We've seen many stories where good and evil sides are clear. Where, from a moral standpoint, the good guy is helmed as the victor. And thanks to commercial greed, we got an abundance of those and we eventually got tired of them.
Then came "Grey stories", where the morality of the characters is generally can not be easily described as good or evil. But most of the time, these morally grey characters ends up being a couple of assholes with no real moral compass, or even worse, hypocrites with a pretense morals.
What Chainsaw Man does is instead of letting its characters in a battle of morals, it keeps them in a battle of motives. And I think this is where Chainsaw Man really succeeds, by making its protagonist, Denji the Dog, a complete animal. He's someone who lives only through feeding his instincts. Those instincts being eat, sleep, and sex. He doesn't care whether it's a human or a devil, as long as they provide it for him. The enemies might make a moral point, and might actually be in right side, but in this world, it doesn't matter if you are right or wrong. What matters is your fight for what you believe. If you lose, then you are wrong.
But later on, he starts to question whether these are all the reasons there's to live. Sure, he lived a life worse than a dog, but there's more to life than just primary needs. But sadly, the anime just ends here, with no mention of a continuation.
(Mild spoilers for characters)
The side characters are a bit different to Denji, as they fall into general archetypes we are familiar in battle shounen. Aki the revenge ninja, Himeno the deadly hot chick, Power who's basically Denji's sibling from another mother, and of course, Makima, who's a real mystery.
Aki goes from a dignified revenger to "maybe it's not bad to kick your enemy in the balls for fun" kinda dude, Himeno goes from being a lady with the ghost hand to being a straight ghost, Power's just Power all the time, and Makima being a behind-the-scenes manipulator the whole time making her the most mysterious and most frightening of all.
The story follows these core characters whose decisions make them seem like they are the bad ones. Two examples that come to mind are; Denji vs the Leech Demon, and Denji vs the Samurai Demon. In both cases, the demons are the ones with right intentions while Denji acts as a force to question the power of those intentions.
The story takes place in an unfair world, and the unfairness can be seen in every character arc but one that particularly hit me the feels was;
Stylistic Chaos (kind of)
With the treatment this Anime got, I feel like it's kinda wasted to view this on a small screen, because it definitely feels like it belongs to the big screens. It's really stylish and cinematic, but that's kinda the problem because the aesthetic choice doesn't go hand-in-hand with the story's tone.
Having two characters, one with chainsaws for his head & limbs, and the other with katanas for his head & limbs, dueling on a train completely filled with people, sounding way more chaotic in my head than whatever I saw. The only time I felt pure chaos was during the fight between Denji & the 8th floor demon. It was raw & intense, and for a good few moments I really thought I might hold a few seconds to just breathe. It was extremely well handled but that's one in a few. Remaining action segments are mostly sakuga flair which were very enjoyable on their own, but feels different from the remaining segments.
I just like the OST a lot, I've been listening to these even before watching the Anime. Especially, "living room" is my favorite.
I also like how "Sword of Hunter" just sounds like a more broken version of "Edge of Chainsaw", which plays when Aki hunts the snake demons, after what he had experienced. Very fitting.
Conclusion
A chaotic story of devils told with stylistic audiovisuals that almost feels cinematic. While it couldn't be the cultural phenomenon the producers and manga fans wanted it to be, it's still an experience well worth getting into, and a respectable work worthy of every penny and praise it gets.
(The Dub is not bad but a few moments were not well handled. So, maybe stick to the sub).
