Death Note rules of usage

[petronia]

Because I can't find some of these in the scanlations, and in any case a proper list aids comprehension. Also because I take pleasure in the arbitrary, stilted baroqueness of both the content and the canonical translation. XD Arcaneness of medieval occult manual meets Japanese electronic gadget instruction booklet, wot.

Updated 14/12/04 - rules from tankoubon 4

1. • The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
   • This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
   • If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.
   • If the cause of death is not specified, the person will simply die of a heart attack.
   • After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
2. • This note shall become the property of the human world, once it touches the ground of (arrives in) the human world.
   • The owner of the note can recognize the image and voice of its original owner, i.e. a god of death.
   • The human who uses this note can neither go to Heaven nor Hell.
3. • If the time of death is written within 40 seconds after writing the cause of death as a heart attack, the time of death can be manipulated, and the time can go into effect within 40 seconds after writing the name.
   • The human who touches the DEATH NOTE can recognize the image and voice of its original owner, a god of death, even if the human is not the owner of the note.
4. • The person in possession of the DEATH NOTE is possessed by a god of death, its original owner, until they die.
   • If a human uses the note, a god of death usually appears in front of him/her within 39 days after he/she uses the note.
   • Gods of death, the original owners of the DEATH NOTE, do not do, in principle, anything which will help or prevent the deaths in the note.
   • A god of death has no obligation to completely explain how to use the note or rules which will apply to the human who owns it.
5. • A god of death can extend his life by putting human names on the note, but humans cannot.
   • A person can shorten his or her own life by using the note.
   • The human who becomes the owner of the DEATH NOTE can, in exchange of half of his/her remaining life, get the eyeballs of the god of death which will enable him/her to see a human's name and remaining lifetime when looking through them.
   • A god of death cannot be killed even if stabbed in his heart with a knife or shot in the head with a gun. However, there are ways to kill a god of death, which are not generally known to the gods of death.
6. • The conditions for death will not be realized unless it is physically possible for that human or it is reasonably assumed to be carried out by that human.
   • The specific scope of the condition for death is not known to the gods of death, either. So, you must examine and find out.
7. • One page taken from the DEATH NOTE, or even a fragment of the page, contains the full effect of the note.
   • The instrument to write with can be anything, (e.g. cosmetics, blood, etc.) as long as it can write directly onto the note and remains as legible letters.
   • Even the original owners of the DEATH NOTE, gods of death, do not know much about the note.
8. • You may also write the cause and/or details of death prior to filling in the name of the individual. Be sure to insert the name in front of the written cause of death.
     You have about 19 days (according to the human calendar) in order to fill in a name.
   • Even if you do not actually possess the DEATH NOTE, the effect will be the same if you can recognize the person and his/her name to place in the blank.
9. • The DEATH NOTE will not affect those under 780 days old.
   • The DEATH NOTE will be rendered useless [against that person] if the victim's name is misspelled four times.
10. • "Suicide" is a valid cause of death.
      Basically all humans are thought to possess the possibility to commit suicide. It is, therefore, not something "unbelievable to think of."
    • Whether the cause of the individual's death is either a suicide or accident, if the death leads to the death of more than the intended, the person will simply die of a heart attack. This is to ensure that other lives are not influenced.
11. • Even after the individual's name, the time of death, and death condition on the DEATH NOTE were filled out, the time and condition of death can be altered as many times as you want, as long as it is changed within 6 minutes and 40 seconds from the time it was filled in. But, of course, this is only possible before the victim dies.
    • Whenever you want to change anything written on the DEATH NOTE within 6 minutes and 40 seconds after you wrote, you must first rule out the characters you want to erase with two straight lines.
    • As you see above, the time and condition of death can be changed, but once the victim's name has been written, the individual's death can never be avoided.
12. • If you lose the DEATH NOTE or have it stolen, you will lose its ownership unless you retrieve it within 490 days.
    • If you have traded the eye power of a god of death, you will lose the eye power as well as the memory of the DEATH NOTE, once you lose its ownership.
      At the same time, the remaining half of your life will not be restored.
13. • You may lend the DEATH NOTE to another person while maintaining the ownership.
      Subletting it to yet another person is possible, too.
    • The borrower of the DEATH NOTE will not be followed by a god of death.
      The god of death always remains with the owner of the DEATH NOTE.
      Also, the borrower cannot trade the eyesight of the god of death.
14. • When the owner of the DEATH NOTE dies while the Note is being lent, its ownership will be transferred to the person who is holding it at that time.
    • If the DEATH NOTE is stolen and the owner is killed by the thief, its ownership will automatically be transferred to the thief.
15. • When the same name is written on more than two DEATH NOTES, the Note which was first filled in will take effect, regardless of the time of death.
    • If writing the same name on more than two DEATH NOTES is completed within a 0.06-second difference, it is regarded as simultaneous; the DEATH NOTE will not take effect and the individual written will not die.
16. • The god of death must at least own one DEATH NOTE. That DEATH NOTE must never be lent to or written on by a human
    • Exchanging and writing on the DEATH NOTE between the gods of death is no problem.
17. • If the god of death decides to use the DEATH NOTE to kill the assassin of an individual he favors, the individual's life will be extended, but the god of death will die.
    • The god of death will disappear, but the DEATH NOTE will remain. The ownership of the DEATH NOTE is usually carried over to the next god of death that touches it, but it is common sense that it is returned to the Great god of death.
18. • Only by touching each other's DEATH NOTE can human individuals who own the DEATH NOTE in the human world recognize the appearance or voice of each other's god of death.
    • An individual with the eye power of a god of death can tell the name and life span of other humans by looking at that person's face.
      By possessing the DEATH NOTE, an individual gains the ability to kill and stops being a victim. From this point, a person with the DEATH NOTE cannot see the life span of other DEATH NOTE owners, including him/herself. But, it is not really necessary for the individual to view the life span of him/herself nor other DEATH NOTE owners. [*]
    • The god of death must not tell humans the names or life spans of individuals he sees. This is to avoid confusion in the human world.
19. • It is prerequisite for the DEATH NOTE used in the human world that a living god of death makes sure that the humans in the human world use it
    • It is very difficult to consider that a god of death who has possessed a human could die, but if he should die, the DEATH NOTE that he brought into the human world will not lose its power.
20. • In order to see the names and life spans of humans by using the eye power of the god of death, the owner must look at more than half of that person's face. When looking from top to bottom, he must look at least from the head to the nose. If he looks at only the eyes and under, he will not be able to see the person's name and life span. Also, even though some parts of the face, for example the eyes, nose or mouth are hidden, if he can basically see the whole face, he will be able to see the person's name and life span. It is still not clear how much exposure is needed to tell the name and life span, and this needs to be verified.
    • If above conditions are met, names and life spans can be seen through photos and pictures, no matter how old they are. But this is sometimes influenced by the vividness and size. Also, names and life spans cannot be seen by face drawings, however realistic they may be.
21. • Those with the eye power of the god of death will have the eyesight of over 3.6 in the human measurement, regardless of their original eyesight.
22. • The individuals who lose the ownership of the DEATH NOTE will also lose their memory of the usage of the DEATH NOTE. This does not mean that he will lose all the memory from the day he owned it to the day he loses possession, but means he will only lose the memory involving the DEATH NOTE.
23. • Whenever an individual with ownership of more than two DEATH NOTES loses possession [of] one of the DEATH NOTES, he will not be able to recognize that DEATH NOTE's god of death's appearance or voice anymore.
      The god of death himself will leave, but all the memory involving that DEATH NOTE will remain as long as he maintains ownership of at least one other DEATH NOTE.

