What is Light Yagami’s IQ?
First in Japan on the exams, 9 out of 10 in the guidebook, no IQ score.
Death Note never gives Light Yagami an IQ, and the numbers online are fan estimates. What it does give is a ranking (first in Japan on the practice exams), a top score on the To-Oh University entrance exam, tied with L, and a guidebook rating of 9 out of 10 for intelligence.
Light Yagami’s estimated IQ
- Introduced as the top-ranked student in Japan on the national mock examinations — a ranking, not a score.
- Takes the top score on the To-Oh University entrance exam in a tie with L, who enrolls as Hideki Ryuga (volume 3; anime episode 9, “Encounter”). The two of them deliver the freshman address together. The tie is written deliberately: it establishes the antagonists as matched.
- Conceals that he is Kira from an investigation led by his own father, including while L has him under surveillance (under L’s camera surveillance and, later, in confinement at his own request).
- The central contest with L is conducted almost entirely by inference from constrained information — deducing rules, testing them at low cost, and reasoning about what the opponent can and cannot know.
- The official guidebook, Death Note 13: How to Read, rates his intelligence 9 out of 10 — one point above L’s 8, and one short of the top of the scale. It is a creator’s rating of a character, not a test result.
Every fictional estimate has the same defect: the character is only as clever as the plot lets him be, and his opponents only as slow. Light wins his early rounds partly because the narrative grants him a supernatural instrument with rules that happen to reward exactly his strengths. The author says as much of L: Ohba is reported to have called him the most intelligent character in the series because “the plot requires it.” Read this range as a rating of the portrayal, not of a person.
- First appearance
- Death Note chapter 1, “Boredom,” December 2003
- Created by
- Tsugumi Ohba (writer), Takeshi Obata (artist)
- In-story rank
- First nationally on the mock examinations
- University
- To-Oh, entering joint-first with L (volume 3; anime episode 9)
- Guidebook rating
- Intelligence 9 of 10; L 8 (Death Note 13: How to Read)
- Canonical IQ
- None given anywhere in the source material
What an IQ of 170–190 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Light Yagami is
Death Note was written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, and serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 2003 to May 2006, running to twelve collected volumes. A 37-episode anime adaptation aired on Nippon TV from October 4, 2006, to June 27, 2007.
Light Yagami is a Japanese high-school student, top of the national rankings and the son of a police superintendent, who finds a notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it. He begins executing criminals, is designated “Kira” by the public, and is pursued by a detective known only as L. The two are established early as intellectual equals, and the story is the contest between them.
The series is unusual among manga of its period for being driven almost entirely by reasoning rather than physical conflict — long sequences of rule-deduction, misdirection and inference about what the opponent knows. That structure is why the character turns up in intelligence discussions at all.
The official guidebook, Death Note 13: How to Read, was published in Japan on October 13, 2006, and collects character profiles, creator interviews and behind-the-scenes material. It is the source of the ten-point character ratings and of much of what Ohba has said about how the characters were built. For how numbers like the ones on this page spread from site to site, see where celebrity IQ numbers come from.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed October 2026
Light Yagami: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- 2003Death Note begins serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump on December 1.
- 2004Volume 1 (chapters 1–7) is published on April 2. Volume 3 (chapters 17–25), published September 3, has L reveal his identity and suspicion to Light at university.
- 2006The manga ends on May 15 and volume 12 follows on July 4. The anime premieres on Nippon TV on October 4, and the guidebook Death Note 13: How to Read is published in Japan on October 13.
- 2007The anime concludes after 37 episodes on June 27.
- 2008Death Note 13: How to Read is released in English by VIZ Media (North American release February 19).
- 2026A stage musical of Death Note plays 50 performances at London’s Barbican Centre, July 30 to September 12.
Where the 165–230 figure came from
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Fictional profiles on this site are ratings of a portrayal, and the portrayal here is unusually specific. Most fictional geniuses are asserted to be brilliant; Light is given a measurement the story then uses. He is the top-ranked student nationally, he ties L at the university entrance (volume 3; episode 9, “Encounter”), and the plot is built out of what those rankings imply.
The official guidebook, Death Note 13: How to Read, adds character sheets that rate each character’s intelligence out of 10: Light gets 9 and L gets 8, while L is rated higher than Light on initiative. That is the closest thing to an official number, and it is not an IQ; a ten-point creator’s rating cannot be converted into a score on the IQ scale.
