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.

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.

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.

“From now on, until the end of your life your past is going to constantly take revenge on you.”

I’m going to preface this review with a warning: This manga has the most disturbing things that CAN does indeed happen, and more often then you think. Crimes like rape, bullying, sexual assault, and murder are all seen in this manga.

This manga is about a person named Yusuke, a high schooler who is sometimes called a devil, yet cannot remember due to amnesia. When confronted about his past by several old classmates, he finds out he was a heinous person in middle school. During their confrontations he ... learns that he has consistently victimized and brutalized his old classmates, yet has no recollection of it. During the course of the series, he is faced with the jarring task of remembering all his old memories and coming to terms with the crimes he has done.

The story consists of two acts, with the first act is with him recollecting all his memories, and horrific things he has done to his victims. This includes many interactions with his former victims, and the jaw dropping revelations and dialogue that come from it.

The second act is about of him living with the consequences of his actions, with him attempting to atone for his sins, using different methods to do so.

The reason this manga sets other redemption manga apart from the rest, are the thought-provoking themes that are set into place, and the several jarring questions the manga asks you. Are the human equivalent of ‘devils’ deserving of a second chance? How does one truly atone for one’s actions? What are the effects of nature vs nurture on a person? And does the past define you as a person?

The concept of the pursuit of atonement when dealing with horrific crimes is often viewed as one sided affair when it comes to second chances. This manga does a good job of showing the consequences one has to endure, even as far as ten years after the main characters actions.

Overall this manga had me genuinely intrigued throughout the whole session of me reading, and has a great conclusion to follow.

This would be my first review of any anime ,manga or anything on MAL and the reason i am writing a review even when i thought i would never right one, this hell of a dark,confusing,messed up series forced me to do so.(Do not even think of reading it if you are weak hearted or get's disturbed easily)
One more thing this review is only based on the 66 chapters of the series that i have read and where i see it going from here so might chante it later.

So, Story-0(absolute zero)
Well lets get one thing straight out of the way the story is not what ... you should be reading it for, but wait don't leave there is still something worth reading it here IMO.

Now, THE Question-10(absolutely crazy and messed up)
As I said above that the story is not what you should be reading it for , so the thing you will be reading it for i the question it asks ,it esssentially asked a very simple question i.e. "should everyone get a second chance", sound simple right the answer would probably be yes for some of you and no for the rest,but mark my words by the time you reach the 5th volume you would not be sure any longer saying yes would feel
just as wrong as saying no.(but this is considering the fact that you reach volume 5 without dropping it early ,this i will explain later)

Characters-Impossible to score
The characters in this particular series are immpossibe to score as they are the worst, abosulte piece of shit, messed up creatures wearing human skin you will probably ever read about, but if they were anthing but this way the question will not have the desired impact, you will through out the first 1-3 or 4 volumes will be aboslutely made to hate and be digusted by these character(including the protaganist aka the antagonist)but they exist this way so that the impact can be as severe as it is in the later parts of the series.

Art-8(it's kinda messey but in a good way)

So before i close the review i just want to say please push yourself to at least till volume 5 before dropping it as till that time its just biulding up the character and the messed carefree writing of serious topics and crimes is there to make you hate these characters and also a closing note you are not supposed to enjoy this series so no enjoyment there so, peace out.

'Back When You Called Us Devils' is a story of a person, or to some a devil, called 'Yusuke, Saitou' who has committed a lot of horrible crimes in middle school. Some of the worst types of crimes you can think of. He, however, has lost his memories. The focus of the first part of this story is on him trying to recover said memories. Along the way he encounters the people he's hurt in his past and you see how he deals with these situations.

The question 'will he revert to his 'devil'-like self?' hangs in the back of your mind when reading, adding an ... amount of tension. You also consider whether it's even worth him trying to regain his memories, will he be able to live with himself afterwards? The 'first' part of this story generally can be seen as a bit of a build-up for the 'second part' but I found it very enjoyable and well worth the read.

It's hard to describe the 'second part' of this story without spoiling it subtly so I will not. Instead, I'll mention some of the ideas that are tackled, like whether we should allow 'devils' to be forgiven, how a 'devil' can be perceived differently from person to person taking into account their own experiences with the 'devil', and how people can do horrible things or even become 'devils' themselves when armed with justification.

It's a strong story on the whole that makes you think quite a bit, has good art and includes quite a satisfying ending.

I decided to review this manga because I liked the concept and the story. And reading it made me feel certain things.

(No spoilers, I’m just writing about my thoughts).

I’m always down for a good thriller, and this one just had the right balance of darkness, unpleasantness, hope, melancholy, and psychological rot. I might have liked it slightly more than necessary.
It ponders philosophical questions and explores the consequences of our actions.

The story is about a guy named Yuusuke, it starts with him in high school, he’s initially introduced as a typical teenager who’s friendly and outgoing, living a normal life, except for one thing; ... he doesn’t remember his past at all. The story turns around when he gets confronted by someone from his past, who claims they’ve been hurt by him and that he’s a devil in human flesh.

The story is composed of two parts and an epilogue. I got rapidly invested in the first part which is basically a warm-up for the second act.

First I want to start by saying this is dark stuff. It contains depictions of sexual assault (involving minors), bullying, blackmail, physical violence, and torture. It’s very disturbing.
The ongoing theme is redemption and second chances. It shows us that morality is a complex concept and examines what or who defines “right” & “wrong”. (In my case, I believe it’s society who gets to decide that most of the time).

It also raises various questions about what makes up a person. Is it their appearance, actions, environment, experiences, or is it all of those? What if a person were to lose all memory of who they were and became an empty shell of all their past self? Would you still hold them accountable for their previous crimes and misdeeds? And on what basis would you condemn them if they were genuinely changed?

And most importantly, what counts as punishment, or rather punishment ENOUGH.
How would you exactly go on about getting even with someone (if you had the chance). The answer is that it’s different for everybody. Each person has their way of dealing with trauma.

The subject is complicated but the author does a great job of portraying the turbulent mental state and the struggle that the characters go through. The whole victim/perpetrator dynamic was very emotionally charged. I couldn’t get enough of their interactions because I was genuinely invested. There were so many layers to be uncovered.

The art is unique. It’s generally soft yet it can have a cutting edge when needed.
I especially loved the moments it changed from the usual art style to a somewhat simpler whole-page drawing when it came to special moments. It strangely intensified the atmosphere. I liked the smooth transitions and alluded symbolisms.

So if you are into psychological thrillers, then I suggest you try this one too. It also reminded me a bit of Hone ga Kusaru made.



(Minor spoilers)

Cats save lives. It’s a fact.

Now something I didn’t like.. I know the world is vast and middle schoolers can be mean. It isn’t entirely unplausible, but it still bothered me. Age 13-14 is a little too young for this level of evil. Or maybe not? Even babies are innocently cruel sometimes.

Regarding that ending, I thought it was befitting, to say the least. But it also left me feeling hollow.

It’s also true that sometimes the worst punishment for a criminal is to keep living on under the burden of their guilt. (If they have a conscience that is).