Takeshi Obata, artist of "Death Note", said that, since Ohba wanted to "include a little L" in Near and Mello, he tried to keep "the weirdness and the panda eyes". Obata added that since L was an important character he felt that he made Near and Mello looks too much like L. He described the character designs as "a major struggle". Obata said that, when he first heard about Near and Mello, he assumed that Near and Mello would join as a team and work together, so he envisioned the two as twins when he created the character designs. Obata stated that he originally thought about creating Near as "a bit more mature mentally". Obata said that he created a "cooler looking version of L" design and considered using a younger version of that design. Another design Obata created for L included a "really innocent and cheerful character" and he felt that the design could work for Near; he said that he "quickly abandoned" the idea.