Kamisama no Iutoori 2
As the Gods Will: The Second Series

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As I said in my review of Part 1, this is Part 2 and a direct continuation of the previous manga, so go read that first. I also said that if you ever enjoyed Kaiji, Squid Game, Alice in Borderlands, Battle Royale, or anything in that genre, then you should definitely check this out, especially if you enjoyed those but thought to yourself "I wish they would focus less on a coherent plot and characters and just add more games and more supernatural elements", then you will absolutely LOVE this manga.

This is a bro version of Survival Game, there is simply no better way ... to put it. For one thing, the main character is a fairly average male high school student that for one reason or another (or no reason at all) seems to become universally beloved by everyone they meet. I honestly think that at least five different female characters, and at least one male character, openly declare their love for the MC at various points in the series.

Secondly, this manga is really not about the games themselves, but is evidently and quite explicitly about the relationships between the characters. I won't spoil it because it will become apparent over time, but the interplay between these characters, and how much or how little you care about them and the dynamics of the ever-changing cast, will determine how much you enjoy this manga, and probably will determine whether you will care to finish it at all.

Unfortunately the plot of this manga just makes no sense. If it does make any sense, then it is from a one-page, two-sentence info dump for the premise of a manga with 186 chapters and two prequels. It's unsatisfying, and it honestly is a bit insulting to the intelligence of anyone that cares about the plot making sense, even a little bit. This manga does a very poor job of pacing out the overall plot, and it is almost completely unclear at any point what the causes of the plot are, and why any of the events of the story are happening. That can be mysterious early on, but later it becomes this huge underlying plot hole which as I said, does not actually get a satisfying resolution, at least not in my opinion.

We are essentially told as a reader that the motivations do not have to make sense, we just have to believe in the strong feelings of these characters because that's what they're telling us, but because the cast changes so much by the nature of a survival game manga we are only really convinced of the feelings of the main core cast which is precisely two people, and my point in all this is that if you love those two characters and their dynamics with each other then you will be happy or at least happy enough until the bitter end.

So why is this manga a solid 8 (Very Good)? Well for one thing, I happen to love the main cast, I love the dynamics between them, and how they are awkward and uncertain as real people might be. Also, the art and the writing will absolutely compel you to turn the next page, keep reading, and if the ending is unsatisfying it's at least partly because we read so far to get there and didn't get the payoff we were expecting. The art is far from perfect but does serve the purposes of showing us clearly the emotions of the characters, emphasizing dangerous and scary moments, and also keeping things surprisingly light and humorous.

Most of the best manga don't have a lot in common, but what they do tend to have in common is a cast of characters that feel like they have real relationships with each other. Characters in this manga show real depth of emotion, they have personalities that change and grow, their relationships with each other evolve, change shape, wither away, and otherwise accomplish things in a difficult genre that many other genres aspire to but do not get there. The character design leaves a bit to be desired, but this cast is truly what makes this manga great. That might not be such a bold statement in a typical shonen manga, but in a survival manga I think it really says a lot, and is what makes As the Gods Will Part 2 a manga worth reading.

Kamisama no Iutoori Ni is a sequel that lacks the thrill of survival of its prequel, and the reason for that is because it turned into a more Shounen battle manga.

Focusing on those students that skipped school while the games were occurring, the story begins at the same time as the previous one. It has its highs and lows, but the games here are not that interesting, there is no sense of worry or fear of what's going to happen, as most of it plays out just as you'd expect or it's just unpredictable for the sake of it, with no real purpose. The story ... went a bit nuts with the whole Tomfoolery and Cops/ Robbers arc, but the final arc is definitely the high point, having what was missing for the most part in the early arcs, the thrill.

The art is just amazing and a great leap in terms of skills compared to the prequel, the last 50 or so chapters are really eye candy.

The characters are a hit or miss for the most part, the main character Akashi is just not as interesting as Shun, but the chemistry he has with the rest of the cast is something worth appreciating. My main complaint is that the characters from the prequel, are just forgotten... excluding Shun and Amaya and maybe Akimoto, the rest don't really do anything, maybe it's because the number of characters introduced where huge, but they were wasted, and that's a shame.

Overall the series is a fun read, but i did miss for the most part the serious tone of its prequel.

