Content Warning: almost everything you can imagine

Kami no Kodomo, or God's Child, begins with a birth from an anus into a toilet.

At this point I will say that this manga is very messed up and I would strongly recommend reader discretion as I will be talking about a lot of the content in it. #The Allegory Already at the beginning we see a direct inverse to the story of Christ. The birth of God's Child (the main character in Kami no Komoda) is from the anus, the giver of waste and undesirable trash, into a toilet, an object designed to dispose of offensive matter. The next page explains that God's Child was conceived by a sperm that affixed itself to the stomach wall.

This is all the exact opposite from the story of Christ. Christ was conceived by an act of god termed the "immaculate conception" in which a child was placed into Mary's womb with no sexual acts whatsoever. The baby formed in the womb (the incubator of life), was born through the vagina (the giver of life), and then placed into a manger (a feeding trough, an object designed to distribute life sustaining matter). God's Child was conceived when a sperm was placed into a stomach, implying oral sex. Traditional penetrative sex is performed as an act of pleasure, but also as an act of creation. Oral sex is purely for pleasure and is therefore considered to be more perverse. This act created God's Child in the stomach (the place of decomposition), and then was born through the anus (the giver of waste), and placed into a toilet (an object that expunges unwanted material).

This is all in only the first 2 pages.

The allegorical inverse to Christ's story is not entirely parallel, but aligns frequently enough to be one of the more prominent motifs in the story.

The Commentary

Kami no Komodo employs a great deal of non-religious symbolism as well and does a poignant job of portraying the sociopathic nature of its protagonist. The story does not take a stance on if evil is nature or nurture, as it provides examples of both, but God's Child is deemed as pure evil from the beginning and instead shows how his influence grows through the story. I found the ending especially to be a symbolically rich commentary on how evil spreads through collective consciousness and can never be truly disposed of.

The Art

The art is considerably ugly. It goes for a much more abstract direction that prioritizes creating a feeling and an atmosphere over being pleasing or beautiful. That being said, the art serves the work exceptionally well. With the dark and horrific content in the manga, the art conveys the events accurately, but not in a way that would make such depraved content unconsumable.

The story content is shocking, gross, and downright evil, but the art is so abstract that it visually does not push itself beyond what I was able to endure.

Overall

Kami no Kamodo is disgusting and vile. I recommend it only if you are looking to feel gross, but also want to feel like the author has more to say than just shock value. Too many disgusting manga lack the subtext to be interesting beyond the emotional reaction it creates in the reader. Kami no Komodo is not one of those.

Kami no Komodo is effective at everything it sets out to do, but unfortunately does not provide substantial commentary or thematic analysis to elevate it beyond a competent, and symbolically intriguing, shock value piece of media.