[SPOILER REVIEW] [WARNING: LONG REVIEW] A review from a fantastic season for anime, I have yet to review others, but I am getting to that as soon as I get over my procrastination. So anyway, as expected, let's continue for todays review of Chainsaw Man. Be sure to know that there will be spoilers ahead and soon there will be a non-spoiler review as well, let's get on with it.

Chainsaw Man is about a young homeless boy named Denji struggling with daily life after his father and mother died and has to repay debt by killing these monsters named Devils with his devil companion Pochita. After an altercation with his boss that gave him the debt as a young child, Denji was eventually betrayed and killed. This caused his companion, Pochita, to fuse with Denji to save his life in exchange for Denji to show Pochita what his dreams will be like. Denji then turned into the anti-hero part human part devil known as Chainsaw Man. Things go rather uphill and downhill from there.

Animation: There was a controversy about this when Chainsaw Mans first episode debut happened, but not only that, but leaks from Twitter happened as well before the episode even aired, which then caused people to criticize how jarring the 3D animation part looks and created some hate among the fandom before it even aired. Behold how much the Twitter mob was proven wrong once again when the show came out. I will say that the 3D animation is great! Not amazing though, but the hate was above and beyond to an extreme level. The 3D animation looks great for the majority of the show and sometimes people can't tell if it's 2D or 3D, but there are some slightly off points of when the 3D shows itself but it is not common, the most of you'll see from it is surprisingly episode 1. Yes, the episode where people first watched to get a wide view of Chainsaw Man. Not to say it was bad, but compared to the rest of the season, the 3D animation in episode 1 is mediocre, but shall not worry as it gets astronomically better after episode 1. The only parts where I saw the 3D being off a bit was Denji talking and slicing zombies after he defeated the Zombie Devil and when Katana Man got mutilated by Curse Devil. But besides that, there were no other issues regarding the 3D animation. Now going on ahead to 2D animation, it is phenomenal. Probably the greatest anime has looked, it is like an actual movie but instead it is a 12 episode adaption with more coming soon. The expressive movements and the vibrant, yet slightly realistic colors and animation is what does it for me. Every scene with characters doing any movement has passion and soul put into it. Every scene, every movement whether it be walking, running, eating, sleeping, hell even just standing up has so much amazing animation work put into it, I cannot praise it enough. Whats best is when 2D and 3D collide creating some of the most hype fight scenes I have seen in quite a long time. What gets me the most is the fast pace and the camera movements following along the characters when fighting. Most anime have a lot of dialogue in between fight scenes which I am not a big fan of in my opinion, but Chainsaw Man rarely ever does, not talking just fighting and I find that great on my part. Even setting my bias aside, the animation would still be amazing with the fight scenes with the cliche of characters talking mid fight, but it hasn't happened a lot, another example of this is Jujutsu Kaisen, made by the same studio. Animation 9.5/10

Story: Now many debated on this subject, saying if Chainsaw Man has the greatest story of all time and I say, no. Not saying the story is bad, but saying it's the greatest of all time is a huge stretch, but it is definitely a great one. As it is only season 1, I expect this to be more of a prologue than anything and while it may not be true, it still has me intrigued. I am quite aware that things will be even crazier in the inevitable season 2, but for now we only critique these 12 episodes sadly. The story has quite a bit of arcs that last 2-3 episodes, but with the clear main plot and story being Denjis journey. Denji who was once a poor boy who was malnourished, covered in disease, and longed for human interaction and touch suddenly became a member of society when he met a woman named Makima, who promised to take plenty care of him as long as he is part of her team. Denji then struggles to contribute to society after Makima took him under her organization known as The Public Safety Unit. As the story goes along, we see him interacting with other people than Pochita or his boss, which lead to some mistreatment. Along the way, he made friends, enemies, and "lovers". But there is another important aspect and that is the secondary main plot point being the Gun Devil. After slaughtering 2 million people one day, The Public Safety Unit is frantically trying to solve the case of the Gun Devil, being possibly the most dangerous devil of them all. Makima recruits Denji and his co-workers Power and Aki to solve the case, but it is also along with other known characters with Aki's partner Himeno and two new recruits Kobeni and Arai. The Public Safety Unit uses all its power to find and defeat the Gun Devil. These two big plot points intertwine into a big storyline, which some may say it is a cliche or generic shonen story. Well, I see something bigger going on in the horizon from this 12 episode anime just by speculation of where it is going, I am going to stick around and watch where the story goes. Story 8/10

