Kami no Kodomo

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A more realistic re-telling of the manga 'Monster'.

People who haven't finished reading the manga Monster may not get this and in many ways the art and the story spoils the final plot developments of that manga, but it cannot be denied: this manga at least is shorter and is much more realistic in the sense that there's no hero to the horror and the timeline of the story is much closer to how long real life serial killers' careers last.

This doesn't mean this is realistic though. From the first panel onwards, it is clear this is meant to be more poetic than realistic. Those who ... dislike poetry and manga may even consider this hollow compared to the real life elements behind serial killings.

Still, compared to Monster, I have to consider the murders here more realistic and thus makes the brutality of the acts more "disturbing" and that is one of the primary hooks to Monster to begin with.

This is its' primary pros and cons though.

If you read Monster before, would you read a short re-telling of the same Monster?

If you haven't read Monster, would the immediate jump to a much more artistic artwork turn you away from the initial panels and settings?

I will say this: unlike Monster, the ending has a better pay off and it isn't because of it's short length either.

This manga could have easily been stretched although just like Monster - all it would do is make the whole thing feel more tedious as even here it already feels like it is dragging in the middle.

For those who don't care for Monster and would just like a straight up review: If you like a dark Batman and feel like Batman's origins wasn't as dark and didn't do justice to the man compared to some of the later darker twists in the caped crusader's canon (like the switching of the mantle between the first Batgirl and the 2nd one) - the ending clues in on how good it can be done. The characters and relationships of course are not the same but if you ever want to see how an average combination of poetic, manga, noir and fictional serial killing ending would formulate; this is one of those manga with such a quality of an ending.

an enjoyable aesthetic experience, but it's immediately clear that this is very much a matter of style over substance. you could call it a bitesize parable, i guess. although only in the framework of its own (a)moral code, it does have a moral to the story, a lesson to be learned.

points for an idiosyncratic style that is easy on the eye, but it was also much too easy on the brain, a cruise-control sort of read. perhaps this is inevitable, given that it's a one-volume work.

Don't overthink this. People may throw many many interpretations to Kami no Kodomo as a great and mature work of art. But what lies beneath is just edgy and shock factor material, that doesn't bring anything substantial to the table.

The story follows "Child's God", a kid who had a disturbing and lonely childhood, and grows to be a twisted adult years later. From property damage and killing to beating witnessing and abusing, Child finds himself surrounded by minor boys, whom learn "loving" through his visions, which of course, isn't nowhere to be find in the normal and sane area.

After a series of disturbances ... across town, he gets arrested by the same boys, along with one who escaped and had his girlfriend beaten by Child's orders. He then is murdered and eaten by hogs, disappearing from earth.

As stated previously, the manga relies heavily on poor shock symbolism because, you know... being gruesome is profound in the vision of a edgy Slipknot fan who uses Johan Liebert icon on twitter. It's just meaningless and becomes dull every time it tries hard to get itself serious. When actually very few interesting events actually occur in Kami no Kodomo.

The art isn't really outstanding, but it is good in creating a schizo atmosphere. That works, but not in the right way. The chapters are short, so that this manga can be completed in a course of 1-2 hours, depending of one's pace. After ending, a sense of weirdness comes. No deep messages are shown, but if you think about it in the child abandonment and violence critic, it can be something interesting. It doesn't last long though, since it just goes to the edgy side, and it becomes more and more evident as the chapters pass in story.

If only it had better use of its imagery, Kami no Kodomo could be way different. But if you like this kind of work, have a good read.