Misa Amane from “Death Note”- An Unsung Genius
[Warning: This post is entirely spoilers.]
Misa Amane is a famous singer, actress and model in the popular anime “Death Note”. She is deeply in love with the protagonist Light Yagami, who manipulates her and in consequence of this, Misa is often described as a physically weak, submissive, shy and silly person, although in reality this description does not completely match Misa’s character.
Misa is an independent, strong woman who has a lot of money, excellent social status, career, prestige and in short everything she needs. She is the main female lead in the series and we can definitely say that she is a very interesting and deep character but there is more than it seems at first glance.
Let’s start from the beginning. As we know, an anonymous robber killed Misa’s parents in front of her when she was little and Kira (Light) punished this murderer. It’s after this that Misa decides to dedicate her life to Kira. Until Kira did that, Misa wanted to kill the robber herself and did not consider forgiveness. After this murder by Kira, she develops strong feelings and then a certain type of attachment to Kira as her avenger: “Kira punished him for what he did to my parents, and that’s why Kira means everything…Kira means everything to me.” This reason most logically explains Misa’s obsession with Light, but let’s look at it from another side.
For her, Light is not only an object of love, but the only member of her family. The guardian and the knight, this is Light in her imagination and it has nothing to do with Light‘s personality. In other words, Light could have been replaced by anyone else for Misa, but since Kira does such a great job for her, Misa chooses him for this position and somehow finds a purpose to continue her life.
Misa adores Light who exists in her mind as the perfect man. This is Light, whom Misa loves before she even meets and is conceptualized and created as a beloved dream boy for her. But the fact is, in reality, Misa doesn’t care that Light doesn’t love her, and she even directly tells him that she doesn’t mind if Light uses her for his benefit: “Why are you so suspicious of me? I already told you I don’t care even if all you do is use me! Believe me!” (However, who benefits and how this happens is another matter).
It’s often said that Light manipulates Misa, and that’s certainly true to some extent, but it’s possible that some viewers would most likely miss and would not even pay attention to Misa’s manipulations which were not inferior to Light’s. Let’s start with the fact that Misa’s personal interest is never in obeying Light or helping Light achieve his goals. To tell the truth, she doesn’t care about either of them and only sees Light as the object of her love and the murderer of her parents’ murderer. She only acts according to Light’s ideas when she sees that it matters to Light. The things she does for Light, even receiving the Shinigami’s eyes for a second time which halves her life span twice and helping to punish criminals, is done because of the fact that she wants Light to stay close to her. It’s somewhat manipulative of Misa that because of the Shinigami eyes and her other useful abilities, she holds Light in her hands and Light can’t even understand this because he’s totally absorbed in his ideas.
Misa is considered stupid and unintelligent by some of the viewers, although this is probably the most wrong accusation. Forget about everything — she is the one who survives until the end, meanwhile all Kira’s other accomplices, including Kira himself, are killed and exposed. Also, Misa constantly gets rid of unwanted people, not with her own hands, but with the hands of others; her parents’ killer are punished by Kira, her stalkers Mello and Matt are also punished by Kira, and even L who hunts her and even locks her blindfolded in prison for some time, thus we can conclude one thing. Misa, who appears to us as a stupid girl, is not stupid at all, and in the end, she is the one who remains alive, and those who bothered her are all dead.
The style Misa creates is based on the Genki Girl type, which is an absolute lie. She isn’t like that, and we see it over and over again; even when she first goes to Light’s house and meets his mother, let’s remember how calm, smart and polite she is. Basically, as we said, she has a Genki Girl style and makes people think that she is stupid and doesn’t understand anything about life. In fact, throughout the series, she has repeatedly proven that she has the ability to set a goal and to achieve this goal. Also, she creates very delicate, correct and error-free strategies, tactics and plans, and usually all her undertakings are successful.
For example, the most noticeably big thing Misa does is find and expose Light Yagami in just about a week. Let’s recall how many months everyone’s favorite genius L has been searching for Kira’s true identity. And when he has doubts about Light, let’s also remember how he can’t get a confession from him, unlike Misa, who finds him and then makes him confess that he’s Kira without the help of any police force, investigators, experts or others. True, the eyes of the Shinigami helped her a lot in this, but isn’t it weird from genius L and others that they couldn’t find Kira for so long? How could the police and detectives, who had the support of the military and the political powers, not do what this young girl does? She outmatches the best investigative team in Japan and does everything ten thousand times better than police and detectives. Could a stupid person do that?
She is so smart that she realizes that without the eyes, it will be very difficult in her career and with Kira to do things as she wants; that way she’s more likely to achieve her goals which we’ve seen happen many times. She gets everything she wants — does she want the death of her parents’ killer? Kira kills. Does Misa want to know Kira’s identity? She knows. Does Misa want to be Light’s girlfriend? She becomes Light’s girlfriend. Does she want to live with Light? She lives with Light. In short, in the series, we see that Misa creates the image of a Genki Girl to fulfill her desires, and in fact in order to fulfill her desires, she makes so many intricate and genius plans and lies so skillfully that we can say she is not only clever but an unsung genius.
We see Misa’s personal and mental strength when she is arrested for supporting Kira. How bravely she withstands the physical and psychological pressure on her and how she never says a single word about Kira is a materialization of her bravery and courage. Only at the end when she is destroyed physically and spiritually she asks Rem to kill her. However, she says it in such a way that they could not suspect the existence of Shinigami or anything related to Kira thanks to her foresight and thoughtfulness.
We must also mention her seduction skills with which she manipulates men. She plays the role of female allurement well with her fashion sense and cuteness to a great effect and we can loudly say that it charms anyone Misa wants.
And finally, as we know at the end of the anime, she is seen standing on the edge of a tall building. According to this, many assume that she commits suicide. It’s impossible to give an exact answer to this because although the author says she kills herself on Valentine’s Day, this isn’t seen in the anime. Thus it can be interpreted as non-canonical, and even if she doesn’t have the strength to live on it doesn’t have to mean that Misa is a stupid girl. Let’s not forget that in the end she is the one who survived. But even if she ended her life by suicide, it cannot erase the fact that she survives those who were declared geniuses by all other people.
