One of the greatest appeals of DEATH NOTE is not only the supernatural power of the Death Note itself, but also the high-level battle of minds between its brilliant characters.
The psychological war between Light Yagami and L defines the first half of the story, while Near and Mello enter the conflict later, turning it into an extreme contest of who can uncover the other side’s identity first.
So, who is actually the smartest character in DEATH NOTE?
For this ranking, I focused mainly on:
Deduction
Logical thinking
Strategy and planning
Ability to read an opponent
Adaptability when something unexpected happens
Information processing and analytical ability
and selected my personal TOP 10 from the perspective of overall intelligence.
However, there is something important to make clear first.
This is not an official ranking.
There is no official “DEATH NOTE intelligence ranking,” and the characters never competed against one another under identical conditions.
The order can also change depending on whether you value:
deductive ability the most,
planning ability the most,
or
psychological warfare and adaptability as well.
For that reason, this article uses the deductions, plans, decisions, and psychological battles actually shown in the story as its foundation, but the final ranking also includes my own interpretation and subjective judgment of those scenes.
For example, I personally place considerable value on the ability to reach the truth from almost no information at all.
That preference itself affects the ranking.
So opinions such as:
“Shouldn’t Light be above L?”
or
“Should Near be ranked even higher?”
are completely reasonable.
This is not intended to be the one objectively correct answer. It is my personal TOP 10 based on how I interpret the characters’ intelligence as shown in the story.
This ranking also uses different criteria from my previous “Most Competent Characters” ranking.
Someone like Gevanni has extraordinary execution skills, while Matsuda can seem unreliable but still accomplish something decisive when it matters most.
However,
being highly competent and being the smartest are not necessarily the same thing.
This time, I prioritize the ability to think, deduce, analyze, and construct strategies over pure action or execution.
I also referred to the official guidebook DEATH NOTE HOW TO READ 13, but this ranking is not simply a mechanical ordering based on statistics or data from that book.
※This article contains major spoilers through the ending of DEATH NOTE.
How close can a character get to the correct answer with limited information?
This is especially important when evaluating characters such as L, Near, and Naomi Misora.
It is also one of the categories I personally value most heavily in this ranking.
Logical Thinking
Can the character organize information and reason logically without being controlled by emotions or assumptions?
That said, many of the smartest characters in DEATH NOTE also have some unusual habits.
So,
logical thinking and having a logically sensible lifestyle are treated as two completely different things.
If L’s diet were included in the evaluation, this article would eventually become a health ranking.
Strategy and Planning
It is not enough to simply discover the answer.
Can the character also calculate:
“How can I make my opponent act the way I want?”
and build a strategy around that?
Light Yagami scores extremely highly in this category.
Psychological Warfare and Reading Others
In DEATH NOTE, simply knowing the correct answer is not enough to win.
Characters must hide their own intentions while predicting what the other side will think and do next.
If people had conversations like these at an ordinary school or workplace, everyone around them would probably say:
“You’re overthinking this.”
In DEATH NOTE, however, overthinking is almost a requirement.
Adaptability
How quickly can a character understand the situation and create a new plan when something completely unexpected happens?
Creating a perfect plan in advance and recovering after that plan collapses are two different abilities.
Achievements
I also consider what each character actually deduced, discovered, planned, or accomplished in the story, rather than simply assuming they are intelligent because the story says so.
This makes characters with extremely limited screen time more difficult to evaluate.
Academic grades alone also do not determine this ranking.
If they did, Light Yagami would gain a huge advantage almost immediately and the article would end far too quickly.
And once again, how much weight I give each of these six categories is itself subjective.
DEATH NOTE Top 10 Smartest Characters
Rank
Character
Abilities I Value Most
1
L
Deduction, logic, observation
2
Light Yagami
Planning, adaptability, psychological warfare
3
Near
Analysis, logic, composure
4
Mello
Strategy, information gathering, creativity
5
Naomi Misora
Deduction, insight
6
Teru Mikami
Intelligence, judgment, self-discipline
7
Rem
Situational awareness, rule knowledge, insight
8
Reiji Namikawa
Judgment, logic, situational awareness
9
Matt
Observation, information processing, field work
10
Aiber
Social intelligence, conversation, psychological manipulation
※This is not an official ranking. It is based on events shown in the story together with my own subjective interpretation. The top characters in particular excel in different kinds of intelligence, so the order can change considerably depending on which abilities you value most.
