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Light Yagami

Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (JP), Brad Swaile (EN)

The protagonist of the series... at least, in his damnable view of himself and the world.

Light is a genius student who has one major flaw... namely, one hell of a God complex. He has a hatred of the criminal element of the world, but for most of his life took a "what can you do" approach. Then, he finds the Death Note dropped by the Shinigami (Death God) Ryuk and his world is turned upside down. He begins using the notebook to kill criminals, believing that in doing so, he could scare the world into becoming more law-abiding.

He finds an equal and opponent in L, the elusive international detective hired to find and prove the identity of the mysterious string of murders. He eventually bests him, killing L through the shinigami Rem- another obstacle in his life- who dies in the process. This later attracts the attention of L's successors Mello and Near, the latter of whom properly corners him... and whose men are savvy enough to open fire when Light pulls out his book. Shot up and trapped like a rat, Light reaches downright satanic levels of insanity, coming inches within jotting Near's real name down on a last resort scrap of the Death Note- with his own blood used as ink. This only gets him pumped full of more lead by his associates. Through a stroke of luck, Light shakes off his pursuers and limps off into a warehouse complex bleeding profusely, but finally collapses from his wounds on a stairwell, where the ghost of L confronts him. In the end, Ryuk, pitying his twisted human acquaintance, cements the final fate of Light Yagami- by writing his name in the Death Note.

Known aliases: Kira, the second L.

• Allergic to Routine: Now if Light could have found some other intellectually engaging hobby the entire plot probably would not have happened.
• Aloof Big Brother: To Sayu.
• Alternate Character Reading: Light's name is very unusual (as in what were his parents smoking [1]) and this is Lampshaded by several characters. It is read as Light but spelled with the kanji Tsuki or moon making it a Meaningful Name since the kanji has four strokes and Light Is Not Good. Also a bilingual pun on "moon light". Light or Raito is also a bilingual pun on Right or Righteous and Write as in writing.
• Amateur Sleuth: Before picking up the Death Note.
• Amnesiacs Are Innocent: a deliberately Invoked Trope during Light's Memory Gambit.
• Antagonist in Mourning: Despite the Psychotic Smirk after having L killed, there are several hints suggesting that he misses him afterwards.
• Anti-Hero: Type IV. Until he dives over the edge and becomes a straight up Villain Protagonist.
• Anti-Villain: Type III. Again until he jumps off the slippery slope.
• Appropriated Appellation: "Kira", the Engrish pronunciation of "killer."
• Asexual: Quite possibly, but see Ambiguously Invisible to Gaydar for another interpretation. Let's just say it's a subject of speculation.
• Awesome McCoolname: "Light" is written with the kanji for "moon" and "Yagami" is written with the kanji for "night" and "god".
• Awesomeness By Analysis: This is his forte; quite a lot of his scenes involve a running inner dialogue where the audience hears him analyzing the scene around him, taking stock of his circumstances and options, and planning his next move. And of course after his genius plans come to fruition, he has to go over them in detail so that the audience has a chance to figure out what exactly just happened.
• Axe Crazy: And very much so. In the very first episode, he locks himself into his darkened bedroom, pulls out his Death Note, opens it up to reveal all the pages and pages of names of the people he's killed, smiles down at it, and then breaks out into creepy, creepy laughter.
• Badass: Light has an undeniable aura of audacity and sophistication about him.
  • Badass Adorable: Mainly in the beginning when he was younger and before Art Evolution kicked in. Awww, who's the cute little psycho killer? Yes you are!
  • Badass Bookworm: He's the top ranked student in the country and his room is filled with books - though he's only interested in one book in particular.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: He always looks professional, you've got to give him that.
• Bad Boss: Light rules his circle of supporters, namely Misa, Ryuk, Takada, and Mikami, with an iron fist. And although he's always polite, accommodating, and courteous to the Japanese Anti-Kira Taskforce, there's really no other way to take plotting their deaths. However... in retrospect, Ryuk was free to do whatever the hell he pleased... and that includes penciling in Light's own name into the Death Note.
  • Justified in that Light is extremely security-conscious, and his success rests largely on the people in his command, both as Kira and the second L, not screwing up. Due to this, he kills or tries to kill almost everyone who helps him throughout the series.
• Bad Dreams: During his first week of judgements in the manga; he also has a psychotic Nightmare Sequence in Relight 2 (complete with "holy shit" Scare Chord).
• Bastardly Speech: Yes indeed; the one after L's death is a particularly infuriating example of damage control.
  • Following his father's death, when Matsuda is questioning whether capturing Kira is right or wrong, Light says that history will favor the victor; Kira will be seen as a criminal if he's caught, and will be seen as justice if he prevails. While this is meant to come across as a suggestion that the investigation team will be vindicated if they are successful, it also represents Light's belief that the world will soon come to accept him.
• Batman Gambit: He's a master at manipulation.
• Berserk Button: Don't suggest what Kira is doing is wrong...
• Big Bad: As the main Villain Protagonist and, later, Shadow Dictator.
• Big Bad Friend: Although he kept up the act of being a friend, or at least a decent co-worker, to L, Matsuda, and the rest of the taskforce, he is the mass murderer they've all been searching for. And although he would rather not kill off the taskforce, preferring instead to manipulate and deceive them, he will not hesitate to get rid of them if he feels that he needs to.
• Big Brother Instinct: Initially, (in fact in the manga this is part of his initial justification for using the Death Note) but ends up being one of the many things forgotten by the Dark Side. Poor, poor Sayu.
• Big Sleep: In the anime at least. When he was killed by Ryuk in front of the police in the manga, he Dies Wide Open.
• Bishonen: Very much so. Though his features do coarsen a bit as the series progresses as he becomes older and nastier.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He acts polite, understanding, and caring towards the people around him, but in reality he's a Manipulative Bastard with a God complex. And boy when that facade drops, can he get nasty.
• Black and White Insanity: Falls into this more and more as the series progresses.
  • Justified: People matching the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder use black and white thinking, called splitting, as a central defense mechanism; they separate mental concepts into good versus evil, say, as an attempt to stabilize the sense of self in order to preserve self-esteem. Throughout the series Light certainly does show clear indications of perceiving himself as purely upright or admirable and others who do not conform to his will or values as purely wicked or contemptible.
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: He begins his first week as Kira by killing so many people that Ryuk, a god of death, is surprised.
• A Boy And His Shinigami
• Brainy Brunette
• Break the Cutie: The power of the Death Note, and the revelation that there is nothing after death, do this to Light in the very beginning.
• Break the Haughty: This happens a bit every time he gets Out-Gambitted by his opponents, although he's fairly good at bouncing back. And, of course, his death counts as a truly epic example.
• Broken Ace: There are hints in the series that Light wasn't entirely stable even before finding the Death Note; being so effortlessly perfect while surrounded by a world that he considered "rotten" while having little ability to fix it left him bored and seemingly depressed. And of course, as the series progresses he uses his near-inhuman charm to cover up his true nature.
• Broken Messiah: invoked word for word in the first opening credits ("Doushite? Boku wa kowareta meshia?"). Word of God suggests that Light was the first victim of the Death Note-he was very nice and very pure before realizing the notebook was real-then it was only a matter of how fast and how far he would fall.
• Brown Eyes: Although his character subverts the symbolism completely. Stable, trustworthy, and normal Light is not.
• Brutal Honesty: Although it's a contrast to his usual approach to those around him, Light uses this tactic with Misa, most notably when he is just getting to know her and is sounding her out for motivation, understanding of the situation, and so forth.
• The Butcher: His kill-count earns him the name "Kira."
• Calling Card: "L do you know..."
• Catch Phrase: Say it with me everybody...
  • "I am the GOD of the NEW WORLD"
  • "Just as planned."
  • "I am JUSTICE!" (this one is shared with L.)
    • And the variant: "I have become Justice!"
  • "I'm not Kira."
• Celibate Villain: Zigzagged: In the manga he dates as many as four women at a time to deflect suspicion, and has romantic trysts with Takada after becoming the second L in order to manipulate her into doing his bidding. However, he doesn't really care about romance or sex, so played straight in that regard.
• The Charmer: When all else fails he switches to this tactic of manipulation in order to get someone's name or to save himself.
• The Chessmaster: He manipulates and uses pretty much everyone he comes into contact with.
• Chick Magnet: Let's count all of the names that pop up in the manga: Emi and Shiho (whom he mentions to Ryuk), Yuri (Spaceland Girl) and Mayu (whom Misa cites as competition), Kiyomi Takada (who begins her role in the story as the girl who asked him out in college) and of course Misa Amane herself. Word of God says that "during college he had about five or six girlfriends."
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Light betrays, has betrayed, or plans on betraying effectively everyone who was ever close in any way to him.
• Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: All the time.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: Official color seems to be red. Also wears a lot of black and white.
• The Conscience: Memoryless!Light is ironically this for L.
• Consummate Liar: Even L calls him out on it.

L: "Tell me Light, from the moment you were born, has there actually been a point in your life where you've actually told the truth?"

• Cool and Unusual Punishment/Karmic Transformation: The first Relight special hints that after he dies, he becomes a shinigami.
• Corrupt the Cutie: The power of the notebook and the realization that he's killed does this to Light at the very beginning.
• Cosmic Plaything: He found the Death Note completely at random (if Ryuk is to be believed) and is heavily hinted to have been doomed from the beginning.
• Cradling Your Kill: L dies in his arms.
• Cram School: He attends one despite being WAY too smart to actually need it.
• Crazy Prepared: Although it's played with a bit. When he starts acting as Kira, he riggs his desk to burst into flame if anyone tries to find the Death Note, has three different ways to tell if someone has been in his room - even before gaining the notebook - and is shown spending hours going over his past actions and future plans, as well as what's been reported in the news. He looks for mistakes and possible holes, and memorizes what has been reported, so L can't trip him up. Later, due to his raging god complex and his sense of complete superiority, he starts to view himself as invincible, and stops being so well-prepared. It doesn't end well for him.
• Crazy Sane: If you were paying attention, Light goes nuts in episode one. It's just that his brand of insanity is cool, calm, and calculated. In the final episode, however, he's practically an Omnicidal Maniac.
• Crucified Hero Shot: The cover art of Volume 12 of the manga, (being subtle).
  • Also during the second ending theme song's animation, although if you blink you'll miss it.
• Cult of Personality: His followers are so devoted that they will commit murder for him.
• Cursed with Awesome: Though he doesn't think of it as a curse.
• Curtains Match the Window: Brown hair, brown eyes.
• Cute and Psycho: Horror has never been so adorable. Many people have remarked that he looks a bit like Zac Efron.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: Light manages to avoid most major villain pitfalls... until the end.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Similar to how Misa seems to be under the impression she's living in a Romance Novel, Light seems to think he's living in a Shonen Manga which, while technically true, he's an idealist living in a cynical world. Light sees himself as The Hero and The Chosen One - through the sheer power of determination and his genius plans that are always right he will make this world a better place. He thinks of the Death Note as just a tool, no different then a gun. Heroes can use guns on bad guys and still be considered the heroes. So why would people ever think what he's doing was wrong?
• Dark Messiah: "The Savior, the Messenger from Hell."
• Darker and Edgier: When compared to Taro Kagami, the Kira from the pilot chapter.
  • Ye gods, Light in the live-action movies! It makes his anime counterpart seem downright cuddly in comparison.
• Death Glare: Don't screw up his plans. Just... don't.
• Deep-Cover Agent: He acts as his own Manchurian Agent.
• Desk Jockey: We rarely see him leave his desk during either the Yotsuba arc or the second arc, his "investigation" with Kiyomi Takada aside. He inherits this from L.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: In the first episode, but then he finds one.
  • After L's death in the anime, he seems to be quite listless and empty, Evil Gloating aside; he only really perks up when Mello and Near come onto the playing field.
• Determinator: "Childish and hates to lose."
  • Light as Kira is (from his perspective) on a holy crusade against Evil. He's never going to quit his mission for the sake of his friends, family, or "true love." Sorry Misa and sorry fangirls.
• Devil in Plain Sight: For the audience, and, later, Aizawa, Mogi and Ide.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?/Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Light manipulates Rem into killing L and Watari in order to save Misa. Because this deliberately lengthened Misa's life - a big no-no for Gods of Death - it ensures that Rem will die as well.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Light IS the trope.
  • He sentences a purse-snatcher to death at one point. Besides, you know, killing off the law enforcement agents who are just doing their jobs.
  • He plans to eventually start killing people for laziness. Not to mention the utterly heinous crime of getting in his way.
• Dissonant Serenity: He can remain perfectly calm and go about his daily routine while knowing full well that people are dying by his hand. The anime even shows a sequence, early on, that places scenes of criminals dying, sometimes violently, in-between scenes of Light walking to school, playing a game at gym, and opening a bag of chips at lunch.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: He and Misa set several of these up throughout the course of the series, sometimes on national TV, sometimes on private laptops.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Getting away with murder has never looked so cool.
• Domestic Abuser: Light takes his anger out on, controls, demeans, deceives, and ultimately plans to kill Misa.
• Don't Tell Mama: "You told my father that I'm a suspect?!"
• Doom Magnet: Complete with Lampshade Hanging.
• Doomed Protagonist: Kind of a given when you've picked up an Artifact of Death; there's also more Foreshadowing when Ryuk informs Light that humans who come into contact with Shinigami have nothing but misfortune. Light assures him "I'll show you the break in that pattern."
• Double Consciousness/Secret Identity Identity: "Don't panic. I have to act like Soichiro Yagami's son Light would act." Also made obvious with the fracturing image symbolism in the second opening credits. Also Lampshaded by L when he asks Light how, as a detective, he would go about trapping Kira:

L: Absolutely amazing. The thing is I've asked countless investigators that same question and it took them minutes to even come up with an answer. But you, Light. You immediately thought of a scenario where Kira was talking directly to the investigators. I'm impressed. You'll make a fine detective someday.

• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Seen in episode 1 before finding his "purpose." Also in episode 26 when trying to adjust to a world without L in it.
• The Dutiful Son: Light is this for his parents. Subverted when he uses his father in an attempt to kill Mello.
• Dying Alone: Although in the anime, there is an appearance from what appears to be L's ghost. This may or may not be a Dying Dream.
  • Averted in the film.
• Dynamic Character: He changes so much over the course of the series you almost have to have the Characterization Tags: pre-note!Light, early-note!Light, cackling-villainy!Light, Tennis-with-L!Light, Yotsuba!Light, post-L!Light, rapidly-losing-grip-on-remaining-sanity!Light, Shinigami!Light, etc.
• Et Tu, Brute?: When the taskforce begins to turn against him in Season 2, it's clear he sees it as a betrayal. Also the end of the series, "MATSUDA, I thought you understood!" The manga finishes it up with Mikami screaming "YOU'RE NOT GOD!!"
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He genuinely cares about his family (not that that would ever stop him from going through with his plans.) Word of God says that, although "he's likely not capable of loving a woman," he does "possess love for his family and for humanity as a whole."
  • Averted in the second live-action film, wherein he writes Soichiro's name in the Death Note, shocking even Misa to the point of tears. And just when we thought it couldn't get worse, it did: he dies in Soichiro's arms (who, by the way, survives here), begging him to believe that he acted as Kira to put justice, which Soichiro had taught him about since childhood, into effect.
• Even Evil Has Standards: 1) He is initially dismayed when Mikami's killing spree extends even to relatively innocent people guilty of such minor acts as being lazy, but later thinks to himself only that it's "too early to be making statements like that," suggesting he may agree. Explicit in the manga when he actually toys with this very idea early on in the story. 2) Light set up matters in the second arc so that he couldn't kill his little sister without incriminating himself. Though that's after he considers actually doing it. 3) In the anime Light looks quite irritated when a second Kira appears and uses his name to kill innocent newscasters and police officers for "no good reason."
• Even the Guys Want Him: Let's see, you've got like every background character in episode 1, Ryuk has to follow him around everywhere, Raye Penber The Stalker, L and his weird obsession and surveillance cameras, Misa showing up on his door step, Takada apparently asked him out, Matsuda and Mikami the Fanboys, and Near with his creepy smiles and he keeps calling and hanging up... Kira is a wanted man.
• Evil Counterpart: To L.
• Evil Gloating: He just can't resist it ...
• Evil Is Not Well Lit: His bedroom always seems to be dark, save for the light from his computer and television; as you can imagine, he has several eerie Face Framed in Shadow moments.
• Evil Laugh: He's got some evil chuckles spread out throughout the series and the one in the Grand Finale is LEGENDARY!
  • Not to mention the one he comes out with after L pwns him for the second time, at his university entrance ceremony.
• Evil Overlooker: A few times, such as during the opening and closing themes, symbolically and literally overseeing his New World.
• Evil Plan: Motive Decay changes it from the well-intentioned 'eliminate crime' to the insane 'become god of a new world'.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: As part of his Memory Gambit, Light makes sure that L reads the rules of the Death Note so that his own fake rules, in the context of the other real rules, come across as legitimate.
• Expressive Hair: Whenever he freaks out, his normally tidily combed hair becomes wild and messy.
• Extreme Doormat: He has touches of this as his mask of being The Dutiful Son, also in his "Yes, dear" approach to appeasing Misa during the second arc. In the first episode he seems depressed and unmotivated and throughout the series he has some low points when he’s not declaring Godhood where he seems completely empty. Also during the Yotsuba arc when L is quite literally yanking his chain around and Light is eager to please him and prove he's not Kira. Then there's the Kira mission in itself, which arguably starts out as not for him but for the world. "Isn't this what society really wants me to do?" (He waited a whole week before declaring godhood.)
• The Extremist Was Right: During his Motive Rant, Light says that wars have stopped and crime has dropped 70% because of Kira. He succeeded in scaring the shit out of most of the world as an anonymous "God" and walking deterrent.
• Expy: If, according to Obata, L is an Expy of Sherlock Holmes, then the case could be made that Light is an Expy of Professor James Moriarty.
  • Since his father is a Captain Ersatz of Commissioner Gordon, Light himself would also be an Expy of James Gordon Jr. Both Light and James Gordon Jr. were sociopathic sons of a police chief/commissioner who lacked remorse when committing murder or torture upon other people.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: God, is he pretty. Dangerously insane and evil like the night is black, but pretty.
• Fallen Hero: He was a Nice Guy and Amateur Sleuth before becoming a Serial Killer.
• False Friend: To L, though the author says L feels the same way.
  • Also to Matsuda. Aizawa, Ide, and Mogi never seemed closer to Light than "co-worker," but Matsuda considered him a friend, probably because the two had Soichiro, who was Light's father and Matsuda's mentor, in common.
    • His relationship with Matsuda is probably closer then any of the other detectives since he believes that Matsuda is a Black Shirt who believes in Kira's justice. He was wrong. And of course, Light didn't hesitate to have Matsuda killed along with the other detectives.
• Family Values Villain: Light doesn't approve of any crime. He is also a firm believer of that credo "respect the police and pressure them into murdering your enemies."
• Fatal Flaw: Pride.
  • If Light hadn't had the need to engage L in pitched battle, things would have gone much more smoothly for him. Imagine; if he hadn't killed Lind L. Tailor, set his killings to deliberately reveal that he had police information, or any of the other bold moves he pulled, he wouldn't have given L the valuable clues L needed to close in on him in the first place.
• Faux Affably Evil: He plays cool, polite, friendly... as long as you're not a sinner or get in his way. Then you have 40 seconds to live.
  • A particular example is when he's just written Misora's name in the Death Note. The moment she realizes that he is Kira and the Death Note takes effect, he asks her what the matter is and casually turns his phone back on, telling Naomi she can speak to his father now.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Light tends to panic when things don't go according to plan.
• Fluffy Tamer: "You shinigami are so cute!" (Parodied in this doujinshi.)
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Sayu and Light, though subverted once Light becomes Kira.
• Freudian Excuse: In the live action films, wherein he dies in Soichiro's (who, by the way, does not die here arms begging him to believe that he acted as Kira to put justice, which Soichiro had taught him about since childhood, into effect.
• Friendless Background: Though he's very popular Light doesn't seem to be particularly close to anyone. This varies somewhat from the manga to the anime. In the manga, Light is seen casually joking while walking home with friends, while in the anime, Light is shown pointedly declining an invitation to hang out and eating lunch alone. Word of God says, though, that he had many friends.
• Gadget Watches: Light hides a piece of his Death Note inside his watch, meaning he can kill anyone at any time as long as he's not being watched carefully.
• Giggling Villain: He does this a lot, especially in his inner monologues. And when he does, your guts will squirm.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Such pretty red eyes.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: He and L do this throughout the first arc. It might as well be re-named "Play Tennis With Kira."
• A God Am I: After picking up the Death Note, Light sets out to become the God of the New World.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Before he jumps off the deep end and when he gives up his memories and becomes truly innocent, his eyes are wide. When he is acting as Kira, contemplating and executing murder plots and plans for godhood, his eyes are noticably narrower.
• Gut Feeling: Among other situations, if Light hadn't felt this about Naomi Misora, the story would have had a very different ending.
• Hannibal Lecture/Motive Rant: Light delivers one after he's exposed as Kira. As noted below, Near responds with a Shut UP, Hannibal.
• Harmful to Minors: Death Note: Keep Out of Reach of ANYONE.
• Hates Being Touched: Misa never catches on.
• Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: Light has a secret. As a teenager he's discovered he's changed. He's not like the other kids and if he is outed they'll never accept him. Light attempts to cover up this secret by dating lots of girls and reading porn.
• He Who Fights Monsters: It takes only one chapter for him to become a monster (i.e. killing Lind L. Taylor).
  • And he keeps on going from there. As the crusader against criminals, Light becomes the worst of them all.
• Heel Face Brainwashing, which he pulls on himself via supernatural notebook.
• Helpless Good Side: Yotsuba!Light is a Technical Pacifist who believes he's not even capable of killing and won't even accept a handgun for self-defense.
• Hero Syndrome: Well, he's perfectly happy soaking up lots of praise from the Taskforce for working to stop Kira... while being Kira.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Given that his voice actors are Mamoru Miyano and Brad Swaile in Japanese and English, respectively, there is a a lot of potential for this:
  • He is not in any way, shape, or form the young king of a jungle.
  • You also have Kiba demanding to know "What's wrong with killing!" and would like you to know that "your rules are ROTTEN!"
  • He is also Gundam. Or not.
  • As for the English dub, why is Quatre Raebaba Winner killing people?
  • Another Swaile character uses an avatar to kill viruses in cyberspace. And another, was a marvel superhero.
• High School Sweethearts: Or rather, College Sweethearts. With Kiyomi. Or so he would have you believe - see also Asexual and Ambiguously Gay, above, and The Sociopath, below.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: It's one thing to string along a group of detectives for years while pretending to chase the mass-murderer you secretly are. It's another thing to get a paycheck for it.
• Hollywood Hacking: How he is shown getting information from various sources over the course of the series.
• Holy Halo: On the manga cover art. Also gets Holy Backlight in the first episode when he first declares he's going to become the God of the New World.
• Horror Struck: There's a brief but powerful image at the very beginning of the manga when Light is coming to grips with the power of the Death Note. He's shown huddled in bed, wrapped in a blanket, with this stricken look on his face.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Light being Light, he proceeds more intelligently than most.
• I Am the Noun: "I am Justice!"
• I Did What I Had to Do: Light clings to this belief throughout the series. See the spoiler in Hannibal Lecture for more.
• I Have Come Too Far: He says this nearly word-for-word at one point.
• I Have Many Names: Light Yagami, Kira (the Saviour, the Messenger from Hell, etc.), Light Asahi, "Mr. A an office worker", L (number two), God.
• I Meant to Do That: whenever L one-ups or humiliates him Light quickly recovers with "This is perfect. It's all according to plan." [2]
• I Will Protect Her: Rem forces him, under direct threat of death, to adopt this mindset towards Misa in regards to his plans during the events that lead up to the Yotsuba arc.
  • As a more genuine example, this is Light's attitude towards his little sister, Sayu. In the manga, though, he considers murdering her at one point, and only doesn't do so because he opts to gamble with her life- and their fathers- in order to find and kill Mello and get the second Death Note back.
• Ignore the Fanservice: In one scene in the second arc, Light walks into a room containing both Misa Amane dressed in lacy knee-highs, a corset, and very little else, and a computer with information on it. Guess which one he immediately focuses on and which one he completely ignores?
  • In an earlier scene Misa comes into a room with the entire task force in it wearing a skimpy nightdress. Matsuda, Ide, Mogi, and Aizawa are clearly affected by it, but Light doesn't even look at her.
  • When Light first meets Misa, she is dressed in black lace, a very short skirt, and a tight black corset. His reaction? "Everything she does is ridiculous."
• Ignored Epiphany: At the very beginning. He is completely overcome when he realizes that the Death Note does indeed work and that he's just murdered two people - dry heaving, shaking, even a hint of tears. Then he starts thinking that this is exactly the opportunity he's been waiting for. "This world is rotting, and those who are making it rot deserve to die!"
• I'm Having Soul Pains: "Ryuuzaki, let me see it!"
• Implausible Deniability: Justified. As the Real Life section notes on the trope's page, clinical psychopaths have a tendency to never admit guilt even when faced with undeniable proof of their actions.
• Incriminating Indifference: Although he tries to avert this.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Light seems to be living his life under the assumption that he has to be perfect. Perfect student, perfect son... and then he kills two people by accident just to satisfy his curiosity and his boredom. That ruins everything. It makes him a murderer, evil. The only way to become "perfect" again is to become Justice, to become God. In his own words "If Kira is caught, then Kira is evil. If he wins and rules the world Kira is justice." He gets caught. Also as per the trope at times he comes off as desperate to prove himself - especially in his interactions with L, where he seems to get overly-excited even when he gets simple answers right. And "feeling better about themselves by putting others down"... does the whole world count?
• Insane Troll Logic: This is how he deludes himself into thinking he's doing the right thing. He sincerely believes that if he kills off all the criminals no one will ever do anything evil again.
• Insufferable Genius: He doesn't let people in-universe let in on this fact til towards the end, though.
  • But as for the audience, oh, so much.
• It Gets Easier: Early in the manga, Light is shown wrapped up in a blanket, wide-eyed and trembling, wondering if he has the guts to go through with his plan, after killing just two people. Days later, he's proudly showing off his pages of written names to Ryuk.
• It's All About Me: Although he begins his career wanting to be the god of the NEW WORLD, he switches his emphasis to being the GOD of the new world to accomodate his steadily growing narcissism.
• It's Probably Nothing: Light's reaction during the Yotsuba arc when thinking about how the ideals of the original Kira are disturbingly close to his own.
• Jekyll and Hyde: When he gives up the notebook and his Kira memories he goes from being a complete asshole to being the nicest guy you could ever know. Then, of course, he regains his memories and goes back to being evil again. But the change is so extreme, some fans consider Light and Kira to be two different entities.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: He genuinely cares about his family... and hopes he doesn't have to kill them.
• Jerkass Dissonance: Believe it or not, he still had fans by the time the credits rolled.
  • In-universe, this is Light's relationship with Misa. He is generally cold, commanding, and stern towards her (except when he wants something), and offhandedly orders her to go to bed, to be quiet, to go back to work, etc. And despite one or two quiet "You're so mean, darling," comments, she adores him until the end.
• Jumped At the Call: Once Light finds the Death Note, it doesn't take him long to use it to start changing the world.
• Just a Kid: In the live action movie it is outright stated that his dad doesn't want him working on cases yet for this reason.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Killing Lind L. Taylor.
• Karmic Death
• Kick the Morality Pet: Light and his family.
• The Kira Becomes the Killed
• Knight Templar: Poster boy.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: He really does love his little sister, Sayu, and is quite protective of her. When L and he are profiling Kira, and L suggests that Sayu is the one who best fits the profile, Light briefly loses it.
• Kubrick Stare: He does this quite a few times.
• Large Ham: "I will be the GOD of the NEW WORLD!!!"
  • "I'll take a potato chip... and EAT it!!!"
• Lean and Mean: The official stats list him as 5'8, 119 lbs, leading to some fan speculation that he might have some sort of eating disorder, though when compared to the stats of the other characters they're all pretty lightweight. He also mentions in passing that during his first week as Kira that he's lost 10 lbs on top of not sleeping.
  • There's a scene in the first volume of the manga, actually, where he announces that he's finished eating, and his sister says, "What, already?"
    • This is even worse when you realise the official stats are mistranslated, and Light is meant to be 5'10! The "I'm not eating with the family", though, seems as if it's underscoring that he's bolting his food to get away from them.
• Light Is Not Good: *Ba-dum ching!*
• Limp and Livid: After getting shot.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Misa.
• Living with the Villain: Light and Misa live together, although in this case Light himself is also a villain.
  • Soichiro, Sayu, and Sachiko all live with Light in the first season (which makes for some really awkward family discussions).
• Lonely at the Top: Sure, lots of people worship him from a distance. But he either screws over, or emotionally distances himself from pretty much everyone he knows.
• Looks Like He Is Enjoying It: Light writing in the Death Note typically involves a lot of sweating, panting, shouting, and giggling in sadistic glee. Fan Art ensued.
• Magnetic Villain: His Cult of Personality is so strong that he gets three other people (four if we count Higuchi) to commit mass murder on his behalf. He gains Rem's loyalty as well despite the fact that she hates him ( because his motives are more pure than Higuchi's).
• The Man Behind the Man: In manipulating both Misa and Higuchi; Mikami and Takada both count, too. He is the original Kira, functioning through a series of proxies and decoys throughout the series.
• Mangst: He does feel emotional pain for his sister's kidnapping and his father's death. And maybe even for betraying his "good friend" L, it's just very subtle and well-hidden.
• Manipulative Bastard: Whoo boy. Deceit and manipulation pretty much define all of Light's relationships.
• Memory Gambit
• The Mentally Disturbed: If you think Light can keep his grasp on his sanity once he gets a hold of the Death Note, you haven't been watching the series nearly as close enough as you should.
• Mirror Scare: The sinister Kira reflection at the end of Relight in the Taskforce HQ's Hall of Mirrors.
• Mistaken for Masturbating: Light deliberately invokes this trope to conceal the fact he's killing people with a magical notebook.
• Mole in Charge
• Moral Myopia: He applies very high standards of morality to his mother, sister, father, and absolutely no one else.
• Moral Sociopathy: Kira's justice. He definitely has a moral code and he doesn't care who he has to kill to uphold it.
• Mr. Fanservice: *roll credits, open shirt.* Both in-universe and out. As Near points out, "Light Yagami is a lady-killer."
• Murder Is the Best Solution: If someone becomes a nuissance he first thinks something along the lines of "I have to kill him!"
• Name of Cool
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Night god, anyone? Also his first name is a name that real parents in Japan would never give to their child because the character for moon is written with four strokes meaning his adult life would be dominated by death.
• Narcissist: Light grows completely divorced from humanity, and eventually percieves himself as a god, valuing other people according to their usefulness to him (like Misa, Takada, and Mikami) or his personal interest in them (like his family).
• Necessarily Evil: Starts out this way, determined to sacrifice himself for the greater good. However, less than a week later he's squeeing over his promotion to Godhood It doesn't keep him from occasionally toying with the concept of himself as selfless and self-sacrificing, though.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Initially.
  • He seems to think of himself that way, though.
• Nice Guy: When his memories are wiped during the Yotsuba arc he reverts to the way he was/would have been before picking up the Notebook.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Has referred to Shinigami as "cute" and finds all that Ryuk will tell him about Shinigami quite fascinating.
• No Sense of Humor: Other than making a "joke" about wanting to trade away half of his life for shinigami wings, he lacks any sort of sense of humor.
• Non-Action Guy: Well, he only writes people's names in the Death Note, and has never done physical harm.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: This is his game plan. When his ego starts to balloon out too far, he forgets this was how he saved his own ass time and time again. Inevitably, Light steps out into the open... and makes the worst mistakes of his life.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: "If Kira is caught, then Kira is evil. If he wins and rules the world, Kira is justice."
