With newer and newer crops of manga vying for fans’ attention every waking second, sifting through the noise to find something with the staying power of a hidden gem is pretty much the perpetual endeavor of fans. One gem I’ve recently set my peepers on and can’t get enough of is After God, a manga that’s quietly been building one of the most intriguing fantasy premises I’ve seen in a long time.
After God, created by Sumi Eno, is a dark-fantasy manga that takes a dystopian spin on polytheism in the modern age. In it, the world is suddenly invaded by creatures known as gods because there’s honestly no better description for them with how inconceivably powerful they are. Their rules, as far as humanity has tried and errored in figuring out, are as follows: they can’t be captured by cameras because then their image would be that of a false idol. So, the only way to see them is, well, to see them.
But once you do, it’s already too late. Rumors have it that when you look into the eyes of a god, what you see is the most beautiful being you’ve ever laid eyes on in your entire life, leading to a sense of euphoric bliss. But what’s actually happening is more akin to an anglerfish luring in its prey. Once you’re captured, they basically blow a kiss at you, and you’re turned into water. That’s it. Done.
In their wake, these gods have developed a bit of a split following. On the one hand, there are anti-god researchers dedicated to finding a way to kill these gods, whom they refer to as Idolatry Prohibited Organisms (IPOs). On the other hand, these so-called gods are at the center of social upheaval because they’re treated like deities by folks who practice religion, are agnostic, or pledge their lives to science, yet have no choice but to bend the knee to IPO’s awesome might and influence. They’ve got acolytes and all kinds of zealots following their mysterious wishes. Those who don’t ascribe to drinking the Kool-Aid wear garments and masks to cover their faces to protect themselves on the off chance they encounter a god in the wild.
In that same vein, they’re great for the worst content creators you know to enter the uninhabitable danger zone—locations where gods have been quartered off in Japan, leaving ecological disasters in their territory—to shoot Logan Paul-esque suicide forest videos for the views. In summation, society is fucked.
All that is just the groundwork for the series’ premise from chapter one. The story proper follows Waka Kamikura, a high schooler who travels to the city in search of answers about her best friend’s disappearance (she’s the lady in the above image). To do so, she almost wanders into one of those aforementioned danger zones before a researcher named Tokigawa Sachiyuki stops her. Their chance encounter leads to both of them running into an acolyte who seems to kill Waka by piercing her skull with a support beam of a playground swing.
But because this is all still chapter one, the other shoe still has to drop. What we discover, as the Viz Media trailer scooped, is that Waka has the eyes of a god. What’s more, she also seems to be harboring a more bloodthirsty identity under her unassuming disposition. Thankfully, Waka appears to be fighting on the side of humanity and swears, in no uncertain terms, that she wants to kill every god for their involvement in her best friend’s disappearance.
Granted, much of After God‘s plot progression is one that fans, present company included, have sworn to keep under an unspoken bond of spoiler secrecy. And for good reason; the series is one best explored without having one iota of an idea of where it’s going. Not since picking up Kasumi Yasuda’s Fool Night (another dystopian manga folks should totally read, about people volunteering to be transformed into plants to save a world engulfed in eternal darkness) have I encountered a series whose story is so entrancing. Its big double-page spreads of gods are equal parts grotesque and breathtaking.
Eno’s artwork comes as close to what those biblically accurate angel meme trends would look like as if it were inside a hauntingly gorgeous manga. And a lot of that feels by design, with how ingrained the manga is in the hyperspeed discourse of a media cycle trying to make sense of IPOs and how social media flattens them into an amorphous meme to be taken lightly. That sinking feeling of distrust practically emanates from chapter to chapter as everyone—gods, acolytes, Waka, Tokigawa, and the anti-God researchers—all have ulterior motives at play and will use each other to their own ends to pursue them.
But the series also balances its dour, weighty plotting and body horror with a fair share of humor that actually lands. These elements (like the herd of cats seen below) somehow don’t detract from the story’s overall weight but add another wrinkle to how off-kilter and vexing the whole thing is. They’ve kind of got a Pluck from Berserk quality of making the read less depressing, and they’re greatly appreciated.
So if you’re fiending to check out a manga series with an adult cast that’s equal parts endearing and detestable, world-building that doesn’t feel like it’s spinning its wheels, and drop-dead gorgeous art, you should definitely add After God to your shelf.
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