Near

Nate River (ネイト・リバー, Neito Ribā), better known as Near (ニア, Nia), is the youngest of L's two successors, raised in Watari's orphanage for gifted children (Wammy's House). After the death of L, Near begins his investigation of the Kira case. After gathering evidence over a period of four years, Near takes his findings to the President of the United States and reveals himself to be the true successor of L. Soon after, Near becomes the head of the SPK and continues the hunt for Kira. After making contact with "L" (Light Yagami), Near begins to suspect that the current "L" is also Kira.

Appearance
Near's appearance is very unusual, having white hair, dark eyes, and wearing only white pajamas. He is also very short for his age, being only 155 cm tall (5' 0"). Near weighes 88 pounds (39.2 kg), and his blood type is B. It is revealed 3 years later (after Light Yagami's death) that Near not only takes on the name of L but also grows up to look more like the original L himself. Near begins to have the sharp bags under his eyes, his hair begins to take on the style and he hits a growth spurt.

Character
It is stated in "Death Note: How To Read 13" that "his calmness in situations is even above that of L's." Effectively, Near is shown to be extremely calm and emotionless in both attitude and expression regardless of the situation he's put in. (Even when nearly all the members of the SPK were killed, he simply observed.) However, it is shown that he is worse at cooperation than L was. "He was even willing to use forceful tactics that were barely in the law" and that "he values results above all else." He is shown to smile when getting something right. Even though his intelligence is that of a genius, he lacks social knowledge and is bad at interacting with others, so "he is only able to display his true deductive powers when he has the support of his members." The book also states that Near is distant from people because he is sensitive.

Near shows much more emotion in the manga than he does in the anime, and displays far more facial expressions. For example, when the SPK members were killed in the anime Near has a very stern look, but in the manga he is visibly upset.

Tsugumi Ohba, the writer of Death Note, said that Near becomes less likeable as the story progresses, citing the upcoming plan to have the notebook at a later point in history. Ohba added that Near's cheeky behavior, intended to reinforce his childishness, had been construed as annoying. Ohba said that a negative reaction led to a difference in their attitudes and that people may have seen Near as a cheat or wannabe L.

In the post-series one-shot Near is shown to have a great respect for L, basing much of how he solves crime on L's methods, even to the point where he only takes cases that he has a personal interest in rather than trying to pursue justice.

Much like L, Near shows various unusual mannerisms during his day to day life. He is usually seen hunched over rather than sitting, and he also constantly plays with various toys, which he uses in his theories.



With extremely child-like interests, his surroundings always have toys, dice, or darts strewn about. Even though he is only playing, piecing together a patterned puzzle starting out of nowhere and the like easily shows a sample of his abilities and intelligence. Normally, his fixation with toys is light, but he does seem to have things that he particularly likes since he has taken these with him when he had to escape.

Three years after the main story, Near takes an interest in building Tarot card stacks. Of course, these structures are far beyond normal size, easily covering an entire room. It appears that Near would despise anyone who would knock down these structures, accidentally or intentionally. He also seems to have a love for dice.

Although Near is always surrounded with toys, none of them are electronics. All of his toys are the types that need to be moved manually such as the action figures, darts and dolls (except for the remote-control rubber ducks powered with batteries, and a battery-moved train).

Near appears to be ambidextrous, playing darts with his left hand and stacking dice with his right.

While L uses the Old English Text MT/Cloister Black font text "L," Near uses the Wedding Text BT/ClerestorySSK font text "N," to represent himself during the Kira investigation. In the post series one-shot, he is shown conducting investigations as "L", and uses the Old English Text MT/Cloister Black font text "L".

Plot
Nearly four years after the death of L, Near worked for the United States under the SPK team that was established to investigate Kira. He soon managed to deduce that Light Yagami, posing as L, actually is Kira. After identifying Mikami as Light's proxy and after Mello kidnaps Takada (which revealed Light's deception of having Mikami use a fake Death Note to lead Near on), Near was able to switch the real Death Note with his own fake version, which allowed him to set up a final confrontation which left Light exposed. Near claims neither he nor Mello could have surpassed L alone, but together they had done so by inadvertently working together. Near soon takes on L's name and keeps on the surviving members of the SPK as his subordinates.

In the one-shot taking place after the series, Near is shown as the new L (the third chronologically). A new Kira emerges who had gained a Death Note from the shinigami Meadra (Midori in Viz's translation of Death Note: How To Read 13), who had received the additional Death Note from the Shinigami King by bribing him 13 apples she had taken from the human world. The new Kira murdered elderly people in Japan to "relieve their pain." When Near's SPK subordinates asked him why he wasn't taking any action, he replied that he was trying to think what the previous L would have done. He finally reaches a conclusion that the prevailing Kira was just a killer without a purpose, and he labeled the killer as "C-Kira" for "Cheap Kira." He announces on national television, under the alias of "L," that he was not interested in the case and that he had deduced that this Kira was not the real Kira but only an "abominable murder." This resulted in the suicide of C-Kira. Throughout the 40-page manga chapter, the identity of the new Kira is not revealed.

