Kami no Shizuku

Shizuku Kanzaki is the only son of world-renowned wine critic Yutaka Kanzaki. From a young age, Shizuku has been subjected to strange education from his father all for the sake of wine. From learning to gracefully decant a drink to intently remembering the smell of leather belts and pencils, the training causes him to grow resentful of everything related to wine. Discontent with his father, he leaves home to become an average sales representative for a beer company, refusing to ever touch wine again.

When his father suddenly passes away, Shizuku finds himself being dragged back into the world he hates so much. As part of his father's will, the one who will inherit his prized wine collection and estate will be the person who can correctly identify the "12 Apostles" of wines as well as the legendary "Drops of God." In order to inherit the assets, Shizuku has one year to complete the task, but he finds the proposition ridiculous when he is the only living relative of Yutaka.

What Yutaka failed to tell his son before his death was that he had adopted Issei Tomine into the family a week prior to his passing. Issei is a famous veteran wine critic competing against Shizuku to claim the estate for himself. With no formal training in wine tasting, Shizuku stands no chance against "The Prince of Wine" and is at risk of losing everything in this competition. Will he be able to correctly identify the elusive "Drops of God" before he runs out of time?

Kami no Shizuku is known to have boosted wine sales and popularized certain brands in the regions where it was published. La Revue du vin de France, the most prestigious wine magazine in France, awarded the series with the Special Award of the Year in 2010. The manga was featured in the New York Times' Best Selling List of Manga in 2011.

The series was published in English as The Drops of God by Vertical Inc., who released the first eight volumes in 2-in-1 omnibuses from October 18, 2011, to June 19, 2012. Vertical released a fifth and final volume, subtitled New World, on September 25, 2012. By the authors' request, the omnibus contained the 22nd and 23rd volumes of the series. It was later published digitally in regular volume format from October 14, 2019, to May 18, 2021.

The manga was adapted into a live-action TV show under the same name. Produced by Nippon TV, it was broadcast from January 13, 2009, to March 10, 2009. Another live-action TV series was released on Apple TV+ in 2023.