Usumaru Furuya's 2007 manga Innocents Shounen Juugigun tells the story of a group of thirteen boys who join the children's crusades of 1212. The story revolves around Etienne, a boy who becomes a prophet and receives a call to action from a vision of Jesus Christ to travel to Jerusalem. 11 boys join his "Children's Crusade", and they leave for Jerusalem. Perhaps the most prominent gothic theme in this story is religion. Religion is not portrayed as a source of comfort or salvation, but as a force of fanaticism, manipulation, and violence. There is a clear distinction between the "Pagans" and the Christians. The children set off in order to reclaim Jerusalem in the name of their Lord, yet they encounter violence at every turn and are soon corrupted to the point where religion is no longer important. The story critiques blind faith and institutional hypocrisy, exposing the corruption of the Church. The army of children takes refuge in churches and abbeys along their journey, facing manipulation and trickery, as well as kindness. Gothic fiction has long been obsessed with ruined churches and perverse holiness, and Innocents Shounen Juujigun revels in this tension. Furthermore, as the crusades are a well-known historical event that ended in tragedy, the reader knows the Children’s Crusade will end badly, yet the story doesn’t rush to that end. Rather, it lingers in the suffering, the hope which makes the fall even more devastating. Gothic fiction thrives on the idea of inevitable doom, and this story is laced with that same fatalism. 

The line between faith and delusion disappears as children are led by visions and voices they believe are divine prophecies. Gothic stories such as this often revolve around unreliable perception and emotional excess, and this story dives into psychosis masked as piety. The image of children dying with serene smiles as they have fulfilled their "duty" invokes the uncanny as something familiar (a child, a saint, a cross) becomes eerie and unfamiliar. Similarly, the hyper-detailed art dwells on the vulnerability and brutality of the human body. In Innocents Shounen Juujigun, emaciated children, brutal injuries, disease, starvation, and death are accompanied by haunting beauty and peacefulness. The Gothic has always been fascinated by the fragile and decaying body, and this manga emphasizes physical suffering as a kind of spiritual crucible.