Del Ray manga has with one swift swoop redeemed itself for me with the manga Me and the Devil Blues. Unlike most of Del Ray’s this manga works this manga was not been hyped and is no cheap two bit fluffy comedy (such as Fairy Tail). This manga has everything one should expect from a manga about the legendary blues man Robert Johnson. It lays on the fantasy, but keeps the sharp edge of the attitude of the period it is set in and is unforgiving in its accuracy of the cruelty of the late 1920’s. This unwillingness to lighten the darkly realistic racist and dangerous attitude of the time, mixed with some creepy elements of fantasy creates quiet a one of a kind tale. Of all the manga released this year this is definitely best manga I have read thus far and deserves better publicity then Del Ray has so far given it.
Everything in the manga deserves praise including the art, which helps set the tone of the manga. The heavy shading and the use of grey within shadows helps set an unnerving eerie mood throughout the manga. Backgrounds are very carefully drawn and can convey a strong sense of painful feelings such as suspense, and fear. The art style is a flexible thing and can go from expressing comedy, to scenes of faceless shadowy crowds in saloons. All of the styles are clearly given the greatest of care by the artist and allow the emotion of the story to touch you. The greatest thing perhaps about the art style is it’s ability to express suspense, many shots include close up of the character with facial features so detailed that they make the characters seem real. The art allows the story to be that much more effective on the emotions.
The story of this manga is one of the blues musician Robert Johnson, it is a tragic and suspenseful story that will grab at your emotions and attention. The story start off by introducing the sharecroppers Robert Johnson (who is nicknamed RJ) and his pregnant wife Virginia both who live in a small home on the Mississippi Delta. RJ goes nightly to a bar to hear blues, the music he loves and tries playing the guitar when the main musician is out in hopes of one day learning to play the Blues. However, both the church and his wife’s family despise the blues and believe the bar a pit of sin. RJ hears from a blues man that if he goes to the cross road at midnight and, play that the devil will appear and teach you how to play at the cost of your soul. RJ then goes to the cross roads, after being chased out of the bar by others including the local blues musician, who criticize his guitar playing after hearing him play. He hears something strange and then goes back to the bar where he faces off against local blues musicians. To everyone’s amazement he out plays them and become a local favorite. This comes at a terrible price, however when discovers suddenly that he has becomes so wrapped up with playing that he has been at the bar for six months. Virginia parents enter the bar and inform him coldly about the amount of time he has been playing and, that his wife died in childbirth along with the child. RJ ends up shocked and fill of self-loathing, he visits her grave before leaving town for good. RJ is followed by devil that take the form of another blues musician calling himself Ike. Soon he meets the famous outlaw Clyde Barrow. Clyde uses him to help with a robbery though things go wrong and later goes to help RJ who is captured by local whites. The story is thrilling, but also frightening in many places and is definitely well written.
The best element of this work is the characterization of all the characters within this manga. RJ is obsessive and eager to learn blues at first, but after he finally is a great musician is filled with both a great love and loathing for his talent. RJ eventually gains double amount of fingers on his hand after traveling with Clyde and there is a tense scene revealing a lot about him as he thinks of possible ways to escape Clyde and avoid having Clyde seeing his hand or shooting him for the botched robbery. Clyde is for most of the manga not a very likeable character, which is another very interesting feature. Clyde is a clever and greedy man bent on stealing money using any means possible to do so including cruelty. An example of this cruelty is demonstrated when the ugly plantation owner catches him well he is trying to escape after robbing the house, the owner puts a shotgun to his head threatening to blow his brains out. To escape the owner Clyde enrages owner by revealing that his young wife is having an affair with his younger more attractive nephew, this allows him to knock out the owner and escape as well as get the owner wife killed. After a tense scene at night at the camp after the escape, he doesn’t shoot RJ and remembers his lover Bonny. He also goes into town in search of RJ lying to the locals he seems much likeable a character. Despite this he is still a dangerous character and it is clear that he is looking out for himself above everyone else.
The other characters in the world that are not related to RJ are not to be trusted for the most part and very easy to loath. Many of them end up as sinister and extremely racist and perfectly willing to protect their own interests. A great example of this is Mr. McDonald the boss of the town that Clyde goes to find RJ, he is a bald blind diabetic (who hates drinking) who is led young boy named Toby. Unlike most people of this type he is not shown in a positive light, everyone in the town fears him and those who offend (he is easily offended) he ends up beating or has killed off. He plans on lynching RJ and even carries photos on the wall of a local saloon of lynching taking pride in his vile work. Everyone living in the town including the sheriff (drinks and gambles behind McDonalds back) is not much better then McDonald, not even the young boy Toby calls blacks the n word and treats lynching as celebration. This environment leads to a tense story, which constantly seems to turn up the tense and fear of the reader because the world is so dangerous.
This manga is all around well crafted all its elements give the reader what they want. The artwork is fantastic and helps the creative no nonsense story, the characterization is very intelligent and the characters in the story all feel very realistic. Perhaps it is not the most commercial of manga, but it is strange how little hype this manga has received from Del Ray who should have said more about this book. It is well worth 20 dollars it cost to pick and is one of the great manga ever written of its type. This manga isn’t for everyone because of the cruelty and racism in the book it is definitely an acquired taste, but if this manga sounds interesting you should buy it. So be you a music or Senien fan this is a most have.
