during L's funeral, why is his grave marker a crucifix? I don't think there's any way the taskforce could have found out his religous faith (if he had one or not), and if he wasn't Christian, wouldn't giving him a grave like that be considered offensive?
  • See this trope page for the Japanese take on all this.

Are there gods of other things and do they have magic notebooks?

• Are there gods of other things? If so do they also use magic notebooks?
  • Given that we never see any, it's pretty doubtful. Though that does make me flash back to a fan fic with Semegami and Ukegami. You can probably guess what their notebooks do.
    • Wouldn't it make more sense for both of those to be covered by the same note.
  • Debu Note.
  • This guy probably has something to say on the subject. Although, what would a studygami's magic notebook do?

Would it be possible to use a Death Note on Candle J-?

• Since you aren't actually saying it out loud, would it be possible to use a Death Note to kill Candle J- … He Who Must Not Be Named ooh, close one
  • Hope you at least went with the satisfaction of your question being answered.
  • Could two people working in tandem kill that person? That is, if someone finished writing in his name before the 40 seconds had elapsed would the Death Note kill Candle J-etc. hmm, clever gits
  • Yes, but that still wouldn't stop him from kidnapping you in the 40 seconds between you writing his name and his death.
  • "Dies by any means immediately after the final stroke of the 'k', above, is completed." Got that for ya.
    • Unfortunately, he'd still be able to kidnap you, sort of like a headless chicken will run around for a few minutes.
    • Besides which, you don't get kidnapped until after you've fully said Ca-..his name. So you wouldn't need two people working in tandem, just one. The downside being, as mentioned, that you'd still get kidnapped in the time before Candle Jack dies. Wait, da ha ha ha, finally got one

Why the fan hate for the Second Arc?

• Why does everyone consider the period after L's death to be worse, I found it even more gripping, I like the 3-way element, and I found Near to be more sympathetic than L (not to mention he was clearly more intelligent, this is proven by the fact he wins)
  • Because there's less direct interaction between the characters, we never see any of Near's thought processes (unlike L's), making everything he does seem a little like an Ass Pull , and because Light appears to lose all the levels in badass he acquired in the first half, and makes really stupid and out of character mistakes (like not giving Mikami any real sheets. Seriously, WTF?)
    • You'd like the manga better. For all your points, and especially the second.
  • I personally also enjoyed the three way element and I also really like Near. As for why others don't, a lot of people were really invested in L, and the manga and anime have opposite problems at this point: the manga has a lot of walls of text because of how complicated everything has got, slowing it down (I didn't mind this that much because I like slow-burning stuff) whereas in the anime, everything is compressed to the point where it's really hard to figure out what's happening, and also to the point where a lot of things like Near's logic leaps (as mentioned above) don't make as much sense. For example, compare Near's realization of X-Kira's identity in the manga and anime. In the manga there's a whole double page dedicated to it and it makes sense, in the anime it seems to come out of nowhere and makes it look like Near's just a lucky guesser.
  • Post time skip the setting starts to disintegrate. Why do criminals continue to give their real names after Kira has been around for so many years? The worst thing the cops can do is lock you up for being uncooperative, and you could probably even escape that if you had the cash for a good lawyer. And doesn't anyone think it is odd that the taskforce was moving so rapidly for a few months and then ground to a halt for five years? How do you even continue to obtain funding and manpower for a special taskforce that has spent five years doing absolutely nothing and is headed by the only suspect that it had. Anyone should have come to the conclusion that Light was either retarded or Kira by then, and under neither circumstance should he be in charge of pursuing the worst mass murderer of the 21st century.
    • Seconded, but it's World of Nihilism.
    • Keep in mind that Kira is at this point killing everyone who gets listed on Kira fansites as a criminal. There was one guy who only complained about Misa not showing up on stage. And he got dragged off by Takada's goons to get this treatment. It was subtle, but Kira had long since ran out of real criminals and was just terrorizing the world by offing everyone his followers wanted dead. It's no utopia at all but just a revoltingly random and brutal dictatorship.
  • Also if you think Near is more intelligent and that's proven by how he wins, you haven't been paying attention. Light wins against L because he has a Game Breaker resource at his disposal: Rem. Remember that Rem was perfectly willing to kill L for Light as early as episode 14 of the anime, the only reason it took as long as 25 was that Light needed to kill more birds with that one stone. If Near had been in L's position, he'd have been just as screwed as L. Which makes Near's very first words in the anime particularly grating and practically begging for a huge Hatedom.
    • Well, Near didn't know about Rem. He probably just thought L slipped up and told Kira his real name.
  • The main problem post-timeskip wasn't that it got complicated and dull, it was that it got hard to care. Near didn't mean anything to us the way L had, and Light had not only cashed all his sympathy points, he had visibly gone to seed in the time that passed, resting on his laurels and sinking into self-congratulatory boredom. Back to where he was at the beginning, except now he's even more arrogant and a mass-murdering psychopath with no qualms about using up and throwing away anybody at all. There was no moral or emotional tension left, only the academic question of how they were going to outplay one another. Which most people found boring.
    • We were supposed to. Ohba and Obata had the advantage of a multimillion dollar franchise to drag out the work into a pit of despair and degeneration that would have made it unreadable as a novel and gotten them cancelled if so many thousands of people hadn't been hanging on breathless to read the end. So they had the opportunity to depict the true banality of evil and of justice in a way very few formats ever allow.
  • I think the second half is pretty good overall and the final volume of the manga is the best of the series by a landslide. However the tension that kept you on your toes during the L arc was completely gone after it's conclusion and it took some time to build up again. I never found Mello all that fun (because he is just a jerk who takes innocent girls hostage) and Near only becomes entertaining after he figures out L = Light Yagami = Kira. It may drag for a wile, but the finale more then makes up for it.

Misa

• Misa. That is all.
  • She crazy. I think that just about explains everything.
  • You forgot sexy.
  • Agreed. I have lost count of the number of times I've wanted to smack her upside the head, hard.
  • I hope I'm not the only one who was annoyed by her character; it was much more interesting watching Light's battle of wits with L without having to see a ditz attached to him and generally getting in his way. Of course, I understand that's part of the point to her character - she's meant to be there to inadvertently throw a wrench into Light's plans, but she's still really, really irritating...
  • She started out as a character with potential, demonstrated viciousness and a higher-than-average cleverness along with being raving mad enough to be a Kira imitator (which doesn't take that much; those books are tempting), as well as the fascinating quality of being completely self-interested, and willing to kill Kira with his own power if he gave her trouble. Also actively plotted to kill Rem just to get her out of the way. So, evil and utterly selfish, and not that dumb except by comparison to the smartest person in Japan. And then...something happened.
    • She came down with Obata Syndrome, is what happened. All his women are like this. It's fucking infuriating. It's like even if the writer he's working with has designs for them to be useful or interesting, once Obata has his mitts on them for more than a few chapters they turn into the same soulless, objectified tool-dolls, with only cosmetic differences from one another.
    • Misa is, admittedly, an extreme case of OS. But she was too much of an obstacle; she could have destroyed Light at any time, so they got lazy/realized L sold better and resolving her properly would be a distraction, and gave her to Light as a resource.
    • All of Obata's Death Note characters had personalities that started normal and became extreme. That's the entire point. The characters show what can happen when common personality traits are allowed to develop and go unchecked. Light's shows the negative of solipsism^[1], which starts out as something closer to just having a big ego and being proud of onesself; his pride leads to his demise and the pain and misfortune of many others. Misa's trait is love, which starts as a crush for Light; her love for her family leads to admiring Kira, and a crush for Light turns to a deadly mixture of Love&Obsession which results in a two-sided abusive relationship. Mello represents unhealthy competition and the desire to win; his wanting to beat Near in school activities becomes a goal to defeat Kira before Near, and he's willing to "kill anyone who gets in [his] way" to accomplish that^[2]. Near embodies the Manchild trope; he depends on others and even needs Rester to occompany him on a plane because he's afraid to fly alone^[3], he plays with toys, seems to have a childs reaction to losing, and is afraid of people^[4]. I could go on and on with these, but the point is: "Obata Syndrome" doesn't exist and there is no proof that the creators of Death Note are sexist/hate women/think women are tools/don't want women to succeed/etc.

If all L does is eat sweets and solve mysteries why doesn't he have a NATURAL heart attack?

