The influences behind Death Note

29 works across 26 centuries, back to Gospel of John and Book of Job.

2003

Death Note

Tsugumi Ohba

Heisei. Japan. Written in Japanese.

Death Note (2003-2006), written by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata for Weekly Shonen Jump, follows a student, Light Yagami, who finds a shinigami's notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it, and the detective L who hunts him. It joins a cat-and-mouse detective duel to a Faustian bargain with a death god and a Raskolnikov-style theory of justified murder.
Where it came from
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1936

The Fiend with Twenty Faces (Kaijin Nijū Mensō)

Edogawa Ranpo

Shōwa. Japan. Written in Japanese.

Serial novel in which the detective Kogorō Akechi duels a master criminal of disguise, starting a long Japanese series of detective-versus-criminal contests.

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Ranpo's serial duels between the detective Akechi and a criminal genius made the battle of wits between two masterminds a staple of Japanese popular fiction. Death Note restages that duel with both sides hidden behind aliases. No direct statement by Ohba ties his series to Ranpo.
Where it came from
- Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes, Maurice Leblanc 1908 follow this thread
- The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Edgar Allan Poe 1841 follow this thread
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1908

Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes

Maurice Leblanc

Belle Époque. France. Written in French.

Linked stories pitting the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin against a thinly renamed Sherlock Holmes in a duel of wits.

What it handed down

To The Fiend with Twenty Faces (Kaijin Nijū Mensō) (1936)

Direct source, well documented.

Ranpo modeled the Fiend with Twenty Faces on Arsène Lupin: a courteous master of disguise who announces his thefts in advance and avoids killing. The repeated duel with Akechi follows the Lupin-versus-detective format, which Ranpo read in translation.
Where it came from
- A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle 1887 follow this thread
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ShinigamiSan'yūtei Enchō

c. 1890

Shinigami

San'yūtei Enchō

Meiji. Japan. Written in Japanese.

Rakugo story, circulated in stenographic print, in which a destitute man meets a death god who teaches him to tell whether a sick person will live, ending in a cave of candles that are human lifespans.

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Enchō's story put a Western-style personified death god, called shinigami, into Japanese popular storytelling, along with the idea of human lifespans as measurable quantities. Death Note's shinigami extend their own lives by taking the remaining lifespans of the humans they kill. Popularizing the word and figure is the likely route; there is no documented use by Ohba.
Where it came from
- Godfather Death (Der Gevatter Tod), Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm 1812 follow this thread
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1887

A Study in Scarlet

Arthur Conan Doyle

Victorian. England. Written in English.

First Sherlock Holmes novel, introducing the eccentric consulting detective and his chronicler Dr. Watson.

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Thematic kinship, probable.

L is a reclusive genius detective with odd habits, deductive leaps and a contempt for ordinary police work, a type Doyle fixed with Holmes. L's aged assistant Watari, who handles his practical affairs, occupies a Watson-like position. The detective genre conventions reach Death Note through this line rather than through any stated debt.

To Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (1908)

Direct source, well documented.

Leblanc borrowed Holmes himself, with Watson, renaming them Herlock Sholmes and Wilson after Doyle objected. The book sets the master thief against Doyle's detective in a series of matched contests.
Where it came from
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1869

Monsieur Lecoq

Émile Gaboriau

Second Empire. France. Written in French.

Novel of a young police detective who reconstructs a crime from footprints and traces, a key model for the scientific detective.

What it handed down

To A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Direct source, well documented.

Gaboriau's detective, who reconstructs events from footprints in snow, gave Doyle a model for scientific trace reading. Holmes names Lecoq in A Study in Scarlet and calls him 'a miserable bungler', acknowledging the model while claiming to surpass it.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch.

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1866

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian Realism. Russia. Written in Russian.

Novel about Raskolnikov, a former student who kills a pawnbroker to test his theory that extraordinary men may step over moral law, and the investigator Porfiry Petrovich who closes in on him.

