Chainsaw Man

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EDIT: Chainsaw Man is really intense, and not for everyone. This manga features child neglect/abuse, gore, vomiting, grooming/psychological manipulation, and pedophilia. If any of that is upsetting for you, tread carefully!

This review was written after the ending of Part 1.

--

I hate reviews that start off with unnecessary prose, so let's skip all that and get to the meat of things!

Chainsaw Man is a story which thrives in its unexpectedness. It's a story that takes you for twists and turns in its plot and characterization, but mostly through its simultaneous homage to and subversion of shonen tropes. It's a story that looks dumb as hell, with ... a protagonist who acts dumb as hell, with a goal that seems dumb as hell (touch some booooooooobs). But where Chainsaw Man gets you is that it anticipates your exhaustion with these tropes. It anticipates that you'll accept the meathead perverted protagonist at face value and shrug off the lack of culpability put on Makima for her actions in endangering a minor. Because all shonen protagonists are teenagers who go through terrible things and are burdened with the fate of the world on their shoulders, so who cares?

Fujimoto does. And he wants *you* to care, too. And so he deconstructs common, unquestioned tropes left and right, creates characters whose complexity extends beyond convoluted backstories, and constantly ups the ante, all without creating a story so large it self destructs.

PART 1: Don't Open the Door (Denji, the Plot, and Subverting Shonen Tropes)

At the core of Chainsaw Man is its protagonist, Denji: a destitute, impoverished teen, who struggles daily to survive a cruel and uncaring world in order to pay off his late father's insurmountable debts to the yakuza. By his side is Pochita, his pet chainsaw devil. Denji is willing to do most anything to make a pretty penny: cutting down trees, hunting devils (which is highly dangerous), even selling body parts on the black market. Denji's life is tragic, but it is not meaningless. Unlike many shonen protagonists, his life of barely surviving on a piece of bread a day with his father's impossible debt looming over his head, is not a set piece to get the plot rolling, and quickly be forgotten. Nor does his backstory encompass the entirety of his character and limit his development. Denji's difficult past deeply influences his worldview and personality, but he is still treated as a highly impressionable teenager. He is both naive about the ways of the world and intimately familiar with the worst humanity has to offer.

When Denji joins the Public Safety Devil Hunters, he doesn't have much of a higher calling. He frankly doesn't care much about killing devils to save people or anything like that (at least, not at the beginning). It's a do or die situation: after being attacked by a devil, Pochita, saves his life by giving him his chainsaw devil powers. In exchange, he asks Denji to chase his dreams. When the local Public Safety force which protects Japan from devils arrive on the scene, Denji is given an ultimatum: to die at their hands as a devil, or to sacrifice his freedom to work for them, using his unique powers to become a devil hunter. Denji accepts the latter, of course. But Denji does not hate Makima, the devil hunter who put him in this situation. Instead, he is grateful to her, because she hugged him and promised to feed him breakfast.

Denji's tragic backstory doesn't exist just to make him easier to root for. It is a *core component* of who he is in a way that is incredibly compelling, as well as being more authentic to the real-world impact of severe trauma (especially childhood trauma). His easy acceptance of the dilemma Makima presents him with is rooted in the fact that he has never really been free. He's used to being used. At least he knows Public Safety will feed him. Throughout the story, every single one of Denji's dreams -- to eat good food, to have a friend to play video games with, to touch a girl's boobs, to have sex with a girl -- is a painful reminder of his deprived childhood. Denji is blunt, and Denji is simple. The only things he wants are safety, a home, and a person who cares about him.

In an incredibly refreshing twist, Denji's history of abject poverty and his role as a devil hunter is not passed off as 'normal,' and is instead actively questioned and challenged. The most overt example of this takes place halfway through the first part, when Denji makes a friend his age who truly sees him for who he is. Together, the two of them sneak into a high school to goof around and hang out. But, partway through the evening, Denji's new friend says this:

"At 16, you're still just a kid, you know? It's when most kids are studying to get into college, throwing themselves into a club or a sport, hanging out with friends.... But *you're* killing devils, almost getting killed yourself... Is this Public Safety place you're with right now really a good place?"
"Yeah, they're super great! I get three meals a day and I get to sleep in a bed."
"That's, like, the *bare minimum* standard of living in Japan... It's *not* something amazing."

