Chainsaw Man

What by all rights should’ve been the anime of the year, turned out to be nothing more than just another bland adaption led by a corporate oriented studio like Mappa.

The focus of this review won’t just be anti-Mappa rhetoric, as I’m sure people are tired of all the unneeded controversy surrounding their last couple adaptations, and I myself don’t really see Mappa as some anime boogie-man and do enjoy some of their adaptations. Chainsaw Man just wasn’t one of them. I love Chainsaw Man, and this review might be viewed by some as just another unsatisfied manga reader hating on the anime, but hear ... me out.

My biggest issue with the anime is the totally uninspired and bland direction and art direction. Take one look at the volume covers and official colored version of the Chainsaw Man manga. What do you see? Vibrant, saturated colors with dynamic poses, something with clear artistic taste and passion. While in the anime, the viewer is greeted with a mute, desaturated color palette that leaves zero impression on the viewer and simply abides by Mappa’s trend of using such color palettes. Now, some might say, dull and grey colors represent the harsh and dystopian setting of the Chainsaw Man world. But ask yourself, is this creative? If you go to Pinterest and search up pictures of east-Asian streets and alleyways, something I highly recommend, you’ll find beautifully shot images of these places all with vibrant colors that do an even better job of displaying the dystopian setting. Now I’m not saying it should look like the Wano anime in One Piece, where the colors are purposefully cartoonish, just something resembling a more Cyberpunk aesthetic. And why not? The official colored manga is colored like this and it looks great and removes nothing from the story. All Mappa’s greyish colors do is make any frame from Chainsaw Man look like any other anime, with no distinguishable features besides, like, the characters. Specifically, it would’ve been mostly fine if the boring Mappa-style colors were limited to just the environment and regular scenes, but fight scenes? I think they should take notes from Toei on this, using color and dynamic lighting to amplify the visual impact of fight scenes, because, let’s be honest, Chainsaw Man’s fight scenes rely heavily on spectacle and insaneness, would greatly compliment the anime adaptation and actually make it an even better experience than the manga.

On that note, this anime, literally, and I mean this, does not add anything new to the Chainsaw Man experience. Except music, but we’ll touch on that later. In the first episode alone, during the first action scene, the viewer is greeted with an obvious CGI Denji, whose animation alot of the time just looks plain unnatural and overdone. 2D anime doesn’t usually have that much movement, and suddenly introducing a heavily dynamic 3D model into the scene really distracts. Especially when that 3D model is suffering from aliasing. The choreography during the fights is honestly pretty good, but they do take some creative liberties (which I completely support, if it’s done better than the manga), where they do their own shots and angles instead of adapting the manga 1:1. They do remove some rather iconic panels from the manga in their adaptation, and seeing how most of the anime is just a 1:1 adaptation, with some variations in angles and detail, all I can ask is why? Why remove some of the iconic spectacle if you’re going to keep everything else?

The cast. I did say my biggest problem was the direction and art direction, but the thing that annoyed me the most was the cast. Why does Makima sound like a 12 year old girl? Are they trying to make her sound cold and emotionless with a superficial element of kindness and an inviting nature? It would’ve succeeded, if Makima literally wasn’t built up as this dominating and controlling (hint hint) figure who Denji essentially treats as his master. Whenever she says something like “I don’t need a dog who says no.”, why should anyone take her seriously when she sounds like a child? When we had that rather explicit scene with her and Denji in the office, with great emphasis on Makima’s physical appeal, I just personally didn’t buy it. One of the worst things an anime can do is fail at creating convincing characters, which is what they did with Makima, who is arguably the most important character of the story besides Denji. And on the topic of Makima, why did they make her smile during the train scene and the scene at the mountain shrine? That was an unneeded change that just simply screams cheap attempts at creating a “creepy” character. “Oh wow, she’s smiling, but doing a totally nefarious thing, how original!!!”.

Now many of the cast members are perfect castings in my opinion, like Aki and Himeno. Denji is fine but I wouldn’t mind if they changed him. Now where the real spice touches my tongue is Kobeni. Kobeni’s voice acting performance, and I don’t say this lightly, is genuinely the worst performance I’ve ever heard in my life. It actually pained me to sit down and listen to them butcher Kobeni’s character like this. She’s originally built as this timid and shy girl, something like Sengoku Nadeko, but with a comedic twist, while the people at Mappa thought it would be funny to have her be the loudest most obnoxious, physically ear-damaging character I’ve ever seen on screen. The worst example of this is the scene where she goes “ehhhhh?”. Mappa probably thought this would be the funniest moment in anime history. It wasn’t. Even in her non-dramatic scenes where she’s just talking, she sounds so synthetic and fake. Obviously this is just a personal gripe, and butchering just one character isn’t the end of the world for an anime adaptation, it was just something that needed to be said.

The music is great. The opening visuals are awesome, and the endings are some of the most artistically creative and passionate things I’ve seen in any anime. Does that add to the anime experience? Somewhat. But mostly it removes from it. Why? Because when you start an episode and are greeted with something with clear artistic vision and creativity, like the opening, and immediately afterwards you go back to the bland and lifeless animation of the actual anime, it feels like a slap in the face. Mappa definitely was qualified to make Chainsaw Man, they proved that with the opening and endings, but they chose not to make it anything substantial, and instead went with a safer approach that would appeal to the most amount of people.