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Light Yagami, a brilliant student who kills to remake society and believes his ends exempt him from moral law, repeats Raskolnikov's theory of the extraordinary man. The duel between Light and L, an investigator who suspects him early and tests him in conversation, parallels Raskolnikov's interviews with Porfiry. Critics make the comparison often, but Ohba has not documented reading the novel.
Where it came from
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1841

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Edgar Allan Poe

American Romanticism. United States. Written in English.

Story in which the reclusive C. Auguste Dupin solves a locked-room double murder by pure reasoning, establishing the detective story.

What it handed down

To The Fiend with Twenty Faces (Kaijin Nijū Mensō) (1936)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Hirai Tarō took the pen name Edogawa Ranpo from Edgar Allan Poe, and his detective Akechi descends from Dupin as a reasoning amateur. Ranpo's essays on detective fiction treat Poe as the founder he was answering.

To A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Direct source, well documented.

Doyle took Poe's reasoning detective with an admiring narrator-companion and the show of deducing a companion's thoughts. Holmes even mentions Dupin in the novel, dismissing him as 'a very inferior fellow', and Doyle later acknowledged Poe as the source of the detective story.
Where it came from
- Mademoiselle de Scudéri (Das Fräulein von Scuderi), E. T. A. Hoffmann 1819 follow this thread
- Zadig, Voltaire 1747 follow this thread
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1835

Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot)

Honoré de Balzac

French Realism. France. Written in French.

Novel of a Paris boarding house in which a father ruins himself for his daughters and the young Rastignac learns from the criminal Vautrin that society rewards ruthlessness.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (1866)

Direct source, probable.

Rastignac's discussion with a friend about whether one would kill an old mandarin in China by a wish to gain a fortune reappears as the tavern conversation Raskolnikov overhears about killing the pawnbroker for the general good. Vautrin's lecture that great fortunes rest on crime anticipates Raskolnikov's theory. Dostoevsky had translated Balzac's Eugénie Grandet in 1844 and admired him.
Where it came from
- King Lear, William Shakespeare c. 1606 follow this thread
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1834

The Queen of Spades

Alexander Pushkin

Russian Romanticism. Russia. Written in Russian.

Story of Hermann, a cold, Napoleon-like officer whose obsession with a secret of three winning cards leads him to cause an old countess's death and ends in madness.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (1866)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Pushkin's Hermann, a poor, calculating young man with a Napoleonic profile, causes an old woman's death in pursuit of fortune and is undone by it. Dostoevsky praised the story, and Raskolnikov, also obsessed with Napoleon, is drawn to an old woman's money in the same pattern.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch.

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1819

Mademoiselle de Scudéri (Das Fräulein von Scuderi)

E. T. A. Hoffmann

German Romanticism. Germany. Written in German.

Novella about a series of murders in the Paris of Louis XIV and the elderly writer who uncovers the killer, a respected goldsmith.

What it handed down

To The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Hoffmann's novella, set in Paris with a mysterious series of murders and an outsider who reveals the killer, has been proposed as a precursor of Poe's Paris detective tale. Poe knew Hoffmann's work, but a specific debt is not documented.

Where it came from

The line stops here: minor branch.

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Godfather DeathJacob and Wilhelm Grimm

1812

Godfather Death (Der Gevatter Tod)

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

German Romanticism. Germany. Written in German.

Folk tale in which Death acts as godfather to a poor man's son, makes him a physician who can see whether patients will die, and shows him a cave of candles that measure human lives.

What it handed down

To Shinigami (c. 1890)

Disputed link, probable.

Enchō's story follows the Grimm tale closely: death appears to a poor man, gives him the power to tell if the sick will recover by where death sits at the bed, and finally shows him a cave of candles that are human lives. Some scholars instead trace it to the Italian opera Crispino e la comare, which uses the same folk material.

Where it came from

The line stops here: recorded from oral folk tradition.

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1808

Faust, Part One

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Weimar Classicism. Germany. Written in German.

Verse drama in which the scholar Faust stakes his soul in a wager with the devil Mephistopheles, who follows him as a sardonic companion through seduction and ruin.

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Thematic kinship, conjectural.