• Not So Different: Frequently lampshaded. Both he and L are genius Chessmasters that hold vast power by remaining anonymous- L solves criminal cases behind his computer screen, Light judges humanity from the comfort of his bedroom. They're two sides of the same coin: Light has great ideals and no integrity. L has great integrity and no ideals.
  • Also with Matsuda: Both are youthful Wide-Eyed Idealists with Samaritan Syndrome but their attempts to "help" just make things worse.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now: "Looks like I win."
• Obfuscating Stupidity: What's that, Rem? I don't understand... could you explain to me the rules of ownership again?
• Obliviously Evil: He consistently views himself as a Dark Messiah Well-Intentioned Extremist whose actions are justified and necessary. As you can imagine, he's quite, quite mad.
• OC Stand-In: Despite being the main character we don't learn much about him or his past beyond his goals as Kira. Death Note isn't an anime with a lot of flashbacks or character studies.
• Odd Name Out: Light is the only Yagami not to have a name that starts with "S" (Sochiro, Sachiko, Sayu)
• Offered the Crown: L unexpectedly offers Light his title as the "Great Detective L" should he die. Light (who no longer remembers that he is Kira and at the moment genuinely likes L) refuses for as comrades chained together by a common destiny they would die together anyway, but then he realizes it was just another test.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Light's final slide into full-blown dementia puts him firmly in the position where he thinks it's all just shits n' giggles to kill practically everyone on the planet.
• Omniscient Morality License: When he kills a criminal as Kira, he's NEVER wrong about his victim. Ever. Presumably, he's just that intelligent. (But it seems hard to believe he only got real ones...)
  • His faith in the accuracy of Japanese and other justice systems, and the news reports on them, is touching.
  • The confession and conviction rate of the Japanese justice system is terrifying in itself - well over 90%. And Light has grown up worshipping his father to such an extent that he plans to follow in his footsteps. It makes more sense of his certainty that anyone arrested must be guilty - as ever, he's not as smart as he thinks.
  • Understand, Light grew up in an environment of constant praise and approval, where he was able to do everything he set his mind to perfectly. As the seventeen-year-old kid whom we meet at the beginning of the story, he's merely transferring that state of mind to his newest project: being Kira.
• Ordinary High School Student: Both the anime and the manga introduce Light at school; he notices the Death Note fall because he's staring out the window, bored.
• Out-Gambitted: By Near at the end thanks to Mikami's screw up.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Light wears a hoodie and beanie when manipulating Raye Penber, which renders him unrecognizable to both Raye and the investigators that view the surveillance cameras.
  • Though Raye never sees him until it's too late, and the chances are he doesn't recognise Light's voice because he's already under the effects of the Death Note.
  • And L does note that Kira likely examined the subway beforehand and made use of the blindspots of the cameras.
• Pay Evil Unto Evil: Under Kira, any crime is punishable by death.
• The Perfectionist: Of course taken to extremes and applied to the entire world.
• Person of Mass Destruction: He kills hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
  • Over five or so years as Kira, at about 15 criminals a day, going by the earliest figures reported by the police... That's... well, that's a lot of people.
    • One fan gave an estimate that if Light did nothing but write names (taking ten minute breaks to rest his hand) he could have a 1,000 dead per hour.
• Playing with Puppets: When testing the extent to which he can control victims with the Death Note.
• Preacher's Kid: or rather The Chief's Kid, a type 2 of this trope everyone thinks he's perfect when he is in fact a manipulative faker even before becoming Kira. Being the Chief's son he was raised to a higher set of moral standards and learned to hide his flaws at a young age under a mask of perfection.
• Pride: His Fatal Flaw.
• Principles Zealot: Falls under this trope during the Yotsuba arc. The entire Kira-mission falls under this as well.
• Properly Paranoid: After all, they ARE all out to get him.
• Prophetic Names: Light Yagami = Light Night/Dark God.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Type C. Intelligent, sophisticated , badass, as well as childish, naive and insane.
• Psychotic Smirk
• Pure Is Not Good: In fact, his very purity was the reason he became so evil.
• Rasputinian Death: In the final episode of the anime, Matsuda shoots Light five times, but Light survives long enough to escape the warehouse and stagger around the industrial park for a short time before Ryuk kills him by writing his name in his Death note.
  • In the manga, however, Light only manages to crawl a few feet before Ryuk finishes him off.
  • In the film, he collapses, and that's pretty much it.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: When L offers to share his cake. "Er... no thanks." In the manga during the second arc Takada remarks that Light takes his coffee black but will take one sugar cube in his tea.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Light does wear a pink shirt when hanging with Matsuda in Aoyama. Also, fear the God of the New World's mad sewing skills! [3].
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: After he gains the Death Note, the anime makes a point of catching his eyes so that they have a red cast to them. This is made even more obvious when he is contemplating something particularly nasty, and the anime colors his eyes, metaphorically, bright red.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to L's blue. The anime makes this very obvious.
  • Weirdly, because it inverts the symbolism, Light is red against Misa's blue, as seen, for example, in the scene where she comes to the To-Oh campus.
• Red Pill, Blue Pill: If you give up the notebook you'll lose all of your memories related to both it and the Shinigami, and have to deal with all of the questioning and self-doubt that comes alone with your inability to remember quite a lot OR you can keep it and your life is guaranteed to suck.
  • Throughout the series: Light can back down and wrap up his quest, forfeiting his pride but keeping his life, or he can keep going, risking more and more.
• Red Right Hand: By the end of the first Relight special (everything after the funeral scene) Light seems to be sporting fangs in addition to perpetually glowing red eyes.
• Regularly-Scheduled Evil: Early in the series it is explained that Light had set aside specific time slots in which to kill criminals, in order to provide himself with a healthy balance of sleep, homework, and death.
• Religion of Evil: His cult worships him, a ruthless mass murderer, as a god.
• Rousseau Was Right: Light believes this during the Yotsuba arc, when he lost his memories of the Death Note and being Kira, which caused him to revert to the state he was before finding the Death Note (though we aren't given any insight into his thoughts at that point). He whole-heartedly argued that the members of the Yotsuba group other than the 3rd Kira shouldn't be prosecuted since no doubt Kira was coercing them into cooperating. In other words they aren't evil-circumstances pushed them into being evil and once the evil is removed, i.e. arrested, they will live good lives.
  • Outside of this arc Light's beliefs have elements of both this trope and Hobbes Was Right. He does believe that some people are irredeemable and absolutely have to die, and that people require divine law to steer them right, which he believes he provides with the Death Note. On the other hand, he also believes that if he just gets rid of all the bad people, no one will ever do anything evil again. Fridge Brilliance in that this may have actually caused Light to believe Mikami wouldn't even think of killing Takada, despite being loyal. He would have forgot that his God complex seriously fueled why he picked Mikami and this moment of being Genre Blind led to his defeat.
• Rules Lawyer: Light uses the rules of the Death Note in ways even Ryuk had never thought of before.
  • He has a hard time coping with the Near-and-Mello situation because Near and Mello aren't particularly inclined to play by the rules.
• Samaritan Syndrome: An evil version of this trope; "Who else can do it?! That's just it, there's no one!"
  • "Why are you working so hard?"
    • He certainly seems to believe that it's his duty to eliminate evil.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Light and Misa, and although Light's family and co-workers seem to think that there's No Accounting for Taste, a few people do comment on their unlikely relationship.
• Sanity Slippage: He gets more crazier every passing episode.
• Scare'Em Straight: This is essentially what he is trying to pull on the entire world. As it turns out, with a supernatural, godlike entity willing to kill you if you commit a crime, people are much less likely to commit crimes. The rate drops accordingly; Light cites it as a 70% decrease.
• Scheherazade Gambit: Light knows that Ryuk is only here because he is bored and he can kill him at any time. Ryuk wants to be entertained and if he gets too bored he'll just kill Light and go home. Light constantly reminds Ryuk how entertaining he can be. It works for six years.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections: Light knows that his father's position is what is protecting him from being seriously considered as a suspect by the normal police.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Yotsuba!Light is a variation on this with the twist that Kira!Light did it to himself.
• Selective Obliviousness: Light is in denial about quiet a few things:
  • "But if you did that, you'd be the only bad person left." "Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about, Ryuk."
• Self-Restraint: Light is the king of this trope. Until he makes a tiny screwup near the end.
• Serial Killer Kira
• Shadow Dictator: He becomes this in the second arc.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: On rare occasions, which tend to define him in the eyes of the fandom.
• Sissy Villain
• Sitting on the Roof: Light does this a couple times, symbolically overlooking his "New World."
• Slasher Smile: Definitely. It's the last thing L sees.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: If Light haven't went off the edge already when he kills Lind L. Taylor, then he might have when he kills the lazy people, marking the transition from a dark Anti-Hero to a fully fledged Villain Protagonist.
• Smug Smiler: The God of the New World takes to showing an insufferably superior expression when no one but the audience is looking.
• Smug Snake: How half of the fandom see him. (The other half sees him as a Magnificent Bastard.)
• Social Darwinist: Killing off all of the bad elements in society is for the benefit of the non-criminal folk. In fact, it's going to create a better world, a New World ...
• The Social Expert
• The Sociopath: Meets every requirement as of about episode 2.
  • Just listen to his speech to Ryuk in episode 1.
  • Though he only becomes a sociopath due to the power he's been given through the Death Note, we later see he'd be the exact opposite without it. Hell, even the author stated that Light's life was pretty much ruined the minute he picked up the Death Note.
• Sociopathic Hero
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Among other examples, Light's voice is chillingly calm and pleasant even when taunting Naomi Misora after revealing himself as Kira. "My father's phone is back on, didn't you want to talk to him?"
• Spell My Name with an "S": Light or Raito?
• Start X to Stop X: He commits mass homicide to put an end to all crime.
• Stepford Smiler: Type C, with shades of Types A and B. He presents himself as positive, thoughtful, and cheerful to the world, but at the beginning of the series he's so bored and empty inside that a quest for a new world and godhood seems like a great idea; and of course, as the series goes on, that smile hides an increasingly unstable and cruel personality.
• The Stoic: Whatever else you may say about him, Light has a great poker face. This serves to give his Not So Stoic moments even more of an impact.
• Straight Edge Evil: He is never shown drinking, doing drugs, or smoking, unlike Misa, the mafia, and Matt, respectively.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: With L, and Mikami.
  • With Misa, as well, considering their opinions on how to go about creating a New World. "To defeat evil, there must be sacrifices, right?"
  • Also with Ryuk in the first episode when they both contemplate how rotten their respective worlds are.
• Sugar and Ice Personality: Yotsuba!Light - warm, open, kind, a Nice Guy, and Kira!Light - stoic, harsh, cruel, and is currently plotting your death.
• Super OCD: His room is immaculately tidy for a teenager, so don't try to steal anything- least of all killer notebooks- from it. And definitely don't catch him by surprise.
• Take Over the World: Well, he wants to becomes its God, and that's pretty much the same thing.
• Taking You with Me: In his first week as Kira, Light was expecting some sort of punishment for using the notebook but decided it's Worth It if he can make the world a better place by taking out as many bad guys as possible before he's killed or his soul is dragged off to Hell. Then Ryuk informs him there is no punishment, he wasn't Chosen or anything, and its all a joke. Light does not take it well — in the Manga Light has his first crazy laugh of the series after that particular revelation.
• Talking Your Way Out: With a high success rate.
• Tall, Light and Snarky
• Tareme Eyes: Especially in the beginning before Art Evolution kicked in and when his memories are wiped.
• Tautological Templar: "Me? Evil? I am JUSTICE! Those who oppose me — they're the evil ones!"
• Teen Genius: He's the top scoring student in all of Japan.
• Teens Are Monsters: He is 17 when the series begins, and he wholeheartedly believes that criminals and burdens on society should die.
• That's What I Would Do: He freaks out his father pretty badly when he voices this to L.
• These Hands Have Killed: In the manga. "I-I've killed two people..."
  • In the last episode, while he's arguing his side, the camera pans up from a shot of his open hands.
• Third-Act Stupidity: Once he starts buying into his own hype.
• Too Clever by Half: Oh, Light.
• Took a Level In Dumbass: The way he gets busted, which overlaps with What an Idiot!, and clearly demonstrates the dangers of believing your own hype. The film avoids this. Though keep in mind by that point in the series, Light has pretty much gone completely off the deep end. It's not his loss of intelligence that causes him to grab hold of the Idiot Ball which does him in; it's his escalating madness, which seriously screws with his perception.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Believe it or not, he Used to Be a Sweet Kid before finding a killer notebook and it just keeps getting worse from there as he shifts his focus away from his vision of "a perfect world" to "not getting caught." After the timeskip his idealism and standards have slipped considerably.
• Took a Level In Kindness: When he relinquishes his Death Note memories during the Yotsuba arc. It doesn't last.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: He wants to create a New World where only kind, good people will live.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Barbequed POTATO CHIPS!!!
• Tragic Dream/Tragic Hero: Though it's understated, he's pretty much doomed from the start: If he managed to create a perfect utopia... Ryuk would get bored...
  • Incidentally, Ryuk comments at one point to the effect that once Light kills off all evil people, he'd be the only bad person left alive (Light promptly handwaves this as dumb).
• Tranquil Fury: Kira's default mood.
• TV Genius: His cleverness at times reaches beyond the plausible. (Not as extreme as L's, though.)
• Two Aliases, One Character: By the second arc, he's playing the role of both L and Kira.
• Ubermensch: One interpretation of his character. He certainly sets up his laws by which he lives.
• The Ugly Guys Hot Son: while Soichiro isn't ugly exactly the Bishonen Light looks nothing like his father.
• The Unchosen One: He found the Death Note purely by accident.
• The Unfavorite: Mr. Yagami is absolutely certain that Sayu can't be Kira but isn't so certain about his son. Even though it's true it does hint at Parental Favoritism.
• Unholy Matrimony: Light and Misa.
• The Vamp: How he gets Misa and Takada to serve him.
  • Some would argue that his relationship with Mikami has shades of this as well.
• Victory Is Boring: When Near and Mello appear on the scene, Light, after first being enraged and frustrated, remarks that "Things are getting interesting again!"
• Vigilante Man
• Villain Protagonist
• Villain with Good Publicity: The polls by the second arc indicate that much of the world agrees with him, or views him positively.
• Villainous Breakdown: Has a few, his end being the most notable.
• Visionary Villain: He really believes in that new world of his.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Light and Ryuk, arguably BOTH types 1 (i.e. laughing it off whenever Ryuk reminds him that he's a Death God and that he's going to kill him one day.) and 2 (insulting each other in equal measure).
  • Also with L during the Yotsuba arc.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: As the second L.
• Wake Up Go To School Take Over The World
• We Want Our Jerk Back: During the Yotsuba arc, with L ("I think I wanted you to be Kira").
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Light has daddy issues. His father is always out working to catch the bad guys and hardly ever sees his family. It's been speculated that this might be the real reason he hates criminals with such a passion - they stole his father away from him. Also how he walks out on the family meeting where his dad is talking about catching "that evil bastard Kira." Also it's well established that Light is the top-ranked student in the country but his father is still surprised that he can keep up with L.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He consistently sees himself as this.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Light has very pretty long-lashed Bishonen eyes and the anime pays them special focus being kind of a tell in letting the audience know what he's really thinking and having them change color from brown, to goldish/amber, to red.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: The potato chip scene is an epic example of this.
  • Light and Misa share an epic hug in the anime, including views from several different angles, creepy music, and a shaft of light.
• What If God Was One of Us?: It would end badly. Textbook example of The Prince, though he imagines himself as The Shepherd.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer: All his obstacles look like nails that are in need of heart attacks.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: "Quite the positive thinker."
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Some people believe Light to go insane after he gets possession of the Notebook.
  • If you look at his response in episode 1, and especially at how he acts during his conversation with Ryuk in chapter 1 of the manga, it seems pretty clear that he does.
  • Played completely straight as the series progresses, as his narcissism and delusions start to spiral out of control and dominate his personality; by the final episode, he has completely lost it.
• The Workaholic: During the first arc, Light devotes all of the time that he's not working on work for school or cram school to killing criminals as Kira; in the anime, he turns down offers to hang out with other students, something Ryuk comments on. And let's give the kid some credit: keeping up four girls at once isn't exactly easy, even if it is for a relatively brief period of time.
  • And in the second arc, when he's balancing his jobs as L and Kira, he often goes without sleep to keep his schemes running smoothly. At one point, Matsuda calls Light's ability to work endlessly "amazing."
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Mostly played straight, though he has no problem with writing women's names down.
  • In episode 14 he says "this is the first time in my entire life I've seriously wanted to hit a girl" after being glomped by Misa.
• Xanatos Roulette: Almost everything that happens to him goes "exactly as planned".
• You Are What You Hate: Ryuk points out in the first episode when Light explains his plan to get rid of all the bad people that there will always be one bastard left.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: What he does to Raye Penber and Kiyomi Takada. Also what he would have done to Misa were it not for Rem.
• You Just Told Me: Happens to Raye Penber and (in the manga) the President of the United States.
• You Will Be Spared: Provided someone is useful to him and/or doesn't get in his way. i.e Misa and Mikami. Also the Taskforce for most of season 2.
• Young and in Charge: He is 18 when he assumes L's name and control of the Japanese Taskforce after L's death, and even at twenty-three in the second season he remains both its youngest member and leader.
• Young Conqueror: His is youthful idealism at its darkest.
• Zeroth Law Rebellion: Light has a major conflict with his morals upon realizing the notebook is real. He resolves this conflict by coming to the logical conclusion that getting rid of evil people is righteous - the justice system punishes criminals and has them executed, it's okay for cops to shoot the bad guys. What he did was no different. If he hadn't used the notebook those school children would have been killed, that girl would have been raped. Therefore the murders that he committed were perfectly just and legal because he will BECOME JUSTICE.

