

I was having a conversation with my friend and I said that Kira was one of my
favorite antiheroes. He replied with: Kira is not a an antihero, he's a
villain.

But he gave nearly zero arguments for that.


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death-note
Is Kira (Yagami Light) an antihero or a villain?


Definition of antihero from
[Google](https://www.google.co.in/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=antiheroes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gfe_rd=cr&ei=U8ViWNq4HvDI8AeXwY-
IAg):

> a central character in a story, film, or drama who lacks conventional heroic
> attributes.

Light was central character and lacks conventional heroic attributes. So he is
surely an antihero.


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The entire anime (and probably manga but I haven’t read it) follows the story
of Light — from when he first gains access to a Death Note until the bitter
end. It’s obvious that Light is a central character and we can ask ourself
whether he is a hero (or antihero) or a villain.

An antihero has been defined by Ankit, a villain would typically be somebody
who works against the principal (anti) hero standing on the other side of the
black/white schism.

There are other principal and supporting character, naturally. I would
classify the police investigation squad as supporting and L as another
principal character.

> L’s successor Near would also be classified as principal in my humble
> opinion.

Obviously, Light and L are not both black or both white; they have conflicting
goals.

With this rather simple classification in hand, it is up to us to ask us
whether L’s side can be considered the ‘hero side’ — the only possibility if
we desire to call Light the _villain._ Well:

> L can’t be the hero by himself as he dies halfway through. The work ends if
> the hero dies. Near can’t be the hero by himself as he only appears halfway
> through. Together, they could be the ‘hero side’ in a two-episode drama.

But even if that last case is true, we still follow the story of Light much
more closely than the story of L. It’s not the idea of a hero that they barely
turn up.

Therefore, Light is an antihero.


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Light Yagami was a Villian. He killed innocent people such as the dead
investigator's wife, Naomi Misora, who he enjoyed killing. He kills the fake L
immediately on live TV in his prefecture after the Fake L's speech that he
would bring Kira to justice.

He kills L, L's guardian, kills Naomi Misora's husband, kills Naomi Misora and
enjoyed the horrified expression on her face as she knows he killed her. After
the Death Note takes hold of her he then taunts her and revels in his
"victory". Light Yagami is a villain and is a case course on how showing
people what drives a killer will bias themselves and argue the immorality of a
murder was somehow just an argument over ethics.


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I think we all can agree that Light is the central character. All the events
in the story surrounds him, but although his way of reaching his goal of
becoming the new god isn't really heroic, he had good intencions, such as
cleaning the world from criminals. All the innocents killed were a threat to
Kira's identity being exposed. So yeah, Light was an antihero. Also i noticed
a lot of people misusing the term "villain", because a villain CAN be the main
character and a hero also can be the antagonist


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Kira (Or Light Yagami) is definitely an anti hero. By definition, anti hero
means the central character in a story, film, or drama who lacks conventional
heroic attributes. Heroic attributes are the qualities like strong sense of
justice, striving for others rather than his own existence, compassion for
others etc.

Light had his own way of justice, he many times murders people to protect his
own identity(existence) and also manipulated innocent people to do his
bidding. Which are all the qualities that are **opposite to a hero**.

Even L and N, can't be classified to be heroes, as L stayed till half and is
killed. Then N enters from second half.

Finally, I say may be, he shows some villain characteristics, but not
classified to be a villain. :)


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Kira is **both** the **antihero** and a **villain**.

By the definition given in Ankit's answer he is an antihero (being not really
a hero, but still the main character).

By the evil he has done (murder of innocents and even enjoying it, examples in
Amira's answer) he is a villain.

The other answers try to exclude one option by arguing that he already is the
other one. However, the concepts of an antihero and a villain do not exclude
each other. Therefore he can be both if he fulfils both requirements.


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Actually, I think Light is an anti-villian since he always talk about justice.
However, Light is ready to kill an inocent man just because he object and call
him evil. "An Anti-Villain is the opposite of an Anti-Hero; while the anti-
hero often fights on the side of good, but with selfish motives; the anti-
villain plays a villain's game, but for a noble cause...at least in their
eyes. They may be more noble or heroic than an anti-hero, but the means to
achieve their ends are often considered exploitative, immoral, unjust, or
evil". So yeah, I think Light is not an anti-hero but the oposite, an anti-
villain.


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## In modern works, we are not limited to Greek archetypes. Light is a
[villain
protagonist](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainProtagonist).

While the stories of the Greeks were written to follow great heroes, that does
not limit us to their archetypes. The central character can be a villain --
and Light is clearly one such person, as he steps off the deep end shortly
into the series.

An anti-hero is a _hero_ who lacks heroic features; Light is a _protagonist_
who _performs villainous actions_.

A good anti-hero example would be the modern take on Batman. He is dark,
foreboding, and a lawbreaker. He does things (like attacking policemen to stop
them from accidentally attacking disguised hostages in _The Dark Knight_ )
that aren't considered heroic, with the direct intent of performing a heroic
duty -- that is, saving lives. The presence of heroic intent with unheroic
actions makes Batman an anti-hero.

Light, on the other hand, quickly steps off his original goal of removing
dangerous known bad actors, and begins killing people -- both innocent and
guilty -- for the sake of glorifying himself. This is, both in action and
intent, the opposite of an archetypal hero. In this way, Light steps over the
anti-hero line directly into villain territory.


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Light is both anti-hero and villain, though him being villain outweighs
overall.

The first hint of him being more villain was when he killed fake L without
thinking as if it was too normal for him to do. Second time which was decisive
of him becoming more of a villain was the FBI and his fiance. Hints of him
realizing that he is doing wrong were first shown in this case. At this point
onwards, he started to have more of villain qualities while the anti-hero
pretty much was gone. He had the one villain quality stuck to his mind, i.e.
he believes he is a good guy.

The thing is, being anti-hero doesn't mean it's a good or bad thing. An anti-
hero is a protagonist who doesn't have good qualities like normal ones, but he
can do either good things or bad things, and he will be either a hero or
villain. Here, Light started as an anti-hero, but since he started doing bad
things he became a villain instead of a hero.


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Light is a hero because he only killed criminals. L is secretly a criminal.
Look up Anime Theory L's Dark Secret(death note Theory) by DuoReview. Light
tried to team up with L but L refused and threatened Light that when L finds
Light L is going to kill Light. What was Light supposed to do? Lie to survive.
Light killed some agents because L brainwashed them into thinking Light is
evil. L should of not threatened Light. L should of chatted with Light, teamed
up with Light then there would be true teamwork with the two. A true hero
sacrifices himself to save the world and that is what Light did in episode 1.


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