10. Aiber | A Professional Con Artist Who Is Extremely Dangerous in a Battle of Psychology
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 10 is Aiber.
Aiber is an alias. His real name is Thierry Morello.
He is a professional con artist whom L hires to assist with the investigation.
Aiber’s greatest strength is not the superhuman deduction displayed by L or Light.
Instead, it is:
his ability to enter someone’s inner circle and extract information through conversation.
During the Yotsuba arc, he poses as the detective Eraldo Coil and approaches the Yotsuba Group.
He manages to gather information without allowing the other side to realize who he really is.
In DEATH NOTE, “intelligence” often brings to mind complicated deductions.
However, understanding human psychology and manipulating another person through words is also a legitimate form of intelligence.
In that area, Aiber is extremely capable.
If L is the type of genius who can analyze an impossibly complicated case,
Aiber is the type who can talk a human being into revealing their own password.
However, he has far fewer scenes in which he independently analyzes the entire Kira case and approaches the truth than the characters ranked above him.
That is why I placed him at No. 10.
Still,
the world’s greatest detective casually having a professional con artist on his team
does make you wonder how detailed L’s employment background checks really are.
9. Matt | A Wammy’s House Talent Whose Screen Time Was Far Too Short
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 9 is Matt.
Matt is an alias. His real name is Mail Jeevas.
Like Mello, he grew up at Wammy’s House and later assists Mello during the Kira investigation.
Although Matt has very little screen time, he supports Mello through surveillance and information gathering.
Near the end of the story, he also participates in the operation to kidnap Kiyomi Takada, serving as a diversion for her security team.
The biggest problem when evaluating Matt is:
we can tell that he is intelligent, but his screen time ends before the intelligence test really gets going.
Considering his background at Wammy’s House and the fact that Mello trusted him with important operations, it is reasonable to assume that he possessed considerable ability.
He also appears particularly capable in surveillance, information handling, and technology-related work.
However, unlike L or Near, he has almost no scenes in which he personally solves major parts of the Kira case.
For that reason, my own inference plays a relatively large role here.
I did not want to rank him too highly based simply on:
“He came from Wammy’s House, so he must be a genius.”
Balancing his background with what was actually shown, I placed him at No. 9.
He is also a gamer.
But unlike most gamers, the job waiting for him after his break is surveillance in the Kira investigation.
Slightly unusual working conditions.
8. Reiji Namikawa | One of the Coolest Heads in Yotsuba’s Kira Meetings
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 8 is Reiji Namikawa.
Unlike several characters in this ranking, “Namikawa” is not an alias. Reiji Namikawa is his real name.
During the Yotsuba Kira arc, eight executives regularly meet to discuss how Kira’s power can be used for the company’s benefit.
When you write that out, it becomes even more absurd.
The meeting agenda is essentially “Which person at a rival company should we have Kira kill?”, so the concept of corporate compliance was probably left at reception.
Among those executives, Namikawa is portrayed as one of the more intelligent and level-headed members.
When Light contacts him directly, Namikawa quickly understands the situation and later cooperates in limiting the actions of the Yotsuba Kira group.
Namikawa’s main strength is:
his ability to prioritize the situation and practical consequences over emotion.
He does not possess the extraordinary deductive ability of L, Light, or Near.
However, in terms of the kind of judgment that is useful in the real world, I consider him extremely capable.
Then again, he is already an executive at a major corporation, so that point has more or less been proven.
I ranked him No. 8.
7. Rem | The Shinigami Who Understood How Dangerous Light Really Was
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 7 is the Shinigami Rem.
“Rem” is her name, and no separate human-style real or formal name is revealed in the story.
She gives a Death Note to Misa Amane and later becomes deeply involved in events because of her desire to protect Misa.
Ryuk’s basic position is roughly:
“The human world is entertaining.”
Rem, by contrast, takes the situation much more seriously.
Naturally, as a Shinigami, she understands the rules of the Death Note extremely well.
But that is not her only strength.
She is also good at reading human personalities and intentions, and she understands fairly early just how dangerous Light Yagami is.
