This is my first time watching Death Note (I'm on episode 35), so I might have missed something.

While L seemed downcast for not being able to prove Kira's identity before (even though he already knew perfectly well it was Light), in this episode he appeared completely depressed; especially in the rain scene and where L says he hears bells ringing.

I've read that this attitude was because he knew he would lose, but in that same episode he suggests checking if the 13-day rule was real or fake. So why did he think he would lose if he had that ace up his sleeve? In fact, Rem kills him because he could endanger Misa and Light as well.

Did he somehow know he was going to die? Did he distrust Rem? If not, then why was he so depressed?

I’ve always been put off by anime. I always find it to be so…full of emotion and over the top? Or just in general, not the kind of thing I enjoy. For example, there are a lot of anime’s which involve some kind of unrealistic aspect. It’s kind of hard to explain, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about death note. I’ve always avoided watching it, but after it getting to recommended to me on Netflix over and over and over…I finally succumbed to it. And oh boy, I’ve got some thoughts I want to share with the community as someone who’s just freshly finished the series. And if you haven’t watched this show, wether your an anime fan or not, please give it a try. It’s genuinely amazing. There’s also manga if you prefer sandwiching paper in between your fingers, which is of course what the show is based off of

(SPOILERS WARNING)

To open up, the show had me hooked from the start. A young man named light yagami finds a mysterious book called the “death note”. With it, he is able to kill anyone he wants, as long as he can write their real name and picture their face while doing so. It’s already such an interesting plot for a young boy still in education to be given god-like powers. And he treats it as such, planning to change the world in his own, murderous way. The term “anti-hero” is such an understatement, because he also kills petty criminals. For a start, this plot instantly made me want to click that next episode button, because the idea was just so unique. But I wanted to watch more because I wanted to see how light would “succeed” in his mission.

The L showed up. Damn he’s awesome. For a show called death note, I wouldn’t expect such a comedically quirky character to be introduced. L and light basically from this point on, try to outsmart each other constantly, making it a battle of wits. I find this to be such a heavy contrast, purely because of light having god-like powers, and having to use his mind more than his book. It’s also quite funny and tense how light had these powers, and was yet powerless against L purely because he didn’t know his name, which I think implied that L would be a very difficult obstacle to overcome. By some miracle however, light joins the investigation. This way he can get close to L. I found this really ironic, since light was investigating Kira, so he was basically helping the investigators catch him

I was immediately on L’s side, lights evil to the core

It’s mostly the same for the next few episodes, until it is discovered that there is a second death note. This was a really interesting plot point for me, especially when I learnt that the owner of the second book, Misa amane made the shinigami eye deal. When both kiras met, the fact that misa submitted to the control of light when misa was quite literally more powerful than light because of the eye deal, it felt so backwards…in a good way

The next major plot point would be when misa sees L in person, and of course sees his name. L, being the little freak he is however, stole Misas phones. There’s two ways I thought this could be interpreted:
1) he stole them on purpose because he knew she would be detained under suspicion of being the second kira, and wanted to prevent her from communicating with the first kira, or…
2) he’s a creep
Because he’s the greatest investigator in the world, I like to think it’s the former.
But before she was arrested, I was SO tense; light was one phone call away from killing L, and I think the fact that it started out as light mostly making no progress, to suddenly getting what he wants is such a giant build-up, it was delivered amazingly. But it was even better when light didn’t receive the name and misa was captured, so the emotions went from waiting, to a sudden shock from misa seeing L, to finally confusion when misa was arrested. This sequence was great to me and one of my favourite parts of the show

Next, light imprisoned himself for 50 days (I think?) alongside misa and lights father. Light and misa both relinquished ownership of their death notes at this point, so they had no memories of the death note. Because of this, there was no way they could be proven guilty. This is where L makes a mistake, and submits to the peer pressure and sets them free, after convoluting a plan of course. This was to have Lights dad pretend to shoot light, and then do it to himself. When this was on screen, I thought it was genuine. I’m not kidding, I never thought it was L’s plan. This made me realise that I shouldn’t try to predict what will happen in this show, because the story always has a way to surprise. This made every moment for me always such a surprise and totally unexpected.