• Hey, if L does nothing all day but eat sweets and solve mysteries, why didn't he have a NATURAL heart attack of his own accord?
  • He practices capoeira, remember. That probably keeps him in shape. But on a similar note, shouldn't he and Near have a massive vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight?
  • Oh my gosh...maybe he DID have a natural heart attack! lol I'm totally adding this to WMG. Rem killed Watari and immediately died, and L just coincidentally died of natural causes by the same time.
  • Actually, I was thinking diabetes would be the most likely cause of death.
    • Sugar does not cause diabetes. Nor does any bad diet (That we know of) within itself. (Type 2 is caused generally by haveing weight put stress on the pancreus until it slows down/stops. L does not seem to be that heavy.) Either way, L is obviously not the healthiest person in the world. People can live a surpriseingly long time on horribly unhealthy diets as well.
  • As noted above, L practices martial arts. He also plays tennis. And the common conception that all he does is eat sweets is incorrect. We see him eating fruit and drinking tea, both which are proven to be healthy. There's even a scene of him eating ham and melon. Also, L does go outside many times, although fanon would have you believe otherwise. Near on the other hand is shown to be very cautious of the outside world, although I find it unlikely that he never goes outside. Plus there are pills and certain foods that contain vitamin D, so it's not necessary that they get it through sun.

Ryuk's phasing ability

• We've been shown that Ryuk can choose whether or not he's corporeal. So what would happen if a someone shot him while he was corporeal. We know it wouldn't kill him, but would it be able to injure him?
  • Probably. As I recall, he and Sidoh seemed to feel it when Mello's headquarters suddenly exploded.

Rules Lawyering: Is there a scenario where you can extend your lifespan by making the eye trade?

• Ok, say theoretically, you would die in seven days because you didn't know someone's name (and could kill them in the death note), that was the plan at least, until you traded half your life for the eyes of a shinigami, couldn't you theoretically have extended your life span by the trade, since, now you're going to be able to kill the guy who was going to kill you in seven days. Moreso, would you have traded 3 and a half days, or half whatever your NEW lifespan is?
  • Rule V. You cannot lengthen your own life using the Death Note. You'll die in 3 and a half days.
    • So you won't be killed by the guy trying to kill you but instead you break your neck falling in the shower or something.

Rules Lawyering: Could you use the Death Note to control someone to perform a "harmless action" that is actually a code to kill someone?

• The Death Note has some control of mind control, as long as it's something harmless, right? So that would mean the command "Put a tie on the doorknob, then commits suicide" would be legit? So with that in mind, what if the tie was a signal for someone else to kill someone? Would this count? Technically it's no different than telling it to order someone to push a button that just so happens to kill people.
  • Most things like that work based off the last sentient actor.

If L knew Light was Kira but couldn't prove it and he knew that he was going to die then why didn't he kill Light?

• If L knew that Light was Kira, knew he couldn't prove it and knew he was going to die, why didn't he kill Light?
  • Because L wanted to solve the case with inescapable evidence, as he always had before, thus beating Light "fairly." He dies trying to acquire this proof, and in the end his successors, Mello and Near, finish what he started (Near takes pride in the fact that they were able to defeat Light in a battle of minds, with the conclusive evidence shown at last for all to see). Remember when Light's father pretended to take him to his execution, and Light thinks that this isn't like L at all, because he had solved every other case conclusively before? L doesn't want to kill Light, he wants to capture him and close the case (Light being executed would just be a side effect).

Why do so many fans see Light as the hero?

• Why are their so many people in the real world who believe that Light was not a villain but a hero and that all the murders he committed were right thing to do?
  • Well, there are a lot of reasons. First and foremost, Light himself says during his whole monologue at the end of the series. There are no wars, and global crime rates are down 80%. Kira has made the people who live day to day a bit safer in life. Secondly, in Kira's mind, the end justifies the means. However, the people of world don't see the end: only the means. Many don't know it's a person murdering others, but believe Kira is a god trying to rid the world of evil.
  • These are probably either the "tough on crime" people who think that murderers and rapists and the like deserve the death penalty for their actions or the people who want as safe a life as possible without caring about the means (such as increased taxes and government powers and presence in the real world). And seriously, Light ends wars. Has anybody else in the history of mankind been able to accomplish such a feat of peace? As a bonus, Light is the protagonist, so he is the guy that in other shows usually gets to be called "the hero."
    • You seriously just stated that people who support government oversight are analogous to Kira supporters? Responsible government oversight is supposed to prevent outrageous power grabs by persons similar to Light but with more conventional arsenals--deep pockets, mostly, but also private armies, etc.; and 'being willing to pay higher taxes' for such measures is the opposite of wanting everything to be on everyone else as long as you don't have to suffer. Kira is a fascist rabble-rouser of the first degree.
    • The thing is, Kira's judgement is sufficiently arbitrary and poorly-researched that it would be really fucking easy to frame someone, and then they drop dead, so what actually happens is no one in the developed world feels safe. One giant police state with magic online S Ps. Japan is, of course, the most terrifying place of all to live, since Kira keeps the closest eye on it.
  • Light was never truely out to make the world better. He wanted to rule it. And he eventually wanted to do it openly. Let's review: If Light really just wanted to use the death note to make the world better he would have been far more subtle, using different causes of death and only writing down names when it saved others like he did when he first tried out the notbook. When done right, this would have reduced crime without anyone even noticing. Instead he went the "look at me!" route offing everyone with a heart attack. Near's Kira fingerpuppet depicted Lights true nature perfectly: A loud little brat. As for morality: If you kill people without an aftertought but are scared senseless of dieing yourself, you are just a nihilist of the worst kind and effectively don't care about morality at all.
  • Because some people deserve to die. And in the show, since crime is down and the public is safer, the world was truly a better place without those miserable excuses of humanity.
  • Morality is a strange thing. It varies from person to person. We tend to mostly agree on things that are obviously not good (Murder, theft, rape, arson, etc.) but when it comes to some things we do not always agree. For instance, in RL, I am personally an idealist who is opposed to the Death Penalty. However it can be argued with great merit that sometimes he death penalty is required to curb crime. I may not agree with something but it may have merit. Lights actions did heavily reduce the crime of the world and in all honesty if he had been made a consistently more sympathetic character I may have found myself rooting for him just a little. I for one do not see Light as a hero purely because of his actions. He is arrogant, megalomaniacle, power hungry and he wants nothing more than complete subjugation of the world. Also, rule of perception in stories, we know far more about the innocents killed than we do the actual criminals. Seriously. count the named criminals killed. now count those killed for being in the way. I dislike Kira because of what he became. if the only way to live in a safer world is to be ruled by such a person I would honestly rather die. By the end he was not even really killing that many criminals anymore... he was just excerciseing his power on those who opposed him and those his followers listed for him to kill. Thats my very oppinionated response... Others will see the same situation differently. I honestly can see wye some would prefer some innocent people get killed for "The betterment of the world" than to live in a world of crime. It's understandable to an extent even if I highly disagree.
    • I really would like to know how the series would have played out if Light was made more sympathetic. Would have been interesting and maybe would have changed my outlook on the issue..
  • This troper roots for Light because he is a fictional character and I find him to be the most interesting character in the show with the most developed personality. He's also smart, Badass, pretty, and has more substance than say L and Near (just watch I'm going to get killed by the fangirls now)-not that it's NICE substance-Light is an awesome villain but since most of his crimes are either off-screen or people who "have it coming" it's easier to like him. Of course I wouldn't want to live in that world. (In fact in real life I'm opposed to everything he stands for). But I also might root for like... Venom or the Bride, or The Punisher or Dexter or even your typical Action Hero that solves problems by punching people in the face, shooting things, and blowing shit up but I don't think you should go out and kill everyone who annoys you- so for those bringing politics into this it's just a show, you should really just relax.

Kira ends all war?

• This end of wars bugs me in itself. Even with magical ability to kill "evildoers", Light (or anyone else for that matter) could not be able to stop the only thing humans have mastered completely - killing themselves with senseless reasons. There would be still war, even if it's based on something like this.

Country A: "Oh, you will support Kira, his judgement is an act of god!"
Country B: "Like hell!
Country A: "This means war!"

• • Light didn't end wars by removing senseless reasons for fighting; even the Death Note can't do that. However, a war isn't two small mobs of people who fight each other on the streets. A war consists of literal armies of people which have been armed and organized by their leaders for the express purpose of fighting other armies. An army must have leaders, and whether those leaders are a parliament of politicians, an absolute monarch, or an idealist general, they represent weak points by which Light can decapitate or manipulate armies. Since wars are conflicts between armies and armies are led by generals and politicians, Light can end wars by using the Death Note on the later to control or kill the latter.
  • Or to put it in dialogue form...

World Leader A: "I declare war! ...ack, heart attack!"
World Leader B: "We won't be intimidated! It's war... ack, heart attack!"
World Leader C: "Of course you realize, this means wa... ack, heart attack!"
World Leader D: "Yeah, um... let's give peace a chance."