Her greatest weakness is obvious:
her feelings for Misa.
Light exploits them.
However, I do not interpret the situation as:
“Rem failed to understand Light’s plan and was simply fooled.”
Rem herself knows that Light is dangerous.
Even so, she values Misa’s life above everything else and ultimately chooses to write L and Watari’s names in the Death Note, knowing what that decision will mean for herself.
In other words:
it was not that she failed to understand the situation. She understood it, but there was something she could not abandon.
I think that distinction matters.
For her situational awareness, understanding of the rules, and ability to read people, I placed Rem at No. 7.
If Ryuk is sitting in the audience, Rem is sitting in the parents’ section.
And when necessary, she is perfectly willing to walk directly onto the field.
6. Teru Mikami | The Other Kira Who May Be a Little Too Disciplined
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 6 is Teru Mikami.
Teru Mikami is his real name.
He is a prosecutor and an extreme supporter of Kira who is eventually entrusted with a Death Note by Light.
When Light reaches a point where he cannot personally use the notebook,
he chooses Mikami as someone who can:
understand his ideology and independently act as Kira.
Mikami is extremely logical and rigidly follows the rules he considers correct.
He acts according to a precise routine and can decide what Kira should do without receiving detailed instructions from Light every single time.
That level of independence requires more than simple loyalty.
Mikami is clearly highly intelligent.
However, his extreme regularity creates another problem.
From the perspective of someone monitoring him, he becomes remarkably easy to observe.
Mikami may believe he is living the perfect disciplined life, but from Gevanni’s perspective it can become:
“Yes, exactly on schedule again today.”
Then Kiyomi Takada is kidnapped.
Mikami independently uses the real Death Note.
That decision becomes one of the major clues that allows Near’s side to discover the location of the genuine notebook.
However, I do not consider Mikami’s decision completely foolish.
Takada needed to be eliminated, so his reasoning was understandable from his perspective.
The problem was:
both Light and Mikami assumed, “The other person will obviously make the same decision I would.”
In a strange way, they may have been too similar in how they thought.
Mikami is extremely intelligent, but I place him one level below L, Light, Near, and the other characters above him.
No. 6.
5. Naomi Misora | The Former FBI Agent Who Came Dangerously Close to the Truth in Almost No Time
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 5 is Naomi Misora.
This is her real name, not an alias.
She is a former FBI agent who independently investigates the Kira case after the death of her fiancé, Raye Penber.
Despite appearing for only a very short period of the story, she leaves an enormous impression when it comes to intelligence.
Using very limited information, Naomi reaches the important conclusion that:
Kira may be able to control causes of death other than heart attacks.
She also connects the bus hijacking incident with Raye Penber’s actions and approaches the possibility that Kira had direct contact with an FBI agent.
That makes her extremely dangerous from Light’s perspective.
Even when she happens to meet Light, Naomi initially uses a false name, showing that she is cautious as well as intelligent.
If Light had a ranking of “People I Absolutely Do Not Want to Randomly Meet on the Street,” Naomi would probably be near the top.
Light eventually manages to learn her real name.
But the deductions Naomi had already made before that point are extremely impressive.
The official novel DEATH NOTE Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases also depicts her previous involvement with L.
Simply lowering her position because she had little screen time would overlook how much she accomplished with so little information.
In this ranking, I place considerable value on:
how close someone gets to the truth compared with the amount of information available to them.
That is why Naomi is No. 5.
This is also one of the positions where my personal evaluation criteria have a particularly strong influence.
4. Mello | A Genius Who Does Not Just Read the Board—He Changes the Board Itself
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 4 is Mello.
Mello is an alias. His real name is Mihael Keehl.
He was raised at Wammy’s House as one of the candidates to succeed L.
Mello is almost the opposite of Near.
Near tends to analyze information from a relatively safe position and logically corner his opponent.
Mello enters dangerous situations himself.
He works with the mafia, kidnaps Sayu Yagami, and even obtains the Death Note.
In an ordinary detective story, you might start wondering:
“Did the genre change halfway through?”
But what I value most about Mello’s intelligence is this:
he understands that he does not need to fight Near using Near’s methods.
Rather than competing with Near on exactly the same field of logical analysis, Mello uses methods that only he would choose and changes the situation itself.
