Who is Tsugumi Ohba, the writer behind Death Note?

Tsugumi Ohba is the pen name of the writer of Death Note, Bakuman and Platinum End. No confirmed real name, photograph or biography exists in public. What the official author profile in the Death Note volumes does offer is character: Ohba was born in Tokyo, collects teacups, and develops manga plots while holding his knees up on a chair, which readers will recognize as the way L sits.

Ohba had never published a manga before Death Note and has said he expected Jump to pass on the pilot. He cites Shotaro Ishinomori, Fujiko Fujio and Fujio Akatsuka as formative influences, which is a gag-manga and classic-manga pedigree, not a thriller one.

The famous theory, argued in public by critic Toshio Okada from 2006, is that Ohba is Hiroshi Gamo, creator of the 1990s gag superhero series Tottemo! Luckyman. Supporters point to the storyboards Ohba publishes, which resemble Gamo's drawing style, and to Bakuman, where the hero's late uncle was a one-hit gag superhero artist, mirroring Gamo's career almost exactly. Shueisha has never confirmed any of it, so on this shelf the theory is labeled what it is: widely believed, officially unproven.