* The Japanese reads rather more precisely: "An individual with the eye power of a god of death can tell the name and life span of other humans by looking at that person's face. However, by possessing the DEATH NOTE, the human changes sides, from that of those from whom life is taken to that of those who take life. It is only necessary that they see the life span of the humans they are killing. This being taken into consideration, they cannot see the life span of other DEATH NOTE owners, themselves included." The implication is that human DEATH NOTE owners are no more supposed to kill each other than shinigami.

Comments

[vonbrigthi.livejournal.com]

huh, interesting! was this compiled on one page in the earlier chapters or in one of the collected editions or sommat?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

In the tankoubon, every couple of chapters you get a page with some rules on it (hence the numbering from I to XV). I assume they're also published in Jump, but I can't find many of them in the scanlations so am not sure.

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

*adds to Memories*

Just when I was thinking of writing a Weiss Kreuz crossover for the wk_100 challenge... #_#

[absenceofmind.livejournal.com]

sab, you are as always our brown-eyed goddess of wisdom.

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to the above, am finally done w/ Lisa Ono, sanks! ^^;

[flowright.livejournal.com]

that's very cool to have write every rules in the same entry.

you may be interest in few discussion about rules here :

http://www.livejournal.com/community/death_note/6886.html : first rules
http://www.livejournal.com/community/death_note/53298.html :
rule IX
http://www.livejournal.com/community/death_note/43641.html :
rules in tank 2
http://www.livejournal.com/community/death_note/77134.html :
rules in tank 3

I like how new rules spice up not only the actual plot in the prep but also the future plots that could happen

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links! Yeah, there's a wealth of discussion possible with this series. XD