[WolvenLordSoulReaper]

That said, Light tricked everybody and in (no pun intended) light of that, Naomi Misura got it off a lot better than Raye Penbur, her fiancee who was also manipulated into an early grave, but not before being tricked into killing all the other agents with a piece of the DeathNote. Naomi Misura could go top heaven... Ray Penbur couldn't, (leaving me and my sister anxiously anticipating the return of a vengeful shinigami to kill Light... alas...)

L hired that criminal man, as well.

Mellow was also controlling and using the mafia members, as well as in some controlling and manipulating Light Yagami himself while Mellow held his sister hostage.

Near also had several male agents working for him, all of who (save lester) ended up dead. At least Hal Lidner survived. (Though one could argue that Mellow was also using Hal as well.)

Look at the small amount of women used to make the males 'look good' in Death Note: Misa Amane, Naomi Misura/Penbur, (and I have a really ahrd time even considering that, because Naomi was portrayed as a much more complex character than Raye Penbur, who seemed like little more than a typical real life filed agent without any extremely out of place talents or characteristics), Saiyu, Takada, Hal Lidner (I'll discuss why in an upcoming thread dedicated to her and one question everyone had to be asking when they saw her interactions with a particular member of the D.N. roster), and Wedy. (Am I missing anyone?)

Now, not counting men used by other men or men used by women in the D.N. story; let's see how many men were simply used by Light alone, falling into two different categories:

Patsies: (Men used by light as pawns, without their conscious knowledge or co-operation,
Acolytes: Men who drank the Yagami Kool-Aid and liked it.

Patsies: Shibwimaru(?), whoever the freak on the bike toasted by Light to 'test' the D.N. in the anime was; Raye Penbur, who killed the entire roster of F.B.I. field agents on the case; Souichiro Yagami; Aizawa; Mogi; Ide; L; Aiber; Mellow; Mellow's thugs; (I don't count Matt, Light never used him to complete an objective, but I will point out that Mellow employed Matt, thereby 'using' him); Shidou, a male Shinigami (earlier I didn't count Rem in the females, as she held her ground fairly decent up until Light's last strongly calculated blow which resulted in her death, but even that was of her own volition); President of the United States; Vice President of the United States; Takimura; any criminal used to make a point or message; etc.

Acolytes: Demigawa; Matsuda; Mikami Terru; Station Reporters across the board; Hikugi; All of Yostsuba; etc.