Ryuk

General information

Race: Shinigami Gender: Male Ryuk (リ ュ ー ク, Ryūku) is a Shinigami who indirectly gives Light Yagami a Death Note after becoming bored with the Shinigami Realm. In an effort to entertain himself, he steals a second Death Note and throws it into the Human World for someone to find. This Death Note is discovered by Light, who uses it in an attempt to cleanse the world of evil and injustice, satisfying Ryuk's need for entertainment.

Physical appareance

Ryuk has a fairly humanoid appearance. He is extremely thin and has grayish, almost bluish skin, with spiky black hair; thin bluish-gray lips; and sharp, pointy teeth. His limbs are abnormally long, and he wears rings on his fingers. He has large, round yellow eyes with glowing red irises and retractable feather-like wings on his back that allow him to fly.

Personality (pt1)

Ryuk is different from most Shinigami in that he does not simply want to pass the time in the Shinigami Realm, but rather to find something to alleviate his boredom, and he is unaffected by the mockery he receives from other Shinigami for this. Ryuk considers Light to be "interesting", specifically due to his experiments and the loopholes he discovers regarding the rules and instructions of the Death Note, occasionally discovering abilities of the notebook that even Ryuk did not know existed. While he finds Light interesting, he does not care whether Light lives or dies and does not actively help him. He sometimes withholds important information from Light and only helps him when he has something to gain from it. Since his sole purpose in dropping the notebook was because he was bored, most of his actions are motivated primarily by wanting to see something interesting, as he sees Light's use of the Death Note and the way humans react to it as genuinely amusing. Ryuk is intelligent, but Light's ability to easily understand his desires makes him capable of being manipulated.

Like

Ryuk is very fond of apples, stating that the addiction is equivalent to cigarettes and alcohol for humans. Shinigami apples are dry and taste like sand, as he shows Misa at one point, which is why he prefers apples from the human world. He suffers certain withdrawal symptoms if he goes too long without eating them, involving twisting himself into a pretzel and doing handstands. He also states that he is shy around girls, revealed when Misa regains her memories and hugs Ryuk in excitement. Ryuk is fond of video games, first shown in the eight-panel omake comic series, where he asks Light for a Silver Game Boy Advance SP for Christmas. On another occasion, Ryuk asks Light if he wants to play Mario Golf (changed to "video games" in the anime), but receives no response, since Light's room is bugged with microphones and equipped with cameras.

Personality (pt2)

Ryuk doesn't say much, he just laughs and comments on Light Yagami's actions regarding the notebook. He tells Light that apples are for Shinigami, like cigarettes are for humans and he's always wanting to eat them, and so, almost any time you see Ryuk eating an apple. Because he was being watched, there was a time when Light stopped giving him apples; Ryuk's reaction was to twist and turn his body upside down, he says that this is an effect that Shinigami have when they stop eating apples, but apparently, he was just forcing it to convince Light to give him apples again. Ryuk says that he finds humans "interesting" and also in several situations shows interest in the unfolding of events, and is surprised by Kira's confident attitude, and even goes so far as to say that Light has become a remarkable Shinigami. In addition to his main motivation, that is, to escape boredom, he also reveals that the Shinigami world is rotten, just like the human world, and that the Shinigami currently have no motivation left, that they are practically useless for anything else. Thus, Ryuk has the same motivations as Light before finding the Death Note - they were both bored. Ryuk claims to be neutral, not siding with Kira or L, he says he could kill them both if he wanted to. He is surprised to realize that Kira is not afraid of him and also offended by Kira's accusation the first time he saw him that he was there to "search for his soul".

History

Ryuk has always had a Death Note and has never used it for anything (apart from increasing his lifespan), and his world was becoming increasingly boring and, most importantly, he was being teased a lot by his friends, so Ryuk steals a notebook from the Shinigami Sidoh and takes it for himself. Out of boredom, Ryuk lets Sidoh's Death Note fall into the human world, having previously written all the rules in English to make it easier for anyone who finds it to understand its purpose. The notebook is found by the young student Light Yagami. From that moment on, Ryuk begins to follow Light's footsteps at all times. He is impressed that Light has written so many names in the Death Note in just five days, saying that many would be resentful of killing so many people in such a short time. After Near proves Light's guilt as being the murderer Kira, Light ends up fleeing the scene and, in despair, is killed by Ryuk a little later. With Kira gone, the Shinigami returns to the world he came from.

Death Note (notebook)

The purpose of the Death Note is to take human life, thus increasing the lifespan of the Shinigami who uses it. There are many rules governing how the Death Note can be used, though the most important rule is that "the human whose name is written in this note will die". The King of Death is apparently the one who makes and controls the rules of the Death Note, where he is able to make new rules as he sees fit. A Shinigami typically uses Death Notes to kill humans they see through the observation hole in the Shinigami Realm, thus adding each human's remaining years of life to their own, for fear of dying. Rogue Shinigami occasionally leave extra Death Notes from the Shinigami Realm to the Human World, allowing a human to use their spare killing notebooks. It is unknown how many notebooks exist in the Shinigami Realm, as well as how the Death Notes are created. A Death Note can be used by a human, though their lifespan does not increase by doing so. Historically, humans have killed other humans with the Death Note or burned and thus destroyed the Death Note for a variety of reasons. Ryuk is the first rogue Shinigami shown in the series, although it is stated early in the series that there have been Death Notes released in the human world before. Depending on the era, Death Notes change their appearance to match the era. They will be a scroll in Ancient Japan or will look similar to the Old Testament in Medieval Europe. The inside of a Death Note resembles a school notebook and contains blank pages. The notebook is activated when a human and a name are written in it. Regardless of how many names are written in it, the notebook will never run out of pages. Death Notes are made of a material unknown to human science; however, they look and feel like regular notebooks, and it is possible to tear and burn the pages.

Curiosities

• Ryuk's Death Note is never used throughout the anime/manga, except at the end where he kills Light. • The notebook that Ryuk gives to Light is the notebook that previously belonged to the Shinigami Sidoh. He wanted a second notebook but the King of Death wouldn't give it to him, so Ryuk stole it from Sidoh and threw it into the Human World. • Ryuk wrote the rules of the notebook in English, according to him, so that it would be easier for a human to understand, since English is the most famous language of humans. • Ryuk even breaks one of the rules of the notebook in the first episode. The Shinigami reaches Light five days after he threw the notebook, when the correct thing is for the Shinigami to wait 38 days to be able to retrieve the notebook in the human world. • Apparently, in the 2017 Netflix movie, Ryuk is the thing that makes the deaths happen. Apparently, he causes deaths and manipulates things around him to make what Light wrote in the notebook happen, for example, in the scene where the Ferris Wheel falls, Ryuk is shown forcing it to fall; that is, it is possible that in the film, the notebook has no power, but Ryuk does, and the notebook serves as something to confirm the person's death and who he must kill, but nothing is confirmed.