Kamisama no Iutoori 2

"I don't want to die!"

-->If you are unfamiliar with the prequel and were wondering if you need to read it beforehand, worry not, I will answer all your questions.

As the Gods Will is a manga about tests of courage, intelligence, strength, teamwork, and friendship.
One day, all high school students around the world were given certain tests and games by a mystery man in order for him to single out "god's children". Most of these tests were simple childhood games like red light/green light, left hand/right hand, or hopscotch, but with deadly stakes.
Unlike it's prequel, the kids in this story never made it to school when the "darumas" started the deadly games due to many reasons like sickness or skipping school, but their goal is the same: survive.

Like it's prequel, the story adds many elements of horror and gore to keep the reader engaged in a guessing game on which character will survive and who will not, and it's real life similarity feels fresh when kids face life or death choices "should I risk my life for a stranger? "should I risk my life for my friends?" "should I risk my life for love?"
Teamwork and unselfishness are put to the test and many kids' true nature will come out when their life is against the wall.

The character development is superb. Everyone gets a backstory and you will definitely get attached to some characters, which isn't always a good thing with survival genres...
It was even comical in some parts, to understand a character's ideology and determination just to see their dreams come crashing down when their luck runs out.

The art definitely makes you feel a certain degree of empathy with the aggressiveness of their facial expressions. The character designs fit their personalities, and the antagonists are complex and very creative.

This manga has it all, from romance to comedy, from mystery to supernatural. It's shounen elements are very noticeable, and the ridiculous outcomes, character relationships, and the witty, eccentric, and bizarre character personalities make this underrated manga an enjoyable ride.

-->You "don't have to" read the prequel, but it's recommended to do so in order to understand and recognize many characters and plot developments that crossover to this story.
Still, this sequel falls a bit short of it's predecesor with it's lack of character resolve and plot fluidity.

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.

Please note this is from my website where I write anime and manga reviews. So I haven't stolen anything.
Story
Kamisama no Iutoori Ni, cool a second series set at the same time as the first, this is totally going to be different. At first I thought that this was going to just be a repeat of the original but after getting into it Kamisama no Iutoori Ni is leaps and bounds superior to the original. The story telling is so much nicer, the pacing is smooth and nothing happens no where near as quickly as the original. The solving of puzzles were no longer coincidental, there was a plan of action that allowed for them to survive as long as they can. Obviously the end goal is the same, to survive until the end. Unlike the original the winner doesn’t become a God but instead fights the winner of the students who were at school to obtain the powers of a God. With the trials and tribulations that are presented in front of them it really feels like a do or die situation and at times it really does seem like there’s no way out. Romances between characters and deaths hit you hard as you say to yourself ” no, no this can’t be happening.” The chapters aren’t predictable, there are points where they give you hints of whats going to happen and then it hits you at the moment before it happens and it just wrecks you hard. Kamisama no Iutoori Ni has everything I like to see in a story. Overall I give the story an 8/10.

Characters
The characters in Kamisama no Iutoori are a lot more relatable, each character gets their own back story for why they are how their like in the present situation, a lot of the characters skipped school because they felt unwanted or unneeded and suffered from depression and used the situation to play into the puzzles willing to die at any moment. Its really interesting, Kyioshirou Ushimitsu is a character that at first you dislike and think he is no where near as good of a psycho character unlike Takeru Amaya from the original, that’s until you learn his back story and at that instant you attitude towards him changes and you begin to like him just as much if not more. The character designs were average yet when it comes to school students you don’t have a lot of room to work with to make them interesting. The personalities of the characters differ a lot as time progresses, you could say that a lot of the personalities are just modified variations of one personality but that’s a very bad way of looking at it, when you look at the larger picture you can see that the personalities differ quite a lot. The development of characters happens a lot as the games and puzzles go on in time, you see the characters change in attitude by either becoming more scared and paranoid or taking a role of leadership even if it means they lose their sense of self worth and original personality. With the large quantity of characters that either die or become less important as time goes on your idea of who is reliable as a team member drops as you no longer have as much contact with them while other characters become better because they do have more face time. Overall I give the characters a 7/10.

Art
Kamisama no Iutoori Ni potentially has better artwork than the original, I phrase it this way as the backgrounds don’t really go up in standard yet its the emotions, the expressions and the actions that get better. There are panels where you are just awing at them as the characters expression is just so beautiful and brilliant to look at. Once again this is the strongest point of the art. The emotions are no different, the art really displays a sense of peril or fear in the faces of the characters when they find themselves in unfavorable situations, when you see important characters die to see the expression before their death and the ones who mourn for them it just makes you stop and take a real good look before you go to the next page. Motion is captured really well and you truly have a sense of motion, whether everything is going fast or time is going slow. Overall I give the art an 8/10.

