A prosecutor who holds a view of morality more black-and-white than a zebra and penguin musical in the 1920s. Has even more of a flair for the dramatic than Light, if that's even believable, and worships Kira as the true God. Light provides him with Death Note both to use him as a diversion to pull attention away for himself as well as a co-conspirator.

• Adaptational Badass: In the TV Drama, he becomes the third Kira by his own hand instead of by Light's, takes ownership of Misa's Death Note, figures out the case almost by himself, and he's also the one to kill L.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • In the Relight specials, Light's meetings with him and Takada are moved to earlier than occurred originally.
  • In the TV drama, he's involved in the story from the start and meets Light much earlier.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • In Light Up the New World, he was driven insane by Light's crazed, violent and murderous child son ^note who got a Death Note of his own from Ryuk, and was killing people, to the point he ended up killing him for fear of being killed himself. His Ax-Crazy personality is also largely omitted in the film.
  • In the TV Drama, most of his psychotic qualities are omitted, and he reprimands his private investigator for harming Misa while retrieving the Death Note for him. Thanks to Light also being more heroic in this version, his kill count is much smaller, and only strived to kill Near in the climax instead of the entire Task Force.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In the TV Drama, he becomes suspicious of the police's cover-up story for Misa's disappearance and starts investigating it himself, eventually leading him to her Death Note. He then makes the Shinigami eye deal and conspicuously texts L's name to Light the moment he sees his face in a recording, and writes it down in a Death Note snippet himself as soon as he can (which briefly saves Light's life). In the climax, Near also has to trick him with a fake broadcast of the criminals' deaths for him to buy that the fake Death Note is real.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Specifically to Light. In the manga, he loses faith in him, dismissing him as just "scum" and watching him die with indifference. In the anime, he remains loyal and kills himself in an attempt to help Light escape the warehouse.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: He's Misa's lawyer in the TV Drama.
• Adapted Out: Of the first two live-action movies, though he does appear in the TV drama and in Death Note: Light Up the New World.
• Alas, Poor Villain: While Mikami is a deranged fanatic, his final moments in the anime are extremely depressing. Firstly Light rejects knowing him, to say Mikami was heartbroken by this would be putting it lightly. Then he sees Light someone he sees as equal to a god shot multiple times and reduced to a crying bloody wreck on the floor. Throughout the finale Mikami looks on the verge of breaking into pieces and eventually he ends up stabbing himself in the heart with a pen just to buy Light some time and also because of how broken he is by this point, dying in complete agony. It's All for Nothing as Light is killed by Ryuk very soon after Mikami's death.
  • Mikami was just as deranged as Light if not more so, and he knew what he was getting into by becoming X-Kira, but it's still sad to see someone who initially had genuinely good intentions to help his classmates end up a fanatical murderer who died a horrible death at his own hands because his good ideals got warped into something very twisted after years of bullying and then was used as a weapon by Light who then threw him away to save his own skin.
• All for Nothing: Kills himself in the anime so Light can escape the warehouse, Ryuk kills Light mere minutes after this.
• Amnesiacs Are Innocent: In the manga, he loses his memory after the Death Note is burned, but is in prison when this occurs and dies ten days later. On the other hand, he survives in the TV drama.
• Amoral Attorney: Somewhat subverted; he works as a prosecutor during the day, but there are no hints that he acts like one of these, aside from Hanging Judge quirks. When he becomes X-Kira, he technically plays it straight as he sentences thousands of people to death without a proper trial, even killing people after they've done time in jail (or for simply not contributing enough to society), but still takes his job seriously despite this.
• Ascended Fanboy: Or more specifically, ascended Kira worshiper.
• Ax-Crazy: By far, one of the most unhinged characters in the series. Say it with me: "DELETE." Some added scenes in Relight 2 makes this even worse.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Wears a suit almost all the time.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears one exclusively when seen as an adult.
• Beat It by Compulsion: Near uses this strategy with Mikami, who neatly and precisely writes a certain amount of names down in the Death Note per day, to calculate which pages of the notebook to replace and which to leave.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: If Near didn't kill him in the manga, then it's implied he chose to kill himself in prison before risking getting killed by his fellow inmates. Considering he was both a Kira and a prosecutor, this wouldn't be too surprising.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Even more so than Light. While Light falls into this after getting his hands on the Death Note, Mikami has always had it and getting the Death Note just made it a whole lot worse. Mikami's also a lot more extreme in his views than Light, seeing those who commit minor crimes or are simply lazy as equally deserving of Kira's retribution as murderers and rapists, which Light sort of agrees with (he mentions using accidents and illness to kill lazy people early on), but thinks Mikami shouldn't be introducing this so early because it will turn people against Kira.
• Black Shirt: He's a Kira fanatic who is chosen by his God to help him make his perfect world a reality.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: In the endgame, he recklessly jeopardizes his and Light's plan by going to the bank where he stored the Death Note to kill Takada, apparently having neglected to keep a snippet of it (which even Takada herself did), and knowing full well he was being tailed by the SPK. When he's done, he leaves the Death Note unattended again, and upon recovering it, doesn't test it out properly at all before taking it to the Warehouse (though in the manga, the latter mistake can possibly be attributed to Near controlling him with the Death Note).
• Broken Pedestal: In the manga, Mikami loses his faith in Kira and outright tells Light he's no god after he claims he does not know Mikami, as well as Near's "The Reason You Suck" Speech. The anime implies this might have been a reason for him committing suicide instead, but it's also possible he still wanted to help Light anyway.
• Bully Hunter: According to his Backstory, although his efforts always end up with him getting his arse kicked. He hasn't given it up completely, as in the present, he intervenes as an adult to a group of children picking on their classmate with a stern look.
• Bumbling Sidekick: He's actually fairly intelligent compared to Misa, but his issue was that he was actually too proactive for his own good. He accidentally exposes a vulnerability in Light's plan that ends up costing the both of them. Mikami thinks so similarly to Light that they both take the exact same actions after Takada's death— having her kill herself by setting herself and any paper she wrote on fire, with Mikami remembering that Light and Takada told him earlier that Light was being too closely watched by the task force to make any big moves.
• Calling Your Attacks: Overlaps with Madness Mantra: "Delete. Delete. Delete."
• Catchphrase: "Delete. Delete. Delete." And to a lesser extent: "GOD!!!"
• Class Representative: In his Backstory, he's shown to have been a righteous class representative who stood up to bullies.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Official color seems to be purple. Wardrobe tends towards black, white, and blood red.
• Creature of Habit: He follows a daily schedule down to the minute. The fact that he broke from this schedule is what tipped Near off to Light's plan and ultimately resulted in Light's defeat.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He was ruthlessly bullied throughout his childhood, and he felt that his mother, the only person he had, didn't support his crusade or his ideals.
• Deadly Upgrade: "Shinigami... I thank you for these eyes."
• Death by Adaptation: His suicide in the anime means he doesn't live 10 days longer while imprisoned like in the manga.
  • Is finally mentioned in Death Note: Light Up the New World, except he's already dead when the story begins.
• Death in Custody: In the manga, he kills himself in prison after an apparent Freak Out, the circumstances being mysterious enough for Matsuda to suspect Near's involvement.
• Despair Event Horizon: Having Light yell at him and claim to not know who he is causes him to emit a soul-crushing groan. Seeing Light on the floor dying from gunshot wounds while whimpering like a dog in a pool of his own blood causes his mind to snap like a twig.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Commits suicide in the anime, while it's never fully answered how he dies in the manga.
• Do Wrong, Right: He's particularly harsh on people who give Kira shallow praises or who taint his work by failing him or giving him a bad image, as Demegawa and every host at Sakura TV soon finds out. Ironically, he's the one whose mistake gets Kira caught.
• The Dragon: Thinks of himself as "the Hand of Kira", being given a Death Note to DELETE anyone who stands in Kira's way. Light uses him to carry out the killings while he tries to evade Near's suspicion.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • In the anime, he stabs himself in the chest with his own fountain pen after seeing Light get shot. In the credits scene, his body is apparently just left there to rot.
  • Though he survives the endgame in the manga, the epilogue reveals that he had a breakdown and killed himself while in prison, though the strange circumstances leading up to his death cause Matsuda to theorize that Near may have had something to do with it.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The emphasis here is on "eerie."
• Et Tu, Brute?: In the manga, he doesn't take well to Light trying to throw him under the bus and then having the audacity to yell at him for help, and angrily calls him "scum".
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: A notable subversion - as he sees his mother as someone who tolerates the bullies of the world rather than opposing them, he is ecstatic when she dies, taking it as a sign that God is looking out for him.
• Evil Is Hammy: ”Delete. DELETE. DELETE!”
• Evil Is Petty: When it comes down to it, his entire motive for being evil is motivated purely because he was bullied at school.
• Evil Overlord List: Subversion of item 5, in a darkly humorous manner. Apparently keeping the artifact that is the source of your power in your safety deposit box doesn't quite cut it.
• False Friend: Had a relatively close relationship with Takada, enough for Near to be suspect, but is very quick to murder her the moment she gets kidnapped by Mello, not trusting her to keep quiet about him and Light being Kiras.
• Fatal Flaw: Predictability. Mikami is highly intelligent and fairly cunning on his own, but he also keeps to a schedule so precisely that his daily actions can be calculated down to the minute. Once the SPK catches on to him, they quickly cotton on to his schedule, making him incredibly easy to keep under surveillance at all times. And of course, the one time he breaks his usual schedule is ultimately what tips Near off to Light's plan.
• Felony Misdemeanor: At one point, his killing spree extends to innocent people that commit such minor crimes as being lazy; even Light himself disapproves of him doing so.
• Foil: His motivations are on paper the same as Light's except Mikami is a fanatic who honestly believes that he is making the world a better place by "deleting" evil people while Light's crusade is a thinly veiled excuse for him to assert his dominance onto the world.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Despite wearing glasses and trading his regular eyes for Shinigami Eyes, he's still not very compassionate.
• Four Is Death: He is the fourth Kira, his office is number four, and he's one of the Kiras who dies at the end.
• Freak Out: At the end when he realizes that he's using the wrong Death Note.
• Freudian Excuse: Subverted. His tragic past, while certainly traumatic, was nothing more than a particularly bad case of middle school bullying that he blew way out of proportion, making it quite clear that there was something wrong with him from the beginning. To further emphasize this, he's the only character in the entire series who gets a flashback sequence, reflecting his obsession with the supposed significance of these events.
• Gone Horribly Right: Light recruited Mikami in search of a pair of Shinigami eyes who, unlike Misa, could act independently while adhering to his will. What ended up screwing the two over was that Mikami turned out to be too independent and similar to Light for his own good. He believed that he needed to act and kill Takada since he was under the impression that Light was unable to do so, and Light assumed Mikami would simply be an unquestioning servant. In the end, it was a lack of proper communication between the two that brought their downfall.
• Gonk: From the Yellow Box scene onward he's barely recognizable as human.
• Gorn: His bloody suicide in the anime, with High-Pressure Blood galore.
• Harmful to Minors: He was around the same age as Light (when Light first got the Death Note) when after years of abuse he began to think the world would be better off without certain people in it. Then all the people he secretly wanted dead died, explaining why they are messed up in the same way.
• Hates Their Parent: When his mother discouraged his Bully Hunter tendencies (out of genuine concern for him, notably), he came to resent her and wished for her to die. And then she did.
• Hello, Attorney!: A Bishōnen prosecutor? Yes, please!
• Hero Killer: He kills L in the TV Drama, seeing his name in an evidence video and writing it down on a Death Note page to cement his loyalty to Light.
• Hero Secret Service: Protects Light's cover of Kira being blown by taking over the Kira job.
• High-Pressure Blood: In the anime, blood spurs out like a geyser from his chest after he stabs himself with his own fountain pen.
• Hollywood Hacking: In the manga it shows how Mikami uses his hacking skills to cover his tracks when sending messages to Takada.
• Informed Ability:
  • While he's certainly shown to be smart, considering he has a successful career as a prosecutor and can keep up with Light's plans, he is not quite at the level of savants such as Light or Near. He often defaults to blind obedience to Light's instructions. Ironically, the one time he acts outside of Light's direct instructions is what leads to their undoing, and makes a series of very careless mistakes that only ensure Near's victory.
  • The manga lists his emotional strength as 10/10. Though he's mostly shown to be stoic when in public, in private he's quite unhinged and emotional, not to mention the ending where he completely loses his mind at the sight of Light insulting him.
  • He's said to be extremely loyal, and his devotion stat is 10/10. In the manga, though, he turns on Light and calls him "scum" after his plan fails and he tries to throw him under the bus, and he's not loyal to his companions either, as he tries to murder Takada as a loose end when she gets kidnapped without Light even telling him to.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: He's frequently shown alone; in one scene in his introduction, he's drinking coffee by himself in the corner of the recreation yard.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: When he takes pleasure in his mother being killed in a car accident.
• I Just Want to Be Special: When people kept coincidentally dying around him he came to believe he possessed the power to delete evil, even before gaining those powers via the Death Note.
• Karma Houdini: In the TV Drama, he gets arrested but loses his memories when the Death Note is burned down, so it's implied the Task Force and Near allowed him to continue his normal life like Misa, meaning he got away with killing L. However, it's Downplayed as he wasn't half as psychotic there as he was in the manga, and he still lost half his lifespan and possibly his job.
• Karmic Death: In the anime, he commits suicide after he fails Light. Fitting for someone who murdered all the Sakuya TV hosts and tried to kill Kiyomi Takada all for failing Light as well.
• Killed Offscreen: In the manga, his death is commented on by the Task Force, but isn't shown.
• Knight Templar: Blinded by extreme ideals, zealous, devoted, and insane, even before he gets the Death Note. Most notably, he even targets lazy individuals who don't contribute directly to society, something that disturbed even Light, who believed that it was not the right time to do so.
• Lack of Empathy: He murders other Kira followers without a second thought when they make mistakes, sometimes in excruciatingly painful ways (like Light, he also wrote that Takada would burn to death), and for a brief period, started murdering people for the crime of being lazy.
• Large Ham: He rivals even Light here, often screaming out his lines as he's killing people.
• Like a God to Me: Even after learning how the Death Note works and becoming more powerful than him via the Shinigami eyes, Light is still God to him.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Fits the trope to a T, having long hair and generally being attractive when not sporting a psychotic face, until the Yellow Box Warehouse, where he loses his mind and he becomes more pale and less pleasing to look at.
• Loyal, but Disobedient: Mikami has absolute Undying Loyalty to Light and thinks of him as God in human form. However, he ends up performing one act of disobedience that ends up causing Light's downfall. Light orders Mikami not to make any unnecessary movements and follow his regular schedule until he tells him to. However, when fellow Kira supporter Kiyomi Takada is kidnapped, both Light and Mikami get the idea of using their Death Notes to kill her in the same manner because she's become a liability, and Mikami disobeys Light's order and writes down a similar cause of death in his Death Note. This ends up helping Near prove that Light is Kira and Mikami is his accomplice. Light is not happy when he finds out his downfall was caused by Mikami's disobedience.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In the manga, Mikami mysteriously dies ten days after Light's defeat, leading Matsuda to theorize Near wrote in the Death Note so as to restrict his actions, enabling Light's conviction. In the anime, he commits suicide on the spot, which implies no such influence.
• More Despicable Minion: He punishes people for even pettier reasons than Light did, and at least two of his standards for murder are seen by his God as going too far too soon.
• Namedar: He makes the eye deal.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: In the TV Drama, he ignites a barrel of gasoline to give Light a chance to escape. This act not only burns down the Death Note (thus erasing Mikami's memories of being Kira), but Light stays behind to retrieve it and ends up burning alive.
• Nightmare Face: Several of them at the warehouse, rivaling even those of Light.
• Not So Stoic: When he's killing with the Death Note, Mikami drops his cold exterior and becomes increasingly emotional, and in the Yellow Warehouse, when his God decries him, he completely loses his mind.
• Obsessively Organized: His writing is meticulous, consistent and neatly written, his clothes are wrinkle-free, he follows his daily schedule without mistake and only writes one page in the Death Note full per day. He's such a ruthlessly organized individual that the one time he deviates from his schedule even slightly (by going to the bank on the 25th and the 26th instead of just the 25th), it's considered a massive break in the case.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Mikami goes to the bank on the 25th of every month, unless the bank is closed on the 25th. When Mikami goes to the bank on the 25th and again on the 26th, it's so strange that it tips Gevanni off that something went down and it leads him to find the real Death Note.
• The Pen Is Mightier: Both for all the people he kills on Kira's behalf, and for when he commits suicide in the anime.
• Person of Mass Destruction: As a Kira, he kills many, both criminals and Kira supporters. It is stated that Mikami fills a page of the Death Note each day, and his tight handwriting leaves space for many names to fill in. One can only imagine just how many did Gevanni have to copy.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Possibly. In the manga epilogue, Matsuda theorizes that his suicide in prison was caused by Near with the Death Note, though Near ultimately doesn't confirm or deny the accusation (the anime has him kill himself on the spot, implying that Near had nothing to do with it).
• Psychopathic Manchild: Even more so than Light. While Light's incredibly naive outlook on morality is based on the philosophical pondering of a high school student, Mikami's is based on the the philosophical pondering of a middle school student. And Light at least has the excuse of being a high school student.
• Psycho Supporter: Worshipping Light as God does not help Light's problems, nor Mikami's.
• Pure Is Not Good: "Evil should be deleted".
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He took the deal of getting Shinigami Eyes.
• Religion of Evil: He worships Light as God.
• Revenge on the Bully: His original motivation for helping Kira is to get revenge on those who abuse the weaker ones.
• Right-Hand Cat: He has one in the manga.
• Sadist: He's clearly enjoying his time with the Death Note, and is borderline enthusiastic to kill Light's enemies. In the climax, he enters the warehouse where the Task Force and the SPK are just so he can see them die.
• Samaritan Syndrome: This + Who's Laughing Now? = his Start of Darkness.
• Schedule Fanatic: He sticks to his schedule religiously, to the point that the SPK can predict his every move by the minute. The one time he breaks from that schedule, Near is able to deduce Light's entire plan.
• Secret-Keeper: For Light, being one of the few select people to know he's Kira.
• Self-Serving Memory: Mikami chooses to believe that his mother told him to stop being a Bully Hunter at school because of his conspiracy theory that she was secretly in league with the bullies, when it's quite clear she was just worried about her son getting bullied and beaten up every day and wanted him to take better care of himself, as any mother would.
• Serial-Killer Killer: The fourth Kira, taking over this job.
• Slasher Smile: Often drawn with psychotic grins, especially when he's writing names.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: In his early appearances, he is a very quiet and understated man, but listening to him describe his past during his introductory monologue as the new Kira you can tell he's a man so far in Black-and-White Insanity that he quietly snapped some time in high school and is waiting for an outlet to explode through. Which he does. With great aplomb.
• Spanner in the Works: Leads to Light's downfall by thinking TOO much like him.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He doesn't die in the TV drama. Doubles as a Karma Houdini, as he loses all memories of having ever used the notebook.
• Spear Counterpart: To Misa. Both are insane individuals who use the Death Note and make a deal for the Shinigami eyes all to please Light, and kill themselves after Light's downfall. but Mikami is more methodical and calculating, and is specifically hand-picked by Light, while Misa is more unpredictable and emotional, and takes the initiative to become his sidekick. Another difference between the two is that Mikami is loyal to Kira as an entity, while Misa is madly in love with Light as a person, which allowed her to remain by his side even after losing her memories of him being Kira.
• The Stoic: When he's out in public. He also has a 10/10 emotional strength stat.
• Straight Edge Evil: Murder? Sure - it's for the good of the new world, and evil deserves only deletion. But drink or drugs? No way.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: One of the main reasons Light picked him to be the next Kira is their similar thought processes. This ultimately ends up being his undoing: the two are too similar. When Mello targets Takada, both Light and Mikami kill her as a loose end, Mikami having logically concluded Light was not in a position to do so himself based on what he knew. Even their methods of killing are the same, the difference in time so insignificant that neither was capable of realizing that the other had acted. In the end, this costs them everything, as Near solves the case thanks to Mikami breaking from his rigid routine.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Some consider him to be this, given his resemblance to Light and that his name is basically Light's backwards.
• Sycophantic Servant: Could rival Misa when it comes to this. He willingly gives up half his lifespan for Light and is happy to do his work as the second Kira, even going a bit overboard at times. Eventually Subverted in the manga where he decries Light as "scum" after he tries to throw him under the bus, meaning he still had at least some agency unlike his predecessor, but it's still Played Straight in the anime where he kills himself out of desperation when Light calls him an idiot.
• Tautological Templar: When his mother scolded him for fighting bullies at school, Mikami declares her an enemy of justice, and when she and said bullies subsequently die in a car accident, he's ecstatic, taking it to mean that God was looking out for him. He takes Kira's mission even further than Light himself when he begins to kill reformed criminals and even lazy people.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: While he's nowhere near as socially adept as Light is, Mikami still has a career as a successful prosecutor and has the appearance of a handsome, withdrawn man.
• Too Dumb to Live: The reason why he's caught in the climax is because he prioritized killing an ally as a possible loose end than keeping his own Death Note safe from the people he knew were following him, and then neglected to properly test his Death Note after leaving it unattended for a long time.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: He will gladly kill hundreds, even thousands of evil people, if it means to rid the world of evil once and for all, so that supreme justice can rule.
• Unequal Pairing: He is often shipped with Light, whom he literally worships.
• Unreliable Narrator: In the anime he himself, rather than an omniscient narrator, narrates the flashbacks to his youth. He thus has an unfavorable view of his mother's advice to stop fighting against the bullies, whereas the manga's narrator noted that she was motivated by genuine concern for his welfare that was largely lost on him.
• Unwitting Pawn: In the manga, it's hinted at that Near may have controlled him with the Death Note into following through with the original plan without any deviations.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Played tragically straight. In his childhood, he had an early understanding of "good" and "evil" and was very critical of his surroundings. As an adult, his perception of "good" and "evil" completely caters to Light's.
• Villainous Breakdown: So, so much. Especially towards the end. In the manga, he apparently had a Freak Out in jail before killing himself.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Like Light was in the beginning, he only wants to delete evil. But as his insanity grows, he just blindly kills whoever Light tells him to.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Mikami's kitty?
• Who's Laughing Now?: All the bullies that were against him all die when he wants them to. And now he has actual control over their lives!
• Wicked Cultured: He's a graduate from a prestigious college, always had perfect grades and is one of the best prosecutors in the city.
• I Wished You Were Dead: To his mother. He literally wished for her death and got his wish through a Contrived Coincidence. He was eerily content with the outcome and was left thinking he had the power to kill.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: With the Death Note, he goes from a focused, serious lawyer with ridiculously high standards of justice to a monumentally ruthless Ax-Crazy psychopath.
• Would Hurt a Child: In Light Up the New World, he kills Light's son.
• You Will Be Spared: In the manga, though Light was apparently planning to kill Misa and Takada after finishing his enemies off to erase all loose ends, he was planning to spare Mikami, as he was still very useful.

