Comments on: A complete idiot’s guide to Death Note plot holes

By: silentQ

silentQ — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:16:08 +0000

1) A ‘name’ only defines WHO you are, so as long as it was at one point valid, I think the death note will work.

2) lol I think you’re thinking too much. I don’t think Light will be thinking of celebrities while he’s killing. He only knows of Hideki Ryuuga because his sister likes it.

3) Again, Light’s not the kind to get distracted. I mean seriously. Would you be thinking of two people by some weird chance share the same name? Light’s a genius. He can probably control his thoughts.

4) L’s so secretive that he doesn’t go out much at all. I don’t think he ventures outside his hotel during cases but instead relying on Watari. And anyway, Light’s only a high schooler. Does he look like he has access to this sort of thing? If L left photos behind, then he would have been killed by his enemies sooner than this. L now goes out because he intends to stake his life on the Kira case

5) It says in volume 5 or 6 (I can’t remember) that Kira ONLY kills criminals that are genuinely guilty or whose punishment is enough (he’s not generally gonna kill if their sentence is enough to atone for their crimes, according to L)

6) Matsuda asked the same question in volume 2. L says that with someone like Kira, if they stop broadcasting, innocent people will be killed. And the media probably supports Kira to use the deaths as tabloid fodder.

7) L doesn’t investigate unless it’s not a waste of time and proves to be somewhat necessary. And seriously, that’s going a little too far, not to mention that L’s not going to expend all that effort when he didn’t even suspect Light at the time. The cameras work just as well, if not better. And that’s not gonna work with Light’s mini-TV

By: northern

northern — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:58:08 +0000

I’m not the biggest fan of Death Note (or anime in general), but a friend recommended it cause he said it was different from most of the other animes out there, so I borrowed the full anime DVD to watch.

I admit I was initially skeptical that it was gonna be any good, thinking that it’s probably some show to appeal to emos and kids who wanna seem cool and act like they’re all brilliant and clever like Light or L.

But I gotta say, there are no immediately apparent plot holes throughout the series. Why? Because most are plugged up by the “Death Note rules”. Read and think carefully whenever those “rules” appear and you’ll realise this. I believe there are over 30 rules shown in the anime, and even more from the manga (which I never read), and they pretty much cover any potential mistakes in the plot.

I came to this page expecting some REAL plot holes (like “How did L know this when L did this?”, or “Why did whoever do this when he didn’t know that?” etc), but all these just pretty anal and redundant nitpickings, sadly.

I ran through some of the comments, and most have been answered, but one that was missed.

Abel: “There is a bigger and TRUE plothole that everybody has missed here. I know it is in the anime, but not sure if it is the manga. This is in episode 30 of the show. After Mellow tells Near about the shinigami and fake rule, he goes and checks with Light. Light asks Ryuk if there are any fake rules. Ryuk immediately says that they are all true. Even though Near never touched the notebook at this time, he was able to hear Ryuk say no and react to it.”

Near was not reacting to whatever Ryuk said, because he could not hear him. What he was reacting to was Light specifically calling out to Ryuk by saying “Death God, blah blah blah”. So he was obviously reacting to the fact that there was apparently a Death God with Light at that moment, and he asks Light as much right away. Duh.

Ichisan: “I dont get this, never have. It says SPECIFICALLY that if you make an error in spelling a person’s name more than 4 times in the death note, the death will not take place.”

The rules specifically state that the if the name was misspelled INTENTIONALLY 4 times, the death will still take place. Only if it was accidental would the death be negated. Light was obviously writing down all variations of the person’s name on purpose, that’s why the guy died.

There is more to this, even though no one brought it up. The rules also state if a name was misspelled on purpose 4 times, the Death Note owner would die too. While this could be seen as a potential plot hole, since Light obviously didn’t die, the guy above me made a good point that Light was probably fortunate that he got the guy’s name right within the first four entries.

By: Ailoli

Ailoli — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:20:51 +0000

Okay, I will not answer people already answered before, but I do think some of you had great explanations to the questions, and I must say that I don’t really have many questions about Death Note anymore.

@Shadow
Great way to tell Beto.

@Ichisan
It must simply mean that
1: Light wasn’t aware of this rule.
2: The correct spelling was one of the four he wrote first.

