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She’s not the star of Death Note, but Misa Amane has situated herself in an enviable place in pop culture history. More than 18 years after the series aired on Adult Swim and exposed a whole new generation of fans to something beyond the shonen fare that had been offered on TV in the US, you still see her plastered across fan art, merch, and cosplay at conventions. More so than Light or L or even Ryuk, Misa Amane has become situated in the heart of the anime fandom.

Until the recent streaming boom and the constant influx of shows that companies like Crunchyroll and Netflix have brought us, anime was often subject to waves of exposure in the West. Sailor Moon broke many barriers – particularly in Canada – by pushing anime into the mainstream. Then the Toonami wave brought the US a host of new shonen series like Dragon Ball and Yu Yu Hakusho. Shortly after, Adult Swim started carrying anime aimed at a more grown-up audience, which included many fans' first exposure to Death Note.

Both as part of my job as an anime journalist and as a card-carrying member of the weeb club, I attend a lot of conventions. And wandering around conventions is honestly one of the best ways to keep your finger on the pulse of what is big in pop culture. The merch and the shirts and, of course, the cosplay that you see tell you what people are loving. Sometimes you’re looking for new shows (you could not escape Kpop Demon Hunters this year), but, for me, it is more fascinating to notice how shows like Death Note persist in the public consciousness.

I cannot remember the last time I went to a convention and didn’t see a Misa Amane cosplayer walking around the show floor. I’ve seen her on both sides of the pond in her distinctive Gothic Lolita fashion. Her fashion sense is partly what makes the character so unique. Even Ayo Hirano, who voiced Misa in the original Japanese Death Note anime, was drawn to her clothes when she read the manga. She was a big fan of Misa Amane even before she got to audition for the part.

“I always liked all the different elements of the character, like the costumes she wears and everything else,” Hirano told me when I spoke to her at Hyper Japan Manchester in 2025. “So, actually, when I was reading the comic, I was already voicing her, so I already had the voice ready, and the directors and everyone said the way I read the character was exactly the way they imagined the character to be.”

So we all love her look, but there is more to her appeal than being cute. The manga of Death Note is filled to the brim with geniuses, each claiming to be more genius than the next genius we get introduced to. Its plot is a game of cat and mouse where no one is sure who is who. And in the middle of all that over-intellectualizing and strategizing sits Misa Amane. Visually beautiful and intellectually average, she seems to be more of a lost puppy following Light around, hanging on his every word and pledging herself to his cause even as he makes it clear he wants nothing to do with her.

But she isn’t dumb. Compared to Light and L, she might be, but she is cunning and persistent and, importantly, willing to burn every bridge in the world to get what she wants. There is a large overlap between Misa Amane fans and Harley Quinn fans. Misa brings an emotional, impulsive, and chaotic force to Death Note that makes her fun to watch. Light is always planning six moves ahead, but Misa thinks of what she wants in the moment. In a series that feels like a match between two chess masters, Misa Amane is simply fun to watch.

Misa is abused, neglected, and used by Light throughout the series. We have some sympathy for her, but that doesn’t make her a good person. She is a killer, just like him, and wants to see his vision of the world, which values control and order over freedom, come to pass. She is bad, yet we love her. Not because we want to fix her or see her change, but because her place in Death Note’s story is perfect. So perfect that we can’t get her out of our heads 20 years later.

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