L

Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi (JP), Alessandro Juliani (EN)

The main antagonist of the series. However, he's the real good guy of this saga.

L is the most intelligent character in the Death Note series, as stated by the Word of God. He is the greatest detective in the Death Note world (the three greatest detectives, actually), able to control and work through the police force worldwide and notorious for uncovering seemingly unsolvable crimes, he's called in to work on the Kira (as Light is known) case. Since Kira needs a face and name to be able to kill people and L does not make public appearances and hides behind aliases (L being the most famous) he is the ideal opponent for Kira since neither knows the identity of the other. He establishes Kira's location by tricking him into killing an unknown deathrow inmate announcing himself as "L" on a live TV broadcast filmed only in the Kanto region of Japan and deduces his age soon afterwards by observing his simplistic, somewhat immature concept of justice and out-of-school-hours killings. Having established which members of the Japanese police department he can trust (which include Light's father) he names Light as a suspect for Kira and with a simple combination of remorseless logic, barely legal methods and sugar in-take, he places obstacles for him- and eventually Misa- to prove his theory, leaving them barely able to stay two steps ahead of him.

He is the opposing Deuteragonist of the series until he dies at the hands of Rem, but he had created a deadman switch, which resulted in his fellow oddball Near taking over the Kira case. His real name, revealed in an encyclopedia of the series (How To Read 13), is L Lawliet.

• 20% More Awesome: He occasionally gives statistics about how right he is. The official guide claims that he makes these up to sound more credible, while another Word of God claims that whenever he mentions a statistic at all, he's always 99% sure. So all that "5%" or "47%" or whatever meant he was almost totally sure every time.
• Admiring the Abomination: L only takes on cases that interest him and though understated he finds Kira/Light quite fascinating and regards him as a Worthy Opponent. L gets very annoyed at the appearance of a Second Kira because it's not HIS Kira and not playing by the same rules. In the live action movies he has a clear Pass the Popcorn moment when watching Light manipulate Naomi Misora on the monitors.

Souichiro Yagami: We have to stop this! L: We're just getting to the good part.

• Adorkable
• Allergic to Routine
• Alliterative Name: His full name is L Lawliet.
• Alternate Continuity: In the movies, L outlives Light
• Ambiguous Disorder: Has very poor social skills and odd manerisms.
• Ambiguously Bi: L ambiguously creeps after both Misa and Light.
• Antagonist in Mourning: L in his Alternate Continuity movie (L: Change the World) seems to miss Light just as Light seemed to miss L back in canon. He too experiences a bizarre sense of loss with the death of his adversary. This is hinted at in the way he kept Light's watch. He’s also very protective of Light's potato chips.
• Anti-Hero: Type IV
• Awesome McCoolname: The gothic font helps.
• Awesomeness By Analysis: In the second episode, L is able to deduce several different things about Kira from one televised broadcast. Throughout the show, L is also shown assessing situations, analyzing happenings and their effects, and planning his next move.
• Back for the Finale: Anime-only. In the final episode, he appears before a dying Light. Whether his ghost is actually there or whether he's just a hallucination is never made clear.
• Badass
  • Badass Bookworm: He's a genius skilled in Capoeira. Also in his movie he can throw hammers with exceptional accuracy.
• Becoming the Mask: Popular interpretation on the "Light is my first ever friend" line, which, according to Word of God, was a lie.
• Big Good: He fulfills this role as the one heading the taskforce, despite being a rather ruthless Anti-Hero.
• Big Sleep
• Bishonen: Inverted...or at least, that was the intention. As far as his fangirls are concerned, it's played straight.
• Black Eyes
• Blood Knight: More interested in interesting cases than in "right" or "wrong."
• Bullying a Dragon: L's main tactic to reveal Light as Kira seems to be to just keep annoying him. Justified in that there really is no evidence other than to test Light's reactions.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Give L a bowl of candy, and he'll work for two nights straight. Three, if he has to.
• But Not Too Foreign: Word of God says he's "...a quarter Japanese, a quarter English, a quarter Russian and... maybe a quarter French or Italian...". So he's a gaijin, but he had to come up with a reason he speaks Japanese fluently.
• Capoeira: He knows it, which proves useful during his Chained Heat scenes with Light.
  • Apparently it's a Sure Why Not, which of course still counts.
• Captain Ersatz: Of Sherlock Holmes somewhat, according to Obata.
• Catch Phrase: "I am JUSTICE!" (both he and Light have this catchphrase.)
• The Chains of Commanding: As L he lives under constant threat of death, has to contend with people dying on his watch, mistrust from the police and from the public and avoiding choosing a successor. Oh, and no social life.
• The Chessmaster
• Collector of the Strange: L collects criminals, which is all well and good for a detective but his way is a bit... creepy. Along with Aiber and Wedy, in the manga L has an army of peepers and perverts at his disposal who do his bidding and help him set up surveillance cameras everywhere. Also in Another Note there is the implication that he steals the names of his vanquished rivals and uses them as his detective aliases.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: Official color seems to be blue. According to Obata, his assigned colour is gold. Grey seems to be a recurring color also.
• Consummate Liar
• Cool Car: In the live action movies L uses a modified pink angel crepe van as his personal batmobile.
• Covert Pervert: There are some scenes that imply the fact that L is actually a downright pervert. This is lampshaded by Misa, too.
  • "When I was his age, I did strange things too."
  • "L never misses an opportunity to install cameras in a bathroom."
• Crazy Prepared
• Creepy Monotone: The English anime, at least, puts this to good use.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: has these as a result of being The Insomniac which has earned him the Fan Nickname of "Panda."
• Curtains Match the Window: Black hair, black eyes.
• Dance Battler: Knows some capoeira.
• Dark and Troubled Past: L is an orphan who has been raised to be the world's best detective; Word of God says that he does not consider anyone a friend, his lies to Light and Misa aside. Also in the Prequel Another Note whatever happened between him and his obsessive stalker Beyond Birthday.
• Dark Is Not Evil
• Deadpan Snarker: Particularly in the anime.

Misa: I couldn't live in a world without Light! L: Yes, that would be dark.