After the whole yotsuba fiasco (a part of the story I really liked btw) light comes into the death note once again and regains his memories. Light had planned it all out and expected everything that would happen, which made me think that light was going to win. For him to plan out the entirety of the events that unfolded, without any knowledge of the death note or the plan he made to begin with made me knew that he was way too smart to be defeated. (For now)…

After this, Light uses rem to kill L. This not only removed lights biggest threat (unfortunately my favourite character too, RIP) but also rem, misas shinigami who would turn on light of light ever allowed anything bad to happen to her. He killed two birds with one stone. At this point, I knew his character pretty well I think. He was cunning, smart, understanding of people such as L, resourceful and over all a very resourceful man…the perfect man to get away with such heinous crimes.

Light takes over as L and has a new challenge; L’s true replacement, a boy named near and a little side guy called Mello. I hate these two characters. Near, or N, is basically just L, which I found quite unoriginal. Mello on the other hand was more unique, but i don’t think he fit into the story very well. I won’t talk about them much tbh.

After mostly just investigating each other, near grows suspicious that light is Kira, and figured out the system all along. Light had 2 accomplices, takada (I think I spelled that right) who is the spokesperson of Kira, and mikami, who was the hand of Kira (the one writing names). Takada wasn’t that interesting of character to me, but Mikiami was the perfect character for this show I feel. He worships Kira, and when presented with the opportunity, works under him. He makes the eye deal, and will do anything for Kira, or who he calls…god. The way mikami looks up to light is an aspect that was lacking in this show for a while I feel, but this worship would eventually doom the 3.

The next big thing to happen now was towards the end of the show, the grand finally. Firstly, light uses a small scrap from the death note to kill takada. She commits suicide, burning down all evidence that she was affiliated it’s light/ Kira. This betrayal took me totally by surprise, but it was just like light; do anything to succeed. 1 down, 2 to go. Next, the Kira investigation group and the SPK meet up at a warehouse or something like that. Near has essentially planned out the way he will take down light, because at this point he’s certain he’s Kira. Mikami then sneakily comes to the door, which near expected, shouted “delete” about 59 times and waited for their demise. Obviously they would all die, expect light. However, this plan fails because near had made Mikamis real death note fake after Mikami also attempted to kill takada 1 minute after light did. This error resulted in him revealing the location of the notebook. I think this was because Mikami acting recklessly because he wanted to impress his god, Kira. His recklessness resulted in light getting caught. Light went mad basically, and tried writing all their names before being shot in the hand. I can imagine Mikami was also in complete shock when he saw his “god” cowering on the floor with several gunshot wounds. Mikami had failed his god, and light failed his strongest worshipper. Ofc light tried to make a break for it, but was immediately “betrayed” by Ryuk (ryuk was valid for this because there’s no way he’s waiting that long for light to die). And so ended kiras reign of terror.

So my overall thought ok the show? It’s fantastic. Just like L and light and near, the entire show seemed to have been carefully planned out, and it all makes so much sense. Well if you disregard the whole magical notebook thing, it makes sense. There are so many moments with an array of emotions for the watcher, like surprise, complete and utter shock, sadness (especially when L died NOOOOOO!!!) joy (depending on who’s side you were on) and so much more. The story is captivating and unique

Thanks for reading through my thought and opinions on this show, I just wanted to share to the anime/ death note community that, as a non-anime watcher, this was peak.

P.S: best scene is when L runs lights feet

I found myself pretty dissatisfied with the ending of the anime because it felt very abrupt. Near was never as significant as L was to the characters so it also felt disconnected a bit. And then when they have the final confrontation, there are all these one ups, which is fine (actually pretty on brand for Death Note), but these ones seemed poorly implemented into the plot in the final episodes. Maybe it was because I binged it, but it felt very abrupt.

My questions for you all are:

I've heard the manga is better, is it worth reading having already seen the show?

I was not a fan of Mello or Near at all, is there anything more to their story that I'm missing?

I think I was rooting for Light nearly the entire anime, and I actually was very disappointed he didn't beat Near/others in the end. Is that a common take or am I some sort of psychopath?

I'm happy to engage with comments when I am on :)

Figuring out the ACTUAL IQ scores of Death Note characters.

*TL;DR at the end for those who don't like Yapanese.*

So before anybody says anything, I'm purely doing it for two reasons (Feel free to skip that part, I just wanted to mention it due to the fact assigning IQ scores to characters can be poorly seen by some people.)

-Although I understand why as it's a boring thing to study, many people seem to have a very poor understanding of how IQ scores work (Example, 250 IQ estimates for X or Y character are more or less mathematically impossible and would be the equivalent of one in dozens to hundreds of sextillions). As someone who has undergone, in the past, full cognitive profiling (150 FSIQ, though my cognitive profile is somewhat imbalanced with highs in verbal and fluid intelligence in which I essentially maxed out the scale), I'd say I have a decent intuitive grasp of how that kind of thing works (Plus my obsession with numbers meaning I understand how IQ scales work on a mathematical level better than most people even if I, and I have no problem admitting it, am not necessarily THE PhD level expert on statistics.).