And here’s where we get to the meat of the story. This anime is lifeless, corporate, and feels like an adaptation made to make the studio money, and to sell more of the manga. It doesn’t feel like a passion project directed by artists, because it isn’t, it’s just another mass produced piece of media meant to appeal to the greater anime audience. I think the opening song itself is proof of this, I’m not going to go into whether or not I like the song, and openings don’t really have any relevancy when it comes to the quality of an anime, but choosing an artist who’s known for making songs for My Hero Academia is something that in my opinion paints the direction behind the anime in a bad light, as it just proves to me they’re going with the safest approach possible with this adaptation. And they are. There’s genuinely more creative vision and innovative approach in the action scenes of the Wano anime of One Piece than there is in Chainsaw Man. There’s a couple cool shots here and there, one I really liked was Denji doing the Levi Beyblade thing when fighting the zombie devil. A lot of the time though, it’s just CGI models smacking each other with their hands.

So in conclusion, this anime is definitely carried by its source material, it adds nothing new and does absolutely nothing that justifies it being worth watching after reading the manga, which honestly, just makes it a failed adaptation overall, and in some cases, like the ear-torture voice acting of some characters, it makes it a worse experience. Why is it like this? Money. A safer approach to an adaptation makes it more popular and easier to consume for most people. Chainsaw Man honestly didn’t need this, if we look at the manga sales at its peak, it could’ve easily been an amplified and crazy adaptation, something like OPM season 1, and been just as popular, but it ended up being a washed down version of Jujutsu Kaisen, in terms of adaptation quality.

What about the people who haven’t read the manga? Well, if this is your first time experiencing Chainsaw Man, the anime does a decent job at recreating the first time experience from the manga. Personally, I would still not find it as good of an experience, as the voice acting and bland color scheme and lifelessness of this adaptation would’ve been bad regardless of if I read the manga or not. I would’ve given this anime an 8/10 if I hadn’t read the manga. Because, honestly the source material is really good. The characters, the world, the fights, the political allegories and subtle but deep character arc of Denji is something I look for in any good piece of media. And honestly I mostly touched on my negative opinions of this anime during this review, which revolved around its quality as an adaptation, and not as a full piece of media.

Tldr: The anime adds nothing new to make it worth watching, it’s a lifeless and soulless adaptation that could’ve been an artistic marvel but was made to be an easy to consume piece of media, some of the voice acting is horrendous, and the music is good. As an adaptation, it’s quite bad. If you haven’t read the manga, it’s quite good, yet I still wouldn’t hold it as highly as its source material with this level of adaptation.

I know we're only 5 episodes in (around 3-4 volumes of the manga) but there's something that really pains me about this adaptation.

That is - it doesn't risk anything unlike the manga. Despite it being criticized for being "too cinematic", at heart it's really just another shounen anime. As a film buff, believe me, the "cinematic" elements ends on the references in the opening. (I don't like the OP but that's simply a subjective opinion and has nothing to do with the actual critique of the show). I mean, the manga was far more cinematic with its panels already looking like gorgeous still from some ... forgotten early-80s horror like "Possession" or "The Thing". It took the risks of doing the unpredictable, both with the visuals and the story. In the anime, both of these lack the feeling of being special. The manga was highly stylized to look like a storyboard, the anime needed similarily stylized direction but essentialy it lacks any style except for a typical shounen Mappa approach. Bruh, just because you animate the gore and nudity, it doesn't make it a bold or unique adaptation. You're doing the bare minimum that is being faithful to the source material.

P.S. The world of the manga felt dirty, the buildings looked awful, as if they were about to collapse in the nearest future and it made the vision of the dying world even more powerful. While in the anime, the city looks typically modern and clean... it lacks the ponderosity.

I'll watch it, obviously, I love the story. The execution might be less than great but I'm curious if it will improve over time or all hope is gone.

Did it live up to the hype?

Short Answer:

No

Longer Answer:

Chainsaw Man or CSM for short is undoubtedly the biggest anime this year with over 500k people having it in their PTW before its release. With many claiming it to be one of the of the best anime this year but in reality CSM isn’t anything special, it's just another action Shonen and is no better than anything we’ve had in recent years.

... Story (spoilers for 1st episode):

CSM is about Denji a teenage boy so broke he had to sell his left nut working as a devil hunter with his pet chainsaw dog for the mafia to pay of his deceased father’s debt. Until one day his boss calls him for a job but it turns out it was a trap, shit happens and now Denji got his pet chainsaw dog for a heart and is fighting the zombie devil. And from then on, it’s your typical action Shonen.

Now as for the plot in CSM there ain’t really much to say apart from the fact that it’s average and a bit more ruthless in some areas than most shows. As for the most part, CSM is just Denji killing devils or some plain dialogue and maybe some progression towards the main antagonist the “Gun devil.”

Animation:

Generally I’d say the animation in CSM is fairly good, however I was surprised to see CGI in a project as big as this and whilst it’s not the worst I've seen it doesn’t make it any better with most of the fights just looking janky, goofier and overall, just less satisfying and it doesn’t help when the main character’s “fighting form” or “chainsaw mode” as I like to call it probably has the worst CGI. Although this does improve considerably after the 1st episode with the exceptions of episodes 8 and 9. Now outside the fights the animation is infinitely better with a much more detailed approach to the animation style than most anime. Which I think was generally well done besides a few moments when the shading looked off.

Characters (easily one of if not the worst part of this show):

Denji - Around the time of CSM’s airing I started a thread about people’s most hated protagonists and was surprised to see Denji pop up fairly frequently although it didn’t take me long to see why. Denji isn’t like most Shonen protagonists, no he’s in it for the oppai. His character pretty much consists of being either horny or stupid which can a nice change for some people who are tired of the same old protagonist, or he can just be an immature twat you’d hope dies in a ditch, but I digress. Either way I'd say altogether he’s a pretty weak main character which I'd say is made arguably clear after the first several episodes as it’s not even evident he’s the protagonist half the time.