The author’s remarks, as reported from the same guidebook, point in a different direction on Light and L. Tsugumi Ohba is said to have called L the most intelligent character in the series because “the plot requires it” (p. 191), to have said Light could have become “one of the greatest police leaders in the world” had Ryuk never taken an interest in the human world (p. 114), and, asked which character was most like himself, to have named Near and perhaps Light, “because I did well in school” (p. 194). In a January 2007 interview he said he made L deliberately unorthodox as a contrast to Light, whom he called “a brilliant and outstanding student.” None of these is a score; together they show intelligence being assigned by what the plot needs, which is why this page rates the portrayal rather than the person.
The story also ranks its other minds against Light, and the ranking is not simple. L is regarded as arguably the world’s greatest detective, and he is killed by Rem in anime episode 25, “Silence.” His successors, Near and Mello, grow up at Wammy’s House, an orphanage for intellectually gifted children, and Mello first appears in chapter 59, “Zero” (volume 7). It is Near, not L, who proves in the end that Light is Kira. Ohba has said he created two successors because he felt L alone could not defeat Kira (guidebook, p. 64), a decision about the plot rather than a measurement of anyone’s intelligence.
The placement below the Holmes brothers is deliberate. Sherlock and Mycroft are written as performing feats of observation and inference that have no examination equivalent — reconstructing a stranger’s history from a hat, holding the entire machinery of a government in one head. Light’s demonstrated excellence is academic and strategic rather than perceptual, and academic excellence, even at national rank, describes a narrower thing.
He also sits below Moriarty, and for a reason that is arguable rather than obvious. Moriarty is credited in the stories with a treatise on the binomial theorem written at twenty-one and a European chair — original mathematics, in other words. Light’s record is dominance at examinations, which tests the retrieval and application of known material. Producing new mathematics and topping a national examination are not the same achievement, and the ranking here reflects that distinction rather than any judgment about who would win a confrontation.
How we read a number →The source text. Volume 3 (chapters 17–25) holds the entrance exam and L’s meeting with Light at To-Oh University. Contains no IQ figure for any character.
Follows the manga closely on the points relevant here: episode 9 (“Encounter”) and episode 25 (“Silence,” L’s death). Also assigns no numerical intelligence score.
Reports that volume 13 of the manga has character sheets rating each character’s intelligence out of 10, with Light at 9 and L at 8.
Reports the same 9 and 8, notes that L is rated higher on initiative, and states that Light’s exact IQ is not known. Cautions that the guidebook ratings should be taken with a grain of salt.
Source for the chapter, volume and episode numbers used on this page, and for Ohba’s guidebook remarks (pp. 64, 114, 191, 194) as cited there. States that Ohba’s real identity is a closely guarded secret.
Ohba on making L unorthodox as a contrast to Light, who is meant to be a brilliant and outstanding student. No score is mentioned.
States that Light has no official IQ and that the circulating figures (211, 215–230, 223, and 230 in a social-media ranking with L at 250) cite no chapter, episode or guidebook page.
Give 223 and a 215–230 band; 211; 148 and “around 210”; and about 155 (145–165, labeled fan analysis). No canonical origin exists: none cites a test, a volume, a chapter or an interview.
Neither the manga, the anime, nor the official supplementary material assigns Light Yagami an IQ score. The absence is the finding.
Placed below Sherlock, Mycroft and Moriarty on the reasoning set out above. Fictional rankings on this site compare portrayals, not characters in a hypothetical contest.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Light Yagami, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
Figures between 165 and 230 circulate on fan wikis and IQ aggregator pages, usually stated flatly. Pages checked in October 2026 give 211, 223, a “215 to 230” band and, in a social-media ranking that puts L at 250, 230 for Light; others give 148 or about 155. None names a chapter, an interview or a page of the guidebook.
No IQ score for Light Yagami appears in the manga, the anime, or the guidebook Death Note 13: How to Read. The guidebook’s character sheets rate his intelligence 9 out of 10 (L’s is 8), which is a creator’s rating on a ten-point scale, not an intelligence quotient. The story’s other measures are rankings: first in Japan on the practice exams, and a top entrance-exam score tied with L. The oft-cited numbers are fan estimates that acquired authority by repetition.
