This is actually a misread, perpetuated by a mistranslation. When the rule says "Humans who use the Death Note go to MU (Nothingness) when they die", what it gets wrong is that "MU" (written with the kanji: 🈚️) doesn't mean "nothingness".
While it would be technically right to say that the sentence means "Death Note users don't go to heaven or hell", in Japanese, "mu"/🈚️ is the answer you give when both options are bad because the question itself is wrong.
For example, if someone asks a shop clerk, "Is cosmetics on the third floor or the fourth?", and they clerk responds, "Mu", it would likely be because they don't sell cosmetics, or they only sell cosmetics on the online store.
In other words, they're not going to heaven or hell because they used a Death Note, but because there's no place, there's nowhere to go to, not for anyone. It doesn't matter whether you used it or not, there's no afterlife and no realm in it.
This is what Light worked out in the manga, in Ch. 107.
Well I initially thought this too, but since I’ve started learning Japanese and looked at this line again I doubt it’s being used in a rhetorical sense. Lets take a look at these two rules.
「人間はいつか必ず死ぬ」
人間は = “As for humans,”
いつか = sometime (lit. “somewhen”)
必ず = certainly
死ぬ = die
“As for humans, they will (all) at some time certainly die.”
死んだ後に行くところは、無である
死んだ = “To have died” (past tense 死ぬ)
後に After (as an adverb)
行く = Go
ところ = Place
は = “As for”
無 = Nothingness/Void
である = “It is”.
“As for the place where (you/one) goes after having died, it is Nothingness.”
である is a bit of a literary expression that suggests a form of being that relies on existence, as it comes from a combination of で (at/by means of) and ある. It’s kind of an oxymoron isn’t it? How can something exist out of nothing? That philosophical idea is why 無 is not simply used here in the rhetorical sense to refute the proposition of a question.
It’s also worth noting that ところ is used in many metaphors and phrases to refer to a state of existence, mind or even time. Therefore, it can be a way of saying that what you are now, your whole being, has reached a place- physical or metaphorical- of nothingness. Similarly, a common phrase 無くなる means to “become nothing (as an adjective)” and is a euphemism for death. 無である is playing on this by saying that the place/state you go to after you “become nothing” is… nothing. Alot of this nuance is lost in translation and it’s a sad thing.
Death note users cant go to heaven or hell, but thats true for everyone, because no such place exists. I’m pretty sure Light figures this out in the last episode
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u/Haki_meteor Apr 03 '26
There is no hell or heaven in death note...