Checked this out after the hype has dwindled - actually liking it more than the manga

Runasius said:
Seriously the amazing animation, great blend of 2D and 3D animation styles, and the very atmospheric, cinematic storytelling really elevated this arc for me. I wasn’t really interested in chainsaw man when I first read the manga and it took me until the “international assassins” arc to finally fall in love with it. But this adaptation has been crazy good so far.

Only 9 episodes in but it’s been smooth sailing for me. I’ve been even having more fun with this over other animated works last year like cyberpunk Edgerunners and puss in boots.

thunderkitten13 said:
This has to be a troll. Who openly admits to liking CGI over traditional animation lol. There’s a reason this has a worse score than Bocchi the Rock, which was much more clever and innovative in its animation.

LastTrain said:

you didn't improve on your behevior, this is kinda sad
you don't say anithing of value in a conversation and yet you're still here spreading toxicity about a japanese cartoon, it's mind boggling
it's almost like you don't have a hobby, friends to talk to or a job
please do better.

thunderkitten13 said:
This has to be a troll. Who openly admits to liking CGI over traditional animation lol. There’s a reason this has a worse score than Bocchi the Rock, which was much more clever and innovative in its animation.

TaifSux said:
Well, you are the one troll here who hates innovation and are afraid of change....CSM's cgi+2d blend was done beautifully and with care and with passion...Its characer acting driven, westernish cinamatic appraoch was a breath of fresh air in the industry...

CSM and Bocchi both were passion projects made with care and has enough share of uniqueness and inovation into them.... Both deserves the admiration for what they have done...

P.S - The way you talk is so immature, you should work to improve this.

thunderkitten13 said:

Yuck, you sound like a commercial. The fluid animation was nothing more than hollow diamonds, lacking in any real depth or analysis of the characters themselves. And that’s if we are talking the monotonous scenes that crawled by during the down time of the series (which sadly was almost every other 5 minutes). The CGI was atrocious and very awkward. It was especially worse when they paired the actual crispy traditionally animated pieces alongside it. It did not try to innovate anything. Mappa is investing in a technology to take away from the animators themselves because despite them working them like dogs they still can’t meet deadliness effectively. You’re literally justifying and animators replacement. Hell, even an AI software might one day take your jarring CGI and animate entire series out of it. I don’t understand why people would rather take away from actual talent and creativity over a computer program where creativity is not only limited but reduced to a grave degree. I’m no troll. I appreciate anime, and when it’s genuinely good (story and animation) then I enjoy it and consider it of good quality. But anime that are cheap in writing and animation? It leaves me with a longing to criticize it, and criticize I will, whether I get all these comments wasting their time trying to change my opinion or not.

TaifSux said:
As you said me commercial, You are dumb thus ignoring the aristic merits of CGI... Hard drawn drawing and cgi both are parts of a aniamation, there nothing wrong if someone makes good use of CGI to elevate the quality of the content like  Spirderverse and Arcane which revolutionzed the western aniamtion indsutry and has vastly supior visuals + artistic merits than the majority of the animated works.

I am not replacing animators, I am ceating more workplace where there will be a cgi department creating uniqune animation style, they will work with 2d artists to innovate something new, embraing the technology they will elevate the tradionational style

P.S - Thus you are acting like a ignorant , I am clarifying AI and CGI is entirely different..AI stoles others works to create something of its own where CGI don't. Creating well done cgi also needs talented+hardworking people...Thats why theres a huge quality difference between Trigun Stempade (It took 5 years to make) , Land of Lustarous with things like Ex Arm, Ajin

thunderkitten13 said:

CGI will never hold a candle to traditional art, including traditional animation. People will remember Ashitaka fighting off Nago to save his village from being devastated in Princess Mononoke; nobody will remember episode one of Chainsaw Man when a giant CGI zombie thing was swinging around the roof flailing about, and especially won’t remember the sequence when Denji was running through a crowd of CGI zombies (lmao).

