Warning: Contains spoilers for The Simpsons season 34, episode 6.Death Note theory. The second segment of “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII” was a parody of Death Note called “Death Tome” which put Lisa in the role of Light Yagami. Unlike in Death Note, Lisa eventually had a change of heart and killed her Shinigami Steve to be free from the Death Tome, but doing so caused Lisa to turn into a Shinigami, herself.
The ending of The Simpsons’ Death Note parody was very far removed from how the Death Note anime actually went, but it might have confirmed a big theory about Light. In the first Death Note compilation movie, Death Note Relight 1: Visions of a God, a new Shinigami is introduced, and because of his appearance and interactions with Ryuk, it’s been theorized that the Shinigami is actually a reincarnation of Light. As such, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII” having Lisa turn into a Shinigami in its Death Note parody could be seen as evidence of the theory being true.
Death Note’s Light Reincarnation Theory Explained
As previously mentioned, a big theory about the Shinigami introduced in Death Note Relight 1: Visions of a God is that he’s a reincarnation of the Netflix live-action Death Note adaptation, is aware that the Shinigami is Light since he mentions how he would have liked a juicier apple, which can be seen as a callback to him talking about how juicy human apples are when he first met Light in the anime.
The biggest piece of evidence comes from the ending of the movie when Ryuk tells the Shinigami that he might meet an incredible guy, himself, if he goes to Earth, and then asks Light if he agrees with that. Ryuk could have just been acting wistful at that moment, which would be appropriate for the story, but with all the other evidence presented, it could also be that he was directly addressing the Shinigami as Light. It’s a very ambiguous note for the story to end on, but it’s still a plausible theory that The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, of all things, might have confirmed.
Did Light Really Become A Shinigami After His Death In Death Note?
The theory that Light became a Shinigami after his death has a lot of , but unfortunately, it’s unlikely to be true. In Death Note, it’s explicitly stated that humans can’t come back to life when they die and simply cease to exist after death, so that probably means that reincarnation doesn’t exist in Death Note’s universe. It also doesn’t help that Death Note Relight 1: Visions of a God doesn’t feature any material canon to the manga outside of the compilation scenes, so from the very start, anything it does can’t be treated as being explicitly canon to the series.
Light reincarnating into a Shinigami has long since been a big theory in Death Note, and with the latest Treehouse of Horror for Fox's The Simpsons having Lisa turn into a Shinigami in its Death Note parody, that theory might have finally been confirmed - as it proves the theory is at least popular enough to be in the show's parody. Granted, there’s plenty of solid reasoning for why the theory wouldn’t be true, despite the evidence in of it, and that’s unlikely to change now, fifteen years after the fact. Even so, it does add more credibility to the theory, and that’s something that can certainly be well-appreciated.
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