Makima - Easily one of the blandest characters in the show, I mean all she does is tease Denji or in other words treat him like a dog, order people around or start some plain dialogue and be ominous in the most uninterestingly way possible. But maybe some people find her ominosity and dead personality interesting or maybe they just want to be stepped on, who knows.

Power – Basically the female version Denji but instead of horny is overconfident and not gonna lie there’s not much else to say as all she does is either goof off with Denji or tend to whoever got injured.

Aki - Probably a close 2nd to Makima when it comes to bland characters in this show but still the best out of these 4. Aki is probably the sanest character in this show which is nice since most of the cast lacks any intellect and is generally alright for the most part despite his rather dull personality.

Conclusion:

All in all, CSM is just your average action Shonen that got hyped like crazy with your pretty stereotypical plotline, animation that’s only good when they’re not fighting, awfully designed characters with an atmosphere so dull you might as well watch paint dry. At the end of the day this all subjective so if you like action Shonen or you're bored of the same old protagonist I'd say CSM is worth a try but if you don’t typically like Shonen or came here for the action prepare to be disappointed. If you made it this far through my rant I just want to say thanks for reading!

Additional Notes:

- Don’t tell me to read manga/it gets better or whatever as after the 3rd episode I read all of the manga and personally I don’t think it is or gets any better and so I will not watch the anime beyond this season

- Feel free to critique my review

- Also, I was never the best at English so please tell me if there are any grammatical errors

Chainsaw man is one of the most hyped and biggest anime of the season but apart from art direction there is nothing significant to differ it from action shounen that came out in the last decade.

Pros : Art /Animation for chainsaw man is top-tier and meticulous. The overall sound quality / ambience ( inclusive of character voices & dialogues , muisc - op/ed/OST ) is commendable.

Cons : The major flaw for the anime is the pacing of the series. Chainsaw man anime is literally covering arcs that took upto 10 chapters in manga and encapsulating it into one or two episodes which makes it ... hard to get a grasp on its story as a non-manga reader. The main characters are a bit cliche and annoying ( especially power ) and the pacing of anime also hurts the viewers in getting to know these characters better. Anime is highly focused on pushing sexual innuendos instead of the actual plotline that would explain the story a bit better making this series a more enjoyable watch.

Everyone, wake up!! We got another overrated shonen #458 taking place this month. WOoooo!111!!! Ah Chainsaw Man. What would we do without you and the other types of show like yours that settles the shonen meatheads’ minds with mindless action and very little plot and storytelling? Lets go over the premise:

Denji is a dude who uses a chainsaw to kill devils to settle a debt. One of his missions he gets killed and the chainsaw devil he was using to kill the other devils with combines with him, making him the very same thing that he kills. He now goes about killing devils left and ... right under the condition that if he goes berserk or runs, he will get killed.

I just explained the entire premise of the whole show, so if that doesn’t sound like the most generic shonen shit you’ve ever read, then this show is perfect for someone like you.

I just don't get it. Why do people hype the most basic concepts of shows and throw them on a pedestal of being one of the greatest, when it is so far from so it hurts. Chainsaw Man is a basic carbon copy of every other devil/demon hunting show ever made. But wait! This time, it has good animation!!... Guys?..... *cough*... Y'all would find paint drying to be a top 5 anime as long as Ufotable animated it. The second you think for more than 10 seconds and not like a Neanderthal, you’d come to realize that cool animation and good fight scenes doesn’t make a show anything special. Whereas when you analyze the plot, settings, characters etc. You come to find Chainsaw at the same spot where every other “fresh and new” shonen are, in the very average 6-7/10 zone. Its entire concept is ripped off from every shonen that's come before it. Devil/demon hunting? Demon Slayer, JJK, Devilman: Crybaby, Inuyasha, Blue Exorcist, Dororo. Denji has to become the same thing he’s hunting to become overpowered? JJK, Demon Slayer, Attack On Titan. Denji is forced to work for a company/group that will kill him unless he uses his powers to help them complete jobs? Itadori, Nezuko, Eren. And guess which show is the most recent? None other than Chainsaw. It’s literally not special in any sense. The only thing I could possibly muster up as something that is unique about Chainsaw is its aesthetic. Chainsaw is far more dark and gritty than the average show and guess what made it so? Black and white manga format. Guess what the anime won’t have? Black and white manga format. Chainsaw was meant to be a black and white story, just like Berserk, Vagabond, PunPun etc. Some shows just aren’t meant to be in color, Chainsaw was supposed to be one of those shows. But alas, the Money Devil must have taken over MAPPA’s body and here we are today. So now you’ve taken the only thing that made Chainsaw stand out, what do you have? I think I’ve made my point.

You guys just gotta stop overhyping dumb shit like this, you’re just asking for Chainsaw Man to become an “overrated” and “mid” show just like other new gen shonen who got way too popular for the actual quality the show produced. Chainsaw is just a nice solid turn off your brain action packed 7/10 show that will entertain you for a bit and then you move on the next day, please hype it like that and not it being the second coming of Christ. Doing so will only make CSM crash and burn.

Most of my friends seemed to have liked the anime. Personally ive found it average at best and most of the times quite boring. The characters are not really likeable at least from my point of view and their design isnt really making me say:"wow they really did something new!". The story is very slow and the fight szenes somewhat mediocre the animation is pretty good but doesnt compensate for the lack of reason to be interested in the story. I really hope the second season picks up the pacing a little and kinda alters the motivations of the main characters as at the moment ... i find them quite blant. The promised anime that would change the medium as a whole didnt really deliver in my opinion and I dont think ill be back for a third season if the second keeps to the formula of the first.

