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In Death Note (TV Series 2006–2007), there is a pattern in a lot of the numeric references in the rules of the Death Note, where they relate to the number 4 in some way:

If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds of writing the person's name, it will happen.

After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds [= 400 seconds total].

If a human uses the note, a god of death usually appears in front of him/her within 39 days [under 40 days] after he/she uses the note.

The Death Note will be rendered useless if the victim's name is misspelled four times.

If you lose the Death Note or have it stolen, you will lose its ownership unless you retrieve it within 490 days [a year and 4 months].

If writing the same name on more than two Death Notes is completed within a .6 seconds [0.4 seconds away from 1], it is regarded as simultaneous; the Death Note will not take effect and the individual written will not die.

Those with the eye power of the god of death will have the eyesight of over 3.6 [0.4 away from 4] in the human measurement, regardless of their original eyesight.
—"Rules of the Death Note", Death Note Wiki

There are a few instances where other significant numbers ("magical number" 3, and "devil number" 6) are used, but none are quite as prevalent as 4.

Is this prevalent pattern a coincidence, or is there some significance to the number 4 that would be relevant in Death Note?

Ghoti and Chips
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2 Answers2

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Because apparently, Four is Death. from the TV Tropes page of the same name:

In most Chinese languages and languages that borrow words from it, the words for "four" (四) and "death" (死) are written differently but pronounced similarly (somewhat like "sì" in Mandarin, "sei" in Cantonese, "shi" in Sino-Japanese, "tư" in Sino-Vietnamese, and "sa" in Sino-Korean). As a cultural trope, East Asian works of media tend to treat the number in much the way Western writers treat the number 13 (a number that Arabian and European culture consider Magical, and usually in a bad way).

Walt
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    Upvote for the TV tropes page, as it lists Death Note and gave some more references that I hadn't picked up on. For example, Light's given name is spelt as "moon" (月) apparently this has four strokes, cursing him with an unlucky/deadly curse from birth. – Ghoti and Chips Sep 04 '17 at 12:12
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    Fun, but not quite related fact: Garmin skipped their 4th version of the fenix, because of this pronunciation similarity. – Ivanka Todorova Sep 04 '17 at 14:19
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    Noticeable if you are somewhere where enough people have tetraphobia that buildings skip the numeral 4 when labelling floors. Really noticeable if you are somewhere where there are also enough people with triskaidekaphobia for them to also avoid the number 13 and numbering goes from 12 to 15. – Jon Hanna Sep 04 '17 at 14:54
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    @JonHanna - You’re right. The K Hotel Dunnan in Taipei lacks both a 13th and a 4th floor, since the hotel must cater to tourists from Japan, China, the US, and so forth. I suspect many other hotels in Taipei are the same (I only stayed at the one). – Obie 2.0 Sep 04 '17 at 16:28
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    @Obie2.0 Did they have a 14th? Generally the digit is skipped rather than the number, so somewhere I once stayed in Vancouver (an area where both Asian fear of four and European fear of 13 can be found) had 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16… Some large buildings even have …38, 39, 50, 51…. – Jon Hanna Sep 04 '17 at 16:36
  • @JonHanna - I think they did. Else I would remember its absence. – Obie 2.0 Sep 04 '17 at 16:37
  • @GhotiandChips my name written in Chinese has four strokes. I'm doomed. – Ooker Sep 05 '17 at 08:54
  • @Ooker Maybe you (or someone who understands) can explain to me what is meant by "four strokes", I've been confused by how that character "has four strokes" ever since I stumbled upon that factoid. I don't know how it presumes what constitutes 1 stroke. – Ghoti and Chips Sep 05 '17 at 08:56
  • @GhotiandChips it is just the step number you need to write it down: http://www.visualmandarin.com/tools/chinese-stroke-order/36556 – Ooker Sep 05 '17 at 09:00
  • @Ooker In the example-link you provided, it seems arbitrary to add a step between 1 and 2. – Ghoti and Chips Sep 05 '17 at 09:09
  • @GhotiandChips no, that's the order that you need to follow, otherwise you will screw up when writing other characters – Ooker Sep 05 '17 at 10:25
  • @GhotiandChips: Also, if you take the plane on a Japanese airline, there may not be a seat row 4, much like there is no seat row 13 in a number of western planes :) – Matthieu M. Sep 05 '17 at 13:56
  • @MatthieuM. Yes, I already knew all of this. – Ghoti and Chips Sep 05 '17 at 14:07
  • Still confused how that character makes up four strokes, though. – Ghoti and Chips Sep 05 '17 at 14:07
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    @GhotiandChips the stroke on the left is made going top down. It may not seem like it matters, but making strokes in the right direction (and order, to a lesser degree) really helps readability in handwritten Japanese/Chinese/etc. So joining the first stroke into the second would be considered wrong. – mbrig Sep 05 '17 at 15:45
  • @GhotiandChips Stroke order and shape is also important when using a Kanji dictionary. That pattern for the second stroke, across then down, is a fairly common theme. There are definite patterns, though it takes some work to figure them out at times (and my understanding is that for more unusual and complex Kanji, the correct count is not always obvious, even to natives). – Beska Sep 05 '17 at 20:45
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According to the Wikipedia page for Japanese superstitions, in Japanese culture, the number 4 is an unlucky number because it is sometimes pronounced shi, which means death.

Also, in the Wikipedia page for Tetraphobia (the fear of the number 4):

The Chinese word for four (四, pinyin: sì, jyutping: sei3), sounds quite similar to the word for death (死, pinyin: sǐ, jyutping: sei2), in many varieties of Chinese. Similarly, the Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Sino-Vietnamese words for four, shi (し, Japanese), and sa (사, Korean), sound similar or identical to death in each language (see Korean numerals, Japanese numerals, Vietnamese numerals).

Essentially, the number 4, thanks to how it can be pronounced, is associated with death in a lot of East-Asian countries, particularly Japan, which is where the manga, Death Note, and the anime in question are produced. As the name of the manga/anime implies, death is one of the main themes in the story. It is thematically appropriate that the numeric references made in the Death Note hold this cultural significance and association with death.

Ghoti and Chips
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  • Ah, I see you quickly came to the same conclusion yourself. Nevermind. ;) – Walt Sep 04 '17 at 12:03
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    @Walt I had an idea that 4 was associated with death before re-watching the anime, recently, and picked up on the pattern - I just didn't know if it was, indeed, merely a coincidence, or an actual superstition and what it means, etc. – Ghoti and Chips Sep 04 '17 at 12:14