Near the end of the story, he kidnaps Kiyomi Takada.
That action causes Mikami to behave unexpectedly, which ultimately helps expose the real Death Note.
There is room for interpretation regarding exactly how much of the final outcome Mello anticipated.
So I do not claim that:
“Everything happened exactly according to Mello’s master plan.”
However, I believe it is highly likely that the final confrontation would not have ended the same way without Mello’s actions.
If Near is the type who reads the board,
Mello is the type who shakes the board itself.
It is not safe.
It is not subtle.
But the situation definitely moves.
I ranked him No. 4.
3. Near | L’s Successor Who Finally Cornered Kira Through Analysis
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 3 is Near.
Near is an alias. His real name is Nate River.
He was raised at Wammy’s House as one of the candidates to succeed L.
Near leads the SPK in its investigation of Kira.
His greatest strength is:
the ability to calmly assemble information piece by piece without being ruled by emotion.
Even before he has direct proof, he begins to suspect that the second L—Light Yagami—may actually be Kira.
Eventually, he connects Teru Mikami to Kira and corners Light at the Yellow Box Warehouse.
However, I do not believe:
“Near surpassed L entirely on his own.”
Mello’s actions play a major role in creating the final breakthrough.
If Mello had not kidnapped Takada, Mikami might never have used the real notebook, and Near’s plan could have failed.
For that reason, I think it is more natural to view Near’s achievement together with Mello’s contribution.
Even so, Near’s ability to organize an enormous amount of information and eventually connect Light with Mikami is among the best analytical performances in the series.
And he manages to analyze a global mass-murder case while casually playing with toys.
His idea of multitasking is slightly unusual.
Considering the different starting conditions between Near, Light, and L, as well as Mello’s contribution, I placed Near at No. 3.
2. Light Yagami | Possibly the Best Planner and Improviser in the Series
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 2 is the protagonist, Light Yagami.
Light Yagami is his real name, while Kira is the identity he uses as the killer behind the Death Note.
Light operates at an exceptionally high level in nearly every category.
Using a supernatural notebook whose existence nobody knows about, he manages to fight a prolonged battle of minds against L, one of the greatest detectives in the world.
One of the clearest examples of Light’s intelligence is the elaborate plan leading into the Yotsuba arc.
He voluntarily gives up ownership of the Death Note and even loses:
his memories of being Kira.
He then predicts how his own memoryless self will behave and arranges events so that he will eventually touch the notebook again and recover those memories.
He turns even himself into a piece in his own plan.
Most people would not go that far.
Light is also exceptional when something completely unexpected happens.
His chance encounter with Naomi Misora is a perfect example.
He rapidly understands the danger, creates a new strategy on the spot, and finds a way to obtain her real name.
I rate that improvisational ability extremely highly.
However, the main reason I did not place Light at No. 1 is:
his pride sometimes interferes with his judgment.
When L provokes Kira using Lind L. Tailor, Light kills him.
That reaction quickly allows L to narrow Kira’s location to the Kanto region of Japan.
Light’s intelligence is undoubtedly among the highest in the entire story.
But:
his academic test scores may be nearly perfect, while his resistance-to-provocation test is slightly weaker.
I consider that a genuine weakness in a battle of minds.
If long-term planning were the single most important category,
ranking Light at No. 1 would be completely reasonable.
Because I personally give slightly more weight to deduction, I placed him at No. 2.
1. L | The World’s Greatest Detective Who Approached Kira From Almost Nothing
Source: Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, “DEATH NOTE”, Shueisha
No. 1 is L.
His real name is L Lawliet.
When working directly with the Japanese investigation team, he also uses Ryuzaki as an alias.
His real name is revealed in the official guidebook DEATH NOTE HOW TO READ 13.
The main reason I placed L at No. 1 is:
how overwhelmingly disadvantaged his starting position was.
When L begins investigating Kira, he obviously knows nothing about the existence of a Death Note.
A person can kill someone from far away simply by knowing a name and face.
The time and circumstances of death can be manipulated.
Shinigami exist.
None of this appears in an ordinary criminal investigation manual.
Yet through the televised Lind L. Tailor trap, L quickly obtains several important pieces of information about Kira.
