Zankoku na Kami ga Shihai suru

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The artwork is really eye-catching at times, great detail, very beautiful and distinct. A dramatic story that really grabs you from the very first pages. I come across this manga by accident, and was so glad I did.

It's a detailed story although the page count isn't high, a lot of info is discussed for a manga and things go on. It is a continuing series, so I will look forward to reading more from this writer.

Words cannot describe how much I love this manga. First of, I don't read shojo manga and I'm surprised by how hooked I was with a series that doesn't particularly cater to my tastes . Without getting into massive spoilers, A Cruel God Reigns is about Jeremy, a young man who is blackmailed by his stepfather Greg, after he marries his suicidal mother Sandra. If Jeremy doesn't comply, Greg will divorce Sandra which may be the last straw to push her off the edge and end her life. This manga is heavy, and I am only briefly going over what it's about.

I believe this manga ... has some of the best depictions of mental illness and of those who fall victim to sexual assault. The leads in this story are complex broken people. While it is easy to blame Jeremy for not telling the truth to authorities, the work shows the viewer that the state of mind of these victims are very much clouded by terror and anxiety. For one, Jeremy's biggest fear is seeing his mother fall apart. He doesn't want to disrupt the stability Greg has built for her even if that stable happy lifestyle is toxic in itself and built on a pile of lies.

Jeremy is horrendously tortured by his stepfather when they sleep together. It's to the point where the poor boy barely clings to his sanity. With his hands tied, he has nobody to run to and sadly accepts his fate. He represses his feelings for the well-being of his other family members. Ashamed of what they would think of him if they knew the true colors of him and his stepfather. The audience see the symptoms of this suffering as Jeremy goes down the rabbit hole of repressed feelings. He tries to escape his life at home by taking drugs at school, sleeping with other students and has intense dark twisted fantasies of murdering Greg. We also see him try to hide his scars, physically and mentally. Even when he is alone in a safe area, the brutal domination of his stepfather still lingers in his mind and his conscious is never calm as he feels himself still being punished when no one is around.

I also congratulate the author Hagio Moto, the godmother of shojo manga, for somehow making my sympathize with the cruel monster that is Greg Lowland. Greg is tormented monster who can't escape his past trauma. After his previous wife killed herself, his ideal of love changed and turned into something sickly. He himself is struggling to understand his mind. Instead of moving on and accepting what happened in the past, he has regressed all feelings and memories of his deceased wife and harms others to repress his guilt. Yes, it is not a valid reason for it, but it does help shed light on the predators of assault as they are also mentally unstable. Things could of been different, if Greg seaked help instead of it turning into a fuel for his urges.

Sadly, my biggest issue with the manga, is the second half of the series. It's, to put it simply, terrible. At the halfway point, when the main plot of the series ends, instead of a conclusion, we get a rambly epilogue of 20 chapters that goes one for way too long. It completely shatters the latter half of the experience. It feels as if the mangaka was forced by her editors to continue the work even if it was at its end. The last few chapters completely rewrite characters such as Jeremy and his stepbrother Ian. It brings in new characters and creates needless sub-plots that don't go anywhere and are filler. It ruins the story for me. However, I cannot deny that the first half of this manga is nothing short of fantastic. Its why it made it on this list.

-Spoiler Free/Overview of Thoughts-
If you plan to read 'A Cruel God Reigns', prepare yourself for one of the most excruciatingly boring experiences of your entire life. The story starts off okay, with a simple premise and straightforward execution. While the art is mediocre (at best) and generic for the time, there are occasionally interestingly composed scenes, especially when depicting abuse or mental turmoil.

At the midway point, however, there is the major 'climax', following which the story loses all focus and direction. The author constantly injects annoying characters that add nothing to the plot, atrociously written scenes that serve the purpose of generating random ... traumatic events, and painfully repetitive/tedious dialogue. This manga reminded me of highly contrived reality tv shows like Real Housewives/Kardashians, mixed with the absurdism of series such as Riverdale and 9-1-1. Sadly, it even lacks any humorous component which can *sometimes* make those shows watchable.

