Near (from death note) is a character that makes me so insane even after like six years since the first time I read the manga because. Imagine.
You're an orphan that grew up idolizing a person you never even spoke to and you liked him even more when he said that "he's a cheater that doesn't like to lose" and you found out that is not the embodiment of justice but just a man like you that liked to solve puzzles. You two even look so alike! And then he dies. And your rival/foster brother/ guy with whom you have this weird religious coded tension says that you're better suited for the job anyway, you've always been smarter than him anyway, and leaves you alone at THIRTEEN to solve the world's most dangerous case. And you don't even hate said guy, you kind of respect him and want to work with him but he makes his life purpose to beat you at this game. And you're the younger in this case but you're the less childish (emotionally speaking) and you are probably the character that expresses more vocally his dislike of Kira, that has not even a little bit of admiration for his intellect or motivation, and that's the reason why you're the one destroying his pathetic ass in the wharehouse. And then you spend years of your life alone because your "rival" put aside his fatal flaw and decided to die (knowing he will die) to save you and your team, because winning didn't make sense if he couldn't wait for you on the finish line. But they are the martyrs, and you are the one that put together their merits. So you let your hair grows like L's and you try to solve every case like he would, fulfilling the role of a dead person. Keeping L's and Mello's dolls with you even years after everything ended.
I always get annoyed when people accuse Near of being less smart than L ,of "not caring" about the Minoru case, of being a "bad copy" because he and L are identical. Babe. That's the point. He's not L, and he's not superior to him unless him and mello cooperate. Near himself aknowledges that the case was solved because of him and mello. Of course he doesn't do a big move (like shutting down sakura tv) to stop Minoru. That's something L (or even more, Mello) would do. Of course adult Near and L look so similar, he's trying to be him!!
(Honestly I wonder if him saying he wasn't very L- like in the C- Kira oneshot was the moment in which he chose to follow his own path, since in Minoru oneshot he doesn't seem as worried about acting like L as in the C-Kira oneshot or in the original series)
He is a bad copy. He's also just a half of the whole. He's not a copycat, he is haunted.
