Death Note is a Japanese manga by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, and its 2006 Madhouse anime adaptation, that became a long-running source of anime reaction images and shitposts.

Where did Death Note come from?

The manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from December 2003 to May 2006, and the anime aired in Japan from October 3, 2006 to June 26, 2007.

What does Death Note mean?

In the story, the Death Note is a supernatural notebook dropped by a shinigami that kills anyone whose name is written in it while the writer pictures their face.

How do you use Death Note?

Fans typically pair screencaps of Light, L, or Ryuk with captions about mundane situations, and edit the Potato Chip scene over anything they want to make look dramatic.

Is Death Note still popular?

It is a classic in anime fandom, with an active subreddit built up over years and a wiki of hundreds of pages documenting the series.

Death Note

2006animeclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Death Note is a Japanese manga and anime franchise created by writer Tsugumi Ohba and artist Takeshi Obata whose overwrought anime scenes turned into a long-running source of reaction images, edits, and shitposts online3. The 2006 anime adaptation, especially the infamous Potato Chip scene, handed anime fandom some of its most quoted and parodied clips1.

anime manga reaction memes villain memes otaku culture memes late 2000s memes

Overview

Death Note is a Japanese manga and anime franchise that ended up as one of the most memed properties in anime fandom, largely thanks to the theatrical delivery of its main character Light Yagami1. The story follows a bored honors student who picks up a supernatural notebook that kills anyone whose name is written inside, then uses it to execute criminals under the alias Kira while an eccentric detective known only as L hunts him down5.

The meme footprint is built on a handful of anime moments that fans clip, subtitle, and remix endlessly: Light cackling in front of a mirror, L crouching in a chair, Ryuk the shinigami looming behind them, and above all the Potato Chip scene1. Reaction images of Light's smug face and L's deadpan stare get repurposed on Reddit and Twitter for jokes about studying, moral superiority, and getting caught doing something suspicious4.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Weekly Shonen Jump (manga) / Madhouse anime (viral scenes)

Creator

Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

Date

2006

Death Note was serialized in 108 chapters in Weekly Shonen Jump from December 2003 to May 2006, then collected into twelve tankobon volumes released between May 2004 and October 20063. The anime adaptation, produced by Madhouse and directed by Tetsuro Araki, aired in Japan from October 3, 2006 to June 26, 2007 across 37 episodes3.

Viz Media picked up the North American license and aired the series on the Bionix block starting October 21, 2007, which put the show in front of the English-speaking fandom that would eventually turn its most dramatic beats into memes2.

How It Spread

The Death Note Wiki launched on July 31, 2007 and grew past 520 pages within a decade of cataloguing every character, chapter, and rule of the notebook. The /r/DeathNote subreddit went up on February 18, 2010 and pulled in more than 11,700 subscribers over the next eight years, functioning as a hub for reaction image threads and rewatch discussions4. A TV Tropes page for the series appeared on January 3, 2012, and the official Facebook page arrived March 21, 2017, passing 427,000 likes within five months.

Two live-action Japanese films directed by Shusuke Kaneko premiered in 2006, followed by the Hideo Nakata spin-off L: Change the World in 20083. Netflix released an American adaptation on August 25, 2017, directed by Adam Wingard and starring Nat Wolff, Lakeith Stanfield, Margaret Qualley, and Willem Dafoe. Online reaction was hostile: fans criticized the casting of white leads and the cutting of beloved moments, most notably the Potato Chip scene1.

That Potato Chip scene, in which Light theatrically pops a chip while narrating his plan to murder criminals from his bedroom, became a meme on its own. The clip's dramatic music and Light's line about taking a chip and eating it get reused as shorthand for wildly extra behavior in edits circulating on YouTube and TikTok1.

How to Use This Meme

The most common Death Note formats are reaction shots from the anime: a screencap of Light smirking, L staring blankly, or Ryuk laughing, paired with a caption about a mundane situation blown out of proportion. The Potato Chip scene typically gets edited over unrelated moments to make eating a snack look like a criminal masterstroke, and the 'I'll take a potato chip AND EAT IT' line often shows up as a caption or subtitle for anything overly dramatic1.