He continues narrowing the suspects through events such as the deaths of the FBI agents and eventually develops a strong suspicion toward Light Yagami.
What I particularly value about L is:
his ability to question his own deductions.
Even while strongly suspecting Light, he is willing to reconsider possibilities when new evidence does not fit his hypothesis.
That is extremely important in a battle of minds.
L also does not simply sit somewhere safe and solve the case from a distance.
He enrolls at the same university as Light and directly approaches him.
He then brings Light into the investigation team and continues the psychological battle from extremely close range.
Normally, someone might think:
“He’s suspicious, so I should keep my distance and monitor him.”
L apparently reaches a different conclusion:
“He’s suspicious, so I should sit next to him.”
Even his sense of personal distance operates at genius level.
L ultimately dies.
However, I do not believe this happened because Light completely defeated him through pure deduction alone.
Light incorporates Rem’s feelings for Misa into his strategy and creates a situation in which Rem kills both L and Watari.
L never completely abandons his suspicion of Light.
For those reasons, under my personal criteria—which place particular value on:
deducing the truth from unknown information,
logically rebuilding hypotheses,
and
observing an opponent’s behavior,
I consider L slightly superior to Light.
However, this No. 1 position is not an official fact.
The argument that:
“Light successfully created the plan that led to L’s death, so Light was ultimately smarter”
is completely valid as well.
My ranking simply reflects the fact that:
I personally give relatively high value to deduction when judging intelligence.
L’s sitting posture and sugar consumption are not included in the scoring.
If they were, this would eventually turn into a completely different article.
Who Is Smarter: L or Light Yagami?
The comparison I struggled with most in this ranking was:
L vs. Light Yagami.
I do not believe that L is clearly more intelligent than Light in every category.
Their strengths are different.
Deduction: L
L approaches Kira without even knowing that something like the Death Note exists.
When it comes to working backward from limited information toward the truth, I rank L higher.
Planning: Light Yagami
Light, on the other hand, excels at creating complicated plans that extend weeks or even months into the future.
The memory-loss strategy during the Yotsuba arc is one of the clearest examples.
Adaptability: Almost Equal
Both characters are extraordinarily fast when responding to unexpected developments.
Light immediately creates explanations and new strategies.
L rapidly rebuilds his hypotheses when new information appears.
The Small Difference I See Is Personality
Light is extraordinarily intelligent, but his pride sometimes affects his decisions.
L also takes enormous risks, but he tends to preserve at least some possibility that:
“My theory may be wrong.”
I give that difference a small amount of weight.
Therefore:
1. L 2. Light Yagami
However,
if planning and psychological manipulation matter more to you than deduction, Light at No. 1 is perfectly reasonable.
This is probably the part of the ranking where readers are most likely to disagree.
Is Near Smarter Than L?
Near ultimately succeeds in proving that Light is Kira.
Looking only at the final result, it might appear that:
Near > L
However, I believe their circumstances were very different.
L begins investigating when almost nothing about Kira is known.
By Near’s era, a significant amount of information has already accumulated through the years of the Kira investigation.
The final breakthrough also depends heavily on Mello’s actions.
For those reasons, I do not personally believe that:
Near alone demonstrated greater intelligence than L.
However, Near’s calm analytical ability and his success in ultimately cornering Light are unquestionably among the greatest intellectual achievements in the story.
No. 3 is still an extremely high evaluation.
Why Is Naomi Misora Ranked No. 5?
Naomi appears for only a short time.
So some readers may think:
“Isn’t No. 5 too high?”
This is one of the positions most strongly influenced by my own evaluation criteria.
I place considerable value on:
how close someone gets to the truth compared with the amount of information available to them.
Naomi approaches an important part of Kira’s killing method using extremely limited evidence.
And it is not simply luck.
Her conclusions come from analyzing what happened to Raye Penber.
I therefore value the density of her deductions rather than the total amount of time she appears in the story.
That is why I placed her at No. 5.
Why Is Rem Ranked No. 7?
Among a ranking filled mainly with human geniuses, some readers may reasonably ask:
“Why is a Shinigami suddenly here?”
However, Rem does more than simply know the rules of the Death Note.
She understands Light’s danger and reads human emotions surprisingly well.
