INTRODUCTION

‘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 we turn to Makima.

MAKIMA

Makima is more interesting than most characters, and yet her existence defeats a majority of the manga's purpose (which I understand was the intention, but it leaves a negative impression on anything up to her reveal). The grand goal that is outlined for Denji and his crew is to hunt down the ‘Gun Devil’, who happens to be the most powerful demon, as demons grow in power as more people fear them. This is believed to be the antagonist, but off camera he is defeated, split into multiple parts and spread across the world, removing the main threat of the manga. When he shows up again, Makima defeats him in his split-up weaker-form, and then out of his defeat comes the ‘Gun Fiend’, a combination of the Gun Devil and ‘Aki’, who now hunts down Denji, ultimately leading to Denji killing Aki. Not only do I think this is lazy writing, I think it’s bizarre, even for a series called “Chainsaw Man”, taking out both the excitement of the Gun Devil and the interesting character that is Aki. Now for the grand plot twist on the century! Makima is the antagonist! While not a terrible concept, it also defeats Denji’s goal, as his motivation was having a sexual relationship with her, in which throughout the series he literally barks like a dog in order to please her, submitting himself fully and purposefully allowing “Power’s” death to happen. Makima’s plans was to build Denji up and then tear him down by taking away all his friends that she gave him, referring to Aki and Power as siblings in their role in her plan (which is why Aki shows up as the Gun Fiend), making him feel inferior enough for her to manipulate him with her devil power… The build up to this plan is honestly not as smart as people think it is, because realistically all she needed to do was set up a comfortable living for him and then kill people off, and or manipulate them, which with her power is easy; it’s not some master plan, this isn’t ‘Johan’ (manga: Monster) or ‘Light Yagami’ (manga: Death Note) levels of intelligence and manipulation, nor is it some master work from the mangaka.

DEPTH/WEIGHT

So now the primary motivation is to take Makima down, as she kills his friends… This leaves most of the series devoid of any true motivation from anyone besides Makima and Aki. Demons have no motivation as they are intrinsically evil and selfish, making a lot of what happens in the manga 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?

So as illustrated, Denji has no drive for around 80 chapters, and on top of this, no emotional connection to what’s going on. His purpose lasts until chapter 97, from which it starts a new series of arcs for Chainsaw Man. Personally I find that the manga transforms from generic to interesting way too late, and the pay off isn’t even enough for me to really say I liked Chainsaw Man all that much.

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. 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 manga like ‘Attack on Titan’ transcend their original plans, but in its current state Chainsaw Man isn’t leaving any impressions.