Death Note
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This Death Note quiz has 99 free questions with answers and covers the whole franchise: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata's 108-chapter manga, the 37-episode Madhouse anime, the Japanese live-action films with Tatsuya Fujiwara and Kenichi Matsuyama, and the Netflix version that moved the story to Seattle. It asks about Light Yagami's rise as Kira, L's aliases and habits, Ryuk's apples, Misa's two deals for the shinigami eyes, and the successors Near and Mello, right through to the Yellow Box Warehouse and who finally writes Light's name. About a third of the questions are answerable by anyone who has watched the anime once; the rest are for people who know Watari's real name, which chapter the pilot was, and what Mikami mutters while he writes. Spoilers, obviously, all the way through. Every answer has been checked against a cited source, and the citation appears under each explanation.
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Q 01Which pseudonymous author wrote the Death Note manga?
Tsugumi Ohba
Tsugumi Ohba is a pen name whose owner has never been revealed; a long-running fan theory, never confirmed, says it hides the gag-manga artist Hiroshi Gamo.
Q 02In which magazine was Death Note serialised from December 2003 to May 2006?
Weekly Shōnen Jump
Weekly Shōnen Jump is the home of fight manga such as Naruto and Bleach; Death Note's writer doubted they could pull one off there, so pitched a suspense story built on a battle of wits instead.
Q 03The name 'Kira', given to Light Yagami's hidden persona, is the Japanese rendering of which English word?
Killer
Killer, said the Japanese way, becomes Kira; the public coins the name once criminals around the world start dying of heart attacks.
Q 04Which humans can see and hear the shinigami Ryuk?
People who have touched the notebook
People who have touched the notebook are the only humans who can see Ryuk; the live-action films drew him in CGI, their director said, to make that selective presence believable.
Q 05What is the shinigami Ryuk addicted to in the human world?
Apples
Apples work on a shinigami the way cigarettes and alcohol do on humans, Ryuk says; go too long without them and he twists himself up like a pretzel and does handstands.
Q 06Which studio animated the Death Note anime?
Madhouse
Madhouse later re-cut the series into two feature-length 'Relight' TV specials, adding new scenes and reworking parts of the plot rather than simply replaying it.
Q 07Which US programming block first aired the Death Note anime?
Adult Swim
Adult Swim got the premiere because Canada's YTV, which had been due to air the series first, pulled it from the schedule days before its start date.
Q 08Which band performs 'The World', the first opening theme of the Death Note anime?
Nightmare
Nightmare supplied both the opening and the closing theme, 'Alumina', for the first 19 episodes, before Maximum the Hormone took over both slots with 'What's Up, People?!' and 'Zetsubou Billy'.
Q 09What is the real name of the detective L in Death Note?
L Lawliet
L Lawliet is never given in the manga itself and was first revealed in the official guidebook; Lind L. Tailor was the death-row convict L put on live TV as a decoy to draw Kira out.
Q 10Which task-force detective shoots Light in the manga's finale to stop him killing Near?
Touta Matsuda
Touta Matsuda had befriended Light and believed he was not Kira, so the shots that stop him come from the detective who had trusted him.
Q 11Which eccentric habit is L known for?
Crouching in chairs instead of sitting
Crouching in chairs instead of sitting is not a whim, L insists: he claims his powers of deduction would drop by roughly 40 per cent if he sat the normal way.
Q 12Who writes L's name in a Death Note?
Rem
Rem writes L's and Watari's names to save Misa, exactly as Light had engineered, and the act destroys Rem too, because a shinigami who kills to lengthen a human's life must die.
Q 13What is Misa Amane's job?
Model and idol
Model and idol Misa Amane worships Kira because he killed the burglar who murdered her parents in front of her, so she travels to Tokyo to find him and offer her help.
Q 21What word does the prosecutor Teru Mikami mutter repeatedly as he writes names in the Death Note?