Ah! How refreshing!! Another character acknowledging that Denji's situation is irrevocably fucked, and *specifically* because of his age!!! Of course, hurt/comfort tropes have their place in shonen. But I've never seen a conversation like this, where a character tells the protagonist that not just one thing that happened is sad or fucked up -- that their whole situation sucks, actually, and why isn't anyone doing anything about it? (I love Fullmetal Alchemist dearly. I spent the entire manga and both anime waiting for ONE (1) person to acknowledge that being a child soldier at age 12 is Kinda Bad instead of impressive.) There are no other teenage devil hunters who are thrown into combat because they are "talented" or "smart" or whatever. It just isn't done. Denji is a special case, because he is a devil hybrid, and is explicitly treated as inhuman by most of the cast. In a genre populated by underage protagonists tackling world-destroying threats, it's very refreshing to see this questioned.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll refrain from going further into Denji's character and development. But just know that Denji is not a static protagonist, and his ridiculous quest in the first dozen or so chapters to touch a girl's boobs is not his defining trait. Generally speaking, I hate perverted protagonists! I think they're annoying as hell. But Denji isn't a pervert. He's a traumatized kid looking for connection with someone, anyone. And that, to me, is compelling.

PART 2: Connections and Supporting Characters

The supporting cast in Chainsaw Man is great, because they are all batshit crazy.

One character acknowledges that you have to have a few screws loose to survive as a devil hunter. These characters -- many of whom aren't human -- act entirely outside the boundaries of normal behavior to survive as devil hunters. And yet they're all still realistic and compelling, with their own goals, relationships, personalities, and traits. There's a sort of impulsivity about their actions, which only adds to the sense that these are characters who are just trying to survive a chaotic and cruel world. In so doing, Fujimoto enhances the complexity of his characterization, while also lending to the frantic pacing of the plot.

Chainsaw Man features a *lot* of character death. Will your favorite survive to the end? Chances are, probably not! But despite that, somehow Fujimoto avoids exhausting readers with deaths. You know you shouldn't care, because there's no guarantee they'll live to the next chapter, but you still do. Some deaths are foreshadowed for entire chapters, while others happen entirely out of the blue. But regardless, each serves a purpose, and each is genuinely upsetting.

Beyond that, each character develops and progresses naturally, where even your least favorites start to grow on you. (I hated Kobeni when I started reading Chainsaw Man. Now I would die for her.) They don't all progress in a positive way, but they are constantly changing.

A true standout character in my eyes is Power. She's a fiend -- a devil possessing a human corpse -- who is a fellow devil hunter, and becomes one of Denji's closest friends. She's also a total bastard.

Power is very unique in my eyes, because, yes, she's really cute and funny, but she's also an absolute moron. That's not very common in anime and manga, for female characters to just be stupid! Usually, a dumb female character is a cutesy airhead whose obliviousness is played for laughs and/or ecchi scenes. But Power is just as much of a jerk as Denji, if not more. They get up to antics together, prank their housemate Aki, riff off each other, and generally have an incredibly strong dynamic. As a female anime fan, it's really, really refreshing to see a female character whose gender doesn't limit her personality traits to only 'cutesy' feminine stuff! It's also really refreshing to see a 100% platonic dynamic between her and Denji. (Power is also a very compelling character herself, which I won't get into because Spoilers.)

Chainsaw Man doesn't shy away from depicting unhealthy relationships, either. The relationship between Denji and Makima is one of the most crucial and compelling things about the manga, and it is laden with emotional manipulation and abuse tactics. Depicting grooming is difficult enough, and doubly so when the groomer is a beautiful woman. However, Fujimoto manages to capture the duality of such a relationship: both the kindness which draws a victim into an abusive relationship, and the cruelty which keeps them there. Again, in the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll stop here. But I will say that reducing Denji to a simp does a great disservice to both characters, and also perpetuates the toxic idea that men can't be victims.

