Death Note iceberg

Death Note iceberg is an iceberg chart topic. On r/IcebergCharts, the highest-scoring available chart on it, "Death Note Iceberg!", was posted by u/yungjellycat on 6 February 2021 and had about 88 upvotes when it was collected. The subreddit has 1 other chart on the same or closely related topics; see Other versions. A text version, "Death Note" by NoEgoZone, is hosted on IcebergThreads, where it had 842 views as of 29 October 2026.

The IcebergThreads author describes it as: "Some descriptions were taken from the Death Note wiki."

Entries reflect the chart authors' choices and are not verified fact.

"Death Note Iceberg!" by u/yungjellycat (6 February 2021)

Tiers

Tiers and entries from the IcebergThreads version. Notes after a dash are shortened from the author's explanations.

Tier 1

• Potato chip scene – An infamous scene that became a viral meme due to how dramatic Light's English voice actor sounds.
• Tone colors – Throughout the Death Note anime, many characters are animated with different tone colors surrounding them (particularly for their hair). The tone colors would seem to represent different symbolisms…
• Foot massage scene – An anime-exclusive scene where L rubs Light's feet and appears to be aware of his imminent death. It's possibly a biblical reference to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples during the Last Supper.…
• Rules of the Death Note – The official rules that govern how the Death Notes work. Ryuk writes five of the rules down into his second Death Note before dropping it into the human world so that whichever human picks it up will…
• L’s reaction to Shinigami – L's shock was due to the concept of Shinigami fundamentally challenging his understanding of the universe, forcing him to completely restructure his investigation and acknowledge the supernatural.
• King of Death
• Misa's fate – The anime shows Misa standing on the edge of a tall building after Light's death, heavily implying she jumps. However, manga Volume 13 explicitly confirms she died by suicide on Valentine's Day the…
• L's final thoughts in the manga – In the manga, right as L suffers the fatal heart attack caused by Rem, his inner monologue and final thought is: "I knew it... I wasn't wrong... but... I...". According to Ohba, his editor suggested…
• L's name – L's real name is L Lawliet (pronounced as "low-light"), officially revealed in the guidebook Death Note 13: How to Read.
• Rem is in love with Misa – In the original manga, Rem says that what she feels is "more like a desire" and that it's "different from love". However, in some adaptations, such as the Musical, she is clearly depicted as being in…
• Linda
• Near's smile at Light
• Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
• Justice
• Final panel girl
• The Death Note's "curse"
• 2nd half critiques
• How Light executed his potato chip trick
• L's fortune
• Near wanted to keep Light
• Mello's missile
• Light would kill the lazy
• L promised Mello he'd catch Kira
• L's true successor
• Who is more intelligent, Light or L? – In the How To Read volume of Death Note, Tsugumi Ohba (the writer) stated the L was the most intelligent character in the Death Note series because the plot required it. However, in the very same…
• 23 day rule
• Misa's natural hair and eye color
• L always knew
• Heaven and Hell don’t exist
• Misa speaks in third person
• Netflix Adaptation
• Misa's lifespan – Although Misa halves her lifespan twice, she received the remaining lifespan from both Gelus and Rem, meaning she would live for quite a long time. Either way, she commits suicide at 28.
• 4-Misspelling Rule
• Death Note: Relight
• Religious imagery
• Light's morality
• Near used a Death Note to control Mikami – A highly popular theory (which is actually directly proposed by Matsuda in the manga's epilogue) suggests that Near didn't just outsmart Teru Mikami. The theory states Near secretly wrote Mikami's…