Ryuk, a bored supernatural being who attaches himself to a human, observes him with ironic detachment and will claim him at the end, plays the part Mephistopheles plays to Faust. The shinigami eye deal, half of one's remaining life traded for power, is a Faustian bargain. The resemblance is to the Faust tradition broadly; Ohba has not cited Goethe.
Where it came from
- Historia von D. Johann Fausten, Anonymous 1587 follow this thread
- Gospel of John, Anonymous c. 90 CE follow this thread
- Book of Job, Anonymous c. 500 BCE follow this thread
- Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe c. 1592 follow this thread
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1747

Zadig

Voltaire

Enlightenment. France. Written in French.

Philosophical tale of a Babylonian sage whose misfortunes include being arrested for describing, from traces alone, a queen's dog and a king's horse he never saw.

What it handed down

To A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Thematic kinship, probable.

By the 1880s 'Zadig's method' was the common name for retrospective deduction from traces, popularized in Huxley's lecture of 1880. Holmes's reading of footprints and wheel tracks at the Lauriston Gardens scene applies that method, which Doyle knew through his scientific training.

To The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Disputed link, conjectural.

Zadig's inference of an unseen dog and horse from marks on the ground is the standard eighteenth-century example of reasoning from traces, and Dupin's method continues it. Poe's direct use of Voltaire's chapter is assumed by some historians of the genre rather than documented.
Where it came from
- The Travels of the Three Sons of the King of Serendip (Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo), Cristoforo Armeno 1557 follow this thread
- The Thousand and One Nights (Les Mille et une nuits), Antoine Galland 1704 follow this thread
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1704

The Thousand and One Nights (Les Mille et une nuits)

Antoine Galland

Age of Louis XIV. France. Written in French.

French translation and adaptation of the Arabic story collection, which launched the European vogue for oriental tales.

What it handed down

To Zadig (1747)

Structural model, probable.

Voltaire wrote Zadig in the oriental tale form made fashionable by Galland's translation, with its Babylonian court, viziers and episodic misfortunes. He parodies the genre in the dedication's mock-oriental framing.

Where it came from

The line stops here: rests on a medieval Arabic manuscript compiled from Persian, Indian and Arabic tales, not followed here.

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c. 1606

King Lear

William Shakespeare

Jacobean. England. Written in English.

Tragedy of an old king who divides his realm between flattering daughters, rejects the honest one, and is destroyed by their ingratitude.

What it handed down

To Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot) (1835)

Structural model, well documented.

Balzac built Goriot, a father who gives everything to two daughters who then abandon him, on the Lear pattern, and he dies calling for them. Contemporary readers and Balzac's own text recognize Goriot as a bourgeois Lear.
Where it came from
- History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae), Geoffrey of Monmouth c. 1136 follow this thread
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c. 1592

Doctor Faustus

Christopher Marlowe

Elizabethan. England. Written in English.

Tragedy of a scholar who sells his soul to Lucifer for twenty-four years of power served by Mephistopheles, and is dragged to hell when the term ends.

What it handed down

To Faust, Part One (1808)

Structural model, probable.

Marlowe's play, taken to Germany by English touring companies, became the basis of the German folk and puppet plays of Faust that Goethe saw as a boy. The scene structure of conjuring, pact and a servant devil passed to Goethe through those plays; he read Marlowe directly only later in life.
Where it came from
- Historia von D. Johann Fausten, Anonymous 1587 follow this thread
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1587

Historia von D. Johann Fausten

Anonymous

German Reformation. Germany. Written in German.

Chapbook published by Johann Spies in Frankfurt telling how the magician Faust signed a pact in blood with the devil and was carried off at the end of its term.

What it handed down

To Faust, Part One (1808)

Direct source, well documented.

Goethe drew the figure of Faust, the pact, and episodes such as the conjuring scenes and the Helen story from the chapbook tradition descended from the 1587 Historia, which he knew in later versions and through puppet plays. He called the puppet play of Faust a memory of his childhood.

To Doctor Faustus (c. 1592)

Direct source, well documented.