I really wish I could ramble about all the characters in Chainsaw Man, because I love literally all of them (except Santa Claus and Makima. All my homies hate Santa Claus and Makima). But much of what makes them amazing can't be summed up in brief personality descriptions, and instead has to be read through their relationships with each other. For all the brashness and bluntness of the manga, there is a beautiful subtlety to the character development, which is best experienced, rather than told.

PART 3: Art

The art of Chainsaw Man seems to be a point of contention for many! Personally, I've always liked it. I find that Fujimoto's sketchy style lends to the feeling of urgency and dread as you're waiting for the next Big Thing to happen. Also, his expressions and grasp of anatomy is godlike. But the art *is* very sketchy, and sometimes his characters fall a bit out of proportion (especially on profile views). Where Fujimoto's art truly shines is in Chainsaw Man's many gory fight scenes and eye-grabbing panels. In general, Fujimoto's panel construction is incredible. You can definitely see that he's a huge film fan, with how he uses all sorts of different angles and layouts in an attempt to emulate famous cinematography. Chainsaw Man is not a story that happens to be a manga -- it takes advantage of the medium to lay itself out as a storyboard, and lets the reader fill in the gaps. (God, it's going to look so good animated. Hype.)

Although Chainsaw Man loves blood and guts, it's not super intense / detailed -- squeamish folks may want to tread carefully, but most people will probably be fine. The gore isn't gross, but it is fun and flashy. Character design-wise, Fujimoto really shines with designing the various devils, fiends, and half-devil hybrids, as well as making all the members of Public Safety stand out despite their simple designs.

Overall, you can tell that Fujimoto believes in the ten-second principle -- most people spend only ten seconds looking at a panel before moving on. But his artistic chops can't be denied, especially when you're looking at the full-page or spread panels.

PART 4: In Summary

To finish this off, I want to say that Chainsaw Man is good as hell. It's a smart manga that is gory, painful, frequently hilarious, and will make you feel despair like you've never felt before. But beyond the blood, guts, gore, and sex, Chainsaw Man is at its core a story about trauma, chasing your dreams, personal growth, and the connections you make with other people (for better or for worse). I wouldn't go so far as to call it a deconstruction, but if you're a shonen fan who's become a bit disillusioned with the genre, Chainsaw Man is a breath of fresh air. (Especially since as of December 14, 2020, when this review is being posted, the announcement for an anime AND a "part two" of the manga just dropped a few days ago. And part 2... oh boy howdy does it look good!)

While the pacing is quite fast, I think it suits the tone of the story quite well; after all, this isn't exactly a forgiving world, and the characters themselves are rarely given any downtime. The rapid pacing doesn't mean that Fujimoto overlooks his characters for the sake of keeping the plot moving; on the contrary, it allows him to write more subtle, easily overlooked moments of setup and characterization, keeping up the hype while also ensuring that future developments aren't cheap or jarring. It adds a lot of reread value, which I find most manga to be lacking in. Once you know how things end, looking back to analyze in depth how things got to that point in the first place is really interesting!

I want to be clear: this story *hurts*. It's immensely tragic. One chapter was so sad and stressful that another mangaka had to take a week-long mental health break. I was basically comatose for an entire day after binge reading it, and I'm still unpacking all that I read. But, if you've got the time and energy to devote to it, Chainsaw Man is an incredibly unique experience that won't let you down.

While rating this I've pulled out my shounen wow-those-fights-are-so-cool heart in order to review this as fair as possible for the mangaka. Still couldn't give this a high mark.

Story:
The story and worldbuilding are so incredibly weak. The mangaka pushes you straight into action and from that point on you're in a rollercoaster that's only going hard downwards with no rest, meaning that there's no time to rest and therefore no time to enjoy the hype (no light without darkness yknow).