A sixty-five point spread on a character whose source text gives no number at all, and none of the pages checked names a test, chapter or interview behind its figure. This is the same failure documented across the real people on this site, reproduced for someone who does not exist.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Light Yagami — frequently asked
How much IQ does Light Yagami have?
Light Yagami’s IQ is never stated: Death Note gives him no IQ in the manga, the anime or the official guidebook, and the numbers online are fan estimates. Our 170–190 range rates the portrayal against the other fictional profiles on this site; it is not a score from the series.
How high is Light Yagami’s IQ?
The series gives no number, but its guidebook, Death Note 13: How to Read, rates his intelligence 9 out of 10 — one point above L’s 8 and one short of the top of its scale. That is a creator’s rating of a character, not a test result, and it cannot be converted into an IQ. Our 170–190 range reads that rating, his exam results and his contest with L together as a very strong portrayal that stops short of the top of the scale.
Is Light Yagami’s IQ 230?
No. No chapter, episode or guidebook page gives Light a score of 230; the figure appears in a social-media ranking that puts L at 250, and a celebrity-IQ site lists a 215–230 band, with no source in the series for either. On the usual scale (mean 100, standard deviation 15), 230 would sit about 8.7 standard deviations above average, beyond the highest score a test can report.
Light vs L IQ: is Light Yagami smarter than L?
Neither has an IQ, and the sources do not agree. The guidebook rates Light’s intelligence 9 out of 10 against L’s 8 (L is rated higher on initiative), yet Ohba is reported to have called L the most intelligent character in the series because “the plot requires it.” In the story they take the same top entrance-exam score at To-Oh University, and L is killed by Rem in anime episode 25, “Silence.” Our L Lawliet profile rates L 178–195 against Light’s 170–190, a gap smaller than the method can resolve.
What was Light Yagami’s exam score, and where is it shown?
The series gives rankings, not raw scores. The story presents him as first in Japan on the national practice exams, and in volume 3 (anime episode 9, “Encounter”) he takes the top score on the To-Oh University entrance exam in a tie with L, who is enrolled as Hideki Ryuga. The two share the freshman address.
Is Light Yagami smarter than Near or Mello?
The series settles the contest in Near’s favor: Near proves that Light is Kira, and Light dies. Near and Mello are L’s two successors, raised at Wammy’s House, an orphanage for intellectually gifted children; Mello first appears in chapter 59, “Zero” (volume 7). Ohba said he introduced two characters because he felt L alone could not defeat Kira, so the pair is a plot decision, not a ranked intelligence score.
What is the IQ of the Death Note author, Tsugumi Ohba?
No IQ for Tsugumi Ohba has been published. Ohba is a pen name, and the writer’s real identity is described as a closely guarded secret, so there is no public record of any test result. What Ohba has said about intelligence concerns the characters: in the guidebook, asked which character was most like himself, Ohba named Near and perhaps Light, “because I did well in school.”
How smart is Light Yagami compared to Sherlock Holmes?
We place him below both Holmes brothers and below Moriarty: Sherlock is rated 180–200, Mycroft 185–205 and Moriarty 175–195, against Light’s 170–190. Light’s demonstrated excellence is academic and strategic; the Holmes characters are written performing perceptual and inferential feats with no examination equivalent.
Who has the higher IQ, Light Yagami or Lelouch Lamperouge?
Neither profile rests on a score from the series: we rate Lelouch Lamperouge at 175–195 and Light at 170–190, a gap too small to mean anything. Both are written as masterminds whose plans run through a supernatural power. Among other anime and manga minds on this site, Itachi Uchiha is rated 175–195 and Kurisu Makise 165–185.
How does my IQ compare with Light Yagami?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other fictional profiles, starting with Sherlock Holmes.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More fictional profiles — same field, same method
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Photograph of a cosplayer as Doctor Doom by Super Festivals (July 2013), CC BY 2.0. Doctor Doom is a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics. Cropped and with background removed for the portrait above. · Photograph of actor Mark Ruffalo by Gage Skidmore (San Diego Comic-Con, July 22, 2017), CC BY-SA 2.0. Bruce Banner is a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics, played by Ruffalo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Cropped and with background removed for the portrait above. · Illustration by Sidney Paget (1890s), public domain.
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