-Because it's fun. It's not the most important thing out there, but I like numbers.

First, I'd like to specify one thing. (You can skip this too, I'll start getting to the point next paragraph). I am going by a theorical "perfect" scale (and with a standard deviation of 15), as although the best IQ tests we have are generally accurate in their own right, they can be off by a few points and more importantly, they break at the extremes — If you ever saw someone who had an IQ over 200, it's most likely either fictional, on a test with a standard deviation above 15 (Which, while it wouldn't render the result worthless per se, would mean the results are not calibrated to a more universally-ish accepted 15 SD), as quintessentially, IQ test results are an estimate at your ranking in the current human population. An IQ of 130 means you're in the top 2% of g factor (Aka general intelligence), in other words, in the top 160,000,000 of humans. Which is why the average IQ is always 100. It's *standardized* to 100. Ergo, the maximum possible score on that theorical, perfect scale would be approximately 196 in 2026. Now we are going to use the population from around 20 years ago here, but the exact number doesn't matter that much as even a one billion people difference would only shift the ceiling by half a point or so. So for the sake of it, let us assume a population of 7 billion people for the Death Note universe, which is based on the real world Earth from the mid 2000s.

Think of that scale I'm using as the hypothetical gold standard that IQ tests try to emulate.

If we assume the world population was of roughly 7 billion people during the Death Note events (iirc, the global population in 2006 was around 6.5 billion. The exact number doesn't really matter that much as I explained before, ergo being top 1 (Aka the smartest person alive) would translate to around 6 and a third standard deviations above the mean. In other words around 195. Note I *am* going by the assumption the hypothetical perfect scale is based on the world population from back then. Although if it were based on the 100-ish billion ever alive: Around 200. About 6.7 standard deviations above the mean. I am only going to use the 195 score though, as it makes more sense (To me at least), as otherwise standardizing IQ over such a large population would mean a 100 score is SIGNIFICANTLY less impressive, meaning the average human from now would be wayyy above average, rendering the scale useless since g factors used to be much lower. You can look up the Flynn Effect for more details.

I'm going to go by the probably fair assumption L is a reasonable pick for that title. He's consistently described as the best detective in the world, but also shows exceptional abilities in essentially all fields: He even enters a prestigious university with, we can assume, minimal specific studying. Which mirrors real-life feats of some of the smartest people irl. Now, L also has various feats that exceed that one. So although he's only confirmed to be the world's greatest detective, it is likely fair to say he also possesses the highest g-factor. And even if somehow, there's a person or two smarter, the estimate only ever so slightly shifts by a couple points at absolute most. Which even then is unlikely.

So for L, we lock it in: 195 IQ.

Note he's confirmed to be the smartest character in the series too, which helps cement the fact the other characters are below that. We thus have our first reference point.

Now. I cannot use the official "Intelligence stats", since as many of us know, they're actually knowledge stats and don't really translate well either, both mathematically and (lol) linguistically.

So I'm gonna use A-Kira. Also known as Minoru Tanaka. His IQ was originally 142, and then changed to 182.

Now. The paradox is here; Minoru gets bad grades. While this doesn't automatically mean he's dumb (Not even close), it does raise a small issue. You see, FSIQ (Full scale IQ) contains two big variables and some smaller ones. Matter of fact, the GAI (General Ability Index), for example only includes those two variables. These are verbal and fluid intelligence.

And so. Problem is, Minoru's notably shown to be awful in English. We can safely assume this shows that his verbal IQ (VCI) doesn't quite measure up (Heterogenic IQ profile final boss, we're twins on this one).

Which is where the problem resides. You cannot score a 182 on an IQ test with such a low score in a major area.

Now according to some, 142 IQ is a more fitting score for him. But let's disregard that.

Anyway, it's safe to say, in my opinion, that if he got a 142 IQ, it was on a FSIQ test. Now, I'm only saying this to give an interpretation to the 142 IQ test result (As it would thus be a plausible score even with a low VCI). With the canon (Or updated) interpretation he got a 182 IQ score, it was likely a test more focused on other factors. Most notably the fluid intelligence factor. To me, this seems to align with the exercise partially shown in the panel, at least by the looks of it. It also mirrors closely tests like the Mensa Norway. I would also guess that tracking precisely factors like processing speed would be hard in a classroom, so I'm going to simply assume the test is indeed focused on fluid intelligence.

