The Death Note and its function

The Death Note and its function

A Shinigami's Death Note is a notebook with the power to kill the human whose name is written in it. All Death Notes are governed by the same set of rules determining the extents and limitations of the Notes' powers.

Written rules

Before dropping the Death Note in the human world, Ryuk wrote five of the most basic rules on the Note's inside front cover. He chose to write the rules in English because he believed it to be the most popular human language. Those rules are as follows:

* The human whose name is written in this note shall die.
* This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.
* If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen.
* If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack.
* After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds (400 seconds).

In addition to these basic rules, many manga chapters have a title page, and many anime episodes have two eyecatches, containing several rules written in both English and Japanese. These rules often serve to clarify the more esoteric uses of the Death Note that the characters discover on their own. Official Death Notes contain over 40 pages listing these rules.