The third Kira and the main antagonist of the Yotsuba arc. He's a member of the Yotsuba Group as the head of the technological development, but isn't as competent as his colleagues. He's obsessed with gaining social status, power, and wealth, which made him the perfect pawn for Light's Memory Gambit to clear himself and Misa of suspicion. After his arrest, Light kills him to regain control of the notebook.

• Abhorrent Admirer: Misa's first thought upon learning he's Kira is "yuck", and she doesn't warm up to him any more than that even after he makes her marry him.
• Adaptational Villainy: He was already very nasty in the manga, but in the anime, he punctuates many of his sentences with an Evil Laugh that he didn't have in the manga, and his proposal to Misa is much more creepy, with him almost immobilizing her while asking her to be his wife.
• Adapted Out: Of the live-action films, though he does appear in the TV drama.
• Age-Gap Romance: He's 32 and Misa, the girl he tried to marry for her powers, is 19.
• Ambition Is Evil: He desires financial success and the power that comes with, and is all too willing to use the Death Note to kill his way to the top.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: Since Misa had expressed her desire to meet and marry Kira, Higuchi takes advantage of this and makes her promise to marry him after they both prove to each other that they have Kira's power, in order to have complete control over the second Kira.
• Arc Villain: Due to Light losing his memories of the Death Note and actively aiding the Task Force in their investigation, Higuchi's killings as the new Kira make him the stand-in villain of the Yotsuba arc.
• Asshole Victim: Even Rem thinks this guy is a nasty piece of work, and she's met Light by the point. When Light kills him with a scrap of the Death Note, no one grieves for him.
• Ax-Crazy: He certainly tries to hide it behind the mask of a professional businessman, but Higuchi is a ruthless murderer who only grows more unhinged as the arc goes on and the pressure begins to mount.
• Bad Boss: Ignoring how all Yotsuba employees are scared shitless to go to work because of him, he kills his fellow board member Hatori (who also happens to be the son of their company president) for trying to leave the Kira meetings. Namikawa also noted that Higuchi was demoted in the past for his inability to use his subordinates efficiently, as he tended to insult them frequently.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He thinks himself a corporate mastermind whose use of the Death Note will put the business world at his mercy, but he's ultimately a pawn in Light's plan to throw suspicion off himself and Misa. He's shown to be nowhere near the Chessmaster Light is and the Task Force catches on to him much quicker. The moment Light regains his memories, he wastes no time disposing of Higuchi and reclaiming the Big Bad mantle.
• Bound and Gagged: Since the Task Force still didn't know how he killed at that point, after apprehending him, they restrain him with everything they have, including gagging him with tape and putting a blindfold on him. He manages to tear the gag off as he's dying.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Sits on the Yotsuba board and has no problem committing murder to ascend the corporate ladder.
• Deadly Upgrade: The threat of Matsuda exposing him as the third Kira pushes Higuchi to desperately take the Shinigami Eye deal from Rem.
• Didn't Think This Through: What makes his capture last two manga volumes instead of twelve like Light's. When he's tricked into thinking Matsuda is going to expose him on TV, his plan of action after failing to contact Misa is to get the Shinigami eyes, storm in the studio, murdering everyone who gets in his way, and shoot him. Even without Wedy and L tailing him, it would've been nigh-impossible for him to escape after causing such ruckus while masquerading as the most prolific serial killer in history.
• Dragon-in-Chief: He's merely the head of technology at Yotsuba, but after obtaining the Death Note, he becomes the most powerful member of Yotsuba, and the one everyone caters to and fears despite not knowing it's him.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Apparently thinks Ginzo Kaneboshi is bad enough that he's the first person that comes to his mind when thinking of someone evil for Misa to kill.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • Though Rem had her criticisms of Light at first, she starts to view him in a better Light after months of dealing with Higuchi, who has no standards in regards to the people he kills.
  • Similarly, Misa was willing to take a lot of abuse from Light because she saw him as the perfect person, but even when she thought Higuchi was Kira (and by proxy the man who punished her parents' murderer), she's utterly creeped out by him and has no reservations over helping capture him.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Lounges around his manor in the dark, both on "Kira" business and off.
• Faux Affably Evil: Being a corporate executive, he sometimes has to put on an affable front, especially when interviewing a young girl he fancies. However, he's otherwise a lecherous jerk and a callous murderer.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: He often shows his arrogance despite not being as competent the majority of his colleagues. Namikawa, Mido and Shimura conclude from his bad personality that he is the Kira among them. They're proven right.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He was just an unpopular corporate drone before Rem handed him the Death Note and he became the third Kira.
• Greed: Higuchi is mainly concerned with profit. This is actually one of the criteria he met for being Light's patsy.
• Hated by All: By the time he's found out, he's lost any and all support he had from Yotsuba, Misa obviously finds him revolting, and even his own Shinigami hates him, so everyone helps out with his arrest.
• Hate Sink: He's certainly more evil than Light, and has neither Light's charm nor any Well-Intentioned Extremist tendencies to make him sympathetic. His overbearing personality and overwhelming selfishness and greed serve to make the audience loathe him. In fact, Light specifically told Rem to find someone like him who was selfish and cruel enough to be willing to use the Death Note while also being dumb enough to not spread out his corporate killings, thus making it fairly obvious that Kira was a part of the Yotsuba Group.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: He tries to force Misa to marry him when she was investigating his corporation.
• Interim Villain: Light gives up his memory of the Death Note as part of an elaborate Memory Gambit, leaving Higuchi to stand in as the Big Bad of the Yotsuba arc. When Light regains his memories, he takes back the title by killing off Higuchi.
• Interrupted Suicide: Upon being surrounded by cops, he attempts to escape by threatening to shoot himself. He soon realizes how hopeless the situation is and attempts to pull the trigger, but his gun is shot off his hand by Watari. Light still bumps him off shortly after.
• Jack the Ripoff: The Third "Kira" whose killings are more tied to corporate competitors, with the criminal M.O. being used to divert police suspicion.
• Jerkass: He becomes the third Kira, not out of any sense of justice, but to boost his own standing within Yotsuba. He's also a creepy scumbag who sexually harasses Misa.
• The Killer Becomes the Killed: He acts as the third Kira as a part of Light's Memory Gambit, and was finally killed when Light regains his memories of the Death Note.
• Knight Templar: In the manga, he gives a Motive Rant where he says that in addition to using the Death Note to enrich himself, he genuinely also believes that Kira's work of killing criminals is necessary to make the world safe for business. Averted in the anime where he treats the work of punishing criminals as just a chore he puts up with so he can reap the side benefits.
  Higuchi: Kira has already become something that is needed in our world. If the real one won't do it, then I will.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Once it dawns on him that his last resort isn't going to work, he tries to kill himself, but Watari doesn't allow him. After he's finally in police custody, he gives up and tells the police about the Death Note.
• Lack of Empathy: He kills Hatori for attempting to resign, and even taunts him about it beforehand. He also never had any reservations about killing innocent people.
• Leeroy Jenkins: When he sees that he cannot kill Matsuda through the Death Note, he storms in the studio he's supposed to be at with the intention of shooting him on the spot, even making the Shinigami eye deal beforehand with the goal of murdering anyone who gets in his way or tries to follow him.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Granted, "murder" is all he can do with the Death Note, but he has it worse than Light in this regard. He's quick to suggest murdering all his political rivals, someone who might be a police spy, a possible deserter, and a cop who pulled him for speeding.
• Namedar: When cornered, he makes the eye deal.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Misa remembers him as the most pushy of the Yotsuba during her party. In the anime, he comes close to forcing himself on her while proposing to her.
• Properly Paranoid: Even after "Matsui" took his fatal tumble, Higuchi wrote Matsuda's false name in the Death Note anyway. It had no effect, of course, but he was clever to make sure. He was also rightly suspicious about how easily Yoshida Productions gave him access to their offices, and Rem — an impartial bystander as far as Higuchi knew — had to push him to go.
• Quick Draw: When confronted by Task Force members at Yotsuba headquarters, Higuchi pulls a pistol and hits Mr. Yagami, despite Wedy having her own gun trained on him the entire time.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He gains red eyes due to taking the Shinigami Eye deal.
• Sadist: Like Light before him, he lets out some grins while killing people. He has to be reprimanded by Mido several times for suggesting unnecessary murders during the meetings.
• Serial Killer: The third Kira, thanks to Light giving him the Death Note as part of a Batman Gambit. While he still kills criminals in line with Kira's traditional M.O., he also specifically targets corporate rivals of Yotsuba.
• Slasher Smile: He has a few of this while writing names in the notebook, but the one he sports after taking the eye deal takes the cake, showing just how unhinged he's become.
• Smug Snake: Enjoys insulting people despite his limited abilities.
• The Sociopath: One of the worst possible people who can get their hands on the Death Note. Higuchi lacks any empathy, uses his co-workers like pawns (and even kills one of them to make an example), manipulates Misa to exert control over her, and is willing to murder multiple innocents to get rich. He also loses any sense of pragmatism or composure the moment things stop going his way, becoming a mindless murderer singular in his goal to murder Matsui for trying expose him.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: Tries to pull this when the Task Force is about to arrest him. Watari prevents it by shooting the pistol out of his hand.
• Stupid Evil: Though he has enough sense of pragmatism not to use the Death Note mindlessly (at least at first), his incompetence, lust, and impatience make it relatively easy for L, Light, and Misa to expose him and capture him. Even three of his own co-workers have him figured out by the climax, and with little to no help from L.
• Sucksessor: Higuchi, quite frankly, is a poor Kira. He's not as smart as he thinks he is, he's more prone to acting rashly, and his inability to cover his tracks ends in the Task Force successfully apprehending him in much shorter time than any other Kira. Though Light didn't specifically choose Higuchi to wield the Death Note during his Memory Gambit (as he only asked her to give it to someone who would use it for evil), he was very lucky that Rem did, as his interest in self-profit made him easier to manipulate and predict, and his many shortcomings made him a perfect patsy for the Task Force to chase after and throw suspicion off Light. In fact, Light complained in his own mind that Higuchi got caught sooner than he would have wanted, as Light wanted a little more time to get closer to L.
• Token Evil Teammate: He's the Yotsuba member who was actually carrying out all of the Kira murders, and he indirectly coerced the others into supporting him in his quest for wealth. When he dies, the remaining board members strive to be better and raise their stock in a legitimate way.
• Too Dumb to Live: Was tricked by Misa of all people into revealing himself as Kira. He also fell completely for L's plan to lure him out using Matsuda as bait, even when it should've become clear to him that he won't be getting away if he storms in his studio and shoots him on the spot.
• Unwitting Pawn: Only gets to become Kira as a part of Light's Memory Gambit. Light kills him when he's outlived his usefulness.
• Villainous Breakdown: The entirety of the episode "Frenzy" is Higuchi completely losing all semblance of composure as the threat of exposure becomes inevitable, culminating in him desperately taking the Shinigami Eye deal to try and stop the broadcast.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: He has a pretty prominent widows peak and is one of the Kiras.
• Wine Is Classy: Pours himself a glass of wine while boasting to Rem about how powerful he is and how he's going to marry Misa.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When he kills Hatori for trying to back out—and he coldly informs the poor guy beforehand that he's going to be killed. Karma catches up to Higuchi as he becomes the disposable one after Light reclaims the Death Note and his time as Kira is up.