I'm basically only writing this review because it seems like the consensus is so thoroughly against me. For context, I read this roughly a year ago when I was first getting super into death game stories (Squid Game got me into it, Alice in Borderlands got me hooked, if you're curious). I knew this was a very popular series — popular enough that people who had read it thought Squid Game was ripping it off — and so I went in hoping to get a new favorite death game series!

I cannot put into words how thoroughly wrong I was.

This is a fundamentally poorly ... written story. It is a horrifically, unbelievably poorly written story. I want to send off emergency flare after emergency flare saying "PLEASE DON'T READ THIS!" to anyone considering this, because it is really truly bad.

Apparently this is a controversial opinion, which boggles my mind, but I'll start with a somewhat less controversial take before I get into the meat of my issue: the games themselves aren't good. I actually had this feeling pretty early on — maybe even as early as the 'ring the cat's bell' game, I forget what it's called — a feeling in the back of my head. Huh? This is what people are raving about? Eh, it probably gets better... but it doesn't! It gets worse! Even the very positive reviews admit this: here's a very telling one that reads, "The character-focused story takes the importance away from the fallacy that the games themselves need to be interesting." I would say the arc right at the start of "part two" with the four demons is the most memorable? The jump rope one too, maybe? But besides two games — two games, that's maybe twenty chapters out of, what, two hundred? — everything else is boring. More than boring! The games are tedious!

And the games are tedious because the writing of the story also isn't very good at all. Games are cruel and meaningless. Death is cruel and meaningless. The way characters interact with each other is cruel and meaningless. Don't get me wrong, I've read my Nietzsche. I can appreciate a story that's trying to make a grand existential point about... anything at all, really. But this story doesn't have one of those. The characters don't go through bad things because the author is trying to say something of artistic and philosophical value. The characters go through bad things because the author dislikes them. Every single character — maybe there's two or so exceptions to this — is written with an air of complete disdain. You know what you get when you've got a story populated by characters the author hates? A story with no emotional resonance whatsoever. Not a single emotional beat did anything to me besides make me angry. No emotional moment lands. Very few moments at all land, honestly. Attempts at humor aren't funny (and are usually more jokes that we're in on with the author at the expense of the characters) and attempts at serious beats aren't worthwhile because, that's right, the games are boring. Character-focused story? Despite characters arguably being the most fundamental prerequisite for stories, I have read very few that care about the characters they're focusing on less.

The writing is boring, but does it make sense? Let's ask another review recommending this series! "Unfortunately the plot of this manga just makes no sense. If it does make any sense, then it is from a one-page, two-sentence info dump for the premise of a manga with 186 chapters and two prequels. It's unsatisfying, and it honestly is a bit insulting to the intelligence of anyone that cares about the plot making sense, even a little bit. This manga does a very poor job of pacing out the overall plot, and it is almost completely unclear at any point what the causes of the plot are, and why any of the events of the story are happening. That can be mysterious early on, but later it becomes this huge underlying plot hole which as I said, does not actually get a satisfying resolution, at least not in my opinion." This reviewer gave the series an 8/10. That 8/10 was on the strength of the characters, but, like... once again, the characters aren't a strength! They die so quickly and so meaninglessly and so randomly that it feels like you're being punished for caring about them. I won't specifically say what happens, but there's a few chapters devoted to a game that is literally in-universe random chance. No strategies, no mind games, no working together, it's just random chance. I read a lot of death game manga. Most of them do not do this, because they recognize it's fucking stupid.

To sum up those three paragraphs, it's a death game series where the death feels pointless and meanspirited, like a kid kicking an anthill and then killing the ants that come out, while the games are uninspired and boring. What else... oh yeah, the ending is unbelievably horrific! The second-to-last game has one or two elements that are, like, interesting-adjacent and which are also immediately ruined by how awful the writing for every character is (speaking of, I'm going this whole review not even mentioning how shallow the women are in this story — the author then went on to write Blue Lock, a series functionally without women... hmm...). The last game is disgraceful and the last moments make it even worse.

I'll say one nice thing: I like the art! It's pretty good.

All in all, As the Gods Will is bad. I don't think it's just bad in a nebulous, low-quality way, I think it's bad in that I'm a worse person for reading it. It's spiritually bad, it's bad in its soul. It's bad for your soul! Don't be like me! I would be ashamed to have written this story, so just imagine how you'd feel reading it.

I give this a 1/10. "Appalling."