L, Misa, And Sex In Death Note

L, Misa, and Sex in Death Note

Well well well, if it isn't me again, using this site like an actual blog and writing goddamn essays for an audience of like 5 people because I don't understand how Tumblr works.

I've just been thinking recently that it surprises me a bit when people see L/Misa as an implausible crack ship, especially compared to the much more popular ship of L/Light. I mean, I get why people like Lawlight. I went through my own Lawlight phase, and I still read fics about them sometimes. The homoerotic subtext between L and Light is pretty obvious.

But L's sexual interest in Misa isn't even subtext. It's literally just text. Yes, you can argue whether it's real or just an act. But in canon, every single time we see an unambiguous expression of sexual interest from L, it is directed towards Misa. (By "unambiguous" I mean "this dialogue/action is clearly intended to be sexual," but that doesn't make it necessarily genuine, since L could be lying). I'm putting the rest of this under a cut cause it's long.

The funny thing is, though it contradicts the way L is usually interpreted in fanon, out of all of the main characters, Misa and L are probably the ones who display the most sexuality. Whether L's displays of sexuality are an act or not, he's much more likely than Light to make comments about sex or to do shit like this:

And then there's the fact that L and Misa's interactions are often sexualized, even when L's actions have logical explanations. For instance, L touching her butt to steal her phone, or restraining her in an unnecessarily fetishy sort of way (she could've been held captive in the same way Light was if Watari had just worn a helmet every time he entered the room). A reader might believe that L doesn't see those situations as sexual at all, and was just doing what was necessary to catch Kira. But it was an active choice that Ohba made, to make L's actions in investigating Kira "just happen" to require sexualized interactions with Misa.

My friend @litterateur97 (who I also have to thank for reminding me about the above panel) has made some good points about this as well: as they said in a post the other day, "I noticed in the manga and in the anime that most of the time when L and Misa argue, they lean in towards one another, as if pulled towards one another. He is also often seen watching her, on cameras and in person, in a manner that looks sexual to me." This gif I stole from them illustrates both points, not only showing them getting in each other's personal space during an argument, but also, as they pointed out, L begins by looking down at Misa's chest before making eye contact with her.

Besides that, L and Misa have a tendency to be playful with each other in ways that could be interpreted as flirtatious. Compared to L and Light, who tend to be more dramatic and serious, Misa brings out L's more childish and teasing side. She pulls his hair, he bonks her on the head with a megaphone and threatens to kick her, etc. They have a very different type of chemistry than L and Light, more fun than serious, "opposites attract" as opposed to the intellectual match that L and Light have, but to my eyes, the chemistry between L and Misa clearly exists.

I've been wondering why people seem so quick to overlook this, or to brush off all of L's interest in Misa as purely an act and think of L as basically asexual. I think part of it is that Misa's role in Death Note involves personifying the romance/sexuality that is mostly omitted from the plot and the other characters. (Which is a pretty classic thing for a sexist author to do: Misa is our Token Woman, and women are identified with sex and romance, thus Misa must be.) She's sexualized in many of her interactions with the other male characters, though to a lesser extent than she is when she interacts with L.

So it seems to me like people attribute the sexual nature of their interactions to Misa, not to L. It's seen as an extension of Misa being the Sexy One, not as a true expression of L's sexuality. I personally have some ideas as to why so many of Misa and L's interactions in canon were sexualized; I think that L is used as a surrogate by which the authors can sexualize Misa.

One interesting thing is that, despite sexuality being such a fundamental part of her character, Misa isn't actually sexualized in the art very much. Compared to other manga, even other shonen manga, her artwork doesn't feel that male gaze-y. We don't get many cleavage/upskirt shots of her; even when she's wearing lingerie, she's drawn pretty neutrally, with a few exceptions. We can see that she's trying to look sexy, and that many of the characters find her sexy, but they're not especially trying to excite the reader. My guess is that Obata and Ohba purposefully avoided fanservice because they felt it would make the manga seem less serious.

But despite the lack of fanservice, they still wanted to convey that Misa was the Sexy Character. How to do this, if not through art? They used L. Compared to Light, who takes himself seriously and is more composed, L usually behaves in socially inappropriate ways. So they use L's behavior towards Misa as one of the main ways of indicating to the reader that Misa is seen as a sex object.

This especially stood out to me in the omakes (4-panel comics). There's the whole joke plot where it's implied that L is trying to figure out whether Misa's "carpet matches the drapes," only for it to be revealed that he's actually wondering about her sock color (which is a case where Ohba is injecting the concept of sex into their relationship even if L's actual intentions are innocent). There's also this moment, where L makes a totally unprompted sexual comment about Misa:

Another reason I think that people see L/Misa as a crack ship is that L's sexual interest in Misa is pretty much always played for laughs. Ohba seems to find it comical to consider L as a sexual being at all (apparently he considered making Near and Mello L's sons, but decided against it because he couldn't picture L having sex). In much the same way that L is used to draw attention to Misa as a sex object, Misa's sex appeal is used to give Ohba a reason to allude to L's sexuality, which is mostly done as comic relief. But the fact that it's portrayed as comical doesn't mean that it's "crack," or that L's attraction to Misa isn't a real aspect of his character. After all, L's obsession with sweets is similarly used for comedy.

Obviously there is no real need to justify our ships by canon, or to care that much about the canon take on things. Still, I think it's interesting to consider how much of L's sexual interest in Misa was meant as genuine. My take on canon, which may be very different than others, is that L does have sexual desires, if not any real-world experience with sex. And I think that if we accept that L is sexually attracted to anyone at all, there is the most evidence for that person being Misa.

Does he exaggerate that interest in order to manipulate Misa, or to weird her out? Absolutely. A lot of his socially inappropriate behavior seems like a front that he puts up in order to distance himself from those around him and prevent them from knowing him as a person. But at the same time, I think there is a kernel of truth behind the front. I don't think it goes as far as romantic interest (I wouldn't say that he actually "fell for" her), and it doesn't mean that he doesn't find her irritating and dumb much of the time, but I think that his behavior towards Misa is so consistently sexually charged that I would be surprised if it's 100% fake.

Besides that, even in a reading where L is entirely asexual/gay and only faking interest in Misa to make her uncomfortable, it's undeniable that Ohba is purposefully sexualizing their interactions, likely as a shortcut to sexualizing Misa herself without having to include a bunch of fanservice. So if the people in this fandom like to read into every bit of homoerotic subtext between L and Light (which, again, I am on board with), I don't really see why y'all would be surprised by people choosing to explore the sexual component to L and Misa's interactions that's been purposefully included in canon.

Honestly, I think this is what first got me interested in the ship. When I was a lil preteen in the early Death Note fandom, I, like about a million other people, had a crush on L. And I liked to watch his interactions with Misa. Because sexuality and romance was mostly sidelined in Death Note, and they seemed to have an attitude that serious geniuses didn't care about that stuff, I found it exciting when the show implied that L was a person who felt sexual or romantic desire, and that Misa brought out a side of him that was not seen in his other scenes in the show.

Whether Ohba intended it to be real or not, I wanted to believe it was real, because it made his character more interesting and compelling to me. It humanized him in some way, made him more vulnerable, especially when compared to Light, who always seemed very cold and sterile to me. And because of that, this ship has always had a special place in my heart.