Delete
Delete, 'sakujo' in Japanese, is Mikami's chant; his rigid routine is what Near exploits, letting the SPK swap his notebook for a fake before the final showdown.
Q 22Light hides a scrap of the Death Note inside which object, later using it to kill Higuchi?
His wristwatch
His wristwatch hides the scrap in a secret compartment; when touching Higuchi's notebook brings Light's memories back, he uses the scrap to kill Higuchi on the spot.
Q 23Which FBI agent tailing Light is tricked into writing his colleagues' names?
Raye Penber
Q 14What does a Death Note owner give up to obtain the shinigami eyes?
Half their remaining lifespan
Half their remaining lifespan is the price, and Misa pays it twice, to two different shinigami; in return the eyes show the name of anyone whose face the owner sees.
Q 15Which shinigami, in love with Misa Amane, died after killing the stalker about to murder her?
Gelus
Gelus broke shinigami law by using his notebook to lengthen a human's life, so he crumbled away; a fellow shinigami then carried the notebook he left behind down to Misa.
Q 16Which rival of Near joins the American mafia in his race to catch Kira first?
Mello
Mello refuses to team up with Near, walks out of the orphanage that raised them both and joins the mafia, using its muscle to seize a Death Note from the Japanese police.
Q 17What is Near's real name?
Nate River
Nate River, who goes by Near, is the detective who finally exposes Light as Kira; he does his thinking surrounded by toys, building towers out of dice.
Q 18Mello is rarely seen without which food?
Chocolate
Chocolate was chosen because the writer felt it 'represented all sweets', and it pays off in the plot: a shinigami trades Mello the truth about two fake notebook rules for some.
Q 19L's live TV trap with a decoy proves that Kira is in which region of Japan?
Kanto
Kanto is pinned down when L goads Kira into killing a stand-in on live television; a humiliated Light swears to eliminate him, and their duel begins.
Q 20What is Watari's real name?
Quillsh Wammy
Quillsh Wammy is a famous inventor who founded the orphanage for gifted children that raised L, and he is killed along with the detective he spent years shielding from the world.
Raye Penber is one of twelve FBI agents sent to Japan; Light learns his name by staging a bus hijacking, then uses him as a pawn to kill the other eleven before killing him too.
Q 24How does Light Yagami finally die in the manga?
Ryuk writes his name
Ryuk writes his name in the end, as he warned on the day they met that he would; the wounded Light had begged him to write down the names of everyone else present.
Q 25The kanji of Light's surname, Yagami, mean what?
Night god
Night god is what the characters 夜神 mean, yet the writer says an editor suggested the surname and its meaning didn't much concern him; the given name is written 'moon' but read as Light.
Q 26Who voices Light Yagami in the Japanese version of the anime?
Mamoru Miyano
Mamoru Miyano was nominated for Best Lead Actor at the first Seiyu Awards for playing Light and lost, then won the same prize a year later for Mobile Suit Gundam 00.
Q 27Who voices L in the Japanese Death Note anime?
Kappei Yamaguchi
Kappei Yamaguchi is also Usopp in One Piece, a part he was offered only after auditioning for the hero, Luffy, and losing out; in English L is voiced by Alessandro Juliani.
Q 28Who played Light Yagami in the 2006 Japanese live-action films?
Tatsuya Fujiwara
Tatsuya Fujiwara plays Light as a college student from the very start, not the manga's high-schooler, across two films released in June and November 2006.
Q 29Which actor played L in the 2006 films and their 2008 spin-off L: Change the World?
Kenichi Matsuyama
Kenichi Matsuyama played L in all three films; the spin-off covers the 23 days L has left after writing his own name to trap Kira, a plot unique to the films.
Q 30Who directed the 2017 Death Note film released by Netflix?
Adam Wingard
Adam Wingard saw Warner Bros. drop the film as shooting neared; rival studios came looking, and Netflix won the scramble.