History Manga / DeathNote

* EnhancedInterrogationTechniques: Used by L.

* EpisodeTitleCard
* EqualOpportunityEvil: Mello's mafia. It becomes FridgeBrilliance when you remember that Kira is purging criminals and it would make sense that the remaining criminals would band together for protection into a "super-gang."

** Light zig-zags the trope in a rather complicated fashion: He objected strenuously to Misa murdering an innocent police officer who was only doing his job, but [[{{Hypocrite}} he had no problem doing the same thing to a bunch of]] [[FBIAgent FBI agents]], [[spoiler: Though technically Raye Penbar was the one who killed them and himself, Light used the Death Note to force him to do so, but that at least gives Light the ability to say he wasn't the one writing the names]]. He also killed Lind L. Taylor early on for no other reason than the fact that [[DisproportionateRetribution Taylor had offended him]] (he was unaware of Taylor's convict status at the time).
* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: Misa Amane.
* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: Sparkle chips!
* EvilGloating: Light does this a lot. And well.[[spoiler: The last time costs him. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Very Hard.]]]]
* EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor: The jokes of the Yotsuba group are pretty bad.
* EvilIsHammy: A lot of Light's evil gloating is pretty over the top. Ditto for Hitoshi Demegawa.
* EvilIsNotAToy:
--> [[spoiler: '''Ryuk:''' [[CallBack I told you in the very beginning that]] [[HoistByHisOwnPetard I would be the one writing your name in my notebook when you die.]]]]
* EvilLaugh:
** Light has a few [[GigglingVillain evil chuckles]] scattered throughout the series, but there is a full-blown [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C65oaIHsdYM evil laugh]]in the final episode, (at which point he's pretty much [[VillainousBreakdown gone off the deep end]]) that is extremely psychotic and creepy.
** Ryuk is no slouch in the evil laugh department.
** Misa gets in a few giggles.
** Not to mention [[spoiler: Higuchi]]'s, which is enough to scare ''Shinigami''.

* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The secret headquarters that L has built that towers over everything around it.
* EvilVersusEvil: [[spoiler: Mello going after the Death Note under Light's control.]]

* AllThereInTheManual: In the manga, you have no idea what happens to [[spoiler:Misa Amane]] unless you read the supplementary book, "How To Read". This is averted in the movies and the anime, the latter of which does not show but heavily implies her fate by showing her standing at the edge of a high ledge.

* DubInducedPlotHole: In Episode 6, Light notes that the FBI agents all received a file of their names and faces before being killed. The English dub mistranslates this as Light saying ''he'' got the file himself and used it to kill the agents, despite this contradicting the previous episodes.

* FreakOut: [[spoiler: Light at L's grave]] in the Director's Cut. Also [[spoiler: Light and Mikami]] in the finale.

* InactionSequence: The anime; see Walls of Text below.

* ProductPlacement: The manga is crawling with it. L uses a Mac, Ryuk loves to play Mario Golf, Misa walks past a very conspicuous Tabasco clothing store and mentions in her fake diary that the [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 PS2]] will soon be released, Aizawa and Ide drink Pepsi, and an omake involves Ryuk asking Light for a UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance SP.

* CoolGuns: All of the firearms shown in the manga exist and yes, they are cool.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cit_death_note_-_OBEY.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[AGodAmI A boy and his god complex.]]]]

* RepressiveButEfficient: It's mentioned a couple times that Kira succeeds in dramatically reducing crime rates. An interesting example considering that it's only his method of killing that is supernatural; he relies on news reports to identify criminals, meaning that he kills mostly those that have already been apprehended by police. So it is ONLY the rampant use of the death penalty as a deterrent that achieves this effect, not any increase in efficiency of actually catching criminals. (Note that studies have shown that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent in RealLife, though in real life you also have things like due process and a legal defense, things that Kira could easily bypass when handing down his judgments. Not to mention, in the real world, the death penalty is reserved for only the worst of crimes, and isn't even legal in a lot of countries. In Kira's "new world", everyone knows that if they commit ''any'' crime, no matter how small, and get caught, ''they are absolutely going to die''. That'd stop all but the most dedicated or desperate criminals.)

** UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: The "utopia" that Light creates is actually free of war and crime, everything Light wanted to get rid of. However, this is only true because everyone is terrified of Kira, and one wrong move means being inevitably killed by him. That was the point, of course. Deconstructed even further given that Kira's death ultimately results in everything returning to normal relatively soon...which in turn means that all of the problems that Kira's killing spree stifled returned as well, showing that his methods only stopped the problem on the surface, while the complex and nuanced circumstances that allowed for those problems to exist were never addressed. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Once the threat was gone, what reason would the problems have from not returning?]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: If you know much about real-life serial killers, then a lot of Light's dumb actions (and the steps that L takes to figure out that he's Kira) make a lot more sense.
** Serial killers are people of various intelligence levels, but they all have one thing in common: a massively oversized ego. This fits Light to a tee, as his God complex and imminent narcissism are very clearly borne of his massive pride. Like other serial killers, his need to be public and showy also slowly leads people to figure out that he's a threat, [[spoiler: and eventually leads to his downfall when he seriously slips up.]]
** Serial killers are often undone by their own ComplexityAddiction, and a lot of the problems that Light faces are caused due to his need for showy, elaborate plans rather than laying low. Light wants his Kira persona to be a public figure, meaning that he needs to make an example of everyone who tries to get in his way, but this often causes him a lot of problems. For instance, he gets rid of Raye Pember in a public, demonstrative way that shows Kira is not to be messed with... and all it does is 1) prove to L that one of the people the F.B.I. were tailing was Kira, and that 2) Kira has a massive ego which can be exploited to drag information out of him without his awareness.
** L's method for determining if Light is Kira is via profiling. He doesn't look for elaborate evidence or find the one thing that can prove Light is Kira. Instead, he looks for telltale signs that Light matches Kira's psychological profile. Sure enough, Light ticks all the boxes for L's profile of Kira: he has access to police information (his father is a high-ranking police officer), he has a huge ego (he's a valedictorian and a notable sore loser), he's incredibly smart (he gets top score in the Japanese national tests), and he's very idealistic (which fits Kira's methodology of targeting criminals). All of this causes L to finger Light as Kira very early on in the story and he never, ever wavers in this belief, despite the rest of the taskforce being convinced otherwise by various tricks. The only reason Light survived is because he used the fake rules to exonerate himself to the rest of the taskforce, then made damn sure that if L took him down, he was dragging Misa down with him, which forced Rem to kill L to protect her.

* AccidentalTruth: In the manga, [[spoiler:when Kira's killings started, various tabloids put forward the Crackpot Theory that L was Kira, so it was harder for the SPK to seriously put this theory forward when it became true when Light killed L and took over as him.]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: L stays slim in spite of being a BigEater because he thinks so hard all the time that his brain burns up the excess energy. But this is pure fantasy. Deep mental concentration only burns about 5 extra calories an hour. Even if L's brilliant deductions burn energy at a rate that's a many times faster than normal, it still wouldn't come close to compensate for all of that candy.

* DiedInIgnorance: In his final moments, Soichiro Yagami gets a look at his son's face with the Shinigami eyes. Seeing Light's lifespan above his name allows him to die believing for certain that his son is not Kira, even though at that point, Light had only temporarily ceded ownership of the notebook to someone else.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'': In his final moments, Soichiro Yagami gets a look at his son's face with the Shinigami eyes. Seeing Light's lifespan above his name allows him to die believing for certain that his son is not Kira, even though at that point, Light had only temporarily ceded ownership of the notebook to someone else.

** UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: The "utopia" that Light creates is actually free of war and crime, everything Light wanted to get rid of. However, this is only true because everyone is terrified of Kira, and one wrong move means being inevitably killed by him. That was the point, of course.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: L stays slim in spite of being a BigEater because he thinks so hard all the time that his brain burns up the excess energy. But this is pure fantasy. Deep mental concentration only burns somewhere in the range of 5 extra calories an hour. Even if L's brilliant deductions burn energy at a rate that's a many times faster than normal, it still wouldn't come close to compensate for all of that candy.