I’m glad you mention those series because what those two series both have in common is AMAZING WRITING. It’s almost as if the WRITING is what is most important about a work. Chainsaw Man’s writing is borderline pathetic. It’s teases the audience with a lot of potent and impactful themes, and then spits on them with crude humor and sexual innuendo/promiscuity. It almost laughs maniacally at themes such as self-preservation and identify. It is at the end of the day a power fantasy about a boy and his dog from hell that pursue satisfying their cravings and nothing more.

God, wth are you talking about working towards “innovating” animation. Nothing is wrong with traditionally animation except the aspect of time which studios like Disney forgo because they are a greedy giant with a western philosophy of making a lot of money by using as little effort and time possible. And you are wrong about AI stealing art; it merely is trained on what you present to it. Most creatively bankrupt people use stolen art, but you are being disingenuous to the actual technology, which is laughable at this point that I’m having to explain to you why AI art is innovative in the first place lol.

thunderkitten13 said:

CGI will never hold a candle to traditional art, including traditional animation. People will remember Ashitaka fighting off Nago to save his village from being devastated in Princess Mononoke; nobody will remember episode one of Chainsaw Man when a giant CGI zombie thing was swinging around the roof flailing about, and especially won’t remember the sequence when Denji was running through a crowd of CGI zombies (lmao).

I’m glad you mention those series because what those two series both have in common is AMAZING WRITING. It’s almost as if the WRITING is what is most important about a work. Chainsaw Man’s writing is borderline pathetic. It’s teases the audience with a lot of potent and impactful themes, and then spits on them with crude humor and sexual innuendo/promiscuity. It almost laughs maniacally at themes such as self-preservation and identify. It is at the end of the day a power fantasy about a boy and his dog from hell that pursue satisfying their cravings and nothing more.

God, wth are you talking about working towards “innovating” animation. Nothing is wrong with traditionally animation except the aspect of time which studios like Disney forgo because they are a greedy giant with a western philosophy of making a lot of money by using as little effort and time possible. And you are wrong about AI stealing art; it merely is trained on what you present to it. Most creatively bankrupt people use stolen art, but you are being disingenuous to the actual technology, which is laughable at this point that I’m having to explain to you why AI art is innovative in the first place lol.

TaifSux said:
So Everything boils down to ,"i don't like chainsaw man thats why I hate it and shame someone who says he loved it even though It was good"....Fix our behaviour.....


Nope, In animated medium writting is not the most important thing, animaiton is equally important, spiderverse and arcane wasn't just written beautifully they both were technical benchmarks that forced the western animated industry to approach new...Theres nothing wrong with traditional animation but People should work toward innovate something new, people should present new ideas and animation style becuase thats how industry revolutionzes....

One thing you said correctly in that ignorant and edgy mess of a paragraph "Most creatively bankrupt people use stolen art"...I will just replace few words "Most greedy people use cgi to repalce 2D" but guess there are others who use cgi to introduce us to new animation style and to elevate the quality of the work and CSM is one example of that.

have a good day, I am not replying to your anymore btw please do explain to me, " How AI art is innovative other than scearching others artstyles, refarences from internet and tracing over it"..I genuinely want to know..

Confused_99 said:

What you're talking is unrelated to the topic.

Csm looks good with CGI as a dark anime and I can't imagine it without it, CGI is also a part of animation and it's pretty good in csm.
So stop getting pissed over 1 pixel of a frame being not good enough.

thunderkitten13 said:
This has to be a troll. Who openly admits to liking CGI over traditional animation lol. There’s a reason this has a worse score than Bocchi the Rock, which was much more clever and innovative in its animation.

samsince04 said:
Idk man I just enjoyed binging Part 1 of the manga. I read it at B&N on a whim and I ended up collecting the volumes. I didn't enjoy the anime much. Doesn't have much to do with CGI. I just think CSM is best enjoyed in print. But then again the manga took a nosedive for me as well.

CSM nerds that love the anime have this inferiority complex, it's hilarious. I've already seen a few on this thread...  CSM is in the top 100 of MAL. Clearly, there are more twerkers than apparent haters. It is not a hot take to say you enjoyed CSM.

