[SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Death Note: Special One Shot]
President Donald Trump has made a cameo appearance in a new Death Note one-shot, wherein the American leader pays a high price to purchase the titular Death Note from the book’s latest owner.
Death Note: Special One Shot, written and drawn by original series creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, sees Ryuk returning to the human world with Kira’s Death Note, seeking a new human partner to possess and give the book to. Eventually settling on Minoru Tanaka, Tanaka announces that instead of using the Death Note for himself, he plans to auction the magical item and sell it to the highest bidder.
After announcing his auction to the general public and watching the bidding wars rage on for several days, Tanaka is faced with two final parties competing for the Death Note’s ownership: The Chinese Government, led by President Xi Jiping, and the American Government, led by Donald Trump:
Eventually, President Trump emerges victorious in the bidding war, purchasing the Death Note from Tanaka for $10,000,000,000,000. Upon confirmation of the money’s delivery, Tanaka relinquishes ownership of the Death Note back to Ryuk. Ryuk then proceeds to deliver the Death Note to Trump personally, but not before informing him that the Shinigami King was unhappy with the selling of the book and had added a new rule to the Death Note: “A human who buys or sells the Death Note in the human world will die. The seller will die when they receive the money, and the buyer will die when they receive the Death Note.”
Ultimately, President Trump refuses the Death Note in an effort to spare his own life, declaring that he is “not taking it,” but also noting that he plans to announce that he “gained the power of Kira anyway,” in the hopes that the concept of him having such power but refusing to use it will make him “look like a saint.”
Death Note: Special One Shot is available to read for free on VIZ Media’s official website.