Highlights
- Light Yagami's journey from ordinary high school student to one of the world's most wanted criminals is a thrilling roller coaster ride filled with power, deception, and obsession.
- Light's clever schemes and ability to outsmart the brilliant detective L keep viewers on the edge of their seats, questioning who will come out victorious in their game of cat and mouse.
- Near, the successor to L, poses a new challenge to Light's reign as Kira and ultimately exposes his true identity. Light's overconfidence and pride lead to his downfall, resulting in a satisfying and fitting end to the series.
The gripping story of Death Note has become a cult classic in the world of anime and manga and has taken the world by storm since its release, making it one of the most talked about series around. The story follows the main character of the series, Light Yagami, a high school student who comes across the Death Note and becomes intoxicated with the power to dictate life and death and takes up a secret alias known as Kira.
Light is then pursued by the world's greatest detective, L, who seeks to bring Light to justice. Their game of cat of mouse ensues as L begins to find ways to prove that Light is Kira while Light does his best to fool the authorities around him and evade L's suspicions. Light's journey throughout Death Note was an arduous one, filled with devious schemes, countless deaths, and one of the most satisfying demises in anime.
The Rise
Light's journey as a seemingly normal high school student to one of the most wanted criminals in the world takes the viewers on a roller coaster of a journey as Light stumbles across the notebook, the notebook which gives him the power to kill anyone whose name he writes in it. His initial thought is to rid the world free of criminals and begins to use it to kill criminals he sees on the news. While these actions seem in line with his ideals, he slowly begins to realize his power over human life, calling himself a God. This leads to him becoming power-hungry and obsessed with becoming a God-like figure who wants to reshape the world according to his vision.
Even though he was challenged by one of the smartest detectives in the world, Light believed he could outsmart him by creating scenarios which would put him out of the pool of the potential Kira suspects list and drive suspicion away from him. This is seen when Light realizes his room has been tampered with and set up with hidden cameras to expose his identity. To throw L off his tail, he hid a tiny TV in his potato chips while pretending to study, but in actuality, was writing down the names of the criminals he saw on the news, leading L to doubt if Light really is Kira.
Another moment is when he was able to infiltrate the police task force headquarters by posing as an ally to L. This gave him the advantage of finding out what L and the police knew about Kira, making him one step ahead of L the whole time. He also used Misa Amane as a distraction as the second Kira, to try and confuse L even further. When L was about to expose Misa Amane as Kira, Rem killed him by writing his name in the Death Note. L dies of a heart attack and falls to the ground as Light catches him. While in Light's arms, realization sets in as Light's shocked expression slowly turns into a menacing smile as he looks down at L, with a face of victory as life slowly fades away from L's eyes. This was the downfall of L and the rise of Light. Now, with L no longer around to monitor his movements, Light was free to reign as Kira without a doubt in anyone's mind, but that was before Near came along 5 years later.
The Downfall
During his reign as Kira, Light believed he was unstoppable and that there was no one that could stop him doing his deeds and cleansing the world of criminals. He is still indifferent to the value of human life, seeing people as pawns in his grand scheme of things. He even goes as far as to deceive family and friends around him and manipulate those who are of use to him. His God complex clouded his vision of thinking clearly, and he became addicted to the power that was given to him. But this all changed when Near showed up, which gave him another challenge to look forward to.
The successor to L, also known as Near, inherits the job of pursing Kira, with logical and problem-solving skills similar to L. The game of cat and mouse continues. Now with Near getting closer to exposing Light as Kira, he develops a plan to prove this. Even while on the way to confront Near at the warehouse, Light still believed he had the upper hand. One of the mistakes that Light made was trusting Teru Mikami (an avid Kira follower who had been carrying out executions posing as Kira) with the Death Note. Mikami writes the names of the agents in the task force, unaware that Near had replaced the real Death Note with a fake one. Light states that he has 'won', exposing himself as Kira, Mikami also addresses Light as God, giving away Light's true identity as Kira.
Overconfidence and pride took the best of him as Light falls prey to Near's plan, denying Near's accusations. Light attempts to kill Near by extracting the hidden piece of paper torn from a Death Note to write Near's name, but is shot. Shocked at being beaten in his own game, Light flees the scene and is shown bleeding out as Ryuk writes Light's name in the Death Note which results in Light dying the same way he killed most of the criminals long ago, thus leading to his downfall and the end of the series.
Death Note is available to stream on Netflix and Prime Video.