Chainsaw Man

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EDIT: Chainsaw Man is really intense, and not for everyone. This manga features child neglect/abuse, gore, vomiting, grooming/psychological manipulation, and pedophilia. If any of that is upsetting for you, tread carefully!

This review was written after the ending of Part 1.

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I hate reviews that start off with unnecessary prose, so let's skip all that and get to the meat of things!

Chainsaw Man is a story which thrives in its unexpectedness. It's a story that takes you for twists and turns in its plot and characterization, but mostly through its simultaneous homage to and subversion of shonen tropes. It's a story that looks dumb as hell, with ... a protagonist who acts dumb as hell, with a goal that seems dumb as hell (touch some booooooooobs). But where Chainsaw Man gets you is that it anticipates your exhaustion with these tropes. It anticipates that you'll accept the meathead perverted protagonist at face value and shrug off the lack of culpability put on Makima for her actions in endangering a minor. Because all shonen protagonists are teenagers who go through terrible things and are burdened with the fate of the world on their shoulders, so who cares?

Fujimoto does. And he wants *you* to care, too. And so he deconstructs common, unquestioned tropes left and right, creates characters whose complexity extends beyond convoluted backstories, and constantly ups the ante, all without creating a story so large it self destructs.

PART 1: Don't Open the Door (Denji, the Plot, and Subverting Shonen Tropes)

At the core of Chainsaw Man is its protagonist, Denji: a destitute, impoverished teen, who struggles daily to survive a cruel and uncaring world in order to pay off his late father's insurmountable debts to the yakuza. By his side is Pochita, his pet chainsaw devil. Denji is willing to do most anything to make a pretty penny: cutting down trees, hunting devils (which is highly dangerous), even selling body parts on the black market. Denji's life is tragic, but it is not meaningless. Unlike many shonen protagonists, his life of barely surviving on a piece of bread a day with his father's impossible debt looming over his head, is not a set piece to get the plot rolling, and quickly be forgotten. Nor does his backstory encompass the entirety of his character and limit his development. Denji's difficult past deeply influences his worldview and personality, but he is still treated as a highly impressionable teenager. He is both naive about the ways of the world and intimately familiar with the worst humanity has to offer.

When Denji joins the Public Safety Devil Hunters, he doesn't have much of a higher calling. He frankly doesn't care much about killing devils to save people or anything like that (at least, not at the beginning). It's a do or die situation: after being attacked by a devil, Pochita, saves his life by giving him his chainsaw devil powers. In exchange, he asks Denji to chase his dreams. When the local Public Safety force which protects Japan from devils arrive on the scene, Denji is given an ultimatum: to die at their hands as a devil, or to sacrifice his freedom to work for them, using his unique powers to become a devil hunter. Denji accepts the latter, of course. But Denji does not hate Makima, the devil hunter who put him in this situation. Instead, he is grateful to her, because she hugged him and promised to feed him breakfast.

Denji's tragic backstory doesn't exist just to make him easier to root for. It is a *core component* of who he is in a way that is incredibly compelling, as well as being more authentic to the real-world impact of severe trauma (especially childhood trauma). His easy acceptance of the dilemma Makima presents him with is rooted in the fact that he has never really been free. He's used to being used. At least he knows Public Safety will feed him. Throughout the story, every single one of Denji's dreams -- to eat good food, to have a friend to play video games with, to touch a girl's boobs, to have sex with a girl -- is a painful reminder of his deprived childhood. Denji is blunt, and Denji is simple. The only things he wants are safety, a home, and a person who cares about him.

In an incredibly refreshing twist, Denji's history of abject poverty and his role as a devil hunter is not passed off as 'normal,' and is instead actively questioned and challenged. The most overt example of this takes place halfway through the first part, when Denji makes a friend his age who truly sees him for who he is. Together, the two of them sneak into a high school to goof around and hang out. But, partway through the evening, Denji's new friend says this:

"At 16, you're still just a kid, you know? It's when most kids are studying to get into college, throwing themselves into a club or a sport, hanging out with friends.... But *you're* killing devils, almost getting killed yourself... Is this Public Safety place you're with right now really a good place?"
"Yeah, they're super great! I get three meals a day and I get to sleep in a bed."
"That's, like, the *bare minimum* standard of living in Japan... It's *not* something amazing."