Final Thoughts
Normally with sequels reading the original is a mandatory thing that has to be done in order to understand the story yet Kamisama no Iutoori Ni is different in that sense. Since the story starts in the same time period as the original it’s not like you are really missing on a lot yet I still recommend that you read the original so then you have an understanding of what is really at stake in the early games. Overall I give Kamisama no Iutoori Ni a 7.6/10 and I recommend you read it if you enjoy the slaughter of a lot of characters, smart strategies and planning and a psychological aspect thrown in.

Just finished the series and I must say, while Kamisama no Iutoori isn't a top-chef gourmet experience, it is more like a tasty, lunch-special, assorted 10-piece sushi. Fun, flavorful, and accessible yet sophisticated enough when you go through every fish on the plate.

I will talk briefly about both parts of the series, then get into the details on the controversial last parts of the Part 2.

(SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD)

The whole series revolves around difference characters playing various games with the rules set by Kamisama (god). A lot of these games are familiar to an average person, but the twist is that the consequences are dead serious. And by that I mean you can seriously die if you lose. What do you gain if you win, though?

Part 1 answers this by allowing the winners to survive and play the next game. Simple, yet still engaging.

Part 2 answers in a similar way up until near the end. Things start getting more philosophical, then it deepens.

While I could probably nitpick here and there, I was still with the mangaka (Author) until the very end, then SHBAM, in comes a gaping logic hole that makes the whole story feel rushed towards the end (nobody likes a negative after-taste). I go into details here,

https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=1582217#msg58109126

Anyway, the logical fallacy surrounding 3-kami game made it slightly less enjoyable, but ultimately did not change the core of the series. That we are born into a series of games, with everyone having different starts, then every action you take, every choices you make, changes you, and the ones who become stronger and/or blessed by RNG get to play the next game, but in the end, everyone plays their final game. Except those who don't.

Everyone has different interpretation of what this all means, not just the characters in the story but also the viewers who are reading the story. But some ideas are presented stronger than others, like how love and friendship prevails, how death gives life value, how RNG is a bitch, etc.

Unlike the commonplace Western philosophy with the idea of hell and heaven / good and evil, Kamisama no Iutoori leans more towards the Eastern concept of cyclic life, that everyone's inherently equal, and we are all interdependent. That we are who we are in relation to everything else around us. I experienced all of this in my head, but I've had hard time FEELING it in my heart. I'm guessing a lot of people would as well, either consciously or unconsciously.

All in all though, I enjoyed it.

I'd like to add an extra rating category of my own:

stimulation : 7.5/10 (breakdown below)
-fun : 9/10
-brain : 8/10 (that logic hole at the end... otherwise 7.5)
-heart : 7/10
-lesson : 6/10 (strong contents, weak delivery)

Non-spoiler review

Story: Similar to Gantz in terms of if being revolved around the death game. Minimal plot armour as most events are left to logical reasoning. Ending may be good or bad depending on how you interpret it. Personally, I felt like the ending was a big middle finger to the face and goes against one of the most important rules in storywriting. (Not gonna elaborate more on that as it would be spoilter worthy)

Art: Consistent good art style, but not anything extraordinary

Character: Wide variety of character personalities. However, some character tropes were left unexplored, possibly due to the surplus of characters at certain points in the manga. So some discretion is required.

Enjoyment: If you enjoy thrilling psychological warfare, this is a must go. There is physical fighting in itself, but not on the level of the aforementioned.

Overall: A solid 7 as there were few loopholes, consistent pacing, and some epiphanies that I gained from this manga.

Tip: DO NOT READ THIS NEAR EXAMS, preferably during holidays as its quite addicting. Managed to read it in 2 days at the expense of my sleep.

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 judge a story with its ending becuase an ending makes a story whole and strong. Kamisama Iutoori Ni disappoints me with its ending but I can't think of any possible endings that could fit with the story after everything that happened there. But before we talk about the ending (I'll not give spoilers but just describe how it feels), let's talk about what makes it cool. This contain mild spoilers but kinda helpful for you so you won't say that you're not wasting your time if you decide to read this.

I appreciate the sense of freedom of the author to extend his imagination of killing and destroying everything mercilessly. You better expect the unexpected here since lots of things will surprise you especially this: Character deaths. Never stan or favorite any characters. That's what I've learned in this story and it hurts when you see your favorite character died in a grotesque way. Even interesting characters, whose story is unknown and forever will be unknown, died without showing how cool they are. It's strangely entertaining for me because it gave me more thrills. If you're not into gore and character deaths, this manga will be kinda hard for you. Aside from that, the arcs never fail to amaze me because there are lots of twists and turns of events. The story became more nerve-wracking and nail-biting as you go on. It's like you are riding a roller coaster as you go on reading and then suddenly your ride crashes as you reach the ending.


