Kiyomi Takada

Striking and frequently described as beautiful, Takada wears her short black hair parted to one side above dark gray eyes. Her wardrobe leans formal: bare-shouldered tops worn with skirts or slacks, occasionally finished with a jacket and a touch of red lipstick.

Sharp-minded and elegant, Takada built a reputation at university as Miss To-Oh, the refined beauty who played hard to get. Pride defines her; she loves being the center of attention. Her faith in Kira's ideals carries her into the spokeswoman role on NHN's News 6, where her looks and composure win a viewership that all but worships her. Convinced Misa Amane does not deserve Light, she settles into a quiet rivalry with her.

Takada and Light had been a couple during their college years, and Light turns that history to his advantage once Teru Mikami, knowing nothing of the link, taps her to follow Hitoshi Demegawa as Kira's voice, valuing her for the poised, intelligent way she could relay his words. The Japanese Task Force means to exploit her old ties to Light for leads on Kira; Light's aim runs the other way, casting her as the hidden go-between linking him to Mikami. Aizawa manages the hotel bookings while their meeting rooms are wired ahead of her arrival, and at the first session Light, playing the part of a Kira investigator, urges her to voice her own views rather than merely echo Kira's lines.

Mikami takes notice and, during a later meeting, telephones Takada; handed the phone, Light quietly assures him he is the genuine Kira. Citing Kira's own demand, Light clears the room of its hidden bugs and cameras, then drops the act and tells the astonished Takada that he is Kira, explaining that the figure she had taken for Kira was only a pawn he had empowered. He invites her to share a perfected world at his side as his queen. She answers that no other man has ever earned her respect, and the revelation that he is Kira only deepens her devotion.

For the meetings that follow, the Task Force fits a wire to Light's body, so the pair resort to trading notes on hotel stationery rather than speaking openly. The SPK installs Halle Lidner as her nearest bodyguard, and because they had pushed Light into having Takada announce on air that the surviving SPK members had entered Japan, he warns her to watch those around her for one of Near's planted agents. He also lays out the scheme in which Mikami keeps a forged notebook while the authentic pages go to Takada for the actual killings, an idea that rattles her. Her envy of Misa, Light's long-standing partner, boils over into a dinner where the two women spar over which of them suits him best, until Light soothes her by dismissing Misa as a spent relevance from his past.

When Mikami signals that the plan is underway, Takada passes the news to Light, who then sends her the site of his decisive meeting with Near to forward to Mikami. The following day Matt stages a diversion, a smoke bomb going off outside NHN's offices, and Halle hands Takada to Mello. While her guards run down Matt and gun him down in public, Mello slips free, bundles her into a waiting truck, and orders her to shed her clothes so any tracker is lost, granting her only a blanket. A torn page of the notebook stays tucked in her bra, unseen by Mello, and across it she scrawls his name. Reaching Light on Mello's own phone, she is reminded of her earlier orders and rings Mikami for as many names as he can give. Mikami, grasping the danger she faces, rushes to the bank where the notebook is stashed and sets down her name, unaware that Light had already sentenced her a minute earlier. The notebook drives her to set a fire, and she burns with everything around her; by the time Halle, Aizawa, Ide, and Light reach the church, she is dead and the building is ablaze.

In the live-action sequel Death Note: The Last Name, Takada inherits Higuchi's place as the third Kira. Rem, impressed by her drive at the news station, hands her the notebook, which she turns to selfish ends, advancing her career and disposing of a rival, Saeko Nishiyama, to win a promotion. The team boxes her in much as they did Higuchi, with Matsuda set to expose her, and once Light reclaims the notebook and his memories he kills her to retake ownership, leaving her to die of a heart attack, blindfolded and bound, in custody.