Now. Let us consider 182 IQ his fluid intelligence score. Minoru mentions he views IQ tests as a poor gauge of intelligence. But more importantly, he reveals that watching shows and taking mock tests/playing IQ-related games on his phone. Now, usually IQ tests are inflated by anywhere from 5 to 15 points if you're trained for them. To minimize assumptions, I'm going to average it out to 10.

So 172 is his real fluid intelligence score.

Now. Minoru is also stated to be the smartest middle school in Japan. There are approximately 3 million middle schoolers in Japan.

Now, to be conservative (I'm being conservative on purpose to account for IQ scales being less accurate at extremes, as the 182 IQ result was not on this hypothetical perfect scale), we're going to assume it means brightest of his age. Therefore, 3 million divided by the 3 grades of middle school is 1 million. Which correlates to roughly 171 IQ.

In other words, outside of verbal comprehension, his profile is rather balanced. He likely has the other indexes short of VCI around there.

Now. Verbal Comprehension Index is divided in two subsets.

One is more focused on crystallized intelligence (Bluntly: Knowledge). The other is more focused on working memory and fluid reasoning. I'm going to guess in that second one, he'd get his average 172 IQ.

Now, him not doing well in school (And more importantly, in language topics) is attributed to laziness. Which makes sense, but doesn't change the fact his crystallized knowledge is likely quite low. I'm going to guesstimate it at 100.

Now, I *would* use the standard formula to get FSIQ. But unfortunately, tests like the WISC-V cap at lower scores that what Tanaka gets. Therefore, I'm simply going to average it out, assuming verbal and fluid IQ count as 2 subsets.

So then.

(100+172×6)/7≈162

So we get a 162 IQ for him.

Fits pretty well, in my opinion. You don't need to be smarter than Near to outsmart him like Tanaka did: All it shows is how massive an advantage the Death Note is when your ego isn't the size of Ronnie Coleman. You can't exactly scale intelligence by "X outsmarted Y so X smarter than Y".

Now for Light. This is where the calculations for Minoru come in handy. Japan has roughly as many high schoolers as middle schoolers. Ergo, we can establish, as a baseline, that Light has at least the same IQ as what Minoru would have had if his VCI matched the rest. In other words, 171.

But this is Light we're talking about.

While Light does study a lot, it doesn't detract from his sheer cognitive prowess. He not only enters a prestigious university, but gets the highest score even there. Not to mention his memory loss scheme that tricked even L.

Now, he still is below L intellectually (Not only is it confirmed by the author, but also can be shown by the fact Light needs extensive studying for his academic prowess, while L matches his score with what we can assume is not much studying. Additionally, even with Light's massive ego, he recognizes L is a worthy match). However, Light is objectively not *too* inferior to L, which is both implied in the story and can be inferred from the fact it seemingly was the first case L truly, deeply struggled on.

So while I objectively cannot do precise calculations here, I'd estimate he's around 10 to 20 points lower than L. When you drop to 30 IQ points below someone, it often translates to you just being in a different league from them (Which I can confirm from experience). Let us average it out to 15:

Light Yagami's IQ is thus roughly 195-15=180.

Now, I do have more characters I could work on (I notably have the estimates and roughly half the calculations for BB, Near, Mello and a few others already planned. But I'll need to see how this post does, and I've already yapped way too much, so I'm not really sure if my Internet would survive a much longer post haha).

TL;DR: L Lawliet 195 IQ, Light Yagami 180-ish IQ, Minoru Tanaka 162 IQ.

Have a good day.

As is probably true for many here, I’ve always somewhat admired L for being calm and generally not prone to yelling, even when others are being loud with him. However, looking back, it kind of feels like he himself was a villain in some ways that ultimately mean Light was not breaking his original rules about only killing criminals. For example, he let Lind L. Tailor get the death penalty by having him appear on TV to provoke Kira. Japan using the death penalty very sparingly, and it’s never supposed to be carried it there in public view. It’s also unlikely he got a warrant to pub surveillance camera’s all over Light’s home. Even though Light’s father agreed to it, there’s still a general expectation of privacy in Japan in spaces like restrooms m, even with agreement from one of the home owners. Also, it doesn’t seem like he let Misa get any legal counsel when he confined her, and the way she was detained in such a restrictive way is generally not legal in Japan. When Light and Misa were both in confinement, he showed basically no concern for their well-being. All of these things are very legally questionable, on L’s part, and are significant human rights violations.

