Watari

Watari (ワタリ, Watari) is L's handler, as well as the supplier of logistics to the Japanese Task Force. He is also the founder of Wammy's House, which has produced some of the best detective minds in the world other than L, a list that includes Mello, Near, and Beyond Birthday.

Appearance
Watari has white hair and blue eyes. When in disguise as L's assistant, he wears a long black trench coat and a hat that covers his face. After he reveals his appearance to the Task Force, Watari wears a black tuxedo with a black hat and glasses.

Character
Watari is a famous inventor and the founder of Wammy's House, an orphanage for gifted children in Winchester, England. Using the fortune he made as an inventor, he built an orphanage that teaches children with special talents and sends them out into the world. Before the Japanese Task Force is formed, he is the only person known to have seen L and the only one capable of contacting L directly. Like L, he represents himself with a Cloister Black "W" on computer screens. Since L's time at Wammy's House, Watari has been a fatherly figure to him, though in his role as L's handler he acts as a butler. Watari is well-trained in espionage and marksmanship. According to Death Note 13: How To Read, Watari likes Earl Grey tea and dislikes dirty rooms.

Plot
Watari first appears during an Interpol emergency meeting, informing the officers present that L is currently working on the Kira case. He is seen again when the Task Force members first meet L, this time wearing his less conspicuous tuxedo. He is repeatedly seen bringing L trays of desserts in the first several months of the Kira investigation. During the Kyosuke Higuchi chase, Watari stopped Higuchi from completing suicide by shooting the gun from his hand with a rifle shot from a helicopter.

After Light Yagami regains his Death Note, he corners Rem into killing Watari and L to save Misa, causing her own death from increasing Misa's lifespan. During his heart attack, Watari presses a kill-switch button which causes deletion of all data at Task Force headquarters. L told him to do this if something 'strange' were to happen to him. His death in the anime is nearly identical to his death in the manga, with the exception that in the anime, Rem is shown behind Watari, stepping back into the shadows with her one visible eye glowing red.

In other media
In Death Note: Last Name and L: Change the WorLd, Watari dies of a heart attack in the elevator while capturing Misa.

In the film, he is played by Shunji Fujimura, who felt that Watari's presence would "come alive" if he projected "the mood of this mysterious old gentleman without the air of livelihood."