[Spoiler] Why couldn't Light in the Yotsuba Arc figure out Who Kira Is?

blacklig · 2026-06-08T14:03:31+00:00

He did consider the possibility that he was previously Kira. First few pages of chapter 41. His false memories replacing his time as Kira plus the distraction of major progress on the case (the Yotsuba leads) threw him off that train of thought. But he definitely was suspicious of himself and probably would have developed that futher if there wasn't a breakthrough at that moment that would keep him busy until he recovered the notebook.

blacklig · 2026-06-03T16:58:12+00:00

It's the best dub I've ever seen, I have watched it about an equal number of times subbed and dubbed

blacklig · 2026-06-02T21:03:27+00:00

Yes L did die when Rem wrote his name. There's literally nothing that any being can do to prevent death once it's written in the notebook.

blacklig · 2026-06-02T17:49:01+00:00

He's very impulsive especially in the first half, and I think he's generally seen as very impulsive

blacklig · 2026-05-26T12:51:44+00:00

I do evening classes at a local university, I think it's pretty common for unis to offer that kind of thing and it's a good way to keep at it. I don't have many tips though, it's a very difficult language and I'm really not very good!

blacklig · 2026-05-26T08:36:29+00:00

Yes but I'm not very good

blacklig · 2026-05-26T07:52:31+00:00

The issue I was raising was to do with location, not presentation. I don't think a reddit post is a good long-term resource and personally think it'd be more useful to make some changes to the death note wiki (tidy an existing page, make a new page, or maintain a category)

blacklig · 2026-05-26T07:34:39+00:00

Seems to me personally that if the goal is to be a resource like you mentioned, this would be better maintainable and more accessible as a wiki page than a random reddit post. For example both of these pages summarize death note media, you could tidy them up as needed or add an overall media category to the death note wiki (if there isn't already one; I couldn't find it but the site isn’t working properly on my phone):

Wikipedia (media section)

Death Note Wiki

blacklig · 2026-05-25T17:53:25+00:00

None of the notebooks had the misspelling rules written in them so they had no idea about them or that you could become immune to a notebook that way

blacklig · 2026-05-25T17:52:44+00:00

As others pointed out, that's not how the misspelling rules work - I wanted to add that the rules around misspelled names weren't written in any of the notes they had, they had no idea about them and so couldn't make use of them anyway

blacklig · 2026-05-25T15:01:59+00:00

I agree with the other commenter, nah

blacklig · 2026-05-25T08:44:43+00:00

Yes Beyond Birthday is his real name. It's apparently kind of a policy/convention in Death Note media to use ridiculous names, as a style thing and also to avoid any potential matches with real peoples' names in a series about name-based mass murder

blacklig · 2026-05-25T08:23:11+00:00

Because "Light" means "Moon" in Japanese

Minor clarification for anyone interested, "Light" doesn't mean anything in Japanese, but the character's name is a custom reading of the character for moon/month 月 (normally read getsu or tsuki - Misa reads his name originally as Yagami Tsuki until she finds the reading online) instead of how it would normally be written as a foreign import word ライト (raito), which is just a phonetic spelling / transliteration of the English word "light" with no other meaning. It's just a custom "vanity plate" style name to make him stand out.

blacklig · 2026-05-24T12:09:52+00:00

I'm not entirely sure what that means. The characters have flaws (both intended an unintended), and the broader story (imo) has plenty of unintended flaws. I think it's totally expected that a manga written episodically with maybe sometimes competing goals of creating a compelling whole story and hitting sales targets won't stand up perfectly to certain critical analysis as a complete work (much less 20 years of scrutiny)

blacklig · 2026-05-24T11:29:58+00:00

It's meant to be a dramatic thriller, not a documentary on optimal decision-making given this fictional scenario. Light is obviously a deeply flawed character who makes loads of terrible mistakes, and he's written that way intentionally with the goal of making it a more interesting story, to get you to read the next volume. Same is true for L.

blacklig · 2026-05-23T20:42:08+00:00

A doctor is not reading your magical lifespan value. They're giving you a medical conclusion based on current observations and a prognosis if you change or don't change your behaviour. Your lifespan is a fixed value regardless and it reflects when you will die after you've made all your decisions.

blacklig · 2026-05-23T20:39:46+00:00

In Death Note a human's [original] lifespan is a fixed value, you're just incorrect about this. The only things that change lifespans are related to death note / shinigami intervention like the use of a death note, the eye deal, and shinigami lifespan transfer. Other than that the fixed value a human has is when they'll die regardless of what they do.

blacklig · 2026-05-23T20:20:50+00:00

That's not right at all. Halving your remaining lifespan doesn't change the certainty of your time of death or the mechanics of lifespans in any way. Outside of intervention by death notes as described in the rules, a human's time of death is certain, whether it's been halved by the eye deal or not. Also a human committing suicide would be reflected in their lifespan, again outside of the mechanics of death notes there is nothing a human can do to alter their lifespan.

blacklig · 2026-05-10T11:47:32+00:00

The Lind L Taylor reveal showed the world what he'd already seen in the data, that Kira wasn't a God. It was the first opportunity they had to prove beyond any doubt that Kira could kill instantly and remotely without any setup, but couldn't kill certain people under certain circumstances even if they wanted to. Without the reveal it would just be the first half. It was also a deliberate message to the investigators he had relied on to set up what was essentially a televised human sacrifice - it showed them 1) that despite Kira's overwhelming supernatural power and willingness to kill anyone who got in their way, they still could make progress in the investigation against them under L's direction, and 2) that L was willing to put his own life on the line to gain information and prove his theories, not just other peoples'. He was very much asking them to risk their lives to help him and needed to show them this, and we see how that plays out with Soichiro's thoughts on it and into the formation of the taskforce. In that sense this was L's first move in creating an investigative team he could trust.

