A Justice Versus Justice

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Giang Ngo

Lauren Sakovich

English 100: Freshman Composition

23 February 2013

Justice versus Justice

What would you do if you had the power to kill anybody just by writing their names on a note? Would you use it for your selfish desires, or would you use it to create a world without crime? That is the plot of the famous manga series Death Note, which is also made into an anime series and three movies. Written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by the manga artist Takeshi Obata, the series focuses on the life of a high school student named Light Yagami after obtaining the Death note, a tool used by the Shinigami in order to kill people. Throughout the series, the readers experience the endless war between two different ideas of "justice", portrayed by two brilliant characters: Light and L – a super detective with an absolute determination to catch the mastermind behind the mass murder of criminals around the world. As two representatives from opposing sides, L and Light have many differences in history and appearances, but they also have many more similarities in various ways.

First, the backgrounds of Light and L are very different. Light is a genius high school student who later becomes a university student. As a son of a police chief, he inherits the sense of justice as well as the skills in investigation from his father. Like any ordinary kids, Light grows up in a loving family with his parents and his younger sister. He uses the Death note as a means to kill criminals in order to purify the world he is living in under the name of "Kira", which is "killer" in Japanese pronunciation. Contrasting to Light’s detailed life, little is known about L except that he is an orphan who is in care of an orphanage for bright children like he is. Even his full name, L Lawliet, is not mentioned until the last volume of the series. L becomes a detective at an unrevealed age and soon is referred to as the world’s greatest detective, as well as the second and the third, since he has many aliases so as to hide his real identity. Unlike the others, he never appears in public and only solves cases through his representative, Watari. The only time he ever steps onto the stage to directly challenge the criminal is in the Kira case against Light, which eventually leads to L’s death. Regarding the history of both characters, the differences in background make L and Light very contrasting in further ways.

Second, L and Light are most different when it comes to physical appearances and mannerism. Light gives readers a sense of a typical honor student. He is depicted as a handsome young man with brown hair and brown eyes, who is 5’8’’ tall and weighs 119 pounds (13: 8). He always dresses very nicely in suits or in his uniform, and is rarely seen otherwise. Because of his appearance, most people are deceived by his innocent and serious look, and usually fall into his traps to become pawns in order to defeat L. In contrast, L is seen as a weird person. He is 5’8’’ in height like Light but is only 110 pounds in weight (13: 10). He often has messed up hair and dark shadows under his wide-opened eyes due to lack of sleep. His style of dressing is also considered weird to many people, because he always wears a white long-sleeved T-shirt together with blue jeans and only wears a pair of worn-out sneakers without socks. Together with contrasting appearance, their manners are worlds apart as well. For instance, Light has no signature mannerism throughout the series as he always tries to be a perfect model to other people. He always acts with care and is very delicate in ways of speaking and dealing with people, especially ladies. In fact, his manners are always so perfect that he makes readers shiver when thinking about the true motives behind his smiling face and gentle actions. On the contrary, L is famous for his bizarre ways of mannerisms. He always crouches in his seat as he explains that if he does not sit in this position, his reasoning capacity will drop by 40% (3: 94), and he never sits otherwise even in serious time like in examination time (3: 44). Moreover, he always holds and handles his items only with his thumb and his forefinger, as if he doubts every single object around him. Furthermore, the most apparent trait of his which sets him apart from other characters is his love for sweet foods. He is always seen holding candies or desserts, playing with them or "torturing" them before eating. In addition, he has many other weird manners which can be considered as impolite such as chewing with open mouth, biting his nails or giving offensive comments about people. Because of L’s strange behaviors, nobody, including Light, can tell what he is thinking. Actually, this can be regarded as one of their similarities: the ability to hide what is in their minds.