Characters: Quite possibly the second best thing about Chainsaw Man is its characters. Many characters of Chainsaw Man are three dimensional and has sides to every one of them including the good, the bad, and the ugly. All of them have struggles, stories, arcs, and personalities that make you want to see more of them as soon as they appear on screen. Denji is the most fun characters I have seen in anime in a long time. Many characters in Chainsaw Man reverses the same cliche anime tropes that make characters feel like cardboard wood AHEM Tanjiro AHEM AHEM Midoriya AHEM. Denji is a low mannered, uneducated, and confused goofball that I can't help but laugh and enjoy his shenanigans. Denji isn't very innocent though as he has no problems killing civilians that are in the way (the guy in the car when he threw him at Bat Devil), has a rather harsh or careless attitude around other people, thinks about sex and titties every chance he gets. But what gets Denji to be a sympathetic character is he doesn't know how to live in society and how to interact with other people due to isolation and being poor for most of his life. Denji questions his moral values at some point, he tries to understand emotions and why or how people do things. Denji questions relationships and how to properly deal with them as he doesn't feel the same kind of love towards other characters such as him feeling underwhelmed when he touched Powers boobs for the first time because he doesn't feel love in a romantic way. Makima uses Denji for her own to do her bidding. She constantly manipulates Denji by seducing him and promising him sexual things like sex, touching boobs, or kissing, but will only let him if he does what she wants. Denji being vulnerable, naïve, and literally a adolescent 16 year old boy and what he thinks on a daily basis is what intrigues me about him as a character. Denji gets mistreated a lot in the show and it can be quite disturbing or infuriating at times. This brings me to another character, Power. Power is what the characters call a Fiend, a fiend is when a devil and human fuse, but has more devil characteristics than a human. Power is Denjis partner in the organization and both go devil hunting or other adventures together. Power is rather a violent, hyper fiend that likes to mess around with Denji. She is selfish, arrogant, prideful, and an asshole towards most people including Denji at times. While she does have these characteristics, she also can be a fun, ecstatic, and funny to be around. Although, she doesn't have human emotion, she also has another side to her surprisingly. Although she is racist towards humans and devils (a funny joke told by the author), she finds comfort and love in animals. This is evident to her pet Meowy, Power put her life on the line and joined with humans just so she can rescue her cat from the Bat Devil. This can indicate that Power can develop human emotion, but she has to be very attached to the person, animal, or thing. This can be interesting for character development. Another thing is Denji and Powers dynamic as a team. While Power showed disinterest in him, blames him on her wrongdoings, and sacrificed him off to Bat Devil to get killed, she also developed some sort of feelings towards him. As the two characters are on screen more, they are showed to be more platonic with each other and almost have a sibling relationship, which is weird because Denji touched Powers boobs at some point, but it was during when Power was still disinterested in him. Power has quite possibly have the most character development potential out of all the characters. Now to get the whole trio, we have Aki. Aki is a character who is serious, hard working, and a person who never gives up, literally. He has sheer fucking will the entire series. Although, he looks and sounds quite boring, but like any character, he has other sides to him. While Aki may seem to be mature and well grounded, he is also very innocent, immature at points, and is more emotional than any character even if he seems stone faced. Some may say, including myself, that Aki is adorable as he at some point defended Himeno when she was slapped by a civilian who's loved one died by a devil and he goes back at her by sticking gum on her, he refused to smoke cigarettes (eventually does because of Himeno), Aki adjusting his looks around Makima because he has a crush on her, being a gentleman towards Makima, and secretly cries when a partner of his dies. Aki is many things but being a bad person is not one of them, in fact, I would say he is the most pure soul on the show. With a lot of psychopaths around him, he stays and adjusts just for his goals. While Denji was suffering from poverty and Power being feral and primitive when she lived in the forest, Aki had a loving family. He had a house, family, and food, but it was quickly stripped away when his whole family died from the Gun Devil in mere seconds. His whole motivation and drive is defeating the Gun Devil and doesn't care if he ruins his life doing it. He would jump in a pool full of gators if it was necessary to defeat the Gun Devil, this man doesn't care. He even contracted with 3 devils just to get one step closer to the Gun Devil. Fox Devil took away his arm skin, Curse Devil took many years off his life, and Future Devil guaranteed an amazingly tragic and fun ending for Aki when he looked into him. All this to Aki, including him being the leader of the trio with the crazy Denji and Power, but it didn't stop him from his goal at all. While Aki was an asshole to Denji at first and also physically hurt him, soon he also found a slight liking to him. Denji and Power like to make fun of him a lot, cause a mess in his place, and pulled pranks on him (at some point they put cat shit on his nose while sleeping according to the author), which made Aki more like a father than anything when they are home. Aki is shown to like them in a way, which is shown more in ED 12 when they were shopping at the supermarket.

