As an avid fan of survival manga, I believe Kamisama no Iutoori stretches the potential of a survival game. The plot is predictable with level by level progression, but the character growth shows the true value of being constantly forced through life-death situations. Instead of being attached to the distant ultimate ending, you become close to the characters, get invested in their lives, and watch them get slaughtered. The character-focused story takes the importance away from the fallacy that the games themselves need to be interesting. Overwhelmingly complex rules and convoluted strategy are boring. I read survival manga to suffer, triumph, and love as though I'm a character in the story.
Friends die. Enemies die. Your beloved dies. Play stupid game after stupid game. A miscalculation, mistake, defeat means another friend dies. There’s no time to mourn. You’re welcome to breathe that sigh of relief when you survive, but it’s not over yet. It’s never over. When you find yourself out of friends, you have to open your heart again. Feel free to trust strangers because they will become your dear friends until death do you part.
There's no true divine protection that you can rely on. Strong or weak; lovable or detestable; beef or chicken. Ultimately death is unavoidable. You can’t always hope for a savior to gallop in at the last second. Eventually all you can do is wish for a beautiful death - too bad that may be asking for too much. Some are fortunate enough to shine like a star before being extinguished. Others are unceremoniously swept away like trash. But supposedly it's better to lived and lost than never to have lived at all.
Survival is an actual achievement. When you meet other survivors, you can understand what they went through. Players are forced to continue to play game after game while carrying the hopes and dreams of their fallen. In order to survive, you betray who you thought you were, fight against every human instinct, and grow closer to the true you. The journey to victory and godhood is paved with the sacrifice of those who believe in you the most.
Kamisama no Iutoori does a great job at avoiding the annoying compromises that other survival manga make to the idea of survival. Perhaps you can call me a sadist. I love watching well-written characters die. Unlike in other survival manga where writers become too attached to their favorite characters or fear backlash for killing off someone popular, there is no true mercy. Not everyone gets a hero's drawn out blaze of glory. There simply isn't enough time for that. Sometimes, a beloved character's death is a just few panels, just a momentary realization that they died. But it makes you appreciate them for how much they changed and far they came. Remembering the lives of characters who have died is what makes survival stories fun.
And let's just say I had a lot of fun. Enjoy the games :)