• Big Bad Wannabe: He takes up the Death Note three years after Light's death and seems ready to become the next Kira. However Near dismisses him as a cheap imitation of the real Kira and not even worth his time to track down. He even notes that the Japanese police by themselves should be able to apprehend C-Kira no problem and gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, decrying him as nothing more than a murderer. This speech causes C-Kira to fall catatonic for three days and then kill himself, with Ryuk noting he likely didn't have the mental fortitude to become Kira.
  Near: The mass murderer is not Kira. I'll go as far as to say that much. If it was Kira I would fight, but I won't take part in what's happening right now. I have deduced all of Kira's killing methods. The criminal is probably using the same methods to kill his victims. However… I have no interest in this criminal. I don't get involved in cases I'm not interested in. I think it's something the Japanese state police should take care of internally. However, "I won't get involved" is not reason enough to hijack the airwaves. Therefore, let me personally say one thing to the criminal. You are an abominable murderer.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: As Ryuk points out, the reason this Kira commits suicide is essentially because he was too mentally weak to handle the pressure of the power that comes with usage of a Death Note. It helps to highlight just how psychotic someone like Light would have to have been to use it so consistently.
• Dark Messiah: With Light's Cult of Kira still being prominent three years later, their members immediately start praising new Kira the moment their existence becomes apparent, even if it's not the same one. His actions spark debates in the media, with many finding his methods merciful or beneficial to Japan. Later he responds to the demands on TV by killing cult members who expressed their will to no longer live, further boosting his popularity.
• Dirty Coward: Out of respect to the original Kira and L, Near names the new killer "Cheap-Kira", as he only targets weak prey without putting himself at risk, and only do what the public expects of them, likely not in Japan's best interest.
• Driven to Suicide: He commits suicide shortly after Near, as L, announces that he has no interest in pursuing a Kira's cheap imitation and gives C-Kira a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, ending his very short-lived reign. It's left unclear if he desired being challenged by L, had a Heel Realization from Near's insult or turned insane by the Note's ownership. Ryuk believes it was due to not having strong enough will for a Kira.
• The Faceless: Nothing about him is known besides his methods and a shot of his hand and desk.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Unlike Kira, he can't even say that he left an impact on the world. His Shinigami Midora dismisses her experience with him as boring and apparently doesn't bother remembering his name, and Japan moves on from his brief reign quite quickly.
• Jack the Ripoff: When he begins his killings, a lot of people begin to think that Kira has returned from the shadows, though it becomes clear to those who actually know anything about Kira that they're not the same person at all.
• Mercy Kill: The mass deaths of the elderly are contributed to C-Kira (initially called Eco-Kira) and are considered graceful by the public, since the victims are terminally ill and openly express the will to die or their family request it, but nobody is willing to get their hands dirty. Later he switches targets to anyone with a public death wish. Near treats it like assisted suicide and just as illegal.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Though it's not confirmed, it's possible that Near calling C-Kira an abominable murderer caused him so much guilt that he killed himself because of it.
• No Name Given: C-Kira is not named in the chapter (and given Near's lack of interest, is likely meant to denote his identity does not matter).
• Otaku: Possibly, based on the many action figurines seen in a shot of his room.
• Post-Final Boss: C-Kira shows up in a bonus chapter released two years after the end of the original publicized run of the Death Note series. Unlike the original Kira, or his eventually successor A-Kira, C-Kira is dismissed by Near as barely being worth his time with him deciding to not even bother tracking him down confident in the Japanese polices ability to find him. In the end, rather then being the next big threat to the world of Death Note, C-Kira serves as nothing more then a steeping stone for Near and the Japanese Police Force to find their own paths in a post L/Kira world, and C-Kira kills himself without ever even fighting the heroes.
• Self-Disposing Villain: Following Near's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he writes his own name in the Death Note and dies, leaving Midora disappointed.
• Sucksessor: He only kills very old people as well as those who express their desire to die, believing he's making Japan a better place by assisting them with their suicide. Near outright calls him Cheap-Kira because of how meaningless his actions are.
• The Unfought: Near figures out the Death Note is involved in recent internet rumors, but decides it's not worth his involvement. Sure enough, C-Kira commits suicide after hearing L's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, stopping the incidents.

The main protagonist of Death Note Special Chapter, set nine years after Light Yagami's defeat and subsequent demise. Ryuk chooses him as the new owner of the Death Note at the beginning of the story, after learning he was the smartest middle schooler of Japan.

After learning its rules from Ryuk as well as the events of Death Note years ago, he decides to give up his ownership for another two years before promising him to use it, along with some apples. But not in a way one would expect.

• Artifact Alias: He is referred to as A-Kira due to his usage of the Death Note, but his direct body count is zero, meaning he isn't really a "Kira" (killer). Aside from it being a convenient shorthand, and potentially referring to the fact he is auctioning the Death Note, the other potential explanation is that it is using the letter A in an alpha privative sense (as in, meaning "a" at the start of a word to say it is not that word, such as "atypical").
• Audience Surrogate: Unlike Light (who, from the get-go, is portrayed as inhumanly "perfect"), he is much more realistic, since he has his fair share of human flaws, talents, skills, and doesn't make irrationally stupid mistakes like Light's (justified, since in modern times, he could easily be captured with the great technology of law enforcement). He even died without using the notebook to kill someone. All these attributes make Minoru a character that the audience can easily relate to amongst all the Kiras.
• Bad Powers, Good People: It stands out quite a bit that he manages to accomplish a fairly good deed using the power to murder people, without killing anyone.
• Batman Gambit: Chooses to sell off the Death Note in an auction before having the winning bid spread across banks accounts all over Japan so it couldn't be traced back to him.
• Butt-Monkey: Despite being the most sane and docile of all Kiras, this poor boy simply couldn't catch a break. From the get-go, we learn that, despite his high intellect, he performed poorly in school, with grades well below average. Yes, his plan, executed with great precision, worked perfectly, but he still ended up being killed by Ryuk (albeit inadvertently, since Minoru told him to never come back, and he complied, even if coming back would've potentially saved his life instead) after a new rule imposed by the Shinigami King, even though he didn't use any of the Death Note's abilities, only the notebook itself to carry out his plan. In the end, Minoru ended up dead without even being able to enjoy his achievement. It almost gives you the impression that the universe itself hated this boy.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: When attempting to claim his money at the bank, he suffers a heart attack due to breaking the new rule written in all of the Death Notes.
• Contrasting Replacement Character:
  • To the first Kira, Light Yagami. The fact that both are killed by Ryuk (albeit inadvertently in Minoru's case because Ryuk couldn't come back to warn Minoru about the new rules the Shinigami King implemented that winds up killing the unlucky human, and while Ryuk does write his name in the Death Note, it's after he has died and it's a Due to the Dead) certainly cements this status. In terms of sheer intellect, Minoru lacks The Ace aspects of Light, being unable to translate his intelligence into his academics while Light excelled at everything he put his mind to. However, in many ways, the entire purpose of his character seems to be an answer to everything Light aspired to be throughout the course of the series: careful, meticulous, cunning, successful, and altruistic. Ironically, in his short period, he achieved what Light could never achieve: defeat Near and being praised for thousands of people in his country. Another purpose of his character seems to be an answer to all the praise that Light has received by fans for more than ten years and to everything his archetype represents, letting Minoru himself to carry out much more cunning and altruistic plans for his country. All these attributes show that, by the end of the day, Minoru is a far better person than Light, which is cruelly ironic considering that Minoru did not seek to be praised and ended up being much more praised and loved than Light himself. One wonders what Light himself would think if he saw that another Kira managed to be much more loved than he ever tried to be...
  • He's also one to the third Kira, Kyosuke Higuchi, as both had average intelligence and used the Death Note for personal gain. A difference being that Higuchi was willing to kill people to maintain his power and his greed caused him to make dumb decisions. Minoru on the other hand doesn't kill anyone, is willing to share the wealth he gained with a sizable portion of Japan's populace and manages to keep a cool head long enough to ultimately cause Near to throw in the towel. Ironically, Minoru ended up doing a better job to raise the stocks of Yotsuba's bank than Higuchi did, while the latter's actions only got the entire board killed.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Is much more of an Ordinary High-School Student than his predecessor due to lacking any of The Ace aspects he had before receiving the Death Note. Overall, he is what a more grounded version of a Teen Genius would be like. For instance, he has a measured IQ of 182, which is extremely high, but Minoru points out that IQ tests aren't actually an accurate assessment of someone's intelligence in a practical sense and that his score was probably boosted by playing IQ apps and watching videos about brain age and intelligence a lot, so that doesn't necessarily mean he's a genius like Ryuk assumes he is. It is also noticeable that Minoru is a lot less ambitious and ego-driven than Light ever was, lacking his Complexity Addiction, and proves to be much more practical and mundane in his use of the Death Note. Another way they contrast is that Light was incredibly bored with normal life and reveled in his usage of the Death Note, whereas Minoru just wants to have money so he can enjoy his life comfortably, and shows almost no excitement whatsoever about the disturbance his actions with the Death Note causes. Finally, while both die because of Ryuk, it's for completely different reasons; after seeing Light being defeated, he cemented his defeat by writing his former ally's name into his Death Note and showed it to Light just to rub it in, whereas Minoru simply told Ryuk to leave and never come back, which inadvertently led to his doom since he couldn't warn him about the new rules about buying/selling the Death Note, and while he does write his name in there, he only does it after Minoru dies.
• Cosmic Plaything: Like his predecessor, he was practically doomed from the beginning.
• Diabolus ex Machina: A more literal example than most others. The only reason Minoru dies in the end is due to the Shinigami King himself implementing a rule that Minoru broke retroactively and had no way of knowing it would be written in the first place.
• Didn't See That Coming: Honestly, how was he supposed to know the Shinigami King himself would be pissed off enough to directly get involved?!
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Unlike his predecessor, Minoru just straight up dies without any climactic significance and without anyone ever knowing how or why he died.
• Enlightened Self-Interest: When he auctions off the Death Note, he has the money divided among everyone with a Yotsuba Bank of Japan savings account under the age of 60. This is an acceptable sacrifice to protect his anonymity, since he's still going to get 1 billion yen anyways. At least until the Shinigami King writes a new rule that kills him.
• Establishing Character Moment: When Ryuk first met him, Minoru admitted that his supposedly high I.Q. didn't translate to anything practical, establishing his humbleness and wish to genuinely do something productive with his life.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Death Note would have very nearly had its first genuinely happy ending if not for a last-minute interference. Minoru's master plan is executed without any setbacks or deaths, effectively giving Light's opponents nothing to exploit and yet he dies anyway due to the Shinigami King getting angry and suddenly making up a new rule when it was too late for him to change his plans.
• Fatal Flaw: Ironically, despite his planning and forethought into selling the Death Note, his proves to be short-sightedness, arguably even on a deliberate level. His plan is to simply sell the Death Note to the highest bidder, regardless of who's able to cough up the dough, with one of his messages being an outright condition to just list the bidding amount and not what the buyer plans to do; implying a wish to distance himself from the fallout of the buyer, even though said buyer could turn out to be a very ruthless, amoral or even outright evil individual, or a country known for extremism. And what gets him killed is his demand to Ryuk to never visit him again, a promise the Death God keeps despite the fact that he could have warned Minoru about the sudden new rule that kills whoever purchases and sells the Death Note. His desire to wash his hands of the affair ended up dooming him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In a way he could never have seen coming. After giving up the Death Note and telling Ryuk never to appear before him again, the rules are changed by the Shinigami King so that anyone buying or selling a Death Note will die upon collection of payment. Because he told Ryuk to never appear before him again, Ryuk is unable to warn him not to collect his payment resulting in Minoru's death.
• Irony: Who could have guessed that a Kira motivated by money would be infinitely more noble than a Kira motivated by justice?
• Meaningful Name: Depending on the kanji, "Minoru" can mean "growth", "maturity", "kindness" or "success". Minoru learns from Kira's mistakes, shows strength of character, means well and manages to beat Near while making himself filthy rich.
• Mundane Utility: He uses Ryuk, a psychopomp, in his plan as an untraceable message service. And it works.
• Nice Guy: He's incredibly sweet, kind and friendly, which is quite impressive coming from Light's successor.
• Odd Name Out: Together with Kiyomi Takada, he's the only character in the entire series to have a name you would find in real life.
• Only Sane Man: Easily the sanest, most normal Kira to date, which is quite impressive considering the sheer amount of Ax-Crazy people that have been Kiras.
• Shadow Archetype: Minoru can be considered what Light would have been if he was driven by the ideals he kept saying he embodied instead of his pride and ego in reality.
• Street Smart: Minoru's teachers speculated that he might be the smartest middle schooler in Japan, with him getting the highest score on standard IQ tests three years in a row, but his academic grades were subpar, even telling Ryuk on his first visit that he's great at solving riddles, and little more. On the other hand, he hatches a plan that manages to cover his tracks, get rid of the Death Note (and his memories of it), get rich, create an economic boom on Japan and beat Near. This does imply that Minoru is indeed as much of a genius his school was saying, but his intelligence is on a practical level, and not academical.
• Superior Successor: In terms of sheer intellect, Minoru is actually inferior to Light, being unable to translate his intelligence into his academics while Light excelled at everything he put his mind to. However, what separates Minoru from Light is his wisdom, not allowing his ego to get in his way and remained anonymous while Light practically demanded he be recognized. Light constantly wanted to prove his dominance to the world while Minoru had the foresight to make a quick and clean profit and quit while he was ahead. There's also the fact that Minoru manages to outwit Near, the one responsible for Light's defeat. In the end, he succeeds in all of his objectives and would have completely gotten away with it if not for a Diabolus ex Machina.
• Teen Genius: He's just as clever as Light and far more level-headed to boot.
• Too Clever by Half: Learning from Light's downfall in the original story Minoru goes through extreme lengths to prevent any paper trail from forming that can link him to being the new Kira. And he almost gets away with it, but it turns out cutting off any further contact with Ryuk was his one fatal mistake. He pissed off the Shinigami King by turning the Death Note, a literal divine tool of death, into a farce to turn a profit. Had Minoru not cut off Ryuk, he would have had a complete victory.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Due to never using the Death Note, Minoru never succumbs to its corrupting influence and his plans don't leave any victims. He ends up dead anyway.
• Took a Level in Badass: After two years that Ryuk went to visit him, Minoru went from a scared child to exceptionally analytical and cunning.
• Undignified Death: Being practically the Cosmic Plaything of the Shinigamis throughout almost his entire plan, he dies in an incredibly abrupt and anticlimactic manner. Yes, quite undignified for someone who surpassed Kira.
• Villainy-Free Villain: Discussed. His master plan doesn’t involve any actual crimes more potent than hiding money, and definitely does not involve any actual use of the murderous notebook. It is to the point that Near himself has little difficulty accepting defeat, since there was not any actual illegal activity going on beyond using the reputation of Kira to effect change.
• Worthy Opponent: Near acknowledges him as this, seeing how his plan wasn't to commit mass murder or become a god, but to simply turn a profit at the expense of a country that could afford the loss. Near eventually admits defeat when he sees how thoroughly the new Kira's tracks were covered.

Light's Shinigami sidekick, and the one who dropped Light's Death Note on Earth in the first place. Despite his terrifying appearance, he's mostly harmless (unless he gets bored), and has a fondness for apples. He tells Light about various rules of the Shinigami Realm, sometimes at extremely inconvenient times.