Tier 2

• Light's death differences
• Death Note 13: How to Read
• Jump Force
• Aiber dies of cancer in the manga
• The a-Kira Story
• The C-Kira Story
• Yotsuba arc critiques
• Rem's gender confusion – Light frequently uses male pronouns for Rem early in the manga before discovering her gender. Additionally, some international dubs and translations refer to her using male pronouns or feature male…
• Different versions of Shinigami Eyes
• "Monster" speech
• How Near discovered Mikami
• L writes his own name in the Death Note – In the 2006 Japanese live-action film, L defeats Light by writing his own name in the Death Note, giving himself 23 days to live. Because his death was already written, Rem’s attempt to kill him to…
• Ending critiques
• Was Gevanni's forgery possible?
• Near and Mello met L in person
• Yonkoma
• DEATH NOTE Killer Within
• The Death Note has infinite pages
• L’s percentages
• Near doesn't like L
• Near is smarter than L
• "Engrish" names
• Brown-haired Misa
• Did Mello show his face on purpose to Takada?
• L's “ghost”
• Lawlight
• Near is 18 despite looking young
• Live-action film series
• L: Change the World – A deeply bizarre spin-off novel (and movie) where, during his final 23 days of life, L has to stop an eco-terrorist group from wiping out humanity with a deadly Ebola-like virus. It features L…
• Matt has a bigger role in the manga – While Matt is shown multiple times in the manga, due to the way the anime differentiates between focus and narrative, the only scene depicting him in the anime is when he distracts the Kira guards in…
• Trump is canon
• Lifespan formula
• Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases/Beyond Birthday – A prequel light novel written by Nisio Isin detailing Naomi Misora and L working together to stop a serial killer named Beyond Birthday (BB), who was born with Shinigami Eyes and dressed exactly like…
• L knows Capoeira – Obata mentions being told often that L's fighting style is much like capoeira; the artist claims that he did not consider this when he drew L's fights—he was simply thinking of the most effective…
• L: The Wammy's House/One Day
• L's ethnicity – According to Ohba, he's a "...a quarter Japanese, a quarter English, a quarter Russian and... maybe a quarter French or Italian..."

Tier 3

• The Death Note has a power to make people want it – According the anime guidebook, a short, anime-exclusive scene of Light putting the notebook back on the ground when he first picks it up but later changing his mind to pick it back up again was meant…
• Pre-reveal L – L is portrayed differently before his actual reveal in the manga, even him describing himself as "justice" makes no sense when we learn what his actual personality is.
• 9 levels of punishment
• Cut Jack Neylon segment – In the anime, Neylon's eye trade and the first attempt to retrieve the Death Note are not included.
• L’s ethinicity
• L never considered Light a friend
• Rem couldn't kill Light with the Death Note
• ARVC-5
• The Taro Kagami Story/Pilot
• Death Eraser
• Middle names
• The Moon – As stated in How to Read 13, Light's given name is written with the Japanese character for "moon". During the final scene in the manga, in which a group of Kira worshipers appear under a moonlit…
• Total of Kira's victims
• BB's Shinigami eyes
• Doves and crows – In both the first opening and ending from the anime, many crows appear near Light, and Ryuk is shown along with some crows on top of a tree. Ryuk's wings resemble that of a crow's, the bird being a…
• L is autistic
• Matt's color scheme – Matt's official hair color is greenish-brown and his eye color is blue, but fan art almost always depicts him with red hair and green eyes. This is because he became rapidly popular with the fandom…
• Is Light a psychopath?
• Different president in the anime – David Hoope is the U.S. President in the manga, while George Sairas, his vice president, is the president in the anime.
• Cameos in other anime
• Light became a Shinigami
• Light's butterfly belt
• Opening changes – The first opening was slightly modified after Watari's revealing, from then on showing him taking his hat off. This was first introduced in Glare. Later it was changed again removing Ukita from the…
• Light's corset
• Misa's sister
• The Death Note “corrupted” Light
• Yotsuba red herrings
• Death Note the Musical
• "A Death Note user cannot be killed by a Death Note" rule confusion
• 2015 TV drama
• Mello's blue lipstick
• Eraldo Coil and and Deneuve are real people
• Special products (perfumes, wines, etc)
• The manga was supposed to end after L's death
• Death Tome

