Death Note: Tokubetsu Yomikiri
Death Note: Special One-Shot

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‘Death Note’ carries the distinction of being the “gateway” anime for scores of western adolescents and young-adults. In fact, if not for ‘Death Note’ and ‘Gurren Lagann,’ I’m not sure I would have given the medium much of a chance. Sure. I grew up on ‘Pokemon,’ ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ and ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’. But those shows were geared toward a younger audience whom would purchase gobs of merchandise every time Goku changed his hair color. Seriously, though. Kim Kardashian (Freiza) is jelly from all the attention she’s not getting from her “enhancements.” The Butt just got 10 inches bigger!

Anyhow…

I was ... a big fan of ‘Death Note’s’ intellectual approach to the introduction of a pre-eminent power. So much so, that I binge watched it twice in a seven day period (while being in school!—Thank the Shinigami King for coffee!). Aside from overly dramatic dialogue, romanticized main characters, and an underwhelming conclusion, ‘Death Note’ is an anime that warrants the massive amount of hype that it receives. Of course, I could go into detail explaining each facet of the show that I found enjoyable; however, this review is about its one-shot successor.—Titled: ‘Death Note: Special One-Shot.’

yeah…title could have used a little creativity.

In all seriousness, this ‘Death Note’ one-shot had an interesting idea that could have been good if fleshed-out over the course of numerous chapters. But the brevity of the work made certain outcomes inevitable.—Thus, inhibiting the enjoyment of the reader. The one-shot starts off with a Japanese boy, Minoru Tanaka, who comes into contact with Ryuk (due to Ryuk craving apples). Not wanting to proverbial write his own gravestone like the previous Kira. Minoru decides to not use the ‘Death Note,’ but to auction it off the highest bidder. As anticipated, there is a high demand for the greatest killing instrument known to man. Eventually, though. The last bidders are the richest countries in the world, whom wish to possess the ‘Note’ for geopolitical advantages.

The first qualm I have is the lack of alliances in the bidding for the Death Note. If such a power existed, why wouldn’t China strategically align itself with Russia to outbid the United States? This would, inevitably, lead to a proverbial “alliance race” in which the group of countries with the most capital would gain the Death Note. Afterwards, however, the winning alliance would need to determine who would possess the Death Note and how they would share the “benefits” of such an instrument (somewhat similar Yotsuba group in the original ‘Death Note,’ but on a larger scale with political leaders at risk).

My second qualm is with the superfluous addition of Near to the story. In effect, he serves one purpose: to “validate” A-Kira’s (Minoru’s) superior intelligence compared to the previous Kira (Light) — via admitting defeat. If you defeat the man who defeated the “thee” man, then, ergo, you are smarter than the previous Kira. The original ‘Death Note’ was a proverbial competition of the mind between two strategic savants. There’s no need to diminish their battle by having A-Kira, effortlessly, conquer the top mastermind.

My third and final qualm deals with the ending. An ending that was retconned to all hell, and ruined the entire proceeding. Angered by the “misuse” of the Death Note. The Shinigami King wrote a new rule that any human involved in buying or selling the Death Note would die upon completing the transaction. Do you see the problem? The whole premise was that Minoru discovered a loophole in the set of predetermined rules of the Death Note. And instead of being rewarded for his cleverness, he was punished retroactively. What the hell was the point if the Shinigami King was just going to troll a human with superior wits?

Furthermore, the transfer of wealth from A-MUHR-eh-KA to Japan was thinly veiled Japanese Nationalism. I get it: Trump’s not popular around the world. But combating his abrasive nationalism, with petty nationalism is just…petty. Unfortunately, it was a failed political jab that makes Marco Rubio’s ill political “jokes” look clever. All in all, this one-shot was ill-advised and had a clear ulterior motive that I, personally, did not find amusing (and I voted for Bernie Sanders).

The story was really boring even for a one-shot and i was very dissapointed the notebook wasnt used. Even though it makes sense for him not to use it, because Near would probably find out, and he only wanted to live a happy life. That changed with the new rule introduced which made me reconsider the plus i mentioned earlier. I dont think this manga is worthy of having the "Death Note" in name. Also, Near was useless, and i hate his new hairstyle. I am giving this one-shot 3/10 only because i have got to see Ryuk again. It would have been much ... more interesting if we got to know what happened to the rest of Yagami family, or if the Death Note was handed to someone not as smart, so we would see Near actually doing anything.

This was a completly pointless oneshot that served no real purpose whatsoever. You won't miss anything if you don't read it.

Death Note: Tokubetsu Yomikiri tries to play with the idea of what would happened if Death Note was discovered in this day and age. In the age of social media and security cameras on every step of the way.

We open up with Ryuk craving some apples and in order to eat some he needs to find someone who would feed him with them. This is even more stupid reason than "I was kinda bored so I dropped the Death Note into the human world". ... At least the latter one has some payoff later on while this one has none. Well, to get back to it; Ryuk then decides that he'll need someone smart and capable. Someone like Light Yagami. Enter Tanaka Minoru, a super-duper smart kpop Kira who's a borderline Gary Stu character. The only thing keeping him from being one is that his English sucks (he got a low score on an English test). Not only that, but he's also very unlikeable and I couldn't care less about him. Now, some might say that you can't make a reader care about a character with only a oneshot, but that's not true. There's plenty of oneshots who have a very compeling story with likeable characters that you care about and the whole oneshot is even a few pages shorter than this one.

So, our boy incounters Ryuk and in the next few panels he's kinda shocked but after he's completly ok with him even tho he knows nothing about him. He's acting like he already knows who Ryuk is and has no questions. Minoru just goes with the flow and the only thing he did to kinda push against it was when he decided to sell the Death Note. This is a different approach to what we are used to, but just because it's different it doesn't mean it's good. For something that's playing with the idea of DN in today's world they should've gone with the basic approach, aka with him using the DN while having to navigate throught this modern time. Instead of that, we got to see Auction Kings and Ryuk "dropshipping" the DN to the winner of the auction. (don't even get me started with who has won)

Summary:

> Ryuk hungry
> Ryuk heard that Minoru is super smart and want's him to use the DN
> Minoru say nah, imma sell it
> *auction in the process*
> X wins and Ryuk delivers the DN to him
> after that some more stuff happens but I'm trying not to spoil too much
> *manga ends*

There's also a few Kira fanservice moments, same goes for Near who was the most useless character in this whole oneshot.

Don't be fooled by so many positive reviews written by DN fans, all of them are just biased and none of them are looking at it from an objective standpoint.

To be honest it just straight up garbage🤬. Nothing good or interesting about this story compared to the original. I advise you not to read it, it might change your perspective of Kira to a horrible one, one who’s just damn greedy... The best thing I just to stick to the original and never acknowledge this ever happened.
The only thing that’s good about is it’s art style that is still just normal manga style nothing special bout it.😑
The best way I can put this “New Kira’s” fling story is that it’s just the barf 🤢 🤮 of all the stupidity the “Original Kira” has ... ever shown in the main series