Ore to Akuma no Blues
Me and the Devil Blues: The Unreal Life of Robert Johnson

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The mangaka/author is definitely knowledgeable when it comes to Robert Johnson and the myths surrounding him. But this is by no means a manga biography of Johnson. Given that there is very little verifiable information on the bluesman, the book takes a lot of liberties and, in my opinion, gets a bit far-fetched at times.
The book' depictions of 30's blues clubs and the like seem relatively authentic, and compared to a lot of other manga, the book has a very 'western' feel.
The artwork is one of the book's strong points, with a lot of attention of detail. Most is gritty-looking and fleshed out ... with lots of cross-hatching and doesn't seem a bit cartoony.

Ore to Akuma no Blues is some real good shit. I went in not knowing what to expect, and my first reaction was just confusion. It’s a slow burn, especially after reading something fast-paced, but it pulls you into its world. It’s a story that is so immersive it becomes uncomfortable, and that’s what makes it brilliant. It’s a raw, unfiltered dive into 1920s America, showing how dark and messy it was, with racism around every corner.

The art is a huge part of this. It’s messy, but in a way that perfectly captures the feeling of the world. You can feel the suffocating energy of ... a crowded juke joint or the terrifying silence of a country road at night. The dialogue is another thing I really, really liked; it feels authentic, capturing the way black people spoke in the south back then. And when the horror hits, it’s immaculate, thanks to that raw art style that feels both grounded and nightmarish.

The story mixes history and folklore masterfully. The core plot follows RJ, a man who supposedly sold his soul to the devil to master the blues, but it’s the world and characters around him that truly shine. The introduction of Clyde from famous “Clyde and Bonnie” story is a stroke of genius. He’s an outstandingly written character who, sadly or not, completely outshines RJ at times. It’s all woven together so well that you almost forget the whole "deal with the devil" thing is happening, which makes the realism hit that much harder.

But the entire experience is defined by a single, tragic fact: the manga is on an indefinite hiatus, and it stops in the most brutal way imaginable. This isn't like Nana or Vagabond, which paused at points of quiet reflection. No, Ore to Akuma no Blues just stops. The last chapter, no kidding, is just the lynching and whipping of two Black guys. It cuts off right in the middle of the most important plot development. There's no conclusion, no closure, just an abrupt end.

It’s just sad that the mangaka moved on to write some degenerate comedy with more tits and ass than humor just because this manga didn't get enough recognition. This is a masterpiece left to gather dust.

Even with the crushing lack of an ending, the five volumes that exist are a must-read for anyone who loves dark, heavy, and realistic stories. It’s an outstanding work and a masterclass in tone and atmosphere. It’s an unforgettable and powerful piece of art that deserves way more recognition, even in its incomplete state.

To give a broad, spoiler free overview: This manga is about RJ, a famous African Blues musician from Depression Era America, wanting to pursue blues (for no reason), selling his soul to the devil for the skills to play the blues (again, for no reason. The fantastical elements are deliberately depicted as potentially merely mundane misunderstandings, though not really since everyone can see his bedeviled hand (I've looked up RJ's music, it's quite slow paced so I've no idea why there are historical claims he played fast enough for 2 people)), struggling with racism and being unable to safely refuse the orders of the white ... gangster thief Clyde (of the famous Bonnie & Clyde), spent on the run from racists trying to catch them. Occasional extremely repetitive images of man holding guitar to show blues is being played. That's all.

A visual medium is the worst possible choice for depicting a story about music. The mangaka should've known better. Instead that music mostly falls into incidental background for the actual plot which is mostly a horror-lite display of racism/immorality in an action/drama of very little action or substance and a whole lot of closeups of faces and filler dialogue for masturbatory edging anything actually happening as mostly nothing happens until a bunch of nobodies die and/or the plot armor pair run off in story-long chase sequences interspersed with breaks.

Very slow paced, RJ's introductory premise stretches what should be the 1st ch into 4 chs with vapid, self-indulgent, artistically boring/pointless/repetitive panels to waste everyone's time. Then continues onto ch 5 with a main character introduction through pointless flashforward to the death of a main character betrayed by RJ removing any suspense about where the entire story so far will go for the only 2 main characters (hello plot armor, and the flashforward does nothing to demonstrate artistic skill since it's just the most predictable ending based on what everyone who knows anything of Bonnie & Clyde already knows), who aside from the occasional cartoonishly evil villain are the only actual characters of any consequence/stay-time in the entire story so far.

The mood is also bizarrely all over the place from extremely pretentiously artsy, to childishly tropey slapstick (humorless) comedy (the author is very good at comedy/ecchi however there's none of that here). It is nonetheless surprisingly an accurate enough representation of the unsightly ignorant consequences of systematic racism of America at the time, especially for a modern Japanese individual's depiction, and of course the mangaka is quite skilled at drawing art.

I really don't recommend this boring manga, 3/10 (where 5/10 is average).