The first season of the CSM anime is done, and it's pretty uneventful thus far due to the slow pacing and depressing tone.
The adaptation decided to be a bit of a slow burn and take its time to establish the protagonist and general atmosphere. It's a strange decision considering that the manga is fairly fast-paced by comparison and has a high emphasis on campy action. Instead of focusing on the fun parts, the anime decided to go for a more serious tone similar to a social drama and spend a lot of time on showing Denji walking through the streets or lying in bed while ... looking sad and so on. It picks up a bit of speed in the second half but still feels uncannily slow compared to the manga.

This also shows in the focus of the animation. The action scenes are fine except for the overuse of (bad) CGI on the main character, making fight scenes with him a bit of an eyesore. The choreography of the battles is also mediocre at best for modern shounen standards. The slice of life parts on the other hand, where characters just talk to one another or walk through the streets or do their morning routine *cough* or groom minors *cough*, are animated with absurd detail to the point I'm wondering why this effort wasn't spent on making the action scenes look good instead.
The comedy is similarily strange as it's played very straight to the point it's almost unnoticable that certain scenes are supposed to be comedic, like when Denji kicks Aki in the balls or when Makima fed Denji some noodles. I didn't expect it to go full chibi-style, but it seems to not even try to present the comedic scenes as funny.

The coloring of CSM can also be described as bland. They go for a very realistic style, and by realistic I mean lots of gray.
So generally, this is one of those adaptations that tries to make everything realistic and depressing in tone and appearance, and honestly I'm not sure if I like that. But this will highly depend on what you like about the source material and how you interpret it. I interpreted the manga as a campy schlock gorefest with a schizophrenic style that has the main goal in being unpredictable, fast-paced and fun, but it seems like the director of the anime saw it more as a slow-paced drama that takes itself very seriously.

So if I had to describe this adaptation thus far in one sentence, then I would say it's a schlocky shounen story that tries to be a Scorcese drama. The characters aren't really deep or interesting enough to support that type of presentation, the comedy consists of toilet humor and barfing and most of the future run-time will be filled up with mindless action. I can respect the ambition to make it more than a fun gorefest but I don't think the direction it's going is utilizing the strengths of its source material.

Widely praised, even before its release, as a revolutionary achievement for the medium, or for art in general, 'Chainsaw Man' is a dark subversion of the superhero genre, like an R-rated 'X-Men'. It's well animated, fairly stylish, sometimes funny, and gruesome enough for teenage boys. Unfortunately, as a standalone story, it lacks direction and depth. By the end, I wanted to shower off the bloody slime and curl up with 'Bocchi' instead.

You can get a lot done in twelve episodes if you pick one thing and focus on it, whether that's a character or a theme. In 'Chainsaw Man', a lot of things happen, often ... violently, but not in great detail or depth. It wanted to deliver a series of shocking moments, and the plot had to be stretched pretty thin to cover them all. I guess you can patch it up with flashbacks, but the end result lacks the polish and precision of, say, 'Akiba Maid War'.

Typically, to deliver a shocking moment, you put a normal person in an extreme situation. There are essentially no normal people in 'Chainsaw Man': innocent bystanders barely exist; ordinary emotions barely register. It can be intense, but without that normal baseline, it's difficult to know how to feel about strange anti-heroes fighting equally strange villains. It's certainly dark: darkness takes centre stage, in Hot Topic eyeliner. Characters obsess over death and revenge; get drunk or go insane; kill brutally and die horribly. Again, it can be intense — more so if we knew them better, but that takes time and restraint. You can't ask me to care about someone you've already blown up, no matter how big the explosion.

Flashbacks are not actually a substitute for proper pacing and structure. If you want to introduce a major threat, consider foreshadowing it. Change the source material if you have to: there's no law against it. Imagine if, say, the work relationship between Aki and Himeno developed in parallel with Denji's origin story; it might highlight the difference in the characters' motivations. The first eight episodes could have been stretched to a full twelve, with a little extra world-building along the way: it was really at its best in the mid-season as a monster-of-the-week workplace action romantic comedy. As it is, Himeno, a fine character, is given too little attention; with enough flashbacks, we do learn quite a bit about Aki; Power's comedy is always welcome, and Kobeni's too. Unfortunately, the protagonist is Denji, a shiftless idiot defined by his lack of both depth and agency. Denji works fine as a joke; as the show's main character, he fails to drive the story forward.

All art is dedicated to joy, said Schiller, who invented dark, and I wish there were more joy in 'Chainsaw Man'. Is a beach episode too much to ask for? What I mean is, I've seen joyless, nihilistic subversions of the superhero genre, and other genres, many times. I know you can kill people with a chainsaw. Maybe next season we'll find out why that matters.

Chainsaw Man is a show about a guy that turns into a monster and is forced to kill other monsters or be put to death, accompanied with a quiet, reasonable guy and a girl who shares the same wild energy as the MC. With how many similarities this synopsis is to Jujutsu Kaisen, I wouldn't be suprised if the author copy the basics of it, made a new power system, and made it even edgier to appeal to people that way. However, I would argue this show is harder to get into when about half the cast is somewhat unlikable and seems to suffer from ... some pacing issues.

Denji is a poor boy from a poor family who only really wants food and seggs; and it's honestly a weak premise for a main character. From a storytelling perspective, it's hard to root for someone with someone with such a vapid motivation. Power only serves herself, which actually is in character for her as a demon and is surprisingly the most likable character so far. Aki is more likable as the show goes on, but his personality seems basic, and along with him being mostly unexpressive, it makes it hard to be empathic with him. Makima feels like she will be a twist villain in the future, either betraying Denji after killing the Gun Devil or turning against the Public Safety division in general. She seems to hide her true personality and only acts nice to wrap people around her finger to use for her benefit.

