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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Yes. Just as I planned, I'm going to sell the Death Note. | „ |
| ~ Minoru stating his plan after reuniting with Ryuk, 2 years later. |
| “ | But if you tried to do the same thing now, you'd get caught. That was ten years ago. A different era in the human world. There's a security camera on every street corner now, and in every train car. Cars and buses also have dashcams. They're also more sophisticated at investigating cybercrimes, so if Kira tried to get his message out online, they'd track him down right away... and the police have tabs on all cell phones. Untraceable messages online only happen when TV shows and movies need to write it that way to make things dramatic. But I'm sure Kira would have come up with a way to do it that still works in this day and age. | „ |
| ~ Minoru Tanaka to Ryuk, explaining the complications of operating as "Kira" the same way as what might have worked in the past. |
Minoru Tanaka, also known under the alias A-Kira, is the protagonist of the 2019 Death Note one-shot chapter The A-Kira Story, set years after the original Kira saga. He is a Japanese high-school student who, unlike other humans who possessed the Death Note, chose to profit off of it.
Unlike his predecessor Light Yagami (and the other previous Kiras), Minoru never killed a single person with the Death Note, yet, his morally dubious and uncaring use of the Death Note for profit doesn't exactly make him a saint either.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- When in possession of the Death Note, unlike his predecessors, he chose to auction it off online to the highest bidder under the alias "A-Kira." His plan circumvents morality entirely by offering the power to kill anonymously in exchange for billions. By doing this, he commodifies mass murder, turning death into an abstract economic tool, not caring at the slightest about how many people would die as long as he isn't the one pulling the trigger.
- By secretly negotiating with the world’s richest nations, manipulating media exposure, and evading even Near’s surveillance, Minoru turns the reappearance of Kira into a global event—all while maintaining plausible deniability.
- He engineered his scheme to be legally untraceable so that nobody would suspect him by conducting the auctioning entirely online and requiring that all the auction money be deposited (in fragmented amounts) into random Japanese bank accounts.
- By selling the notebook to the U.S. government (who clearly intends to use it for covert assassinations and self-service reasons), Minoru basically enables state-sanctioned murder while avoiding responsibility. He becomes an indirect mass murderer, laundering death through bureaucracy, plus he knows fully well the dangers of America possessing the Death Note, but he just doesn't care as long as it puts money on his pocket.
- Despite his caution, his greed ultimately proved to be his own downfall, for the very moment the money transfer to him is finalized, the newly-created "No Selling of the Death Note" rule come into effect and he dies instantly of a heart attack, punished not for killing—but for trying to profit from death itself.
Why He Doesn’t Stand Out?[]
- While him auctioning the Death Note (a object with the potential for mass murder) to the nation richest enough to buy it and use it as they please allows him to pass the baseline, he still massively fails the heinous standard to his predecessor Light Yagami (and to a extent even the other Kiras) who caused more harm with less or the same resources (e.g., Light, in particular, was also just a high-school student with a Death Note and still managed to become, in Minoru's own words, the greatest serial killer/terrorist in recent, documented human history, although he did had some additional advantages like his father being a police chief, Misa Amane's Shinigami Eyes, etc.).
- Although he may have been indirectly responsible for countless deaths through his auctioned Death Note, this is not explored further in the story and remains ambiguous, but even then he acted more as an intermediary than the direct catalyst, therefore relying heavily on fridge-horror.
External Links[]
- Minoru Tanaka on the Villains Wiki
- Minoru Tanaka on the Death Note Wiki
- Minoru Tanaka on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
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 Villainous Benchmarks
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Kira's followers Shinigami Others |
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