is a Japanese manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 written and illustrated by Moto Hagio

Moto Hagio

is a manga artist born on May 12, 1949 in Ōmuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, though she currently lives in Saitama Prefecture. She is considered a "founding mother" of modern shōjo manga, especially shōnen-ai. She is also a member of the Year 24 Group...

. The manga was serialized in Shogakukan

Shogakukan

is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, manga, non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.Shogakukan founded Shueisha which founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group, one of the largest publishing groups in Japan...

's josei

Josei

also known as or , is a term that refers to the target demographic of manga created mostly by women for late teenage and adult female audiences. Readers range from 15-44. In Japanese, the word josei means simply "woman", "female", "feminine", "womanhood" and has no manga-related connotations at...

 manga magazine, Petit Flower

Petit Flower

was a Japanese manga magazine published by Shogakukan. Founded in 1980 as a quarterly magazine, in 1981 it changed to bimonthly, then monthly from 1984 to 1988, when it again became bimonthly. The magazine became defunct in May 2002, and was relaunched as Flowers in April 2004...

. Moto Hagio was awarded the first Osamu Tezuka Culture Award

Osamu Tezuka Culture Award

Named after Osamu Tezuka, the is a yearly comic book prize awarded to manga artists or their works that follow the Osamu Tezuka manga approach founded and sponsored by Asahi Shimbun...

 Excellence prize in 1997 for A Cruel God Reigns.

Plot

The story follows the ordeals Jeremy endures at the hands of his sexually-abusive stepfather, Greg. He does not tell his emotionally unstable mother for fear of destroying her dream of a happy marriage, but tampers with the brakes in his stepfather's car, killing his stepfather and accidentally killing his mother too. The stepfather's older son Ian begins to suspect Jeremy of involvement in his father's death, and tries to get him to confess. Jeremy runs away from home and becomes a drug addict and prostitute; Ian finds him and tries to help him recover but also wrestles with his sexual attraction to the younger boy and his fear of becoming an abuser like his father. At the end of the story, Jeremy and Ian form a relationship.

Development

Hagio describes her impetus to write the story thusly: "Because of my problems with my parents, I did a lot of reading about psychology and counseling. Among those stories were a lot about stories about sexual abuse. I always had a hard time understanding why other members of the family, particularly the mother, does not step in and help. In order to search for the answer to this question, I started that story. [... ] I had the idea, but it was such a dark, heavy story, it took me 10 years to find a way to put it into manga form. When I started A Cruel God Reigns, I told the editor it would probably last two years, but it took a lot longer; it took nine years [to finish the series]." Hagio found that Julian (Ian) in particular was difficult to characterise. The name comes from Al Alvarez

Al Alvarez

Al Alvarez is an English poet, writer and critic who publishes under the name A. Alvarez and Al Alvarez....

's 1972 book, The Savage God: A Study of Suicide.

Characters

• Jeremy - Sandra's son, he is sixteen years old at the start of the story.
• Sandra - Works in an antique shop, mother to Jeremy. A very emotionally weak person, who attempted suicide when a boyfriend broke up with her when Jeremy was ten.
• Greg - An English aristocrat, he proposes to Sandra but tells Jeremy he loves him too, abusing Jeremy and then threatening to leave Sandra unless Jeremy is compliant.
• Vivi - Jeremy's girlfriend, at the beginning of the story they are planning to consummate their relationship, but she believes Jeremy to be unfaithful after Jeremy kisses like Greg does. When Jeremy confesses that he is being abused by Greg, Vivi doesn't believe him.
• Cass - a classmate of Jeremy's who is rumoured to be prostituting himself.
• Ian - Greg's son in his late teens who begins to lust after Jeremy.
• Matt - Greg's twelve year old son, withdrawn but loves his dog, Pepe, and Natasha.
• Aunt Karen - Jeremy's father's sister.
• Hannah - Maid at Greg's mansion.
• Natasha - Lilya's older sister.
• Lilya - Greg's late wife, mother to Ian and Matt.

Publication

Shogakukan

Shogakukan

is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, manga, non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.Shogakukan founded Shueisha which founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group, one of the largest publishing groups in Japan...

 published the manga's 17 tankōbon

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

volumes between March 19, 1993 and August 20, 2001, having decided to bring the series to a close in September 2000. After completing A Cruel God Reigns, Hagio took a year's hiatus from manga. The manga was republished into 10 kanzenban volumes between October 15, 2004 and February 15, 2005.