Black God

Seeing as there's no review of the completed manga and other reviews are all quite old... here's my (spoiler-free) review of this underrated manga. I would categorize this manga as: - Action: a bunch of battle scenes; - Drama: serious tone and not much comedy; - Mystery: much of the story has the characters investigating and trying to find information to solve the mysteries surrounding mototsumitama; - Supernatural: story revolves around supernatural beings and the mysteries surrounding them and their powers. Also of note is that this manga trends more towards being dark than light-hearted. It's no horror manga that just kills all the characters left and right, but there isno convenient revive mechanic for characters that die, no nakama power to save the day, no random power-up. Story: 10/10 The story starts off giving the vibe of a battle manga early on, but it is much more than that. The characters quickly begin looking for information to carry out their initial plans. From there they begin their journey and meet more characters and slowly uncover the mysteries surrounding these supernatural beings. It feels as though the series wanted to run for 20-25 volumes (at the end, the pace picks up very fast and many things are revealed in a short amount of time compared to the rest of the series), so it feels slightly rushed, but it is done so well and gracefully that I couldn't bother to remove a point here. There is no convenient plot point added anywhere, and everything fits the story and seems to have been well planned out from the start. Particularly, I liked that there are many details explained in the later volumes which have essentially no impact on the story, but are nice things to know and make the world seem more real and well planned. Art: 9/10 The art is great, and the characters are all very distinct (except some twins, but hey, twins I guess) and the art style is very unique itself (perhaps because it is done in Korea?). Some of the battle scenes are harder to follow (I like to stare at panels to play the scene in my head, imagining exactly what movements they are doing, and sometimes it was hard here). Characters: 9/10 Characters are all believable. This story has characters in their early to mid 20s (they finished college and are working), so the character development is slow (as you'd expect after you reach that age I guess, you change a lot less, and slower), but present none the less. More so than character development, you learn to know the characters more over time and change your impressions of them (don't really want to spoil anything, so let's leave it at that). The villains have real motives, particularly towards the end. It sometimes has you wondering if the villains are actually right in what they are trying to do... The very last villains are also quite true to their character and they were very interesting to me. Enjoyment: 9/10 Very enjoyable series overall with a satisfying ending, especially when compared to a lot of manga who typically seem to go downhill after a few volumes. The story culminates in intense points in volumes 7-10 and 16-19, with a quieter pace for the rest, but it was good the whole way through. I also really enjoyed the flashback volume(s) toward the end of the series which explains a lot of what was left unexplained.