Chainsaw Man

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Chainsaw Man is one of those manga your friends keep assuring you is worth the time but that you never engage in, until you do, and you realize how right they were.

Fujimoto is a master of the short-format manga, his one-shots and shorts being notoriously among the best in the industry.
With many cinematographic influences and references throughout the manga and its intense rhythm, Chainsaw Man was a pleasant albeit at times confusing surprise. Still, the manga hooks you really well, and you easily find yourself finishing the first arc in a day or two.

Now, Fujimoto's problem perhaps lies in his specialty, in my opinion the ... Public Safety Arc was a perfect story in every single way, and I am scared to see whether or not Fujimoto will be able to keep that rhythm up for further arcs. Him continuing the story almost makes no sense, I believe most people would rather see him go on and try something new, giving us seasonal (13 volumes) manga releases (or even less like in Fire Punch) rather than him eventually ruining what was a perfect ending to his series.

This is the reasoning behind my 8, that hopefully will change into a 10 once I'll inevitably realize I was wrong.

It’s a fun, easy read. It is very shounen. It’s good for clearing your brain from daily stress. It is a SOLID 7. And we NEED 7s like this! It is like the trash TV, it’s fun to watch, but too much will make your brain melt.

I recommend if you want to clear your brain and relax. I also mostly recommend this to 14-19.

I don’t recommend if you're looking for deep and interesting story with strongly written, well rounded characters and world building.

Review:

Art: Great stuff. 10/10. Amazing poses, line work and panelling.
Design: Good stuff: 8/10. Original and consistent character design. Negligible world design.
Characters: ... Poor stuff: 3/10 Most of them are on dimensional except for one or two, that are a bit more than 1 dimension. Not unique or interesting.
Story: Decent stuff: 6/10 Superficial, fun and simple. it’s about fighting, shock value and plot twists. Nothing about any deep and complex characteristics of human values, nothing about moral dilemmas or grey areas. Doesn’t go deep into feelings and emotions.
Theme: It changes drastically around chapter 80. Loses the adventure theme, becomes too sensationalistic, full on action. Like a typical 90s hollywood action movie.

Pros: art, character design, fighting, action

Cons: superficial, lazy writing, over reliance on plot twists and shock value, one-dimensional characters.

Rant:
1. Bullcrappery. Around ch75 a lot of things change, tHe PlOt TwIsTs. It becomes too plot twisty. By ch 90, you have no clue what’s going on. Too much mystery, too much unanswered questions. Probably they are explained later. But this made me just loose interest. Maybe I’ll comeback to it later.
2. Superficial characters. Even Denji is very simply written. All the women characters are one-dimensional, sexualised. It becomes bleh really fast. Author does know his audience well. In addition, characters drop like flies. I can’t even call some characters - characters. They are more like just plot points.
3. Sensationalism and shock value. Ah yes, gore, bla bla bla. After 10 chapters it doesn’t even feel like gore. It is used so much that it just becomes dull. It becomes just a cool hack and slash story.
4. Too many plot twists. There’s a plot twist on every chapter more or less. Most of the interests comes from that. Without the plot twists, this story wouldn’t be. At a point you just start saying to yourself in full saracstic tone: “omg… no way… who would have thought… I didnt see this coming at all… oh wow… Anyway”

Lesson for story making:
The writing and worldbuilding doesnt have to be well made to be popular. Bar minimum is just enough. Worldbuilding, interesting, well written stories and characters are not the only elements for making a successful story. Sexualistation, gore, and sensationalism sell!

Not sure if a four is right or if I'll change it but, my opinion of this manga is, it sucks. It's completely overrated. I really don't understand how anyone could enjoy it. It makes me nauseous just looking at it. The art is terrible and, unfortunately, even the best story couldn't make up for that, however, the story itself is not even that good. It reads like something someone in middle school wrote. The gun devil? Chainsaw man? Is it supposed to be some satire of superheroes? Cause it's not nearly good enough or funny enough to work as that either. I was not ... able to finish it, though I know how it ends. I've tried rereading it and fail every time. The story just fails to captivate me, and the art certainly doesn't help. The manga seems like something that's edgy just to be edgy, like it's trying too hard to be different without any of the genius that actually makes manga like that good. I will say that, peaking at part two of the manga, the art is considerably better, almost like night and day. It has the same style which I'm not overly fond of but, adds more too it's background and just looks cleaner and more appealing to the eyes. May give that a try and see if the story has improved at all. Maybe it will give me enough energy to read the first part again and see if I can alter the score. I'm guessing the new generation of manga readers are who like this stuff because this, and JJK, are pretty much unreadable for me. I have seen some quirky art but, this is just plain bad. They need to take more time to finish their chapters, because I'm sure they can draw much better, but the end product just looks completely rushed. HxH has better art, and for the record, I do enjoy that manga so... it's not impossible to make something with messier art good. Dorohedoro is good too but, it just flows better than Chainsaw man and JJK. They are like every other shonen, only they skimped on the art. What's there to get excited about?