The action in the show tends to be fairly good when it happens, but it tends to be few and far in between the long sections of drama/exposition. It gives you enough action at the start to trick you into continuing after the '3 episode rule', but the middle of the season drags on for infinity. The CG isn't bad to watch either, but it's not preferred more than dynamic shots created by smear frames. It's also a little strange how the show has CG at all, given they went all out on the show in other ways, like how every ED is a different song and animation for each episode. It just feels like the attention to the most detail was in the least important part of any show, the credit reel.

Overall, I can't understand why this was hyped up to be the anime of the season when it feels rather average; maybe people think blood and despair makes a show 10/10? The premise is interesting but the show itself... not so much; 6/10. Hopefully season 2 is better if I keep watching in the future.

What a disappointment. All I could wonder while watching this show is what the heck people had been anticipating so much. I bought all the hype and fanfare and avoided hearing anything more about the show until it had finished airing because I wanted to experience it without any spoilers. For a while I thought maybe the show was just starting out slow, but every episode I watched was more of the same, the same tone, the same stuff. I almost quit watching after every episode but kept at it because I told myself surely it was going to get good. Eventually I had the ... slow and sobering realization that it wasn’t. No, this drawn-out wannabe edgy stuff was, in fact, the show.

It's a shonen power up + a lot of gore + FLCL loss of innocence and sexual teaching/manipulation by a more mature woman type thing. That's it, that's the show. If you love gore, are at the bottom of the totem pole at a corporate job, and have wet dreams about being with a woman for the first time this show was made for you. If you aren't a virgin incel, if you aren't the lowest peon at your corporate workplace, and it you don't get excited looking at gore, then this show has 3 strikes and not much else going for it. It all just seems too artificial, and purposely designed for edgy pent-up dudes. I suppose anime is always designed for a demographic, but this just seems so on the nose about pandering to certain interests and not caring about the rest. All this anime has is 3 or 4 notes it hits repeatedly.

A horny teen, frustration, powerlessness, chainsaws, guts, blood, and monsters - so what?? The characters are weak, the gore is overplayed, the action isn’t as good as it wants to be, the story is weak - the show is weak. What are people losing their minds over? The FLCL sexual maturation angle? The dude even uses the thing coming out of his forehead to do his wannabe waifu’s bidding just like FLCL, gets treated like a tool in just the same way, doesn’t know things an adult knows in the same way, etc.. It's hackneyed.

If the show had just come out without so much fanfare, I might have received it more lukewarmly, though it’d still be only mediocre in my mind. But based on all the hype I was expecting something amazing, and it’s really far from that. My disappointment in the series weighs heavily. I don’t think it’s objectively terribly as an anime, but it emphasized many elements I don’t like and deemphasized the things that could have made it more well-rounded. If you are young, dumb, and full of cu...testosterone, then maybe you'll like how simply this show hits certain notes designed for you. Otherwise it is a mindless slog of gore and simplistic young adult feels.

Well, well, well, where do I start...
I have been following this anime for quite some time. A friend of mine told be about the manga, and how good it was, so I knew of its existence that way. Some months later Mappa announced that they would be in charge of the animation for this anime, and that was for me the perfect match. I have watched a lot of animes from Mappa, loved how they used 3d animation on Dorohedoro and (be it controversial or not) liked what they do with AoT (although I like Wit more). I knew the animation for this series would ... be good and had no doubt that the manga was good too, but... Here is a big BUT: Mappa is adapting this story as if all the viewers have read the manga before. 12 episodes should be enough to adapt 1 arc (or maybe 2 short arcs), but the story has to be captivating, the characters must be well-written and likeable, and it has to be catchy... For me, the story is not even close to JJK, for example, and the pacing is worse too. It is slow as hell. Don't get me wrong, I can take slow animes, but when you waited years for 12 episodes and at episode 6 nothing has happened yet, a lot of red flags are raised.

The animation, sound, all the technical stuff are on point. The problem here is the time. Made in abyss told a well written, complex, new, intrincated story in 12 episodes, Dorohedoro has lots of fights, good and bad guys that you like, because they are intriguing and funny, and complex. CSM has 1d characters (most of them except for Aki), superficial and boring. It relies in the love people have for them (Power and Makima for example).

It is concerning that MAPPA took this approach, that told the story linearly and did not use flash forward or started some chapters in media res, instead they showed off their animation capabilities and focused on creating 12 different endings and looking for all the references in pop culture. This show lacks well put effort in what matters, the story, how is told, how to make characters approachable, more likeable, well written. It's like a classical pianist, they played the piece to the perfection, but without adding their touch, without making it theirs.

I know I will be watching more, maybe waiting another 3 years for something good to happen, expecting 1 new op and ed per episode... IDK. This show is frustrating so far, MAPPA could have told the story better, I know, because I have followed their work for many years, hope it gets better, but it certainly is not living up to the hype.

"Chainsaw Man will change the shounen world" LMAO no; it doesn't...

In every season of anime, there's at least one show that was probably on every viewer's must-watch list, but the season was way more than expected. However, this overtop anime was SUPPOSEDLY the anime of the year, the decade, or maybe the CENTURY [according to fans]! This show is what anime fans are waiting for since MAPPA dropped its trailer in 2021 and sparking countless memes and devoted fans for their love for the show. This show is none other than Chainsaw Man!

Well then, manga fans, did it blow up more than expected, as it ... did for Demon Slayer or MARVEL's Infinity War, hmmm? Was everyone outside the anime bubble talking about it? Some of you say yes, others no. As for me, it's "eh"? ??

