Death Note Episode 1: Rebirth

The episode opens in the Shinigami Realm, where a Shinigami named Ryuk appears bored and distracted amid other Shinigami gambling and relaxing. He drops a black notebook through a portal into the human world.

On Earth, top student Light Yagami sits bored in his classroom when the notebook, labeled **Death Note**, falls from the sky outside. After class, he picks it up, reads the first rule inside—"The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die"—dismisses it as a prank, but takes it home anyway.

At home, Light skeptically tests the notebook by writing the name of Kurou Otoharada, a criminal holding children hostage on live TV. After 40 seconds, the hostages escape unharmed, and Otoharada collapses dead from a heart attack, leaving Light stunned but suspecting coincidence.

Rushed to cram school by his mother, Light considers but rejects killing a school bully named Sudou, as he knows him personally. Walking home later, he encounters a motorcycle gang harassing a young woman and learns the leader's name is Takuo Shibuimaru. Light enters a nearby convenience store, writes variations of the name in the Death Note, and specifies the cause of death as a traffic accident. Exactly 40 seconds later, Shibuimaru is struck and killed by a truck, confirming the notebook's power to Light, who vomits in shock at having killed two people.

In the Shinigami Realm, other Shinigami mock Ryuk for losing his Death Note; he sprouts wings and flies through the portal to retrieve it.

Days later, Light returns home from school, shows his mother his perfect score on the National Practice Exam, declines any reward, and retreats to his room. He opens the Death Note to find pages filled with names of criminals he has killed via heart attacks. Suddenly, Ryuk materializes; Light screams and falls backward in surprise.

Ryuk introduces himself as the Shinigami whose notebook it is and explains more rules, including that its users cannot go to Heaven or Hell. Light's mother enters with apples from a neighbor—she cannot see or hear Ryuk, who eagerly devours them. Ryuk expresses amusement at how extensively Light has used the Death Note in just five days and notes his own boredom led him to drop it in the human world for entertainment. Light declares the world rotten and that those rotting it deserve to die, vowing to use the notebook to change it, even at the cost of his mind and soul. Ryuk warns that Light himself will become the worst criminal; Light brushes it off, claiming he will create a new world and reign as its god.