• • • Considering the state of the majority of warfare under the current technology and philosophy of combat, Light probably did a certain amount of tracking down the real names of the more prominent terrorist leaders and offing them at some point. Which would of course just lead to a bunch of terrorists keeping their leaders more mysterious than ever and covering their faces more, and to world leaders unsure how nasty their counterterrorism could get before Kira squashed them. That or he only counts declared war between clearly extant countries, which the nuclear option and threat of international censorship has been keeping fairly minimal for a few decades now.
    • Decent chance counterterrorism could reach the 'bombing random cities in my own country' and Kira still wouldn't move; he has truly horrific ideas about the correct amount of power to be vested in established authority, because he has never seriously conceived of being on the wrong side of established authority. Until he became Kira, and then he quickly readjusted his worldview so he stood at the center of all established authority, by his very nature, which was close enough to what he believed anyway to come easily to him. There are a lot of things Light never conceived of, which is what makes him so fucking terrifying.
      • It's also what brought him down. His mind was brilliant and fine and bold--and ultimately really lazy. If he'd ever spent time examining his philosophical grounding, his place in the universe, etc., he would never have flown so high damningly high on his waxen wings, nor fallen nearly so far.
      • It was there Soichirou failed him as a parent. He was a good man, but he was so out of a combination of instinct and habit, and since Light was evidently born without the instincts he only ever managed to ape the obvious habits, and they weren't the ones he really needed.
• So I believe Light's statement regarding world peace was either a last stand Motive Rant bluff or simply motivated by a lack of knowledge. Come to think of it, with the religious theory stated just above, the world would have started to burn quite soon with fundamentalists rocking the entire planet...
  • Well, it's well established that Kira kills people who try to act in his name (the Church of Kira, for instance), so most of his followers wouldn't want to create an army for him. The fact that President Hoope took his threat seriously indicates Kira has no problem with killing politicians, and although it's never shown, it's almost certain he kills war criminals (the worst kinds of mass-murderers). No-one, NO-ONE is going to fight a war if there's any chance that their actions are illegal (and war always involves at least one side breaking international law by definition), since Kira WILL kill them. He's a weapon of mass destruction, and a more effective deterrent than even MAD.

Why is the World Trade Center still standing in the Death Note universe?

• Why is the World Trade Center shown standing in Episode 26 "Renewal"? The few frames for which they appear are set in the year 2012, obviously post-9/11. And Death Note was created post-9/11, so there's not the excuse of the creators not knowing about it.
  • Assuming you're correct, I have two theories:

1. 1. 1. Death Note is set in an Alternate History where the 9/11 attacks never took place.
      2. In the Death Note universe, the towers have been rebuilt by 2012.

• • Nothing so complex. It's a deliberate Shout-Out; the world has fallen under the control of a terrorist, and the towers may be standing, or they may not. Also Fridge Brilliance in that, if he'd been operating earlier, Kira would presumably have bumped off bin Laden in the 90s, and so 9/11 would never have happened. Whether Kira is worse than bin Laden is of course the stuff of epic flamewars.

Why aren't there any Pink Panther / Death Note crossover fics?

• Why isn't there any Pink Panther/Death Note crossover fics? Inspector Clouseau facing off against Kira would be hilarious.
  • I actually had that exact idea once, and I'm currently brainstorming for a good way to do it. I also make no guarantees that I actually will do it, but I'm thinking about it.

How did Light get a TV into a bag of chips?

• I don't know if this was already brought up, I haven't read through this entire page, but how exactly did Light get that TV into that chip bag?
  • Opened the bag, put the TV in, resealed the bag with a heat sealer. Simple as that.

Rules Lawyering: Using the Death Note for making people happy.

• So interesting moral dilemma, here. What if Light was a lot more selfless (but still just as smart and wanted to create a better world) and did this:

1. 1. 1. Makes the eye deal.
      2. Finds person X with between 22-23 days left to live (just inside the limit).
      3. Writes the date & time of death as when they are due to die ( or one millisecond before).
      4. For the manner, writes something like "Spends the rest of their life helping to significantly improve human life/end poverty then dies a peaceful death among their family and friends, inspiring others to improve their lives also." Includes closing obvious "wish" loopholes.

• • • 4a) He could even make it recursive by including that they receive a deathnote, allowing nothing to be written it but a copy of this entry and replacing the person by someone who will die within 22-23 days and then the note to that person. Maybe even include some sort escape clause if this gets out of hand somehow. E.g. if x happens instead send note to y address/ destroy note
      • If you choose the 'best' possible life and death for a person who is destined to die, is it still murder? And, even though you are helping others, does the fact you are being controlled make it moot?
  • Hmmm, Death Note meets Pay It Forward. This would be an interesting possibility, assuming the rules of the Death Note permit it.
    • How to Use: VI -"The conditions for death will not be realized unless it is physically possible for that human or it is reasonably assumed to be carried out by that human." I would assume that it is not physically possible for a normal human to know when another person dies, also that would mean that the first person written to die would be causing the death of another human, so they'll die from a heart attack. Of course, this also brings up the question of whether one, one thousand, or maybe even millions of people are physically capable of improving the lives of other humans at all (perhaps for every person benefiting from a revolutionary invention, many more will suffer because of it). Light's original justification for using the Death Note was to rid the world of evil people. Getting people to do good things will not stop anything that a evil person might do.

Rules Lawyering: The HUMAN whose name is written in this notebook shall die.

• okay, my friend was bugging me about this, and I think i'm right. she claims the death note works on animals who have been adopted into a human family. I say that's absurd because rule 1 of the death note is that "the HUMAN whose name is written in this note shall die." i'm right, right?
  • Human only
    • Nonhuman crossovers from fantasy and sci-fi universes would present an interesting dilemma.
    • I was wondering about this very fact. I mean, why do Death Notes only work on humans, and why do shinigami only care about killing humans? It's not like death is a human exclusive...
      • Probably because animals doesn't have official names, thus can't be written in the Death Note. Even if they're pets and were given names by their owner, their owner can always change them, or their names change when they switch owners
      • According to this article parrots and dolphins name their young. But then how would you transcribe "click click squeal" or "squawk squawk squawk" into the Death Note?

Rules Lawyering: Can you kill a concept with the Death Note?

• What would happen if I wrote "Anonymous" in the Note and concentrate on their chosen logo? Could I kill a concept? What about I or Report Siht?
  • I think somebody wrote those names up there some time ago
  • And wouldn't that just make the entire show a total waste of time...

Matt's color scheme

• So this is kinda minor, but Matt's color scheme kinda bugs me. The one that seems most wide-spread is nice, but it's not what they use in the anime, and I've never seen (nor does it seem likely that I would find) colored pics from the manga. So where the devil did it come from?
  • There was a Silent Reaper comic on the subject that seemed to indicate that said color scheme was well-established in fanon before the anime came out.
  • The Death Note artbook has Matt's hair as brown, which makes much more sense than the weird green tint the anime gave him. The red is nice, too, though, and it's definitely most widely used among fans.

NO OJECTIONS

• Japanese businessmen don't actually shout "NO OBJECTIONS" in unison at board meetings, right? Because that's hella creepy in the best of circumstances.
  • Japanese people have been known to do all kinds of weird things in unison, but not typically that, no.

