Manga 47363 Kamisama No Iutoori 2

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.

Alright, first up I'm not the person to normally write reviews, but seeing the reviews for this title I thought a few people might want to read a review from a different standpoint. In my opinion this manga is mediocre at best and awful at worst, let's get into why that is.

1. Characters: As most of you should know, characters are normally not the strong point of survival games, therefore I will not waste too much time here. The protagonist a very basic shounen protagonist, nothing too special and kind of boring. Some side characters are written decently, but nobody stands out a really well ... developed character. What really annoyes me though are the female characters. Most of them start out alright, but after eventually falling for the protagonist they feel bland and their character gets reduced to “in love with main character“. It feels very cheap and honestly is kind of insulting, I can't remember the last time I've read worse female characters.

2. The story: Very basic story, some plotpoints get dropped or feel rushed at times, but not much worse than other storys from this genre, nothing dpecial but alright.

3. The art: Basically the same as the story, the art is pretty average and nothing too amazing but definetly not the weak part of this manga.

4. The games: Alright, let's get to this mangas biggest weakness compared to others of the genre, it's games. Sadly, most of the games were very bland and boring, with the ecxeption of exactly two games. Especially the two longest games felt very, very bad to read through. Imagine a game taking up close to if not more than three volumes, draging on and on, and after it is finished and done and we know who survives after all of it a supernatural being comes down and just sorts out the contestants even more in about a chapter. It really feels like the author didn't want to deal with too many characters and just sorted through them after the main game was done to have it easier in the next game. And this actually happens twice. It doesn't really help the suspense if you know that a being more powerful than god could just come up to the winners of a game, say lol no and pick the main characters. But that is just lazy writting. It also feels like a lot of the time the author just set up a game that he thought was cool but had no idea where to go with it. And that often shows.
TL;DR: Most games are boring or too long and the payoff is done badly.

Overall I had fun reading this manga, but mostly in a so bad it's good way. If you can enjoy stuff in this vein I would recommend it, other than that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.