This review was neutered, go check out my manga review for my full expanded/uncensored opinion.

INRODUCTION

‘Chainsaw Man’ is currently the most hyped manga and anime I have seen. With this hype, Chainsaw Man carries a certain weight or gravitas to it, where your expectations going into it expect a certain level of quality to be on display. Much to my disappointment, it did not even scratch the surface of my expectations.

DENJI

‘Denji’ is a different protagonist from what we see in other shounen… This is not an invalid point, but in of itself doesn’t make Denji a good character. We first see him at the bottom of the barrel of society, striving for the bare necessity of normalcy, but being kicked down every step of the way. This is interesting and a lot could have been done with this concept, but it is almost thrown out immediately - I’m surprised I’ve seen no one else comment on this. Within the first few chapters and first episode of Chainsaw Man he becomes the ‘chainsaw man’, and with this he has a power that is beyond most people in the series already. Straight after this we meet ‘Makima’, who forces him to enlist within a group of demon killers, and if he refuses he will be killed. A house and food is provided to him, and now he has reached normalcy from his perspective, having the bare minimum of what he wanted. As this happens we also remove the first threat to Denji’s life, being the crime lord he previously worked for. All of this immediate progress creates a clean slate for Denji to build upon, but also negates a lot of what made him interesting to begin with. So what becomes his motivation once he has seemingly achieved everything he wanted? Boobs… Or more specifically, sexual interaction with females. Most of the first half we see him striving towards this goal, only to realize none of his achievements sexually really meant anything, as he does it with people he has no deeper connection to, and so Denji turns to Makima.
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DEPTH/WEIGHT__

Demons have no motivation as they are intrinsically evil and selfish, making a lot of what happens in the show regarding demons feel meaningless. Denji has little care for people dying as we peer into his corrupted morality, making a lot of the deaths in the series feel meaningless, as they hold no weight… This is also shown visually as characters are killed off instantly, and to be fair, realistically. The problem for me is that as I further delve into the series I am not being offered anything that makes me care about what's going on; what am I rooting for? What characters do I care about? What is this story offering me that I haven’t seen before?

CONCLUSION/RANT

What’s driving me crazy is seeing people like ‘Joey, The Anime Man’, who has said various opinions regarding ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ and ‘Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood’, pertaining to them being “okay” and “overhyped”, and yet Chainsaw Man is for some reason treated differently… It’s not just him, it’s most people who are seemingly in love with this series, holding it up to some unholy unmeasurable standard, and yet when I watch it, I don’t think it’s that far off what ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ was, or any other hyped shounen that’s come out in recent times… That’s not to say that makes it bad, but it definitely doesn’t make it amazing, and so “above average” really fits the bill for me here. While the animation, art, music, and sound is good, I can’t help but feel like without these things the show wouldn’t have received anywhere near the hype it has… Without this level of hype I think I might have been able to sit down and just appreciate what we have, but this whole experience has left a rather sour taste in my mouth, similar to the taste I get when buying an overhyped triple-A game that happens to be generic or broken. I’m interested to see what the future holds for this series, as we’ve seen shows like ‘Attack on Titan’ transcend their original plans, but in its current state Chainsaw Man isn’t leaving any impressions.