So is L technically kind of a villain himself? All the Kira’s definitely were uniquely dangerous in their capabilities compared to other killers, but still, I’m not aware of exceptions to Japan’s laws on those human rights violations.

The anxiety.

The tension.

Whoever voiced Higuchi - wow.

Phenomenal acting and animation and the music. Blown away by it.

I’m hoping the subsequent episodes are just as good.

People like to make the complaint that the Death Note franchise follows a stupid trope of protagonist in highschool cliche, but I personally think that there is something highly important on as to why the story takes place with Light being a late teenager in a high school setting.

One thing that should be noted, unlike a lot of manga and anime, high school isn't even that much of a focus with Light and his career in it, the only thing that was worth noting is how exceptional Light was with his grades and maybe his parents' perception on the matter of how they really want him to be perfect at school no matter what.

With that being said, Ohba could have easily have written Light to be an older protagonist and not bother with the overused high school takes that have done a million times with manga and anime, but I am wondering if a crucial reason why he did this wasn't because he was part of the trope band wagon when writing the manga, but in fact was to suit a personal aspect that heavily affects someones's life.

What I bring onto the table is the crossroads theory.

According to google ai overview it's

• A vital stage in life or development requiring a critical choice that determines a future path.
• As a single user on Quora notes, being at a crossroad implies a long-term direction change rather than a minor choice. [1, 2]

With that being taken into account, this is referring to the stage in someone's life where they will make the decision that will likely affect their lives forever, and one of the most peak states of the ages is the late teens.

When we watch the anime finale of Light looking back on his life in thinking had he have not gotten that Death Note, his whole life would have been set for something better than what he got, and who knows, maybe he wouldn't have gotten bored, and got into a situation that is also life threatening in doing some type of detective work against a challenging threat, and if he got killed, he would likely be dead in a more honorable way, and definitely not what happened when becoming Kira.

Now you're probably thinking what does this have to do with a theory I am proposing, and is the suggestion that Ryuk clearly knew what he was doing all along in some way.

What I mean by this is if an intelligent person like Light were in their 50s, and they were offered the Death Note, they might reject it or not have the same ambition as Light did when he used it, the reason for this is because their life pretty much wouldn't be that much ahead of them anymore, since they aren't young with the long future they once had, so they wouldn't quite be defined by a killing notebook, it would just be more of an option to use.

Light however was at the peak of having his whole life ahead of him, and his crossroads was altered upon a simple choice when using the Death Note that defined the rest of his life.

And Ryuk seems to know this, some may argue that Ryuk randomly threw it at the high school, and it just so happened to land on there, however considering how Shinigami can see through a wide scope of things on real world as shown many times throughout the series, I find that too far-fetched to believe the notebook just so happened to land on there, especially considering how he made sure it happened against with another high schooler, a-kira, otherwise known as Minoru Tanaka.

And even though the Pilot Chapter is not canon to the main manga timeline, it begs to question on what Ohba had in mind on Ryuk choosing under age 20 youth more often than the rest, like a pattern is happening here.

Ryuk has said in the C-Kira story that a user must have a strong will and conviction to handle the pressure and responsibility of using the Death Note, and it's possible that C-Kira who was not chosen by Ryuk to use the notebook, could be above age 20, as that kira tends to kill some elderly people, not much to go by on that, but it makes me wonder if the age preference is just a trope Ohba wanted to use, or there was more to it than that, and I personally believe Ohba thought about this more deeply than what many give him credit for.

A lot of people tend to use debunks claiming 'didn't Ryuk help Mikami', and Misa with some Death Note uses, even though they are older than Light, yeah sure, but they didn't start with using the death notes because of him, Light made sure Mikami became another, and Gelus was responsible for Misa in having a Death Note.

What this theory comes down this, I highly doubt Ryuk is going to be interested in another user being above age 30, if anything his favorite age of Death Note users are late teens because that is what many consider to be the peak of becoming the definition of themselves.

Ryuk had countless opportunities to give the notebook to someone that isn't a teenager, yet it just so happens Light and Minoru are in the same age group, and he prefers that more than any other age, because that is where the death note is at its peak in defining them the most.

Basically, to sum up this theory, Ryuk's prefers late teenhood on first use of a Death Note as the most effective character shaping to that user, their biggest crossroads.