Towards the end, the story underwent an acceleration. The story that didn't even have anything to offer, underwent a goddamn acceleration. I couldn't even believe ... the plot twist. I thought that there must've been something behind it, but guess, what, that was it. I wouldn't have know that I finished the manga today if I didn't add it on MAL.
Thinking about it now, maybe the manga was already going at the speed of light from ch 1.

At a certain point, the only bait was the question of who the protagonist is going to bang.


Art:
The fights aren't even that cool either. They're just normal. Sure, if this is your first action-gore and you discovered your action-gore kink with it, then I understand. But there are loads of other manga's out there with much better and more original fights and gore. Chainsaw man has nothing special to offer. The only things worthy of mentioning are the details and the originality to make monsters out of objects (though personally, that was really childish, but that's really subjective).


Characters:
The simpleness of the protagonist in the beginning should be praised. It fits perfectly in a feel-good/cool-fight shounen. But then it got too simple. Until the end, we had almost no insight into the protagonist's past. Not that that should be necessary, but there was also no character development. Nobody had character development.

I've heard alot of good things about this manga and now that it has finally ended I sat down and read it all in one sitting, surprisingly this did not take much time even though there are 97 chapters the majority of the work is textless whereas some chapters of manga can take upwards of 10 minutes to read due to how dense they are CSM is the complete opposite.

The art and concept are very cool, never saw anything like it before. The problem with this manga is it does not at all live up to the hype I do not understand why its ... so widely regarded as good.

The story meanders and is all over the place. I was finally getting into the arc with Reze and then I got completely lost, it's incredibly difficult to piece together what is going on and follow along, the writing is just all over the place it feels like entire chapters are skipped with how much the story jumps around. The conclusion of a massive arc with all the build up is done in the course of one chapter, nothing is ever appropriately explained, characters completely change motivations and attitude the rules set up prior are completely broken. One of the arcs has an idea and villain introduced in one chapter only to never be brought up again, if you removed the chapter from the series the it would have no effect on the work as a whole.

There was never a power dynamic set up or explained, there are no ways to judge the strength of any of the devils, and there aren't enough battles to even have the kind of growth Denji has in power. Above all else there are no stakes, there is no fear of Denji dying at any point in the series because he just always wins. Why? Just cause. Even bleach had some kind of hamfisted explanation for a random powerup, this manga doesn't even attempt to do that.

Ok so the art is great, maybe that is why people like it. Despite the art being at a high level, the design and layout of the manga make it difficult to even tell what is going on, there is barely any variation in the design of the devils so the fighting scenes are actually the worst part of this manga, its like trying to extract meaning from modern art which is some squidward looking chick bleeding and shitting on an easel. Couple this bizarre artistic direction with the continual skips and paradigm shifts in the story and it really doesn't become worth reading when you have the option to do something else with your time.

In the end, CSM is okay, its not a 10 and its certainly not a 1. It's just ok. I probably would have dropped it had it not been so widely regarded as good. Even memekina isn't that great of a character or even fleshed out in the story. Maybe part 2 will be more coherent, I will not be going on that journey though thanks.

Chainsaw Man is a fun read to tag along which I found very, very promising when I first started reading it, seriously, you read the dialogue, which feels contemporary and no-nonsense, you see the AWESOME art behind it, and it does feel like a big time manga, but as you get near the ending.. It first starts sagging, then just slowly descends into an unorganized mess..Please do hear me out, don't just flag me as a "hater" for giving it a low score, I have some things to say; As I was saying, it quickly becomes apparent that there is no 'substance' ... behind the story. It's a manga made up just a bunch of 'cool' events ordered one after another with no philosophy to justify them, no moral, no meaning - not a story, but simply a narrative.

I'm sorry to break it down to you, but there is no point to Chainsaw Man; There are no philosophical beliefs explored and no parallels to compare the characters based on; The characters themselves are then in no way, shape or form informed by common themes, thus they have no substantial engine to drive emotion for the audience or development for themselves based on; THERE IS NO WAY TO GET A PROBLEM FIXED IS THE NARRATIVE ISN'T EXAMINING A PROBLEM.