• Dead Person Impersonation: In Another Note it's strongly implied that L takes the names or aliases of his vanquished rivals as trophies: "Ryuuzaki" is from the LABB murder case and "Eraldo Coil" and "Deneuve" came out of "detective wars". If things had gone differently in the Kira case, L might have taken to calling himself "Light Yagami".
• Decoy Antagonist
• Deliberate Injury Gambit
• Determinator: "I am also childish and hate to lose."
• Deuteragonist: He is the second viewpoint character after Light, who is the protagonist.
• Did Not Do the Research: L asks the FBI to investigate the case. Thing is, the FBI is exclusive to the US - he should have requested the CIA's help, since they investigate international cases.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: This is how L is introduced. He basically goes on television and tells Kira through his stand-in Lind L. Tailor where he can put his justice. Kira, of course, kills Tailor immediately, thinking that it's L. Then, L keeps on taunting him anyway!
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Light's, for that matter.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: He sets up the initial one of the series, identifying himself as Kira's sworn enemy.
• Does Not Like Shoes/Foot Focus: L goes barefoot except when outdoors, due to his knack for crouching. Even when he wears shoes, they're ratty sneakers left untied to slip back off at a moment's notice. Plus, that infamous anime filler scene between him and Light.
• Donut Mess With A Detective: L, unsurprisingly, polishes off a whole box by himself.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Pale, check. Dark hair, check. Eerie, check. Complete with Creepy Monotone and Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: "You can call me whatever you like but I'm taking your cake."
• Evil Brit: Word of God states that he has some evil in him.
• Evil Counterpart: He's the Good Counterpart to Light and BB.
• The Exotic Detective: L is the only member of the taskforce that isn't Japanese; he was raised in England.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Soichiro Yagami and the other detectives are visibly surprised when they meet L.
• Expy: Of Sherlock Holmes according to Obata.
  • L's Flashback Nightmare in episode 25 looks like a Shout-Out to Batman (who is also an expy of Sherlock Holmes).
• Extreme Doormat: Despite being one of the most powerful and influential people on Earth, he acts like one. It might (in part) be an act of some sort to lure Kira out as it's also been seen that he can be just as stubborn as Light. In Another Note it's teased that he was raised as some sort of Tyke Bomb which would go far to explaining this behavior.
• Extremity Extremist: On the rare occasions he fights physically, he only uses kicks.
• Flashback Nightmare: The opening of episode 25.
• Freaky Is Cool
• Friendless Background: L has no friends.
• Genius' Sweet Tooth: He's a genius and he always has something sweet nearby.
• Good Is Not Nice: He's quite manipulative and scheming. Though whether he can truly be called good is open to interpretation.
• Great Detective: The top three, actually.
• Guile Hero
• Gut Feeling: He is suspicious of Light from the moment he meets him. Guess what, L, you were right.
• Hates Being Touched: Implied, though never outright stated.
• Hero Antagonist: With Light as the Villain Protagonist.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The public and the police don't trust L because he hides behind a computer screen.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: In the English dub, L is played by Alessandro Juliani, known to Battlestar Galactica fans as Felix Gaeta.
• Hikikomori
• Honor Before Reason: He is almost certain it's Light from the very beginning but instead of say nabbing him in the middle of the night or just shooting him he insists on waiting until he has 100% proof before making an arrest. Of course, killing him without evidence that he's right would pretty easily turn the police against him, especially since the police chief is Light's father.
• Hurricane Kick: Ow, Light, that looked like it hurt.
• I Am the Noun: "I am Justice!"
• I Did What I Had to Do
• I Have Many Names: Besides L, he's also known as Ryuzaki, Eraldo Coil, Deneuve, and Hideki Ryuga. In Another Note, Mello wonders which of these names finally killed him (not knowing that it was none of them).
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Lampshaded when he takes Misa and Light into custody and ties them up "all fetishy." Also in the manga when he chains himself to Light the way he smiles doesn't exactly look innocent.

L: I'm a pervert?

• Improbable Weapon User: In his movie (L: Change the World) he beans a gun-toting Psycho for Hire in the head wth a thrown hammer.
• The Insomniac:

Aizawa: So, when does Ryuzaki sleep? Matsuda: I once saw him sleeping in a chair in that position ... No, really!

• Insufferable Genius
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: The author maintains that L has no friends.
• It Amused Me: Some versions hold that L doesn't really care about justice and that he just solves cases for fun.
• Jerkass Facade: Fridge Logic, among the police L is known as the arrogant prick who will only take on cases he's personally interested in. However "L" is only one of his many detective identities.
  • It is mentioned specifically that Eraldo Coil will take any case, for the right price.
• Knight Templar: Approves of torture and such to solve the Kira case.
• Limited Wardrobe: L is almost never, if ever, seen wearing anything but that pajama-top-and-jean ensemble. He even shows up at To-Oh University's Opening Ceremony to give a speech dressed that way!
• Loners Are Freaks
• Looks Like Cesare
• Manipulative Bastard: Undeniably. L has no problem using people to get the job done. Light of all people calls him out on it when he loses his memories and refuses to go along with L's plan to manipulate Misa.
• Meaningful Name: See Not So Different below.
• Messy Hair
• Must Have Caffeine: He is frequently shown dumping sugar into a cup of coffee or tea; when Matsuda asks him how he can be of help, L asks him to go get him coffee.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning
• Mysterious Past: The taskforce, Light, and the audience never really learn anything about L, even his name. The guidebook says its L Lawliet... which only raises more questions.
• No Hero to His Valet: Type 2.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He gets up in Light's and Misa's personal bubbles a few times, coinciding with his No Social Skills.
• No Social Skills: He has very poor social skills.
• Not So Different: Frequently lampshaded, especially with his true name: Lawliet, which is pronounced like "low light." The Great Detective L is a nameless, anonymous force of justice / retribution that may strike down when your least expect it. Sound familiar? Sucks to be you, Light.
• OC Stand-In: Despite being a major character because so little is known about him.
• Older Than They Look: He's twenty-four at the start yet doesn't look much older then the 17 year old Light. If anything, he looks younger.
  • Evoked in the Live-action movies, where L's actor is younger than Light's actor.
• One-Letter Name: In fact, it's his real first name.
• Oral Fixation Fixation: The amount of time the guy spend with his fingers/various food substances in his mouth is amazing. Also, he can tie cherry stalks into knots with his tongue.
• Out-Gambitted: By Light; essentially what his death came down to, although he had no way of knowing Rem would kill to protect Misa.
• Papa Wolf: In the Alternate Continuity movie L: Change the World L is very protective of his orphans.
• Paranoia Gambit: When L puts 64 cameras in Light's room and then waits to see what will happen.
• Parental Abandonment: L is an orphan.
• Parental Neglect: Beyond seems to think so.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: With Light, all the time. They subvert this exactly twice, during which Light finally just punches L.
• Perpetual Frowner
• Pervert Revenge Mode: In the manga during the Yotsuba arc L inspires this from Misa (who is drawn pounding on his head / pulling his hair) when he suggests she sleep around with the Yotsuba group for information.
• Pet the Dog: The entirety of L: Change the World is a big Pet the Dog moment for L.
• Politeness Judo: "Is that alright, Light-kun?"
• Posthumous Narration: The opening of Relight 2 has L summarize the events of the Kira case, even events that occurred after he died.
• Primal Stance: When he and Light get into a fight.
• Private Detective
• The Profiler: L can be downright psychic when it comes to guessing Kira's motivations. It's vague whether this is thanks to his skills as a profiler and/or because he recognizes a thought process eerily similar to his own.
• Properly Paranoid: Light is Kira, Misa is the second Kira, and they really are out to get L.
• A Protagonist Is Ryu: His alias, although he's actually an antagonist.
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The beginning of episode 25.
• Punch Clock Hero
• Race Lift: The very multiracial L is played by a purely Asian actor in the live action film.
• The Rainman: There's considerable debate about whether L is in fact autistic, but he's very weird and he sucks at normal social interaction, so he qualifies as a Rainman regardless.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin
• Real Men Wear Pink: Sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what little Ls are made of.
• Real Name as an Alias
• Rebel Relaxation: L has his trademarked poor posture.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Light's red.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: A male version of this trope. He is thin and pale, stoical, emotionally repressed, displays odd behaviors and poor social skills, he has a Dark and Troubled Past, is of pivotal plot importance, and his (symbolic) color is blue (and in the anime during Light and L's mental battles has symbolic blue hair).
• The Rival: To Light.
• Sacrificial Lion: For many people, it wasn't so surprising that L died so much that he died at the half-way point instead of at the end.
• Samaritan Syndrome: L spends all his time solving cases.
• Shonen Hair: One of the creepiest examples ever perpetrated.
• Shout-Out: Let's see, a billionaire orphan and anonymous detective who is cared for by an elderly butler. Now where have we seen this before...
• Shower of Angst: He is rained on heavily while standing, depressed and resigned, on the rooftop.
• Significant Birth Date: Halloween
• The Snack Is More Interesting: L is fond of this trope. He claims he needs sugary snacks to maintain his intelligence. Also it's tasty.
• Socially Awkward Hero
• Sociopathic Hero
• The Spock: L is very logical and rather emotionally repressed.
• The Spook
• Springtime for Hitler: He was designed to be unattractive and ugly, but provoked exactly the opposite reaction among some fans.
• The Stoic:
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Light and L will often be shown to be thinking the EXACT same thing.
• Strawberry Shorthand: "I'll give you this strawberry if you keep it a secret, okay?"
• Stringy Haired Ghost Guy: He kind of looks like one and maybe he becomes one. A ghostly L figure appears before Light in the days after he's killed him. This figure appears again in Light's Dying Dream at the end of the anime.
• Superhero Paradox: At least two of L's enemies B and K were created by Wammy's program.
• Super OCD: Yup.
• Sweet Tooth: Yup.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist
• Tall, Dark and Ugly Cute
• Tautological Templar: His methods, including violations of privacy, unlawful imprisonment/kidnapping, and physical and psychological torture, seem to be justified, both in-universe and out, because he's the one doing it.
  • In the case of Misa's imprisonment given that he knows she can kill with just a person's face, but does NOT know that she has to have the Death Note to do so, you could say that it is a case of Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures
• Teen Genius: He's several years past his teens by the time of the series, though you have to assume he started that way.
• Terms of Endangerment: For some reason in the manga, L is the only character to use Japanese Honorifics and when he's not calling Light "Kira" he always calls him "Light-kun" perhaps to denote his No Social Skills, to sound creepy, (or like a Stalker with a Crush.)
• Thanatos Gambit
• That's What I Would Do: He tries to think of Kira's next move using this reasoning.
• This Is Unforgivable!: When he first addresses the ICPO he calls Light's spree "an atrocious murder case I will never forgive!"
• Too Clever by Half
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cake and really sweets of any kind.
• Tragic Bromance: With Light during the Yotsuba arc.
• Trash of the Titans: L in his movie. Justified in that he's only got 23 days to live and he's not going to waste his remaining time cleaning.
• TV Genius: He often seems to deduce things almost out of thin air. As a general rule, he's never wrong about anything.
• Two Aliases, One Character
• Tyke Bomb: L is an orphan raised to be the World's Greatest Detective. He doesn't consider anyone a friend.
• The Un-Reveal: As far as Light (and the audience) knows L has no past, no name. He simply is.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: To everyone at first, until Light forces him into a situation where he needs to come out into the open to Light himself and the Kira taskforce members.
• Warts and All
• We Can Rule Together: Inverted when he offers Light a chance to be the heir to his title as L The World's Greatest Detective. It's also subverted seeing that it's a trap in more ways then one: if Light says yes and accepts his title that means he's Kira and just faking, but also in the bigger picture L sewed the seeds so that if he were to die Light would be chosen as the next L and then L's successors, knowing that L was dead would zero in on whoever claimed L's title as Kira. In short, by making him the next L he's made him a target.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The Taskforce yells at him from time to time. Such as for his treatment of the Kira suspects during confinement. Also for wanting to wait around for more people to die (and thus have a more solid case) before making a move against the Yotsuba Group.
  • Also in Another Note The purpose of Beyond Birthday's murderous scheme was ultimately to call out L for the treatment of (and L's lack of interest in) his successors. In particular A who was Driven to Suicide by Wammy's program. It's telling that the only way Beyond could gain L's attention was to create a murder case he'd be interested in.
• Wild Hair: Supposedly a bedhead, compounding the idea he's a raving insomniac.
• The Workaholic: He spends all his time solving cases and eating candy. He rarely sleeps.
• Worthy Opponent: Light views L this way, and L views Light this way.
  • This is in direct contrast to Near and Light's relationship, where Near viewed Light as "just a crazy mass murderer" and Light resented Near as being "far below L."
• Xanatos Gambit: The Do Not Adjust Your Set one above being only his first in the series.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He's a master of it, as shown when he saves Matsuda from being discovered by the Yotsuba group by having him fake his own death.
• Young and in Charge: He's 24 at the beginning and the world's greatest detective with control over the world's police forces. It's suggested he's been this for several years, back into his teens and possibly even his childhood. In-series, the middle-aged cops of the taskforce answer to him.

Misa Amane

Voiced by: Aya Hirano (JP), Shannon Chan-Kent (EN)

The second Kira, an internationally famous model and pop star who started out as Light's Stalker with a Crush since, as Kira, he killed the burglar that murdered her parents when she was a little girl, thus making her feel in debt to him. She has one hell of a messed up lifespan due to multiple shinigami sacrificing their lives for her and her multiple exchanges for the Shinigami Eyes. She and her shinigami, Rem, helped Light finally outmaneuver and kill L, but not before dragging him through a series of events, both good and bad, started by her carelessness.

In the manga, Misa is stated to have committed suicide a year after Light dies. In the anime, it is implied that she does the same: the last scene of her in the series has her on the other side of the railing at the edge of a building. In the movies, she survives; due to the Death Notes being destroyed, she has lost her memory of being the second Kira, as well as Light being Kira. She remembers Light himself, and that she loves him, but knows that there is something missing that she cannot recall.

