New World

This page is for Light's utopia. For the episode, see New World (episode).

Light justifies his motivations for creating a "new world".

The New World (新世界, shinsekai) is the ideal society Light Yagami endeavors to create through the use of the Death Note. The creation of his new world is what Light claims to be the main driving force behind his actions as Kira.

Kira's New World

In his own words, Light's vision of a new world consists of one where only "kind-hearted" people he decides are good live in it. He claims that once the world as a whole changes, people will also change and become "kinder". Light's plan to establish his new world comprises of various steps; he begins by eradicating the most dangerous criminals in the world through heart attacks and then plans to kill off "immoral people and people who harass others" through accidents and diseases. However, once L begins to actively pursue him, Light starts to also kill individuals who are not criminals, such as law enforcement officials tasked with capturing him.

Another aspect of Light's ideal world, however, is to have the world's police force work alongside him rather than oppose him; this part of his plan essentially comes into fruition after he kills L and takes his place. By taking the position of L, Light not only has access to more criminal records, but has the assistance of police agencies around the world, allowing him to even have tabs on the U.S. president. Light gaining access to these police databases (along with the public posting information of criminals on the internet) enables Light to accelerate his killings whilst increasing his global approval to the point where he can appoint a spokesperson to spread "Kira's ideals and teachings".

To Light, Mikami evidently shared in his dream to create an ideal world by force, but acted too quickly in pursuing certain measures.

It is implied that another aspect of Light's plan for creating a new world involved gaining majority support from the public before he could take certain measures to truly create his "dream world by force"; about six years into Kira's reign, while Teru Mikami is serving as Light's proxy, the latter becomes baffled when he discovers that the former has deemed it already necessary to kill those who refuse to contribute to the good of society. However, instead of fully dismissing the idea, Light remarks that it is much too soon to be making such an order, implying that Light would be open to killing "lazy people" only after he deemed that there was enough time spent on building trust and support from the people. Light's plan to first maintain a positive image for Kira in the public's eyes is also corroborated earlier in the manga, when Light laments how Misa threatening and killing police officers during the first year of his reign could drag down Kira's image.

Although Light, by the end of the series, had managed to sway most of the world’s population over to his side, he was met with opposition by the likes of Near and other anti-Kira organizations, and they eventually brought his demise. Ultimately, though the morality of Light's actions were questionable, they did arguably bear some results; Near himself even admitted in the one-shot manga special that the world under Light's short-lived regime did see the end of wars and the global crime rate drop 70%. A year after Light's death, as they see the world around them return to the state it was before Kira came into the picture, Touta Matsuda wonders aloud with Hideki Ide if they did the right thing by helping to stop Kira.

The New World in L: Change the WorLd

In the movie and novel L: Change the WorLd, the people of the Blue Ship organization, most notably K, plan on creating a new, ideal society, which they also refer to as the "New World." Rather than wanting to get rid of criminals, they believed that the problem with the current world is overpopulation, and in order to create a new, better world, the majority of mankind needed to be killed. To do this, an extremely deadly and contagious virus was created. The virus was to be released so that it would spread across the entire world, affecting everyone and killing of the majority of the planet. All that was needed was the antidote, in order to cure people who were worthy of living in the New World.

K stated that people like Professor Nikaido would be needed in the New World.

Trivia

• Taro Kagami, the protagonist of the pilot chapter, remarks going through a similar crusade as Light did. Whether or not he actually does is open to interpretation, since, by the time the pilot has ended, he still has ownership of his notebook.