Teru Mikami

Teru Mikami (魅上 照, Mikami Teru) in the original manga and anime versions, is a criminal prosecutor chosen as the new Kira by Light Yagami. When Light feels it is much too dangerous for Misa Amane to keep the Death Note any longer, he instructs her to pass the ownership of the Death Note to Mikami. He also performs an eye trade with Ryuk, earning him the Shinigami Eyes. When Mikami's decisions reveal that he can follow the thoughts and ideals of the first Kira, as L could, Light wonders if Mikami will become much-needed help, or a new threat.

He is noteworthy for his "delete" catchphrase ("削除 (sakujo)" in the Japanese version), which is recited whenever he writes a name in his notebook. It has grown to become somewhat of an internet meme.

Background
As a child, Mikami’s sense of justice developed through the over-observation of, according to the manga, “his surroundings”. Even at a young age, he had already begun categorizing people as either “good” or “evil”. Raised by a single mother, she is often described by Mikami as his only ally and sole confidant during his youth.

His analytical behavior was indicative of his intellect which, coupled with his ambition and sense of justice, allowed him to become elected president of his class from elementary to middle school. As class president, he defended his classmates from bullies, often leading to physical altercations.

Although Mikami was eventually successful in uniting his entire class against the bullies, he found his efforts making little headway once he began attending middle school. Constantly being bullied himself and even beaten, Mikami’s sense of justice became warped as he began to wish for the “deletion” of his “enemies”.

Worried about his safety, his mother attempts to convince Mikami to give up trying to help his classmates. In response, Mikami lost faith in his mother and begins to hold her in contempt. His mother would eventually be killed in a car accident along with four of Mikami’s “enemies”. Although Mikami initially mourned for his mother’s death, he was content to know that his classroom became more “peaceful” as a result of the accident. Since then, Mikami subscribed to the belief that anyone who did wrong should be punished and took it upon himself to enforce this belief as his hatred for evil grew "stronger and stronger".

These feelings eventually seep into his career aspirations, and after "passing through high school and university with excellent grades" he becomes a prosecuting attorney. Shortly after adopting the profession, Mikami learns about Kira through various media outlets. Feeling that his sense of righteousness was confirmed through Kira’s actions, Mikami begins to obsess over Kira. Mikami eventually becomes a member of Kira’s Kingdom, in hopes of being noticed by Kira through televised appearances.

Plot
After Near instills doubt in the task force members following a botched attempt to kill the former, Light decides to elect a new proxy in order to stave off suspicion. Watching various tapings of Kira’s Kingdom, Light selects Mikami based on his intuition alone.



When Light feels that a significant gap has appeared between his and Mikami’s ideals, he develops a means of communication with Mikami by installing Kiyomi Takada as a middle-woman. After this is established, Light begins to lay the foundations in his final plan to eliminate Near by manipulating the SPK into tailing Mikami. Mikami would in turn create a replica of his notebook and use it to trick Near into thinking it was real. During their final confrontation, Mikami would take the real notebook and use it to kill Near and the rest of the investigators tasked with catching Kira.



Mikami’s actions are theorized to be a display of artifice by Mello, leading Mello to kidnap Takada in an effort to bait Mikami into exposing the notebook. He does so and Mikami’s notebook is found and stolen by the SPK and replaced with another replica. During the actual final confrontation in the Yellow Box warehouse between Light, the task force and the SPK, Mikami writes down everyone’s names save for Light’s in the fake notebook, exposing Light as Kira.

In the manga version of Death Note, Mikami renounces Light as his god after the latter attempts to order Mikami to kill the task force and the SPK despite the notebook having already been confiscated. After being incarcerated, he mysteriously dies in prison ten days later, leading to Matsuda's theory that Near restricted Mikami's actions with the Death Note in order to convict Light.

In the final episode of the anime, Mikami commits suicide by stabbing himself in the chest, creating a diversion for the task force and SPK. This gives Light the opprotunity to flee the warehouse. During the ending credits, Mikami's body is last seen lying over the floor.

Conception and development of Mikami
Ohba has no visual preferences when he designed Mikami and therefore let Obata create the visual aspects. Obata based Mikami's design on Taro Kagami, the main character in the pilot chapter of the series. He was told that Mikami was supposed to be a "stoic character like Light" while not knowing that Mikami was a prosecutor and a follower of Kira. As the series progressed, Obata drew Mikami as an "insane fanatic." Obata said that he gave Mikami glasses since "glasses are in these days." Obata added that "things were a little haphazard at this point..."



Ohba created Mikami's backstory in order to establish Mikami and Light as "equals" and that Mikami is "special in some way." Mikami is the only character to receive a chapter dedicated to his past, and Ohba was reluctant to create the flashback because he personally does not like creating them. Though he usually did not add detail about "Kira worshippers", he decided to pay special attention to Mikami's first appearance. He wanted to have Mikami be both smart and dangerous, and have a hatred for societal evil, which he transferred into Mikami's role as a prosecutor. He wanted it to be clear that Mikami was evil, but, at the same time, he did not want to focus on the aspects of right and wrong. Ohba's second favorite human character in the series was Mikami as Ohba believed that Mikami was the second "strongest" character in the series "besides Light." Regarding Matsuda's theory on Near's involvement on Mikami's death, Ohba and Obata have stated that they themselves aren't sure on this; in How to Read 13, Ohba suggests that given Near knew the "burning" and "13 day" rules were fake rules, he wouldn't have feared writing in the notebook, and then burnt the notebook so as to destroy the evidence. No solid information has been given on the matter; readers are meant to draw their own conclusions.

For the anime, Mikami was seemingly designed to look as much as possible his manga counterpart. At one point, however, Mikami was planned to be colored with brown hair, contradicting his usual depiction with black hair. This proposed change of hair color was ultimately denied, and Mikami was colored with black hair for the anime.

Trivia

 * He is one of the two Kira to have another letter in his name, namely the X in his nickname by Near, X-Kira and also the only one associated with Light Yagami to have such a nickname.
 * He is referred to as "T" by Light and Takada during their meetings as to avoid revealing Mikami's true identity.
 * In the Rewrite 2 special aired on Japanese television on August 22, 2008, Mikami and Takada are the ones to kill the majority of the SPK, rather than the Mafia. He is also appointed as Kira much sooner than in the anime and manga, having already assumed the role before Near has even begun his investigation.


 * It is interesting to note that despite Mikami having improved vision following having the eye trade with Ryuk (according to How to Use XXI), Mikami still periodically wears his glasses.
 * Had Mikami been successful in killing Near, the SPK and the task force, he would have been kept alive as Light's "eyes" according to the one-hundredth chapter of the manga.