• A Girl And Her Shinigami
• Acceptable Feminine Goals: Misa is a model, actress, and singer. When Light tells her to quit her job because he's going to marry her, she cheers.
• Adaptation Dye Job: Her eyes are apparently naturally brown in the manga but blue in the anime.
  • Not to mention she's blonde in both manga and anime but a brunette in the movies.
  • Her eyes switch between brown and blue in the anime depending on whether she's on the job as an Idol Singer. It's probably color contacts.
• Affably Evil: She'll kill you without hesitation if you get in her way or cause trouble for Light, but other than that, she's a genuinely sweet girl.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: Her childlike manner makes her choice of clothing seem far too old for her.
• All Women Are Lustful: A mild example. Misa does not harass Light for attention as often as some would have you think (in fact, in most scenes she seems content to simply be quietly in the background if Light happens to be nearby). But she does make a few bids for sexual attention from him, such as sitting in his lap, dressing in a corset, and asking him to come to bed with her. Keep in mind, though, that in all of these post-timeskip scenes Misa and Light have been together for at least four years; it's not unreasonable at all for her to try to get his attention from time to time. It would be less frustrating if the writers showed her trying to engage him emotionally and intellectually, however. Needless to say, they don't.
• Aloof Big Sister: She either HAS one or IS one. The manga mentions that Misa has a sister still living in Kansai as a plot point but she doesn't even get Nominal Importance and after that it's never mentioned again. Though this could also be seen as part of her cover story, worked out with Aiber and L, to infiltrate Yotsuba; Aiber uses "your sister said that you said x about Kira" to introduce the information that Misa is connected to L to the Yotsuba group. It's never made clear if the sister actually exists or not.
• And That Little Girl Was Me: When Rem tells Misa the story of how Gelus died and she got a second notebook.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: After meeting Light and having him doubt and question her, Misa begins to cry, falls off of her chair and tells Light that she "just had to meet him."
• Ax Crazy: When her Berserk Button is pushed.
• Badass Adorable: Despite being a childish, energetic, squeaky-voiced Genki Girl, Misa does have her moments. She takes Sakura TV hostage, refuses to give up Light under L's torture, and executes her plot to ditch L's surveillance and get Higuchi to confess to her. She is also the resident cutie.
• Bare Your Midriff: Several times, and not always just for Light.
• The Beard: Light continues to see her, and later gets engaged to her, as a convenient cover for their Team Kira activities. Also, if you subscribe to the Asexual and Ambiguously Gay theories about Light, this trope can apply in a slightly different way.
• Berserk Button: If anyone screws around with Light behind her back... even Light isn't safe from her wrath if this happens. As she tells Light, "If I see you with another girl, then I'll kill her!".
• Beware the Silly Ones: After they actually meet her in person, no one - not Light, not Near, not Mello, not L or Aizawa or Mogi - takes her seriously. At all. In fact nearly every character dismisses her as a legitimate threat; in the few instances that Aizawa, Mogi, L, Near, and Mello feel that she may be trouble, it is as an agent of Light rather than in her own right. Light, knowing that Misa has said that she will kill her competition, sees other women anyway; and L, after Misa escapes from Mogi, pretty much shrugs the whole thing off. This is all despite the fact that Misa is dangerous: she is in charge of Light's killings from time to time, she threatens and controls news stations in both seasons, and she outs Higuchi as a Kira to L.
• Black Bra and Panties: She wears this when trying to get Light's attention.
• Blessed with Suck: Her Death Note and shinigami eyes absolutely ruined her life. Thanks, Rem.
• Blondes Are Evil
• Bloodbath Villain Origin: Misa is introduced as the supernatural killer who takes Sakura TV hostage, killing off innocent people and criminals alike to convince the world of her powers and then killing off the cops who race down there to stop her. During this, she threatens to kill yet more people. And she does it all solely to get Light's attention, because she must meet him, to tell him him how grateful she is that he killed her parents' murderer.
• Blue Eyes or Eyes of Gold: She wears color contacts to work (and, curiously, when she first confronts Light), but her eyes are naturally brown, and the anime likes to catch them so that they look gold.
• Bottle Fairy: She is shown drinking a few times in the second arc.
• Bound and Gagged: Courtesy of L.
• Broken Bird
• Bumbling Sidekick: To Light. Although she's smart enough to find Light, dodge Mogi and manipulate Higuchi, her mistakes do cost them both.
• Caught in the Rain: During the opening sequence of the first season, Light offers Misa his hand as she walks through the rain towards him.
• Cleavage Window: In the shape of a heart, no less.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Light is hers. Woe to any woman who tries to come between them.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Misa certainly does not live in the same world as most other people.
• Color Coded for Your Convenience: Her official color seems to be light blue.
  • Also, in the first arc, she's shown primarily wearing black while acting as the second Kira, and in the second arc she wears plenty of black and red.
• Come Back to Bed, Honey: She tries this with Light; it ends with him ordering her out of bed and back to work.
• Creepy Cool Crosses: She wears them in the manga and live action film series, though the anime eliminated them. They can be seen in her early turnaround designs though and the first opening, which suggests the change came later in production.
  • The collector's figure included with volume 5 of the DVD series retains the cross.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She really is a lot smarter than she usually acts.
• Cry Cute: She begins to cry in the scene when Light first meets her and she tells him that she'll work hard to make him love her.
• Curtains Match the Window: Her brown eyes are often caught so that they appear gold, fitting with her blond hair.
• Cute and Psycho: Yes and yes.
• Cute but Cacophonic: There must be at least one shrill, squeaky-voiced character in the cast. It's like a rule of anime.
• Cute Is Evil: Played very, very straight with her. Cute enough to earn the protective instincts of two shinigami and the sympathy of the Taskforce when they hold her captive, evil enough to kill many people with her Death Note (and offer to kill L) just to gain Light's love.
• Cuteness Equals Forgiveness: To an extent, both in-universe and out. Despite being portrayed as viciously selfish and quite, quite mad, Misa never earns the same type of villain cred as, say, Light - whose eviler counterpart she was introduced as. Additionally, the characters in-universe definitely treat Misa far more gently than Light when both come under suspicion in the second season - compare Aizawa's grim, suspicious surveillance of Light with Mogi going shopping with Misa. Why is this? Misa is a small, sweet, cheerful, and cute woman, and that registers more immediately to both much of the audience and most of the characters than "ruthless serial killer."
• The Cutie: She was designed to be adorable.
  • The Fake Cutie: She was designed to be adorable and batshit insane.
• The Dark Chick: On Team Kira.
• Dark Is Evil: She dresses primarily in black. And her bedroom is decked to the nines in creepiness.
• Dark Mistress: Misa starts out as a second Kira who takes Sakura TV hostage and murders several cops and criminals to get Kira's attention. Later, she tracks down Kira, discovers that Kira is actually Light Yagami, and falls in love with him. She demands that Light take her on as his girlfriend; because she was already a villain in her own right, their joining forces would qualify for Unholy Matrimony status, but as she becomes immediately subservient to him and her role becomes simply "Light's devoted Love Martyr" as the story progresses, she develops into the Dark Mistress role.
• Deadly Upgrade: Twice, for that matter.
  • She serves as Light's deadly upgrade: with the second Kira on his side and completely devoted to him, he gains the use of her shinigami eyes.
• Death Seeker: Some of the material in the series seems to point to the fact that Misa isn't exactly concerned with her own life.
  • Misa deliberately seeks out dangerous situations: for one example, she walks home alone, at night, on a deserted street, and for another she begins the entire attack on Sakura TV while being across the street in person. She then shows up on the mass-murderer Kira's doorstep and volunteers to be his girlfriend while knowing full well that he could kill her. She in fact explicitly offers Light the option of killing her if she gets to be a burden. She begs Rem to kill her when she feels that she has a good justification to ask that of Rem, and, mind you, when Soichiro informs Misa that both she and Light are to be executed, it is Light's life that she begs for. And of course when Light dies, she kills herself soon after.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulu?: There is a vengeful, godlike entity out there who can kill with just a name and a face. Obviously the best way to handle the situation is to offer to be his girlfriend.
• Dissonant Laughter: When Rem agrees to murder L at Light's request, Misa's reaction is to laugh and clap her hands. In the anime, she even hugs Rem.
• Dissonant Serenity: Comes with the job of being the second Kira. When she regains her Death Note and finds Light's note asking her to kill L, she gladly, even triumphantly, considers it. Her distress comes only when she realizes that she can't remember his name.
• Double Standard Abuse (Female on Male): Light and Misa have a very unhealthy "relationship" if it can be called that at all. Misa stalks Light and forces a relationship with him. It is shown time and again that he appears to have no sexual interest in her and only tolerates her presence because he needs her for her powers and to keep her close to keep her from spilling his secrets. If he refuses her she could kill him. However after her initial appearance enraged Misa isn't taken seriously despite the fact that she could just as easily kill him as he could kill her. The "men are Made of Iron and women are Made of Plasticine" idea doesn't matter much when you can kill someone by writing on a piece of paper. Her slapping him around is Played for Laughs and is seen as allegedly "deserving" of being hit when he admits he doesn't feel the same way about her. She only gets away with her pushy and sometimes violent behavior because of the male characters' chivalry.
  • To be fair, this seems to be for a few reasons. Firstly, it doesn't seem too outrageous to think that Misa is just so childish and airheaded that she doesn't realize that that's not how a healthy relationship is supposed to work (if she knew how a healthy relationship was supposed to work, she probably wouldn't have stuck with Light). She is also fairly smart despite her airheadedness and may realize that Light doesn't really like her that much and would probably kill her if she didn't keep wrapped around her finger like that. We'll just say their "relationship" is really screwed up.
  • And to be fair, Misa is 5' and 79 lbs, and not muscled or trained. Light is 5'10. He's slender, true, but he's also fully grown and has been proven to be athletic. This is a pretty significant difference in physical mass. Violence in a relationship is never right, but Misa striking Light is a different situation, physically speaking, than Light striking Misa.
• The Dragon: She becomes this for Light, until Light has her Death Note given to Mikami.
• Driven to Suicide: What finally happens to her. She wasn't kidding when she said she couldn't dream of living in a world without Light.
• Dumb Blonde: Then again, next to L or Light, pretty much anyone would look dumb by proxy.
  • Mind you, this doesn't stop her from outmaneuvering both Light and Higuchi with only a little help from Rem. If she'd wanted Light dead instead of being able to serve him, this would have been a much shorter series.
  • How To Read 13 ranks her as being 3/10 in knowledge, so she's about average intelligence. Supposedly.
  • She may be lacking in cold smarts (for example, until Light told her otherwise it never occurred to her that the Kira videos answering her own were fakes from the police), but she's cunning and well-versed in social skills and in recognizing and using other people's emotions. She wasn't capable of really understanding how some of her actions could negatively affect Light, for instance, but she was capable of playing Higuchi like a piano.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita. She dresses like this when she becomes more famous - and in the anime, when she's about to jump off to her death after Light dies.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She genuinely loves Light, and she genuinely loved her parents.
• Even the Girls Want Her: In story. Rem is in love with her, and Light's sister Sayu pretty much drools over her when they meet. Too bad she's Light-sexual, huh.
• Evil Counterpart: To Light at first, Lampshaded when Light and L are building a profile of the Second Kira.

Light: ...this Kira isn't idealistic. L: Yes. I really don't like the way he operates. It's not like Kira.

• Evil Diva: Along with her other traits and hobbies, Misa is a singer as well as an actress and model; in the second arc, she gets hired to open a New Year's show with a song.
• Evil Eye: Just look at her when Light tells her that he'll be dating other girls to keep up his image.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: She doesn't intend to do this, but her videos provide L with a lot of clues. And before she and Light officially team up, she eagerly hands out information to him.
• Expy: Shares quite a few similarities with Harley Quinn.
• Extreme Doormat: Misa-Misa would do ANYTHING for Light.
• The Fashionista: Justified because she is an idol; Misa is often shown shopping, reading magazines, applying make-up, and so on.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Misa is heavily implied to be the one who cooks and cleans after the timeskip, when Light and Misa move in together; a strip from the omake extras released in the thirteenth volume explicitly shows her doing some fancy cooking while Light reads a newspaper.
  • In the live-action movies Misa had her own Cooking Show: "Misa-Misa's Happy Sweets"
• Femme Fatale: In the Yotsuba arc.
• First-Name Basis: With pretty much everyone.
• Foot Focus: Barefoot whenever she's cozied up in her own home, and barefoot when incarcerated for two months straight. Considering that second one, being able to wiggle her toes may have been relieving- it was one of the few degrees of freedom her body had left.
  • Theres also a shot of her stripped stocking feet during Light and L's sparring match when she accidently steps into a cake she was eating.
• Freudian Excuse: Her family was murdered right in front of her!
  • And she's lived either alone or with only Rem for company in the year since their deaths. No wonder she takes Light up on his offer to have her move in with him.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Debatable, but in the last few legs of the first season and then for the whole of the second season, Misa is associated with the Kira Taskforce and tolerated by them only because of her connection to Light. Aizawa, Ide, Soichiro, and Mogi never voice their opinion about the situation, but they never do seem quite happy with the idea of Misa following them around everywhere they go.
• Genius Ditz: She has enough smarts to channelize her child-like charm into her very successful model and Idol Singer career. Also, she figures out how to expose Higuchi as the Yotsuba Kira to the police without revealing Rem's presence. She's actually quite clever, she's just more energetic and not as smart as the downright superhuman Light and L. If she didn't oggle Light so much, she could get her head in the game.
  • Some would argue that Misa has very good instincts. She taps right into Light's desire to control and use people from the very first time they meet, and her submissiveness gains her exactly what she wants (i.e. for Light to be her boyfriend).
  • Misa follows the situation more closely than she seems to. For example, there's a scene in the manga after the timeskip where, after Misa points out something Light hadn't gotten to yet and Light tells her to go to bed, Light thinks to himself that Misa was right.
• Genki Girl: She is bouncy, expressive, and energetic.
• Girlish Pigtails: She loses them in the second arc, supposedly as a sign of maturity.
• Hair Colors
• Hair of Gold: Subverted. Her character fits the Blondes Are Evil archetype, but it can be argued that her blonde hair is supposed to give her the appearance of innocence. In reality, she's just blissfully ignoring the consequences of her actions- even halving her natural lifespan.
  • Interestingly, when we see her nearly killed and then saved by Gelus in Rem's flashback, she has black hair (considering that she's Japanese, this is probably her normal color). When she makes her appearance as the second Kira and later as The Dragon / Dark Mistress for Light, she's blonde.
• Happiness in Slavery: She willingly volunteers herself to do anything for Light, and seems to never have a problem with it. Even after Light overwhelms her with work for him and yells at her in anger, she still beams when he walks into the room.
• Harmful to Minors: Her parents were murdered right in front of her. She breaks down in tears when she tells Light about it.
• Hello, Nurse!: In addition to being very popular with the boys (and the girls), Misa wears a nurse's outfit once, as a disguise.
• Hero Worshipper: Towards Light.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager
• Horrible Judge of Character: Even during those times when she claims she understands that Light doesn't give a damn about her, she still swoons for him.
  • And the classic:

Misa: Light would never kill Misa!