APolygons2 said:

he didn't say cgi is better than 2d. he said it was blended well. now, csm, would look better in fully 2d, but that's this case.
if we're talking about spideverse or arcane, even the top 1% of fully 2d animation are barely comparable.

also you are an actual clown if you think the only reason bochi is this highly rated is because it used a lot of 2d animation. that is the most clown ass take I have ever heard. 

APolygons2 said:
frankly I loved it, and I think the rating is more than fair.

what bothers me slightly, and probably bothers the people complaining, is the fact that, normally shounen titles get much higher ratings that they deserve. let's not kid ourself, demon slayer has never been a top 50 worthy show.

so it does make me sad, when the 2 new modern battle shounens that I do think lived up to the hype "mob psycho and CSM" get the same, or lower rating as demon slayer or jjk.

thunderkitten13 said:

Bocchi was peak because it blended fluid, beautiful traditional animation with great music and the story was relatable. I’d ask you to argue why Chainsaw Man started out at the top but is barely hanging on in the mid 8s? Bleach still has a high score, and that is a way better comparison?

I was referring to the fact that most people are excusing or justifying the terrible CG with empty praise that is just flat out wrong. The CG is uncanny at certain parts when paired with the fluid animation lol. It’s like dousing a beautiful velvet cake with tartar sayce; it’s just wrong.

thunderkitten13 said:

CGI will never hold a candle to traditional art, including traditional animation. People will remember Ashitaka fighting off Nago to save his village from being devastated in Princess Mononoke; nobody will remember episode one of Chainsaw Man when a giant CGI zombie thing was swinging around the roof flailing about, and especially won’t remember the sequence when Denji was running through a crowd of CGI zombies (lmao).

I’m glad you mention those series because what those two series both have in common is AMAZING WRITING. It’s almost as if the WRITING is what is most important about a work. Chainsaw Man’s writing is borderline pathetic. It’s teases the audience with a lot of potent and impactful themes, and then spits on them with crude humor and sexual innuendo/promiscuity. It almost laughs maniacally at themes such as self-preservation and identify. It is at the end of the day a power fantasy about a boy and his dog from hell that pursue satisfying their cravings and nothing more.

God, wth are you talking about working towards “innovating” animation. Nothing is wrong with traditionally animation except the aspect of time which studios like Disney forgo because they are a greedy giant with a western philosophy of making a lot of money by using as little effort and time possible. And you are wrong about AI stealing art; it merely is trained on what you present to it. Most creatively bankrupt people use stolen art, but you are being disingenuous to the actual technology, which is laughable at this point that I’m having to explain to you why AI art is innovative in the first place lol.

APolygons2 said:
this is one of the few battle shounen that fully lived up to it's hype for me. the only other one that I can think of is mob psycho 100.

I am so sad people talked so much shit about it for all the wrong reasons. now to be fair, the cgi shots of episode 1 looked very dodo, but everything after that was from great to masterpiece level visuals.

and holy shit, can we talk about the writing?

I would have never imagined the next big battle shounen to be THIS well written. and this is the WEAK part of the story?

I don't mind a director change as long as the shift isn't massive, But I absolutely need more. 

chinmay23 said:

it's not shounen tho- it's seinen

APolygons2 said:
it's not. i'll be it it's gorier than the average shounen, but it is definitely a shounen.

it's shounen in story structure, themes, and it is published in a shounen magazine. 

chinmay23 said:

It's still there to attract more young adults or adults in general right? so it should be considered seinen

I don't know any technicalities towards it just a thought.

APolygons2 said:
I would say the main audience for CSM is probably like 16-20 year olds.

which is probably higher than your average shounen. but idk.

compare it vinland saga. where the targeted audience is like 18-40.

or made in abyss, or heavenly delusions. you can clearly see how these would atract an older audience that CSM.

that that that is necessarily a bad thing. I absolutely loved the first season of csm. and if this is the weak part, it can easily become one of my favourites.

chinmay23 said:

Personally, this part was on the weaker side. the next arc(s) is where it actually starts getting crazy.

Hope they do the next arc(s) in series rather than movie.

seriouslyjokinn said:


blub, the scene your talking about is all 2d. Zombies were all 2d.

