Should You watch this over the TV series instead?

No, it makes way too many changes in comparison to the first season, and most of them not being really for the better. Just watch the whole season instead of just an abridged version.

@Oongbuh the things cut out were all unimportant scenes that hurt the work immensely. There were many additions & alterations made to improve the experience & make it more manga accurate too. There wasn't a single thing I noticed that made it worse. Ofc there's also the omake adaptation at the end of each ep. I don't c much that can be disputed especially for older viewers who hated the season. Hard to call it "abrdged" when it kept all the manga content

OST is worse. In sol scenes everything is great. But fight scenes and some dramatic scenes feel worse. No SWEET DREAMS in Himeno sacrifise is a crime. I don't understand why they changed something that worked great.

@Chevesus cus it didn't work & lots of ppl hated it. Anythin that didn't suit CSM & was criticized heavily got altered or outright removed to the best of the team's ability. Things that should've been there before but weren't were added in like the gun devil death count or music in the katana fight. The sol scenes broke the structure, pace, & tone while mischaracterizin characters like Aki & servin no real purpose. They were also jus done poorly on their own. Everythin feels much better imo & closer to the manga. Anythin that wasn't in the manga was removed & it feels so much better. Not to mention the changed performances & lines. But I alr made a review over the bulk of this so I'm jus repeatin myself

@NightlyData You misunderstood me. I'm telling you about soundtrack. With pacing, okay, I agree. I'm just disagree with "There wasn't a single thing I noticed that made it worse" part. There was, audio mixing.

They just cut out some of action and suspence and changed it to some random noise. Just rewatch fight with Kishibe at cemetary, or Aki vs Ghost (EP11). It doesn't really fit the scene. Or MtH track in Eternity devil fight. And even KON scene in EP4. Compare TV and Recap version, where timings in both scenes are off. It's great that they used some unused previously tracks and OP in Katana fight was fine, but I think audio mixing changed to the worse

As someone who very recently watched the first season and read the first 97 chapters of the manga for the first time, I think the criticisms of the anime were very overblown. I really enjoyed the atmosphere that was built up by the direction and slower moments, and it didn't even feel all that different from the source material to me. I wouldn't say that it felt that slow paced as a whole, since it still managed to adapt more than three chapters an episode on average. For the sake of comparison, it might be interesting to watch both, but I can't see myself recommending the compilations over the first season if someone was only going to watch one.

answer can be pretty simple: If u want to catch up watch the compilation movie. if you want to get the full (anime only) experience, the series has some very nice scenes. they are controversial because they are anime only but in my personal opinion they elevated the well written characters even more.

there is nothing wrong either way. I have read the manga multiple times, watched the first season 4 times and still enjoyed the compilation movie and the "original" season

Just finished watching the 2 compilation movies, they are awesome because hey, it's Chainsaw Man and this franchise is awesome, but these compilation movies don't add anything, it does the opposite, it remove things from the anime, and they remove quite a lot to be able to fit everything in 2 movies. The only thing it does is add some new soundtracks here and there while removing other soundtracks in the process, so this is barely an improvement since the original OST was good enough.

The movie did add some shorts in the last 3 minutes of each episode, which were fun and all, but that's the only thing it really added, so it wasn't much. So do I recommend the movie? I don't, I will still recommend people to watch the 12-episode anime since it's more complete, and just watch the last 3 minutes of the movie for the shorts and nothing else.

Having literally watched the first compilation side-by-side with the corresponding episodes, I still disagree. I generally prefer the OST placements in the show, there were some really solid action cuts and interesting cinematography choices choices that didn’t make it into the compilation, and the slower moments just added to the atmosphere and/or for me. I would argue that it’s slightly less faithful than the anime, since it cut out stuff like

I also think the season has a much stronger ending; you get

Additionally, watching 3 and a half hours of two compilation films wouldn’t even save you that much more time than 12 anime time episodes.

@xZabuzax Untrue. they do add some info in regards to the that wasn't in the og version(it was in the manga tho) which adds to the devastation it brings. The cuts/edits were made to create a drastically diff experience from the og(closer to manga) so that's an important thing to consider, & it uses the Blu-ray version of the season so the visuals R cleaned up. Not to mention the VA performances R heavily redone. It's supposed to be jus as complete as the og by bein a more faithful showcase of this part of the series than the og broadcast was.

@NightlyData Whatever the movie added is minimal to consider it over the 12-episode anime, so I still don't recommend it. The movie still removes a shit load of things to fit everything in it, so the movie is more like an abridged version of the TV series.

The movie using the BD version is not even an argument, since you can also watch the BD version of the 12-episode anime, and this is the version that I recommend, since I will always recommend the BD version over the TV series. The VA performance on the 12-episode anime is also good enough, so it didn't even need to be redone.

I will only recommend the movie on a rewatch; for a first timer, go with the 12-episode anime.

@xZabuzax U misunderstood part of my point. "More content" isn't automatically a "good" thing cus that stuff hurt the experience. If a newcomer watches it & dislikes it then wut? They prob won't even bother wit the compilation at that point. Again the comp is supposed to be a very diff experience which is y those cuts were made in the 1st place(not for time). It's meant to improve the work & give a more manga accurate experience. Also ppl have to BUY the Blu-Rays cus it isn't on a streamin service like crunchy so they won't watch that version unless they watch the comp which is readily available there so that suggestion doesn't work as well u think. U can't jus say "it adds more content", u gotta explain wut that content even offers or it's jus a waste of time that drags things down

@littlewillie610 The cuts were done on-purpose cus those scenes, action or otherwise either didn't add to the experience or outright detracted from it. The slower moments were exactly wut made the whole thing worse & un-CSMlike. The compilation edits in info the og season left out which was crucial. Any time saved over somethin unnecessary is time saved & u don't really lose anythin not havin the last anime original bit at the end. U'd be surprised how the time to even switch eps eats up compared to a mostly uninterrupted streamlined experience rather than jus the cuts in the work itself. U might be right on the denji & makima thing but I don't believe anythin was cut for himeno that was in the manga