Tier 4

• "It 𝘸𝘢𝘴 one of the worst feelings ever..."
• The Shinigami Realm is Purgatory
• Hikari Light
• Near’s original expressions – Near's facial expressions were changed in the official releases of the manga, to make him more serious. This also happens in the anime, which removes a lot of his more emotive expressions.
• Ryuk's original design
• Fake Ryuk original design image
• Interpol members named after soccer players – Various INTERPOL members' nameplates have the names of famous soccer players from a number of countries, and the flags on the nameplates corresponded with their namesakes' country. The athlete names…
• L is evil
• Upcoming Netflix series
• Teru Mikami was inspired by Taro Kagami – Revealed in page 133 of How to Read 13.
• Celebrities who dressed as DN characters
• How the Death Note is affected by name changes
• "Death Note's ending is a LIE!"
• Daril Ghiroza's scrapped role – The high-ranking Daril Ghiroza was originally going to play the role that Sidoh ultimately did, but this was scrapped because of her complex design, and her having a high ranking wouldn't look good…
• Tsugumi Ohba's identity
• L's behavior is an act
• L's feelings towards his successors
• Inconsistent rules in the 2017 film – Some of the rules contradict what is shown in the film. Several rules reference heart attacks being a default cause of death, although it is not so in the film. Rule 32 states that "once the victim's…
• A's gender
• Odd character weights
• L's inconsistent eyebrows
• The Shinigami Realm used to be like Earth
• Near is nonbinary in the TV drama
• Mello and Near switched designs – Mello and Near's character designs were accidentally switched during character creation. This also explains the meaning of their names. Mello was intended to be the "mellow" one and Near was intended…
• Wammy's House is abusive
• Light misspelled Takuo's name more than four times
• Takeshi Obata's art for the Netflix movie
• Believe Bridesmaid, Quarter Queen and Backyard Bottomslash
• Audio drama (and its differences)
• Misa was killed with a Death Note
• A and B appear in Death Note Relight
• Soichiro Yagami had two days left to live
• Naomi was killed off because she was too smart – Ohba initially planned for Naomi to have a long involvement in the story but underestimated the character's deductive abilities. Because she was able to uncover crucial plot information "faster…
• Near and Mello were supposed to be L's children – How To Read mentions that in the planning stages it was briefly considered that Mello and Near would be L's twin sons but that idea was scrapped. Ohba said that he couldn't imagine L ever having sex…
• The first criminal L caught was part of Mello's gang

Tier 5

• Purpose of the Shinigami Realm
• Tsugumi Ohba is Hiroshi Gamou
• BB in the artwork of Another Note – Due to his resemblance to L, it is unknown if the artwork featured in Another Note is Beyond Birthday or L.
• Banned in Schools
• Brown-haired Mikami
• Scrapped Mogi plot – In How to Read, Ohba reveals that he was planning to use Mogi's character for "something really amazing", but that never happened.
• Red Hot Chili Pepper's involvement in the Live Action movie
• Ryuk's face is a mask – In Death Note 13: How to Read Obata thought of an idea involving Ryuk's face being a mask, and under the mask would be an "attractive" face.
• People mistaking older Near for a girl
• Connection to Death Parade
• Mello was planned to defeat Light
• Ryuk did choose Light – In the C-Kira bonus chapter Ryuk berates another Shinigami when she complains that her time in the human world was short and boring; Ryuk suggests that the other Shinigami should have followed his…
• The entire task force was going to die – According to How To Read 13, the entire task force were going to die in heroic ways. In the actual story Matsuda, Aizawa, Mogi and Ide all survive.
• Raye proposed to Naomi twice
• The two Yamamotos are the same person
• L was inspired by Death Note
• The Miraculous Notebook
• Country bans
• Mello's scar makes no sense
• Near has albinism
• L has marfan syndrome
• Death Note: Successors to L's wrong colors – Matt's hair color in his sprites is depicted as being blue. This is most likely due to the fact that the game was developed before the Mello and Near arc of the anime, and thus no canon color pallet…
• Fake alternative ending
• Leaked American Remake Script
• BB is a Shinigami hybrid
• Light is actually dumb
• Does the Death Note work on pregnant people?

Tier 6

• Light Imagay
• Miyano felt depressed due to playing Light
• Kira was right
• Mu is a physical place
• Life Note
• Ohba was scared of drawing Shinigami
• Foot fetishism
• 9/11 didn't happen
• Lost Toonami bump
• "B ga seme de, L ga uke" – A line from Another Note that basically means "B is a top, L is a bottom."
• Meath Note
• Manga Murder

Other versions

Other charts from r/IcebergCharts grouped under this topic, ordered by score:

• Death Note Iceberg by u/SektorPriza, 11 December 2020 (59 upvotes)

See also

• Iceberg chart
• R/IcebergCharts
• Anime iceberg

Sources

• Featured Reddit chart: u/yungjellycat. Death Note Iceberg!. Reddit (r/IcebergCharts). 6 February 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
• IcebergThreads version: NoEgoZone. Death Note. IcebergThreads. 23 June 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2026.