Ah! How refreshing!! Another character acknowledging that Denji's situation is irrevocably fucked, and *specifically* because of his age!!! Of course, hurt/comfort tropes have their place in shonen. But I've never seen a conversation like this, where a character tells the protagonist that not just one thing that happened is sad or fucked up -- that their whole situation sucks, actually, and why isn't anyone doing anything about it? (I love Fullmetal Alchemist dearly. I spent the entire manga and both anime waiting for ONE (1) person to acknowledge that being a child soldier at age 12 is Kinda Bad instead of impressive.) There are no other teenage devil hunters who are thrown into combat because they are "talented" or "smart" or whatever. It just isn't done. Denji is a special case, because he is a devil hybrid, and is explicitly treated as inhuman by most of the cast. In a genre populated by underage protagonists tackling world-destroying threats, it's very refreshing to see this questioned.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll refrain from going further into Denji's character and development. But just know that Denji is not a static protagonist, and his ridiculous quest in the first dozen or so chapters to touch a girl's boobs is not his defining trait. Generally speaking, I hate perverted protagonists! I think they're annoying as hell. But Denji isn't a pervert. He's a traumatized kid looking for connection with someone, anyone. And that, to me, is compelling.

PART 2: Connections and Supporting Characters

The supporting cast in Chainsaw Man is great, because they are all batshit crazy.

One character acknowledges that you have to have a few screws loose to survive as a devil hunter. These characters -- many of whom aren't human -- act entirely outside the boundaries of normal behavior to survive as devil hunters. And yet they're all still realistic and compelling, with their own goals, relationships, personalities, and traits. There's a sort of impulsivity about their actions, which only adds to the sense that these are characters who are just trying to survive a chaotic and cruel world. In so doing, Fujimoto enhances the complexity of his characterization, while also lending to the frantic pacing of the plot.

Chainsaw Man features a *lot* of character death. Will your favorite survive to the end? Chances are, probably not! But despite that, somehow Fujimoto avoids exhausting readers with deaths. You know you shouldn't care, because there's no guarantee they'll live to the next chapter, but you still do. Some deaths are foreshadowed for entire chapters, while others happen entirely out of the blue. But regardless, each serves a purpose, and each is genuinely upsetting.

Beyond that, each character develops and progresses naturally, where even your least favorites start to grow on you. (I hated Kobeni when I started reading Chainsaw Man. Now I would die for her.) They don't all progress in a positive way, but they are constantly changing.

A true standout character in my eyes is Power. She's a fiend -- a devil possessing a human corpse -- who is a fellow devil hunter, and becomes one of Denji's closest friends. She's also a total bastard.

Power is very unique in my eyes, because, yes, she's really cute and funny, but she's also an absolute moron. That's not very common in anime and manga, for female characters to just be stupid! Usually, a dumb female character is a cutesy airhead whose obliviousness is played for laughs and/or ecchi scenes. But Power is just as much of a jerk as Denji, if not more. They get up to antics together, prank their housemate Aki, riff off each other, and generally have an incredibly strong dynamic. As a female anime fan, it's really, really refreshing to see a female character whose gender doesn't limit her personality traits to only 'cutesy' feminine stuff! It's also really refreshing to see a 100% platonic dynamic between her and Denji. (Power is also a very compelling character herself, which I won't get into because Spoilers.)

Chainsaw Man doesn't shy away from depicting unhealthy relationships, either. The relationship between Denji and Makima is one of the most crucial and compelling things about the manga, and it is laden with emotional manipulation and abuse tactics. Depicting grooming is difficult enough, and doubly so when the groomer is a beautiful woman. However, Fujimoto manages to capture the duality of such a relationship: both the kindness which draws a victim into an abusive relationship, and the cruelty which keeps them there. Again, in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll stop here. But I will say that reducing Denji to a simp does a great disservice to both characters, and also perpetuates the toxic idea that men can't be victims.

