Rem was a female shinigami who came to earth to give Misa the deathnote that another shinigami left. Rem was responsable for L's death, in turn sacrificing herself to save Misa.
Rem[]
Rem is the Shinigami who gives Misa her Death Note. Like Ryuk, Rem possesses two Death Notes; however, Rem did not get hers through trickery. The Shinigami Gelus, who had fallen in love with Misa, sacrificed himself to kill her destined murderer. In doing so he was reduced to dust, leaving only his Death Note. Touched by this act, Rem delivered Gelus's Death Note to Misa, since it was her life he saved. Her appearance is quite skeletal, with long, spinal cord-like arms and bone-like skin. Rem is voiced by Kimiko Saitō in the Japanese anime and Colleen Wheeler in the English dub . In the film, her gender is never clarified and "she" is voiced by Shinnosuke Ikehata, with Michael Dobson performing the English voice.
While Ryuk takes amusement in everything in the human world, Rem is almost the exact opposite. She views most humans with contempt, seeing Shinigami as the more evolved race. Also, while Ryuk is ambivalent to Light's success or failure, Rem actively assists Misa, having inherited Gelus' love for her. She is even willing to sacrifice her life to defend Misa, as evidenced by her threat to kill Light should Misa die before her time. For Misa's sake, however, she still assists Light in his schemes. Death Note: How to Read 13 said Rem "supposedly" experiences difficulty while writing the Japanese language. Also stated in Death Note: How to Read 13, Rem is female, contrary to some beliefs.[1] However in the English dub of the second film, Rem is said to be male.
Light manages to force Rem into killing L for him by presenting a situation in which harm would come to Misa otherwise. As such, she dies when she writes L's name. In the second movie, Rem declares her love for Misa and her spite for Light moments before her death. While her Death Note is left behind in the manga and anime, she burns it in the film out of spite.
Obata said that Rem is his favorite Shinigami since she is a Shinigami and "a good person."[2]