What actually happens
The notebook's first customer is a school bully
Light Turner, a high school senior in Seattle, finds the Death Note, an ancient notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. A Japanese death god named Ryuk shows up and talks him into using it. The scene people dread most comes first: Light picks Kenny Doyle, the bully at his school, and then sees him die in a freak accident. Later the same evening he does it again to Anthony Skomal, the man who murdered his mother, and the next morning his father James, a police detective, tells him about Skomal's gruesome death. At school Light befriends Mia Sutton and shows her what the notebook can do by arranging for an armed felon to die on live television in the middle of a hostage standoff. The two start dating and set out to remove criminals and terrorists from the world. Light calls himself Kira, with a Japanese pseudonym meant to send the police looking on the wrong continent.
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A detective who works out Seattle from Tokyo
An international detective known as L starts hunting for Kira in Tokyo, works out that Kira lives in Seattle, and concludes that Kira needs a victim's name and face to kill. L teams up with James and the Seattle police and has federal agents follow Light and other suspects. Mia asks Light to kill the agents, he refuses, and then the agents die in a mass suicide that Light blames on Ryuk. James goes on television to threaten Kira and comes home unharmed, which convinces L that Light is Kira. After seeing L's face, Light uses the notebook to send L's assistant Watari to Montauk, New York, where L's real name is hidden at an orphanage. His plan is to control Watari for forty-eight hours, burn the page, and finish off L afterward. L, for his part, sends police to search Light's house, and Mia gets the notebook out before they find it.
A school dance with a death in it
Light and Mia use the school dance as cover to lose L and the police. Watari contacts Light, but security guards kill him before he can give up L's name, because Light never found and burned his page. Light goes back to Mia and learns that she caused the agents' suicides and held back Watari's page, since only one victim could be saved. She tells him she has written his name in the notebook and he will die at midnight, citing his lack of conviction in Kira's cause. She offers to burn his page if he hands over the notebook, and he agrees to meet her at the Seattle Great Wheel. L, enraged by Watari's death, goes after Light personally, even though James has ordered the police to protect his son. After a long chase L corners Light at gunpoint, until a Kira supporter knocks L unconscious.
The ending, explained
At the top of the Great Wheel, Light suggests to Mia that they abandon the notebook and start a new life together. She takes it from him anyway and then realizes he wrote her name in it, with her death set to happen once she took it. Ryuk destroys the structure, which kills Mia and drops Light into the water. L watches Light's page land in a burning barrel. Light had arranged in advance for a doctor to rescue him and put him in a medically induced coma, and for a criminal to retrieve the notebook, then had both of them forced to kill themselves. L, ordered off the case, goes into Mia's house on his own, finds the page with the agents' names, and considers writing a name, implied to be Light's. At the hospital James, who now knows the truth, questions Light, who calls his actions the lesser of two evils. Ryuk peeks around the corner, laughing.
The post-credits ruling
Nobody has confirmed whether there is a scene after the credits.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Death Note scary?
Barely. Death Note is a 2.5 out of 10 with low dread, a few grisly deaths and almost no jump scares, since most of it is a chase between a student and a detective.
How does Death Note end?
Mia is killed when Ryuk destroys the Great Wheel, Light survives in a coma he arranged beforehand, and James figures out what his son has done. Ryuk laughs at Light in the final scene.
Does the dog die in Death Note?
No. No dog dies in Death Note, and no cat or other pet does either.
Is there a post-credits scene in Death Note?
Nobody has confirmed whether Death Note has a scene after the credits, so there is no reliable answer.
Who is L in Death Note?
L is an international detective who investigates Kira from Tokyo, works out that Kira lives in Seattle, and later joins forces with Light's father and the Seattle police. His assistant is Watari.
