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“Everyone’s lookin’ down on the things I wanna do...Revenge. Protecting their family. Saving a cat. This! That! And the Other! Ain’t it nice that y’all got such respectable dreams! Then let’s face a clash of dreams! A dream battle! If I murder you, that makes your dream lower than feeling breasts!”
I believe it is necessary to give some content warnings because Chainsaw Man is a really intense manga with a lot of graphic violence and challenging themes. It contains scenes of child neglect/abuse, gore, vomiting, and grooming/psychological manipulation. If any of these things bother you or are triggers for you, proceed with caution. So, without further ado, here is my review.
Introduction
Manga’s Name - Chainsaw Man
Created by - Tatsuki Fujimoto
Serialization - Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine
No. of Volumes - 11 (97 Chapters)
Genre - Action, Comedy Horror, Dark Fantasy
The Story Of A Boy And His Dog
16-year old Denji has a simple wish: to live a happy and quiet life, eating lots of food and spending time with the girl he likes. This is a far cry from reality, as Denji is forced to slay devils by the yakuza in order to pay off his dead father’s crippling debts. He is willing to do anything for money, using his pet devil dog, Pochita, as a weapon.
Unfortunately, he has outlived his usefulness and is killed by a devil contracted with the yakuza. However, Pochita combines with Denji's dead body and grants him the powers of a chainsaw devil in an unexpected turn of events. A resurrected Denji uses his new ability to rapidly and ruthlessly murder his opponents, transforming parts of his body into chainsaws.
He is given work as a devil hunter at the Public Safety Bureau after catching the attention of the official devil hunters who arrive on the scene. Denji will stop at nothing to realise his simple teenage dreams now that he has the means to battle even the most formidable foes.
About The Manga
The first part of the Chainsaw Man manga, the “Public Safety Arc,” ran from 3rd December 2018 to 14th December 2020 and the 2nd part has been announced and will be serialised in Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ online magazine. It ranked #5 on The New York Times’ monthly Graphic Books and Manga bestseller list.
Chainsaw Man even won the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shonen category in 2021 which is one of Japan’s major manga awards. Currently there are over 11 million copies of the manga in circulation. As of June 2021, an anime television series adaptation of the manga, which will be produced by MAPPA, has been announced and though the exact date is yet to be released, the anime is expected to premiere in the fall of 2021.
Manga Review
This manga laughs in the faces of those who thought that no anime/manga could have more kills than Attack On Titans. In Chainsaw Man, there’s probably a lot more character deaths and many of them hit you out of the blue while some are foreshadowed, however, it never gets exhausting. So, will your favourite character survive till the end..? Probably not.
This manga doesn’t waste time with slowly setting up the premise, it dives straight into Denji’s transformation into the chainsaw man in the first chapter and in this very first chapter, we get a glimpse of all the gory, blood-spattering, intestines-flying that's to come as the story moves forward.
Denji is not your regular shonen protagonist like Naruto or Deku or Luffy who have honourable convictions and dreams and who strive to do good. Nope. Denji is the complete opposite, all he wants is to eat lots of food and touch some boobs. That’s literally it. That’s all this boy wants. He would even side with the bad guys if they give him food and shelter, he would fight to death if the reward was anything remotely sexual.
He might be vulgar and crude but Denji’s desire for such simple things is what makes him different from the “I want to be a hero and save the world” type of characters and makes him more relatable and that’s why the readers root for him. He doesn’t have any anger issues, no thirst for revenge. He just wants to live normally.
The art style doesn’t agree with many readers but I personally liked it. Fujimoto's rough approach, in my opinion, adds to the sense of impending doom and dread as you wait for the next big thing to happen. His facial expressions and anatomical knowledge are also amazing.
But won’t deny that the art is shabby, and his characters are occasionally out of proportion. The many violent battle sequences and eye-catching panels in Chainsaw Man are where Fujimoto's work truly shines. Despite Chainsaw Man's penchant for blood and guts, the manga isn't extremely intense or detailed. The gore isn't disturbing, but it is exciting and flashy.
Fujimoto truly shines when it comes to character design, particularly with the different demons, fiends, and half-devil hybrids. In general, he believes in the ten-second rule: most people only stare at a panel for ten seconds before moving on. However, his artistic abilities are undeniable, especially when looking at the full-page or spread panels.
The whole side cast is just as batshit crazy as they’re awesome. The one I love the most has to be Power. Power is a fiend (a human possessed by a devil) and she is Denji’s work partner but their relationship deepens to that of close friends, probably because both of them share a single brain cell. Both are absolute morons.
Usually in anime/manga, the dumb female characters are cutesy airheads but Power is a straight up jerk just like Denji. She is equally unapologetically stupid and mean, loud, doesn’t flush the toilet and cares about nothing but her cat. It's a breath of fresh air to see such a character and such a strong, platonic dynamic between a male and a female character.
The Bottom Line
The plot of Chainsaw Man thrives on its unexpectedness. It's a story with a lot of twists and turns in its plot and characterization, but it's most effective in its inversion of shonen cliches, which gives it a lot more impact. It's a plot that appears to be as stupid as hell, with a protagonist who acts as stupid as hell and a purpose that appears to be as stupid as hell.
But Chainsaw Man anticipates your weariness with these tropes. It assumes you'll accept the perverse protagonist, Denji's horrible history as merely setting the stage for the manga's start, and Makima's lack of accountability for endangering a minor. Who cares, because all shonen protagonists are teenagers going through terrible things, right?
Fujimoto is one of them, he cares. And he wants you to care too as he deconstructs tropes left and right, creates gorgeous, complicated characters, and ups the ante on a regular basis, all without creating a plot that self-destructs.
My ratings - 4 on 5
Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary
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