Death Note is a series packed with lots of moments that showcase Light’s God complex, L’s quirky intelligence, and their mind games, which keep us on the edge of our seats. But sometimes, the cat-and-mouse chase between these two geniuses takes a much more lighthearted turn, making audiences laugh with its exaggerated seriousness. One such hilarious scene that stands the test of time, even two decades later, is the infamous potato chip scene from the series’ Episode 8, Glare.
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Light presents himself as an innocent student doing some late-night studying while hiding a page from the Death Note inside a bag of chips. As he cockily multitasks, his actions come off as an exaggerated and almost hamfisted level of silliness. u/Its_Flipbook_Time on Reddit prompted a particularly popular reflection on the Death Note potato chip meme, with users noting the entertaining conviction of the English dub in the scene. But beyond the meme-worthiness, the scene is a major turning point in the story. It’s Light and L’s first face-off, albeit through a camera. It hilariously shows us that Light’s confidence is his downfall, foreshadowing his fate at the end of the series. While Light’s busy pulling off his act, L’s quiet genius has already noticed holes in his perfect story.
Setting The Death Note Potato Chip Scene
By Death Note’s Episode 8, Light Yagami’s character has already taken a sharp turn from the moral high school student we see at the start of the series. He’s gone from someone who only kills criminals to someone willing to kill anyone opposing him and his idea of justice. He’s already killed a dozen FBI agents, murdered Raye Penber, and used the Death Note to make Raye’s fiancée Naomi Misora commit suicide. At this point, it’s clear he’s feeling more and more like the “God of a new world” he intends to become.
However, the series’ antagonist, L, puts a massive wrench in those plans. Despite the limited data he’s working with, the genius detective L is able to connect the dots, narrowing down Kira’s identity to two families — the Yagami family and the Kitamura family. To prove this hypothesis, L then has 64 hidden cameras planted in Light’s room. But Light is a paranoid genius with a DIY security system — a paper strip, a pencil lead in the hinges, and a carefully angled doorknob tell him someone’s been snooping around. And with Ryuk declaring he’s being watched, Light knows he can’t afford to make a mistake.
If Kira kills no one while Light is being watched, L would have good reason to continue suspecting him. But if Light kills someone while L is watching, the detective would have concrete proof of his guilt. Worse, Light can’t even look for the cameras himself as doing so would instantly make L suspicious. So he comes up with an ingenious plan, weaponizing Ryuk’s apple addiction to force the Shinigami to find all 64 cameras.
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The Death Note English Dub’s Birth of an Iconic Anime Meme
Next, Light enters the second step of his plan: killing someone as Kira without appearing suspicious to the Task Force watching him. To do this, he hides a miniature TV inside a bag of chips, alongside a page from the Death Note, and heads to his room to study. He plans to watch the news, scribble the name of a random criminal onto the hidden Death Note page, and act like he’s just studying for exams. This, he knows, will throw the Task Force off his trail.
The stakes are undeniably high. The task force has its eyes on Light, who knows that one wrong move can expose him. And then, at the height of this tension, Light reaches into the bag, takes out a single potato chip, and mentally delivers the iconic line, “I’ll take a potato chip… and eat it.” But what makes the potato chip scene so hilarious isn’t just the context and dialogue, it’s the delivery.
“I just saw this yesterday,” reads the top comment, “It’s commendable how dramatic this scene is when it’s basically Light saying ‘I’ll take a potato chip, and eat!’”
Another response to the Reddit thread reflecting on the scene adds, “I know it’s because I first watched Death Note in dub, but to me it almost feels wrong hearing Light in Japanese now.”
Given the popularity of the scene, the numerous repostings of it to YouTube and other social media accounts, and the discussion surrounding its unique execution in English, it proves even the sillier aspects of the series are uniquely memorable.
It’s not even the English dub drawing attention to the scene, either, with fans noting background details and the overall action of the moment. One comment even notes the following, “Also Ryuk hallucinating on the side was quite an epic scene in itself.” There’s plenty to observe beyond Light’s exaggerated delivery.
Director Tetsuro Araki went all out in making the simple act of Light eating a potato chip look like something out of a fast-paced action scene. Camera zooms, swoops and slow-mo’s show us Light’s each move as if he’s defusing a bomb. A choir belts over his writing his next victims’ names. In the background of this high-stakes scene, audiences can see Ryuk going through apple withdrawal, his suffering the cherry on top of this already ridiculous scene.
Source: Reddit