She is ultimately incorporated into Light’s strategy, but my interpretation is that:
she was not manipulated because she failed to understand what was happening—she was forced into action because protecting Misa was her absolute priority.
That difference matters.
I therefore do not automatically lower her intelligence simply because she ultimately loses to Light’s plan.
This is also an area where my own interpretation plays an important role, so a ranking that leaves Rem outside the TOP 10 would also be completely reasonable.
Why Is Matt Ranked No. 9?
Matt simply has very little screen time.
So in terms of:
“What major mystery did he personally solve?”
there is not much material to evaluate.
On the other hand, Mail Jeevas came from Wammy’s House and assists Mello with surveillance, information gathering, and field operations.
In other words:
the problem is not that he appears unintelligent. The problem is that there is not enough screen time to measure his intelligence properly.
That is how I evaluate him.
I therefore did not rank him highly simply because he came from Wammy’s House.
Balancing his background with what is actually shown, I placed him at No. 9.
What Is the Difference Between the “Smartest” Ranking and the “Most Competent” Ranking?
In my previous ranking of the most competent characters, the top positions were:
1. Stephen Gevanni 2. Touta Matsuda 3. L 4. Light Yagami
which is a rather unusual order.
That article was not a ranking of the smartest characters.
The competent-character ranking evaluates:
Intelligence
Judgment
Initiative
Execution
Ability to accomplish goals
Impact on the story
This ranking, on the other hand, focuses primarily on:
“Who demonstrates the strongest thinking ability?”
His observation, infiltration ability, and precision are extraordinarily high.
However, rather than creating the overall strategy himself, I especially value:
his ability to execute Near’s plan with almost absurd accuracy.
No. 1 in the competence ranking.
Outside the TOP 10 here.
The change in ranking is not Gevanni’s fault.
Watari
Watari is an alias. His real name is Quillsh Wammy.
He supports L for many years and possesses a remarkably wide range of abilities involving investigation equipment, communications, information management, and more.
He is also the founder of Wammy’s House.
However, he has fewer scenes personally deducing the truth behind the Kira case than the characters in the TOP 10, so I left him outside this ranking.
Even so,
butler, inventor, investigation support, and sniper
is an extremely busy résumé.
Shuichi Aizawa
Shuichi Aizawa is his real name.
He is a highly capable investigator who eventually develops his own suspicions about Light and takes steps to verify them.
He was a serious TOP 10 candidate, but under the criteria used here, he narrowly remains outside the ranking.
Kanzo Mogi
Kanzo Mogi is his real name.
He is an extremely reliable investigator who consistently handles surveillance, infiltration, and information gathering.
However, I personally value his overall practical competence more highly than his pure intellectual ability.
His ability to survive extended periods of Misa’s energy also remains highly rated.
Conclusion | My Pick for the Smartest Character in DEATH NOTE Is L
My final ranking is:
L — Real name: L Lawliet
Light Yagami
Near — Real name: Nate River
Mello — Real name: Mihael Keehl
Naomi Misora
Teru Mikami
Rem
Reiji Namikawa
Matt — Real name: Mail Jeevas
Aiber — Real name: Thierry Morello
My choice for No. 1 is L.
However, as I have repeatedly emphasized, this is not an official ranking.
It is my personal ranking based on scenes from the story together with my own interpretation and subjective judgment.
My view is:
Planning and psychological manipulation: Light
Pure deduction and reaching the truth from unknown information: L
Because this article is an intelligence ranking and I personally give slightly more weight to the latter, I placed L at No. 1.
That means other rankings such as:
placing Light at No. 1 because planning matters most,
ranking Near even higher because he ultimately cornered Kira,
or
placing Naomi or Matt lower because they have fewer scenes
are all completely reasonable.
There is only one kind of intelligence in DEATH NOTE.
…Or rather, the exact opposite is true.
L specializes in deduction.
Light excels at long-term planning and psychological manipulation.
Near specializes in information analysis.
Mello changes the board itself.
Naomi reaches the truth with very little information.
Rem understands both rules and human psychology.
Aiber uses social intelligence as a weapon.
They all represent different kinds of intelligence.
That is exactly why changing what you value can completely change the ranking—and why debating the smartest character in DEATH NOTE is so interesting.
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