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Official Site: Tsugumi Ohba

, universally referred to by the mononym , is a fictional deuteragonist and an antagonist of the anime and manga series Death Note, only after the 4-year timeskip and supporting protagonist in the film L: Change the WorLd. Near is the younger of the two successors of L, and the leader of the SPK (Special Provision for Kira), an organization that looks into the Kira case and, in the end, succeeds in uncovering Kira's identity.

In Death Note, Near is the younger of L's two successors raised in Wammy's House, Watari's orphanage for gifted children, in Winchester, England, United Kingdom. Of the successors, Near is more level-headed, calmly assessing the situation, while the other, Mello, is more emotional and quicker to act. Much like L, Near shows various odd behaviors during his normal life. He is usually seen hunched over rather than sitting. He also constantly plays with various toys, which he uses in his theories, as well as idly twiddling strands of his hair. In the epilogue of the manga, he is shown eating a bar of chocolate, as he pursues a new case, possibly in memory of Mello. He shows a great respect for L, basing much of how he solves crime on L's methods, even to the point where he only takes cases that he is interested with rather than trying to pursue justice. Near uses the Wedding text font "N" and "L" to represent himself and the fake L, respectively. But later in the aftermath, he used Old English MT font "L" like the original L did. He is voiced by Noriko Hidaka in the Japanese anime, and Cathy Weseluck in the English dub.

Sometime after L's death, he works for the United States under the SPK (Special Provision for Kira) team that is established to investigate Kira without the help of "L". He soon manages to deduce that Light Yagami, posing as L, is actually Kira. After he finds that Teru Mikami is Light's proxy and Mello kidnaps Kiyomi Takada, Near is able to switch Mikami's Death Note with a forged one, allowing him to set up a final confrontation that leaves Light exposed. Ryuk kills Light soon after. Near says that neither he nor Mello could surpass L alone, but have managed to do so by inadvertently working together. Near soon takes L's alias, and keeps on the surviving members of the SPK as his subordinates.

In the final chapter Near brings finger puppets to the Yellow Box Warehouse. Takeshi Obata, artist of Death Note, said that Near first bought the Kira finger puppet and drew on it with a magic marker. Obata then said that Near must have created the other puppets afterwards. Obata views Near as not liking L much so Obata had Near depict L as "ugly", and that Near "worked hard" on Mello's puppet as Near "liked Mello".

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