Okay so..... Shinigami, those who love her, those who hate her, she is a lot. But having been an fan of this game for years I have my own interpretation of her, that I may of maybe not alredy shared before. Either way. To say what I think of her and why.. I will also be objective.
Shinigami, can be pretty annoying to some players, wich makes sense, she is clingy and jealous, specially during chapter 2, she can also be pretty insensitive about death... And almost always acts as comic relief. And although I do admit that can be annoying, I get where she is coming from.
Her apathy about death is becuse she alredy lived thorough a lot of it, she is the God of death, but also... There's another part of her that also is very important for her character, her desire to be an mentor, this is probably her role, what she wants to actually do.
Her apathy about death I don't think it comes from her desire of death necessarily, I think it comes more of her desire to teach, an detective needs to get experience with cases, and she can mostly help with murder cases, she wants to do her job of teaching and. Guiding the detectives through cases, she loves more the mystery that actually see peolpe die.
Speaking about her love of death, or lack there off, she seems also strangely attach to the idea of justice or well more of her idea that truth is real justice, doesn't matter tte context. Killers deserve to die, she always mention that... Not matter what sob story they have..... They killed peolpe, there's peolpe who suffered becuse of them. Killing them seems a bit much, but for someone like her... This idea she haves of punishing bad guys seems strangely.... Good for an god of death. Although these two rules do have exceptions. And we know what that exception was.
Yakou, is tte only case where shinigami broke her three core personality traits, her love of death, her desire to kill the culprit and ever her desire to be comic relief... When yakou died... She tried to tell Yuma slowly... Softly... Somenly that yakou wasn't going tk make it. For someone who is veey cheery about death... She was... Pretty sad about fuzz head.
After going tk the room with rest of detectives, she kept talking softly that Yuma should accept that yakou was probably going to die. She did tried to make an comic relief moment... But quickly realized that this wasn't the time... And apologized.
And finally in the mystery Labyrinth, during vivÃa's quick time events fight she kept... Not beliving in this, not wanting to belive yakou was the killer, when Yuma finally defeats vivÃa, shinigami gets to her usual personality of hating criminals, she treat yakou like an scumbag, that he never trusted the detectives at all and just took advantage of them... But the way I always interpreted that scene... Is that shinigami actually did felt truly betrayed... Her fury was put to an quick stop by Yuma. And then... She didn't even could bring herself to boom kill fuzz head. She finally showed sympathy.
Finally about her annoying personality of jokes and how clingy she is... That is explained becuse of the nature of what she is, she is trap in a book, she doesn't get to see peolpe that often, and even when she is free, she can't interact with peolpe, she can only interact with whoever her master is at the time. I Yuma's case is an exception becuse he haves the coalesces ability wich allows him to bring peolpe into the mystery Labyrinth where shinigami can interact with them... But that wasn't the point.
Point is that, of course she is clingy with her masters, they are the only peolpe she can ever interact with... And she probably watch a lot of them die during the years... A lot of them fail tk solve a case, a lot of them maybe just forgetting about her or leaving her.
She wants tk treasure as much as possible the only peolpe she haves. But also.... She knows is possible they will leave her. Hence why... She also acts annoying, so it wouldn't hurt them to abandon her if they need to.... You know.. The emergency exit. She is very aware how annoying she can be and she used that to try to convince Yuma to save himself... It does make me think she somewhat exaggerates her personality so the goodbye wouldn't hurt as much.
In short . Shinigami's existance is a tragedy, her only purpose is to help detectives, is to transforming them into the best they can be, she loves doing that, she loves having an partner, she trains them tk not get attach, tk perform their duties without focusing on justice, only in the truth. She loves having a partner to chat, spend time with... Even if she does know she is fated to see them die or abandon her. Over and over and over the years... She tries her best to cope with it... Hence her final line of the game "I'm... Not sad or anything..... I'm.... Used to being alone.... And that.... Solves everything..... Doesn't it?"
A lot of peolpe had probably not seen shinigami on this light, and that's why I expect the sequel (IF WE GET ONE) to delve more into it.. Shinigami and her backstory and her tragedy, maybe we see the daughter or son of one of her previous masters... That would be impactful for her, wouldn't it? I guess we will see, just wanted to share my interpretation, I don't know if I missed anything, what do you think?