By: Ichisan

Ichisan — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:37:30 +0000

I dont get this, never have. It says SPECIFICALLY that if you make an error in spelling a person’s name more than 4 times in the death note, the death will not take place.

[img]http://www.designchronicle.com/memento/images/deathnote/01/deathnote0122.jpg[/img]

explain that to me? he still died…. cheaters!

By: Shadow

Shadow — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 15:34:40 +0000

ppff… its just an anime… stupid otakus.. !! find a not-otaku girlfriend… let some sun touch your skin.. do something useful with your life.. whats next??.. dressing like that kira guy?? think that you are some weird japanes guy who can kill people using his notebook??.. its just… sad… so sad…i have no more words.. sad…

sad..

Why don’t you get a hobby yourself? Ass.

Obviously you know about the anime/manga (and even know the word ‘otaku’) so what does that make you?

If you like something, why not talk about it with other people? Why does talking about it make us otaku? WTF?

So… if I said I like, say, indoor plants, does that mean I stay inside all day with them? No! It doesn’t. Does whatching an anime mean I have no life? NO! IT DOESN’T!

Do us a favour; why don’t YOU get a life and do something OUTSIDE, rather than sitting INSIDE at YOUR pc, writing a comment on something that is, in your words ’sad’ (which makes you just as ’sad’ as we supposedly are), and leave the fans to the fans, hey?

Yeah, I know that comment is months old, but I hate comments like that; they’re just so pathetically “sad”. XD lol

By: Christine

Christine — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:23:14 +0000

1) I would assume birth name. I did wonder about that vaguely. “What if you don’t have a name? What if you were never given one?” But everyone calls themselves something. So even if you go primarily by “Hey, you!” that’s prolly what your name would be with the Shinigami eyes.
2) That doesn’t mean that anyone with the same name as a celebrity can’t be killed. It just means that Light doesn’t believe in his ability to focus on the right person.
3) I believe there is a rule about this in the Death Note, but I can’t remember. I think that if you think of two people at the same time, it doesn’t work. That would just be my assumption.
4)L probably never let himself be seen much by people. After all, he spends most of his time indoors and rarely goes out. He could have had his pictures destroyed along the way. L is pretty secretive from the beginning. He probably went by a fake name and made sure no one knew he was L. So even if there are pictures, no one would know that it was him. Light would have a hard time finding him out of all the possible places to look, especially since he doesn’t know what L’s alias was in England either.
5)I agree with you on this. I think that’s partly why Kira is viewed as a murderer. I thought that from the moment he said he was going to become a God by killing criminals. I immediately thought, “Well, if some chick just hates a guy cause he doesn’t like her, she could accuse him of rape and Kira would kill him without knowing the truth.” He is ruthless, that’s what makes him so evil and cruel, not only because he’s taking it upon himself to decide who lives and dies, but because he also has no interest in truth. Anyone capable of being a criminal cannot be trusted to stay alive.
6) I think this was more of a social commentary thing. People like Matsuda who can understand Kira’s motives are going to be a little more supporting of Kira in his endeavor, people who feel that the police aren’t able to do enough and see Kira as a blessing. Those who agree with Kira’s sense of justice are going to aid him. If they are in a position to broadcast criminal’s names, they probably will. Also, Demigawa was the perfect example of why the media was helping him. They were greedy, they wanted higher viewership ratings. People in the news and media industry make money off of keeping the masses entertained. Kira was entertaining, he captured peoples attention. Of course they’re going to milk that for all it’s worth. Just look at Lost on it’s umpteenth season…
7) Firstly, I think L would have lost the support of the police if he jumped so quickly to the conclusion that Light was Kira. After all, he was investigating a number of people before he came down to the conclusion that Light was the most likely suspect. By that point, Light had a feeling that L was closing in on him. He probably would not have fallen for the same trick twice. The point to remember is that both of them are extremely intelligent. The reason that L never caught Kira himself is because they were on an equal level intellectually. Kira won by cheating in a sense. Had Rem not killed L, I believe they would have been in a stalemate for years until one of them got tired and slipped up. Also, even when L knew that Light was Kira, he knew that just saying that wasn’t going to solve the case, ie explain how he did it and why. He could not have simply arrested him and said, “I know he’s doing it, but I have no evidence as to how.” That’s a pretty flimsy argument in court.