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/208322

Chainsaw Man in starting was CGI, but it then switches into 2d when Chainsaw Man goes to kill zombie devil and fight zombies and when he massacres the zombie devil, it switches back to CGI, for seconds. You are really underestimating how hard it is to draw a really complex mechanical model and not just one time, but like 24 or 42 frames without breaking model once. And even tho it's difficult, animators did drew did that and it looked wonderful. Except Ghost devil's UPPER BODY, some snake devil "cuts", Some "seconds" of Chainsaw Man and Samurai Sword were only CGI for the rest of the show. 99% of CSM is NOT rotoscoped.

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/210920

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/207399

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/208036

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/208035 (this is not rotoscoped, and so is 99% of CSM)

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/208627

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/208628

https://sakugabooru.com/post/show/210913

Ghibli also uses CGI in some ways or other. Spiderverse and Arcane won't be a thing. Bocchi also used CGI a LOT times than you think. Shows like Cowboy Bebop also used CGI a lot times for creating dynamic shots which won't be possible. Mappa's Character CGI is much better than ufotable's. CGI is inevitable and we could do nothing except accepting it and improving upon it

riprull said:
i think the hate on the anime was completely nonsense, csm is my favorite manga and the anime not only makes a great adaptation, there are some things that, in my opinion, are better made. The cinematic thing that Fujimoto have is well made in the anime and the CGI is better than other big franchises, the almost nonexistent anime comedy (there is comedy, but not the cliche anime things) its nothing but a better way to transmit the story to new spectators.

You got me Fujimoto, its cinema.

thunderkitten13 said:
This has to be a troll. Who openly admits to liking CGI over traditional animation lol. There’s a reason this has a worse score than Bocchi the Rock, which was much more clever and innovative in its animation.

noobo69 said:

"Ma opinion best your opinion worst"
Touch grass brother.

thunderkitten13 said:

Lol, if you want to lie down and accept mediocrity then that’s fine but I’m not going to do that. And the bulk of Ghibli’s library didn’t use CG so you’re just nitpicking my argument to for a rebuttal. And I was watching CM since the first episode, it was a huge controversy how the first episode turned out lol, and they continued to use CG for a majority of the time. If they only used it for “seconds” then the director is a fool to literally recreate the CG style in 2D just so they could use 2D. That’s like diluting lemonade with oil; it makes the animation worse in the end. I mean, even Mappa considers the series a giant blunder with the core fans, and that they need to do better. The Japanese people rejected it and it showed with the terrible BD sales. Nobody wants to support that garbage form of storytelling. And I don’t know why there’s so much talk of good CG animation with Soiderverse. It literally is dwarfed in quality by actually good traditionally animated works. Spiderverse uses a lot of bright colors to distort what you are seeing. Pretty sure some people have had seizures do to the insane amount of flashing colors. Half is a stylistic choice but also CG is extremely limited in what it’s able to do. It is impossible to be creative completely using it. Anime is special not because faces are drawn perfect, but because animators try to be unique with their designs to create emotion. It’s through their creativity that one can feel, and the depth of this is impossible with CG. 

seriouslyjokinn said:

Do you even know why they used CGI at all even though the staff is so stacked? Have you wondered and thought deeply why they would use CGI if staff could animate Chainsaw Man and almost everything 2d? Saying that it was directorial choice is just COMPLETELY bullshit. And are we really comparing a Ghibli project with pure Movie level production with a Series production with almost movie level quality? If you think that there is only Fight animation/sakuga from which a series overall animation quality could be judged, then this thinking is wrong. A show could have a nice fight for 3 minutes and remaining 20 could be PowerPoint presentation and that doesn't mean whole show have good animation. And did we watch the same show? Aside from Fight sakuga which was amazing, there was constantly character acting sakuga and ALWAYS moving characters for 12 episodes straight with beautiful layouts and storyboards on every average shot with complex perspective. To top it up with different eds for every ep. Added with Beautiful composition, Incredible background animation and Effects animation and you say this is mediocre???