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There is a one-shot manga for Death Note that was published on Mangaplus, on February 3th, 2020 (you can read the manga officially here.

In the final scene of this one-shot manga, Minoru Tanaka, the new owner of Death Notes, was selling the Death Note through an auction online and it sold for 1 Quadrilion Yen. The person who bought it was the President of the US at that time. The money will be transferred to the account of every person in Japan that has an account registered with Yotsuba Bank of Japan, 1 billion Yen in each account.

When Minoru gave the Death Note back to Ryuk, Ryuk got yelled at by the King of Shinigami, who said it's forbidden to sell Death Notes to humans. So for the first time, the King of Shinigami added a new rule for Death Note usage:

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.

This canceled the transaction, but the money was already transferred to every person in Japan that had an account with Yotsuba Bank of Japan. But at the end, Minoru still died when he withdrew the money one month later after he gave up the Death Note's ownership because Ryuk wrote his name in the notebook below Light Yagami's name.

Question: What makes me confused is does Minoru Tanaka die because he withdrew the money since the new rule said "...The seller will die when they receive the money..." or does Minoru Tanaka die because Ryuk wrote his name in his Death Note just like when Light Yagami died? If so, why does Ryuk have to wait for one month and start to write Minoru Tanaka’s name in the Death Note?

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Gagantous
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4 Answers4

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Minoru died because of Ryuk, similar to how Yagami Light did.

Through the original Death Note Series Ryuk mentions that when the owners life would come to an end, he would write down the name instead. However, Ryuk has also shown that he is impatient in that sense.

As Minoru has broken the new rule, and obtained his payment Ryuk wrote down his name, as Minoru was set to die anyway.

The One Shot however does not cover whether this new rule would actually kill Minoru off even without a Shinigami writing his name down. However, knowing how Shinigami themselves have also died from breaking the rules set upon them, there is a high likelihood this would have happened non the less. Where I would speculate that the Shinigami King himself would be the one to pass down the punishment for breaking the rules.

You have lost, Light. Didn't I say in the beginning… when you die, the one who'll write your name down in a notebook will be me. That is… the deal between the Shinigami… and the first human to get their hands on the note in the human world. Once you enter the prison, I don't know when you'll die. It's annoying to wait… Your life is already over. You'll die here. Well, it was good while it lasted… We killed some boredom, didn't we? We did some various and interesting things…” - episode 37

Dimitri mx
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    the Shinigami King enforcing rules on Shinigami would make sense with Ryuk and Light as Light had been shot several times and was dying and Shinigami write names to extend their own lifespans. Ryuk would not have gained much, if any, extra Lifespan from Light so at that point it would be just boring work, unless someone else forces Ryuk to take Light's Life no matter how little Ryuk would gain – Memor-X Feb 04 '20 at 21:58
  • but what's the reason ryuk have to wait one month later before he started to write minoru name ? – Gagantous Feb 06 '20 at 03:31
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    @Gagantous That reasoning is still open for debate. A few off the possible reasons, albeit in question form can be found in [chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/53445456#53445456) – Dimitri mx Feb 06 '20 at 09:24
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Minoru died because he was never aware of the new rule of the Death Note. The moment he got any type of payment, he was domed to die. Ryuk was not able to warn him about the rule since, Minoru told him to not appear and never show his face after the sell. Also, he lost all memories of the Death Note the moment he sold the Death Note and told Ryuk to never show his face. I fell that Ryuk would have warn him if Minoru would not have been such a smart ass, as telling him to never bother him. Minoru studied the rules and calculated everything, but the new rule added at the last moment was unexpected and his downfall. Ryuk was just obligated to write his name, as his time had come by breaking a Death Note rule.

myriaidee1sessh43
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"The seller will die when they receive the money"

Minoru mentioned that he has to wait a month before getting the money all at once, because the bank put up a daily limit for withdrawing money. So Minoru waited a month before getting any money. Therefore he received the money a month after the auction and died.

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Here's what I think.

Because the transaction never went through, the death note was still owned by Minoru. Minoru had told Ryuk not to get near him afterwards. Ryuk didn't want to wait for Minoru to die naturally and killed him.

George Perales
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  • “Because the transaction never went through, the death note was still owned by Minoru.” The Death Note was no longer owned by Minoru, because he relinquished its possession. Between giving the notebook to Ryouk and Ryouk giving it to the buyer, it didn’t belong to any human. If it worked as you suggest (buyer and seller switch at the same time), Minoru would still have memories of the Death Note when withdrawing the money and would have realised the transaction hadn’t been completed, which would be suspicious. – user137369 Feb 14 '20 at 14:25