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In both the Japanese◊ and Korean◊ productions of Death Note the Musical, Ryuk is much less ugly and scary-looking than his manga counterpart.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: The TV Drama and musical both exaggerate his quirkiness and laziness, and the former in particular has him adopts some of Misa's girly poses while he speaks to Light.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • While in the manga he's utterly callous to Light's demise, in the anime, it comes off as more of a Mercy Kill to Light. The Relight special even seem to almost imply he misses Light to some degree.
  • The live action film also shows him taken aback when Light kills his girlfriend Shiori as part of a sympathy ploy to get the Task Force on his side and defame Naomi Misora, marking the first time in the franchise where he expresses anything other than apathy or joy at Light's actions.
  • Though he's much nastier in the musical, he also much more chummy with Light, and shows a degree of care for Rem, warning her not to break the rule at the end of their reprise of "Mortals and Fools". He also pats Sayu's head at one point.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • While his manga and anime incarnation could hardly be called heroic or villainous since he doesn't take sides, being more of a bystander than anything. In the TV series he is shown to be more of a prominent and will figure, in the series he intentionally drops the notebook so Light is the one to find it and goads him to use it upon seeing his hesitance.
  • In the musical, he kills Light shortly after he wins against L because going back to simply writing names sounded boring for him, whereas in the source material, though he does briefly complain about the fun having ended after Light won, he only kills Light years later after when it becomes clear he's going to jail.
• Advertised Extra: Ryuk is often sold as a Series Mascot of sorts, even representing the series in crossover art during the manga's original run. In the actual manga and anime, however, he is only a prominent character in the first arc, being Put on the Bus for the second, and having a substantially reduced role for the third.
• Affably Evil: Is a bit of this and Faux Affably Evil, as he can be genuinely nice to Light and Misa, but fits the latter in his malicious way of curing boredom. Of course, it's worth noting that Shinigami are not hard-wired toward compassion for humans to begin with, so from Ryuk's standpoint, his actions do not seem immoral.
• Alien Catnip: Apples are addictive to him.
• Allergic to Routine: Ryuk really disliked the fact Shinigami tend to spend their lifetimes doing nothing but writing names on their Death Notes from time to time. And when Ryuk did get a second Death Note, he decides to drop it to break the routine.
• All-Powerful Bystander: He could end the duel between Light and L at any time if he really wanted to, just by writing one of their names in his notebook. But that would be too boring for him.
• Aloof Ally: Ryuk is nominally on Light's side, but only to the extent it amuses him. He can be bribed into helping with apples and will go along with Light's plans, but refuses to proactively aid him. For example, when the second Kira requests a meeting, Ryuk makes it clear that while their Shinigami might be willing to identify Light as a Death Note holder, Ryuk won't do the same even if asked.
• Ambiguous Situation: He has stitches surrounding his head at the distance of his collarbone, but it isn't clear if this means that his white head is stitched onto his black body or if he wears a black suit that's stitched onto his white skin.
• And Show It to You: An odd example, but the spirit is there; at the end of the manga, when Light is Out-Gambitted and is desperate enough to beg him to write the names of the Task Force in the Death Note, Ryuk instead chooses to write down Light's name and then show him the book so Light gets to spend the last 40 seconds of his life knowing his death is coming and begging to not die.
• Animal Motifs: In the first ending Ryuk is shown atop a tree with crows, and his wings resemble the wings of a Crow, The fact that Ryuk is shown along with the crows in the first ending can also be related to the fact that crows usually gather next to an animal or person about to die, only waiting for that person or animal's time to come, just as Ryuk sits around and waits, during almost the entire story, to see when Light's time of dying will come.
• Antagonist in Mourning: In the 2nd Relight Special, he seems almost mournful when remembering Light and looking at his name in his Death Note.
• Art Evolution: His new look for the 2016 film Light Up the New World is noticeably sharper and more intimidating.
• Audience Surrogate: For Audience members who just watch for the Cat and Mouse. He starts the whole story simply because he was bored, and mostly hangs out on the sidelines treating Light's antics like his own personal soap opera, not really caring who wins as long as it's entertaining.
• Ax-Crazy: Even for a Shinigami, his idea of fun back in the Shinigami World is attempting to kill his "friends".
• The Bad Guy Wins: In all adaptations, he ultimately gets what he wants: to alleviate his boredom and satisfy his curiosity for a while by having humans pick up and use Sidoh's Death Note for their own purposes.
• Bait the Dog: In the manga, when a wounded Light makes the mistake of asking him for help, Ryuk makes it seem like he's actually doing it, seemingly only to scare the Task Force and then Yank the Dog's Chain when he reveals his Death Note with Light's name written on it.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible: Downplayed, as he still offers Light some help and advice (mostly on when to take the Shinigami eyes, which Light never does), but despite being able to kill anyone as long as he doesn't develop feelings for Light, Ryuk prefers to sit back and enjoy the massive Gambit Pileup that is the series. Once it's over for good, Ryuk kills Light and leaves the human world.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He may provide a lot of comic relief, but he's still a god of death and the catalyst for the series plot. Unlike Rem, he holds no personal stake in any human's personal well-being, and once Light grows desperate enough to ask him for help, he kills him upon it becoming obvious Light has no ideas left.
• Big Bad: In the Death Note Special Chapter, he is the main antagonistic force and who carries out the plot events.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: It's difficult to really judge his actions by human standards, considering he's a member of a species from a realm far beyond humanity whose very existence is defined by claiming human lives. For all he knows, he isn't doing anything wrong because every human is destined to die anyways, so why not alter those inevitable ends for amusement?
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He has an above average intelligence stat for a Shinigami, but doesn't bother to memorize the rules of the Death Note outside of the five basic ones, which makes him quite useless as an advisor. Luckily for him, Shinigami aren't under any obligation to properly explain the rules of the Death Note.
• Bystander Syndrome: He's unapologetically honest about abiding by this, and tells Light early on that he won't help him if he's in danger as he doesn't want to get involved. Since he never forms a meaningful bond with humans, he's never at risk of dying.
• Cannot Talk to Women: By his own admission, though he's a Shinigami, he's still a male, so he gets awkward around girls. When Misa tries to glomp him, he quickly renders himself intangible.
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: He's a "triple A"; an Apple Addicted Asshole.
• Captain Obvious: He tends to point out obvious problems so that Light can then explain things more thoroughly (to him and to the audience).
• Catchphrase: To use the manga translation, "Humans are fun!"
• Cheshire Cat Grin: His face is frozen like that so he has one all the time.
• The Corrupter: In the TV drama, he intentionally drops the Death Note near Light, and goads him into using it more when Light hesitates, effectively making him the one responsible for Light becoming Kira, a stark contrast to the source material in which he was a self-acknowledged neutral bystander.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: For all his lovable goofball portrayal, we get a reminder of his status as a Death God at the end of the series, when he murders Light without a second thought for having used up his entertainment value.
• Dark Is Evil: Downplayed. He's clad in primarily dark colors, and while he's not actively malicious per say, he, like all other Shinigami, run on Blue-and-Orange Morality. He drops the Death Note in the human world out of sheer boredom, shortens other lifespans to expand his own (which is a requirement for Shinigami to survive anyways), and while is genuinely helpful to Light while explaining the rules of the Death Note, is completely honest about the fact that he's a neutral bystander and is only sticking around for laughs.
• Death Takes a Holiday: Downplayed. He maintains his function as a Shinigami and shortens more than one person's lifespan throughout the series, but his leaving the Shinigami realm to go to the human world is a holiday of sorts.
• Devour the Dragon: Though Light can hardly be called a "dragon", once he can no longer provide him with entertainment, Ryuk kills him off and steals his remaining lifespan.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Ryuk is an apple junkie. He has withdrawal symptoms and everything, even explicitly comparing them to cigarettes.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Don't order Ryuk to kill anyone when his reason of being in the human world was to see someone else kill. When an Out-Gambitted Light asks him to write the names of the entire Task Force in his Death Note, Ryuk writes Light's name instead. He was not going to take orders from any human. Along with the small matter of shinigami who write in their Death Notes to save a human ceasing to exist; he certainly wasn't going to sacrifice himself for Light's sake.
• Due to the Dead: After Minoru dies via taking the payment for selling the Death Note as per the new rule imposed by the Shinigami King, Ryuk writes his name in his Death Note regardless, just under Light's. Ryuk's wistfulness and commentary on Minoru's plan indicates this was out of respect for the young man, in his own ghoulish way.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Evil is stretching it, but as a morally ambiguous being he still has his own standards.
  • Ryuk tells Light at least once that he's even eviler than a shinigami, and generally, when Light does something particularly nasty, laughs mockingly in the background. In the Live action movie, however, he seems genuinely shocked and taken aback by Light tricking and killing his girlfriend, asking him without a trace of sarcasm if he ever even loved her.
  • He also suggests that Light should have second thoughts about killing L after he said he thinks of Light as a friend.
  • Zigzagged with Misa wanting to make the Eye Deal a second time. He reminds her that her lifespan has already been halved by Rem when Misa originally made the deal. However, he follows through with it after she insisted she was fine with giving up another portion of her lifespan for Light.
  • Played with in the "Never Complete" one-shot. When he confronts Donald Trump over possession of a Death Note, he sarcastically muses the man values his own life over his nation's prosperity when he hastily concedes the notebook despite a monetary transaction already having gone through. However, he does call his decision "shrewd" before leaving.
  • Again in "Never Complete"; Ryuk is conflicted over warning Minoru that he was going to die if he accepted any money for selling the Death Note and honouring his promise to stop bothering him. In the end, Ryuk leaves Minoru to his fate, but doesn't chuckle at the thought of it.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Light finding creative ways to kill his enemies is comedy gold to him.
• Evil Laugh: Lets lose a harsh, throaty cackle in the English dub whenever he's amused. In the manga it is written as "hyuk hyuk hyuk."
• Fair-Weather Friend: Literally. He will only stick around Light as long as he provides him with entertainment, and (in Part 1, at least) he will only actively help him when he has something to gain. He outright tells Light in the manga that if he asks him for help when he's cornered, then that means he has truly lost.
• False Friend: Though he "betrays" Light and kills him in the end, this trope is Subverted; Ryuk makes it perfectly clear that he is fated to kill Light as soon as he meets him, and, as far as things go, he really is Light's friend for all intents and purposes. It's just that loyalty and emotional attachment traditionally doesn't come with the package when you're friends with a god of death. From Ryuk's point of view, killing Light once his usefulness was lived up is just the natural way of things. No hard feelings. His speech before killing Light in the anime can even have his actions considered a Mercy Kill - he didn't want to wait until Light died in prison, implying he still had a long time to live.
• Fanboy: In the TV Drama, he becomes one for Misa, frequently begging Light to keep her show on while he's out, dancing to her music, and even indirectly helping Light try to save her by warning him of her short lifespan. Though this is downplayed in the musical, he still dances to her song "I'm Ready".
• Food as Bribe: While he claims to be neutral in Light's plans, he will occasionally aid him if Light promises him apples as compensation, such as when he used him to search for all the cameras in his room or to write fake rules in the Death Note. In the "Relight" movie, he also accepts a rotten apple from the Shinigami asking him to share his experiences with the human world.
• For the Evulz: Most of the bad things that happen in the series can be traced back to the fact Ryuk was bored and dropped the Death Note on Earth just to see who would pick it up and what they would do with it.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: In every adaptation, Ryuk's wings are some manner of evil. In the manga, he has black crow wings, while in the film adaptation he has leathery bat wings.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He's the reason the notebook is on earth in the first place. Being a genuine Shinigami, Ryuk is a greater threat to humans than Light can ever be, but he's content to watch Light work and is otherwise uninvolved with his Evil Plan.
• Greek Chorus: Serves as this a few times, notably his Inner Monologue eulogy for Soichiro.
• The Grim Reaper: He is a god of death after all and he collects the remaining lifespan from other humans.
• Hates Being Touched: More like he's rather bashful. When Misa tried hugging him, he blurred away from her, blushing and citing he's not used to it.
• The Hedonist: He's only interested in satisfying his urges. The Death Note rules even state that Shinigami don't need to eat, but Ryuk stuffs his face full of apples when he can just because he really likes them.
• Hope Crusher: In the live action film, seconds before Light succumbs to his heart attack, Ryuk takes a moment to remind him that there is no heaven or hell and that Light will go to "nothingness" after he dies, giving him a metaphorical heart attack right before the literal one kicks in. This by extension also works on L, who had just sentenced himself to death with the Death Note as well and was a Dead Man Walking.
• The Hyena: His response to most situations is to let out an Evil Laugh.
• Hypocrisy Nod: In the manga, while immobilizing Sidoh, Ryuk reprimands him for allowing humans to give him orders, before it dawns on him he's been sent to hush him on Light's orders.
• Immune to Bullets: As Kichiiro Osoreda and (in the manga) the Task Force soon learn, shooting at him will not harm him in the slightest.
• Informed Attribute: He tells Light that he is not his ally, but while he doesn't solve his problems for him, and he still kills him once he's a goner as per their contract, he still mostly does what Light tells him, even leaving the human world for several months despite how boring it gets for him. In part 2 of the manga, Light flat-out tells him at one point to help him unconditionally and Ryuk doesn't even blink.
• Informed Kindness: In the guidebook, Ryuk is listed as having a 5/10 in Empathy, which is pretty high for someone whose idea of having fun is to drop a murder weapon in the human world and then seeing people use and abuse it for their own purposes, only to then kill the person he had been living with because he won't be able to provide him with any more entertainment.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Ryuk shakes with excitement when Light details his plan to kill off all the evil people in the world and declares himself God.
• Instant Taste Addiction: He falls subject to this trope when he first tries "human world apples". For context, vegetation in the shinigami realm is all dried up, so a juicy fruit is unlike anything he has ever tasted before. He immediately forms an addiction to them, even going through withdrawal symptoms.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Along with boredom, his main reason for setting off the events of the series.
• Invincible Villain: As a Shinigami, Ryuk is Immune to Bullets, and cannot be harmed in any way by a human. He also gave Light another Shinigami's Death Note, ensuring that his lifespan will not be affected even if that Death Note ends up destroyed. As he's seemingly incapable of developing a close bond with a human, he also cannot die from saving their life, something Light tries to use against the Task Force as a last ditch effort in the manga, only for Ryuk to simply kill him instead. As a result, Ryuk will always come out on top when the Absurdly High-Stakes Game between Light and his enemies is over for good.
• It Amused Me:
  • Ryuk drops his Death Note into the human world, setting off all the chaos that follows, just because he's bored.
  • Ryuk occasionally doesn't warn Light of a problem until he's already in the middle of it, just to watch how Light will adapt. For example, when Sayu comes into Light's room looking for help with her homework, Ryuk chooses that moment to warn him that Sayu will be able to see Ryuk if she touches the Death Note. He also withholds knowledge of the Shinigami eyes until Light finds himself in need of such an advantage, if only because Light would be more likely to take such a deal under duress.
• Jerkass Gods: He's only here for laughs. He makes no secret of the fact that he is on neither Light's side nor L's and doesn't much care who wins. However this does not make him a pure Jerkass as he is shown to be quite friendly towards Light and other people who can communicate with him, though he would prefer to just enjoy the show from the sidelines.
• Karma Houdini: Despite being the one responsible for the events of the story, nothing bad happens to him.
• Keet: He's surprisingly energetic and cheery, despite appearances. Of course, the events of the series are the most fun he's had in centuries...
• Kid with the Leash: Inverted; Ryuk, and by extent, the rules of the Death Note, are often the only thing restraining Light from killing his opponents directly. Not that that stops him from getting around the rules.
• Kill You Last: To Light.
  "You know, you haven't been very nice to me. I might just write your name in my Death Note and kill you, just like that! ...I wouldn't laugh if I were you."
  • Which he does when realizing that Near's beaten him.
• Large Ham:
  "The symptoms are STAAAAAAARTING!"
• Laughably Evil: He sets the entire plot in motion because he's bored, but he's just so funny that it's practically impossible not to like him.
• Lost Food Grievance: He doesn't like it when he's denied apples.
• Lying by Omission: Everything Ryuk says is true. The problem is that he never gives you the entire context. Like his telling Light not to think a human who's used a Death Note is able to go to Heaven or Hell actually means there's no afterlife for anyone. Though Light already figured that to be the case on his own.
• Man Behind the Man: He gave Light the Death Note, or rather, he arranged for someone to pick it up.
• Meaningful Name: One of the meanings of Ryuk is boredom or bored in Japanese.
• Mercy Kill: It's not outright confirmed, but the way he kills Light in the anime seems to suggest this is his intent. Light is clearly going to die one way or the other and if he somehow doesn't then he's going to prison, so Ryuk instead gives him a relatively quick and painless heart attack so he can go out with some dignity.
• Monster Clown: His white face, dark blue lips, and constant smile evokes clown imagery, when in reality he's a ruthless god of death who views the deaths of thousands of people as entertainment.
• Monster Roommate: He's a Shinigami, and he's bound to Light so long as he has the Death Note, and usually just chills out munching on apples when Light's at home.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Ryuk has a definitive row of razor sharp canines.
• Mr. Exposition: It's through Ryuk that we learn the rules of the Death Note (since he's the one who wrote them down), as well as how the eyes of the Shinigami function and the deal humans can make for their eyes.
• Mundane Utility: He uses his intangibility to poke around Light's room and find where the cameras and bugs are stashed after he suspects that L had his room tampered with.
• Noble Demon: An honest demon, as he is fully straight with Light from the start that he's on nobody's side and will probably be the one to kill him in the end.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: The reason he prefers watching humans use the Death Note rather than use it himself is that being a Shinigami makes him completely unable to be caught. Even if he were to take up the crusade of killing criminals in order to attract police attention and were to reveal himself by letting them touch his notebook, they still would have no way to ever stop him.
• No Sense of Personal Space: He likes to get close to Light, especially when explaining the rules of the eye deal.
• No Sympathy: Unlike most other prominent Shinigami shown in the story, Ryuk never develops any sympathy for the people he lives with and shows nothing but joy at the pain they go through. In the manga, he even kills Light (his roommate and friend for six years) once he deduces that he won't be able to extract any more joy from him and shows a complete lack of remorse afterwards.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: As the Death Note could've fallen in the hands of anyone, it's clear from the start that Ryuk has no interest in the state of the human world beyond using it as a playground, so Light's goal to create a new world free of crime doesn't really mean much to him. He's only really there for the thrill of the journey and the apples.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Ryuk acts like a goofball for the whole series, but his initial decision to throw a Death Note near Light Yagami, only because he wanted to have fun, is the reason why he becomes Kira, leading to the deaths of millions of people in the process. In a more concrete way, he finally uses his own Death Note at the end of the series to kill Light, as he promised in the first episode.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Ryuk conceals his knowledge of the rules of the notebook from Light in order to amuse himself.
• Out of Focus: After the Time Skip, he isn't as prominent a character as he previously was, mainly due to him having to shadow Mikami instead of Light once the former became the Death Note's owner.
• Pass the Popcorn: The whole series is him doing this. He watches disaster unfold with sheer delight, since it's entertaining. Instead of a big bucket of popcorn, however, he has apples. Many, many apples.
• Perky Goth: He is dressed in a dark manner, with lots of black, belts and chains, but he's very energetic and excitable.
• Perpetual Smiler: His default expression is that of a Cheshire Cat Grin, even when he's obviously upset or in pain.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He shares an apple from the Shinigami world with Misa. Somewhat muddied by the fact that it tastes like sand, which Ryuk knows.
  • In the musical, he pats Sayu's head while she's singing.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Along with Matsuda, he provides most of the humor in the story.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He's a nigh-immortal god of death that happens to like Nintendo games (since he asked Light to play Mario Golf with him, and, in an omake, asked for a silver Game Boy Advance SP).
• Psychopathic Manchild: Ryuk is a god of death itself who sets everything off because he's bored.
• Rock Me, Asmodeus!: His character design (both the one they ultimately went with and the original Bishōnen one) evoke the image of a rockstar.
• Sadist: He frequently laughs at Light's murders, and seemingly the crueller the death is, the happier he gets, if his exaggerated cackle when Light controls Naomi Misora into committing suicide is any indication.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: His presence becomes significantly limited after L dies, and even more so after Mikami receives the notebook, though he does play an integral role in the final chapter.
• Shooting Superman:
  • When the bus-jacker tries shooting him in Episode 4. He's thoroughly amused by it, and proceeds to scare the shit out of the guy.
  • In episode 107 of the manga, the Task Force unload on him as he pretends to be writing down their names, and Ryuk actually seems annoyed that they would be so stupid as to try that at that point.
• Slasher Smile: His literal default expression is a creepy grin on his face.
• Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: He is a god of death and Light's sidekick, and ninety percent of his dialogue consists of deadpan commentary.
• The Sociopath: To the extent that he can be judged by human standards, Ryuk fits a great deal of the criteria. He sets the plot of the series in motion when he deliberately drops his Death Note into the human world just to see the results, and when Light himself acquires the notebook, he makes it clear that if he doesn't provide entertainment through continuing to cause carnage and mischief, his own death won't be far behind. Light himself is eager to oblige for his own reasons, but while Ryuk sometimes expresses surprise at the depths Light will sink to, it's always with amusement or appreciation, never condemnation. Throughout the series, Ryuk never quite reaches Light's level of active evil, and in fact often serves as comic relief, but his role as an amoral eager observer is never obscured. In the end, he makes good on his promise to kill Light when he outlives his entertainment value, and despite Light's pleas, shows not a trace of remorse in doing so.
• So Proud of You: He tells Light he's proud of him at his high school graduation, in a bizarrely hilarious Pet the Dog moment.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Light directly uses him as part of his plan to flush the FBI agents out by putting a death precondition of a thug that he will freak out when seeing a terrifying monster, who is Ryuk after he unwittingly touches a Death Note page.
• Surprisingly Mundane Reason: The reason why he dropped his Death Note in the human world? He was bored and wanted to see what would happen.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: He crashes at Light's place the entire time he remains bonded to Light through the Death Note. He spends most of his time lounging on the bed or couch and eating apples. Justified in that he is supposed to remain close to the human owner of the Death Note to encourage him to use it (not that Light needs any encouragement) and kill him when it's his time to die.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Apples.
• Troll: He seems to enjoy messing with Light just for the sake of amusing himself. Even at the end of the manga, he baits him by faking to be writing down the names of his enemies only to kill him instead.
• The Unblinking: It seems he doesn't even have eyelids.
• Unstable Horror Ally: Zigzagged with Ryuk, the sidekick to Light Yagami. Light is the Villain Protagonist, and Ryuk is the Greater-Scope Villain, so unlike most examples, Ryuk essentially is the cause of the conflict. Although Ryuk helps Light by allowing him to use the Death Note without immediate consequences, he still has Blue-and-Orange Morality along with a very minimal loyalty to Light. In the 2017 live-action film, Ryuk implies that he has killed his previous human allies when they attempted to kill him by writing his name in the Death Note, and he would be fully willing to kill Light if he made the same mistake. His nightmarish, Monster Clown-esque appearance adds to the effect.
• Video Game Culture: In the manga Ryuk pesters Light about wanting to play Mario Golf, and Ryuk begs Light to get him a silver Game Boy Advance SP for Christmas in an omake.
• Villainous Friendship: With Light, of the Evil Vitriolic Best Buds variety.
  Ryuk (sounding excited and happy): He's not the least bit daunted by the fact that I'm a Shinigami! He doesn’t suck up to me, and he seems to have no problem giving me a hard time. (Grins, AWESOME!!)
• Villain Respect: He frequently comments on Light and L's intelligence, and also harbors some respect for Minoru as well despite him not using the Death Note in the way Ryuk expected. In the musical, he also briefly fawns over Soichiro Yagami.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  "Hey Light, want to play some video games?"
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Light may poke at each other often but they actually enjoy each other's company.
• I Warned You: He really, really did. Just as promised, he kills Light in the end. Even as the latter begs for his life, Ryuk simply reminds him of what he said all those years ago... Though this is averted in the anime where he kills Light and the latter dies peacefully.
• The Watson: Since he's constantly hanging around Light (and has to because of the Death Note bond), he is the one that Light explains all of his plans to, for the audience's benefit.
• Wild Card: He makes it clear that he's not on Light's side or L's; he's on no one's side but his own.
• You Can See Me?: He can only be seen by the current owner of the Death Note or by people who touch it. Asks this word for word, when one of Light's plans involves a criminal picking up a note written on paper of the Death Note and then freaks out upon seeing him.
• You Didn't Ask: Ryuk amuses himself by explaining certain rules of the Death Note to Light at the worst moments. He even invokes this trope word-for-word in the movie.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He doesn't kill Light because he's Entertainment Value. This is what he plans to do to Light when the latter's final days are up. He does so in the end when Near beats Light when his entertainment is pretty much over but in a less malicious way and becomes more of a Mercy Kill.
• You Monster!: Downplayed; he does call Light worse than any Shinigami at one point and multiple times seems shocked at how far he'll go, but whenever he expresses this it's not out of condemnation.

