King of Death

Death Note 13: How to Read first calls the King's form incomprehensible and declines to show it, but the C-Kira one-shot finally depicts him. He is a huge, globe-like mass of a body held aloft by chains, topped with a skull head set within a larger outer skull. Four arms hang from his frame, each hand ending in three claws.

Many shinigami call him the Old Man, and How to Read suggests his great age explains the nickname. Rem warns that he is not easily fooled, a feat Ryuk nonetheless manages, yet he is also easily bribed: Midora once bartered thirteen apples in exchange for a spare Death Note. Ryuk's mixed remarks, calling him an old fart while still worrying about angering him, mark the King as a figure feared more than liked. He shows little warmth toward Ryuk and reserves a particular contempt for humans who profit from a Death Note without ever writing in it.

As sovereign of the realm, the King's recorded statistics are all listed as immeasurable, hinting at power beyond human comprehension. He rules and governs every shinigami and oversees the distribution of each Death Note handed out at a shinigami's creation, though he refuses to replace lost ones. His authority extends to making new laws: in the one-shot, on learning that Minoru Tanaka means to sell a Death Note rather than use it, he furiously writes a rule killing anyone who buys or sells the notebook after using it, ending Minoru's scheme. By contrast he never moved against Light, who wielded the notebook as intended. In Death Note: Light Up the NEW World, pleased by Kira's deeds, he orders the shinigami to seek a successor and promises his throne to whoever succeeds.