I ve done some cleanup adding a mention of L as the series main antagonist to the lead I can t agree that the episode count is insignificant given that what we re dealing with is how prominent the characters are to the story More than that I can t agree that L is absent from the second arc Yes he s dead he s not physically present but the characters refer to him constantly His influence pervades the arc as is shown by numerous quotes and so on It s like saying Jesus has no relevance to Paul s epistles because he was dead at the time