L: Change the WorLd
In L: Change the WorLd, L gives a talented Thai boy with a gift for calculations the name "Near." L hopes for the boy, the sole survivor of a Thai village ravaged with a deadly disease, to succeed him as L as he knows that the rules of the Death Note will kill the experienced detective within a short period of time. Near does not speak much in the movie (during the movie, he only says numbers and letters) and when he does, he speaks only in English. Like many of the characters during the transition from animation to live action, Near is portrayed with black hair instead of white hair as seen in the anime. Near is portrayed by Narushi Fukuda in the film and voice by Michael Strusievici in the English Dub. For reasons unknown, even though L was shown giving him the name of "Near," he was listed as "BOY/ニア" in the credits.

Novel
In L: Change the WorLd (novel) based on the film, Near is described as being the original Near as he appeared in the original Death Note series. However, due to the plot in which Kira killing L is absent, the requirement of an immediate nominee as successor is not necessary. As a result, the eight-year old Near is claimed to be working on a different case involving the prevention of World War III since the timeskip present in the original series is absent. The plot in which Near was a Thai boy is also completely absent from the novel.

It is revealed in the novel that Near was the chosen successer to L if L had to make his choice. However, there was no mention or discussion about Mello in the book.

Conception
Ohba said that he introduced Near and Mello together as L individually could not defeat Kira. Ohba felt that introducing one character individually would produce a "repeat" of the struggle between Light and L, so he instead wanted a story involving three combatants fighting each other. Ohba said that he let Obata create the character designs and asked him to make both characters look "a little 'L-ish.'" Ohba said that he "wavered" in their ages and considered making the characters the sons of L. Ohba added that he did not initially develop their personalities as he wanted to "reveal" them through their actions.

Ohba said that he gave Near a hobby of playing with toys (mostly robots); he also stacks "things" as a development from L's hobby of stacking sugar cubes emphasising his child-like appearence. Ohba included the match and the dice towers in his thumbnails and said that he thought Obata might encounter difficulty in drawing them. Ohba felt surprised when he saw the dice towers in the final work.

The given name "Nate" comes from the word "natural," and "River" symbolizes that Near's talents flow from L. Therefore, Near is the natural successor to L. The name is "supposed" to show that Near is a "natural genius blessed from above." The nickname Near is composed of the first and last letters of Nate River then swapped around to make a recognizable word.

Obata said that since Ohba wanted to "include a little L" in Near and Mello, he tried to keep "the weirdness and the panda eyes." Obata added that since L was an important character, he felt that he made Near and Mello look too much like L. He described the character designs as "a major struggle." Obata said that when he first heard about Near and Mello, he assumed that Near and Mello would join as a team and work together, so he envisioned the two as twins when he created the character designs. Obata stated that he originally thought about creating Near as "a bit more mature mentally." Obata said that he created and considered using a younger version of that design. Another design Obata included a "really innocent and cheerful character," and he felt that the design could work for Near; however, he "quickly abandoned" the idea.

Obata said that when he first saw Near, he "didn't even know what the heck he was wearing." He said that "it was tough" drawing Near's apparel as he did not understand the assembly of his clothes. Obata said that he settled for pajamas [because of the "toyish" theme Near represents] and "things got a lot easier."

Obata added that the designs for the characters became switched at the design phase; the final Mello had Near's design and vice-versa. Obata said that when he created a depiction of the designs, his editor wrote the wrong names accompanying the designs; then Obata received approval, and he could not say that the labels were incorrect. Obata said that, for him, Near was "more evil." He felt that "it's better" that the switch occurred.

Obata stated that as he drew Near, the concept of his immaturity became "stronger and stronger" as he believes that such traits are best revealed "gradually." Obata cited the fact that in the beginning Near's sole toy consisted of darts.

Ohba had said that the finger puppets used by Near in the final chapter did not exist in the thumbnails and that he felt the final scenes "looked cooler" with the presence of the puppets. Obata said that he felt he could express "negative" parts of Near with the puppets. Ohba added that one could see "his dark side in his kind of puppets he used." Takeshi Obata, artist of Death Note, said that Near first brought the finger puppets and drew on them with a magic marker. Obata then said Near must have created the other puppets afterwards. Obata sees that Near doesn't really like L so much (although he respects him, he doesn't realy like him as a person), as Near says "If you can't win the game, If you can't solve the puzzle, then you're just a loser". Referring to L as a loser, so Obata had Near depict L as ugly; however, Near worked hard on the Mello's puppet as Near liked Mello.

Trivia

 * At the end of the manga Near is shown eating chocolate in homage to Mello.
 * When Teru Mikami used his Shinigami eyes, the numbers of Near's Lifespan are: 43406.

Themes
Near has three themes, each appearing on Death Note Original Soundtrack III. His themes are "Near's Theme", "Near", and "Near 2".

Left: "Near's Theme" (ニアのテーマ, ''Nia no Tēma).  Right: "Near" (ニア, Nia'' ).

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