Living in debt to the yakuza, a young man named Denji works as a Devil Hunter to pay off said debt using his chainsaw devil companion, Pochita, as his weapon. However when the yakuza attempt to make him into a sacrifice as part of a contract with a devil, Denji makes his own contract with Pochita to become a human-devil hybrid known as Chainsaw Man to slay them. Approached by a government-ran devil hunting agency called the Public Safety Division, their leader Makima persuades him to join their ranks and combat devil threats.
On the surface, I’ll admit the premise of Chainsaw Man had me assuming it was aiming to be a dark and gritty action series relishing in its gory violence and the merciless actions of the various devils affecting the populace. Instead, the series is shown to have a bit more meat to its story with how its tone and setting are established. With humans and devils having a parasitic-like relationship between humans relying on contracts with them for some sort of purpose and devils feeding on the fear humans give off of their existence to become more powerful, this is reflected in how bleak and hopeless humanity’s existence in this world is through the members of the Public Safety Division. Each have different perceptions of their roles within the agency between those unaccustomed to fighting devils becoming a nervous mess breaking from the pressure and the more seasoned agents being so emotionally exhausted from losing those close to them that they become emotionally hardened or focus on some sort of quest of revenge as a means to continue mentally functioning within their line of work.
These elements also carry over to how they shape Denji’s character throughout Chainsaw Man in a more believable way with the “idiot hero” character type used in a decent number of shounen titles. Being orphaned, stuck in debt, little social experience, and lacking a formal education due to his circumstances, the boy’s brash and simple character is more a result of these rough circumstances instead of just sticking the character type onto the lead character. These subversive elements also carry over into Denji’s desire for sexual gratification through his thoughts of Makima and finding out things are not as he would perceive when getting what he desires.
On the visual side, Chainsaw Man is easily one of the more visually impressive titles I’ve seen for this year. Character designs have a good amount of visual detail and are on the more believable side as far as how they are drawn, something that appears to be deliberate from the show’s creators to give the series a realistic feel. The action scenes make for the visual highlight of the series with devil-on-devil or human-on-devil combat as they offer fluid movement and retain the manga’s intense and gory violence. The series highlight for me as far as action goes would probably be Denji’s final battle with the Katana Man in the final episode of the series. The only low point I have with the visuals is that a number of the devil designs are a bit on the generic side with their grotesque appearances.
If there’s a major issue with Chainsaw Man, it largely comes from the fact that the series is adapted from ongoing source material. The series drops hints regarding a few characters having more going on with them beneath the surface, particularly with Makima’s actions and behavior. But these developments get further explored beyond the first five volumes of the manga series that the Chainsaw Man anime adapts and at least as of the time I write this review, news of a second anime season has yet to be announced.
In short, I can see where the hype for Chainsaw Man comes in with depicting the conflict between humans and devils, as well as subverting some of the typical cliches of the shounen “idiot hero” with Denji’s character. This kind of series isn’t my cup of tea as far as what it offers up for humor and storytelling. But still as far as dark and violent action titles go, I’d at least recommend sampling the series if you like dabbling into those sorts of anime.
