Light Yagami

“Holy copyright infringement Batman!”

~ Robin on imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.

Light doing his impression of Adolf Hitler. That or regretting that he killed L after missing those foot massages.

Evil male Batgirl/Lydia from Beetlejuice Light Yagami, also known as Kira, is the main charactee of anime/manga series Death Note. He is your typical everyday Japanese high school student; with smashingly good looks, nice hair, suave style, and intelligence that surpasses all those around him (complete with a tacky dark internet alter ego). You could mistake him for Yami Bakura from the Yu-Gi-Oh series, for his use of mundane objects for magical murder. Light's favorite method of killing is to write the person's name and that person dies of a heart attack; he evidently didn't know what obvious patterns were, having never worn any.

Background

With this 90's Batman/Tim Burton movie character substitution cipher, the mystery of Death Note's character design is revealed.

Light studied for college entrance exams while living with his unimportant mom and sister and his dad Commissioner Gordon Soichiro Yagami. Unlike a normal person his age, he didn't play any video games or watch anime, all he ever seemed to do was study, read about crimes and watch the news. Light had the book smarts of Batgirl, the hatred of humanity and seductive charm of Poison Ivy and the icy fortitude/cold lack of feeling of Mr. Freeze. His relationship with L, between being handcuffed to him for weeks, being spied on with 40 cameras while pretending to look at porn in his bedroom, and giving L wet soapy foot rubs is as gay as George Clooney's plastic abs and bat nipples in Batman and Robin. Thus, Light represents everything that ultimately killed the Batman movies of the 90's.

Naturally, as his only interests were in macabre police work and not in violent entertainment, he was quite bored with normal everyday life, particularly somewhere with such a low crime rate as Japan, until one day he found a notebook from another dimension that kills anyone whose name is written in it, and he decided to take the role of God and rid the world of criminals, curiously forgetting that by killing said criminals he becomes a criminal himself as the death god The Joker Ryuk, tells him when he first takes on Light as his new pet human. Deciding to use the notebook to rid the world of evil, he killed everyone he knew had committed crimes form around the world. Light thinks that he is Justice League , while he is threatening people with the internet, making him a precursor to the modern social justice warrior internet dark avenger.

Eventually Light would move on from just punishing violent crime to killing "lazy people who don't use their full potential", which isn't really something they publicize in the news, so it was probably just a euphemism for murdering a bunch of homeless people, prostitutes and drug addicts. Killing all of the criminals in America meant a disproportionate amount of non violent inmates who weren't white and a whole lot of political dissidents in countries without freedom of speech. However, the rest of the world he conquers with terrorism and extra judicial vigilante killings is all stuff briefly glossed over in police briefings and largely dealt with off screen anyways, so it isn't all that important, Death Note is a really a series about Gotham City Japan.

Overview

You are weak brother, you don't have enough hate...

Light's boring life was changed by the Death Note; he wrote down a few names, met his future rival, that awesome candy loving coke head looking genius L, teamed up to locate the second Kira; mindless buffoon, Harley Quinn Misa Amane, teamed up with Misa and endured her typical fan-girlish crush, endured the fear that L was suspicious of her and him all along, gave up ownership of the Death Note to avoid suspicion and release Misa from L's custody, teamed up with the weirdo detective and engaged in many wonderful adventures which included sparring sessions, heart-felt conversations, foot-massages, and many moments with a distinct yaoi BFF subtext.

After Light regained his memories and possession of the Death Note he forced Misa's Shinigami, Rem, to kill Michael Keaton Batman L and his butler-friend Alfred Watari; Light had always been more of a Superman fan anyways. Following suit, both were killed off after shotgunning Bleach without breaks. After L died of diabetes, almost everyone dropped the series apart from the yaoi fangirls and conservative politicians. With the dreaded letter L and Watari out of his way, Light continued his quest to becoming God; however he encountered new threats to his plan to become God in the form of two more letters of the alphabet, N and M; had they failed there still would have been an alphabet soup of eccentric young adult detectives left, apparently burning down orphanages was just too much of an evil cliche for Light.

N was Near; the son of Albert Einstein and M was Mello, the son of Willy Wonka. Light had the trust of all those around him, Misa and Takada that worshiped the ground he walked on, a stalker and worshiper with a pen that was "truly mightier than the sword", Teru Mikami, and more religious followers than a fusion between the Dalai Lama and The Pope preforming a bris. Little did Light know that by killing L, he would drive half of the audience away from the show.

Epic conclusion

Despite all that, Light eventually was revealed to be Kira thanks to the combined efforts of Near and his generic investigation squad. After having to endure a giant lecture on how he was captured, Light finally went bat shit insane and laughed out loud like a maniacal psychopath just to incriminate himself for fun.

