Light Yagami starts the series off as a young high school student. At this moment, he doesn’t have anything other than his intelligence and his hatred for criminals. However, that all changes once he gets his hands on the Death Note, a notebook that allows him to kill whoever’s name is written down on the notebook. Light uses the Death Note to achieve his goal of murdering criminals, and by doing so, he wishes to become a god and rule over the world as such, using the alias KIRA to do so. Yoshikage Kira, on the other hand, has the polar opposite goals. Kira, unlike Light, was always a serial killer. He would murder young girls and would get into a romantic relationship with their hands, and was able to do so for fifteen years thanks to the ability of his Stand, a spirit with unique powers that fights for their user, and Kira’s Stand is known as Killer Queen, a Stand that can create bombs out of whatever it touches. It can also create a second Stand known as Sheer Heart Attack, which acts on its own and blows up whenever it feels any sort of heat, including body temperature heat. While Light wanted to be known as a god and be feared by the world, Yoshikage did not want anyone to know who he was, and just wants to live a quiet and peaceful life inside the small town of Morioh. Though they are both serial killers, they both have completely different goals. Now, let’s look at some of the accomplices of these two.
Light manages to have quite a few accomplices. First, there’s Ryuk. This is debatable, since Ryuk didn’t care whether Light won or not, but he was forced to help Light’s at points, such as when he was refused apples unless he found the cameras hidden in his room. He also has Misa Amane, a girl who is in love with Light and will do whatever she can to help him, such as having the Shinigami Eye, an ability that halves the life of the one who has it, but allows them to see the names of people and how much time they have left. Being a Japanese idol, she is able to get closer to well known individuals, and can use this to her advantage in helping Kira. Though Light is annoyed by her actions, he does know that her devotion to him is exactly what he needs to achieve his goal. And finally, there’s Teru Mikami, a prosecutor that has the same views as Light, and more so, using another Death Note to, as he says, “delete” anyone who he views as evil. His loyalty to Light is clearly shown, and will even die to protect him, as he views Light as a god.
Now, Kira’s accomplices are a little… different. He really only has one true loyal follower, and that is the ghost of his dead father, Yoshihiro Kira. Yoshihiro, being the father of Kira, does whatever he can to protect his son in his state, and uses his own Stand, Atom Heart Father, to protect him. This Stand allows Yoshihiro to travel through a small photograph, and also trap people within photos to kill them, but when that fails, he goes around Morioh and creates other Stand users to protect his son, such as Boyz II Men, Earth Wind and Fire, Highway Star, Stray Cat, Superfly, Enigma, and Cheap Trick, all of which turned out to be quite a threat to the Morioh group looking for Kira. Another “accomplice” is the son of Kosaku Kawajiri, Hayato Kawajiri. I puts quotes around accomplice because this is more of being forced into being one, since Hayato is heavily against Kira’s actions and wants to see him stopped. After Kira had his identity changed to Kosaku Kawajiri by replacing his own face with Kosaku (It’s a long story), he moved into the Kawajiri residents to hide from the group looking for him. The wife of Kosaku and mother of Hayato, Shinobu Kawajiri, didn’t suspect Kira and instead, fell in love with him, as her marriage with Kosaku was badly damaged. Hayato, however, suspected Kira and after having found out his identity, had caused Hayato to become a part of Kira’s plan, where he was used as the carrier for Killer Queen’s third bomb, Killer Queen Bites the Dust (Which I will get to later). Now that we know the power and the allies of these two, let’s see how they would fair in a battle of wits.
So, let’s say that, Light would have heard of the crimes going on in Morioh. Having a strong sense of justice, he would have no doubt wanted to end Kira. However, since Kira is good at keeping a low profile, Light wouldn’t be able to know his name so easily. So, he would probably have to do some investigating in order to catch him off guard. After this, Kira would know that someone would be looking for him, and, knowing that someone is hunting him down would cause him to become completely stressed, and would want to fix that. Kira would be looking for Light and Light would be looking for Kira. Now, I am talking about Yoshikage Kira before he gains the ability of Killer Queen Bites the Dust, and only has Killer Queen. Both of them, at this point, have one advantage over the other. Since Light isn’t a Stand user, he is unable to see Killer Queen, so if Kira wanted to at any moment, he could just turn the Death Note into a bomb and finish Light off like that. But, the chances of Kira knowing how the Death Note works at that point are very slim. Light, on the other hand, has Misa, and Misa has the Shinigami Eyes. And, since Yoshikage doesn’t have his own Death Note, she can easily read his name and that would be it. So, both of them could easily finish the other off in their own ways. But, if we talk about Kira once he has become Kosaku, then it gets a bit tricky. Thinking through this, if Kira had taken the face of Kosaku, that wouldn’t mean that he would be Kosaku. He would still be himself, just with a different face. I’m not sure if the Shinigami Eyes would read Yoshikage Kira or Kosaku Kawajiri. If it’s the former, than what I mentioned before about Misa just reading his name would still go. However, if the Shinigami Eyes read Kosaku Kawajiri, than that’s a different story, because, at the time Kira has Kosaku’s face, the real Kosaku Kawajiri is already dead, so this would probably cause lots of confusion to Light Yagami. But, like I said, the Shinigami Eyes could still read Yoshikage Kira, so that may not be as effective… However, there is one final tactic, and that is the fact that Yoshikage still has Killer Queen Bites the Dust.
Once Yoshikage has this ability, it’s already all over for Light Yagami. The moment that Misa reads his name, she has already activated Bites the Dust. Bites the Dust is the third and final bomb of Killer Queen. It can’t be activated on Stand users, which is why Hayato is the one Kira uses Bites the Dust on. When anyone asks the identity of Yoshikage Kira, Bites the Dust will immediately activate. It will kill whoever asks about it and time will reset by one hour. After this, time will continue, but the person who was killed will die once again, unless Killer Queen Bites the Dust is taken off. No doubt Light would ask Hayato about Yoshikage. Once he does, than that’s it. Light cannot open the Death Note quick enough to get Kira’s name down on it before Bites the Dust activates. Even when time resets, if Light never meets Hayato in the reset time, Light will still die, no matter what. Light would lose right then and there, and there is nothing that can be done. So, in the end, Yoshikage Kira would defeat Light Yagami, if he was at his full potential. If he wasn’t, Light would have a chance. But, this is just how I see it. Do tell me what you think of this. I hope you enjoyed this little analysis of two killers in anime.
