*Yes*. The way Light's philosophy is so Western, all along, but the very end - the death of the story and his own eventual fate - is Buddhist. The same patchwork syncretist way Japan generally treats religion.

The Nothingness translation makes perfect sense; it's not a bad translation at all. It's just that also calling it Mu confuses people; it makes it sound like a place. I need to read that book.

Interesting that that "there is no afterlife, let's do what we can while we're alive" is certainly something the characters live by...