Light's plan is unwinnable because Ryuk gets bored

• Now, I haven't watched all of Death Note so maybe it does get addressed, but, to quote the Unwinnable picture, somehow I don't think Light thought his cunning plan all the way through. It seems to me like there's one massive, gaping hole in his long-term goal - Ryuk. Ryuk's letting things proceed because he thinks it's funny, but he's also sociopathic, easily bored, pretty hostile towards Light and makes it very clear that he's going to write Light's name in the book sooner or later. He's only letting Light get as far as he has because it's entertaining. But what does Light think will happen once he's intimidated the world into crimelessness, he's got his own religion going and (most importantly) nobody's opposing him anymore? Isn't Ryuk going to get bored and kill him? Ryuk might even kill him at that point, not out of boredom, but just because it'd be funny and ironic. And Ryuk, being an amoral, rogue shinigami, seems to be the one being that Light can't possibly gain any real leverage over. Doesn't Light realize that, despite all his plans for godhood and such, he's living on borrowed time, at the mercy of a character with all the predictability and morality of The Joker? How was he ever going to get around the eventual problem of Ryuk popping up and saying "well, it's been fun, but watching you play God is getting old, soooo... * scribblescribble* ."
  • • That's EXACTLY what happens in the Relight movie.
  • There's an interesting part just before the timeskip where Ryuk wonders if things will get boring, and Light tells him that he's about to see the dawn of a new world. I wonder if Light said that to stave off the possibility of Ryuk killing him right then, right there.
  • Ryuk is immortal. He probably won't mind a few years of letting Light live with nothing exciting happening, since that would be a relatively short time to him. Besides, if he kills him, he goes right back to being bored, but if he sticks around, there is always the possibility of more fun arising - just like it happened after the timeskip. In the anime, Ryuk only kills Light when it is clear he was a goner anyways (if his wounds didn't finish him, they would have captured and executed him). In the manga, he kills Light only after he is so cornered that he turns to Ryuk for help. In either case, it looks like Ryuk would have been happy to let Light live to almost the end of his natural life, just reserving for himself the pleasure of delivering the coup-de-grace, and thus not making a difference in Light's plans anyways. And for his part, Light has got no way of manipulating Ryuk seriously without him being in love with someone (sure, he can bribe him with apples, but that only goes so far), so he probably figures that is just one part of his plan he can do absolutely nothing about, so he shouldn't worry and just hope for the best.
  • In both the manga and the anime, Ryuk mentions that if he didn't kill Light there, Light would just be arrested and he would become very boring. Ryuk has the attention span of a hyperactive child. The possibility that Light MAY become interesting again in the future isn't good enough for him. If Light becomes boring, he's boned. Light himself may be aware of this, which is why he makes the case to Ryuk after L's death that things are just about to start heating up, and may also be why he didn't kill the task force; he caught the veiled threat in Ryuk's question, and he's smart enough to know that the only way to control the wildcard element of Ryuk is to stay interesting.
  • Shinigami aren't allowed to go to the human world unless a Death Note of theirs is down there. Since Ryuk finds the apples of the human world so delicious, he could probably be persuaded not to kill Light so he can hang around eating apples.
    • For a little while. He can just hand the book to whoever he likes, though, really; Light is just fun.
  • On the one hand, he was ignoring it because he couldn't do anything about it, like a good strategist. On another, he was deeply delusional. Because he was deeply delusional, and he needed to believe he was secure in his life and role. And on yet another, familiarity breeds contempt, and Ryuk was constantly there and constantly goofy and usually pretty easy to get to cooperate, and Light's instincts considered him some kind of inferior packmate, not a threat. He would have had a meltdown much sooner and more pathetically if he hadn't classed Ryuk as 'not dangerous,' and he was never so logical his emotional state about something didn't heavily influence its priority. So.

"Exactly as planned" vs "Just as planned"

• More of a meta question, but how in the hell did "Exactly as planned" gain ascendancy over "Just as planned"? The latter phrase was popular before the dub was even previewed, and I know there aren't that many people who have only read the English version of the manga, but most importantly, "Just as planned" sounds so much punchier than "Exactly as planned." So... what's up?
  • This question comes up often by one of two people: people who are annoying Weeaboo fanboys who insist that the dub is inferior just because it's English, and people who are unfamiliar with the anime dubbing process. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt by assuming the latter, so here's a quick explanation. Dubbing goes like this: Do a literal translation of the script, then tweak the dialogue so that you get the same number of syllables the original version had while still keeping the same meaning. In the case of the "Exactly as planned" phrase, the Japanese is "Katta. Keikaku doori." A literal translation would be "I won. Just as planned." Now, count the syllables. Kat-ta kei-ka-ku doo-ri." Now, the Japanese has 7 syllables, whereas the exact English has 5. So that discrepancy of 2 syllables needs to be made up, hence, switch the "just" for "exactly." Keep the same meaning, as well as the same number of syllables.
    • Leaving aside the merits (or otherwise) of the Death Note dub, you are correct not to lump me in with fans who dislike it simply because it's not Japanese. Perhaps my question was not clear; I'm not interested in how the translators came up with that line (for all I know, the dubbers may simply have lifted it wholesale from the English version of the manga), but in why so many fans seem to prefer a line that, to put it bluntly, sounds quite a bit less Badass than "Just as planned."
      • I guess the only way to answer that would be with "To each his own."
      • Although, the "Just/Exactly as planned" thing is a piece of internal monologue over a still-shot of Light, so the number of syllables shouldn't have been a big deal.
      • I prefer 'exactly,' and I've never seen the anime.

What if you eat the Death Note?

• something just bugged me, what if one were to /eat/ the death note? Like ripping it up or baking it into a pie and eating it or just chewing on the pages?
  • Same thing that would happen as if you ate regular paper.
    • Would anything happen to the shinigami who owned the note?
      • Why would it? It'd be no different from otherwise destroying or rendering unusable a Death Note. The Death Note in question is no longer usable. And the shinigami will probably kill you since they no longer have a reason to stick around and they have to kill you before they can go home.

Why does Ryuk depend on Light for apples?

• Why does Ryuk depend on Light to give him apples? Ryuk is an invisible, immortal being who can fly and phase through matter. He could grab all the apples he wanted from any market/store/tree he came across.
  • He'd probably get in trouble if he did that. Shinigamis probably have some rules about not freaking out/exposing themselves to non-owner humans. Even if he only took one apple at a time, with no one around when he did it, someone would eventually notice the numbers don't match up with the lack of merchandise and check the camera. Camera shows that an apple is floating through the air or, if Ryuk just wraps his mouth around it, disappears. The bus robber and the task force probably wouldn't get him in trouble because Light, the owner, choose to let him be exposed. As for the apple tree, there probably weren't any around.
    • Also, it was part of the game. Ryuk isn't much for rules, and the king isn't much for enforcing them. Evidently.

Incriminating Indifference

• This struck me pretty much three hours after the episode in question, talking to my Defense Attorney stepdad: There were at least five police officers there at the time of L's death. Light doesn't do the damn obvious thing any good actor would do, which is after saying his name a couple time and call for an ambulance when he doesn't answer, and in fact doesn't do much reacting aside from after he's sure L ain't getting back up again. And yet, not one of the five officers, even in retrospect, finds this suspicious behavior.
  • Uhhmmm... what? Could you reword that?
  • I think the person means, "Light didn't bother calling for an ambulance after seeing L suffer the heart attack (despite it being futile), giving off the impression that he just didn't care about L in the first place."
    • Doesn't come up in the manga; scene ends. Presumably the anime writers are useless for everything except creepy romantic subplots and jazzing things up with high drama effects and moments, and they choked on original material for that bit. But lest I come off prejudiced--those police officers were in an emotional place of needing to believe that Light wasn't Kira, because if he was they were a) partially responsible for L's death, and b) so, so screwed. And wrapped up in their own emotional reactions to the terrible event. As long as Light didn't do a happy dance of victory, he was probably okay.

L uses a Mac

• I was just re-reading the first few chapters of the manga now, and... wow, L uses a Mac? THAT Just Bugs Me.
  • Why?
    • Macs seriously don't have a lot of customizability. And yes, original poster, it's a Mac that sends the text message.
• It struck me as odd that, early in the anime, in some close-ups of Light using his computer, the windows looks like from Windows but the windows' title have the three buttons in Mac style. Did Not Do the Research or Bland-Name Product?

Death penalty in Japan?

• When his dad has a heart attack, Light says he promised himself to send Kira to the electric chair if something happened to him. But doesn't Japan only have executions by hanging?
  • Correct, although as of last week, Japan no longer has capital punishment, so assuming Kira hadn't been caught by then, which he wasn't in either the manga or the anime, he would not be executed by Japan. Although, given the circumstances of Kira's existence, it is likely that he wouldn't be tried by Japan, seeing as his was a global crime.

The 13 Day Rule

• When Near asks Light which rule might be wrong, the response makes only sense for people who already know which rules are fake. For everybody else, this would be one of the last rules to suspect. Mello planned on bringing down Kira and he most certainly wouldn't risk dying from a one-time usage of the death note. When N's allies dropped dead it was much too early for Mello to already have met and spoken to a Shinigami (as such a shock would most certainly delay one's plans) so it as a nearly certain that somebody else used the book. And no matter what the people in the show said, it was yet far from clear whether the other rules were true. Perhaps it was completely unnecessary to write down the cause of death for example, because one had to imagine it instead. The only thing that might point to this rule is that proving it wrong would be more helpful than any other in finding the true Kira.
  • Really, what's the point of anyone faking, say, the 6:40 rule? As for the destruction rule, Near can be quite sure that Mello does not know from experience.
    • Let's say a Death Note user is already under suspicion (like Mikami) and closely observed with hidden cameras and such (like Light in the beginning). With this rule being fake it would be easy to disprove the authenticity of your Death Note by writing down a name with a cause and a time and having them then die a couple of days later of something completely different (like a heart attack). Since Kira targets criminals your victim was in danger anyways, so there is no way to track this murder back to you.
      • Except for the part where the suspicious party is, erm, writing in a Death Note. There's really no innocent explanation there.
        • People have been playing with murder for a long time now. And while toy guns need to be marked as such in many countries, there is still no capital punishment for playing with one that is not. (Though apparently one can be expelled from school for using a fake Death Note.) But really, that was just one example. The possibilities are limitless if you just use your imagination.
          • Near is pretty clear on the whole Death Note thing, but what are the chances some random lawyer knows about them? And don't forget that the details-of-death thing gels very well with the whole controlling-of-actions bit, particularly considering that a good portion of Near's initial data comes from the Yotsuba incident. So, let's see the other rules... the first two are very much set in stone... if the 40-second rule is false, it still can't be far enough from the truth to be relevant, the examples to back this up going all the way back to Kurou Otaharada... and the default rule is, again, pretty strongly backed by the Yotsuba data. That basically leaves the two rules that are actually fake, and based on the information available to Near, the 13-day rule is the one Mello can know for sure is false.
    • Seriously? You're asking why giving a convicted criminal one of the most powerful killing weapons in the world just might be a bad idea? What's to stop him from quickly scribbling a bunch of names at random?

