Matt

Matt (マット, Matto), real name Mail Jeevas  (マイル・ジバス, Mairu Jibasu), is Mello's accomplice, and first appears in Chapter 83 (Volume 10, page 70) of the manga and 32 of the anime. He does some espionage work for Mello and is an accomplice in Takada's kidnapping. In the manga he was also told by Mello to watch Misa Amane for any proof she was the second Kira. Not much else is known about Matt, other than he is a former resident of Wammy's House. In Chapter 98 or episode 35, he fires a smoke bomb at Takada's bodyguards as a distraction for Mello to kidnap Takada; in the next chapter of the manga he meets face to face with Takada's bodyguards.

Inside the back of his shirt, he hid a gun which he tried to take out until he is finally shot multiple times by all thirteen of the bodyguards surrounding him. Mello later sees the news of his death, broadcast on TV and apologizes for having gotten Matt killed.

Matt's appearance was a total of 18 panels in the manga (spread out over chapters 83-87 and 98-99) and two episodes in the anime, though only for a few minutes, in a non-speaking cameo in episode 32 and a speaking role in episode 35 (where the events of Takada's kidnapping and his death was depicted). Despite his brief appearance and lack of character development, he is one of the most popular characters.



It is later revealed that Matt's real name is Mail Jeevas. He likes video games, but dislikes going out. Matt is usually known by his signature orange goggles and smoking a cigarette. He was behind Mello and Near to succeed L. Matt is 172 centimeters tall, weighs 60 kilograms, and his blood type O. His hair color was never revealed in the manga. Regardless before the second season debut of the Death Note anime, fans unofficially colored his hair red or copper, a portrayal that still stands in most fanart along with a "gaming" trait much like L's addiction to sweets or Mello's to chocolate. The anime portrays him as having dark, brownish hair during the nonspeaking parts, while the video game Death Note: L o Tsugumono (L's Successors) portrays him with neon-blue hair. An image of Matt without goggles is shown in the anime guidebook, revealing him to have dark blue eyes.

Fan Portrayal
Although Matt had little screen time in the anime and very few panels in the manga, he is a fan favorite. However, many fans take artistic liberty with the character, such as refusing to use Madhouse's color scheme (brown hair, red shirt, etc.) and instead replacing it with the more popular "fandom colors" that originated from doujinshi artists (red hair, white shirt, green eyes).

Other than Matt's age, date of birth, height, love of gaming and smoking, and dislike of going outdoors, all of Matt's past, childhood at Wammys, relationship with Mello, Near, and L, and personality are all fan speculation. While there are many protrayals, there are several commonly used traits that are recycled in fan work.

Because he is so underdeveloped, many fans have continued some traditions that are commonly used in fanfiction as his backstory, such as giving him a history of child abuse making him both Mello's roommate and best friend at Wammy's, making him a drug addict, making him a hacker by trade, making him a masochist, making him not care about surpasing L but instead rooting for Mello to do so, etc, even though there is no evidence of any of this in the original canon.

Trivia



 * Despite only having a fairly minor role in the series, Matt is still one of the most popular characters and somewhat a fan favorite.
 * Matt is the only one of the best known Wammy Boys that Linda didn't draw. No one besides Mello knew who he was, and this is further proven when the woman on the news says, "...A man has been shot for assisting in the kidnapping of Kiyomi Takada, though authorities don't know who he is..."
 * Matt is also one of the few characters in Death Note to admit out loud that Misa is "cute" but this only happened in the manga during the time he was instructed to keep an eye on her.
 * In the anime and manga, Matt is left handed.