Latest Death Note Oneshot Has Donald Trump In Possession Of Titular Book For $10 Trillion

There have been some Death Note video games, right? They had those DS games! That were only released in Japan… Okay, fine. I just want to talk about Death Note. But for good reason. This one is a doozie. In the latest installment of the “Never Complete” Death Note universe, the deadly diary finds its way into the hands of the one and only Donald J. Trump. For the low low price of $10 trillion, the president of the United States of America can kill anyone on the planet for only 13.3x the annual military budget. It’s a great investment!

How? What? Why? Didn’t Death Note end in 2006? Well, yes. The main story did. But ever since the conclusion, series creator Tsugumi Ohba has been releasing a series of one-shot stories set in the expanded Death Note universe. This latest issue finds the Death Note in the hands of Japanese teenager Minoru Tanaka. While the general trend of Death Note is for the new owner to try some kind of social restructuring by killing off who they deem as undesirable, Minoru decides the best option is to auction it off to the highest bidder. At this point in the canon, the existence of the Death Note is public knowledge. So the bidding war for the world’s most lethal artifact begins.

As the prices skyrocket, it’s soon apparent that only two entities have the financial power to stay in the race: the United States of America and People’s Republic of China. So a bidding war ensues pitting Donald J. Trump against Xi Jinping. I’m not making this up. While the two world leaders are never expressly named, they are clearly depicted. Just look:

The new Death Note one-shot only 87 pages long, or in Shonen Manga terms, a 30-minute read. You can find the whole thing here on the VIZ Media website. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you’re familiar with Death Note you should know it has to end tragically. Is it the best story in the Death Note universe? No, not really. The twists are okay. By the end of the story, new states have been introduced that might affect future one-offs. If nothing else, we will now forever have the image of Donald J. Trump making his best anima, “Nani!?!?!” face.