Is Kira (Yagami Light) an antihero or a villain? I was having a conversation with my friend and I said that Kira was one of my favorite antiheroes. He replied with: Kira is not a an antihero, he's a villain.

But he gave nearly zero arguments for that.
The entire anime (and probably manga but I haven’t read it) follows the story of Light — from when he first gains access to a Death Note until the bitter end. It’s obvious that Light is a central character and we can ask ourself whether he is a hero (or antihero) or a villain.

An antihero has been defined by Ankit, a villain would typically be somebody who works against the principal (anti) hero standing on the other side of the black/white schism.

There are other principal and supporting character, naturally. I would classify the police investigation squad as supporting and L as another principal character.


   L’s successor Near would also be classified as principal in my humble opinion.


Obviously, Light and L are not both black or both white; they have conflicting goals.

With this rather simple classification in hand, it is up to us to ask us whether L’s side can be considered the ‘hero side’ — the only possibility if we desire to call Light the villain. Well:


   L can’t be the hero by himself as he dies halfway through. The work ends if the hero dies. Near can’t be the hero by himself as he only appears halfway through. Together, they could be the ‘hero side’ in a two-episode drama.


But even if that last case is true, we still follow the story of Light much more closely than the story of L. It’s not the idea of a hero that they barely turn up.

Therefore, Light is an antihero.