As the Gods Will

As the Gods Will
is a Japanese manga series written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Akeji Fujimura. The series is composed of two parts.
The first part was adapted into a live action film directed by Takashi Miike released November 15, 2014.
Plot
As the Gods Will
During a day at high school, Takahata Shun witnesses the explosion of his teacher's head, after which he and his classmates find themselves forced to play children's games, such as Daruma-san ga koronda, with deadly stakes. With no idea who is behind this mysterious deadly game session, and no way of knowing when it will finally end, the only thing Shun and other students can do is keep trying to win. Numerous games follow, each one with more and more casualties. Shun encounters Takeru Amaya, a muscular and disturbed young boy who takes great pleasure in the events. He is a psychopath, and despite being polar opposites, they manage to work with each other.
The final volume sees the creator of the games, Kamimaro, launching his final games with all the remaining victors. Shun and Amaya try to kill him with magical "bombs" used for one of the games, but they get wounded by their own weapons and as a result are thrown out, on the verge of death, for trying to cheat God.
As the Gods Will: The Second Series
During the same timeline as the first part, Yasuto Akashi skipped school the day the games began, after having a fight with his best friend, Senichi Aoyama. While his classmates competed in the games at school, Akashi and other students who skipped school must compete in a separate set of games in order to survive.
After some deadly games and trials (where Aoyama dies after reconciling with Akashi), the two series align when Ushimitsu, one of Akashi's friends, save Shun and Amaya, protagonists of the first series, from their doom after they tried to cheat the "God" of their games.
The god of the second series, Sein Kami, is killed midway through the story, impaled by giant school tools when his sister Acid Mana finds his games to be too "boring". She then takes over the games.
The god of the first series, Kaminokouji Kamimaro, is revealed to be a human fed up with life who was reluctantly given God powers by Mana. He created the games to find another god because he did not want to be God, and wanted to be erased in the new world. He dies together with Shun in Judgment Old Maid, the penultimate game, happy to have finally found a "friend" (Shun).
In the end, Acid Mana is revealed to be a "human" living in the "outside world" and she has created the world where the events of the story take place. Her goal was to find the new god of this world through the games.
The last remaining survivors (Ushimitsu, Akashi and Amaya) become gods but realize they cannot bring back all the people who died during the games (only their memories of them, or empty shells/puppets).
The final game between the 3 gods is a dice game where each number gives a number of hits, whereby each hit destroy a memory. Amaya standing as "the god of destruction" (living for himself) loses against Akashi "the god of hope" (living for the others) who dies shortly after, having lost each and every one of his memories, even that of himself.
Ushimitsu, truly loving Akashi, decides to rewind the events at the beginning of the games with him as the god, waiting for Akashi to confront and release him of his loneliness.
As the Gods Will Zero
Mana is in fact Anam, an Earthling from the future, after the Earth has been swallowed up by the Sun. She, along with 99 others, won a lottery that let them board a spaceship to be the only people to escape the death of the Earth. They landed on a sentient planet, which killed all of the adults but granted the five children aboard godlike powers. Three of the children intentionally or unintentionally wish for death and have it granted as a wish. Mana develops her abilities for hundreds of millions of years, until she is able to create a perfectly replicated Earth, allowing her remaining friend to return to his family.
Later, she and Sein Kami, whom she created as a brother, enter the version of the Earth in the "most boring era" and grant Kamimaro his Tomfoolery, thus starting the entire story.
Media
Manga
As the Gods Will is written by Muneyuki Kaneshiro and illustrated by Akeji Fujimura. It began serialization in the 28th issue of Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, released on February 9, 2011, published by Kodansha, with the concluding chapter released in 2012's 38ths issue, released on October 9, 2012. Its individual 21 chapters were compiled into 5 tankōbon volumes.
On January 16, 2013, a sequel manga titled As the Gods Will: The Second Series began its serialization in the 7th issue of Weekly Shōnen Magazine. This second part series was published in English by Crunchyroll from October 30, 2013, to January 6, 2017. Kodansha USA has been releasing e-books of the series since November 3, 2015.
Live-action film
A live-action film based on the first arc of the manga, Kamisama no Iutoori, was announced in 2013 with Takashi Miike (director of the films Aku no Kyōten, Mogura no Uta and Ace Attorney) set to direct the film. The cast includes Sota Fukushi as Takahata Shun, Hirona Yamazaki as Akimoto Ichika and Ryunosuke Kamiki as Amaya Takeru. In 2014's 32nd issue of Weekly Shounen Magazine, the release date for the film was revealed to be November 15 of the same year. In the same issue, Mio Yūki was confirmed as joining the cast as Takase Shouko, an original movie character counterpart of the original story's character Hirai Shouko.
Reception
By December 2013, the manga sold 1.5 million copies.
References
External links
Kodansha manga
Shōnen manga
Manga adapted into films
Psychological thriller anime and manga
Survival anime and manga
Anime and manga about death games