I really wish I could ramble about all the characters in Chainsaw Man, because I love literally all of them (except Santa Claus and Makima. All my homies hate Santa Claus and Makima). But much of what makes them amazing can't be summed up in brief personality descriptions, and instead has to be read through their relationships with each other. For all the brashness and bluntness of the manga, there is a beautiful subtlety to the character development, which is best experienced, rather than told.

PART 3: Art

The art of Chainsaw Man seems to be a point of contention for many! Personally, I've always liked it. I find that Fujimoto's sketchy style lends to the feeling of urgency and dread as you're waiting for the next Big Thing to happen. Also, his expressions and grasp of anatomy is godlike. But the art *is* very sketchy, and sometimes his characters fall a bit out of proportion (especially on profile views). Where Fujimoto's art truly shines is in Chainsaw Man's many gory fight scenes and eye-grabbing panels. In general, Fujimoto's panel construction is incredible. You can definitely see that he's a huge film fan, with how he uses all sorts of different angles and layouts in an attempt to emulate famous cinematography. Chainsaw Man is not a story that happens to be a manga -- it takes advantage of the medium to lay itself out as a storyboard, and lets the reader fill in the gaps. (God, it's going to look so good animated. Hype.)

Although Chainsaw Man loves blood and guts, it's not super intense / detailed -- squeamish folks may want to tread carefully, but most people will probably be fine. The gore isn't gross, but it is fun and flashy. Character design-wise, Fujimoto really shines with designing the various devils, fiends, and half-devil hybrids, as well as making all the members of Public Safety stand out despite their simple designs.

Overall, you can tell that Fujimoto believes in the ten-second principle -- most people spend only ten seconds looking at a panel before moving on. But his artistic chops can't be denied, especially when you're looking at the full-page or spread panels.

PART 4: In Summary

To finish this off, I want to say that Chainsaw Man is good as hell. It's a smart manga that is gory, painful, frequently hilarious, and will make you feel despair like you've never felt before. But beyond the blood, guts, gore, and sex, Chainsaw Man is at its core a story about trauma, chasing your dreams, personal growth, and the connections you make with other people (for better or for worse). I wouldn't go so far as to call it a deconstruction, but if you're a shonen fan who's become a bit disillusioned with the genre, Chainsaw Man is a breath of fresh air. (Especially since as of December 14, 2020, when this review is being posted, the announcement for an anime AND a "part two" of the manga just dropped a few days ago. And part 2... oh boy howdy does it look good!)

While the pacing is quite fast, I think it suits the tone of the story quite well; after all, this isn't exactly a forgiving world, and the characters themselves are rarely given any downtime. The rapid pacing doesn't mean that Fujimoto overlooks his characters for the sake of keeping the plot moving; on the contrary, it allows him to write more subtle, easily overlooked moments of setup and characterization, keeping up the hype while also ensuring that future developments aren't cheap or jarring. It adds a lot of reread value, which I find most manga to be lacking in. Once you know how things end, looking back to analyze in depth how things got to that point in the first place is really interesting!

I want to be clear: this story *hurts*. It's immensely tragic. One chapter was so sad and stressful that another mangaka had to take a week-long mental health break. I was basically comatose for an entire day after binge reading it, and I'm still unpacking all that I read. But, if you've got the time and energy to devote to it, Chainsaw Man is an incredibly unique experience that won't let you down.

While rating this I've pulled out my shounen wow-those-fights-are-so-cool heart in order to review this as fair as possible for the mangaka. Still couldn't give this a high mark.

Story:
The story and worldbuilding are so incredibly weak. The mangaka pushes you straight into action and from that point on you're in a rollercoaster that's only going hard downwards with no rest, meaning that there's no time to rest and therefore no time to enjoy the hype (no light without darkness yknow).

Towards the end, the story underwent an acceleration. The story that didn't even have anything to offer, underwent a goddamn acceleration. I couldn't even believe ... the plot twist. I thought that there must've been something behind it, but guess, what, that was it. I wouldn't have know that I finished the manga today if I didn't add it on MAL.
Thinking about it now, maybe the manga was already going at the speed of light from ch 1.

At a certain point, the only bait was the question of who the protagonist is going to bang.


