Personality
Light is characterized as hardworking, talented, and a natural genius. Highly perceptive and good with problem solving, Light is a skilled planner and good at mapping out scenarios. Furthermore, Light is very popular among peers and adored by his family members. However, his high intelligence and constant praise from adults laid the foundation for an intense level of hubris which quickly took effect once he obtained the notebook.
Similar to his father, Light has a strong sense of justice but this quickly becomes warped after he becomes tainted by the notebook’s power. Believing the world to be "rotten," he uses his Death Note as a means by which he can enact his will to rid the world of evil people. Light's main goal is to create a new world that is free of injustice and populated only with people he deems honest and kind, thus becoming the "God of the new world". Light is decisive and driven to achieve his ambitions, without faltering one bit in his beliefs. Despite knowing the criminality of murder, Light would consider his actions the ultimate “sacrifice” to help the world.
Through use of the Death Note, Light quickly begins to develop a cold and ruthless nature. As a utilitarian, he will take any means in order to achieve his goals. His actions do put his family in harm’s way, though he does continue to love them regardless. This is demonstrated when his sister is kidnapped; he prevents his father from taking drastic action as a way to keep his sister safe in spite of the fact that Mello would gain the Death Note.
Appearance
Light is a young man, standing at above average height with light-brown hair and brown eyes. During Part I, when not wearing his school uniform, which consists of a tan suit and red tie, he dresses fairly casually, sometimes sporting a dress shirt underneath a jacket or a V-neck sweater with a collared t-shirt underneath. During Part II, if not wearing a similar style of clothes, he is seen wearing a suit.
He is considered to be quite handsome, a trait noted by Misa Amane and Kiyomi Takada, among others.
Skills and Abilities
Genius Intelligence: Light is extremely intelligent and possess an outstanding level of mental agility as well as being a brilliant strategist and tactician, outsmarting even the strongest of opponents in a battle of wits, and he’s highly perceptive as well as a good problem solver. Light’s intelligence is so great that he is even considered to be as intelligent as L, something that even L admits due to Light being able to deduce what he’s thinking and coming to the same conclusions. Due to his mental training and being naturally gifted, he has acquired an instant learning aptitude, parallel multitasking, eidetic/photographic memory, accelerated reading, and a more powerful memory. Becoming one of the most brilliant geniuses the world has ever known.
Polymath: Light is excellent in a wide variety of academic fields. He has studied Biology, Technology, Mathematics, Physics, Mythology, Geography, & History.
Skilled Hacker: Light is a skilled hacker; he was able to hack into his father’s work computer to keep track of the Kira investigation without leaving a trace and as well remove any evidence from his own computer.
Multilingualism: Light is also knowledgeable in many languages, being fluent in Japanese, English, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, French, Latin, Cantonese, Mandarin, and much more.
Master Strategist: Light is a strategic mastermind. He is a highly skilled planner and is good at mapping out scenarios that are so advanced that it bordered on clairvoyance. His strategic brilliance allowed him to outwit his enemies on multiple occasions. Light planned on acquiring the FBI Agent Raye Penber’s name by controlling a criminal into hijacking a bus worked. His plan on threatening and trick Raye Penber into writing the names of all the FBI Agent’s that were in Japan into a few covered up pages of the Death Note & killing them all succeeded. Light also had a brilliant plan on clearing him and Misa of suspicion, as well as manipulating Rem into killing L and Watari thus making Rem die as well due to her saving Misa from danger.
Master Actor: Light is a very skillful actor, able to effectively maintain his facade as an innocent and friendly individual in public who would never kill someone even when faced with L Lawliet, who Light despises for his stuborn attempts to stop him.
Mental and Emotional Control: Light displayed excellent control over his mental and emotional conditions, when “Hideki Ryuga" revealed himself to Light as L. Light is shocked by this but managed to stay calm around this supposed new friend he's made.
Master Manipulator: Light is an extremely clever and sly master manipulator, he excels at scheming planning and coaxing other into doing his dirty work for him. Often even tricking people to accomplish goals for him therefore achieving his own ends.
Master Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Even though Light relied more on his high intelligence, he is known to be neverthless a highly talented and capable martial artist, with a particular talent and profiency in boxing even while still a student. Light has clearly refined his skills to the point where he’s able to calculate how a brawl will go down, as shown being able to easily keep up against the highly skilled L Lawliet, although L did not know Light is far more resillent and compotent martial artist than he expected, and even gained the upper hand and eventually restrained, pummeled, and defeated L. He is shown to be evasive and highly unpredictable. His style is very sophiscated, emphasizing in the use of his momentum to counter and after swaying his oppponent's momentum by skillfully exploiting an opponent's weaknesses against them, then counterattacking with a frenzied but concentrated barrage of attacks. He mixed strong boxing punches with skillful and fast blocking moves but he can also effectively employ grapple moves, which he included in his fighting style to some degree.
Skilled Marksman: He appears to be proficient in using firearms as well, as shown being able to handle a five seven exceptionally. Though he prefers using the Death Note, but, in dire situations he has learned how to use them so he can use them to defend himself.
Equipment
Death Note:
Death Manipulation
One Hit Kill by way of the Death Note
Limited Fate Manipulation
Mind Control (Can control the circumstances of someones death and kill them before their fated time of death, and can somewhat control their actions so long as those actions do not directly go against how they would act)