Ryuk (Death Note)

Ryuk
Death Note character
Ryuk, drawn by Takeshi Obata
First appearance	Chapter 1: "Boredom" (退屈, Taikutsu) (2004)
Created by	Tsugumi Ohba Takeshi Obata
Voiced by	Nakamura Shidō II (Japanese, anime and films) Jun Fukushima (Japanese, TV drama) Brian Drummond (English, anime and films) Willem Dafoe (American film)
Portrayed by	Kōtarō Yoshida (musical) Jason Liles (American film)
In-universe information
Species	Shinigami

Ryuk (Japanese: リューク, Hepburn: Ryūku) is a fictional character in the manga series Death Note, created by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. He is a Shinigami that drops a Death Note, a notebook that allows the user to kill anyone simply by knowing their name and face, into the human world to find relief from the boredom of his own realm. It is picked up by Light Yagami, a bright high school student who uses it in an attempt to create and rule a utopia cleansed of evil, with him at the helm as a "god".

In the anime adaptation, Ryuk is voiced by Nakamura Shidō in Japanese and by Brian Drummond in the English version. Both actors reprise their roles for voicing the computer-generated version of the character in the live-action films, with Jun Fukushima voicing the CG version in the live-action television drama. In the musical, Ryuk was portrayed by Kōtarō Yoshida. In the American live-action film adaptation Jason Liles played the character in costume while Willem Dafoe provided the voice acting and facial motion capture.