Douglas Wolk of "Salon" describes Light as "coldly manipulative", "egomaniacal", and "an unrepentant serial killer, a butcher on an enormous scale" who is not "a Freddy Krueger, a monster who represents pure evil, or a Patrick Bateman, a demonic symbol of his age". Wolk describes Light as "the good guy, more or less" who genuinely believes that he holds "the moral high ground". When asked about which character was most similar to himself, Ohba indicated Near and "maybe Light." Regarding Light, Ohba cited "because I did well in school."