• The Idiot From Osaka: She's from Kansai.
• Jack the Ripoff: She claims to be Kira to get Light's attention, killing off several people in precisely the same manner. However unlike Light, who tries to be subtle in his methods. Misa's way too bombastic in her approach and leaves too many clues for L to rightfully suspect her. If Light hadn't agreed to take her on and orchestrated to make her look innocent, she would've been locked away permanently the first time she was caught.
• Karma Houdini: In the live action movies.
  • However, this has a brilliant explanation: the police couldn't convict her without exposing the existence of the Death Note. Plus with the Note's destruction, she won't remember having ever been Kira, or having used the notebook.
• Kawaiiko: Yes, although in most of her appearances it only serves to add to her sheer creepiness.
• Kitsch Collection: Misa's room which is filled with candles, religious memorabilia, and creepy dolls and things that look like they came out of Hot Topic.
• Knight Templar: Misa is as willing as Light and Mikami to fight evil for a New World.
• Lack of Empathy: If your name isn't Light Yagami, you might as well be a person-shaped cardboard cutout.
• Lady Macbeth
• Large Ham: She even overacts in-universe!
  • Justified: During her plot to get proof that Higuchi is acting as Kira, the audience can hear her quite calmly calculating just how much cuteness, charm, and energy to use in her responses.
• Lean and Mean: She is 5' and 79 lbs. Justified, as she is a model.
• Loony Fan: Towards Light.
• Love At First Sight: Towards Light, again. (Light actually looks physically pained when she later asks him if he believes in this.)
• Love Makes You Crazy and Love Makes You Evil: Subverted a bit, because she was already crazy and evil before falling in love with Light. Her devotion to him, however, only led her further and further down that dark path.
  • Considering that she loved her parents and that their murders, which happened right in front of her, and the possibility that their murderer might get off scott-free were the things that drove her to sympathize with Kira's ideology to begin with, this might be played 100% straight.
• Love Martyr: She'll do anything for Light, and the tragedy of it all comes across strong and clear.
• Luminescent Blush: While daydreaming about Light.
• Mad Love: Her relationship with Light is not healthy.
• Meaningful Name: From How To Read, it says her name comes from Kuromisa meaning "Black Mass."
• Ms. Fanservice: That wardrobe of hers. Many viewers wish they were Light, if only for the sake of Misa.
• Mysterious Woman: Misa shows up out of the blue on Light's doorstep, in a little black dress with a killer notebook and a god of death, and simply introduces herself, saying that she came because she thought that he might be worried that she would go to the police instead. Light looks wary and rather unnerved, but - and without knowing anything else about her (besides the fact that she is responsible for Ukita's deaths, among others) - he invites her in.
• NameDar: Misa has the eyes.
• The Nicknamer: She is shown nicknaming Light (much to his horror and annoyance) as her Knight in shining armor or Raito-Naito, Matsuda (Matsu), Mogi (Mochi), and Aizawa (Monchichi); by the second arc, the last three all appear to treat it as normal.
• Nightmare Fetishist: "What a beautiful way to kill!"
• No Accounting for Taste: A number of characters express slight skepticism on Misa's relationship with Light. However, the members of the Task Force, who witness the decidedly one-way, unhealthy relationship on a daily basis, never seem to actually notice just how unlikely it is, or question its genuineness until several years down the line.
  • Perhaps they were assuming that Opposites Attract, or simply keeping out of Light's business out of respect. There is a scene in the first season where Misa, returning triumphantly from tricking the hell out of Higuchi, sits in Light's lap ... and although no one actually says anything, Soichiro looks over from the background at them with a very amusing expression on his face.
• No Place for Me There: Asked in the ending of "Misa no Uta" ("Misa's Song).
• No Sense of Personal Space: She hugs and clings to Light, Ryuk, Rem, and Mogi.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: She spends much of her time in the first arc going about her job, teasing Light and L, reading magazines, playing with her make-up and hair, and being grudgingly tolerated by the taskforce. No one takes her seriously: Aizawa forcefully throws her out of the room solely because she's being annoying, L mocks her, and the others tend to just ignore her. And then Light's master plan comes full circle and Misa finds herself being appointed as the criminal-killer for the time being. Thrilled to be of service, she dresses up in a beautiful black dress and goes for a walk, singing sweetly ... while murdering the guilty. And some of those deaths are pretty gruesome.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Sometimes. She's at least smarter than she acts most of the time.
  • In the Yotsuba arc, at least in the manga, when she's in the car with Higuchi and later talking to Light and L, you can see her calculating her actions and reactions quite calmly in her mind.
• Obliviously Evil: She seems to genuinely believe that she's a good person doing the right thing. Or at least the justified, necessary thing in the service of the person she loves the most.
• The Obstructive Love Interest: Especially early on. "You're my boyfriend now! Squee! I have the following demands..."
• Odd Friendship: Most obviously with L, though the extent to which theirs is a "friendship" is negotiable. However, by she second arc, she's actually won over Mogi, a man her polar opposite, and the two seem quite close.
  • Mello even says that she appears to be his girlfriend.
• Of Corsets Sexy: She wears one to try to get Light's attention; unfortunately for her, it doesn't work.
• Older Than They Look: She's 19 at the start of the series though she looks younger than the 17 year old Light. Lampshaded when a character (in the second arc, no less) believes her to be a teenage girl between 14 and 20 years old. She happens to be in her twenties at that particular point.
• The Ophelia: Cute? check. Insane? check. Puts on pretty dresses and murders people? Definitely.
• Overt Operative: Misa is famous and so her face is everywhere. If anyone else has the Shinigami eyes she'd be the first to be discovered. That's why Light has her suddenly quit the movie in the second arc when the mafia gets a hold of the notebook and the eyes.
• Panty Shot: Lampshaded by Light's little sister, of all people.
• Parental Abandonment: Her Freudian Excuse, as explained above.
• Pay Evil Unto Evil: "I wanted that man to pay for what he did!"
• Perky Female Minion: She's been seen giggling and clapping her hands while Light plots.
• Perky Goth: Her attire, especially earlier in the series.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Don't let her sweetness and good cheer, however genuine, fool you. She kills people. She's just as dangerous as any other Kira.
• Pillow Pistol: She keeps her Death Note hidden under her mattress.
• Ping-Pong Naivete: In some scenes (when you can hear her thoughts), she comes across as quite calculating. In others, she comes across as downright ditzy. Also, she seems to bounce between being thoughtful and solemn when contemplating her role as the second Kira (the best example would be the scene in which she sings "Misa no Uta" and pauses to look sadly out over the horizon) to being cheerful and enthusiastic about it all.
• Plucky Comic Relief: She serves as the humorous element in some of the darker scenes, albeit not to the same extent as Ryuk.
• Poisonous Friend: She cheers Light on in his quest, and supports him wholeheartedly. This does not help Light's problems in the least.
• Protagonist Secret Service:

Misa: (swooning) I would gladly die if it were for you, Light! Light: (sweat-dropping) We just met.

• Psycho for Hire: Basically how Light uses her throughout the series. Even better, since she loves him, she's a Psycho for Hire who works for free.
• Psycho Supporter: She is nuts.

Misa: Kira is everything ... Kira is everything to me!

• Psychopathic Womanchild: Type D, Acts like a sweet and perky child, despite her madness.
• Quickly-Demoted Woman: Before Light and Misa meet, they are both legitimately threatening agents in their own right, and Misa is, by and large, the one in control of the situation. It is made very clear, however, that Misa handles the job of being Kira badly: she kills more indiscriminately than Light, misunderstands Light's goals, and in general is a pain for Light while giving L some valuable information. As soon as she meets Light she offers to subordinate herself to him, and after she and he discuss some of her mistakes she points out that if she does what he tells her to do from now on, she'll be safe. She then remains Light's subordinate - despite a few shows of legitimate competence, such as when she discovers the Yotsuba Kira - until the end of the second arc, where he has her give up her memories and Death Note, makes no real effort to get her back from Near after Near kidnaps her, and effectively abandons her.
• Rapunzel Hair: Depicted with this sometimes, such as on the Volume 4 manga cover, although most of the time her hair is medium-length.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• The Renfield
• Samus Is a Girl: Light and the investigators assume that the Second Kira to be male. L also refers to the Second Kira as a "he" (though L might have known sooner considering he is L and had access to physical evidence; he could have just decided not to reveal the gender so as not to give Light any clues.)
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Light and Misa.
• Secret Keeper: Even while under L's Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Selective Obliviousness: To the nth degree. There is a major disconnect between Misa's personality and her actions, and it's safe to say that the full impact of what she does is something that she simply does not understand. (The anime at least gives her one sequence of contemplation, but it's implied at best.) There is another major disconnect between how she views those around her and what their actions are; the best example would be her adoration of Light, which continues in spite of all that Light does, but her friendship with L, who had her tortured in an earlier episode, is another.
• Serial Killer Kira
• Significant Birth Date: Christmas
• "Silly Me" Gesture: Although not the only instance, she most notably uses one as a rather clever part of her manipulation of Higuchi.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Towards Light. She wouldn't even kiss another guy while acting.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: She blushes over Light after she spies on him and looks him up on the internet, and it only gets worse from there. At twenty-six she's still completely infatuated with him. Enough to kill herself rather than live in a world without him.
• Sociopathic Hero
  • The Sociopath: Calmly contemplates killing Rem because it would be more convenient.
• Spanner in the Works: For both Light and L.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The live action films.
  • This actually becomes an important plot point in the novelization of the spinoff film, L: Change the World.
  • Her survival is left ambiguous in the anime, which does not show or mention her suicide. The Japanese anime guidebook states that her deathdate is unknown.
• Stalker with a Crush: Towards Light again.
• Stalking Is Funny If It Is Female After Male
• Stepford Smiler: She acts happy and cheerful but Beneath the Mask she is psychologically traumatized, uncaring, self-destructive, manipulative and genuinely believes that criminals should die. She has more in common with her "boyfriend" than you might think.
• Stocking Filler: Misa's outfits always showcase her legs.
• Strawberry Shorthand: It's something she and L have in common.
• Street Smart: While Misa is by no means a genius like Light or L she does have very good instincts. When meeting Light for the first time she seems to instinctively know how to appeal to Light's God Complex and during the Yotsuba arc with just a little help from Rem she successfully outmaneuvered and controlled Higuchi to "solve" the Kira case.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Misa evokes quite a lot of sympathy from Kira's pursuers, considering all she has done.
  • She gains sympathy from the audience, too. Very few people will understand wanting to reign as a God over a New World, which costs Light points on the popularity front. Far more of those watching will identify with Misa's grief over losing her family and her heartfelt desire to support and help the person she loves, which is essentially what she is trying to accomplish during the story.
• Terms of Endangerment: After just meeting Light she starts calling him cutesy nicknames like "Light-darling" or "Raito-Naito."
  • Note that this takes place right after Light thinks to himself that Misa could kill him if he refuses her.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: She's the heroine and Light is her knight in shining armor. Needless to say she's very Wrong Genre Savvy.
• Third Person Person: Mercifully, this was omitted for the most part in the English translation of the manga, and completely eliminated in the English dub of the anime.
• Together in Death: Misa kills herself not very long after Light dies. In the anime, shots of Misa committing suicide are shown alongside shots of Light dying.
• Unequal Pairing: She swears complete devotion to Light, assuring him that he can use her as he wishes and that he can kill her if he sees fit. Light, of course, with that raging god complex of his, views her merely as a pawn; although he has a few moments when he seems almost fond of her (usually when she's just been extremely useful), they don't last long and he quite coldly contemplates killing her throughout the series.
  • Interestingly enough, though, this also gets played back the opposite way early on. Misa forces Light to make her his girlfriend; he has little to no choice in the matter, because Rem will kill him if he attempts to off her, and he needs Misa close and controlled to protect his identity of Kira; and he also considers that Misa could kill him otherwise.
• The Unfettered: Her goal is to help Light. She will do anything to further that goal.
• Unholy Matrimony: With Light; they are engaged in the second arc.
• Unkempt Beauty: After she was released from captivity, she spent her next scene in pj's, without makeup and with her hair down (more or less like this). More than one viewer thought she looked quite nice like that.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Had her parents not been killed when she was a little girl, she would've possibly grown into the same Idol Singer... without the Ax Crazy Yandereness.
• Villain Protagonist
• Villain Song: "Misa no Uta", sung while she's killing people, no less.
• Villains Out Shopping: Besides literally going shopping with Mogi, Misa is shown having tea with Light's family, scolding Ryuk to stay and help her with the cleaning, and going about her daily job as a model and actress.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Misa is eager to kill for Light's sake. "So just take me to where L is and I'll write his name down!"
• Walking Techbane: In the manga Misa is no good with computers or technology and L mocks the poor quality of the Second Kira tapes. In the anime Misa is shown purchasing Light's personal information online.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the manga, Misa has a cat, which is shown briefly curled up next to her while she looks up Light on the internet. This cat is neither seen nor mentioned again.
  • She also mentioned once that she duped a friend of hers into touching the videos she would later send out to the task force to throw them off her trail and have her friend arrested instead. One wonders if said friend was caught or not.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: Used to avoid attracting attention while tracking down Light and later Higuchi.
• Woman in Black
• Yandere: Misa loves Light obsessively, and has shown herself to be ready and willing to kill her competition.
• Zettai Ryouiki: The Second Kira's standard uniform.