It's way too obviously that this anime is overhyped and it shows because of its execution. But for dogs---I mean fans to saying this is the greatest of shounen or any anime is overstretched. Common quotes include in conversations such as:

"Chainsaw is best anime that I watched! The story is deep, unique, it has great characters!" exclaimed one fan! The story is simple enough, but it wouldn't call it "deep" (yet). It's just a group of people going killing around devils. Characters are just archetypes of common shounen and anime cliches. Denji is "relatable" since he is a horny teenager. But Naruto was also horny, but he was 12, so is he relatable too? If that's so, Aki is similar to a ok-ish Sasuke and Power to an overexerted Sakura. But what about Makima? A big meh. I never understand how dog fans are willing to bark for her, every though she doesn't have much depth.

"How about deaths? This show is dark and every death is meaningful. Especially to meaningful side characters." the fan replied. Side characters are also meh since they don't have much screen time, so I don't feel anything if they die. Fans called deaths unexpected, but I call them shock value.

"Then the voice actors..." says another fan, joining in. Good voices, I say, really capture the characters' tone and voice. Makes me want to pay attention to them more.

"But the animation is great! MAPPA made another masterpiece yet again!" as more fans are joining in. The animation is very good; so good that the animators focus all their effort in their slice of life moments instead of allegedly action fights. I am not a fan of the color palette used for their animation; it's looks bland compared to other shounen animes.

"So the OP and EDs will surely win you over!" says a few more. Excessive, but I like some of the songs.

"This season is the worst part of the manga, but wait until this character shows up and then---" STOP! No spoilers here for an anime normie. The show is ok as it is without the EXCESSIVE amount of spoilers.

"So you're just a normie" the fans realized. I am...but at least I'm not barking.

I am rating this a 6/10.

If you are a horny teenager or love excessive amounts of gore, this is the anime for you. Otherwise, skip it.

The main draws of this anime are action scenes, gore, and waifus. It is primarily a combat anime, with a small dash of interesting characters.

It is undeniable that the production value is high, and it shows in the fight scenes. The combats themselves aren't that interesting, it's mostly hack and slash, and 5 seconds later someone dies.
There is so much blood and deaths on-screen that it quickly loses it's novelty and it becomes hard to care.

The story is about a ... group of demon slayers, with the protagonist having an unique super power, and the good guys are secretly the bad guys! It's not a terrible story, but it's also nothing special.

The characters and their interactions are probably the best part of the show. They are somewhat nuanced in their motives, and their designs are appealing.
However, actual character interactions seem to make a tiny part of the show, which is dominated by fighting and gore, and sluggish scenes that lead nowhere.
There is honestly way too much simping going on for Makima, and for how little screentime she actually gets, i don't think it's worth enduring the show just for the brief moments
While the ecchi is "smarter" than a lot of other shows, they are predominantly towards the start of the series, seemingly as a way to catch viewers, but i don't think the ride is worth it.

"First there where chainsaw memes, then there was chainsaw..." -genesis 101xyz (or something)

Well no, technically first was the manga. Well, whatever, point is, I saw a lot of memes around, and praise for the manga, then the anime adaptation hype came, which sure, I found impressive in the pv... And then came the anime itself...

And then, just as it started, it ended. And now I'm here and in awe, not at the show, but at what the heck was all this hype about. The start was fun and promising, okay. The op was stuffed full of famous movie references... Cool I guess? The production value ... and some scenes where pretty impressive and well made... Great.

But that's true for some other shows too, others, while not being as amazing on production, catch you with the brilliant, or at least interesting story... What was supposed to hook and get me interested in anything about chainsaw man? The thousand scenes of shoes walking? The OTHER scenes of walking from different angles? People eating in a living room?

There's a story in there, yes, and it's even interesting to a degree, but it's too far in between on its own, and further padded by less significant things, to the point I was pretty bored watching most of the time, and to the very end I was still waiting for something impressive and/or genuinely interesting to happen to understand what the hype was about.

But nothing did. Maybe I could give it points for great action? Well no, it's rather far in between, and despite the production values, it REALLY doesn't look all that amazing, impactful and impressive, let alone interesting. No really, compare that to some of the scenes from demon slayer or one punch man, and a bunch of other great shows and it's really nothing impressive, even if it looks better... And by 'looks better' let me be clear I mean picture quality alone, the choreography, creativeness and dynamic flow of most fights kind of sucks!

To sum it up, the only two things that at all impressed me about the show is the production values, and... The decent attempts at drama in the start, just a bit past middle, and around the end of the show... Maybe a bit of the comedy too. Which for an action show is kind of stupid and disappointing.

Final score - 5.9/10, not sure if I'd recommend it to anyone, but wouldn't tell people not to watch it either, it's just weirdly mediocre in all senses despite the great production values and interestimg attempts at originality.

I feel like the top reviews here really hit the nail on the head. But as a tl;dr it's a mid b-tier shounen, that is a good watch, but just falls short in basically every categories except seiyuus and music. It's a standard formula which had a fair execution, and an easy watch that doesn't require too much world building. It's not bad, but it really doesn't leave a mark in a season full of great animes and few years of shounen.

Is this a fun series?
Yes. I'll definitely be awaiting a second season.

Do I recommend you watch it?
You seem like you're in the market ... for a shounen if you stumble on this review. In which case yes.

Was it worth the buildup/hype from the community?
Questionable. Leaning on no, since the seed of doubt is there. I understand why people love the franchise, but combined with the hype and also saturation in 'demon/evil exorcists with a dorky, optimistic male lead' animes I don't really see the spark of originality. Had this been an unknown series (i.e. specifically not by MAPPA), it probably would have been rated higher, but neither MAPPA nor the characters delivered.

Voice Actors: 9. S tier voice actors; I don't think I could cast a better set.

OP/ED: 10. Really excellently curated and animated. They match the energy of each episode well.