Marlowe followed the English translation of the German chapbook, the English Faust Book by 'P.F.', closely for his plot: the bond signed in blood, the twenty-four years, the travels, and the final carrying off. Many speeches paraphrase its prose.
Where it came from
- The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), Jacobus de Voragine c. 1260 follow this thread
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1557

The Travels of the Three Sons of the King of Serendip (Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo)

Cristoforo Armeno

Italian Renaissance. Venice. Written in Italian.

Story collection in which three princes deduce the features of a lost camel they never saw from traces on the road.

What it handed down

To Zadig (1747)

Direct source, well documented.

Voltaire's chapter 'The Dog and the Horse' adapts the Serendip princes' deduction of a lost camel from its traces, which he knew through the French version of the Peregrinaggio by the Chevalier de Mailly (1719). The pattern of arrest for knowing too much is kept.
Where it came from
- Eight Paradises (Hasht-Bihisht), Amir Khusrau 1302 follow this thread
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Eight ParadisesAmir Khusrau

1302

Eight Paradises (Hasht-Bihisht)

Amir Khusrau

Delhi Sultanate. India. Written in Persian.

Narrative poem in which the Persian king Bahram Gur hears a story from each of seven princesses, one of which contains the tale of the princes who reason about an unseen camel.

What it handed down

To The Travels of the Three Sons of the King of Serendip (Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo) (1557)

Direct source, probable.

Scholars have identified Amir Khusrau's Hasht-Bihisht as the main source of the Peregrinaggio's frame and its story of the princes who infer the features of a camel they never saw. The Venetian author worked from Persian material, possibly through an intermediary.
Where it came from
- Seven Beauties (Haft Paykar), Nizami Ganjavi 1197 follow this thread
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c. 1260

The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea)

Jacobus de Voragine

High Middle Ages. Italy. Written in Latin.

Collection of saints' lives and feast-day stories, the most widely read devotional book of the late Middle Ages, which retells the legend of Theophilus and his pact with the devil.

What it handed down

To Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The Golden Legend spread the story of Theophilus, who signs a written contract with the devil for worldly advancement, throughout Europe. The Faustbuch's bond signed in blood is a Protestant version of this medieval pact story, but without the Virgin's rescue.
Where it came from
- The Penitence of Theophilus, Paul the Deacon of Naples 9th century follow this thread
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1197

Seven Beauties (Haft Paykar)

Nizami Ganjavi

Seljuk period. Caucasus (Ganja). Written in Persian.

Romance on the life of Bahram Gur, built around seven tales told by seven princesses in seven pavilions on seven nights.

What it handed down

To Eight Paradises (Hasht-Bihisht) (1302)

Structural model, well documented.

Amir Khusrau wrote the Hasht-Bihisht as a formal response to Nizami's Haft Paykar, keeping the frame of Bahram Gur hearing stories from seven princesses in seven pavilions. Answering a Nizami romance poem for poem was an established practice in Persian literature.
Where it came from
- Shahnameh (Book of Kings), Ferdowsi 1010 follow this thread
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c. 1136

History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae)

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Anglo-Norman. England. Written in Latin.

Legendary chronicle of British kings from Brutus to Cadwallader, including the first written story of King Leir and his three daughters.

What it handed down

To King Lear (c. 1606)

Direct source, well documented.

Geoffrey's chronicle contains the first written story of Leir dividing his kingdom among three daughters and the love test. It reached Shakespeare through Holinshed's Chronicles and the older play King Leir, which retell Geoffrey's version.

Where it came from

The line stops here: compiled from Welsh and Latin chronicle traditions and invention; minor branch.

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1010

Shahnameh (Book of Kings)

Ferdowsi

Samanid-Ghaznavid. Greater Khorasan. Written in Persian.

Epic history of the Persian kings from creation to the Arab conquest, including the life and hunts of Bahram Gur.

What it handed down

To Seven Beauties (Haft Paykar) (1197)

Direct source, well documented.

Nizami took the life of Bahram Gur, his upbringing among the Arabs, his hunts and his kingship, from Ferdowsi's epic, and says in his prologue that he is filling in what Ferdowsi left out.

