Light Yagami & L

I have decided to start a new category on the blog called "Character of the Week", a blog post that will come up every week (if I can keep up and don't forget to...) about one or two anime/manga characters, their information and backgrounds, plus maybe my opinions about certain things. I think it is a good idea, not only for me to discover characters, but for you readers to know more and what I feel. For the first two Characters of the Week, it is Light Yagami and L from the famous Death Note!

Now, the thing about Death Note is how good it generally is written. Good plot, good twists, good characters. I will talk about how they were in the Anime because I have not read the manga. The main characters, Light Yagami and L, are both very mysterious people. They are the opposite yet the same.

Yagami Light is a 17-18 year old teenager, admired by all because of his genius, who discovers the worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) murder weapon in history, the Death Note. Even after discovering such a dangerous book that can kill people in 40 secs, he takes it seriously and resonates calmly with the supernatural Shinigami, the original owner of it. Yagami always remains his posture and is not like the usual teen; he is extremely intelligent, very rarely freaks out (though there are moments where he puts on rather.. crazy faces) and is not interested at all in girls & dating. He thinks ahead of everybody else and how the future shall look like. Then we have L, who is, like I said, opposite yet the same to Yagami. Very little is known about L, not much is revealed in the anime nor manga. He is very secretive of himself for safety measures, as he is the best detective ever in the series. He is a 24-25 year old tall and slim man, and despite being just as intelligent as Yagami, he has his many quirks which makes people question his abilities, such as sitting in a crouched position (he says his reasoning ability would otherwise drop by 40%), being offensive or rude in public without caring, eating only sweets as a result from being an insomniac and so on.

I absolutely love both of these characters equally, to be honest. I could not choose one over the other. They were well drawn and their personalities well written. How they react to things, how they talk and think, how they interact with each other... I loved it all. Plus, I have to applaud on their incredible intelligence and reasoning, it is amazing how smart both of them are. I think that was what drew me into the series even more. They are so wise yet have their weird moments or mistakes, just like any human being.

The whole series is simply mysterious; even the author has not revealed who he/she is, but goes by the name Tsugumi Ohba. Ohba´s real identity is a closely guarded secret, and the real name, gender, and date of birth of the author are undisclosed. Ohba is commonly given male pronouns for English translations, but their gender has not been verified. Death Note is by far the writer´s most successful series and has many quotes and opinions around it, for example, he said "I decided from the beginning that right and wrong wouldn´t be a part of Death Note.", that is why I said the deadly Death Note could be seen as the best or worst murder weapon, because you, the reader, can see it however you like, there are no boundaries. Love whoever you want, hate whoever you want. But one thing is neccessary: Enjoy Death Note!