Light Yagami (Kira)

Who is Light Yagami?

Light is the main character of Death Note and the first Kira. When "kira death note" turns up in a search, it's almost always Light people are looking for. The name comes from a Japanese rendering of the English word "killer", and it's given to him by the public and the internet, not chosen by him. He embraces it anyway.

At the start he's 17 and studying for university entrance exams, living at home with his father Soichiro, his mother Sachiko and his younger sister Sayu. The notebook he finds belongs to Ryuk, a bored Shinigami who dropped it on purpose. Light doesn't need Ryuk's help to use it, and Ryuk isn't offering any. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game with L, the world's greatest detective, then a long second act in which Light seems to have won and must face L's successors.

• Top-scoring student in the country, later a To-Oh University student and police officer.
• Kills thousands of criminals over the course of the series.
• Works on the Task Force hunting Kira for most of the story, often as its smartest member.
• Takes over L's identity after L's death.
• Ends the series exposed by Near and his own allies.

Personality

Light's defining traits are intelligence, self-control and pride. He plans several moves ahead, reads people well and almost never loses his temper in public. In private, with only Ryuk watching, he gloats, rants and laughs at his own cleverness. The gap between the two Lights is the core of his character.

His sense of justice is real at the start. He's genuinely disgusted by crime and by a world that seems to let violent people go free, and his first killings are of men who have hurt others. But the story shows that idealism shrinking quickly. He kills an FBI agent within weeks because the man is investigating him. He kills a woman because she's too close to the truth. By the time he's using his own father and his girlfriend as pieces in a plan, his justice and his self-preservation have become the same thing in his head.

The deepest flaw is the need to be right. Light can't stand being suspected, and he can't stand losing. L understands this immediately and uses it, and so does Near. The trap that finally catches him only works because Light has to see his plan succeed in person. Our villain types guide places him among the "righteous" villains, whose belief in their own cause is what destroys them.

The Light without the notebook

For a stretch in the middle of the series, Light gives up the notebook and loses every memory of being Kira. This version of Light is still proud and clever, but he's honest, he wants to catch Kira and he's horrified at the idea that he might be the killer. It's the story's way of showing that the notebook didn't just give Light power. It changed who he was. When he touches the notebook again, the memories and the other Light come straight back.

How Kira works: Light's methods

Light's power comes from the Death Note, which kills anyone whose name is written in it as long as the writer pictures their face. Everything clever he does is about using that power without being traced.

Testing the rules

Light tests the notebook carefully. He learns that he can control the time and manner of a death, that victims can be made to do certain things before they die, and that the notebook can't make them do things that are physically impossible for them. He uses those tests to lure and kill an FBI agent by controlling a criminal before death.

Hiding in plain sight

When L has his room covered in cameras, Light keeps writing names using a tiny television hidden in a bag of crisps and torn pages hidden in his desk, behind a trap that would set fire to the pages if anyone else opened the drawer. He also hides a scrap of the notebook in his wristwatch, ready for emergencies.

Using other people

Light's favourite tool isn't the notebook. It's other people. He uses Misa's Shinigami eyes to learn names, Rem's love for Misa to kill L, his father's trust to keep himself in the investigation, Takada as a spokesperson and Mikami as a proxy. Each one is chosen because they'll act on his behalf while believing they're acting on their own.

The long plan

His most famous move is a plan that relies on forgetting. He gives up ownership of his notebook, losing all memory of it, so that he can pass L's surveillance as an innocent man. He arranges in advance for the notebook to reach someone who'll keep killing, and for it to come back to him at a specific moment. Two invented rules written into the notebook, which seem to clear him and Misa, complete the trick. It works, and it's what makes Light more than a lucky killer.

What he refuses

Light never makes the eye deal, which would show him people's names at a glance at the cost of half his remaining life. He wants to rule the world he's building for as long as possible, and others are willing to pay that price for him.

Story arc

Becoming Kira

Light finds the notebook, tests it on a man holding a nursery school hostage, then on a biker harassing a woman. Ryuk arrives a few days later and finds hundreds of names already written. Criminals start dying of heart attacks worldwide, and the public names the killer Kira. L's televised challenge, which Light answers by killing the decoy on air, tells L that Kira is in the Kanto region. From that point Light is being hunted.