Fridge Logic: Light and Near's showdown

• The final fight between N and Light is a great example of Fridge Logic. Light's plan depended on 1) N (whom he didn't know at all) not caring enough about all the people that died before the great showdown, 2) the loyalty of N's employers (whom he couldn't judge from experience either and who could also just have ended everything at any time by themselves once the culprits were clear), 3) the quality of the hiding spot that Mikami had found for the Death Note 4) N not positioning an armed ally somewhere hidden in front of the entrance in case Mitami opened the wrong page in all the excitement and 5) nobody using their pistols on Light in the time frame between the first and the final heart attack.
  • N's plan on the other hand depended on the man who had beaten L not caring about any of these problems.
    • No real explanation for Near's weaknesses there, except that he was never truly fleshed-out and all ridiculously complicated plans like this are going to succeed due to all those little things going right, or fail because they're supposed to. But in Light's case his hubris finally killed him. That was the whole point. He lay in his own filth all those years and rotted until that which had been praiseworthy in him had all sloughed off and left only the horrible core for Mello and Near to rise up and strike toward. That out of sheer arrogance he left big enough holes in his defenses that Near need not have been as clever as he was...well. They got out of it with no further fatalities to their team.

Why does Mikami look so ugly during the final confrontation?

• Why does Mikami look so freaking ugly during the final confrontation in the anime? For most of his appearances, he has a bishonen Stoic Spectacles look going for him, but then his face just seems to become grotesque during his reaction to Light denying knowing him. And then right before he kills himself with his pen we get a close-up of his face and his face looks completely different than normal, like a freaking hobo... it's not just the expression, he looks horribly physically different from before. What's up with that? Sure, he was under a lot of stress and pressure and his whole world was crashing down on him, but the same is true of Light, and his face never looks like it was smashed by a truck full of fugly before Ryuk kills him. So... explanations?
  • Mikami's face changes because his character is all about physical manifestations of ideas, and in this scene he gets used as a symbolic representation of those ideas. Justice and righteousness manifest for him with the advent of Kira, and so his appearance, (well-groomed, attractive,) reflects his belief that the world is just and right. When Kira, the 'source' of that justice he believed in, is revealed to be a selfish, egotistical child, his belief is shattered and his appearance changes to reflect the ugly truth revealed. (He looks twisted and deranged.) Light's face does not change (as much) because such a large part of his character is about keeping up a pretty face no matter what he's thinking. Granted, he still does have a fair range of emotions during that last scene, but since he's not being used as a symbol at that point his face keeps to a more natural range of motion.
    • Light did look pretty ugly when he died in the manga, at least. How far can you fall, little god? All the way. All the way down.
    • And don't forget that anime in general tend to portray characters based on their feelings instead of just outward appearance. They exaggerate the expressions to show us what's happening to them psychologically. Light's eyes turning red whenever he thinks of something evil, for example.

How come Giovanni didn't react to seeing Ryuk?

• How come Giovanni doesn't react when he sees Ryuk enter the warehouse? He doesn't seem to use gloves as he works, so he must have touched the notebook when he stole it from Mikami's box. Near I can buy as being completely unsurprised by the appearance of a freaking death god, but Giovanni is much harder to swallow.
  • Near told them not to react, no matter what they saw or how shocked they were.

Why didn't Light kill off more members of the Taskforce?

• During the timeskip, why doesn't Light kill some more members of his team? He has no trouble wiping out Aiber and Wendy. Sure, it would look suspicious if he and his dad were the only ones left, but he could have killed the smarter people who were more likely to turn against him (like Aizawa, who goes to Near with information) while leaving people like Matsuda alive (Matsuda isn't much of a threat and has some symphaties towards Kira).
  • During the timeskip, they were all well in hand and didn't have anyone apparent to betray him to - as Volume 13 puts it, they're pretty decent guys and Light might as well keep them around.
  • Plus, if any of them died it would open the task force up to review. He has a comfortable life. No need to upset it with actual police work.

Naomi Misora's Bridge Drop

• The fact that Naomi Misora was killed off so quickly bugs me. There are so many ways she could have contributed to the story. Not to mention, she's the only female character in the whole series who's both interesting and likeable.
  • You may have already heard this, but she was originally intended to last longer than she did. Unfortunately, she was, in fact, so competent and intelligent that she threatened to get out of control and end the series way, way ahead of schedule if allowed to act on her own any longer. ... Yeah, when I put it that way, I wish we could have seen more of her, too.
  • Her death raises the question of just how she managed to commit suicide so that no one found her body.
  • Obata hates women. Well, hates them being anything but tools.
• Misora: Her intelligence is inconsistent with what little we've seen of her in the show, and read about in the novel. Not only was she supposedly so smart that she couldn't be allowed to continue in the show, she was referred to as 'paranoid' in the novel, and cautious/suspicious about everything. So, why did she attempt to go to the police, in Japan, where Kira is known to reside, where Kira is known to need a person's real name to kill, with only one alias? She should have been suspicious of everyone since she honestly did not know who Kira was at the time, and even with all of the "proof" and sweet-talking that Light was trying to lure her with should she have refused to give him her real name. She logically should have been handing him fake name after fake name after fake name. Her deductive skills are impressive but her common sense is rather lacking in that area.
  • Well, she probably wasn't in the sanest state of mind since her fiance, who she was days away from marrying, was suddenly killed by Kira. Plus, if you think of a mass murdering God wannabe, you don't really think of a young Grade A student who's father is on the taskforce trying to catch Kira (unless of course you're L.) Also, I have to admit that the writers aren't the best when it comes to females.
  • Also, the receptionist mentioned that a) Light knows secret information about the Kira investigation and b) he's helped solve cases before. That does a lot for the trust issues, I'm thinking.
    • Yeah--law enforcement comraderie. She filed him as "one of us," and it was her undoing.
    • And seconding the above--Obata hates women. I mean, Ohba may be on board with it too, since Misa is visibly replicated in the next thing they did together, but if you look in Hikaru no Go, for example, you'll find the token girls there have a spiritual kinship with the ones in D N and Bakuman｡.
  • Obata hates women? You don't even know the guy. Yes, many of the women in Death Note get screwed over, but that's arguably the entire point. Light kills a smart woman who just lost her fiance and is emotionally wrecked, uses a girl who lost her family and decides to dedicate her life to him, and has a fake romantic relationship with a woman he dated in high school and makes her burn herself to death. Meanwhile, he's judging murderers and rapists.

Using the Death Note to do the physically impossible

• Death Note Rewrite 2: Mikami uses the Death Note to kill a man by way of twisting his head around a full 180 degrees with no outside force.

If Roger hates children then why is he running an orphanage?

• If Roger doesn't like children, what is he doing running an orphanage?
  • Maybe the pay is good? And he can't find another job for whatever reason? At least one good enough to justify quitting the orphanage.
  • A personal obligation to Watari, I'm thinking. He does keep a framed picture.

Math Note

• Meta: Out of an obsession with the perverse and playing around with loopholes and (separately) proving that I'm legitimately not breaking specific rules, I wish there was a licensed product that was exactly the same as the Ryuk's Death Note product, but instead of "Death" it said "Math" (same font). Targeted to people taking notes and doing problems for math class, such as having a section of graph paper or something, or even just regular lined notepaper all the way through. Even before Death Notes got widespread banning in schools, it would have been such a cool product.

Is that paper in your pocket?

• Why didn't anyone notice Light had his clothes stitched full of paper? As anyone who's carried a list in their pocket should know, paper makes a very different sound to fabric when it moves and creates all kinds of strange folds.
  • If you fold a sheet of paper up small enough it doesn't make any noise if you hide it in the linings of your pockets or wallet, etc. and even if it's known he carries a lot of paper on him, is it really that odd for a genius honor student to be carrying "study notes"?

What do Shinigami do?