Where it came from

The line stops here: drew on the lost Middle Persian Khwaday-namag and oral tradition.

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The Penitence of TheophilusPaul the Deacon of Naples

9th century

The Penitence of Theophilus

Paul the Deacon of Naples

Carolingian. Naples. Written in Latin.

Latin translation of the Greek legend of Theophilus, a church official who signs a written contract with the devil and is saved by the Virgin Mary.

What it handed down

To The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) (c. 1260)

Direct source, well documented.

Jacobus de Voragine retold the Theophilus legend in his chapter on the Nativity of the Virgin, following the Latin tradition that descends from Paul the Deacon's translation. The written pact, the repentance and the recovery of the document are kept.
Where it came from
- The Legend of Theophilus, Eutychianus c. 6th century follow this thread
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The Legend of TheophilusEutychianus

c. 6th century

The Legend of Theophilus

Eutychianus

Byzantine. Byzantine Anatolia. Written in Greek.

Greek account, attributed to a disciple named Eutychianus, of a cleric of Adana who renounces Christ in a sealed pact with the devil to regain his office.

What it handed down

To The Penitence of Theophilus (9th century)

Direct source, well documented.

Paul the Deacon of Naples translated the Greek account of Theophilus into Latin, dedicating it to Charles the Bald. This translation brought the legend into the Western church and its later literature.
Where it came from
- Gospel of Matthew, Anonymous c. 80 CE follow this thread
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c. 90 CE

Gospel of John

Anonymous

Early Christian. Roman Asia Minor. Written in Koine Greek.

The fourth canonical gospel, opening 'In the beginning was the Word' and containing the raising of Lazarus.

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (1866)

Direct source, well documented.

In Part Four Sonya reads aloud the raising of Lazarus from John 11 at Raskolnikov's request, and the passage frames his possible moral resurrection. The copy she reads is the New Testament Dostoevsky was given on his way to Siberian prison, quoted directly in the novel.

To Faust, Part One (1808)

Direct source, well documented.

In the study scene Faust sets out to translate the opening of John's gospel, 'In the beginning was the Word', and revises it to 'In the beginning was the Deed'. The poodle that becomes Mephistopheles appears during this act of translation.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 80 CE

Gospel of Matthew

Anonymous

Early Christian. Roman Syria-Palestine. Written in Koine Greek.

Canonical gospel that includes the temptation in the wilderness, where Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship.

What it handed down

To The Legend of Theophilus (c. 6th century)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The legend dramatizes the temptation the Gospels describe, in which Satan offers worldly power for worship. Theophilus accepts what Jesus refused in Matthew 4, renouncing Christ in exchange for his office.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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c. 500 BCE

Book of Job

Anonymous

Persian-period Judah. Ancient Israel. Written in Hebrew.

Wisdom book that opens with God and the Accuser wagering over a righteous man's faith, then tests Job through loss and argument.

What it handed down

To Faust, Part One (1808)

Direct source, well documented.

Goethe's Prologue in Heaven copies the opening of Job: the Lord and the adversary converse in the heavenly court and wager over whether a righteous man can be led astray. Mephistopheles is given permission to test Faust as Satan is given permission to test Job.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Fiend with Twenty Faces (Kaijin Nijū Mensō) (1936)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

To Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (1908)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Fiend with Twenty Faces (Kaijin Nijū Mensō) (1936)

To A Study in Scarlet (1887)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (1866)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Crime and Punishment (1866)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Shinigami (c. 1890)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Death Note (2003)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To A Study in Scarlet (1887)

To The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Zadig (1747)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot) (1835)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Faust, Part One (1808)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Faust, Part One (1808)

To Doctor Faustus (c. 1592)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Zadig (1747)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Travels of the Three Sons of the King of Serendip (Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo) (1557)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Eight Paradises (Hasht-Bihisht) (1302)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To King Lear (c. 1606)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Seven Beauties (Haft Paykar) (1197)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) (c. 1260)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Penitence of Theophilus (9th century)

Where it came from