OKAY, we got the trio, phew, that was a lot but you know what makes this list?? Makima. Makima is the main antagonist of the show and is easily cold, manipulative, and harsh at the moment you first see her. She looks rather calm and positive at first sight, but something about her demeanor, mannerisms, and the way she talks and stares into your soul is what makes her chilling. From her manipulating Denji, her making Power back off in fear (which is not a good sign because Power normally doesn't care when people get mad at her), nonchalant when civilians die, and her hinting about something bigger when it comes to her ideas. It is said by 2 characters, one telling her how much she anticipated the deaths of her comrades, which she didn't answer or when Kishibe called her a liar when she said about feeling sympathy for victims and stop devils once and for all. Makima is also a psychopath because she has little to no emotion. She smiles through 90% of the show or shows a blank expression throughout the show. Only twice she has shown to have another expression and it is when she was slightly frustrated when she had to clean up the mess from a devil that Denji and Power killed due to property damage and when she was death staring a man after he touched her. Makima is such a chilling villain, you never know when she is gonna do something heinous and psychotic. She doesn't kill people straight away, she only does when she needs to only for her to get her own goals. Her goals are still unknown.

Now, side characters included Himeno (although she has a slightly bigger role than the others), Kobeni, Arai, and Kishibe. Kobeni and Arai are minor roles, but even they have some character to them. Kishibe is a fucking chad and I'll never get over how he beat Denji and Power like nothing with the most stone faced expression ever. Now, Himeno is a sympathetic character, but has done bad stuff, but since she has a sad life before and ahead of her, her actions make sense although it isn't an excuse. She made Denji drunk and sexually assaulted him, was irresponsible with her drinking habit, and pressured Aki to smoke even if he never wanted to. Himeno is also jealous of Makima as she gets crushed on by the men Denji and Aki, Aki being Himenos love interest. But as much as she is a morally bad person, she is also a sympathetic person and cares a lot about Aki to the point where she drops her senior act at one point and asked him for help and started panicking which is out of character. Her death feels so heart stopping because she never fulfilled a great life and never achieved her goals at all. What's worse is she gave it her all, yet it didn't stop Katana Man and it felt like all of it was for nothing. The point of the character deaths is no matter how big or small of the role they get, they can die at any second of the show, they are not invincible. This was especially heartbreaking for Aki as he looked up to her all his life and once he looked over what's left of her, there was nothing but her clothes.

PHEW this part was by far the longest and by what you see, it definitely deserves a 10/10 for Characters.