Misa's Shinigami, who is highly protective of her, bringing Gelus's Death Note to her after his death and generally watching out for her. Rem forces Light to enact a Memory Gambit to save Misa when she gets caught, and haunts Higuchi while this is being done. Misa surprises her by coming to be interviewed at Yotsuba for an advertising gig as part of L's plan to local the Yotsuba Kira, and Rem takes the opportunity to reveal herself to Misa and tell her what's going on. Later, Rem follows the Death Note back to Taskforce Headquarters when L captures Higuchi and Light regains ownership of the Note. There, Light tricks her into killing L and Watari in order to save Misa; and although she realizes what he has done, she goes along with it, choosing willingly to die to keep Misa safe.

• Accent Adaptation: The anime dub gives her a vaguely Caribbean accent.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: She is portrayed as a much more beautiful character in the musical adaptation, to the point of her looking almost like a goddess.
• Adaptational Badass: In the live action film, she burns her Death Note with her own hands after killing L and Watari with it to prevent Light from having it, as a final act of defiance against the one who got her killed, whereas in the source material, she simply lets it drop.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: She appears way earlier at the beginning of the musical adaptation alongside Ryuk, mocking humanity with him and witnessing him drop the Death Note into the human world.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed. In the TV Drama, she doesn't offer to kill L for Light's sake, nor does she go through with it later, and she never writes any names onscreen.
• Affably Evil: As long as Misa's safety isn't in danger, she doesn't seem terribly threatening toward people. Although, the only humans she's interacted with have somehow been a potential cause of harm to Misa...
• Alas, Poor Villain: Though the tragedy of her death is overshadowed by her murder of L and Watari, it doesn't change the fact that a God of Death sacrificed everything to save a human who didn't value her own lifespan. Rem's final scene where she looks somberly at the ground as she vanishes can make one feel bad for her.
• All for Nothing: She wastes her entire life to ensure Misa lives the few years she has left at her fullest, and to honor Gelus' last sacrifice. In the end, Misa remains in an abusive relationship with Light and ends up killing herself six years later. Averted in the musical and the TV Drama, where Misa survives albeit without her memories of Rem or the Death Note, and Downplayed in the Live action film where she kills herself ten years later instead.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Like Misa's love for Light is unrequited, Rem has her affections ignored by Misa, who never seemed to care for her.
• Ambiguously Gay: She has a deep affection for Misa to the point that she kills herself to save her from being implicated as Kira. However, it's unclear if her love is romantic or more of a motherly bond. In the musical, it's much less ambiguous, and her love for Misa is compared to the latter's love for Light/Kira.
• Beast and Beauty: The Beast to Misa's Beauty. Misa is the first and only human Rem regards highly and she's willing to disregard shinigami law for her sake. Tragically subverted in that Misa doesn't appear to care that much about her and lets Light manipulate her as he pleases.
• Be as Unhelpful as Possible: When L gains possession of the Death Note and Rem becomes his Shinigami, she refuses to answer most of his questions and even outright lies to him about the rules of the Death Note.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: While not exactly a Cute Monster Girl, she's probably one of the most physically attractive Shinigami, as well as the one with the strongest sense of personal justice.
• Condescending Compassion: In the musical, she laments how worthless the existence of humans are, though she's still fascinated by their naivetée.
• Creepy Monotone: Her voice in the anime. Unlike Ryuk, she speaks in a cold and monotone voice that can sometimes make her creepier than the other Shinigami in the story.
• Cute Little Fangs: Her tiny fangs coupled with her somewhat dopey default expression can make her seem cute in comparison to Ryuk.
• Dark Is Not Evil: While amoral herself, she genuinely cares about Misa and is disgusted by Higuchi. The creators state that she's "a good person."
• Defiant to the End: Part of her Dying Declaration of Hate towards Light in the second live-action film involves her burning her own Death Note out of sheer spite, ensuring Light won't get his hands on it.
• The Dulcinea Effect: She sees Misa once and develops feelings for her so intense that she journeys to the human realm to give her Gelus's notebook.
• Dying Declaration of Love: She dies in the second live-action adaptation declaring her love for Misa, while also voicing her resentment of Light for tricking her at the exact same time.
• Ethereal White Dress: In the musical adaptation, she wears white robes◊ and she's a Shinigami.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • She cared about Gelus, and was dispirited when he died saving Misa. Part of the reason why she gave her his Death Note despite being "common sense" for a Shinigami to deliver it to the Shinigami King was because she wanted to honor his sacrifice and protect her.
  • Despite being a Shinigami and knowing that loving a human is a big handicap for her, she'll do anything for Misa, even if she's initially reluctant to extending her lifespan. As of Chapter 47 of the manga, this extends to Light as well, since her time with Higuchi made her appreciate Kira's actions more, so extending his lifespan will kill her as well.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Due to Blue-and-Orange Morality that comes with being a shinigami, she exhibits few qualms with Misa murdering people, as well as murder being committed for her sake. That said, she does gently rebuke Misa for not using the notebook properly and suggests that she use it more for herself and not gratuitously. She also has a great distaste for the way the Yotsuba group use the Death Note; in particular, she's repulsed by Higuchi's greedy and obsessive nature.
• Extreme Doormat: A unique trait for a Shinigami. As she's invested in Misa, both her and Light can give her orders and she will carry them out with no hesitation. Light is even surprised at how easily she agreed to kill L for him.
• Eyepatch of Power: Her right eye (assuming she even has one) is covered by bandages.
• Face–Heel Turn: A variation. She begins the story hating Light for his manipulations, and threatening to kill him if he steps out of line. After some time with Higuchi, she starts to sympathise with his motivations and becomes a willing ally of him. When Light corners her into killing L, Rem sees through his plan but ultimately decides to go through with it regardless, killing L and Watari for him and allowing him to become the God of the new world with no one to oppose him (at least for a few years).
• Facial Markings: Rem has purple markings across her face.
• Female Monster Surprise: Light mistakes Rem for a male, though she identifies as female.
• Femme Fatalons: Her bony fingers can come across as long fingernails.
• Foil: To Ryuk. Both are Shinigami who bring Death Notes into the human world, and who kill a protagonist at the end, but Rem was genuinely invested in the life of the human she possessed, and died saving her, whereas Ryuk only saw Light as a vessel to alleviate his perpetual boredom, and killed him the moment he was no longer able to do so anymore. Both also see humans as monsters, but Ryuk sees them as hilarious, while Rem is disgusted by them. This duality is showcased in the musical with their duet "They're Only Human". Whereas Ryuk is brutally honest and doesn't know much about the deeper workings of the Death Note, Rem is one of the few Shinigami to know about how they can die, and has no reservations over lying to people about the rules. Ryuk lives until the end of the series and beyond because he controlled himself and remained a spectator who only gave a few minor assists to Light but Rem gets so romantically obsessed with Misa she kills herself to protect her.
• Foreshadowing: Rem is the one to explain to Misa about Gelus' Heroic Sacrifice and how it's against Shinigami Law to kill humans to save other humans, which is punishable by death. To finally kill L, Light forces Rem to doing this in order to save Misa later on.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Despite Rem being the only reason she's alive, Misa barely acknowledged her death, and Light never thinks of her again despite her having killed his Arch-Enemy. This seems to be the case even among the Shinigami, as Sidoh didn't seem to even remember her when Ryuk casually brings her up.
• Four Is Death: The Rank 4 Shinigami, and also one of the few to die.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: She's a Shinigami that lives off killing people, but unlike Ryuk, she's genuinely invested in the humans she helps (barring Higuchi) and is willing to sacrifice herself for them.
• Gender Flip: She is portrayed as a male Shinigami in the live-action films.
• Gentle Giant: Light outright calls her a "gentle Shinigami" in the live-action films.
• The Heavy: A God of Death who is unambiguously, if reluctantly, on Kira's side and willing to kill for him. She also ends up being the one to take out Kira's enemies and carry out most of his plans.
• Hellish Pupils: Rem's pupils are thin reptilian slits, giving her face a very serpentine feature.
• Heroic Sacrifice: She ends up killing herself so Misa won't be found out as the Second Kira.
• Hero Killer: Upon realizing that suspicion of Misa will not diminish as long as he lives, she writes L's name in her notebook, killing him and herself. She also kills Watari as well.
• Hero Secret Service: The reason Light's Memory Gambit works out is because of her role as this, which Light counted on if Misa were to forget about L's name. In the end, Rem is the one to save the two by killing L.
• Hesitant Sacrifice: Though she threatened Light with it, Rem never wanted to die and leave Misa alone, but when Light engineers things so that L starts suspecting her again, Rem angrily goes along with his plan, internally cursing Light for having tricked her.
• History Repeats: She becomes the second Shinigami to die on-screen for saving a human by killing another, just like Gelus before her, and for Misa, no less.
• Horrible Judge of Character: "Now that I think about it, Light may be as pure as you, Misa."
• Horrifying the Horror: For a brief period of time, Light saw her as a bigger threat than L, as she prevented him from killing Misa if he ever needed to, and there was no conventional way to get rid of her.
• Humans Are Bastards: In her opinion, "humans are such ugly creatures." This is partly why she has no issue killing L at first, as he is just another human to her.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: As Light notes, she is firmly on Misa's side and will take action on her behalf.
• Ignored Expert: Despite being a God of Death and constantly giving Misa advice on how to properly use the notebook, the girl constantly ignores her warnings up to the moment she dies.
• I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Though she doesn't agree with most of Misa's life choices, nor does she approve of her obsession with Light, she's still willing to work for the latter if it means that he will love her and make her happy. When dying, he last wish is for Misa to use her remaining lifespan wisely.
• Karmic Death: In the end, no matter how sympathetic her love for Misa makes her, she's still a death-dealing Shinigami willing to endorse the killings of a madwoman and by extension the man she worships in a combination that gets herself killed by her own hand.
• Love Epiphany: In The Musical, she finally realizes she understands love, and is in fact in love with Misa, right after Misa gives up her memories of Rem and the Death Note. It's heartbreaking, but she gets one hell of a song out of it, titled "When Love Comes."
• Love Martyr: Rem cares deeply for Misa and is even willing to die for her. Misa doesn't care, and even indirectly gets her killed by telling Light how to kill a Shinigami.
• Mama Bear: She is very protective of Misa. Considering that Misa had recently lost her mother (she tells Light that her parents were murdered a year ago) around the time Rem showed up, it's not too inconceivable that Rem took up that role for her. Although Rem obeys Misa and follows her lead, she is also shown treating Misa as a daughter, up to and including willingly sacrificing herself for Misa's safety.
• Meaningful Name: "Res", in Latin, is a feminine noun meaning 'thing,' like a tool to be used. An accusative is when something is happening to it. The accusative for Res? Rem.
  • So she's "the thing that things happen to".
  • Also R.E.M. is the state when the mind is dreaming, which goes along well with Rem's idealized notions of love and sacrifice.
  • It may also be derived from the Christian and Islamic angel Remiel, whose name means Compassion of God.
• Monster Roommate: First to Misa and later to Higuchi. Her relationship with her first roommate is miles more positive than the second.
• Moral Myopia: Unlike Ryuk, who has no problem admitting to his apathy, Rem does have a sense of justice she tries to adhere to, that is nonetheless quite flawed.
  • She is extremely protective of Misa, but she never says a word about the people Misa kills. Justified in that she is a god of death who herself must kill to stay alive and that she comes to view most humans as "such ugly creatures." However, she also considers Misa to be "pure", despite the latter proving herself to be quite deranged throughout their time together. Tragically, Rem ends up giving her life to save Misa, only for her to essentially forget about the Shinigami afterwards.
  • She also threatens to kill Light if he kills her before her lifespan ends, even though she had made the eye deal with her, taking away half of Misa's years.
  • She starts to sympathise with Light (apparently enough so that she would die if she were to save his life) after witnessing the worst of humanity in Higuchi. This ignores the fact that it was Light who explicitly gave Rem the order to deliver the book to a greedy human who would use it for evil, meaning that Light is just as responsible for Higuchi's atrocities as Higuchi himself.
  • Similarly, she considers Higuchi to be a vile human for killing innocent people for profit, even though her beloved Misa had also killed multiple innocent people just to draw the attention of a person she didn't know, even before falling in love with Light.
• More than Mind Control: "You want Misa to be happy, right?"
• Murder-Suicide: Knowing what would happen to her, she takes out Watari and L, turning into dust 40 seconds later.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: She's on Misa's side, no matter what, regardless of the lows she sinks to.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: She denies it at first, but for all her talk about Shinigami being forbidden from falling in love with humans, Rem ends up becoming invested in two of them, one of which she barely knows.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: In the end, her last act to save Misa by killing L only ensured that Misa remained firmly in the hands of Light, who used, abused, and cheated on her throughout the rest of the story until his death, leading to her suicide shortly afterwards.
• No Accounting for Taste: Considering how little Misa valued her own life, and taking into account that she only had a quarter of her original lifespan left to boot, One has to wonder why Rem thought it was worth sacrificing her life and that of two other humans for her. Rem also calls her "pure" at one point, despite Misa being a remorseless Serial Killer.
• Noble Demon: Zig-Zagged. She's the only Shinigami aside from Gelus to become invested in human life by the end, though most of her standards are based off skewed views of humanity and she still ends up choosing the side of Light over L.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Like Gelus before her, saving a human (Misa) by killing another human (L and Watari) results in her own demise.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: When Higuchi talks to her while being recorded, L and the Task Force assume he's talking to himself. Then they pick up his notebook...
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the anime, the second L starts to suspect that there may have been some tampering with the rules of the Death Note, her eyes become red. The next time we see her, she's killing Watari.
• Sacrificial Lion: Alongside L, her death marks an important turning point in both the manga and anime, as her's involves Light taking advantage of her protective nature to save Misa, while also taking out L, his biggest rival, in the process.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Rem breaks the rules of the Shinigami several times to protect Misa, such as touching her with a piece of the notebook to talk to her and writing L's name to save her. The second one gets her killed.
• She's a Man in Japan: Inverted. Confusingly, the film adaptation gave her a male voice while the anime gave her a female one; she also has a female voice in the TV drama. The manga bounces a little on this, with Light using male pronouns for her from time to time. Rem herself says in the English manga, "I'm female" and Ryuk refers to her as one.
  • Also, the Latin noun "res" from which her name may be derived is a feminine noun. Which can refer to both masculine and feminine things.
• Shipping Torpedo: She hates Light, and doesn't fancy Misa getting together with him.
• The Smart Gal: Though she is frequently tricked by Light and L, she is the smartest of the Shinigami who get any screen time. She knows the Rules of the Death Note much better than Ryuk or Shidoh, which Light notes when asking Ryuk to clarify some of the rules in the second arc.
  Light: *sighs* I wish Rem had survived instead of you.
• Sour Supporter: She hates Light and is only on his side because his happiness is related to Misa's. This is briefly to their advantage, as it means that her killing L will not cause her death as she did not do it for his sake. She also loathes Higuchi as well, and doesn't enjoy being his Shinigami at all.
• Spared by the Adaptation: She doesn't die in the TV drama, as Mikami is the one to kill L instead.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: She's a Shinigami and she has golden eyes.
• Taking You with Me: Threatens to do this to Light if he harms Misa, but ultimately does it to L instead. She also takes advantage of the 40 second-window between kills to take out Watari as well.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Downplayed; Rem has prominent lips, wears earrings and long hair, but these are discreet enough that the live action film didn't change any of them while flipping her into a male character.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Dying for love is so tragic and beautiful... so long as you ignore the obvious flaws of the psycho you're in love with.
• Too Clever by Half: She's smart enough to realize that Light is trying to corner her into killing herself for Misa, but not enough to come up with an alternate solution other than consciously falling straight into his trap.
• Treacherous Advisor:
  • To Higuchi. She enables his killing spree for the sake of Light's Evil Plan, and intentionally gives him poor counsel when the hour of his downfall arrives.
  • Also to L when he briefly takes possession of the Death Note. Rem intentionally misleads him and covers for Light's fake rule to give him and Misa an alibi, and then kills him.
• Unwitting Pawn: Light manipulates her into saving Misa (thus ensuring her own death) by killing L and Watari. Double Subverted in that she figures out exactly what it is Light wants her to do, how he's getting her to do it, and what will happen if she does, yet she does it anyway out of her love for Misa.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: If one considers her attachment to Misa to be romantic, she is willing to kill anyone to ensure her happiness, coerces Light into saving her by threatening to kill him as well, and later kills L and Watari to save her at the cost of her own life.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: See Love Martyr, Mama Bear and Unwitting Pawn.
• What Does She See in Her?: She's in love with Misa, even though she frequently ignores her advice, wastes many lives and her own on someone that Rem knows doesn't love her, and at several points tells her to kill someone for her even though it can put Rem's life at risk.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: This is a trait unique to the musical version of Rem. At the start, she expresses confusion and even disdain for "this thing [humans] call love." After her experiences with Misa, she realizes that she finally gets it.