• This might have been answered at some point and I just missed it, but what do the Shinigami do? The series hinges around Ryuk being so bored that he tosses a Death Note into the mix for fun, and Rem has enough time to just kick back with Misa. So what purpose do they serve? Humans die at their natural time, which is independent of the Death Note, and humans go to nothingness when they die... so, well, where do the Shinigami come from, and why do they exist at all? I'm just having a hard time figuring out the cosmology of the Death Note world: it's like there's an afterlife (the Shinigami World) and there's Shinigami, but nobody actually goes to the afterlife, and the Shinigami aren't required to do anything, so...
  • Although your completely right that it does seem pretty odd that there are gods but no afterlife, I got the impression that the shinigami essentially kill random people to stay alive- like you die anyway, but if Ryuk needs to lengthen his lifespan, he might write your name in his book before you are due to die. Somehow, they manage to not wipe out humanity.
    • Humans vastly outnumber shinigami. Judging by the How To Read volume, there are only 13 or so shinigami at the start of the series, and they can't reproduce, so their numbers can never go up. My personal theory is that shinigami were originally human-like beings who used mystical and/or scientific means to achieve immortality, which is why they're still around while the rest of their world seems to be covered by ruins.
  • As far as I can tell, Shinigami have the same purpose that humans do. That is to say, they don't have one. They simply exist for the sake of existing. Just parasitic beings that feed off the life of humans. Hence why they're all slackers who spend eternity playing cards.
  • According to Rem, the purpose of shinigami is to kill humans, and that is the reason they die whenever they die if they ever intentionally extend a human's lifespan; they are going against their purpose. Whether Rem is right or this is just an explanation/justification the death gods came up with after observing the facts is unknown. If they WERE designed to kill humans, either by the shinigami king or some other creators, making them dependent on leftover human life span from the people they killed was a smart choice. Dunno why anybody would design them to kill humans, though, since, as you pointed out, humans die well enough on their own given enough time. They definitely have nothing to do, though; after racking up enough life time every once in a while, they just lie around, talk, gamble, and watch humans. Some do what Ryuk and Rem did, however; give a notebook to the human world as an excuse to hang around.
  • They're somewhat better understood from a naturalist perspective than a metaphysical one, let alone any attempts at theodicy. They're parasites. Over-efficient ones. Why or how or if there are any other points in the same spiritual ecology is the question. The theory that they are the endpoint of some race's quest for immortality is a good one, given their utter dependence on such specific and advanced tool-use.
    • And of course, meta metaphysically, they are a pure expression of the worm-in-the-heart-of-man that Ohba and Obata spend such time pounding away on. Selfish ennui. Boredom to cripple and extinguish the soul. The barren meaninglessness of life. The indifference of eternity, and the struggle of pride against it. Shortsightedness, especially in those privileged, and the tendency to pettiness that overwhelms almost everything eventually.
  • I kinda thought that shinigami were responsible for every single human death, which kinda explains this. Is there any direct explanation in the manga or the anime saying that, instead, humans normally die on their own?

Did the public ever find out about the Death Note?

• I'm watching the series on Hulu, and I'm almost at the end. I think I might've missed something. Did the public ever find out about the Death Notes, or are they still in the dark regarding how Kira kills?
  • They never found out.

Kira's Notebooks

• Same guy as above, different question. I'm on the episode shortly after Light's father dies, and I seem to have lost track of the Death Notes. Alright, there's the very first Death Note we see, that Ryuk apparently stole/borrowed from Shydo. Then there's the one from gelus with the Japanese writing, and the one that Light took from Rem's corpse. Total of three, four if you count the one that Ryuk keeps on him at all times that hardly ever seen. Light took Rem's and uses it for himself, while Misa uses the one from Gelus, and the cops had the original from Shydo. Cops gave it to Mello in exchange for Light's sister, but then got it back shortly after, and Shydo took it back with him to the Shinigami realm. The cops say they only need one Death Note, implying they still had one, and Light pulled it out in plain view. Whose Death note is this, Rem or Gelus's? And how did the cops find out about it without revealing Light? Sorry if this is really obvious, I took a break shortly after L died, so I may have forgotten some things.
  • I think it's Rem's. The reason the task force got it is that Light sent it to them in order in to get back the notebook Mello had.

L Fangirls

• L fangirls. Don't get me wrong, L is my favourite character in the series, and possibly one of my overall favourite characters in anything I've read, but so many of the fangirls do not get it. They squee and swoon over him, but when it comes down to it, in real life, they'd probably just avoid him, thinking of him as the weird guy with no friends who hangs out in the corner. Y'know, like most of the characters in the anime do. It's completely superficial, made even worse by the fact that the Generic Cuteness of anime characters made him a hell of a lot more attractive than his character is supposed to be. But what really gets me is that I've known guys who acted similar to the way he did, and for the most part, I was the only one who ever befriended them or hung out with them of my own volition. Other people might tag along with me, and by proxy, them as well, but when they weren't with us, the others would sometimes comment on how weird they were. I cannot stand how so many girls who love squeeing over a cute cartoon character would likely shun the dude if he existed in real life. * Headdesk* * Headdesk*
  • Sounds like you're having a whine about some personal issues rather than the series, here. It's not like nerdy women never get shunned by guys for being that way.
  • There is a difference between fiction and reality. Personally, I'm a Light fangirl, but I wouldn't want to meet him in real life, since I'd probably get manipulated and killed, like pretty much everyone else he encounters. Yet this doesn't stop me from jumping up and down in my computer chair whenever he comes up with one of his genius plans, or sketching pictures of him when I'm bored. Plus, most of the guys like L in real life aren't super-genius detectives.
  • Plus, when the other college students are watching Light and L play tennis, there is one girl who says that she thinks L is cute, so him being attractive (at least to a certain type of woman) is not solely caused by Generic Cuteness.
    • And while they don't get it, I'm pretty sure he was calculated to appeal to them like that. Most guys like him don't gesture cutely while putting away whipped cream and strawberries, nor do they give off an air of grave sincerity every time they speak. The fact that he's kind of a creep is much subtler than it is with Light, since he's less of one and a more subtle personality overall, and enough fans miss that about Light, somehow.
    • Even fewer of them are so utterly driven, too. To be fair to the girls--the guys you knew who might fit the same profile cannot be anywhere near as objectively awesome. Even the very shallow can see their way around abnormality for the genuinely exceptional, at least enough to admire if not befriend.
    • Kind of like how so many a Hollywood Nerd is fawned over for his "geeky, dorky, cute little personality" that seems to be a turnoff in actual nerds? Yeah, I see what you mean. But seriously, if you think about it, he just has a sort of way about him...his Establishing Character Moment was pulling a fast one on Kira and telling him where he can shove his justice! Plus, the big black eyes help some. There's also the voice...
    • Except that in the case of Hollywood Nerds they're usually 1) played by a handsome actor/ drawn in a generically cute or endearing fashion, and 2) are generally very nice people. L is unattractive- bags under his eyes, messy hair, and clothes he's worn for days or even weeks- and mean- torturing and attempting to manipulate a girl and being perfectly fine with letting people die as long as he gets the results he wants- yet fangirls still squee about how 'cute' and 'hot' he is, and how 'nice' and 'lawful' he is. Light's fangirls are at least understandable since he's handsome, generally well mannered with other people, and his method of killing criminals to create a better world is either a very bad thing or a very good thing depending on one's views on criminals and the law, and granted there are fans who like L for perfectly justifiable reasons, but the sheer amount of fangirls who like him for his 'looks' and 'personality' is ridiculous.
    • In Fan Art form:
    • I think a lot of it has to do with the live action films. Specifically, L:Change the World. There really is no reason for why that film exist other than money. L was made into an entirely different person in that film. He babysitts children (not just any children--they're orphans. and not just any orphans--they're sick orphans), stops a virus from spreading accross the world, and pilots an airplane. By the end of it he's telling a little girl that he "believes in her" and giving a robot toy to Near (who he apparently named).^[5] He also had a change of hair and makeup. The first two films gave him a more crack addict look ^{[dead link] [dead link] [dead link]} ( like the manga); the third one made him look goth ^{[dead link]} . His appearance became very stylized and put together, while in the other films it's like he wakes up that way and doesn't even brush his hair. ^[6] Unfortunately, the film version has blended with the manga version in the minds of fangirls (especially the younger ones); to them, they're one and the same.

13-Day Test

• Right before L dies, he explains to everyone his plan to test the fake 13-day rule by having one condemned prisoner use the death note to kill another condemned prisoner, then they wait thirteen days. Why does the task force ditch this plan? What's the moral gray area? Both prisoners are going to die anyway, and if the rule is fake that's a huge breakthrough for the case. Didn't anyone think it suspicious that Light was dead-set against this plan when proving the rule was fake would re-open him as a suspect?
  • They can't have thought it was too suspicious, given that his father was even more dead-set against it. It's not a rational aversion, maybe, but you can see why a plan involving using the Death Note would be pretty ooky to him.
    • All of a couple episodes later though that's exactly what they do, and in that case it's not even to take down Kira, but Mello, who by any objective measure wasn't anywhere near as dangerous as Kira. If nothing else, you'd think they'd be suspicious that L is killed off all of a minute after he initially suggests this plan.
      • At least in the manga, they never tested it. Mello tested it and confirmed that the 13-Day Rule didn't exist after being informed of that fact by Sidoh, then Mello informed Near of it, and then Near informed Light and his task force in an effort to drive a wedge and bring Light back under suspicion by his men. At no point did Light and his task force actually try out L's plan of having a convict execute another convict and then watching what happens.
      • Damn, missed opportunity there- Light should have "tested" it (and used L's death as an excuse to do it discreetly) by appearing to go through with L's plan and then killing the criminal writing in the book 13 days later.

