After reading all 17 volumes in the span of one day, I must say that this manga is truly wonderful. It is very well developed, in terms of plot and characters, and the balance between the two story arcs (as divided by the prologue) is quite fitting. Although the last two volumes started dragging a tiny tiny bit, the ending was overall satisfying and just the right mixture of realism and romance.

If you are looking for happy smut, you should probably skip this, but if you are looking for a realistic and well-developed drama, plus an intense emotional rollercoaster, you will probably enjoy this manga as much as I did. Highly recommended.

Rating this any less than an 8 is a crime in my opinion. Few other manga have dealt with the issues this one tackles with the same level of sensitivity, honesty, and realism as this manga, and this was written nearly 50 years ago. To anyone who says it's "exploitative", it would be exploitative if the mangaka provided no semblance of recovery for Jeremy. It would be exploitative if the mangaka seemed to dwell on Jeremy's suffering in a way that seemed fetishistic or voyeuristic. She doesn't. The repetition of his abuse is to help establish how said abuse can wear on someone over time and the helplessness that one feels being forced to endure such cruelties over and over. Some people are so dense that they need it spelled out for them because they can't otherwise conceive of what it's like. To claim this manga is exploitative is to be overdramatic. While it is fiction, it's realistic enough that it could perfectly describe someone's messed up childhood, or that survivors of sexual abuse reading it could see themselves in Jeremy or even his older brother. It's a bit of a product of its time concerning certain characters but not glaringly so, and honestly, I haven't found an original manga or other work written by anyone gay or straight that has penned that was this cohesive and true-to-life.

WARNING!!! THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS! MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.
This manga was sadly all too familiar to me.The author did an excellent job with the realistic depiction of Jeremy's situation, and while I won't bore you with a sob story of my adolescent youth, I will admit that I, too, was a victim of physical, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse from my mother's second spouse and his daughter. Many things (the courtship of the mother, the two faced step-father, the manipulation of Jeremy, the insistence of love, etc.) paralleled my own life experiences.At times while I read I felt sick, and sometimes I wanted to cry but I could not turn away. I must say that I am not a fan of the art. It's not especially aesthetically pleasing, though the artist has their own style and the content of the story far outweighs my dislike for the art.

As far as the physical abuse being "too long" for 400 pages... those 400 pages might have taken 2 hours to read though - try living through it for 6 years.

... Last updated on December 3rd, 2013, 12:25am

I could go on forever about how incredible "A Cruel God Reigns" is, but I'll try to keep it short. This series has it all for angst-lovers and shounen-ai fans. The writing is beautiful, the art is exceptional, and the characters are believable and relatable. As the summary says, this series won the first-ever Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize Award for Excellence. It fully deserves it. This is what BL should be. "A Cruel God Reigns" deserves a lot more recognition than it's gotten by North American manga fans. I am extremely grateful to The Pink Panzer for scanlating this and bringing it to us.

A warning, though. There is NO fluff here. What the main character experiences is truly horrific, and not easy to watch. There is also no explicit sex. Many of the sex scenes are rape/abuse. They aren't gratuitous, though. They are an essential part of the story and if you can get through them, it's worth it.

I've read this manga five or six times now. It is my most treasured manga series and I set aside 2-3 days every few months to devote to rereading it in one sitting.

The first time I read it, I, like others, found the second half to drag, and was sorely disappointed with the ending, which didn't feel like an ending at all. In retrospect, I had been reading the series as a BL love story. Once I let go of that, and started seeing the story as a psychological exploration, with the sexuality and romance serving as a prop rather than a focus, the whole story clicked and felt like an absolute masterpiece.

Rather than being poorly thought out, I think everything in this manga was done with carefully deliberation and preparation. If you read Hagio Moto's other works, or some of her interviews, you may come to agree. The first half the story is the descent into darkness, with a fast-paced, focused plot that gives the feeling of a world that is becoming smaller and closing in on the protagonist.

I think the second half of the story serves an contrasting function. The pacing is noticeably slower, almost meandering. There is a gradual increase in the introduction of new characters and plots, some of which seem only loosely related to the main characters. All this feels very intentional and supportive of the "redemption" aspect that defines the second half of the narrative. As the reader, it feels like the world slowly opens back up, and life goes on, never quite in the same way, but in some way.

I personally find the ending brilliant. It took me some time to get over the lack of closure and satisfaction, but I think this is what contributed to my desire to reread the manga again and again. Rather than being the result of thoughtless impatience on the mangaka's part, I think it is a well-designed gesture to tie up all the loose ends of the plot, while leaving the overall character development and narrative experience open-ended.