Despite their differences, L and Light both share a strong sense of justice, yet each person has his own way to show the idea of righteous deeds. L and Light both agree that criminals should be punished in order to make this world a better place, as they states that, "I am righteous!" (1: 80) However, their specific ideals of justice are different. Light wants to remove all of the rotten people from this world, and, consequently, to create a world with only good people based on his judgments, where he will become a God. On the other hand, L claims that killing is a crime, regardless of reasons. L disagrees with Kira’s way of purifying this world and said, "What you are doing is evil."(1: 71-72) Therefore, L swears to catch the one behind the serial death of criminals all over the world, while Light determines to eliminate L from his path of becoming a God. Furthermore, L and Light showed different signs of their motivation to kill each other. While L boldly steps out of the safety of his own and risks his life to catch Kira, Light struggles to take advantage of all of his surrounding people including his family to escape from L’s suspicion.

Furthermore, L and Light are both very "strong" characters in terms of intelligence and talents. When it comes to intelligence, L and Light are close rivals. L is said to have unusual ability of reasoning and knowledge, as he can figure out much about Kira just by looking at the details of the deaths. Similarly, Light is also a genius who can plan out many perfect scenarios so as to eliminate obstacles in his ways such as the FBI agents or L himself. The most noted proof for their equal intelligence is that both of them get the top score in the entrance exam of To-Oh University, a famous school in the series. It is mentioned in Death Note 13: How to read that L’s intelligence score is 8 (10) while Light’s is at 9 (8). However, Tsugumi Ohba states in the interview in the same book that L is the smartest character in the book, "Because the plot requires it." (13: 191). In addition to intelligence, L and Light are also very strong physically. This trait is mentioned many times in the series. The first time is when they have a tennis match which results in Light’s close victory (3: 84), and the second and third time are when they get into fights against each other when being chained in both volume 5 and 6 of the series. In the manga, their creativity is also mentioned, although L is considered more artistic than Light. For example, Light personally renovates his desk into a safety box for his Death note (1: 124-125), or turning his watch and his wallet into places where he can hide the papers ripped from the note; while L often stacks his food on top of each other in an artistic way while reasoning, or bites his nail into three-dimensional art (13: 217).

Additionally, L and Light both have enormous resources as their weapons. In particular, L has substantial human resources on his side, as he can easily move the police and FBI to his will. Another effective weapon of L’s against Light is his own identity, as he never reveals his true name in any condition and always uses different aliases. However, L’s most powerful weapons are only revealed much later in the series: the two geniuses Near and Mello, who resemble L in both manners and intelligence and are L’s successors. In opposition, Light does not have as much resources as L does. Light can only access his father’s information to watch the movement of the police, but it does not provide him further advantages when his father joins L’s forces and stops storing data in his computer. Still, Light has his ultimate weapon: the supernatural power of the Death note. With the Death note in his possession, he has the power to kill people just by knowing their names and faces. In addition, Light also has Misa Amane’s eyes, with which she can see the name and life span of other people, and his successor Teru Mikami, who is also a genius like Light. Last but certainly not least, Light is supported by the information provided by the Shinigami, as he uses them to proceed his plans. With both sides possessing large resources, the fight between L and Light is always intense and unpredictable.

Lastly, L and Light’s death is similar yet different in many ways. They are both killed by Shinigami, and both die from a heart attack 40 seconds after getting their names written in the note. In his last moment, L looks at Light’s victorious face as he realizes that he is not wrong and Light is the Kira he has been looking for all along, but admits his defeat after the long struggle (7: 120). Light’s death is not so easy, however. Six years after L’s death, Light is cornered by one of L’s successors, Nate River. He begs his Shinigami to kill Nate and all his enemies, but instead the Shinigami writes Light’s name into the Death Note while claiming that they both kill some boredom together (12: 175). Because of their complicated relationship, their deaths are closely related. In fact, in episode 37 of the animated series, an illusion of L is seen standing in front of Light as he slowly closes his eyes, reminding the audiences of the scene where Light is smiling over L’s death in episode 25.

The contradiction and resemblance portrayed in the two characters make readers think about the true meaning of justice and righteous deeds. It is actually very hard to choose between the two, because they are both right and wrong in one way or another. However, no matter what side the readers may choose, they still have to be sorry for the two geniuses who have to compete against each other in a battle of life and death. Personally, I think that it would be much better if fate did not force them to confront each other as enemies, as they show many particular hints of a deep friendship above all the lies and doubts toward each other.