Why didn't Mello search Takada more carefully?

• Why didn't Mello do a more thorough search of Takada? Wasn't the whole reason he was searching her in the first place because she might have a small, easily concealable piece of the Death Note on her? Also, I have trouble figuring out where she managed to hide the pen that he couldn't notice it.
  • Well, she IS a woman.
  • Because Takada woudn't have contacted Mikami until Mello was safely out of the way. The plan included his death.

Notebook Pages

• How many pages does a death note have? They look like they have less than a hundred pages, and seeing how many names were written every day for years, I would expect it to run out of pages well before the series ended. Is there an explanation for that?
  • I think I read somewhere (pretty sure it was the "How to Read 13", but it's been a while since I read that, sorry) that the book autmoatically replenishes it's paper supply, and never runs out.

Closeness to Kami / Honorifics

• Not sure if this has more to do with Death Note or with the Japanese language and culture, but the way Mikami referred to and addressed Light caught my attention. I was led to believe that in Japanese one is supposed to say "Kami-sama" when talking about an individual god, not simply "Kami". In Kamichu!, for example, the protagonist, who is a goddess, refers to herself as "Kami-sama", without sounding even remotely arrogant. Was Mikami's usage of the word without the honorific justified by the context, or is it just not as big a deal as I thought it was?
  • Mikami saw himself as being 'chosen' by a god (Kira), so perhaps he thought of himself as a god's right hand man, and thus close enough to Kira not to have to use honorifics? Mikami's attitude makes it clear he's devoted to Kira, so I think his lack of honorifics might simply have to do with his belief that he and Kira are like extremely close friends, and thus doesn't use them.

Another Note: Wammy's Generations

• Maybe this should go in Characters' Actions, I'm not sure, but anyway: In Another Note, Mello refers to A and B as the second generation. He then goes on to refer to himself and Near as the fourth generation. Was there room for a third generation of Wammy students in there, or did he pull a Near-from-the-manga and count Kira in the mix? Because that seems awfully out of character.
  • Well it could be that not every Wammy Kid gets a letter (only about four or five per generation) or some of them share a letter (like two Fs). Or Mello was just lying.
  • Actually, it was stated somewhere that between A and B and Near and Mello, there were 3 heirs called X, Y and Z. They were the third generation.

How did Light obtain information from his potato chip TV?

• How did Light obtain information from his potato chip TV? Any audio would be heard by the bugs. Since Light also needs to see faces, he'd also have to STARE into his potato chip bag fairly frequently. L doesn't find this behavior the least bit odd? Also, the lights were off in Light's room (except for the desk lamp). L would likely notice the glow from the TV.
  • As for how Light got the information, I assumed that he watched it with the sound muted and just hoped that the news program he was watching would show both a criminal's name and picture; he didn't care if the crime was relatively minor, just that someone was killed during that time so that he would get an alibi, so he went with what he could get. However, with 64 cameras in the room (and several that would appear to be pointed in a direction that could see the potato chip bag on the desk), it's pretty much absurd to think that L somehow doesn't notice Light's turning on the TV or the glow from the TV as he watches it. Even if Light had set the TV to just barely visible contrast, many chip bags have a reflective silvery interior, so it's hard to imagine L not noticing anything suspicious about the chip bag.
  • I think that was one of the things L picked up on as being suspicious- since Light didn't have audio, he didn't know what the men he killed had done. As a result, he killed a fraudster and a purse-snatcher.

Why would Light allow a parrot/parakeet/talking bird in his apartment?

• Why on Earth would Light allow a parrot in his apartment? Just imagine if it started talking, Aaark! I am the God of the new world. Aaark!
  • It's a parakeet. The weird thing is, I seem to remember task force members searching Misa's apartment as though it's separate from the new HQ. What happened there?
    • Parakeets can talk. That must happen--Fan Fiction, write it now: Aizawa comes in and is all "Why does your bird keep shouting about plans and Justice?"
  • Wait! What?! What canon are you talking about?
    • Anime.
    • I think that's Misa's place (big time celebrity with multiple houses, or something) and Light has his apartment which is the new HQ.
    • The bigger question is how did Misa manage to care for the bird without killing it since by that point in the series it looks like what's left of her mind is pretty much gone.

Misa's imprisonment

• Misa's imprisonment bugs me on many levels. For instance, she was imprisoned and restrained for almost two months, if I remember right. How did she not develop a number of medical problems I could name, both physical and psychological?
  • Had the TOs done the research, they presumably would have made L less, you know, Mello. Me, I never thought about it until you brought it up, so I forgive them. As for why Misa was restrained and Light was not - my big concern with the sequence - I think we can all agree that Tsugumi Ohba, for all his virtues, is pretty damn sexist.
    • Well no, they did have actual evidence on her, unlike Light, so I don't find that part problematic.
    • Also Misa is suspected of being the Second Kira who can kill with just a face--thus the blindfold.
  • What gets me is the fact that they get up, walk around and apparently have no issue with bright lights after two months spent immobile (or nearly so) and in Misa's case blindfolded. The film goes a little way towards rehabilitating them, but there's got to be some time between the anime/manga incarceration and the execution ploy, otherwise Aizawa and Soichiro would have been carrying Light and Misa between cars (and that's before getting onto what a real blank cartridge would have done to Light).

Why does Misa have blonde hair and blue eyes when she's Japanese?

• Why does Misa have blonde hair and blue eyes when she's supposed to be Japanese!!!
  • Well which do you prefer: dye/lenses, or mutation? :p
    • That's like asking why every other character in anime doesn't have both black hair and brown eyes. It's an anime thing.
      • I doubt it's an anime thing in this case. Death Note seems to stay pretty realistic in regards to human characters. It's likely that she dyed her hair and uses contacts. In Japan, it's actually very popular for stars (especially female) to do that.

Raye Penbar's death is Somebody Else's Problem

• In episode 8 of the anime, notice the part where the investigation team is watching the videos of Penbar's death, specifically when L mentions him looking into the train. He just finished clutching his chest and falling to the ground, and yet even as he's sprawled on the ground, there's at least 3 onlookers who don't seem to be doing anything - one man is walking towards him unhurriedly with a briefcase instead of rushing to his side, and another person is just reading a newspaper! I find it difficult to believe that people wouldn't have come to his help to see what was wrong from the moment he started clutching his chest, let alone after he'd fallen to the ground.
  • I don't know what it's like in Japan, but there are many places in the world where that's -exactly- how many people would react.
  • Standbyer Syndrome, I think. Certainly there are studies showing that the more people are around you, the less likely someone is to help.
    • Bystander effect, yeah. What the OP believes people would do and what they have been experimentally proven to do are completely different.
      • Having lived 10 years in NYC, I can say with absolute certainty that's how it would have happened had it been on the NYC subway. Someone could be bleeding from the eyes, and no one would "notice", or if it was noticed wouldn't bat an eye at it.

Why is Matt so popular?

• Why is Matt so popular?
  • I don't know if he became popular before or after How To Read, but my gut says it's his bitchin' fashion sense.
  • His fashion sense, him being a Wammy Kid, liking video games, smoking, being Mello's only known friend (though fangirls would want you to think otherwise)...personally I barely care for him, but it's no wonder he's so popular with the fangirls despite getting even less time than Raye or Ukita.
    • He and Mello were propelled upward in the fan consciousness for being the only depiction of an actual human relationship in the second half of the manga, and the only thing approaching a healthy one in the entire series. The runners-up are L-and-Light (actually trying to kill each other) and Soichirou-and-his-wife (not depicted interacting). Readers were starved for some not-loneliness, though I don't know how conscious it was.
      • Despite being almost non-existent in the series, he's one of the easiest characters to relate to. Apart from being the third smartest kid at Wammy's, it seems like Matt is a normal teenager: he plays video games, eats junk food(his hideout is full of it in the manga), and has a light sense of humor and overall normal personality based on what we've seen. Meanwhile, the other characters close in age to the primary audience are blowing shit up, playing with toys, calling themselves God, and engaging in epic mind rape with little emotion, or so much emotion they verge on being bipolar. Mello and Near are cool, but they're so extreme in both personality and actions that I just couldn't relate to them, and at that point in the story Light was just batshitcrazy. When Matt showed up I thought, "Whoa, this seems like someone I could hang out with. I wonder what he's going to do..." Well, he did something cool and got shot in the process. Damn, that was depressing.

