A Cruel God Reigns

A Cruel God Reigns is an extremely iconic manga about a sexually abused boy, whose life becomes a downward spiral after the abuse. I've heard about this manga many times, and I even started reading it once and then forgot (it was a long train ride). The manga originally started coming out in 1992 and it ended in 2001. It has 17 volumes and 86 chapters. Each chapter is 50+ pages long. The chapters are very long and exhaustive, and it took me a lot of time to finish it. If you looked into any seasoned manga reader's recommended list for disturbing or psychological manga, there's a high possibility this manga would be on it.

For me personally, this manga was torture. And I mean that in both a positive and a negative way.

First I'll start with some spoiler free stuff, like the art. Frankly, I was extremely surprised to see this manga came out in 1992! It looks like it's straight out of the mid 70s to 80s. Not just in the art style, but the stiffness and awkward anatomy in the early volumes, it doesn't have as much screentoning etc. All in all it definitely doesn't feel like it belongs in the 90s, especially when you think how 90s (especially shojo/bl) manga started going into that extremely lanky, sharp and pointy territory aka insert yaoi hands image here. And with how people described this manga as a pioneer in bl manga etc. my expectations definitely expected it to be older, as the first thing that I compared it to in my mind was Kaze to ki no Uta, another well known bl manga except it's from the 70s. This all of course makes sense when you take into consideration who the author is - Moto Hagio, she actually was a pioneer in bl and shojo manga during the 70s and 80s, a member of the Year 24 Group!

Now, let's get into the plot, and everything else. This manga is very clearly split into two parts. In fact, you could probably read the first part and end it at that, if you wished. The second part doesn't have much substance, or rather, it could have been much shorter and more concise. But it wasn't. There was probably a reason for that... As I said earlier, this manga was like torture to me. In a way, it perfectly encapsulates a heavily traumatized person, a teenager who suffered under the hands of severe abuse, someone who can not recover from it. It wasn't hard to read because the subject matter or the plot itself was disturbing, instead it was hard to read as it was extremely repetitive. Again, this is about an extremely unwell person, whose feelings go from 0 to 100 constantly. There is rarely a moment of peace, and if there is, it quickly comes tumbling down. He's also experiencing constant abuse from those who are supposed to be close to him, even after his main abuser is gone. And on it goes, in circles, until finally we reach the last chapter...

From this point on, I'm spoiling the plot!, click here if you want to skip to the spoilerless recommendation.

I will not be covering the plot in the order it happens or gets unravelled in the manga, to make it shorter. The first part of the manga tells us a story about Jeremy, a teenage boy from Boston, and his extremely fragile and mentally unwell mother Sandra who fell in love and is about to marry a rich Englishman, Greg. Greg quickly latches onto Jeremy and begins raping him. Ever since Jeremies real father died when he was a child, he enters a sort of emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother, as a replacement for his father. He goes as far to not even call her "mother" anymore, instead he calls her Sandra, like his father did. As a result of that, he feels obligated to protect her and care for her. We are shown throughout the story that his mother tried to commit suicide multiple times, she was extremely mentally unwell and her sister tried to take care of Jeremy instead (something that was played for laughs?!?) but she is so possesive of him that she can't let go, despite being an unfit parent. Greg is raping Jeremy and he is keeping his mouth shut to protect his mother. If he told her, she would blame herself, and Greg would also leave her. Since Jeremy wants her to be happy and alive, he endures, and loses himself in the process. He moves to England with Greg and Sandra and meets the rest of Greg's family. Greg's former wife killed herself, but her sister, Natasha, still lives with the family from time to time. Greg has two sons, Ian and Matt. Ian is the older and more favored one (despite being a bit of a delinquent and a womanizer), while Matt is the nerdy looking kid whom Greg hates and physically abuses (something known by everyone in the family). There's a lot more characters, especially in part two, but I'll only be focusing on these because I don't want this to turn into a whole book. After having enough, Jeremy decides to kill Greg by tampering with his car, knowing Greg would leave for the airport the next day. Except, his mom decides to join Greg, and they both die. To his luck it seems the car actually malfunctioned so it wasn't really his fault, but nevertheless, he blames himself and so begins the second part of the manga where he deals with all of that trauma.