Now here comes the ending. I mentioned that I appreacite the arcs of this story because of its awesomeness. The last arc was really epic a perfect climax for me and then the ending hit me. I was like "Wtf. So what's the purpose of those things?!" Everything became pointless!! I know that this kind of manga doesn't usually end with a happy ending but this kind of ending which turns everything pointless for the characters and readers, it's frustrating and not deserving. It was like the story was on the top of the cliff ready to jump in heaven but unfortunately fell in the deep ocean. The ending will make you regret and say "Why did I read this? I just wasted my time." I think the ending ruined the story but like I said I don't know any other ending that could fit. If only the author change some certain parts of the story, the ending could be different.

The journey of reading this is fun and if you're into gore, you'll gonna like this. However, I've warned you with the ending. It's not a good one.

Kamisama no Iutoori Ni is the second story in this series, which intertwines with the prequel, Kamisama no Iutoori.

"Oh, my god. My life... is boring. Today, this one day... Began just like any other. And this one day, which started like any other... Was about to end. It was supposed to happen... " -Takahata Shun, Kamisama no Iutoori

Imagine a seemingly normal day in high school: everyone's conversing about trivial matters, getting ready for class to start, and sitting at their desk patiently. Now, what exactly happened that ruined the usual day for every teenager that had attended class?

Sensei's head was blown up, followed by a Daruma doll sitting in front of the class, and the homicide of anyone who moved at the wrong time.

This gruesome tale puts you through a series of compound emotions: Bitter-sweet, exciting-anger, suspenseful-sorrow, and many more fusions of sentiments have had me captivated by this story from chapter 1.

I couldn't help but think, "the kids who didn't attend that day sure did get lucky..." NOT.

Kamisama no Iutoori Ni is a beautifully drawn sequel in modern day Japan that follows the adolescents who had been absent for the sick, horrendous, and unrelenting survival games. But, just because they hadn't made an appearance at school didn't mean that the absentees escaped the fate that awaited them.

The story follows Akashi, a simple-minded juvenile who possesses a credulous and naïve nature. He leads the readers and other characters into a series of games that force morality and life against each other. Knowing of the incident that his school experienced from media, Akashi couldn't help but be worried about his childhood friend, who he had gotten into a fight with that morning. The small conflict resulted in him storming off before class had started and avoiding that day's nightmare. Mind-boggling and idiotic for a few of the more complex personas, I can't say I always escape their resolve.

The story continues testing the characters with childrens' games, such as red-light-green-light. The art doesn't lack in exquisite scenery and changes appropriately with each game, of course having their twists in order to be gut wrenching thrillers. Diversity of setting goes from a haunted school classrooms to a realistic bird eye's view of Tokyo's ground. The realism of the art reminds you that all of these students are just, well, students. The variety doesn't stop there; characters' unique design styles are used wisely from personality to personality, even changing throughout the chronological timeline, and some characters are very effectively drawn with more of a cartoon-like edge.

Exploring the theme of friendship and trust is a consistent overall theme for this manga and one of the reasons I love it so much. But don't let that statement allow you to believe this is some happy ending fairy tale. The story has had me at the edge of my seat a number of times, wondering who and who won't live to the next chapter. Character after character is disposed of, some even being my favorites and well developed. (Avoiding painful flashbacks and spoilers.)

This series is amazing and a must read for anyone who enjoys a survival game. Don't take my word for it and explore into this traumatic tale.

One of the most satisfying survival game manga I’ve ever read.

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 :)

A fun and fast-paced survival series where at any moment your favorite character could be executed within the span of a panel.

Because of this there are constant flows of exhilaration when the cast overcomes the odds only for that new found hope to be snatched away in an instant as a newer and more sinister test arises.

With how unjust some of the character’s suffer and die, Kamisama’s story can feel oppressively nihilistic, but to that same extent, it’s how the character's struggle through the cruelty of their world and find meaning in their lives that makes this manga a rewarding and heartfelt read.

When faced with the near certainty that you will die, you can truly assess what made your life meaningful and it's motivating to see characters use that new-found knowledge to fight through their fears and find resolution with their existence.

I will now list a few things that may take some readers out of the experience

- Lot’s and lot’s of fan service with most of the girls appealing in some way to the male gaze
- While most of the characters are supposed to be ordinary students, they can suddenly become Shonen protagonists leaping 15 feet in the air and smashing through buildings.
- There is some pretty bizarre and surreal humor that you’ll either love or hate

Overall, a highly enjoyable read that helped me reflect on what makes a life lived meaningful.