Kimi ga Bokura wo Akuma to Yonda Koro
Back When You Called Us Devils

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Okay, this manga is very special. It starts off with just showing you endless amounts of stuff that you don't want to see, rape, extortion, torturing, and the story revolves around all this, and the people affected by it. But not in a good "we've been through this but can work it out together" way, the main character has lost all his memories and we're forced to relive all the bad shit he's done as formerly mentioned, as he regains his memories, and has to face the consequences.

If you're interested at this point then sure, go for it, but I wouldn't call this part of ... the manga good, where the manga gets good is when the 2nd arc starts, and it turns into a whole other manga, and you realize the first arc was just backstory or setup for this arc. And the 2nd arc is REALLY good, it's worth all the pain of going through unpleasant stuff in the first arc so you can read one of the best thrillers out there.

With this said I will mainly score the manga on the 2nd arc.

Story: 9
The events and twists are absolute top notch and will leave you guessing and hoping for the best or worst for characters. Which for me is what makes a thriller great.

Art: 8
The author has a very distinct and unique art style, and makes good use of it. Though obviously this is personal preference, if you don't like rough art styles maybe you won't like it as much as me.

Character: 10
Definitely the strongest point of the manga, tied in with the story, the characters are all deep, and have their individual goals and motivations. With reoccurring characters worth caring about there's not much else to want from them.
But beware, most of the characters are not "good" people. But that doesn't stop them from being very well written.

Enjoyment: 8
Sadly the first part of the manga brings down the overall enjoyment as I generally just felt bad about reading all the horrible things that took place. But the 2nd arc just completely carries the enjoyment of the manga and makes it well worth your time.

Overall: 9
I've made my points on why I like it without going into spoilers as much as I can, and all I have left to say is PLEASE give it a chance if you can handle the content of the first arc, because the reward for doing so is so great.

tl;dr: A manga that is full of terrible writing but can still be surprisingly deep at times.

This manga is about a devil of a person who ceases being a devil. Yusuke was a complete monster throughout middle school that performed a long string of vile acts just for the fun of it. However, soon upon entering high school he lost the memories of the past fifteen years of his life, and comes out a pretty normal and reasonably nice guy. But it’s not like the crimes he’s committed have gone away. As such, this is a story of him trying to find some sort of ... life he can accept living despite the evil of his past. The manga deals with a number of related themes and manages to make some profound statements about the human condition, but these are essentially just short glimmers in a sea of nonsensical writing.

The first arc which takes up the first third or so of the manga, involves him just trying to survive not having any of the memories of his past and others taking advantage of that. There’s a mystery of sorts involving his past that he’s trying to solve, but it’s mostly just him going around haphazardly until he triggers memories. It involves exploring how he acted as a devil and his relationships with his victims. Characters aren’t fleshed out very well and there’s a lot of aspects that feel really forced. It’s also not particularly well paced. It tries to make some overarching statements about how sins never go away and how one can atone for them, but it feels pretty superficial.

The second arc is pretty distinct from the first arc and takes up the majority of the rest of the manga. The core of the first half of the second arc is supposed to be somewhat of a thriller where it isn’t quite clear at all what’s going on. I feel the intent of this was essentially to make the reader question how much they trust the protagonist as that itself somewhat plays into the larger overarching themes in the work in whether someone evil can ever be truly trusted to be good. However, that doesn’t really work in context, because it becomes less a question of whether the reader trust the protagonist and more so whether the reader is willing to believe that the author would completely just drop all the progression that occurred in the first third of the manga. And from that perspective, this portion is overtly slow and not particularly interesting.

The second half of the second arc turns into somewhat of a battle of wits. It’s somewhat interesting in that the battle of wits is pretty much entirely oriented around who’s willing to trust in whom. Still, beyond that it’s pretty stupid with none of the twists or moves feeling all that intelligent or particularly well planned. This also touches on themes relating to how people with the best of intentions can cause terrible things to happen and also delves into how good people can be pushed into doing terrible things due to just small nudges here and there and thus that even devils may deserve some sympathy. However, the situations surrounding this were ridiculous to the point it doesn’t really feel like these points landed properly.

The epilogue plot wise feels incredibly forced. There’s hinting at it through random cuts to the future in the second arc so it’s not like it wasn’t planned. But despite that it still doesn’t feel cohesive at all. This part is the most direct in trying to try to convey a message to the reader regarding forgiveness and empathy that permeate through the entire work to the point that it gets pretty preachy. Still, I would say that it does a better job than the entire rest of the manga so I would say it works out well as being the conclusion to the work thematically as it’s very clear what the manga was trying to say. Still, that doesn’t change how it doesn’t really fit the flow of the manga at all and plot wise is full of massive gaping holes in logic that it’s attempts to write around don’t really do much to fix.

The art in the manga is okay. It fits the atmosphere and type of story it is reasonably well, but it’s pretty rough and it never looks particularly good or well drawn.

I binged this manga over the last week or so and I regret doing so

In this manga we have the story of a "Devil" a man that committed such heinous crimes (SA, extortion, extreme violence etc) in middle school and his life and the consequences after the fact. The manga tries to tackle the redeemability of such a person when they have lost their memories of these crimes and a story of penance with the guilt and weight of them.

The manga was interesting enough to finish reading online but after finishing it I cant say id recommend it. I feel like the story never really ... figures out where it wants to go and for the length of the story doesnt really have any redeeming pay off that its worth investing thought or time into. The psychology is very base level and the writing can be quite predictable and bad with the author often giving extremely obvious clues and repetitive storylines. I wouldnt say there was ever a "oh wow that was kinda cool" moment. The story just slogs on without any direction other that the overall plot of if the MC is worth forgiving. The ending feels extremely anti-climatic and gives you explanations and continuations to things you really dont care about.

The art is decently good and I do feel like it fits the story. The characters are okay but dont ever develop and I do feel like they were written from a extremely male perspective. There is multiple female characters that instantly fall in love with the MC even though he is a terrible person, and often times he has perpetrated crimes (especially of a sexual nature) against them. I also really didnt like the stories stance regarding the crimes and the forgiveness of them. I dont feel like the MC is ever forgivable and the way the story handles it borders on apologist BS. The story really seems to struggle with if we're supposed to like/forgive the MC or if we are supposed to be against him. Overall a depressing story with no real direction or payoff, I wouldnt recommend wasting your time with this one.