Everything You Need to Know About Mello's Death: Causes, Motives, and Impact

Understand the full story behind Everything You Need to Know About Mello's Death: Causes, Motives, and Impact in our detailed breakdown.

Without Mello's death, Light Yagami would have executed the SPK and the Japanese Task Force at the Yellow Box Warehouse. Near had formulated a plan that Light anticipated completely.

Light’s proxy, Teru Mikami, was carrying a fake Death Note in public while making judgments. Near’s agent, Anthony Reskew, altered the pages of this decoy notebook. Light knew Near was tampering with it. Light’s plan was simple: Mikami would bring the real notebook to the Yellow Box Warehouse, write down everyone's name except Light's, and kill the entire investigation team.

Mello disrupted this plan by kidnapping Takada.

When news of the kidnapping broke, Mikami panicked. Unable to communicate with Light, who was under constant surveillance, Mikami believed Takada needed to be eliminated to protect Kira's secrets. Mikami went to his bank safe deposit box, retrieved the authentic, hidden Death Note, and wrote Takada’s name on a real page.

Simultaneously, Light killed Takada from his watch using his own hidden scrap.

Because Mikami went to the bank out of his strict schedule, Near’s investigator Stephen Gevanni trailed him. Gevanni broke into the safety deposit box, discovered the real Death Note, and swapped every single page within a single night. When Mikami showed up at the Yellow Box Warehouse, he was writing on a complete forgery of the real notebook, not just a decoy. Mello's abduction of Takada had forced Mikami to expose the genuine notebook's hiding place.