Art & Animation: 6. The character designs are pretty great. You can see that both character design and OP/ED took a lot of care from the staff; and for that they deserve way higher, but the obnoxiously slow turns and also lack of detail on the non-action scenes really did a huge disservice to the show. Specifically Kobeni's scene with the car speeding away will easily be in my mind as one of the top worse animations ever, but maybe it was an intentional and stylistic choice.

Although I guess with every high quality mv level ending though, that time had to be taken from somewhere.

Characters: 6 - I feel like in the first episode, I really loved the diversity of personalities, but none of them really seem attach worthy-- Denji included.

Plot: 7 - It's a bit average, but executed without complaint. Our resident noob Denji might be a simple person, but he improves and struggles at a reasonable pace.

Final Score: 7.55559. Round up if your main genre is shounens, -- it's a 7 otherwise. The saving grace of the show, which I desperately want to chuck in the 'average' save your time bucket is the introduction of a lot of great voice actors who bring each character to life so well.

After so much buzz around this series (and manga as well) i was planning to watch it once has finished the emission and so i did but i have to say that although wasnt having high expectations entered indifferent with curiosity to see how good was and sadly really didnt make justice to all the noise concerning to chainsaw man.

The plot reminded me to tokyo ghoul (the firt season) to an degree and really like all premise revolving around the demons though i cant say the same for the characters beggining with the protagonist being the most shitty one with just two brain cells left ... and only thinking in touching some bobs and having sex as well to being emotionless towards anything and anyone without reason (with even the samurai sword said by his own words that denji was so much indiferent than himselft) and simping 24hs for makima , all this really was killing the series having him so much screen-time which really was in a way dissapointing taking in account the firts episode was an really good intro to his miserable and sad life and could have turned an interesting and well flesh out character instead of this joke of prota.
There were some funny moments that i found between the denji, power and aki enjoyable and didnt recurr to the fanservice that this series had in other moments but really if the author intention of portray denji as well as power being all *crazy* was better handled and no so senseless i could let it pass but just ended resting so much points to the experience overall.

The star of this show is aki hayakawa, was one of the few things i really enjoyed and liked of this series, he was such an treat with an good development (deserving the position of protagonist intead of denji) together with some other ones like himeno, the enigmatic kishibe kurose yuutaro and some others of the special division 4 that just could have an glimpse of them.

The production values were really high and the blending between the cgi and 2d animation was amaizingly flawless, beautifuls backgrounds and clean drawings , which was an waste use such amount of resourses in a series like this, being so many better deserving ones which doesnt get even half the treatment of this one.

Around the end its were start to get better in my opinion it felt stopped using all that shitty fanservice as well to having so much presence denji and the lead was take by aki which make the series so much more enjoyble in general.
The story its not something that we havent seen so far for those who have watched many animes but in some aspects its more outanding than the rest (speaking of animation mainly), the formula its pretty predictable but that is not something bad actually but elements including fanservice, stupids/hollow characters encompassing the protagonism and other importants rols and not clear direction in to what give proper attenion in the overall plot it is.
I gonna save my comments around makima dont wanna make the review to long (but arent good hahah)

Sound wise really amazed (in a good way) by having an complety different ending full animated for every single episode some really nice songs by the way haha, the soundtracks serve his purporse without any one being memorable or really epic.

RESUME

I cant say that i was dissapionted or surpraised netiher, chainsaw man is an average series as much and i dont know if the author intention was to appeal the biggest amount of people possible by using so many cheap shortcuts but one thing certain its that in the end just ended killing this series and diminishing a huge value in world building, plot, cast and every single thing involved as an whole this series.
I would reccomend it but only if you are able to forgive and make blind eye to many things for at least more than half of the series, amaizing, spectacular, masterpiece emmm... no, mediocre, exagerating average yep.

It was definitely a great adaptation. But something didn't sit right with me. I loved the manga from start to finish. But here I was cringing half the time, especially the first 4 to 5 episodes before things got actually serious.
It shows that good animation does not really equal to good adaptation.
Background music was ass, tbh. On the other hand tho, I found lots and lots of great music cuz of the different endings in each episode (absolutely loved the concept)
But it just felt off.
Like Itto's works, maybe you just can't translate Tatsuki Fujimoto's art into animation.
But I hope they improve on this. The sales ... barely matched what they were anticipating because of how overhyped it was. But it's not that I was overhyped, that this adaptation didn't click with me. It really was very mediocre at best. The animation is a 10/10, fr. But everything else (putting aside music), a solid 6/10.

Okay, we've finally made it to the end.

I think it's important to make it clear that the anime isn't bad, at least not most of the time and not from a technical point of view. But there are certain things that must be said.

Animation/Visual:

Chainsaw has a good 2d animation and the 3d animation (Especially for those who saw Berserk 2016) is very good. I believe that the "problem" that screamed the most in my eyes several times is that certain scenes in the manga were animated exactly the same, that would be good, wouldn't it? There is actually a problem with this, these specific scenes ... end up being slower than the default speed of the anime. It's not a constant problem, and by far not the biggest one, but it's something that, I wouldn't say bothered me, just caught my attention.

Audio/Music:

There were certain moments that I forgot that chainsaw was an anime, because the fact that each ep has a new ending was one of the main reasons to keep watching. Jokes aside the music is definitely very good, both the op and endings as well as the OST. My only criticism at this point would be that certain scenes would perhaps be better without music or could see a better placement of the music, because sometimes they seem a little strange in the general context of the scene. I almost forgot the noise of the chainsaw I didn't like it, it would be better if it were louder.

Characters:

What can I say here, they are great, very realistic and unique, I found myself several times simping the different female characters as well as I felt represented by the men (Oh Denji, my boy). I believe the more serious direction of the anime doesn't spoil them as much as I thought it would, they're still not the characters I met in the manga and fell in love with but they're still them in some ways, it's almost like meeting a friend again after a long time and noticing that he is different, it is still him but it is impossible not to be surprised.

