Chainsaw Man - Season 1

Chainsaw Man is a Japanese anime created by Studio MAPPA and based on the manga of the same name by Tatsuki Fujimoto.

Dreaming of a good, simple life: one with delicious food and a beautiful girlfriend by his side.

When I started looking around for the best animated series from last year, Chainsaw Man was one of those series that got hyped by a lot of people, but also an anime that could live up to the hype. At least according to the public. Reason enough for me to watch this anime.

Chainsaw Man follows Denji (Kikunosuke Toya), a teenage boy whose life is filled with the overwhelming debts of his idle father. His only companion is his devil, Pochita, whom he already keeps as a pet. Because yes, the world is apparently inhabited by so-called devils. All Denji can do is dream of a good, simple life: one with delicious food and a beautiful girlfriend by his side. To accomplish this, Denji and Pochita kill devils for money, which goes straight to the Yakuza. An act of betrayal by the Yakuza leads to Denji's brutal, untimely death, destroying all hope that he will ever be happy.

However, Pochita merges with Denji and gives him the powers of the 'Chainsaw devil'. Makima (Tomori Kusunoki, Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens), the Public Safety Bureau's elite devil hunter, takes Denji in to watch over him and let him live as long as he follows her orders. Denji goes all out and fights with all his might to make his naive dreams come true.



The story of Chainsaw Man is nothing revolutionary. The anime boils down to the typical "boy with trouble gets monstrous or inhuman powers" trope. It's a twist that often occurs in anime. Especially in the Shōnen genre. Still, it's the characters that stand out for me. Their motivations and their idiosyncrasies add something to the story that makes it unique overall.

Especially Denji as a character was a breath of fresh air within this specific genre. His personality wouldn't work in any other setting, but in Chainsaw Man it would. Where main characters usually fight for their friends or family, Denji has a completely different motive. He's a man with a good heart and a very questionable or downright strange motive, but one that provides comic relief if you're into juvenile comedy.



The characters are almost layered. At first glance, we see characters verbally informing us, the viewer, about their motives. Denji is the greatest example of this. But if we look deeper, we see that Denji, for example, is actually looking for companionship and friendship. His actions nevertheless return him to that classic Shōnen trope of fighting for friends. Which I think is a great way to make the trope your own.

Let's face it, Chainsaw Man is not an anime for those looking for the spectacular fight scenes or the eye candy.

Not only Denji does this, his roommates Aki (Shougo Sakata, My Hero Academia) and Power (Ai Fairouz, Tokyo Revengers) also show these layered personas. Now I have to say that the anime could have shown the underlying motifs better.

What the anime could also have done better was the animation. Let's face it, Chainsaw Man is not an anime for those looking for the spectacular fight scenes or the eye candy. The action is good, but doesn't rise above the action in other anime. The substandard animation is noticeable, but not to the point that it ruins the anime.

Chainsaw Man knows how to use the conventional Shōnen tropes well and creates a story with quite quirky characters who seem to have simple motivations. On closer inspection, Chainsaw Man offers a compelling and dark story that still has room for improvement.