Ryuk (Death Note)

Ryuk (Japanese: リューク, Hepburn: Ryūku) is a fictional character in the manga series Death Note, created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. He is a bored Shinigami that drops a Death Note, a notebook that allows you to kill anyone simply by knowing their name and face, into the human world in order to have fun. It is picked up by Light Yagami, a young genius who uses it in an attempt to create and rule a world "cleansed of evil" as "God".

Creation and conception

Ohba said that he always mentioned apples in the thumbnails because he wished to use "the dying message that Shinigami only eat apples" and therefore he needed Ryuk to hold apples and that "There's no other reason." Ohba also said that he specifically chose apples as the red "goes well" with Ryuk's black body and that the apples "fit well" with Ryuk's "big" mouth. When Obata informed Ohba that apples held religious and psychological significance and that a person could "read a lot" into the inclusion of apples and that he assumed that was the reason why Ohba included the apples, Ohba said that he did not "think about that at all" and that he believes that "apples are cool... that's it. [laughs]" Ohba added that he felt including aspects that could become later plot points was beneficial, and the apples were used as a point when Light asked Ryuk to search for the cameras in exchange for apples.