What if the Death Note was real?

I just watched and finished the anime for the first time a week or so ago. I remember seeing arguments about this on CE years ago where some people said if it were real, most of CE would get caught. I didn't have any opinion since I hadn't seen the anime at the time.

Now that I've seen it, I feel like there is absolutely no way someone is going to get caught if a Death Note magically showed up in this world. For one, some super genius detective like L figuring it out is EXTREMELY unlikely. Two, most people aren't just going to sit around and watch the local news and then kill off criminals they see on TV anyway. Three, tons of people suspiciously die right now as is. No one (who's taken seriously at least) is suspecting a Death Note right now. Four, in the real world, no one is going to believe such a thing/power exists unless the owner was killing multiple people all at once in the most obvious way. And even then, it would probably take a while before they suspect some kind of magic. Like if a bunch of people died at an event on TV or something, people would suspect poisoning.

Need some clarification to the question.

Is it, what if Light Yagami the valedictorian student turned plotting murderer was real and had the death note?

Or if the Death Note just fell into a random person's hands in the world

Or if some average with the death note happened to try to carry out Light's plan in particular (killing incarcerated criminals)

It'd be basically impossible to catch a person with a Death Note unless they're a raging narcissist or an idiot like Light Yagami.

Doe posted...

Or if the Death Note just fell into a random person's hands in the world

I guess it's more of this. Wish I would have seen the anime a long time ago so I could have participated in those arguments. But I remember people on CE arguing saying that most people on CE would get caught if they had the Death Note.

Metal_Gear_Raxis posted...

It'd be basically impossible to catch a person with a Death Note unless they're a raging narcissist or an idiot like Light Yagami.

This. I just don't see it happening. Hell, even Light Yagami himself would have made it much further in the real world than his anime world. Would have taken him a LOT longer to reach opposition or get caught. Hell, I'm not 100% convinced he would have gotten caught.

What I find the more interesting question is if a Death Note fell into our world where the Death Note franchise exists as media, and people all over the world started dying via heart attacks, how long before the possibility of an actual Death Note being in someone's hands would be taken seriously by the feds.

Solar_Crimson posted...

What I find the more interesting question is if a Death Note fell into our world where the Death Note franchise exists as media, and people all over the world started dying via heart attacks, how long before the possibility of an actual Death Note being in someone's hands would be taken seriously by the feds.

Would probably be more interesting pre-COVID. Post COVID though?

"it was that JAB!"
"the JAB strikes again!!"
"Bet he was vaccinated!"