Raye Penber and Naomi Misora

When FBI agents are sent to watch the families of police officers, Light uses a staged bus hijacking to learn the name of the agent following him, Raye Penber, and then kills every agent in Japan. Penber's fiancée Naomi Misora, a former FBI agent herself, works out a key part of the truth, and Light has to talk his way into learning her name before she reaches the police. It's the first time the story shows him killing someone purely to protect himself.

L, Misa and the confinement

L enrols at Light's university and reveals himself to him. The Second Kira, Misa Amane, finds Light and offers herself to him; Light takes her as an asset and a cover girlfriend. When L closes in on Misa, Light volunteers for confinement, gives up his notebook and becomes, for a while, a different person.

The Yotsuba arc and L's death

Chained to L, memory-free Light helps hunt the Third Kira, Higuchi. The moment Higuchi is captured, Light touches the notebook, gets his memories back and kills Higuchi with the scrap hidden in his watch. Using the fake rules and Rem's love for Misa, he ensures that L dies. As L falls, Light catches him and smiles.

The second L

Several years pass. Light becomes a police officer, takes on L's identity to run the Task Force, and lets Kira's influence spread until much of the world openly supports him. Then Near and Mello appear. Mello kidnaps Sayu to trade for the notebook, and Light's father dies after the raid that follows. Light handles Mello by reaching through other people, Mikami and Takada, and starts to believe he's untouchable.

The Yellow Box warehouse

Near invites Light to a meeting at a warehouse where Mikami is meant to write the names of everyone present except Light. But Near has swapped Mikami's notebook, so nobody dies, and the notebook shows every name but Light's. Light is exposed in front of the Task Force. He tries to write a name with the scrap in his watch, Matsuda shoots him, and he flees.

In the manga, Light begs Ryuk to write the names, and Ryuk writes Light's instead, keeping the promise he made at the start. Light dies in the warehouse, in front of Near and the Task Force. In the anime, he gets further, escapes the building and dies alone on an outdoor staircase after a vision of L. It's one of the most discussed character deaths in anime, and a well-known example of how the manga and anime can tell the same ending differently.

Relationships

Is Light a hero or a villain?

Death Note never tells you what to think about Kira, but it shows you a lot. Crime falls in Light's world, and many characters, including some on the Task Force, wonder aloud whether Kira is doing good. At the same time, Light kills people who are simply investigating him, puts his own family in danger and treats every person close to him as a tool. By the end he's begging for his life on the floor of a warehouse.

That's why Light shows up in discussions of both villains and anti-heroes. He has the anti-hero's tempting justification and none of the limits. Our anti-hero guide looks at where that line falls, and he's a common example in conversations about protagonists who turn into villains over the course of a story.

Trivia

• The name. His given name is written with the kanji for "moon" but read as "Light" (Raito), an unusual reading that fans often point out.
• Exam results. Light and L both score full marks on the To-Oh University entrance exam and give the freshman address together.
• The crisps. The scene where Light writes names while eating crisps under surveillance is one of the series' best-known moments and a long-running meme.
• The god of the new world. Early on, Light tells Ryuk his goal outright: "I will become the god of the new world." The line sums up his arc better than anything else he says.
• Voice. Mamoru Miyano, Light's Japanese voice, later voiced Chrollo Lucilfer in Hunter x Hunter.
• Remakes. Light has been played in live action by Tatsuya Fujiwara in Japan and reimagined in the 2017 Netflix film. The anime and manga remain the definitive versions.

Why Light matters

Light is one of the clearest studies in anime of what power does to a person who already thinks he's right. The series makes you complicit: you follow his plans, enjoy his cleverness and want to see if he gets away with it, then watch him do something you can't defend. That shift is the point.

He's also the reason Death Note is so often a first anime. Its premise fits in a sentence, its lead is easy to argue about, and its rivalry with L gives every episode a clear question. Fans still debate whether Light could have won, and whether he should have. For more on how characters change across a story, see our guide to redemption arcs, where Light is the notable exception.