A popular and pretty young woman whom Mikami chose to be Kira's spokesperson. She was the girl whom Light briefly dated once to hide his connections with Misa. Light gets in contact with her to gain access to Mikami, seducing her with a promise to make her the goddess of the New World. Eventually, Mello kidnaps her, and then Light kills her - Mikami would have killed her, if Light hadn't done it first - after she kills Mello to prevent any evidence from being gotten from her.

• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the Relight 2 special, Light's meetings with her and Mikami are moved to earlier than occurred in the manga.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Though she's already quite smug in the manga, the anime adds some spiteful smirks as she's taunting Misa over her affair with Light, and she's much less subtle in her request for Light to kill her as a loose end.
  • She fulfils Higuchi's role as the third Kira in the live action film, and acts accordingly. However, she still has a much more sympathetic motivation than Higuchi did, being an abused newscaster who wanted to be promoted to anchorwoman instead of a corporate executive who wanted to rise his company's stock.
• Adapted Out: She doesn't appear in the TV drama and the musical.
• Affably Evil: Kiyomi is genuinely a very charming and professional young woman as well as a dedicated and talented newsreader who hates social evils, she's also a willing follower of Kira. Though can steer into Faux Affably Evil as she's extremely petty, rubbing her affair with Light in Misa's face.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Her final moments are truly disturbing and sad. She's stripped naked and trapped inside a truck, and reduced to tears in fear for her life. Having killed her kidnapper, she calls Light and begs him for his help. But unknowing to her, Light instead writes her name down and has her incinerate herself by setting everything around her on fire. To the very end she believed Light loved her, instead he betrayed her. Even the task force are horrified by the cruelty of her death.
• Alpha Bitch: "Refined Takada" is the mean girl to Misa.
  • Though technically, Misa herself started the whole fight by threatening to "break her knee" (leading to Halle having to restrain her). Later on, Takada manages to keep her cool in the restaurant while Misa immaturely and outlandishly (not to mention drunkenly) brags that Light will marry her, leaving Takada to feign being hurt and leave with her head high. This is toned down in the anime, which has both women keeping their composure at the table and Misa's bragging being less over-the-top and even having a shot of her looking concerned when it looks like Takada is feeling hurt, although Misa chugging down a bottle of wine afterwards is still kept (to portray the differences between the composed Takada and the wild Misa).
  • Still, Kiyomi seems to enjoy rubbing her affair with Light in Misa's face in her own subtle way. She is the one who approaches Misa with the dinner invitation just for that very purpose.
• Alternate Continuity: In the live action movies she fulfills the same role as the Yotsuba group does in the manga / anime.
• Ambition Is Evil: While she is genuinely attracted to Light, she becomes much more interested in being close to him after learning that he's Kira, and after he promises to make her a goddess in his New World.
• Asshole Victim: Downplayed. While her death was needlessly brutal and cruel, she was still a very willing henchwoman of Light's who not only spread his propaganda but also actively killed people, and while she was better at hiding it, she was just as fanatical as Mikami and Misa were in terms of her belief in Kira's ideals. Played Straight in the live action film, where she gets as much sympathy as Higuchi does in the manga and anime, that is to say, none at all.
• Ax-Crazy: In the live-action film adaptation, where she's almost as unhinged as Higuchi in the source material.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Light writing her name in the Death Note makes her die via suicide as she sets the building on fire around her. The viewer doesn't see her burn up.
• Betty and Veronica: The Veronica to Misa's Betty for Light's Archie.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Definitely. She sleeps with an engaged man and invites his fiancee out to brag about it, while being presented to the world as the epitome of grace and class. Even her nickname is "Refined Takada".
• Blatant Lies: Her repeated referral to Misa as her "good friend", even after this exchange:
  Misa: Are you going to get Kira to kill me?
  Takada: Of course not!
  • That line itself is another blatant lie.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: Directed by Halle into being kidnapped by Mello.
• Book Smart: She attended To-Oh University alongside Light and L and appeared to be a very good student who quickly gained a positive reputation among her peers. However, Near considers her to be an idiot for her devotion to Kira.
• Break the Haughty: Her very last scene. The woman who spent all of her time being presented as superior, poised, and perfect dies naked, crying, and reaching out for comfort.
• Card-Carrying Villain: In the live action film, she's the only "Kira" who acknowledges that using the Death Note makes her evil, but continues to do so anyway.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Shows up as a very minor character in the first arc, promptly vanishes, and is never mentioned again until far into the second arc.
• Damsel out of Distress: When Mello kidnaps her, Takada manages to write his name down in a Death Note snippet and kill him. However, both Light and Mikami elect to not risk her getting arrested and confessing and both write her name down in the Death Note.
• Deadly Upgrade: She makes the eye deal in the live action movie.
• Death by Irony: The woman who wanted to be the center of attention as Kira's goddess is killed by Kira and is immediately forgotten by the media.
• Dies Wide Open: In the live action film adaptation.
• Ditzy Genius: As lampshaded by Near, she gets very good grades in school but is lacking in the common sense department, and Light uses this to charm her into following his orders.
• Driven to Suicide: After Light writes her name down in the Death Note. It wasn't a conscious choice on her part.
• Drop Dead Gorgeous: Narrowly averted. She's killed while naked, but she also dies by burning herself alive, and the audience doesn't get to see the result.
• Dude Magnet: Quite popular with the opposite sex.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: She develops these when the Death Note possesses her to commit suicide.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She's first seen bothering Light about how he's not acting like a proper boyfriend in their college class only to disappear for a long stretch of time before becoming a more prominent character in the second half of the series.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She's taken aback when Light first asks her to start killing people for him. It does seem like she gets over it easily, however, as she later asks him to kill Misa.
• The Face: She becomes Kira's spokeswoman on the NHN TV station. Her beauty and poise make her very popular with viewers.
• Foil: To Misa, at least in regards to how they view Light. They're both love interests (or, not really) to Light Yagami who are in love with his carnage and are so blinded by their affection for him that it drives them to do questionable and outright idiotic things. However, where they differ is that despite how she acts, Misa is fully aware that Light doesn't give a damn about her and is simply using her as a pawn to further his own goals. That said, she continues to chase him because she believes that by making herself useful to him and proving her devotion, Light will eventually grow to love her in return. Takada, on the other hand, fully believed that Light loved her and wanted to make her the queen of the new world. She looked down on Misa as someone who is desperate and tailed Light despite his blatant lack of interest, being woefully oblivious of the fact that she was also a pawn that would be discarded when her usefulness ran out. Takada's trust in Light would prove to be her undoing, and Misa would also go on to outlive her because she knew her place with him.
• Foreshadowing: In the thirty-third episode of the Anime titled "Scorn", Misa told Takada what would become of her once Kira got caught; she would be "executed". Takada, in her arrogance and genuine belief that Light cared for her, dismisses her and leaves. Come episode thirty-five, Light carelessly writes Takada's name in the Death Note, killing her off in an exceptionally cruel way just to get rid of the evidence that she killed Mello with scrap paper from the notebook, which could clue Near in that Mikami wasn't necessarily doing the killings himself anymore and that the notebook Gevanni saw him use and subsequently tampered with was a decoy. In the end, just as Misa thought, Takada was just a pawn to him.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Light, Mikami, and the media completely forget about her after she dies. Even her bodyguards are more upset at Matt for being against Kira than kidnapping their boss, and Halle Lidner doesn't seem too hung up about getting her killed either.
• Hero Secret Service: She helped Light get in direct contact with Mikami and overall serves as his link to the public.
• High-School Sweethearts: College Sweethearts with Light, though it's mostly one-sided on her part, as Light never saw her as anything more than a publicity stunt to dispel any rumors about him and Misa.
• Horrible Judge of Character: She trusts Light, after he tells her that he is Kira - the same Kira who has murdered anyone who got or threatened to get in his way. She even expects him to save her. She also trusts Mikami as her associate and Halle Lidner as her bodyguard, and they both also betray her when given the opportunity.
• Informed Ability: Kiyomi Takada is supposed to be a charming, intelligent woman around the same level as Light, and has a 7/10 intelligence stat, but he effortlessly manipulates her into doing his bidding and she shows nothing but condescending rudeness (towards Misa) and blind loyalty to him. Somewhat justified by Near, who notes that, unlike Light, Takada's brains are exclusively based around school grades and she's borderline stupid when it comes to common sense.
• Intellectually Supported Tyranny: As an educated young woman, rather than help protect society against the cult of Kira, she becomes one of its main propagandists. "We must teach our children that Kira is good."
• It's All About Me: She loves to be the center of attention.
• Jack the Ripoff: Is allowed to act as Kira as part of a plan to throw the task force onto Mikami.
• Knight Templar: Blinded by ideals, check. Devoted, check.
• Lack of Empathy: She doesn't seem to care how much her affair with Light hurts Misa. She may enjoy it, "politely" pointing out that he's busy and asking if Misa has seen him lately, when they both know perfectly well that he's busy spending the night in hotel rooms with Takada.
• Lady Macbeth: She urges Light to kill Misa at one point.
• Love Makes You Dumb: She's so blinded by her feelings for Kira that she really believes he'll save her when she's kidnapped, even though he's killed anyone who threatened to compromise him in any way.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Subverted; while she is very much more in love with Kira, she's still attracted to Light.
• Meaningful Name: Takada = tall ricefield; Kiyomi = pure beauty. Notable in being the only character in the entire series to have a real-life name.
• The Mistress: Though she thinks of herself as his true love, Takada is often dismissed as little more than this for Light by both the Task Force and by Misa herself, as he was still engaged to Misa by the time he started courting Takada. As far as Light is concerned, both are expendable minions, but when Misa is captured, Light goes out of his way to rescue her and clear her name (albeit for selfish reasons), while when its Takada who is in peril, Light is quick to kill her in an excruciating way to erase all evidence.
• Modesty Bedsheet: Wears one right after killing Mello, who had stripped her naked.
• Monster Fangirl: She becomes even more devoted to Light when she learns that he's Kira.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her sex-appeal is officially cited as 10/10 in the guidebook, and she's often hailed for her beauty by multiple characters.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: She really dislikes Misa and tells Light at least once to kill her. That said, she at least put up a front of being a bigger person when face to face with Misa, and claimed that she wouldn't want to kill anyone regardless of how terrible they might be.
• Namedar: She makes the eye deal in the live action movie.
• No Place for Me There: In the live action movies "There's so much filth in the world... and I am the worst of all."
• The Ojou: She's nicknamed "Refined Takada".
• Person of Mass Destruction: In the live action film, she becomes the most villainous character by virtue of using the Death Note indiscriminately.
• Principles Zealot: More in the live action. In the anime, she's more interested in being Kira's goddess than in his ideals.
• Proper Lady: She tries to be as refined, modest, and elegant as possible, and dislikes Misa for not being up to her standards.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Light forced her to burn herself alive to cover up any evidence that might lead her back to him.
• Psycho Supporter: She's fully behind Kira, and agrees with Mikami that those who do not adequately contribute to society should be punished.
• Psychotic Love Triangle: She and Misa are rivals for Light's heart, which ends just as well as you'd think it would.
• Psychotic Smirk: In the live action film, she usually sports one of these when she thinks she's going to get her way, or while she's killing someone she doesn't like.
• Secret-Keeper: One of the very few people whom Light entrusts his secret identity with, though not to the point that he would let her get arrested and interrogated.
• Serial-Killer Killer: As Kira's "goddess".
• Shameful Strip: Mello forces her to take her clothes off before loading her in the back a truck while kidnapping her. He at least gives her a towel before making her take off her underwear, which gets him killed.
• Ship Tease: With Light, to the point where one would start to believe that he genuinely had affection for her. Unfortunately for her, however, it's Light Yagami, meaning that she was just a means of furthering his goals and in true Light Yagami fashion, he gets rid of her once her continued existence proves to be a detriment to his plans.
• Shoot the Hostage: She had already rescued herself by then but both Light and Mikami decide to kill her almost at the exact same time when she's kidnapped by Mello.
• Too Clever by Half: Manages to outfox and kill Mello of all people, but makes the critical mistake of asking Light for help, resulting in him killing her before she can get captured by the SPK.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: She genuinely believes that Kira is creating a better world, and wishes to spread his word out to people and carry out his commands to the best of her abilities.
• Trauma Conga Line: She's hit with a smoke bomb, betrayed by her best bodyguard, kidnapped, and forced to strip naked. After killing her kidnapper but causing the van she was in to crash, she calls Light, who has her burn herself alive, and Mikami, who also tries to have her burn herself alive. Then the van explodes.
• Undignified Death: Invoked by Light and Mikami as per the Death Note. She dies naked, crying, and burning alive.
• Unequal Pairing: Considering Light's god complex, this is unavoidable. Though he promises to make her his goddess, he never planned to let her live after disposing of his enemies, and the first time she finds herself in danger, Light kills her as a loose end.
• Unwitting Pawn: She entered a relationship with Light in full belief that he loved her and wanted to make her the queen of the new world he was creating. Little did she know she was just another pawn for him that was swiftly dealt with as soon as her usefulness ran out. In the live action movie, she also becomes the third Kira, but only until Light regains his memories, whereupon he kills her the moment he gets the chance.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Keeps a page of the Death Note in her bra.
• Villainous Breakdown: She's absolutely terrified when Mello kidnaps her, more so after his death.
• Who's Laughing Now?: In the live action movie, after being harassed by Demegawa and several other news anchors, she kills many of them the moment she gains the power of the Death Note.
• Wicked Cultured: In contrast to Misa, she presents herself as intelligent and refined. She's just as dumb when it comes to her love for Light, however.
• Woman on Fire: How she ends up. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to be conscious for most of it, at least not in the Anime. Averted in the live action film adaptation. Instead of being burned to death, she dies of a heart attack.
• Yandere: She doesn't come across this way as first but not-so-subtly asks Light to kill Misa to prove his loyalty to her, and after Light assures Takada that his seeing Misa doesn't mean anything and "you're the only one for me", this exchange occurs:
  Takada: If you're lying you're going to pay. I'll tell Kira, you know.
  Light: Ha ha. Great joke Takada.
  Takada: I'm not joking.
  Ide: Whoa, women are scary.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Shortly after she kills Mello, Light tells her that before he lets her die in order to avoid having her picked up and questioned.

Demegawa is director of Sakura TV, a Japanese news channel that is notoriously unreliable and sensationalistic, and he shamelessly seeks to exploit the Kira case. He is first seen attempting to broadcast the video tapes Misa sends to his network to get Kira's attention, although Soichiro puts a stop to that. After the Time Skip, he becomes Kira's supporter and self-appointed spokesman, creating and hosting the Show Within a Show Kira's Kingdom.

