Kami no Kodomo

The best thing about this manga is definitely its art. While I wouldn't say it's amazing, it is certainly aesthetically pleasing and unique. Although, where the art can fall a little short is in the story's depictions of violence, the lack of detail in the style being unable to create an image that is too graphic. This is also in part because these moments are not sold on the narrative end, which I will get into.
Where this manga is really lacking is its story. Most of the time it just comes off as trying to be edgy. It just seems to go down a checklist of taboos for the sake of shock value. A lot of these moments that are supposed to be scary come off as cheap because they just took it in a very obvious direction. This is paired with some very surface level social commentary, going no deeper than saying "society is bad".
So, while the art may be nice, it fails to save its lackluster story, resulting in an ultimately lukewarm experience.

A more realistic re-telling of the manga 'Monster'.

People who haven't finished reading the manga Monster may not get this and in many ways the art and the story spoils the final plot developments of that manga, but it cannot be denied: this manga at least is shorter and is much more realistic in the sense that there's no hero to the horror and the timeline of the story is much closer to how long real life serial killers' careers last.

This doesn't mean this is realistic though. From the first panel onwards, it is clear this is meant to be more poetic than realistic. Those who dislike poetry and manga may even consider this hollow compared to the real life elements behind serial killings.

Still, compared to Monster, I have to consider the murders here more realistic and thus makes the brutality of the acts more "disturbing" and that is one of the primary hooks to Monster to begin with.

This is its' primary pros and cons though.

If you read Monster before, would you read a short re-telling of the same Monster?

If you haven't read Monster, would the immediate jump to a much more artistic artwork turn you away from the initial panels and settings?

I will say this: unlike Monster, the ending has a better pay off and it isn't because of it's short length either.

This manga could have easily been stretched although just like Monster - all it would do is make the whole thing feel more tedious as even here it already feels like it is dragging in the middle.

For those who don't care for Monster and would just like a straight up review: If you like a dark Batman and feel like Batman's origins wasn't as dark and didn't do justice to the man compared to some of the later darker twists in the caped crusader's canon (like the switching of the mantle between the first Batgirl and the 2nd one) - the ending clues in on how good it can be done. The characters and relationships of course are not the same but if you ever want to see how an average combination of poetic, manga, noir and fictional serial killing ending would formulate; this is one of those manga with such a quality of an ending.

an enjoyable aesthetic experience, but it's immediately clear that this is very much a matter of style over substance. you could call it a bitesize parable, i guess. although only in the framework of its own (a)moral code, it does have a moral to the story, a lesson to be learned.

points for an idiosyncratic style that is easy on the eye, but it was also much too easy on the brain, a cruise-control sort of read. perhaps this is inevitable, given that it's a one-volume work.

Kami no Kodomo is a short manga but consistent in its history and accurate in conveying its message.

The story tells about a sociopathic killer and his birth, growth and fall. Its events are raw and represented in a very cruel way. Its narrative is very good and tells the events from the point of view of the protagonist with a great exploration of his sick mind; the explanations of every event are also very disturbing because of the casual way that is being told. It is worth mentioning the end of the manga that has the message that a murderer is like a disease or a virus, one dies and another is born, a good ending in my opinion with good metaphor and message.

Art is great, it works and matches perfectly with the plot and tone of the manga, it knows how to transmit what it is looking for very well.

The characters are limited, but well used, especially in such a small amount of chapters. There is God's Child and the children (as well as some other characters that last one chapter, but they are helpful to the development of the story), they help a lot in the plot and are important to the ending of the story, so I think they are good characters.

In conclusion, it is a very raw and cold manga in its approach, with a work of art very different from the standard, good protagonist and genuinely macabre and scary.