Mello

Voiced by: Nozomu Sasaki (JP), David Hurwitz (EN)

One of L's two potential successors, a handsome but dangerous young man with a massive inferiority complex whose real name is Mihael Keehl. Briefly after the timeskip, having resigned himself to the fact that he cannot work with Near, he sets up a gang of Mafia members even Kira hasn't noticed who abduct the head of the Japanese police department from whom- following a spot of torture- he deduces that there are two Death Notes within the human world and vows to acquire both of them to stop Kira once and for all before Near does. When Kira kills his first hostage, he masterminds the kidnap of Light's little sister, Sayu, in hopes of forcing the Task Force (which Light's father is on) to hand over one of the Death Notes. In the manga he then uses his possession of this to blackmail the President of the United States into supplying his gang with explosives and weaponry to further assist them in their plans and even intimidates a Shinigami into standing guard outside his secret lair to protect him against military retaliation (not shown in anime). Although his mob are able to kill off said invading soldiers with the Death Note, the Task Force lead their own raid on his hideout and take the notebook from him. However, he indirectly kills Light's father.

As the raid concludes, he sets off a bomb in the warehouse where he and his gang are hiding, burying his attackers in rubble and escaping but giving him a huge scar across his face (not that it deters his fangirls). He and Matt (the third most-likely successor to L) kidnap Kiyomi Takada, which leads to Mikami's screw-up and Light's downfall. Both of them die in the process.

Besides being in the manga and anime, Mello also appears in the spin-off prequel novel, Another Note, where he acts as the Narrator.

In stark contrast to Near and L (the latter of which he worships), Mello is extremely dynamic, a ruthless mob boss, but just as brilliant as Near. Also, he likes chocolate- possibly as hearkening back to L's own sweet tooth to show that side of his personality (ruthlessness aside) as continuing in him.

• Always Second Best
• Ambiguously Gay: Let's review: he wears tight leather pants and as pointed out by his English VA in an interview, "Is he wearing a feather boa?" Also in the manga he Ignores the Fanservice when Halle showers in front of him.
• Anti-Hero: Type V.
• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Axe Crazy
• The "B" Grade: he's one of the top scoring students at Wammy's House but all that matters is that he is not THE top scoring student.
• Badass
  • Badass Biker
  • Badass Bookworm: He's the second best student in a school for genii. He eats chocolate and blows stuff up.
• Bare Your Midriff - The bottom of Mello's vest finishes quite a bit above the waistband of his pants, leaving his midriff exposed.
• Beta Test Baddie
• Bishonen
• Blond Guys Are Anti Heroes.
• Blue Eyes or Black Eyes
• Bob Haircut
• Byronic Hero
• The Chessmaster: Especially in his first couple of episodes.
• Christianity Is Catholic: On the cover of Volume 8 of the manga he's holding a rosary.
• Combat Pragmatist: Which arguably accounts for his effectiveness. Light seems to have trouble dealing with someone who refuses to play by the rules. Near, too- whilst knowing him well enough to keep track of him- does not anticipate his kidnap of Kiyomi Takada or the subsequent fiery end of both.
• Creepy Cool Crosses: In the manga.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!
• Death By Pragmatism: He's the only one of Kira's opponents that doesn't "play by the rules" of Kira's game.
• Demoted to Extra: In the Relight movies.
• Determinator
• Deuteragonist After L's death, Mello and Near become the opposing deuteragonists to Light.
• Driven by Envy
• Dude Looks Like a Lady
• Everything's Better with Chocolate
• Evil Counterpart: To Near. Or is it the other way around?
• Evil Brit
• Evil Sounds Deep
• Fur and Loathing: He wears fur-lined jackets and his villain lair is decorated in zebra / tiger-stripe prints.
• Genius' Sweet Tooth
• Good Scars, Evil Scars
• Hell-Bent for Leather
• Idiot Ball: According to How To Read 13 Mello has to carry it otherwise he becomes too effective and he would solve the case. So you get things like (in the manga) never realizing that Matsuda isn't the Second L or never thinking to search Takada before handing her the blanket.
• Ignore the Fanservice: In response to Halle Lidner showering in front of him and offering him a place to stay in a seductive manner, he instead points a gun at her, demanding her to bring him to SPK headquarters.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Large Ham
• Laser Guided Tykebomb
• Lean and Mean
• Leather Man
• Load-Bearing Boss
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy
• Mad Eye
• The Mafia: Mello leads one, having brought in the head of a mob boss at fifteen.
• Morality Pet: Matt. He's the only person whose death Mello expresses a moment's regret over.
  • Also, to an extent, Soichirou Yagami. He did not intend to kill him, but justifies it due to his alliance with Kira in using a Death Note against him.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning
• Narrator / Lemony Narrator: In Another Note.
• Not So Different: His methods more closely resemble Kira's than L's.
  • Also in Another Note, Mello seems to find B to be sympathetic.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain
• Painted-On Pants: He wears tight leather pants.
• Parental Abandonment
• Person of Mass Destruction: When he briefly gets control of one of the notebooks.
• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Mocked in Death Note Abridged "Quit talking like that! You're from an orphanage in England for Christ's sake!"
• Psychotic Smirk
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Near's blue. While Mello is a genius like Near is, he is more emotional and impulsive.
• The Resenter
• Revenge: He cites that he "doesn't underestimate revenge as a motive" as a reason that killing Chief Yagami would cause him more trouble than would be worth.
• The Rival: Mello is Near's rival, and a bit more unhinged.
• Scars Are Forever
• Second Place Is for Losers
• Sissy Villain: An effeminate mafia lord. Though, like Light, he's still very dangerous.
• Slouch of Villainy
• Sociopathic Hero
• Suck Sessor
• Teen Genius
• Teens Are Monsters
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: He hates to acknowledge that practically speaking, he and Near are on the same side.
• Thanatos Gambit: Maybe. His death ultimately engineers Light's downfall; the ambiguity lies in whether or not everything he did was intentional. However, Near's eyes not being in view while he says "Even if he didn't surpass me... Even if he didn't..." may hint at what he thinks about it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate.
• Two-Faced
• The Unfettered: Will do whatever it takes to beat Near and capture Kira.
• Unknown Rival: Near actually isn't that interested in beating him, and expresses no problems with working with him. Light's lucky Mello isn't quite as open-minded.
• Unorthodox Holstering: He carries a gun in the front of his pants.
• Unreliable Narrator: He tells the story of Another Note.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about L's successors without giving away the fact that L dies.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: There are hints of this in the way he sympathizes with Beyond when telling Another Note.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Does this to everyone directly involved in the notebook exchange as well as his mole in the SPK.
• Young and in Charge: Heads a mafia crime syndicate while not yet out of his teens.

Near

Voiced by: Noriko Hidaka (JP), Cathy Weseluck (EN)

L's true successor, named Nate River, and the one who truly takes down Kira in the end. Characterized by the contrast of his mature conversation with his childlike playing with toys, he runs the SPK, a force from the USA specially designed to unmask Kira on reasoning that the new "L" Light Yagami, is incompetent. Like his predecessor, he also suspects Light to be Kira and periodically makes life difficult for him both unwittingly and wittingly- the former by reminding Light of L through the style of his speech and analytical skills and the latter by sowing seeds of doubt amongst the Task Force to make some of them suspect Light as well. He soon comes to suspect Mikami and Takada to have something to do with Kira as well. Despite having every right to do so, he refuses to incarcerate Light and Mikami and use the lack of deaths following as evidence.

The closest thing that the one-shot comic three years later has to a main character, he drives C-Kira to suicide with words alone. It's worth noting, however, that the one-shot's canon status is debatable, as it appears to have had no involvement from Ohba or Obata.

• Adult Child
• Age-Inappropriate Dress
• Alternate Continuity: Let's just say that Near is really really different in L: Change the World.
  • However, in the novelization of the above, he is portrayed closer to his manga and anime incarnation.
• Ambiguous Disorder: In a different but similar way to L (just as the character is different but similar to L generally).
• Anti-Hero: Type V->Type IV
• Awesomeness By Analysis
• Badass Bookworm
• Bat Deduction: In the anime, Near's eyes turn white and he magically has the clues he needs. The manga avoids this, but does show his photographic memory and ability to watch and listen to a room full of TV sets showing as many different news items and taking them all in at once.
• Beat Them At Their Own Game: Possibly...
  • At least in the English dub this is invoked word for word.
• Black Eyes
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Near loves playing with toys just as much as L loves sweets. He stacks dice and matchsticks just as L stacks milk-pots and sugar-cubes.
• The Chessmaster: Perhaps the most archetypal example, right down to the unemotionality and the hatred of adjusting plans.
• Combat Pragmatist: Though he rejects offhand the idea of "just shooting him" as dishonorable, he is still a cheating little bastard and Word of God suggests that that's why he survives. It is still argued on whether or not he used the notebook to control Mikami in the final confrontation.
• Creepy Monotone: In the anime, certainly.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Near is voiced by women in both the Japanese and English versions of the anime.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The Alternate Continuity film L: Change the World gives Near a very sympathetic Backstory- Near is an orphan from Thailand who watched his hometown get destroyed.
• Deuteragonist: After L's death, Mello and Near become the opposing deuteragonists to Light.
• Does Not Like Shoes: As with L, he doesn't wear shoes, though he at least puts socks on his feet (except for a couple of scenes in the manga).
• Extreme Doormat: Even moreso than L. He doesn't hunt Kira out of any moral obligation but just because it's what he's been trained to do- although his final showdown with Light might imply a personal touch considering he wears the L mask and makes it a point in how important Mello's contribution was with his miniature doll.
• Genius' Sweet Tooth: In the epilogue of the manga at least, in which he's seen to eat a chocolate bar. It's thought he's doing it in memory of Mello.
• Good Is Not Nice: Though just like L before him, whether he can truly be called "good" is far from clear.
• Guile Hero
• Gut Feeling
• Heroic Albino: Although you'd have to use the term "heroic" very, very loosely and "albino" as a possibility, though it's likely given the colour of his hair. There is no Word of God for or against either.
• The Immune: In the Alternate Continuity film L: Change the World he is the only one to survive The Plague that afflicted his village.
• Insufferable Genius
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Jerkass: Few people in-story can stand Near.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When he tells Light that he is nothing more than a serial killer.
• Laser Guided Tykebomb: So Light, you thought you'd gotten rid of L, huh? Say hi to his successors.
• Man in White
• Manipulative Bastard
• Meaningful Name: His real name, Nate River, is supposed to symbolize how his talents flow from L like a river flows from Canada to Alaska.
• Messy Hair: Well, messy or maybe just curly; it's a little hard to tell.
• Mind Rape: Just look at chapters 103 and 104 of the manga.
  • In the one-shot Japan-only sequel he drives the next Kira to suicide with his words alone.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: See Near's victory gloating session in the manga. Ouch. It breaks Light pretty bad.
• No Social Skills: Even more so than L, to the point where he is apparently unable to make his own travel arrangements. How To Read, the series encyclopedia, points out that this is a significant weakness, as he can only make full use of his brilliant mind when surrounded by support because his basic social and living skills are so bad.
• Not So Different: Near is like a more vengeful version of L. He is not above stooping to Kira's level of mind games and manipulative tactics. Also it's teased that Near used the notebook to defeat Kira.
• Older Than They Look: Many assume he's ten or so by his appearance, behavior, and voice: he's 17 or 18 by the end. He looks about 15 three years after that. He's even referred to as a "boy" by the President of the United States.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: He spent his entire appearance clothed in PJs, although in the anime this appears to have been changed to a PJ top and jeans.
• Passive Aggressive Combat
• Parental Abandonment
• Politeness Judo
• Punch Clock Hero
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives an epic one to Light at the end.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Mello's red. While he and Mello are geniuses, Near is more cold and seemingly emotionless.
• Rei Ayanami Expy: He has even poorer social skills than L and white hair.
• Shut UP, Hannibal: He rejects Kira's ideals entirely, especially after confronting an implicated Light: "No. You are just a murderer. And this notebook here is the deadliest murder weapon in the history of mankind... you have yielded to the power of the notebook and shinigami and confused yourself with a god. You're just a crazy mass murderer. Nothing more- and nothing less."
• Sociopathic Hero
  • The Sociopath
• Sole Survivor: In the Alternate Continuity film L: Change the World Near is not only orphaned but is the last survivor of his village. Also in canon he is the only Wammy’s Kid to challenge Kira and survive.
• Sophisticated As Hell: "What this proves is... Light Yagami is a lady-killer."
• The Spock
• Strange Minds Think Alike: As with L before him, he is shown to be thinking exactly the same thing as Light when planning out his strategy for defeating his opponent.
• Suck Sessor
• Super OCD: Is it the majority of his agents dropping dead all around him from the Death Note or his tower of dice falling over that he is most saddened by in chapter 66? You decide.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Quoting from the folks at IGN, "Near is the darker, colder, angrier version of L. L represented justice and Near represents vengeance."
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist
• Teen Genius
• Ubermensch: As he put it, after Light responds to his withering complaint towards his personal character:

"Nobody can tell what is right and what is wrong, what is righteous and what is evil. Even if there is a God and I had His teachings in front of me I would think it through and decide if it was right and wrong myself. I'm no different to you. I believe in what I think is right, and believe that to be righteous. You are no god. And I find the whole idea of you setting the path for all the people to follow is neither peaceful nor righteous. And anybody who claims to be a god and kills people from left to right is neither peaceful nor righteous."

• Voice with an Internet Connection
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about L's successors without giving away the fact that L dies.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Quite literally.
  • He gets a full list of his toys in the 'How To Read' book, complete with their price and how difficult they were to obtain.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: One of the very few (sort of) non-evil anime examples.
• Young and in Charge: Is still in his teens (and looks much younger) and heads the SPK, which consists of several experienced FBI agents.
• Young Conqueror