2013-01-09 21:55![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chatham_t_rivers
chatham_t_rivers So I stayed up far later than I should have last night reading A Cruel God Reigns (or Zankoku na Kami ga Shihai Suru as it's called in Japanese; the translation can be a bit rough sometimes) and I am getting so many feels over it. Am reading Volume 6 right now, so I don't know much about anything beyond that, and MangaFox currently only has up to Volume 13 up, but what's there is DEFINITELY worth reading. (TRIGGER WARNING for non-con, sexual abuse of a teenager, unsafe BDSM, and sexual situations in general--there are no parts shown, but, um. It's still rather graphic, especially considering the subject matter). It makes the darkest parts of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle look like an episode of Lucky Star.
To summarize in most of my own words (there's also a summary on TV Tropes, Wikipedia has spoilers so be warned):
16-year-old Jeremy is happy for his mother when she marries the wealthy British aristocrat, Greg. However, his joy quickly sours when Greg starts sexually abusing him, manipulating Jeremy into doing what he wants in order to keep Jeremy's mother happy. The abuse continues to wear Jeremy down until one day, he sabotage's his stepfather's car in an attempt to murder him--and by accident, the ensuing wreck kills his mother as well.
Ian, Greg's older son, begins to suspect something in Jeremy's unusual grief, and in attempting to unearth clues and get Jeremy to confess, he discovers his stepbrother's abuse at his father's hands. It doesn't help that between unraveling the mystery of his father's death and trying to help Ian recover, he's starting to develop his own complicated feelings towards Jeremy--and starts fearing that he may be his father all over again, setting the stage for an equally complicated relationship.
The story won the first-ever Osamu Tezuka Culture Award for Excellence in 1997, and with good reason. The artwork is lush, expressive, and detailed. The characters are complex, distinct, and flawed in unique and nuanced ways. I am firmly of the belief that fan authors considering writing a character with a past history of childhood sexual abuse--ESPECIALLY those who write OCs--need to put this on their "required reading" list before even ATTEMPTING to write said characterizations. One of the BEST parts of this manga is that rape and sexual abuse are NOT a tool just to "get two bishounen together for kawaii sexytimes kyaaa!!!!1!!!one!!1!<3," and the offender in this case is NOT just a stock, shadowy character who gets mentioned about three times in the story (in other words, it's NOT a case of Rape is the New Dead Parents). It treats child sexual abuse as something that very much completely fucks a victim up, tears families apart, and brings lives to the brink of ruin. It treats the psychological and emotional development issues that come with such abuse very seriously and realistically, and very painfully deconstructs the notion of "Healing Cock Fanfic." Ian and Jeremy's relationship builds SLOWLY, and the romance doesn't come until much, much later, leading to a more realistic-feeling relationship instead of something that feels like it was written by a thirteen-year-old Cloud/Sephiroth OTP shipper who thinks rape is a plot device to get two characters together.
It may not be the ONLY manga series that treats the situation with the gravity it deserves, but it is most definitely one of the first. A Cruel God Reigns was written by one of the founders of the BL genre, according to TV Tropes, and was written by an author who wanted to discover an answer to why some family members, especially parents, don't intervene even if they know a child is being sexually abused. She did her research, and it shows. I recommend it to anyone looking for a dark, heavy, good handling of complex issues and who like to think.
...Or who are fans of Break the Cutie, Earn Your Happy Ending, The Woobie, Trauma Conga Line, Darker and Edgier, or any sort of sadistic thirty-car-clusterfuck that puts the character through as much trauma as possible. Like a certain someone.
To summarize in most of my own words (there's also a summary on TV Tropes, Wikipedia has spoilers so be warned):
16-year-old Jeremy is happy for his mother when she marries the wealthy British aristocrat, Greg. However, his joy quickly sours when Greg starts sexually abusing him, manipulating Jeremy into doing what he wants in order to keep Jeremy's mother happy. The abuse continues to wear Jeremy down until one day, he sabotage's his stepfather's car in an attempt to murder him--and by accident, the ensuing wreck kills his mother as well.
Ian, Greg's older son, begins to suspect something in Jeremy's unusual grief, and in attempting to unearth clues and get Jeremy to confess, he discovers his stepbrother's abuse at his father's hands. It doesn't help that between unraveling the mystery of his father's death and trying to help Ian recover, he's starting to develop his own complicated feelings towards Jeremy--and starts fearing that he may be his father all over again, setting the stage for an equally complicated relationship.
The story won the first-ever Osamu Tezuka Culture Award for Excellence in 1997, and with good reason. The artwork is lush, expressive, and detailed. The characters are complex, distinct, and flawed in unique and nuanced ways. I am firmly of the belief that fan authors considering writing a character with a past history of childhood sexual abuse--ESPECIALLY those who write OCs--need to put this on their "required reading" list before even ATTEMPTING to write said characterizations. One of the BEST parts of this manga is that rape and sexual abuse are NOT a tool just to "get two bishounen together for kawaii sexytimes kyaaa!!!!1!!!one!!1!<3," and the offender in this case is NOT just a stock, shadowy character who gets mentioned about three times in the story (in other words, it's NOT a case of Rape is the New Dead Parents). It treats child sexual abuse as something that very much completely fucks a victim up, tears families apart, and brings lives to the brink of ruin. It treats the psychological and emotional development issues that come with such abuse very seriously and realistically, and very painfully deconstructs the notion of "Healing Cock Fanfic." Ian and Jeremy's relationship builds SLOWLY, and the romance doesn't come until much, much later, leading to a more realistic-feeling relationship instead of something that feels like it was written by a thirteen-year-old Cloud/Sephiroth OTP shipper who thinks rape is a plot device to get two characters together.
It may not be the ONLY manga series that treats the situation with the gravity it deserves, but it is most definitely one of the first. A Cruel God Reigns was written by one of the founders of the BL genre, according to TV Tropes, and was written by an author who wanted to discover an answer to why some family members, especially parents, don't intervene even if they know a child is being sexually abused. She did her research, and it shows. I recommend it to anyone looking for a dark, heavy, good handling of complex issues and who like to think.
...Or who are fans of Break the Cutie, Earn Your Happy Ending, The Woobie, Trauma Conga Line, Darker and Edgier, or any sort of sadistic thirty-car-clusterfuck that puts the character through as much trauma as possible. Like a certain someone.