I don't know why everyone's saying the art of this manga isn't great because to me the 1970's art style is genius. Jeremy reminds me of a roman statue; beautiful, androgynous, seemingly strong yet fragile like he could break at a touch. the visual character progression is well done as well. It's not necessarily an age progression because the story only takes place over about a year or two but more like a state of mind progression where the characters gradually become more and more mentally unstable. honestly, I wish there were more characters in other mangas who look like jeremy with his sad angelic face.

The story itself is gut wrenching depressing and surprisingly familiar to me. I'm not exaggerating when
I say that this manga literally changed my life, hopefully for the better. It resurfaced memories I never knew I had as well as a past I didn't know existed, maybe because I was able to connect to Jeremy so well. The author was able to pinpoint all of the feelings a victim of abuse experiences. Guilt, shame, anger, depression, a feeling of insanity, of breaking into pieces. I don't think I can express how much jeremy, a fictional character of all people, means to me. So, as you can tell the character development is extraordinary.

As you can probably assume by now, this story is not for the weak hearted but I encourage that even if you don't like sad mangas to read it because I feel it is an important read. It accurately deals with the subject of sexual abuse and a victims struggle. So, if you ever wanna feel more in tune to others' experiences, read this manga! In conclusion 10 out of 10, will read again.

Really, I cannot praise this enough. It is heartbreakingly sad, and disturbingly realistic, in its portrayal of Jeremy as a young, naive victim, and Ian as a well-meaning but completely out-of-his-depth supporter.

People who complain that it is too angsty, too heavy, or that the actions of the characters were cowardly or nonsensical simply do not understand what it is like to be abused and completely powerless to stop it. It is actually quite insulting to suggest that Jeremy's behaviour is overly dramatically or irrational given the depth of the trauma he has, and I can only attribute such callousness to the sickening frequency with which "rape = love" is used as a plot device in yaoi manga, because in real life, abuse victims act like Jeremy. Not always, but a damn sight more often than the all-too-commonly-seen yaoi reaction of "You raped me, and I felt violated and ashamed, but now you told me you love me I understand and forgive you. Let's be together forever! And sure you can ostracise me from all my friends and family, because you love me." This is a serious manga, and such reactions should never be taken seriously. If this bothers you, don't read this manga.

Jeremy's downward spiral is very authentic. He is a young boy who has grown up with a suicidal mother pushing all her burdens onto a small child (think about it, she woke him up in the middle of the night when he was 10 years old to show him her slit wrists for Heaven's sake!). His father has died, so he alone became responsible for keeping his mother on track, even calling her Sandra to sound less like a son. When Greg comes along, he is dealing with all this and going through the generally painful teenage years. He is told "sleep with me or your mother will die", and when he refuses, Greg breaks up with his mother who promptly tries to kill herself again. So he does. This is just the first example of how Greg, ever so skilfully and slowly managed to box Jeremy into a corner until speaking out becomes impossible, finding help is unthinkable, and running away would be akin to murdering his own mother. Greg is very practised at exercising his domination and sadistic abuse over his victims in such a way that he holds their weakness and they feel compelled to keep silent.

On top of all this, he is in a new country, with a new school and new family, so he has absolutely no one to rely on, no one who knows him well enough to recognise the warning signs bar his mother, who is too screwed herself to actually be a good mother to her son and admit that the man she loves is abusing him. The new family around Jeremy isn't of help because how are they to know that he has become withdrawn when they only met him after the abuse started? Besides, Greg has managed to psychologically screw with everyone in the household in some way so they believe every word he says and follow him despite knowing how violent he can be. After everything he goes through Jeremy is shattered emotionally, and can only deal with the trauma by repeating it (a very common phenomenon actually). Cue Ian's clumsy attempts to heal wounds he cannot possibly understand after ripping them wider, and you have a very touching emotional manga.

... Last updated on March 11th, 2014, 9:23am

I have a problem with sad stories and I feel too much sympathy for Jeremy to continue this one. The sexual abuse was terrible and treated well, but it was just so well done that I just can't bear to continue with the story. It's done well and the art is decent and I wish I could continue but I just can't.

Do not let this one pass you by(especially good for those who like a good plot). I have to say that this was one of the best and might be my favorite manga of all time. It just makes me think, like really think about the character's predicament and I just feel so much for all of them. If I were to be asked if there's a manga that had the most "life" I would hands down choose this one. I felt very pulled into the story as if I were there sometimes, although this might be due to my excessive imagination.

Everything the main character goes through is believable and not used for shock value. It's on the realistic side of sexual abuse and actually very disturbing. It's a very emotional and suspenseful manga, I'm excited to see what happens next. It's also a classic so more people should read it. It's well-written with wonderful art, I love all Moto Hagio's works but this is the best.