
a review by GusD
4 years ago·May 25, 2021

a review by GusD
4 years ago·May 25, 2021
Chainsaw-man, a shounen with one of the coolest concepts for a main character's ability, combined with a premise extremely promising and awesome, to only be executed extremely poorly on all fronts. Chainsaw-man has a solid start and is pretty well written; until it isn't. Starting off with the first 30~ chapters it's a good story with an interesting set of characters, with usually decent art and an interesting premise. It's after this the manga has this weird, change, where enemies start getting thrown in to the story randomly and scenes and panels start getting confusing. Not a single villain or antagonist in CSM has a backstory or even anything to their character. Every time someone is introduced, they are just there suddenly, until they get killed, making almost none of the characters have any feel or depth to them. There are a few characters that I did start taking a like to; Aki Hayakawa, and Power. These two characters were beginning to be the only ones I cared about while reading the manga, as every other character just did not have any depth to them. I began to like Aki once we started to see a little of his backstory, although it be literally a few panels, there was something for him and I began to like his personality and dedication. Aki's death was mildly sad and executed decently, the snowball fight analogy being a bit over the top but it was an alright sudden way for him to go. Now while I'm reading there is only one character which I do feel an attraction to, that being Power. Power dies. But not in a good or even remotely decent way such as Aki, she gets killed by the main antagonist suddenly, with little lead up or sense making of any kind, and by the main antagonist which still has nothing to her character other than being a sadistic psychopath. She just dies, and the manga remains with zero characters I have any remote characteristic attraction to. If Makima actually had something to her character other than two tropes maybe it would've been different. I hear people praise Makima as one of best villains in manga, and have even heard her compared to Griffith. Comparing her to Griffith is an absolute joke though. The plot twist of Makima being the actual villain doesn't change much; she isn't someone we have spent time with and began to like and admire as such a charismatic and original character, she's barely in the story other than being in her office, flirting with Denji, and then becoming the ultimate super-villain. The point of her character as a villain is she is a psycho-path who has spent the entire manga manipulating and building up Denji to only tear him down, but other than that she is completely one dimensional and devoid of any backstory, history, complex personality, likeability, anything. She is just there to serve as a basic plot twist device and almost nothing more. Denji' as a character annoys me, including his motivation being purely driven lust and almost no more, he doesn't feel real or able to make me emotionally attached, unlike Aki. Denji doesn't feel anywhere near emotionally driven enough in my opinion, he's too surreal and simultaneously shallow to be a good character.
The last 20~ chapters of chainsaw man are just an absolute mess, with Denji transforming into the pure "Chainsaw Man" and going in to hell and back within a few panels, which doesn't make any fucking sense. The writing just collapses completely in the final chapters, with Makima pulling out Denji and his dog's combined fiend heart, and then Denji getting up in the next fucking panel and killing her with a random chainsaw on the ground. And then he fucking eats her, in the same fucking chapter. The manga ends in a literal fucking vore fetish of the protagonist eating his former crush. I'm done man I can't do this anymore.
156.5 out of 236 users liked this review