Reposting my original post with minor edits!
So Misa’s death in the manga is confirmed in HTR13 as being February 14th 2011, but in the Death Note anime, Misa’s date of death is left ambiguous. Even according to HTR14 (the official guidebook for the anime), Misa’s date of death is left as “不明” - unknown (Page).This differs from characters who do not have a confirmed date of death in the manga; they have the space where the answer goes crossed out. (Example) The implication, therefore, seems to be that Misa does die, though the exact date of her death is unknown.
Despite the ambiguity, the anime strongly impliesMisa commits suicide and that it occurs before she is aware of Light’s death. This seems weirdly out of character and has led to a lot of alternative explanations such as the possibility that her final scenes in the anime actually take place some time in the future after she becomes aware of Light’s death.
But actually I think her suicide in the anime does take place on January 28th 2013 and that it occurs before she is aware of Light’s death.This probably sounds weird because there’s no obvious trigger for her suicide if she wasn’t aware of Light’s death, but this version of events is actually quite consistent with how Misa is portrayed in the anime specifically.
The Death Note anime, like any other derivative work, alters the characterizations of individual characters in the process of re-telling the narrative. I’ve talked about how the anime changes Light (here), but I haven’t touched on how the anime changes other characters. Credit goes to @mikami for having written this fantastic post on how the anime alters Misa’s personality in the anime.
The anime portrays Misa as having a much greater degree of self awareness with regards to her relationship to Light than is ever implied in the manga. Manga-Misa and Anime-Misa are very different characters. But despite the two depictions of Misa being largely incompatible with one another, I generally tend to find Misa’s characterization in the anime more or less consistent. So while I do think the argument that “Misa wouldn’t have killed herself prior to knowing that Light died” is completely valid for manga-Misa, I don’t think the same argument applies for anime-Misa.
To elaborate on this point a bit further, I want to talk about “Misa no Uta” aka that song Misa sings in episode 25.
Lyrics to “Misa no Uta”
気をつけて神様は見てる。 暗い夜道は手をつないでください！ 一人で遠くでもいつも見つけ出してくれる。 知ってることは全部教えてくれる。 私がおぼえたなくても、 何度でも教えてくれる。
でも 全部わかってしまったらどうすればいいの?
The English translation (nabbed from here)
Be careful, God is watching. In a street blacked by night, please link our hands together. Even if I’m by myself and far away, He can always come find me.
He comes to teach me everything He knows. Even if I should no longer remember He will teach me over and over.
But what should I do once I know everything?
As Luna already discussed in the linked post, the finer implications of what this song says about Misa’s perception of her relationship with Light, I’ll go ahead and point out something else. Specifically, the last couple of lines.
The “Even if I should no longer remember” line is interesting because it most obviously refers to Miss more recent memory loss in the first arc, but it also foreshadows how Misa gives up her memories again in the second arc. The anime makes this element of foreshadowing all the more evidentwith visual cues that directly link “Misa no Uta” to Misa’s eventual suicide.
The two scenes, as Luna pointed out, are meant to be contrasted. The two scenes are connected.
And following that train of thought, there’s another really interesting point to be made about “Misa no Uta.”
Her song ends on a question.
In the context of “Misa no Uta” the question is one that is really asking “what will I do once I no longer have any use?”
This is a question that Misa, in the manga, never asks herself. She is convinced Light is in love with her and isn’t using her for her utility to him, but the anime does have different ideas about Misa.
Outside of “Misa no Uta” there aren’t many anime-exclusive scenes where we get a glimpse of Misa when she is alone after she is together with Light. When she’s around other people, she tends to be as enthusiastic and full of energy as she is depicted in the manga. But when you do look at how Misa is portrayed in the anime when alone and there’s no need for her to act and put on a cheery face, she’s always noticeably disturbed.
Here she is in the opening scene of Misa no Uta:
Here she is when she has lost her memories and is alone in her apartment.
The unspoken distress in this scene is made very clear by the fact that in the background her pet bird is shrieking. But the symbolism doesn’t stop there because bless the anime, it really likes its symbolism..
As you can see in the screencap above, her pet bird is a literal lovebird. The symbolism here is, again, yet another nod to the fact that Misa is clearly aware that her relationship is falling apart.
First Light made her quit her job. Then Light asked her to give up her memories (which she wouldn’t remember). Then Light told her to go back to work so he could get access to NHN. Now Light no longer spends time with her because he’s working at his job. …And spending time with Kiyomi.
The implications of these facts are things that manga-Misa never wants to face. But on the other hand, Anime-Misa, who recognizes the possibility that Light is purely using her is starting to realize that her usefulness is coming to an end.
Even if I should no longer remember He will teach me over and over. But what should I do once I know everything?
By the later parts of second arc, Misa has reached the point where Light is no longer guiding her or by her side because he has nothing to left to teach her so to speak. One way of looking at it is that when a person has nothing left to teach you, it’s because you have already learned everything you need to know.
Consider also the fact that even though Misa has lost her memories, she is still aware that there was a period of time in which she and Light were both arrested as Kira suspects. Consider the fact that Misa is essentially arrested by Near again and that Mogi allows this to happen - which theoretically wouldn’t have happened if Misa wasn’t a threat and that this is obviously related to the Kira investigation since Light’s involvement more or less confirms this as fact. Consider also that she knows what happens to people who are no longer needed by Kira. She knows what Demegawa’s and Kiyomi’s fates were.
Misa’s suicide in the anime is not a consequence of her knowledge of Light’s death. It’s a consequence of her knowledge of the death of her usefulness to Light that grows steadily over the course of the entire second arc.
The answer to her question in “Misa no Uta” is to commit suicide. She doesn’t want to find out what a world without Light is like. She doesn’t want to know what a world where she has outlived her usefulness to the person she loves is like.
But why January 28th 2013 specifically? The reason for that may simply have to do with the fact that this date is the first time in second arc when she is left alone after she loses her memories. Remember soon after she surrenders those memories, Mogi and Aizawa keep Misa under constant surveillance. January 28th 2013 is the first time when Mogi is not with her and she has her freedom back.
And the first thing she does with this freedom is to go to a very familiar roof at the top of a familiar building.
Yep. It’s the top of the skyscraper that L had constructed back during the Yotsuba arc.
This choice is significant because it’s the one place she remembers she was able to be unambiguously useful to Light. Misa doesn’t have any memories of acting as Kira and helping Light create their new world together because she loses all of the memories specific to the use of notes. But what she does have are her memories of helping Light catch Higuchi here. No doubt it’s a treasured memory and I think this is probably the last thing she thinks about before it is implied that she jumps.
Whether you’re a fan of the anime’s interpretation of Misa’s character or not…it’s pretty damn sad.