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Death Note is the world’s most popular supernatural and thriller anime series. In this article we’ll be taking a look at all the character from Death Note.
This series debuted in 2007, but its popularity grew over time, and it is still the most trending choice for new viewers. People prefer this series more than any other thriller series and lavish praise and affection on all of its characters.
The reason for its massive fan base is its diverse cast of intelligent and distinct characters. The series’ main characters, Light Yagami and L, have played a significant role in establishing its enormous popularity. Here we discuss all of the major characters from the Death Note series who bring the series to its peak.
In this article we include all the characters from the Death Note series, such as police officers, detectives, agents, etc. Some of these characters play major roles in the series, while others play minor but important roles. We also included Shinigami in this list and provided you with useful information about them.
So without any further delay, let’s dive into the list of all Death Note characters.
Who Are The Main Characters In Death Note?
Light Yagami
Light Yagami is the main protagonist as well as the antagonist of the Death Note series.
He is a brilliant and talented high school student who believes that the world has become rotten as a result of the rise in criminal activity.
After obtaining the death note and learning how to use it, he decides to kill all criminals and free the world from crime and violence.
Light is also known by his killer’s name, Kira, among Japanese police and citizens.
He had a great sense of justice and only wanted to bring peace in the world. However, in order to conceal his identity, he begins to murder innocent police officers, which makes him an evil killer.
Light is also up against a famous detective, L, and is on the verge of being arrested by him.
But he wisely removed this situation, eventually creating a world in which no one committed a crime out of fear of Kira.
Light Yagami is the most likeable bad guy in the history of anime because his character was so well written.
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L – Lawliet
L is the most intelligent character in the Death Note series.
He is a gifted child who grows up in Wammy’s House, an orphanage under Watari’s guardianship.
He became the world’s greatest detective at a young age due to his superior intelligence and analytical mind.
Despite his unusual body posture, he is a tennis champion and a skilled martial artist.
When the Japanese task force is unable to handle the Kira case, they hire L to look into it. He quickly figured out Kira’s location and what he wanted to do in a single day.
L was the first to suspect Light was a Kira and was on the verge of discovering his true identity.
He forces Kira to relinquish control of Deathnote and eventually locates the second Kira (Amane Misa).
L is also the reason for the success of the Death Note series, and without him, the series would not be able to reach its peak.
Ryuk
Ryuk is a shinigami who is mostly seen alongside Light Yagami and his death note.
He feels very bored in the Shinigami Realm, and in order to amuse himself, he drops a Death Note in the human world.
After meeting with Light, he finds out some interesting things about him, which frees Ryuk from his boredom.
Ryuk is surprised to see Light’s ways of using the Death Note to kill criminals in interesting ways.
He also doesn’t know most of the facts about Death Note that Light knows about it. He keeps telling Light to trade with Shinigami eyes, which helps him to achieve his goal.
Ryuk is very addicted to apples and also loves to play video games.
He is invisible and inaudible to everyone except the Death Note users. He’s also one of the most well-known characters in the series because he has a unique personality and looks weird.
Misa Amane
Amane Misa is one of the main characters of the series who works as a model and actress.
When she eventually obtained the death note from Rem, she became the second Kira.
Her power is far greater than the original Kira because she made the trade for shinigami eyes.
These shinigami eyes allow her to see anyone’s name and their life span on top of their head.
Misa is a great supporter of Kira and wanted to thank him for killing the man who killed her parents.
After meeting with Kira, she falls in love with him and dedicates her life to helping him find L’s real name.
She is not as intelligent as Kira and is very careless, which is why she is being arrested by L and getting Light so close to being caught.
Later in the series, she is freed from her charges by the help of Light’s great plan and gets married to him.
After losing her memory of death, she assists Light and L in finding Kira. After the death of Kira, she commits suicide due to the depression of losing her love.
Who Are The Death Note Shinigami Characters?
Armonia Justin Beyondormason
Armonia is a skeleton like Shinigami who informs Sidoh about his stolen death note. He is the most intelligent Shinigami, and everyone comes to him for advice.
He also has a great knowledge of all the rules of the Death Note and Shinigami realms.
Armonia also tells Sidoh all the ways of interaction with humans, which he uses in his conversation with Mello.
He has great potential, but he doesn’t get much screen time either in the anime or manga.
Gelus
Gelus is a doll, like Shinigami, who only appears in the flashback of Rem.
He is a very unique shinigami who deeply cares for humans and wants to help them. Just after meeting Misa, he fell in love with her and killed a human to save her life.
Gelus killed Misa’s destined murderer in order to save her, which led him to break the rules of the death note.
As a result, his whole body is turned into an absolute mist and the only thing left is his Death Note.
After his death, Rem takes his death note and delivers it to Misa, who then tells everything about Gelus’s love for her.
Midora
Midora is a salamander like Shinigami, who only featured in the Death Note One-Shot Special.
She doesn’t get as much screen time as other Shinigami get, and she only made a brief appearance in this special.
Midora has a great affection for bananas and loves to eat them just like Ryuk loves apples.