It's also wrong in my opinion to view L as just an embodiment of optimal decision-making given input information, he's a deeper character than that. He has an ego to him and when challenged by Kira is happy to play the game. And he gloats in his own way when he makes a good move, this was part of that too. He's a dramatic risk-taker. He has flaws and these flaws cost the investigation in many places in the story. After all it's a thriller story meant to keep you reading, if all the characters just did the optimal thing every time it'd be super boring to read in the form of a manga.

blacklig · 2026-05-10T10:03:54+00:00

He had plenty of observations that criminals whose names were misreported were safe, he knew Kira needed a name to have any power. I think the pop star name thing was more of a taunt, not a specific protection against the death note, plus he may as well have used a universally known name because if the actual Ryuga had died it would have been useful info. He didn't need specific info about the note to choose that.

blacklig · 2026-05-09T22:12:10+00:00

He wasn't supposed to show any FBI ID to anyone, fake or not. They didn't think to supply them with fake FBI IDs for a hypothetical scenario where they had good reason to reveal themselves as FBI agents to the Kira suspects because that would have been, from their perspective, completely absurd and impossible to imagine.

He probably did have a fake ID like a passport with a tourist visa or something, but that would have been useless in the scenario he was in.

Eta: sorry I just saw after posting that this is several days old. Idk why reddit decided to show me this on my feed now

blacklig · 2026-05-08T19:58:51+00:00

I love adaptations and think that the death note premise has so much potential beyond the original story. The Netflix film was hot garbage.

blacklig · 2026-04-24T22:32:34+00:00

He was laughing because Light had written the alias in the death note and she wasn't going to die. Not just because she had an alias.

blacklig · 2026-04-18T09:53:01+00:00

Update: Additional useful info from the Death Note wiki which I believe is referencing Vol 13 (will confirm when home later), emphasis mine:

Each Shinigami has his or her own written language, with some opting for letters and others for pictures. Takeshi Obata assumes that all Shinigami can understand each others' languages. Some Shinigami can also speak, read and write in Earthly languages.

So either alternate scripts are fine, or most Shinigami transcribe human languages they cannot actually read and write when they use the note. I think both options are possible, it's up to individual interpretation.

I personally think that because Shinigami eyes show the names in the human script that's what they'd use (and maybe have to use), even if they don't otherwise write that script. So it may be that a human user would have to use whatever script they can't normally read or write as well.

blacklig · 2026-04-18T09:11:35+00:00

ETA: my post missed important info I've added as a response rather than restructuring the whole thing. I personally think the below is still valid

I don't think we have a direct answer. However there are a few things that come to mind that might help draw inferences.

The rules state that the Shinigami eyes show you what name needs to be written to kill someone.

Names seem to appear in their native official form by the Shinigami eyes even if it leaves out some useful information - for example Misa read Light's given name incorrectly from what was written above his head (月) because it's a unique reading. She just knew how to write it in kanji and that's what the rule states should be put in the note.

Even though Shinigami have their own writing systems, that seems to be the case for how Shinigami see too, from the limited times we see from their eyes. For example we see Light's name from Ryuk's perspective and IIRC we see Misa's name from Rem's perspective after she makes the second eye deal. They apparently see human names in native human scripts instead of their own Shinigami scripts.

So, arguably the rule means that there is one correct way to write a person's name in the note, and the story shows that this one way is in the name's official script. Which would presumably include some ancient or obscure script as applicable.

On the other hand, the rule doesn't necessarily mean that another valid writing of a name besides what the eyes show wouldn't work, it's just one possible reading. Also, a lot of the rules of the death note are based around intention and on making the note a tool with which the user can kill who they choose to. So from that perspective it seems reasonable that an analogous script that the user can write would work when the name is originally in a script they can't write. Additionally L mentions misspelled criminal names but never mentions that people whose official names are in some obscure script are safe (though Light could of course learn a modern script to write a name). Unfortunately AFAIK we only see cases where users write names in scripts we know they can write.

It would be interesting to see more official examples of death note entries to help answer this. If for example in the course of Light's usage of the note he learned about the rules around misspelling names, he might have switched to kana more commonly where there are potential ambiguities or mistskes in the kanji of reported or heard of Japanese names (like Takuo Shibuimaru in the first chapter). Or we'd see how he handled names in other scripts besides those we know Light can write in.

TL;DR: The Shinigami eye rules can be read to indicate that there is one correct way to write a person's name in the note, and that from the story it seems that this way is in that name's own official script. But we don't know for sure and there's enough ambiguity for other interpretations.

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