The second part mostly deals with Jeremy and Gregs older son, Ian, who enters into a relationship (!?!?!?!) with Jeremy. I am sorry, but what the fuck. At first Ian wants to kill Jeremy for killing his father, but as he finds out the truth he begins his own descent into madness and confusion. He forces Jeremy to retell his story in details multiple times, he rapes him a couple of times in the process, he shows him pictures that Greg took of Jeremy when he was whipped and bound, he keeps going hot and cold with him, he cheats on his girlfriend with Jeremy, he puts him into counseling (never thinking he could maybe use some counseling too?), he's fucked up, if not more fucked up than his father. The second part is basically Jeremy continually reliving his trauma due to Ian forcing him to, and somehow everyone is chill with it. This manga is full of completely crazy and slightly absurd characters that do nothing to actually help each other, they all just keep falling into each others arms very darkly and romantically... And also everyone is gay. In a way, I expected melodrama and backstabbing but by the middle of the second part Jeremy has slept with or kissed every single male in the story, every wife/girlfriend of said males seem to not really care about it and things just keep happening and repeating. It felt like I'm reading an insane fever dream at certain points. And I don't think I can just write off these insane characters as "everyone has their own issues", no, it feels like everyone is kind of a rich privileged idiot incapable of any rational thought. And yea, Jeremy gets a pass but a lot of these characters actually led nice and comfy lives (from what we know). Compared to the first part where we have a couple of crazy characters and a cast of mostly normal people that either don't want to get entangled in the craziness or have their reasons for keeping secrets, part two is like wandering into an asylum and not being able to get out. But to me the biggest reason why this part is much worse than the first one is because of the relationship with Ian. It's almost as if... I don't know. Characters know Ian is having sex/raping/hard to tell anymore with Jeremy, they know Jeremy was raped by Greg and yet still... they don't care??? They don't bring it up??? It's all cool and swell because Ian is a cool responsible hot guy??? They're step brothers for god's sake. To top it all off, allegedly, even Sandra knew about Jeremy and Greg, or at the very least had a hunch something was going on. But nobody did anything, through the whole story. Everyone failed Jeremy, in every. possible. way. Because of that, this manga is pure torture. Like yes, sure, the way his sense of self breaks and is shattered is shown quite well artistically, and his own struggles are pretty accurate and I feel the way he navigates through all of this is to be expected and in that way it's great but there is not a single voice of reason that makes a difference. In that way I find this work to be utterly torturous, it's not that I want a happy ending, I just wanted a single level-headed person in the second part. A touch of realism perhaps, because the first part definitely had it. But nope. I also get the feeling that after Greg died, Jeremy had to have consistent gay sex with someone so the author was like "ok, let's go with Ian". Lmao. The story ends with kind of a compromise. Jeremy decides to step away from Ian and live a more fulfilled life, but every year around the time his mother and Greg died, he kind of regresses and relives his trauma, goes back to the place where it all happened, and Ian happily and willingly has sex with him. How tragic and romantic!!

I've gotta be honest, I was expecting to be a bit more impressed with this manga. If Jeremies sexual abuse trauma and ptsd can be portrayed so well, then why couldn't the rest of the characters have the same treatment? Why did Nadia, a kind and emphatetic woman have to end up marrying her literal stalker, and why did the rest of the characters just encourage him meeting up with her in a funny haha way? That felt like such a random insult to her as a character, pluis it makes 0 sense for her to end up with him... Why are rooms 100% soundproof? Why did a therapist, a woman who knows her patient is being abused by his brother, trick the patient into meeting up with his brother - upon the request of said brother? They then proceeded to physically fight and scream in her practice while she was waiting outside, somehow not hearing them, only for her to enter back and say this??

She is a therapist (or psychologist I forgot franky) there's no excuse for her to be acting that way. Anyway it was these small things, along with Ian's constant abuse and everyone victim-blaming Jeremy which just drove me mad. Except for that insurance dude nobody bothered telling Ian to chill out and everyone was just so constantly blind to Jeremies suffering. Yes it's not weird to be repulsed by sex after being repetedly brutally raped, for god's sake deal with it Ian!!!!! Does nobody have any understanding of sexual abuse whatsoever in this manga? It's like the first it happened to anyone in the world was Jeremy, and everyone else was just dumbfounded about what could be troubling him. So while the first half was chilling, realistic, scary and sad the second half just kind of feels like circus to me.

Spoilers over!

Do I recommend this? The first half, definitely. It's great. Try reading through the second half, and decide for yourself as it seems I am in the minority of people that had a lot of problems with it. Most people regard this is a masterpiece. The story doesn't have a happy ending, and it's quite disturbing.