When she came into the human world, she gave her own death note to C-Kira, who used it to kill elderly people.
When C-Kira kills himself, she takes his death note and gets back to the Shinigami Realm. Later that year, Ryuk transferred Midora’s death note to Minoru Tanaka, who became A-Kira.
Rem
Rem is a Shinigami who comes to the human world to deliver Gelus’s death note to Amane Misa.
After meeting with Misa, she decides to accompany her till her death. She is completely different from other shinigami and sees humans with respect and contempt.
Despite being Shinigami, Rem possesses a good heart and has a warm feeling towards Misa.
She gave her death note to help Light save the life of Misa from L. Afterwards, she again helps Light by using her death note to kill L and Watari. As a result, she sacrifices her own life in order to do it.
Ryuk
Ryuk is the apple loving Shinigami that gives the Death Note to Light Yagami. His aim is just to have a good time watching the humans use death note for their own ideals and purposes.
He is also mostly a neutral character who does not go out of his way to help Kira. Also, he only sees humans as a source of entertainment. So every once in a while he meddles with human affair.
Who Are The Detective Characters In Death Note?
Mello
Mello is the oldest successor of L, who was raised in the Wammy’s House orphanage alongside L and Near.
He is very intelligent and has the guts to do anything to prove his worthiness as the successor of L. His intelligence level is not as high as L and Near’s.
Kira is the most dedicated person in the entire series who desperately wanted to catch Kira except L.
He doesn’t like to work under rules and needs the help of the Mafia to catch Kira.
In order to find Kira, he did all types of criminal activities, such as kidnapping a police officer’s daughter, murdering innocent officers, and blackmailing the US president.
He plays the main role in catching Kira, and without him, it is impossible to find and catch Kira.
Near
Near is the youngest successor of L, who was also raised with him in the same Wammy’s House orphanage.
He loves to solve difficult puzzles and wants to become a great detective like L.
He is very smart and has a great ability to notice things, which makes it easy for him to solve the case.
Near might look like a child, but his sense of justice and plans are on a great level.
After the death of L, he reveals himself as the successor of L. He also became the head in-charge of the Kira case and dealt with it under the law and rules.
He is the one who caught Kira and revealed his true identity with the help of Mello.
L
L is the most loved Death Note Character of all time. He is simple the coolest, most amusing character there is.
He also has his personal quirks like eating loads of cake/sweet and sitting with his legs crouched.
Weird as he might be, he is also the most legendary detective to ever exist in the Death note universe. He was the first one to uncover the secrets of the Kira case.
List Of All Kira Characters In Death Note
C-Kira
C-Kira is the main protagonist of the Death Note one-shot special. He is the fifth Kira and is popularly called C-Kira or Cheap Kira by Near.
He has ownership of Midora’s Deathnote as well as the Shinigami eyes, which he gets by trading.
C-Kira first used his death note to kill his own grandfather, who was very sick.
After that, he proclaimed himself as the new Kira and started to kill elderly people who wished to die.
When he was ignored by Near and was called an abominable murderer by him, he stopped using Deathnote. In the end, he writes his own name on a death note and kills himself.
Higuchi Kyosuke
Higuchi Kyosuke is one of the eight members of the Yotsuba Group.
He is the head of technology development at the Yotsuba Corporation.
Later in the series, he is revealed as the third Kira, or Yotsuba Kira, who has Rem’s Death Note.
Higuchi used a death note to kill the members of his competing company in order to raise his own company’s worth.
He also regularly kills a number of criminals under the command of Rem. Just when he was about to be arrested after being trapped in L’s plan, he was killed by Light.
Teru Mikami
Light Yagami selects Teru Mikami as the criminal prosecutor who will be the fake Kira or X-Kira.
He got the ownership of Gelus’s Death Note and used it like the original Kira. He is a very strict individual who follows the same daily routine and doesn’t break it at any cost.
Mikami is devoted to his job as X Kira, and he regards Light Yagami as a God.
His great loyalty towards Kira is shown when he does the trade with Ryuk and gets Shinigami eyes.
His thoughts on crime and justice are similar to Kira’s. He also doesn’t hesitate to kill anyone who comes in the path of Kira’s justice.
Minoru Tanaka
Minoru Tanaka is the main protagonist of the sequel to the Death Note one-shot, The a-Kira Story, which was released in 2020.
He is the successor of Light Yagami and is widely popular as A-Kira. He possessed the ownership of Midora’s second death note and used it for his own purpose.
Minoru is not so good at academics, but his deductive and decisive skills are incredible. He is also praised for his incredible intelligence by Near, who isn’t able to find him.
Minoru doesn’t follow Light’s sense of justice; he does not kill anyone with his death note. Instead, he plots a murder free way to make the entire country rich. He succeeded in raising Japan’s economy to a great level and getting called “God” once again by the people.
Who Is The Most Intelligent Death Note Character?
L
L is hands down the smartest, most intelligent character in Death Note. Some people would argue that Light won the mind games between L and him, but L has achieved so much in his time.
He found out that Shinigami’s exist and the death note is a magical tool that allows people to kill others remotely.