Death Note does have some plot holes, but they’re pretty far and few. Personally, it’s the most solid anime plot I’ve ever seen. You really gotta read between the lines with some things though. The characters and their personalities really play into a lot of it.

By: hatedeathnote

hatedeathnote — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:46:49 +0000

jajajajajajajjajaja i hate death note !!!

By: Beto

Beto — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:43:37 +0000

sad..

By: Dottn

Dottn — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:23:46 +0000

@dave
“that the one whose name wasnt on the note was Kira, hwy didnt he just add Light’s name to the list.”

Because then Light’s name would be last. As you may or may not have noticed, Mikami is pretty orderly and also cramp as many names into as little space as possible. He filled out in such a way that there was no way to insert a name in the list of names unless he put it last.

@meh
“If there’s another person called ‘Reslez’ that he doesn’t want to kill, he can make sure that the condition of death is limited in your own country so it doesn’t kill the other ‘Reslez’.”

It is stated in the rules of the Death Note that if the specified conditions could not be met, the person would simply die of a heart attack.

By: dave

dave — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:26:59 +0000

when Mikami heard Near’s explanation (he must have, he was standing right THERE!!) as to why no one died and that the one whose name wasnt on the note was Kira, hwy didnt he just add Light’s name to the list. Now this wouldnt absolve Light, but put the old ambiguity back!!! What a moron, if he couldnt figure that out! And to think he was supposed to be Kira’s successor, worthy of Kira’s trust!! So, in the end, Kira couldnt find his true successor afetrall! Anyone can find a very dedicated person to Kira, thats absurdly easy. The real difficulty would have been to find with the same intellect!! So, Kira failed himself, didnt he??

By: Y

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:10:43 +0000

The manga was cool, but the anime had heapsof supense(especially ep25)

By: Youko

Youko — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:23:02 +0000

Plus, the kanji for tensai literally means heaven’s blessing. So it bothers me that Kira should be called a tensai.

By: Youko

Youko — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:07:39 +0000

Kira is so wrong on so many levels. The whole anime is about pure evil. It creeps me out. It still does. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

“It always bothered me that Light, being something of an anal-retentive tensai, accepts at face value the word of the police and media that people are guilty. Granted, he’s evil so he’s not losing sleep over it. Still, there have been numerous criminals freed from death row in the US based on DNA evidence. How many of those guys would Light have killed?”

tensai = prodigy, right? I suppose the show is illustrating that prodigies are not necessarily know-alls… they’ll just very driven and stubborn about reaching a goal that they have decided on for whatever reasons. I mean, if he’s so smart, how could he possibly think that he could solve the world’s problems by killing criminals? I think it bothers me less if I don’t equate prodigy with being smart. But then perhaps he’s not a real prodigy, and he’s just good with logic puzzles? Yeah, it still bothers me. The show doesn’t really clearly say what qualifies as prodigy. It’s fine by me though if ‘L’ is a prodigy. But Kira should not be even within 10 metres of that label.

BTW, I liked your 4000 pt font comment.

By: qqhisoka

qqhisoka — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:56:29 +0000

1. - - so what?!

2. NO! He can only kill the person that he knows, the person that he intends to kill.

3. the person that matches w/ the name duh!

4. the guy is involved w/ the police force, n he is a super genius, n this is a anime/fiction, WE DON’T CARE!

5. He just does, the kid thinks too much, and he is a super genius like L, so he just KNOWS. Live w/ it

6. The police are not helping him, they are just stupid. It’s a anime/fiction, which does not need to relate to real life 100%!!!!

7. Cause that was just the tip of ice berg, just like putting a puzzle together, the edges are easy to find, but getting the whole picture done takes a while.

………….okay, I’m done ranting -_- but still pissed off.

By: Dean

Dean — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:11:41 +0000

the answer to the killin famous people or people with the same name is this if light “Kira” is picturing the face of a criminal and writes downt the name of someone famous then the famous person wont die cuz that y u need a name and a face to kill! I got my own ? though if kira drops a piece of the deathnot on the floor and i pick it up it says in the show that pieces will still work even if there not attacked but wat if another person picks it up and writes a name in the deathnote will it still work?