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.
Creation and conception
Ohba said that he always mentioned apples in the thumbnails because he wished to use "the dying message that Shinigami only eat apples" and therefore he needed Ryuk to hold apples and that "There's no other reason." Ohba also said that he specifically chose apples as the red "goes well" with Ryuk's black body and that the apples "fit well" with Ryuk's "big" mouth. When Obata informed Ohba that apples held religious and psychological significance and that a person could "read a lot" into the inclusion of apples and that he assumed that was the reason why Ohba included the apples, Ohba said that he did not "think about that at all" and that he believes that "apples are cool... that's it. [laughs]" Ohba added that he felt including aspects that could become later plot points was beneficial, and the apples were used as a point when Light asked Ryuk to search for the cameras in exchange for apples.
Obata said that he encountered difficulty in designing Ryuk. He said that his original idea of Ryuk consisted of Ryuk looking like a "young man similar to Light" with black hair and wings. Obata said that he had the idea of Shinigami looking like "attractive rock stars." Obata felt that if Ryuk appeared more attractive than Light, he would "appear to be the main character" and "things wouldn't work as well." Obata said that he decided to erase the previous design and use the final design in which Ryuk has a reptile-like appearance when his editor told that Ryuk did not have to appear human. Obata said that he liked the "monster"-like appearance and added that, with his face, "you can never really tell what he is thinking." Obata said that he encountered difficulty while drawing Ryuk in the pilot chapter since he did not "have a good handle" on the "bone structure of his face." Obata said that during serialization he became "so used" to the underlying structure that he could visualize it. Obata describes Ryuk's face as appearing different between the pilot chapter and the actual Death Note series. In 13: How to Read Obata thought of an idea involving Ryuk's face being a mask, and under the mask would be an "attractive" face.
When designing Ryuk's Death Note Obata thought about the appearance of Ryuk's handwriting. Ryuk wrote the words "Death Note" on the cover of his own notebook, and when he took possession of Sidoh's book he wrote the same words on the front cover.
Films
Shūsuke Kaneko, director of the live-action films, said that he chose to create Ryuk with computer graphics as it would make the aspect of Ryuk only appearing to people who have touched the Death Note "believable" and that the audience could "tell instinctually" that Ryuk is a Shinigami with "no real presence." Kaneko added that if a human actor represented Ryuk, the appearance would have been "too realistic," the actor may have impacted Ryuk's "presence," and the audience may have "doubted he was a death god, if only for a second." Kaneko ordered the graphics team to design the graphics as if it were an actor "inside a rubber suit."