"I will love you for the rest of my life."

• At the end of Light's letter to Misa, he says he will love her for the rest of his life. Why couldn't he have worded it differently? It would have been much cooler and more villainous if he worded it into a False Reassurance something along the lines of "I will be with you for the rest of YOUR life.".
  • Eh, it'd just provoke a vast wave of Draco in Leather Pants when he never actually does kill her. Really, for me, the fact that the Flaw Exploitation comes in letter form is cool enough. A doctor will comfort a dying countryman, and Misa will do anything for love.
  • Plus he never put much effort into placating Misa, so all his phrases are the most standardized endearments and nothings.

Petty criminals are newsworthy on Japanese TV

• I was writing a Death Note parody where, when Light turns on the TV, the news anchor says "Hello and welcome to the Daily News Show. Just like we always do, we're not going to have any news about politics, the environment, human interest stuff or even include a weather report, since we'll be too busy showing you photos of criminals along with their names." And then it struck me - if this isn't how Japanese news reports actually are, then how can Light have access to so many names and facs of criminals?
  • I recently read a memoir - Tokyo Vice - by a fellow who was a criminal reporter in Japan. Believe it or not, purse snatchers are, in fact, televised news over there. (Interestingly, it is very rare that the writers for Japanese newspapers get bylines. I think that'd create something of a rift between the TV media and the print media, don't you?) Now, by the time Kira had largely moved on from the legitimate mass-murderers and so forth, I don't think the non-Japanese criminals would be on Japanese television, but they'd probably be on, say, the NHN website.

Sayu's psychological trauma

• Why would Sayu be traumatized to the point where she couldn't move or speak, possibly for the rest of her life, just because she was kidnapped? She seemed perfectly fine while she was confined, but the second they rescue her she's a vegetable.
  • She's probably suffering from a severely bad case of Post traumatic stress disorder. Honestly I thought it was far more realistic than when Misa immediately got better after being tied up and blindfolded for 50 days. Also I think it was mentioned (not sure where, maybe in How To Read) that she was slowly recovering.
  • Did you not notice her reaction when someone started firing a rifle right next to her as a warning? It's obvious that was the big trigger of her trauma.

How do you measure being "the greatest detective in the world?"

• How exactly does L maintain the fact that he's the 3 greatest detectives in the world? as in how are they ranked? if it's by the number of successfull cases, does that mean that he intentionally fails certain cases when acting as Deneuve or Eraldo Coil, so as to make sure their notoriety is less than L's?
  • Well, we know that Coil's MO involves lots of cash, and he's expected to do the sleazy corporate PI thing. That's automatically less respectable than L's "ten-body minimum but it's pro bono" rule. (My pet theory is that Deneuve is L's persona when he wants to recruit "underworld professionals", and Deneuve is played by Watari until L sounds out said "professionals" very, very well. But this isn't WMG.)

After L dies how do they explain what happened to Coil and Deneuve?

• After L dies, how do they explain what happened to his other two personas? Did the secret get out that he was Deneuve and Coil?
  • Maybe Light did some work as Coil on the side. (And maybe Deneuve, depending on how much he could figure out about that persona, but if only Deneuve disappears, that's much less suspicious.) It was a long timeskip.

Why do fans not view L or Near as wholly good?

• Why is everyone on this site so uneasy about dubbing L or Near as good? This goes for the Draco in Leather Pants thing as well. L may have been in it for the puzzle, but he was still undeniably the good guy. He may have broken the law on occasion but his crimes were nothing, nowhere NEAR the level of the person he was after, and what he did were the ONLY things he could have done in that situation to get results. Near is even worse, with many dubbing him as evil when at heart he wanted to solve the puzzle and avenge his mentor, he did even less EVIL than L if I recall, and he only broke laws when the villain forced him to become a criminal. What's there to be put in leather pants here?
  • Well playing devil's advocate for a moment, Word of God says L and Near are "slightly evil" and if you read the manga L uses Cold-Blooded Torture on his suspects and Near's using people as expendable pawns and his Mind Rape gloating session at the end pegs him as just as much a sociopath as Light. Kira will just kill you, L and Near will Mind Rape and torture you first; that is if they permit you to die. And if you're going to argue that evil acts don't matter as long as the results are achieved how is that ANY different from Kira's mentality? Death Note isn't about a battle between good and evil. It's a battle between the sane (team L) and the insane (team Kira).
    • Difference? How did Near Mind Rape Light in the end? he was gloating his victory sure but it came off more as a long Shut UP, Hannibal to me, and when did he use anyone as an expendable pawn? Like you mean Gevanni? He always offered him a choice first, he never forced them to do anything. L also tortured Misa because he couldn't do anything else, she was insane and there was no way he could have known about ownership of the notebook. Kira hurt innocents, L never did (unless it was self imposed like with Soichiro) How can you look at someone wantonly muurdering hundreds of thousands of people out of boredom on one hand, and someone torturing an insane criminal because he had no choice on the other and say Not So Different?
  • L and Near were better, but they were far from pure, and Near at least never betrayed any tendency to care, period, at all, which makes him very difficult to empathize with or care about in return. Light was totally selfish, but he was dramatic and deluded in interesting ways, and we saw him in his less guarded moments and followed him as he deteriorated. Near appears to have been equally selfish, but creepily honest about it; L was the least selfish of the genius set, probably, but he was still pretty extreme. The way he used the kids without caring says a lot.
  • Those claiming moral equivalence aren't so much saying that the actions undertaken have the same weight as that actions are essentially weightless, and only the beauty and integrity of your philosophy can really be counted. Light had all kinds of flash and no integrity whatsoever; L on the other hand was killed by his integrity, bizarre as his primary stricture was, but didn't flash so bright or believe in the same way, and was willing to wade through all kinds of dirty business for the sake of his personal goals. They were very different kinds of cynic and idealist; approaching opposite poles on major issues, you might say. Though as L lampshaded at the beginning, very similar altogether.
    • And people understand Light better, and hold him to a different standard, so it looks the same to them. The audience was intentionally caught up in his self-image. The people holding to this loyalty are probably missing the point a little, since part of the purpose of the time skip was to distance us enough from Light that we realized more fully how disgusting he really was. Give us a look at how distorted our views of our own actions are, compared to those of others.
    • Or possibly that part is a social experiment in identification and pack mentality.
  • Also, you've got to remember, plenty of people agree with what Light was trying to do. If you feel that Light's plan would create utopia, anyone against it is, by definition, evil.
  • Or, you could say that it's a human nature thing. People are polaric, and will go with one extreme or another in a lot of things (think of politics). Once people got the idea that "Kira is evil because of what he's doing," then "Anyone who's willing to stop Kira is automatically good". And, for another thing, it's easy to get caught up in just how freaking awesome L is and totally miss the fact that yes, it's great that he's stopping a killer and all, but it's not like he's Jesus.

Why does Mikami wear glasses when he has the Eyes?

• Why does Mikami still wear glasses? Don't the eyes improve your vision exponentially?
  • Mikami seesms to be the kind of guy who likes his routines. Maybe he just got used to them? Also people might notice if he suddenly stopped wearing glasses and he is concerned about drawing unnecessary attention to himself. So maybe he changed the prescription so that they do nothing but just look stylish?
  • I have only watched the anime, so: Does it say somewhere that the Eye Pact improves your vision? I though it only enabled you to see the names and death ETA.
    • Yeah, the eye deal also gives you perfect 20/20 vision.

Can somebody explain me what's with Ryuuk on Relight??

• He doesn't seem to have pupils anymore, there's the sound of chains when possible Shinigami-Light goes to visit him, his Death Note looks like it hasn't been used for years. Did I miss something? The comments on the Youtube viedos mostly say he is just old, but I'd like to know is something is say about his current bad state on Relight.
  • Maybe a lot of time has passed since the events of the series? Or maybe his ragged state means he was punished for interfering in the human world?

1. ↑ using it's definition as the inability to see the views and needs of others
2. ↑ not to mention blackmailing the US President, kidnapping, and joining the Mafia
3. ↑ it's not a fear of heights, planes,etc--it's similar to a childs fear of not having a parent with them
4. ↑ explained in How To Read 13
5. ↑ Don't get me wrong, it was an interesting film to watch and the acting was good. But, damn, you can't get any cheesier than that. And some of the cheese taste like diabetes.
6. ↑ And to go along with the film, they made a photo book of Matsuyama as L. He plays with bubbles, rides a merry-go-round ^{[dead link]} , plays with gummi bears ^{[dead link]} , rides a panda and eats candy with a look that makes you think he's doing something else ^{[dead link] [dead link]} . Bishonefication to the extreme.