Voice Acting: Denjis voice actor is told to be his first major role in the sub and it is crazy because his performance was crazy! His voice sounds like an immature teen while also sounding raspy as hell which fits his character a lot, his vocal performance goes to the max when Denji turns into Chainsaw Man with psychotic laughs, giggles, screams, and taunting towards enemies. This applies to Power's voice actor as well, although her voice actor does have some experience with her being Jolyne in Jojos Stone Ocean. Power's voice actor captured the hyper and insane personality of Power that is similar to Denjis with the careless attitude and rasp. Aki is the opposite, being the character with the most sense and discipline, his voice is calm and soothing with also a fatherly tone to him (evident by being roomates with Denji and Power), his voice actor nailed it especially the more emotional scenes. Makimas performance is no different to Aki's with a calm and soothing voice, although you can sense something else in her. Mysterious and sinister is what she sounds like beneath all that calmness. Her voice actor captured a sense of being unsettled by her because of her calm voice, the difference is that her calm and soothing voice never changed a decibel, her voice stays the same throughout the show. When Makima is being threatened you can hear the tone of her voice being the same, but it shows the difference when she is saying things like "Everyone's wives, children, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, all of them, their eyes" when she looked at the bag she gave the Yakuza member, it is chilling. Her actions and words say otherwise with her calm demeanor. Everyone did amazing vocal performances in the show with Kishibe getting Jujutsu Kaisens, Nanamis voice actor (hot as hell) and I'll never forget the whimps, cries, and screams of Kobeni, seriously I think her voice actor strained her voice after that performance. Sub 10/10.

Now here comes the controversy....DUB. Yes, I have watched both dub and sub and I am here to say that Chainsaw Mans dub is...not bad at all. Quite the contrary, the voice cast is actually pretty good although here are some few hiccups. While Aki had a higher calm voice, Aki has a very low voice in the dub which sometimes can seem too try hard with the low voice. It grew on me after an episode or two though. Denji's voice actor is also a little lower and sounds generic with dub actors, but his delivery on jokes is spot on. His vocal performance is hilarious when he is either horny or is goofing around, he is by far the funniest I have heard besides Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Powers can be a little cringe to people who haven't heard dub much but her performance is great as well, she kept the rasp and drove it to 100. I also like that Powers voice in dub has medieval vocabulary shown which can be funny, by far my favorite quote from the dub is; Kishibe: "how did you feel when your comrades died?" Denji: "It's whatever" Power: "I said OH they're all dead now", her delivery of that line was everything. Everyone else did a good job, with only their voices a bit lower. To my surprise even Kobenis dub delivered well too. With only a few hiccups here and there it was a good dub, better than most. Dub 9/10

Soundtrack: Many know that Chainsaw Man has not 1, but 12 different ending songs!! Chainsaw Man has a wide variety of music and songs that it is just too hard to choose. Although I expected a more death metal approach with the music, I was pleasantly surprised with the diverse songs. Some sounded like rock, some pop, some emotional and slow, some lofi sounding, and some cute. It was so good and you know what's the best part?! Most of the music and songs absolutely SLAP. Some were obviously lower than other but almost all of them were so damn good!! The intro song also goes FUCKING HARD! My favorites were ending 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, and 11 with the rest being slightly lower but still a good time. The background music and beats go hard too, a lot of them being ambiance sounding. When a scene is bleak and depressing, the music will be the most depressing I have heard with the deafening sound that makes your body chill up. By far it was the part where Makima got shot in the train which transitioned to a cursed lullaby sounding music when the other characters are being silently killed without notice. You already know the answer to this question and that is, Soundtrack 10/10

Art Style: The art style of Chainsaw Man is similar to Jujutsu Kaisen with realistic movement but insane character design. While everyone has a realistic hair color, Makima has pink hair which shows her distance from the crew. The eyes of Power and Makima are unique and beautiful. The Chainsaw Man, all the Devils, and Katana Man look insane and I absolutely love it. Although one small thing, I expected the show to be a bit more colorful to be honest, the show looks rather more cinematic and realistic than the manga. The manga covers are so bright and colorful which then I expected the show to be more creatively colored like Mob Psycho or something like Ending 3's art and color. It is not horrible per se, but that was what I expected, what they chose with is still great and I have no bad feelings about it whatsoever. Art Style 9/10

Well it seems you have reached the end. I apologize for making this a whole damn book, but I wanted to pour out all my thoughts about this show (you can clearly tell I like it). I won't be surprised if you didn't read the whole thing, but that's a-ok by me. By far my most longest review and I hope you stick around for more coming these days for Fall Anime! Till then, see you on the next review.

Chainsaw Man Rating: 9/10