Yagami Light (Yagami Raito)

Light Yagami (夜神 月, Yagami Raito) is the protagonist and anti-hero of Death Note. At the start of the series, he discovers the Death Note and uses it to kill criminals, then becoming known to the people of Japan as Kira (based on the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "killer"). Light is characterized as an extremely intelligent yet bored young man, confident in his own sense of logic and how clever he is in regards to others. He is frustrated by the lack of justice in the world. Believing the world to be "rotten," he desires a means by which he can enact his will to purge the world of all evil. Light is unaware that he is not alone: a Shinigami (God of Death) named Ryuk is tired of the rotten Shinigami Realm. This Rogue Shinigamidrastically changes Light's life and world forever.

Light constantly tries to evade the suspicion of L while both maintaining his identity as "Kira"—the name derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the English word "killer" (キラー, Kirā?)—and cleansing the world of crime. The fact that he is a genius also adds to his notion that only he is fit to judge humanity and steer it on a proper moral course.

Light Yagami, born on February 28, 1986 (1989 in the anime), is a third year high school student (12th Grade) at Daikoku Private Academy while also attending supplemental classes at Gamou Prep Academy in the beginning of the story. Light has a father, Soichiro Yagami, who is a member of the investigation team opposing Kira. In addition, Light has a mother, Sachiko Yagami, and a younger sister, Sayu Yagami.