Art:
The fights aren't even that cool either. They're just normal. Sure, if this is your first action-gore and you discovered your action-gore kink with it, then I understand. But there are loads of other manga's out there with much better and more original fights and gore. Chainsaw man has nothing special to offer. The only things worthy of mentioning are the details and the originality to make monsters out of objects (though personally, that was really childish, but that's really subjective).


Characters:
The simpleness of the protagonist in the beginning should be praised. It fits perfectly in a feel-good/cool-fight shounen. But then it got too simple. Until the end, we had almost no insight into the protagonist's past. Not that that should be necessary, but there was also no character development. Nobody had character development.

Plot
Where to start? It's nonsensical.
Pretty much all of it boils down to one thing: The author wanted to progress through the story at Mach speed. Never did he take his time to write compelling plot points or at least some interesting dialogue. Everything about this manga feels like mindless and soulless action fodder. It is just so irritating because the concept behind Chainsaw Man had a lot of potential to be great.
At its core, CSM is an action manga, but the fights are weak. They are over way too fast, every single one of them boiled down to having a one-shot kill conclusion. That is ... not a bad thing per se, look at One Punch Man for example, but CSM handled it poorly. At least the fights are accompanied by some decently drawn panels from time to time.
I just wish the action would feel more impactful and engaging, but it follows the same formula every single time. Humans are mostly red shirts and the whole power dynamic between devils is convoluted. But who cares, because Denji only has to rev up his chainsaw and the mind-numbing slaughter can commence.
Furthermore, the manga is stuffed with suggestive scenes and fetish moments because you need at least one thing to get the blood pumping for all the horny teens. At some point, it is just plain annoying, mainly the whole barking shtick.
At least it was a very fast read.

Characters
The characters are a disaster. At least in my opinion, not a single one was likeable or left a positive impression. Two characters were bearable, Kishibe and Quanxi.
My main gripe with all the characters is that they are just as shallow as a puddle. No development, no meaningful interactions and why would I care about them if they just get thrown into the meat grinder after a few chapters anyway.
Let's talk about a selected few characters in more detail.
Kobeni was a throwaway character. I think she is supposed to be cute and a bit hopeless, maybe even a bit of a comedic relief. For me, she just appeared to be irritating and laughable, especially in the hotel arc.
Now, Denji, the star of the whole ordeal. Well, he is terribly written. His main motivation was always inspired by sex, that's it. To be fair, Denji is a hormone-driven teenager, which is also probably the target audience. Thankfully, he realized at one point that sex alone might not be the greatest goal ever.
As the main character, he just had nothing going on for him that would make me like or even just tolerate him. No personality whatsoever, though, at least the author tried to introduce more character depth for Denji in the last few chapters with the help of Power but that just felt rushed and forced.
Talking about Power, what's the point of her character? What did she bring to the table besides acting as a wish fulfiller for Denji? She got my interest at first because she showed a bit more depth but that was scrapped real fast and she turned into another useless side character.
Last but not least, Makima. I already mentioned the whole barking shtick but it was just so tiresome. Her seeing Denji as nothing more than a dog got tiring real quick. Besides that, I don't have any strong feelings or opinions about her. I mainly was confused. I don't understand her motivation, it makes no sense to me, and her power level was way too high compared to everyone else. Her ruthlessness was the one trait that kept her somewhat interesting.

Art
Most of the art is below average. Nothing stood out in a major way and it sometimes felt like flipping through a sketchbook. I don't need perfect and polished art on every page but give it at least some sort of uniqueness or "spice". Some fighting panels were drawn with a solid style, but those were used only once every blue moon.
Although, I actually give credit to the author for the devil designs. Most of them were pretty solid and didn't get repetitive.

Overall opinion
I can't mention anything positive about this manga, therefore I'll keep this part short. I don't get the massive hype around CSM. It's not the worst manga I've ever read, but it disappoints in so many areas. The writing is subpar and the art is, for the most part, uninspired.
Still, I'll check out the anime because it is made by MAPPA. The CSM anime will probably be like a Michael Bay movie. Solid visuals while everything else is a dumpster fire.