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the manga, Mikami kills him and his fellow executives almost at the same time, with Demegawa being the first to fall. In the anime, he takes his sweet time picking them apart while intentionally leaving the increasingly terrified Demegawa for last.
• Adaptational Jerkass: He was already a scumbag in the manga, but in the live-action movie, he sexually harasses Takada and makes female employees sleep with him for promotions.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Despite the addition of his sexual harassment characteristics, he comes off as less single-mindedly selfish in the live-action films when he shows genuine shock at seeing Saeko die in front of him, and he willingly helps the Task Force in tricking Takada into an ambush at the news station.
• Adaptation Name Change: His name is Yuji in the second live-action film.
• Adapted Out: Doesn't appear in the TV Drama or musical, as Misa finds a different way to make Kira notice her.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the anime, he starts begging for Kira to save him before his heart stops.
• Asshole Victim: He's a greedy Jerkass who calls himself a "spokesperson" of Kira to gain fame and publicity. When Mikami offs him, even the Task Force don't hold it against Kira and unanimously agree that if anyone ever deserved such a fate, it was Demigawa.
• Attention Whore: Demigawa wants all eyes on him and is prepared to side with Kira to get it.
• Ax-Crazy: He's insane enough to rally a mob of equally deranged individuals to raid a building and lynch the people inside, essentially offering them up to Misa as sacrifices, all in aid of a ratings boost.
• Bad Boss: He constantly yells at his employees, and doesn't seem to care about their safety when they're all held hostage by Misa. In the live action adaptation, he sexually harasses his female employees.
• Cult: Although Kira supporters came about before Demegawa rose to prominence, he was the first one to turn it into a religious cult. During the last day of his life, he switched his business suit to priestly robes, and started asking for donations to build a chapel in Kira's name, and that when it is all completed, Kira would greet their followers there. The Task Force summarized that it is nothing more than Demegawa's ploy to earn more money. For his blasphemy, Mikami killed Demegawa and his executives.
• Didn't Think This Through: It apparently never occurred to him that Kira might look unfavorably on someone exploiting their name for profit. Sure enough, his greed eventually gets him killed by Mikami.
• Enemy Mine: Though they visibly hate each other, he helps Soichiro and the Task Force capture the third Kira by staging an interview with Matsuda on his video show to use as bait.
• Fat Bastard: Overweight and a self-centered jackass. Averted in the live-action film adaptation as he was at normal weight in that version. He's still a jerk, though.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses and is a greedy and immoral TV director.
• Greedy Televangelist: Hitoshi Demegawa is a sensationalist media personality whose primary motives are money and influence. After he began publishing Kira's demands to attract ratings, people began to openly worship Kira. He then appoints himself as Kira's spokesperson, hosting Kira's Kingdom as a platform, but it soon becomes apparent that Demegawa is primarily acting to make himself rich on Kira's name instead of helping Kira beat the SPK. Demegawa and his hand-picked inner circle are soon dealt with by Light's new Dragon, Teru Mikami, once Light gets fed up with him.
• Hate Sink: An arrogant, obnoxious, and greedy excuse of a human being who is only interested in making money out of the misery Kira causes. It's downright cathartic when Soichiro tells him to shut up and Mikami kills him for good.
• If It Bleeds, It Leads: A mindset he wholeheartedly subscribes to, and he even goes out of his way to mention this trope word-for-word in the English dub.
• Ironic Name: His given name is written with a kanji character meaning "benevolence."
• It's All About Me: He somehow makes his program about Kira all about himself, and starts taking hefty donations from his viewers.
• Jerkass: A scumbag TV executive who sees Light's killings as a chance to boost ratings, and eventually becomes the leader of Kira's cult and leads a riot against the SPK when he feels they're a threat to his new power.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Soichiro threatens him into handing over the second Kira tapes and calls him out for airing them on his show, Demegawa rightfully points out that he and his fellow directors were being threatened by Kira into doing so. Soichiro doesn't have a retort, and simply forces him to give them up anyway by threatening to kill him right there and then if he doesn't.
• Karma Houdini: In the live-action movies, he does not get any retribution for his Jerkass attitude.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Though he was content with being the second Kira's hostage and airing her video if it gave him a ratings boost, when Soichiro Yagami forcibly enters his room and starts threatening him, Demegawa concedes and stops the broadcast.
• Loony Fan: He really isn't one. He only cares about the attention and wealth he gets for acting like one. It gets him killed by the true number 1 fan of Kira soon enough.
• Meaningful Name: His surname is reminiscent of the English "demagogue", which describes him perfectly.
• Mouth of Sauron: Relays Light's messages to the public.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Both Light and Mikami are aware that he doesn't care about the new and perfect world of Kira and only intends to profit off the events. He also helps the Task Force lure Higuchi into a trap but only because it would boost his ratings.
• Oh, Crap!: In the anime, when the executives he chose to represent his show start dying one by one, and he's the last man standing.
• Only in It for the Money: All he cares about his profits. This gets him killed the moment it becomes too obvious that he doesn't really practice what he preaches.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In the second film, wherein he sexually harasses Takada.
• Spared by the Adaptation: He doesn't die in the second live-action film.
• Stopped Caring: In the anime, while making his way to the SPK's hideouts, he comments on how he doesn't care about anything anymore as long as it boosts the ratings of his channel.
• You Have Failed Me: In the manga and anime, he's killed by Mikami for falling for Near's money bait rather than pointing his cameras at Near so Misa could have killed the SPK members as Light wanted, and also because he was being too much of a loose cannon in general.

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: While in the manga their deaths are merely reported, the anime shows that they died while they were planning to make things better, with Shimura holding Namikawa as he dies and breaking down before being killed.
• Adaptational Villainy: There's no indication of any of them having any reservations over working with Kira in the TV drama, and they're otherwise shown to be quite callous and devoted almost to the point of resembling cultists.
• Adapted Out: They're absent from the live action films, as Takada and Sakuya TV take their role.
• Alas, Poor Villain: While they're varying degrees of morally reprehensible, it's clear that Kira did not make the world better by killing them after they got freed from Higuchi.
• All Men Are Perverts: Misa easily convinces them to go to her place with the promise of meeting some other cute girls from her agency. She also helps expose Higuchi as the real Kira by promising to marry him if he proves it.
• Board to Death: In the anime, Light kills them in the middle of a meeting.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Zigzagged. They're definitely framed as such at first glance, but they're also shown having second thoughts even early on, and ultimately help the investigation with arresting Higuchi, albeit not selflessly. That said, they are still pretty bad on the whole.
• Demoted to Extra: The TV Drama only focuses on Higuchi, and the rest merely appear during their group discussions.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Despite having been major players in the Kira case, the six remaining members following the third Kira's capture are all casually killed (Offscreen in the manga) during the Time Skip.
• Enemy Mine: Three of them (Namikawa, Shimura, and Mido) cooperate with L to bring down Higuchi in the climax.
• Eviler than Thou: Rem is flat-out disgusted by them when she attends one of their meetings. Even at his worst, Light never killed anyone purely out of greed, and these guys discuss it as if they're debating whether they should change the event schedule.
• Greed: Though some members are more active than others in the slaughter of their rivals, all their killings are with the goal of their organization obtaining more wealth and money.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Right when they're freed from Kira and seem to be turning things around, Light wipes out all the remaining members. This is especially tragic in the case of Shimura, Mido, and Namikawa, who all worked with L to free their company from Kira, only to be killed alongside the others regardless, snd with Hatori, who tried to leave earlier than the others only to be killed by Higuchi.
• Killed Offscreen: In the manga, their deaths are reported but not shown, though the narration makes it clear who killed them, how, when, and why.
• Lack of Empathy: Some more than others, but the nonchalance with which they discuss how to murder their political rivals disgusts even Rem. In the manga, one of them laughs at the idea of killing people while driving cars from a rival company to ruin their reputation.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Of the three that rally against Kira, Shimura is the "nice", as he's the most openly remorseful for the murders, Namikawa is the "mean", as he openly thinks only of saving his hide once Kira is inevitably caught, and Mido is the "in-between", trying to reduce the killings to only the "necessary" and later claiming that they affected him more than he initially let on.
• Open Secret: Officially, nobody in the group knows who Kira is, but it's implied most of them at least suspected it was Higuchi long before anyone said it out aloud. When Reiji asks two of them who they think it is, they both agree he was their top candidate.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Though most of them didn't choose to become Kira's associates, they're willing to compromise their morals and keep their mouth shut since Kira's murders clearly benefit them financially, only helping guide the murders in the right direction for their stock to rise. Subverted with Shimura, who only went along with them out of fear of being killed if he resigned.
• Posthumous Villain Victory: They wanted to raise the stocks of the Yotsuba Corportation, but their stocks completely fall (alongside them) once one of their executives is publicly outed as Kira. However, in the Special Chapter, Minoru uses Yotsuba to split the ten trillion USD reward he got from the United States in exchange for the Death Note, causing the Yotsuba stocks to rise beyond belief again and ironically accomplishing what the Yotsuba 8 were trying to do with their meetings in just a few days.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In their meetings, they often discuss the most effective and conspicuous way of killing their economic rivals to rise their stock.
• Red Herring: Though we're initially introduced to eight men, only one of them can be the new killer. Naturally, the story showers toys with who it is for a bit before letting the cat out of the bag. Not to mention half of them having fairly evil-looking designs. (Notably, Ohba had Obata draw up the designs before telling him which one would be the new Kira.)
• Resignations Not Accepted: They know that if one of them leaves the group, that person will most likely die, since he's now a loose end to the new Kira. It's the main thing holding the group together.
• Spared by the Adaptation: All but Higuchi survive in the TV drama.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Not all of them hate each other, but their meetings are filled with tension due to knowing that Kira is among them and is willing to kill them if they resign.
• Total Party Kill: Hatori and Higuchi both die during the Yotsuba arc, and the rest are wiped out in the Time Skip following L's death.
• Trapped in Villainy: Downplayed. Though they're still content to profit off Kira's actions, some of them aren't exactly happy with working with him, but after Higuchi makes an example of one of them, everyone loses any criticisms they might've otherwise had.
• Unwitting Pawn: Seven of them are being used as strategists for Higuchi to get rich (though Namikawa sees through his motivations early on), and all of them (including Higuchi) are unknowingly being used as scapegoats by Light.
• Varying Competency Alibi: Both instances are at play here. While trying to figure out Kira's identity on his own, Shimura crosses out Namikawa and Mido, reasoning that they're smart enough to be successful solo and wouldn't need the complicated board ruse in order to make smarter decisions with it. Meanwhile, Mido surmises that Takahashi is too incompetent to have lasted that long without getting caught, and that his only purpose on the board is to be a decoy for anyone following Shimura's line of reasoning, ensuring that there are some members of the board dumber than the real Kira.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Namikawa, Mido, and Shimura all worked with the Task Force to free their company and themselves from Higuchi's oppression. Doing this only got them killed by Kira six months later to tie up loose ends.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Kira uses them (specifically Higuchi) as scapegoats for him and L to track down and expose. Once the Death Note is firmly back in his hands, L is dead, and there's no one left to oppose him, Kira kills them all anyway.

A member of the Yotsuba Eight, and the vice president of sales.

• All for Nothing: He uncovers Higuchi almost by himself and helps L capture him, ensuring he doesn't get killed. This doesn't save him from the actual Kira, who disposes of him soon after for being a loose end.
• Anti-Hero: Starts helping out L, Light, and the Task Force during the halfway point of the Yotsuba arc, but only to evade consequences for his previous actions, and avoid Kira's retribution.
• Blood from the Mouth: Pukes blood when Light kills him.
• Board to Death: Like the rest of the Yotsuba group he's killed by Light.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Official color seems to be purple.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: A member of the Yotsuba Group, and perfectly willing to profit from the deaths of others.
• Death by Pragmatism: Being the smartest and most careful member of the Yotsuba Group probably only cemented Light's decision to kill him off as a loose end.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: In the anime, he falls into Shimura's arms as he dies.
• Dirty Coward: When Light informs him that the Yotsuba meetings are all being recorded, Namikawa is quick to agree to work with him once he's promised that he won't be prosecuted for his crimes, even if he has to help imprison his co-workers.
• Dragon-in-Chief: He's the one who suggested putting pressure on the police to drop the Kira case, cutting most of L's resources. He's also part of the reason why it took the Task Force so long to capture Higuchi, and once he's made to be on L's side, he's part of the reason he's caught.
• Evil Genius: He's the real brains of the Yotsuba Group, is smart enough to work out on his own which of his fellow board members is the Third Kira, and even successfully manipulates Light during a phone conversation. Even L and Light acknowledge how smart he is, deducing that he can't be the Third Kira because he wouldn't need the assistance of the rest of the board.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He's very good at reading people. He quickly works out that Kira is only out for power, and that Coil is only out for money. He also quickly figures that Mido and Shimura aren't Kira because they clearly were Sour Supporters of the murder plan, and knows that the CEO had been threatened by Kira as he acted unusually timid during their first meeting.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Though he was initially willing to sell out all his fellow board members after making a deal with L, he allies himself with Mido and Shimura to conspire against Higuchi.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: Which side he's really on at the time of his death is pretty ambiguous. He did willingly assist L capture Higuchi but his thought process implies that he only cared about saving himself from both the authorities and Kira's retribution.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He, along with Shimura and Mido, wanted out, but were killed by Light regardless.
• Hidden Depths: He's an expert shoji player, not that this ever comes up in the story proper.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: He's so quick to discover Kira's limitations and goals that the other directors start suspecting him of being Kira himself. It's clear that had he been the one Rem gave the notebook to, Light and L would've had a much harder time capturing him.
• Lack of Empathy: Openly claims to being relieved that Hatori is dead, as it meant the other members could be kept under control.
• Manipulative Bastard: Managed to manipulate Light of all people into revealing Higuchi as the third Kira—though he himself had already worked it out.
• The Mole: He becomes one of sorts to the Task Force after being blackmailed, delaying the Kira kills on their orders and helping them lure Higuchi into a trap.
• Nerves of Steel: Though he's caught off guard, he deals with a call from L much more professionally than Kida did with Coil or Hatori did with his own companions. This allows him to maintain his cover and assist in Higuchi's capture while remaining undercover.
• The Proud Elite: He is cold, calculating, and very intelligent. He is also quite attractive.
• The Smart Guy: The most cunning and intelligent of all the Yotsuba board members, subtly catching on to all of Kira's hints and limitations, and working with L to expose him. He also has the highest stats of all of them, and ties with Ooi in intelligence.
• Smart People Play Chess: According to the profile of him in volume 5 of the manga, he's an expert shogi player.
• The Spock: Once they team up, he plays this to Shimura's The McCoy and Mido's The Kirk, being the most composed and logical of the three, as well as the entire Yotsuba group.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Tall, black haired, and sarcastic.
• This Cannot Be!: Thinks this word-for-word when L (in reality Light) calls him out of the blue.
• Too Clever by Half: Though cunning enough to figure out Higuchi and even outfox Light himself at one point, he ultimately was just another pawn in a game he couldn't fully understand, and is killed alongside his co-workers by the real Kira once the Task Force recover the notebook.
• Unwitting Pawn: Averted. Namikawa knows full well that he's a pawn of whoever the real Kira is, and just wants out. What he doesn't know, is that he was also being used by "L" (who happened to be Kira at that moment) as a pawn to capture Higuchi and retrieve the notebook, so it doesn't save him from death even after the original threat was dead.
• Villainous Friendship: With Midou and Shimura, though it's Downplayed as he's the one they approach, and he only starts trusting them after determining their innocence based off pragmatic reasons. In the anime, he does give Shimura a handshake after finally having restored Yotsuba to its former glory.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He thinks he's The Chessmaster who can come out on top while Playing Both Sides. While he is indeed quite cunning, he was little more than a pawn for Light, and was killed like one.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Ironically for the shoji expert, he quickly improvises his moves while working for both sides and guiding the scenario in a way that benefits him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Light kills him and the remaining members of the Yotsuba group when the whole ordeal with Higuchi is over.
• You Just Told Me: How he figures out that Higuchi is the third Kira.

• Adaptational Villainy: The anime cuts his lines where he expresses his genuine reluctance to carry out murders, and adds another scene where he tells the other Yotsuba directors to leave Misa's party following Matsuda's "death" because their presence would be bad for the press.
• Affably Evil: He's the politest member of the Yotsuba 8, and he never loses his professional demeanor, even when talking in private with Shimura and Namikawa.
• Anti-Villain: Though very pragmatic, he doesn't like senseless killing and is mostly working under Kira due to fear of being murdered or imprisioned.
• The Confidant: The usually paranoid and careful Shimura trusted him enough with his regrets regarding the murders and his desires to leave Yotsuba.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He objects to Higuchi's tendency to request murdering everyone who gets in Yotsuba's way, instead suggesting less drastic measures.
  • While alone with Shimura and Namikawa, he confesses that the nonchalance with which the directors talk about killing people to boost their profits disturbs him.
• Graceful Loser: After the group is blackmailed by their own PD, Mido is the quickest to accept defeat and is content with compromising and paying Eraldo Coil 2 million yen upfront to keep him under Yotsuba's thumb, respecting his ambition and intelligence.
• Greed Makes You Dumb: Admits that during their first meeting he was only concerned about getting a raise and missed the CEO's agitated and nervous demeanor.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He is killed alongside all the other member of Yotsuba 8 just after they had decided to reform.
• Heel–Face Turn: He joins Shimura in helping expose Higuchi, as he knew the meetings were going to end up destroying their company.
• Hidden Depths: His main hobby is fencing, according to the guidebook.
• Honest Corporate Executive: He really disliked the assignement of Kira and he seems to devote body and soul to his job (according to How to Read).
• Identical Stranger: He resembles Light Yagami, despite the two not being related. Misa even comments on the resemblance.
• Irony: In How to Read, we learn he dislikes the business world. Too bad when you're a corporate executive who's forced to partake in a very nasty killing business by one of your co-workers.
• The Kirk: He plays this to Shimura's The McCoy and Namikawa's The Spock, arguing for efficiency but being more disturbed than he lets on.
• Married to the Job: According to the guidebook, his company is all that matters to him.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Often objects to non-essential murders, arguing that they might suppose a bigger risk than they're worth. He later suggests spreading out the actual essential murders beyond one week, as they attract suspicion. Downplayed, as he later admits to Shimura that the meetings made him sick, so he didn't want to carry out any murders in the first place.
• Red Herring: According to the author, he was created to be this, being business savvy enough to use the Death Note in a similar way Higuchi did. Ironically, In-universe, Shimura figures out that he's not Kira very quickly.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He wears glasses and ties with Nanikawa for their intelligence stats.
• Villainous Respect: He admits to respecting Eraldo Coil as a detective, praising his investigation skills and believing that he's earned the ridiculous sum of money he asked the Yotsuba 8, despite having blackmailed them into doing so.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As a student in To-Oh university and a man of an important background, his social status is listed as 10/10.
• Villainous Friendship: With Namikawa and Shimura. The three trust each other enough to work together to expose Kira.