Overall, I'd give the first-half a 5/10, but the second half was so uninteresting and felt so LONG that I have no choice but to give the overall manga a 1/10. It was a nightmare read with a nothing-burger ending not even worth discussing.

- Spoilers -
If you read the MAL synopsis of the story you can probably guess that the 'climax' I'm referring to is the death of Greg and Sandra. Up to that point of the story, it had a straightforward structure and plot which it did an okay job at implementing. Jeremy (out of fear of Sandra's mental health declining) had to simultaneously hide Greg's abuse from everyone and seek a long-term solution to the problem. All conflict derived from this situation, while pretty formulaic, flowed naturally as part of the overarching narrative, such as Natasha/Sharon discovering the illicit relationship and the fallout from that realization. The fear of Greg's actions/reactions escalating led to frequent moments of tension. The narrow focus on Greg and Jeremy was very conducive to good pacing and engaging content.

Once Jeremy's murder plot starts to develop is when the cracks begin to show. Dr. Orson, the first of many underdeveloped characters to come, a therapist that will either assist Jeremy in emotionally overcoming his trauma or planning the murdering of Greg, gets barely any screen-time or characterization before he dies. Really, Dr. Orson was a vehicle for introducing Valentine, the focus of one of the most banal storylines in the entire manga. The murder-plot itself is very poorly executed. Nothing interesting is done with the premise. There are almost no scenes of suspense regarding Greg potentially discovering/foiling Jeremy's plan. The actual deaths are off-screened; no reactions or moments of realization from Greg/Sandra before their demise. There's not even a scene of Jeremy confronting Greg's dying body in the hospital or an open casket. Jeremy simply sabotages the vehicle and the next day a policemen comes to the house to report the casualties.

After this event (especially once Jeremy returned from Boston) is when things take a complete nose-dive. Jeremy and Ian have repetitive fights about the same topics over and over and over again. The author inserts completely contrived scenarios to cause Jeremy to relapse, Ian to get angry or to simply add SOMETHING to breakup the ad nauseam arguments. Of course Lorenzo wants to beat up Jeremy in bondage, which his former lover Pedro discovers, causing Pedro to attempt to murder Jeremy (Pedro is also a crack addict) which Marjorie (conveniently Nadia's sister) walks-in-on causing her to attempt sui*ide; Jeremy has a delusion that makes him try to run off a cliff; Jeremy meets Eric, who just-so-happens to be the twin sibling of Valentine, and they have a tragic incestuous past that must be explored for multiple chapters (for some reason). The characters do not feel real. They are one-dimensional literary mechanisms to introduce depressing backstories and melodrama. I nearly laughed out loud in pure bewilderment when, rather than Claire simply being an overbearing mother, the author gave her the most ham-fisted sad backstory in all of fiction.

For me, the final nail was (what felt like) the 20-chapter plus section of the story where Ian and Jeremy sit-down to rehash the entire plot up to that point, with pacing bad enough to make Toei Animation blush. You know when detective movies take 5-10 minutes to reveal how the case was solved? Well, imagine the crime was solved at the half-way point of the film and the explanation was actually 50-minutes long. Instead of any big revelations occurring it's mostly two characters agreeing and sharing information they and the audience already knew. Ian and Jeremy analyzing Greg's photos together is really such a tiresome and agonizing section to get through.

Again, don't even get me started on all the dull and ANNOYING characters focused on during the second half of this story, including (but certainly not limited too) Marjorie, Nadia, Claire, Eric, Valentine, Poppy, Lorenzo, Pascal etc. which further needlessly bog down the plot.

Overall, one of the all-time most boring, tedious and unbearable stories I've ever consumed. The only thing it succeeded at was making me believe that in a world where such a manga exists, maybe a cruel god does reign.