L also easily found out the intention of Kira and even narrowed it down to a single suspect in just a matter of days.
Who Are The Investigation Team Characters In Death Note?
Kanzo Mogi
Kanzo Mogi is the most well-built and reserved officer in the Japanese Task Force.
He doesn’t speak much and does all the fieldwork for Kira’s case. He investigates the Kitamura family alone under the Order of L.
Mogi is also a great actor who brilliantly plays the role of Misa’s manager after Matsuda’s fake death.
He is the only one who supports Aizawa in revealing the identity of Light Yagami.
In order to help Aizawa, he keeps an eye on Misa’s activities and reports them to him. He also leaked all the information about Light and the task force to Near.
Shuichi Aizawa
Shuichi Aizawa is one of the respected and hardworking members of the NPA and Task Force.
He is very serious about his work as an officer, and he doesn’t like to work outside the law.
When L takes charge of the Kira case, he is the one who forces L to reveal his identity to them.
Aizawa does not like the way of L’s investigation into working outside the law. He also went against L when he put a surveillance camera on Shuichiro’s house.
When the NPA discontinues funding for the task force, he leaves the team and investigates the case on his own. Aizawa is one of the reasons for the end of the confinement of Light and Misa.
Touta Matsuda
Touta Matsuda is a new officer in the national police agency.
He is the youngest member of the Japanese Task Force and plays a major role in the Kira Case.
Even though he is disorganized and careless, he still wants to be a great cop like Soichiro.
Matsuda is not as good as other officers, but he proved his worth by staying in the force even knowing that Kira might kill him.
He also works as the manager of Amane Misa to get some information from Yotsuba Group.
He shows his great shooting skills by shooting Death Note out of the Mafia’s hand and, in the ending episode, by killing Light Yagami.
Watari
Watari is the foster parent and the handler of L. He works as the supplier for the Japanese Task Force in the Kira Case.
He shows his great accuracy and marksmanship by snipping Higuchi’s pistol out of his hand from a very long distance.
Watari is also the founder of Wammy’s House orphanage, where he made some of the most intelligent detectives, such as L, Near, and Mello.
He was the only one who had access to direct contact with L, and he handled all of his cases. He has great connections with the government authorities of many countries, which he used to solve different criminal cases.
Soichiro Yagami
Soichiro Yagami is the chief of the National Police agency and the father of Light Yagami.
He is a very kind, honest, and responsible police officer who always follows the rules and regulations to bring justice in society.
He always prioritises his work over his family, but he cares a lot for them.
Soichiro is also the head of the Japanese Task Force and handles the Kira case.
When everybody left their jobs for the police because of the fear of Kira, he decided to stay in force and capture Kira by himself.
He doesn’t believe L’s accusation of his son being Kira, and he desperately wants to prove him wrong.
Female Characters In Death Note
Halle Lidner
Halle Lidner is a member of Special Provision for Kira (SPK) who works with Near to catch Kira.
She is also a former CIA agent who joined SPK to take revenge on Yotsuba Kira for the murder of her close friend.
Halle works as Takada’s bodyguard under the orders of Near to uncover the link between Takada and Kira.
She not only helps Near but also assists Mello in catching Kira. She is the one who helps Mello to kidnap Takada and deliver all the information to Near.
Naomi Misora
Naomi Misora is the wife of Raye Penber, an FBI agent who comes to Japan to investigate the Kira case.
She is also a former FBI agent who left her job to live a peaceful life with her husband. However, after the death of her husband, she decides to investigate the Kira case by herself.
Naomi is an intelligent woman, and the first person who deduces the light is Kira. But unfortunately, she was also killed by Kira before she delivered her message to L.
Sachiko Yagami
Sachiko Yagami is the mother of Light and Sayu and the wife of Soichiro Yagami.
She cares a lot for her family and is stressed because of her husband’s work on the Kira case. She is very proud of her son’s intelligence and his good grades in school.
Sachiko doesn’t get much screen time, but the part she plays is very adorable. She also helped and encouraged her daughter to recover from her emotional trauma.
Sayu Yagami
Sayu is the daughter of Soichiro Yagami and the younger sister of Light Yagami.
She believes in her brother’s intelligence and knows that one day he will become a great detective.
She loves to watch TV and gets help from her brother with her math homework.
Sayu is one of the minor characters in the series who only gets attention during her kidnapping by the Mafia.
Her kidnapping is done under the command of Mello in order to get a death note from her father.
When she was saved by her father, she went into a traumatic state from which she couldn’t easily recover.
Kiyomi Takada
Light Yagami’s girlfriend in his college days was Kiyomi Takada.
She is a very attractive and calm individual who is an expert at delivering her thoughts on TV.
She is also one of the supporters of Kira and believes in his ideology.
Later in the series, she is chosen as a spokesperson for Kira by Light Yagami.
Takada brilliantly does her job as Kira’s spokeswoman by delivering his message in an affected manner.
After knowing that Light is the original Kira, she became happy and gave her all to help him.
She is the one who killed Mello and handled the situation, which helped Light be revealed as Kira.
That’s it for this post! These were all the prominent characters from Death Note.
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