Chainsaw Man
a review by Cha0ticAc3
a review by Cha0ticAc3
So I decided to buy into the hype of the manga.
With how much hype there was, I expected more but I just ended up being disappointed with how mediocre it is.
I gave this series every chance I could. Truely. But it doesn't deserve the hype it has. It's not horrible. I has a lot there to make a good series. But, it doesn't have a stable foundation so it's below mid. Foreshadowing and a good foundation is essential to make the end delivery satisfying. And CSM didn't have that.
A lot of plot points were very out of place and random that following it was near impossible.
The selling point of this manga appeared to have been the art and plot. But when I read it, I was very disappointed.
At first, the actual plot was very steady and good and flowed very well, but then mid-way to the end everything just started to go wrong. Instead of being excited about the next chapter, I was loathing having to go through reading it. I did want to see if it would get any better at all, so I pushed to finish. I like to finish what I start and I don't like to drop manga if I can help it any.
I think it was about 20 chapters in is when the plot started to become redundant and boring. There was nothing to be excited about since there was no plot depth to be excited about.
At times the plot went so fast you couldn't keep up but then it got so boring and redundant that it then just became a job to finish reading it.
When I reached the end it was so anti-climatic it was laughable. All I asked myself is "What the fuck did I just read, wow that was a days waste of time"
For instance, there is a whole build-up to the Gun Devil. The arcs dedicated to it, literally more than half the manga is dedicated to him. We think he’s the baddie (even if he wasn’t the end boss) all for that entire build-up, to collapse in on itself and become very anti-climatic. All that information and arc building felt like a long filler because everything we learned and read about the Gun Devil was ultimately useless to us.
Any boss Denji fought it ended so anti-climatic and didn’t even seem like a boss.
Saw that CSM is going to have a sequel..... and oh boy I have no hopes for it. With how bad the first part was executed, I completely expect it to fall off. Making a sequel to CSM will just put it at the bottom if it wasn't already.
It's a mediocre manga at best and you can fully expect to receive no wow factors that will leave you on the edge of your seat or excited.
I feel like the art at some points was its only selling point when some of the plots came up.
The only reason I pushed to continue the manga was to reach the Darkness Devil in Chapter 64, which was the main reason why I even started the manga to begin with because it looked so fucking sick and ominous.
At times the art isn't overall great. It either goes from 0-100. It's choppy or detailed scenes.
Most times it's even hard to tell what's going on visually, there isn't enough action text like "Ka-POW", "RIIIP", or "SLICE" to give you a sense of what the manga is trying to convey. I was left to imagine what was happening, which shouldn't happen since it is a manga and not a novel.
It makes me wonder that if it was a novel would I struggle the same to understand the plot or would it be explained a lot better because it would be written.
Between the lack of plot and the inconsistency in art, the manga failed at giving me a stable grasp of the story.
The characters themselves are good and unique. But aside from that, I have no reason to be attached to the characters. There was not enough backstory to become emotionally attached to the characters, which just left the characters being very stale and bland. The only characters I had even a mild attachment to was Power and Aki but
Denji was written very well at the beginning and he had an interesting character that wanted to be able to simply have food, a warm place to sleep, and to touch boobs. But very quickly those ambitions of his were taken care of (touching boobs didn't happen as quick but it eventually did). So you'd expect him to move on and want to achieve something greater since those 3 were already taken care of? The bad part is he never had character development so he always stayed the same and was a simp the entire time. You were constantly reminded of the little shit's love for touching some tits. Now I don't mind a very horny character but.... it was his entire personality. One-shot smut stories have more character development than he did for the entirety of the manga. Needless to say, I quickly got tired of his character.
I will note he did get character development with that
For instance when Makima basically asked him to be
~!It’s like Fujimoto tried to add kinks in as well but in the worst place possible. Because it made no absolute sense. Denji cared about Power like family and then he doesn’t react to Makima killing her????
At that point touching tits/having a lover is not something that will make someone lose the will to care for their ‘family’.I loved the concept of how Denji, being the Chainsaw Man,
As characters, they are supposed to impact you emotionally right?
Denji’s thing is just straight up, “Tits, food, bed, and be Makima’s dog, don’t think and be happy". There was no impact from his character. Just. Tits
When a new character got introduced and they died right after and once that happened a few times it got boring. It’s like they got added in to be fodder for the plot. They were given a back story, and in the same chapter or two, they fucking died. And it happened a lot. It failed to give me an emotional attachment to the characters which is very important to the plot and development as it progresses. I can only have so many pointless deaths, without reason, without it having repercussions for the plot too.
I don’t know how he did it. It’s not that hard to make a decent plot with a large death toll, especially with the concept of devils which form after fears. But he managed to fuck it up.
At the very least I would have loved to have had a guy to simp over because at that point I wasn't enjoying the manga, but there was no one to simp over. Aki had potential but as I said before there wasn’t enough character development to even simp over him. So that adds to my disappointment.
It's an okay Manga but it has a lot more potential than what was written. It would need to be completely revised, mainly to add more plot to the characters, clearer action scenes, smoother transitions, and overall give us a reason to be attached to the characters and make it hurt for us when they die.
The manga was overhyped by the fandom a lot more than it should have been.
I fully expect when it's animated its selling point to be the animation and not the plot. I fully do plan on watching the anime. I would love to see when it's animated and if it will help the series any.
I don't regret reading but I also wish I wouldn't have spent the time I did expect more than what it gave. We are about culture here, and this series ain't it chief.
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