Story:

Nothing that came out of the manga is bad, I repeat NOTHING, it's just a shame that they "forgot" the most important thing, the thing that makes Chainsaw Man Chainsaw Man, the comedy. Yes, I know, the anime still has jokes and some are really funny, while others, due to the more serious atmosphere, are just not funny. A little bit of context, Fujimoto's writing style is unique and interesting because of the way he mixes absurdities with a message to be conveyed, so we have certain elements in his stories that shouldn't be taken seriously, many of the main drivers from Chainsaw comes from jokes. I won't give spoilers but the later arcs are filled with moments that are as impactful as they are funny even the resolution to the final arc is absurdly absurd (pardon the redundancy). But that's what makes Chainsaw Man one of my favorite reads lately, as well as one of my favorite manga. That's why I just can't give Chainsaw a better rating, I really want to but I can't.

Extra:

Well the review itself is over but there are still some random thoughts I would like to share. I'm Brazilian and here in Brazil something happened that deserves a little attention. At the time that the manga started to become popular, a team started translating it into Portuguese, the point is that they chose to adapt certain jokes to our context, to make the manga more Brazilian and one of these adaptations drew more attention. For English speakers the Future Devil phrase "Mirai Saiko" was adapted as "The Future Rules", but for us it was a little different. "O Futuro é Pika", Pika in our language is like a penis, but it is also used in the context of happiness or sadness, something like "How incredible, this is very pika" or "What a shit, what a Pika", therefore the word is also used as an adjective, in short "Pika" does not have a well-defined meaning in our language, it just depends on the context to gain a meaning. Perhaps you are thinking that it was a great adaptation, despite the fact that both the publisher did not like it and Crunchyroll, in this last specific case, it was translated as "O Futuro é Top" which for you should make more sense, perhaps. But here it generated a kind of controversy. Yeah I'm commenting on that just to make it clear that an adaptation of Chainsaw can be good, that's because our unofficial translation did that, there's room to change the original material and jokes as long as I still feel that the spirit of the original was maintained. My expectations for a second season would be a change of direction, I'm sure this specific look would work in other works, an example would be Fire Punch, also a work by Fujimoto, but with Chainsaw it just didn't work.

O FUTURO É PIKA

Somebody called Chainsaw Man "Dorohedoro for Zoomers" and that's honestly the best description I could give of what this show ended up being like; though I think it juuuust misses the mark to being great and merely ends up being good - I'd rate it a solid 7/10.

My biggest problem - and I think what will turn most people off of this show - is the humor. I've read a lot about how clever and "ironic" it is, and now it "cuts through the tension" by making this generally rather dark show more palatable and less heavy, but to me personally it's by far the ... worst thing about Chainsaw man and the thing that makes it so different from Dorohedoro.

Dorohedoro, written by a woman, had very little sexual humor or fanservice in it - most of the humor was centered around gore, and how absurdly brutal and relentless the world itself is - the humor was (for the most part) just as dark as the show and its characters. You often felt bad for even laughing at the jokes in Dorohedoro. The humor is chainsaw man - for the most part, revolves around Denji being a horny idiot. And yeah, you can argue that its on theme - its not that weird for a 16 year old blockhead surrounded by beautiful women to be somewhat vulgar: He wants to touch Powers breasts, he wants to finally kiss a woman, he wants to sleep with Makima, everything always seems to revolve around sex or shit like, kicking somebody in the balls.

Don't get me wrong, I am no prude, you are talking to a guy who gave Highschool DxD an 8/10, but I personally find this kind of humor to be incredibly misplaced in this show and negatively affecting the atmosphere: The dark, gritty atmosphere hits like a truck in some episodes, my favorite moments are after a certain characters death, and thats when I personally find the show to be at its best. Sometimes I feel like Chainsaw man couldn't decide whether it wants to be a show for a teenagers or a show for adults. For me, all the "I want to touch boobs hehe" humor just takes away from the rest of the show, and leaving that aside, even taken at face value the jokes aren't any good and fall pretty flat. There are A TON of better shows with well done crude/sexual humor. I will say that I think the first couple of episodes are the worst in this regard, and the second half of the show is significantly stronger; I would recommend people who find the premise interesting but are turned off by the humor to stick with it, it does get better.

When Chainsaw man is at its best, it feels like I am watching a top tier seinen anime; at its worst, it feels like I am watching a very mediocre shounen anime. If it committed entirely to its dark, gritty world and the story, which is about a rather hopeless fight against evil, where the good guys not only need to make sacrifices (like giving up body parts) to gain powers, but also frequently die in the line of duty, it would easily be my anime of the year.

I could write more about other aspects of this show, but I honestly don't have that much to say: The animations (in my eyes) are well done and I honestly don't mind the CGI, the plot is kind of basic, but interesting enough to keep you hooked, the setting is creative and engaging, the character writing is strong (particularly for Aki; you want to see what ends up happening to everybody), and the music (especially that freaking opening) is good. If you don't mind the immature humor this show is absolutely worth watching.

Where to begin? Chainsaw man. All my friends loved this series, and constantly told me to watch it. I also turned it down, as this show seemed to pervy for me. Then the show got tons of hype online. Recently, I finally got around to watching it. I was so hyped up for this series. Annnnnndddddd: It was actually pretty boring. I know thats a hot take, but I personally had no enjoyment with this series at all. I found the characters (Other then maybe Aki) to be a bunch of emotionless pervs. But that's not my main problem with this series: it's just so ... boring. The finale felt so rushed and random, every arc just felt like random stuff was happening and I had to force myself to watch every episode. I'll give this series a second try once season 2 comes out, but overall: I didnt like it.