A dumb manga idea that will never see the light of day.
It's 20XX in Tokyo. The city's police department is at a constant war with the New Life Liberation Army, and it's claimed that the leaders of the two factions have supernatural abilities. None of this matters to Ordinary High-School Student Henry Himuro—until a little boy wearing an octopus on his head shows up and pronounces Himuro a God Candidate.
Every time the God of the world begins to die, several dozen people are marked as God Candidates and forced to play a Game that will result in one of them becoming, well, God. And Himuro, despite loathing violence, has been identified as the favored Candidate to win.
Covers a variety of genres beyond just shonen fighting, including survival horror, political maneuvering, romance, and mystery, and switches protagonists about halfway through.
This story contains examples of:
- A God Am I: The leaders of the two factions act like this, but most of the other Candidates—who weren't gifted with supernatural powers—do not.
- Anyone Can Die / Killed Off for Real: And how. As evidenced by the fact that the protagonist himself dies halfway through.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The two most powerful Candidates, to the point of receiving actual supernatural powers, are of course the leaders of the police and the New Life Liberation Army.
- Death Seeker: Quite a few Candidates, realizing there's no chance they will win, become suicidal instead.
- Fisher King: One of the primary roles of God is to ensure the maintenance of the world itself. If he/she neglects this task, the world will fall apart. Tako has made it so that this is God's only role. And when Mikomi ascends the throne, he doesn't give a shit about the world and it begins to go to hell, to put it mildly.
- Gambit Pileup: Becomes this later in the story when everybody starts spinning various gambits against one another. Mikomi is ultimately the one who emerges on top.
- God's Hands Are Tied: Literally—Tako Tomatsu keeps God securely chained.
- Gray-and-Gray Morality: At least between the police and the New Life Liberation Army. Neither is portrayed as necessarily better than the other, and in both cases they're little more than vehicles the leaders use to attain power in their quest to become God.
- The Nothing After Death: There actually is a classic fire-and-brimstone hell, but for those killed personally by God or Tako this is what awaits instead.
- Personality Powers: The police commissioner has the ability to see everything that's happening in the city, while the leader of the New Life Liberation Army can foresee the future along one specific path. This represents their respective roles as a maintainer of law and order and a revolutionary who has a firm plan for changing society.
- Physical God: God may reside in a separate realm from humans, but still has a body. And can still die.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Becoming God not only changes one's clothes to a fancy white ensemble, but also makes your hair grow waist-length.
- Power Tattoo: Every God Candidate is marked with a symbol somewhere on their body.
- Random Power Ranking: Each Candidate is assigned a ranking that reflects their current probability of victory. The leaders of the two factions occupy the top spots, but Himuro's name inches steadily upward as he continues playing the Game. And when Himuro dies in front of Mikomi, Mikomi's ranking shoots all the way from the bottom to very near the top, reflecting the fact that he has finally been given a reason to want to become God.
- There Can Be Only One: Of course, there can be only one God.
- Urban Fantasy: Technically, anyway.
- Wham Line: Mikomi delivers one when Renge and friends show up too late to stop him.
- "You see...I have already become God."