Had Light understood the law as well as Mikami would have just turned himself in to L or Near 40 seconds before all the presidents and prime ministers of the world died of heart attacks after signing letters pardoning Light of the millions of people he killed, than he would have gotten off scot-free; Light just didn't want to quit deciding who lived and died as it was a fun hobby and looked good on a resume.

Relationships

Though they weren't best friends forever, L and Light wore their matching friendship bracelets for about a month.

L: Although Light hated Michael Keaton Batman's L's guts, he also really respected L and admired his great intelligence and lack of friends. Light said that L's best quality was his "outstanding foot massages". Light regrets having not gotten a Taiwanese full-body massage from L before he died, as it would have been a much happier ending than drawing the series out another season. They even realized this is when the series should have ended when they did the live action movie, and that L was too paranoid, crooked and smart a Private Eye to have died that easily.

Ryuk: The Joker/Beetlejuice Like all Shinigami Ryuk's tailor is Catwoman as be dresses exclusively in stitched up leather. He is the invisible imaginary friend all parents are afraid of their child getting he and Light both just the other as their cat, pretty much no different than Doremon but with death instead of time travel.

Misa: Harley Quinn Misa Amane never really meant much to Light. Despite the fact she was a super model who worshiped him, Light was always more interested in using her to find out the names and faces of his enemies. Misa is the reason why L died, but L would forgive anyway because he was Jesus Christ. Light didn't really want a partner, and often thought of just killing her, as she was basically a magical girl psycho stalker brat who acted half her age, that he got stuck baby sitting due to blackmail, rather than someone he actually respected or wanted to have a real relationship with.

Rem:Catwoman Like Ryuk, she also looks like a Universal Monster and wears the same Tim Burton inspired Hot Topic clothes as Ryuk but actually cares for her pet human, unlike him.

Takada: Evil Vicki Vale Takada never really meant much to Light neither; although unlike Misa she could write an essay about how awesome he was. Light did away with her as soon as she was of no further use when he realized he didn't really need to hide that he was gay anymore.

His Family: Boring, besides his high-pitched sister who can't do quadratic equations. They're also probably all deaf, as they never seem to notice or hear Light shouting "Damn you L!" or "I will be the god of this new world!" or "I will take this potato chip and crush L with it!" or "Mwahahahahaha!" etc in his room. Either his room was well sound proofed or his family really loves listening to heavy metal all day.

Near: Light hated Val Kilmer Batman's/George Clooney Batman's Near's guts as well. Although most believe that this was because Near was the one to eventually uncover him as Kira, the true reason was because Light found him to be "not entertaining enough."; and just some creepy gamer like the The Riddler, that and he didn't ever massage his feet like L. People hate him because L should have won against Light, with robots or something, not this albino, autistic adolescent.

Mello and Matt: Although Light never actually met either of them, Light knew they threatened his position on the Death Note popularity polls. Even if such a long, hard poll did exist, Light would have never been more popular than either of them because his boyfriend L was already dead. Chris O'Donnell Robin Mello also adored chocolate a bit too much and tried to pimp Light's sister to the mafia at one point Tommy Lee Jones Two-Face before half his face melted like chocolate]]. Other than L was to Watari, Matt was the closest anyone really had to having a real protege, but he didn't really do much of anything and was more like Mello's younger butler or his secretary, he wasn't cool enough to have his own motorcycle like him.

Yotsuba Group: A cartel of eight evil Japanese businessmen Max Shrek formed by a red herring Kira whom Light gave the Death Note to in order to throw L off his trail. Proof that Light really had no problem with big business and that the series was running low on mystery at that point and had to introduce a bunch of new characters to die off rapidly in an Agatha Christie side story just to keep things interesting.

Sidoh:The Penguin A mummy bird Shinigami from the Universal Monsters dimension who had his Death Note stolen by Ryuk.

Mikami: Billy Dee Williams Two-Face Some crazy lawyer from the Kira fan club who Light pawns off the Death Note onto as another red herring Kira, he yells out delete when he kills people, like he's a Cyberman or something. Nothing much is really known about his character other than he goes to the gym and likes typing apparently.

Matsuda: Light received a couple of love letters from this guy. They were bullets, straight from his gun to his kneecaps. Watching Light die like a wuss who can dish it out in droves but can't take a drop of his own medicine was the best moment of the entire series.

See Also

• L Lawliet
• Mello
• License Note
• Potato chip
• Homosexuality
• Left-handed People: Always evil.
• Tim Burton: Get me my lawyers!
• Joel Schumacher: I love it!