• Big Ol' Eyebrows: In the manga, he's drawn with unusually large eyebrows.
• Cassandra Truth: He comments how lucky they were for "Matsui" to have randomly died while on Misa's hotel, and how suspicious the circumstances are, but everyone else shrugs it off as Kira controlling him into committing suicide. As it turns out, "Matsui" wasn't really dead, proving his suspicions correct.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: He complains fairly often, and is usually wrong in his deductions.
• Deliberately Bad Example: In-Universe this is why he's on the board. Higuchi arranged these board meetings to secretly get the advice of smarter people for how to use the Death Note because he isn't competent enough to be successful on his own. Takahashi, therefore, is on the board as an obviously incompetent decoy in case anyone figures that out.
• Distracted by the Sexy: He's happy to have Misa as the face of the company because she's cute. Aside from Higuchi, he also pines after her the most, despite being 40 years old and married with a child.
• The Ditz: He's prone to saying rather foolish things.
• Dumbass Has a Point: He suggests killing Matsuda because he might be a spy but also says that they can't kill him in the building because it's guaranteed to attract unwanted attention. Higuchi agrees with him and writes his (fake) name so that he dies in an accident, even after Matsuda had already faked his death.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Is married and has a child, though it's downplayed as he seemingly has no issue flirting with a younger girl despite this.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He's appalled when Namikawa claims to be relieved that Hatori is dead, since he was one of them.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: People always ignore his deas, and Namikawa, Shimura, and Mido all speak dismissively of him.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Has little patience and often acts irrationally when upset, or when he doesn't understand something.
• Hidden Depths: He apparently enjoys surfing, according to L's info.
• Jerkass: He's even more volatile and irritable than Higuchi, who at least knows how to put on a professional façade. Justified, since he's on the board specifically to make the former look good by comparison.
• No-Respect Guy: He's introduced being called an idiot by Higuchi, and he doesn't gain much respect from the rest of his screentime.
• Perpetual Frowner: Often seen in a bad mood, even when everything is going well for his company.
• Properly Paranoid: He's the first to suggest that Matsuda may have been listening in to their meetings, and he happens to be right in the money.
• The Slacker: He complains about having to do the meetings every week every Friday, even though it doesn't seem like he contributes much to the meetings in the first place, and they help exponentially increase his salary every.
• Spanner in the Works: Mentioning the meetings to Shimura during a conversation gives Matsuda the initiative to investigate the board members, which leads to them becoming prime suspects.
• Stupid Evil: When Matsuda is caught, he screams out that he might've been spying on them, which already confirmed that they were talking about something suspicious. His fellow board members instantly salvage the situation by "reassuring" him that they weren't talking about anything important.

• Affably Evil: He's very polite with Misa when staying at her hotel, and is also very nice to his fellow directors, even if he doesn't trust them.
• All for Nothing: After carefully suffering through all the murders and then having a hand in finally exposing Yotsuba Kira and returning their company to a legitimate business, he's casually killed by Light as a loose end.
• Anti-Villain: Though he's a member of the Yotsuba 8, he was not a willing member in the murders, and rarely even contributes to them regardless.
• Break the Cutie: Mido claims that at one point he confessed to him in tears that he couldn't carry on working with Kira, which motivates the two to team up to help defeat him.
• Disappeared Dad: He was raised by a single mom.
• Everyone Has Standards: Though he knew he was likely going to die for being a presumed spy, Shimura instinctively tries to save "Matsui" from falling off the balcony (while faking his death), and is shocked to see his fake body lying on the road.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He knows who not to trust, and later confides in his moral objections to Kira's actions only to Mido, the only other member to have doubts on the case. This allows the two to work together alongside Namikawa to help capture Kira.
• Grew a Spine: A subtle version of this. Shimura is constantly portrayed as nervous and paranoid, and while he's morally opposed to the Yotsuba Kira and realizes how dangerous they are, he's too scared of Kira to act on it for the first part of the arc. However, after being repeatedly ignored by his coworkers and being forced to contribute to the deaths of innocent people (including Hatori, whose death Shimura outright protests in the manga), he takes matters into his own hands and seeks Mido out with the intention of convincing all the non-Kira meeting participants to help take down Kira. He's also notably more confident in expressing his own opinions during the scene in Mido's house. However, L catches Higuchi before Shimura has a chance to do much, and Light kills him months later.
• Hating on Monday: While casually conversing with Takahashi, he mentions that he wouldn't assist to the murder meetings if they were done on Mondays.
• The Heart: While not everyone listens to him, he's the moral core of the Yotsuba group, and he manages to pull both Mido and Kitamura to his side and help bring Higuchi down.
• Heel–Face Turn: Never really a "bad guy", since he is obviously opposed to the meetings from the start, but is scared enough of the consequences of taking action against Kira to remain complacent for the first part of the Yotsuba arc. Eventually, he decides to take direct action and attempts to get other members of the Yotsuba Eight on his side in order to take down Kira on their own... but L and the others get there before he can even finish proposing the idea to Mido and Namikawa.
• Hidden Depths: Was a rugby star during High school, and according to the guidebook he still enjoys it.
• Ignored Expert: He usually has reason enough to be wary, but all his legitimate concerns are shrugged off by his fellow board members who dismiss him as paranoid.
• Lovable Coward: He's meek and very timid, but he's also the most moral of the Yotsuba 8.
• Luminescent Blush: When Misa talks about sending him and his co-workers to her hotel to meet with other girls, Shimura visibly blushes in embarrassment.
• The McCoy: He plays this to Namikawa's The Spock, and Mido's The Kirk, being the most emotional and moral of all of them.
• Nervous Wreck: Always sweaty and paranoid during the meetings.
• No-Respect Guy: Not as bad a case as with Takahashi, but due to how nervous he comes across as, his ideas are usually dismissed (it helps that he hardly contributes to the killings themselves). However, Mido seems to trust him enough to work with him to expose Higuchi.
• Oh, Crap!: When he notices Namikawa collapse in his arms, he sees that Kira has won, shortly before having a heart attack himself.
• The Paranoiac: His cautiousness is listed as 10/10, and he's always careful with how he conducts himself, being paranoid of everyone around him, often for good reason. He also hates gambling, which makes sense as he seems to hate taking risks in his life.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • He's the only member of the Yotsuba Eight who seems to realize how suspicious Coil and Matsui are, which even characters supposedly more intelligent than him totally overlook (Namikawa eventually catches on, but only due to Light contacting him). He repeatedly tries to bring this up, but all his coworkers brush him off even though he's actually right in all of his claims. Namikawa does eventually praise him for this however, and suggests it's probably why Higuchi wound up selecting him as one of the Yotsuba Eight, valuing his caution.
  • Though he was always reluctant to work with Kira, he decided to bottle his opinions and go along with the meetings. When his fellow board member Hatori tries to leave the meetings, he is killed, justifying Shimura's cautiousness.
• Slave to PR: Downplayed, but aside from his moral issues with Kira, he worries a lot that the revelation that Kira was a Yotsuba employee will plummet their stock and damage their reputation.
• Sour Supporter: He never wanted to be a part of Kira's posse in the first place, but was smart enough not to back out.
• Token Good Teammate: Of the Yotsuba 8, he's the one who's least motivated by greed and the most by simple fear for his life, and eventually he finds the courage to start fighting back in spite of that fear.
• Too Clever by Half: His cautiousness and paranoia saved him from sharing Hatori's fate, and his choice of friends and enemies allow him to help out in Higuchi's capture. However, he couldn't account for the real Kira killing him later once his plan had been fulfilled.
• Villainous Friendship: He seemed to enjoy Takahashi's company, and trusted Mido enough to confess to his hatred for Kira. He also respects Namikawa enough to invite him to offer him to work together.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He thinks Higuchi is the Big Bad that he had to bring down, and thought that once he was gone, everything would be alright again. However, he fails to understand the high stakes of the game Kira is playing, and that his co-worker was nothing more than an Unwitting Pawn for the real Kira, as was Shimura.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Finally gets his chance to save his company by helping expose Kira, and is killed by Light alongside all his fellow directors a few months later. What's worse, Shimura was all too eager to forget about Kira and didn't want anything to do with the case regardless, making his death all the more meaningless.

• Cassandra Truth: He's the one to suggest that "Matsui" might've been a spy for the police, but his idea is quickly shut down as the NPA had dropped the Kira case. He turns out to have been right in the money.
• Didn't Think This Through: When Coil unexpectedly calls him, Kida remains silent throughout so as not to incriminate himself, being too on edge to think of any alibis for himself. Takahashi quickly points out how this likely only made him more suspicious.
• Epic Fail: He hires Eraldo Coil to investigate L for Yotsuba. As it turns out, Eraldo Coil is a pseudonym for L himself.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's married, and seems to be faithful to his wife, as he doesn't flirt with any of Misa's girls.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Wears glasses, and is a callous Yotsuba member who doesn't seem to have any moral issues with killing competitors to rise his company's stock.
• Hidden Depths: According to the guidebook, he's a fan of spectacles.
• Ignore the Fanservice: Unlike the other Yotsuba members, he doesn't flirt with Misa or any of the girls from her agency. Justified, as he's married.
• Informed Flaw: The guidebook lists him as having a 10/10 "wild personality". Though he's not the most composed Yotsuba member, he's otherwise quite professional.
• Mission Control: Serves as this for Eraldo Coil, at least on paper.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: When Misa appears and starts to flirt with the board members, Kida reprimands the others for getting distracted when they have more pressing concerns. Though this doesn't stop him from going to her place alongside the others, he doesn't take part in socializing with any of her fellow girls.
• Oh, Crap!: When Coil calls him up using Kida's real name, despite Kida having tried to remain anonymous, he internally panics.
• Red Herring: As he was the one to hire Eraldo Coil to investigate L, he's the first guy the Task Force suspect as Kira. It soon becomes clear that it isn't him.
• Spanner in the Works: Unknowingly hiring L to investigate himself only puts The Task Force into contact with Yotsuba, which allows them to pull in Namikawa.
• Stunned Silence: Due to shock (and not wanting to incriminate himself), he remains silent during his phone call with Eraldo Coil (in reality Aiber), allowing the man to break down his requests without interruption.
• Too Clever by Half: Was careful enough to remain anonymous while hiring a PD to investigate L, but didn't do enough research on the detective to find out that it was a fake name used by L himself.
• Unwitting Pawn: L and Aiber use him to instigate a meeting with the other board members to discuss how to handle Eraldo Coil's supposed betrayal while unknowingly being recorded, allowing themselves to be exposed as Kira.
• Villainous Respect: Despite having been outplayed by him, Kida has a lot of respect for Coil (in actuality L and his associate Aiber), and always praises his detective skills when he gets the chance, such as when he discovers Misa's relation to Kira.

• The Alleged Boss: With Higuchi stepping in with his powers, Ooi is aware that despite being the de facto leader of Yotsuba, he has to cater to Kira's wishes.
• Ambition Is Evil: As Higuchi expected, he started supporting Kira for money and power.
• Authority in Name Only: For the Yotsuba Kira meetings, his say is just as important as the others, and he admits that he intends to keep it this way.
• Bald of Authority: He's bald and the Yotsuba vice president of VT enterprises.
• Bald of Evil: Completely bald, runs the Yotsuba 8...
• The Big Guy: The most physically imposing of all the Yotsuba members.
• Catchphrase: "Who shall we kill?" said at the start of every Yotsuba meeting following Kira's inclusion.
• Cold Sniper: Apparently his sharpshooting skills are 10/10, and he has the cold personality to boot.
• Cool Shades: Ones that make him look like Morpheus.
• Death Glare: A master at these. He even sports one in his headshot, which is the only time we see him without glasses.
• False Reassurance: When Shimura expresses concerns regarding Eraldo Coil, Ooi reassures him that if they were to cause trouble, they can use their power and influence to kill them. This does nothing to calm Shimura's nerves.
• Gun Nut: Collects guns of all sorts.
• Ice King: A very cold, calculating man who hides his icy gaze behind some sunglasses.
• Lack of Empathy: Speaks of human lives only as assets for his company, and is happy to cut loose anyone who doesn't benefit them, even shrugging off the death of one of his board members. He's so casual about it that the entire Task Force is disgusted by him.
• The Leader: Of the Yotsuba 8's meetings. Or at least on paper.
• Mouth of Sauron: What he is in practice, with Yotsuba Kira sending him instructions on how to conduct the meetings.
• Not So Stoic:
  • He starts visibly sweating when Kida informs him that Eraldo Coil was now attempting to blackmail Yotsuba into paying him a ridiculous amount or buy his silence.
  • According to the guidebook, bee hives also piss him off.
• Opportunistic Bastard: He's quick to realize the benefit that comes from Kira's murders, and is content with having him be one of the Yotsuba 8 as long as the deaths continue to raise his company's stocks.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: He's a weapons enthusiast and also a ruthless executive.
• Perpetual Frowner: He always has a frown behind his sunglasses.
• Refusal of the Call: Shimura and Mido tried to reach out to him to expose Kira together, but Ooi refused, telling them to keep their secret meetings to themselves.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: After "Eraldo Coil" blackmails him and the others, Ooi pays him more than twice the asking price to keep him around. Later, when Shimura expresses worry that Coil might be a spy for the police, Ooi reassures him that if anything were to happen, he can just have a missile blasted into him.
• The Stoic: Shows the least emotion of all Yotsuba members, even when under an indirect threat from Kira.
• The Unfettered: Willing to kill and terrorize for his company's success, and later confides with Shimura that he's also content with blasting a missile into L and/or Eraldo Coil's hideouts if necessary.

• Bastard Bastard: He is the illegitimate son of Dainosuke Yotsuba and is no less of a Corrupt Corporate Executive than his colleagues.
• Blatant Lies: When the board members tell him what will happen if he leaves, Hatori backs down and claims he was merely joking before. Nobody believes him, and if anything, it only made Higuchi more eager to cut him loose.
• Deliberately Bad Example: One of the people Higuchi put in the Yotsuba 8 specifically because they were dumber than him. It anyone figured out that the board meetings were a sneaky means for Kira to anonymously get advice from people more intelligent than him, Hatori's presence ensured finding the real Kira would be more complicated than simply looking for the least competent member.
• Didn't Think This Through: His attempted resignation was an emotional decision which he clearly didn't put any thought into, and he quickly backs down once his companions tell him of the dangers of him leaving the meetings.
• Dirty Coward: Immediately tries to back down from the meetings the moment things go south, despite being all too eager to go through with them when it benefitted him.
• Disposable Intern: Being the son of the CEO doesn't spare him from being killed by Higuchi the second he becomes a liability.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Seeing his own board members tell him that resignating was not an option makes him realize that Kira being one of the Yotsuba 8 won't stop him from killing him if he has to. Amusingly, the only stat he has a 10/10 in the guidebook is "betrayal".
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Though the remaining 7 directors address his death, they quickly move on from it, which shocks Shimura as he had been their colleague for a long time.
• Genre Blindness:
  • When Matsuda's phone rings as Hatori was guarding him, he forces him to answer, expecting an incriminating phone call from whoever sent him. However, L had caught on to Matsuda being in trouble and fakes being his friend to send him a hidden message. Hatori fails to read between the lines and as a result Matsuda later manages to escape.
  • Later, he attempts to resign from the murder meetings, but makes the fatal mistake of announcing this to all his co-workers, expecting them to just let him leave despite knowing enough to put them behind bars forever. He gets killed for this.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: He's killed soon after expressing his desire to leave the Kira case.
• He Knows Too Much: After he offers to leave, Namikawa and Ooi spell out to him that he's been in the group for far too long, so leaving would make him a liability. Higuchi agrees, and kills him the next day.
• Hidden Depths: Likes to do pottery, according to the guidebook.
• "Just Joking" Justification: Attempts this when his fellow directors start doubting him for trying to leave. It doesn't work, but props for trying.
• Killed Offscreen: We never see him kick the bucket.
• Make an Example of Them: Namikawa confesses that his death was a relief for him as it ensured that no other board member could have the chance to betray the others.
• Nepotism: Given his low stats and general spineless demeanor, it's clear he's only in the board because the CEO of the company is his father.
• Oh, Crap!: His face when Higuchi tells him that he's going to die for even suggesting backing down makes it clear he did not account for his own co-workers betraying him.
• Picky Eater: According to the guidebook, he hates vegetables.
• Properly Paranoid: He attempts to resign from the Kira case when Coil starts blackmailing them. Though he made the mistake of announcing this to his peers, he had the right idea, since the operation goes to south soon enough, and some of the smarter boardmembers, Shimura, Mido, and Namikawa jump ship later as well (even if it doesn't save them since Light was never planning on leaving any of them alive after becoming Kira again).
• Sacrificial Lamb: After not contributing much, he's killed early in the Yotsuba arc to cement to the other board members that they are Kira's followers whether they want to or not.
• Saying Too Much: Though he was smart enough to want out of the meetings when Coil started to threaten them, he wasn't smart enough to keep this information to himself, which got him killed.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Volume 13 states that he's the illegitimate son of the Yotsuba CEO, which is how he got his position.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Eraldo Coil starts to blackmail the group and reveals that he has Kida's name at the very least, Hatori attempts to wash his hands off the case and tells his co-workers that he wants out. He gets his wish... permanently.
• Smug Snake: The first day of the Kira meetings, he's clearly satisfied with Yotsuba's newly acquired wealth, even if said wealth is obtained via murder. However, once the group begins to face issues, Hatori has a breakdown and tries to wash his hands off the case, before quickly folding once Higuchi tells him that Kira will kill him for it.
• Stupid Evil: Has the lowest stats of all Yotsuba members, and is also one of the few characters to have a below average intelligence stat. To cement this, his only major scene shows him outright telling his board members (one of which he knows is Kira) that he wants to leave Yotsuba, which quickly gets him killed.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Dies much earlier than the rest of the Yotsuba 8; a careless outburst during one of their meetings causes his death via Higuchi.