That's why we read stories in the first place! To get some use out of them! We don't just enjoy sitting in front of some pages or whatever looking at cool art, cool lines or what not, no, a story is a way to convey MEANING, experience, life lessons (that's what a theme is if you dk). Would you enjoy listening to nonsensical pretty words being told to you in no particular order? Hell nO! And that's precisely what Chainsaw Man is, a bunch of pretty pages. It's supposed story is only a justification for the author to illustrate all these cool things he's envisioned in his head; A guy turning into a chainsaw monster? No problem; Giant fox busting out of a building, it's possible! And it is really fucking cool alright, but it just misses the point of a story and does it in this extremely superficial way!

The times when the characters do experience a touching moment it is always due to a new impactful theme being introduced in the very same scene (only to be forgotten as the scene ends), in other words, the only memorable-ish bits in Chainsaw Man are technically filler, since they deal with ideas which are irrelevant to the rest of the narrative, they are tangents in a nonsensical conversation. That's how it is with ALL the meaning you can find in this manga, it all consists in little bits scuffed here and there. It says it's a story about dreams here, then it goes to being a story about perfection v.s. imperfection, but before that tried being about trauma, then friendship maybe, dk?!?! That's what the author was probably thinking! Which leads me to my next point:

IT PRETENDS TO BE DEEP! By far, Chainsaw Man's biggest offense is that not only is it unfocused, to say the very least, but it draws attention to aforementioned philosophical particles here and there.. I'm not spoiling here, but the problem of 'the city mouse v.s. the country mouse' is a great idea, it could be the backbone of a whole story, but here, it's only mentioned superficially. It has a vague connection to Denji, but no other characters to be corelated with and people buy it alright; Most readers just glance and bounce off of it with the impression that it is in fact saying something profound and write it off as deep, but all the dilema ultimately is amounting to is some dialogue! No actions, no choices, no consequences. And it really upsets me, that people do buy into it. This mess that sprinkles in molecules of meaning is able to masquerade as a quote on quote "masterpiece" when all it's doing is using long words to sound smart! And it's working! Long fucking words landed it a spot in MAPPA studio productions!

Looking at Fire Punch, it does make sense, the state in which Chainsaw Man is; That's just the stage in which the guy is at in his writing journey; That of a fucking elementary student. Really, that's what children think of writing, even drawing - put cool stuff on the page! And you know what, that's fine. It's fine to be a beginner author, obviously, but it's not fine for so many people to be swayed by the hype train in favor of such a useless piece of work and get it all the way on the first page on this site; It's just not ok. Well. only time will tell, if I'm right, it will eventually be forgotten in the coming years..

Plot
Where to start? It's nonsensical.
Pretty much all of it boils down to one thing: The author wanted to progress through the story at Mach speed. Never did he take his time to write compelling plot points or at least some interesting dialogue. Everything about this manga feels like mindless and soulless action fodder. It is just so irritating because the concept behind Chainsaw Man had a lot of potential to be great.
At its core, CSM is an action manga, but the fights are weak. They are over way too fast, every single one of them boiled down to having a one-shot kill conclusion. That is ... not a bad thing per se, look at One Punch Man for example, but CSM handled it poorly. At least the fights are accompanied by some decently drawn panels from time to time.
I just wish the action would feel more impactful and engaging, but it follows the same formula every single time. Humans are mostly red shirts and the whole power dynamic between devils is convoluted. But who cares, because Denji only has to rev up his chainsaw and the mind-numbing slaughter can commence.
Furthermore, the manga is stuffed with suggestive scenes and fetish moments because you need at least one thing to get the blood pumping for all the horny teens. At some point, it is just plain annoying, mainly the whole barking shtick.
At least it was a very fast read.

Characters
The characters are a disaster. At least in my opinion, not a single one was likeable or left a positive impression. Two characters were bearable, Kishibe and Quanxi.
My main gripe with all the characters is that they are just as shallow as a puddle. No development, no meaningful interactions and why would I care about them if they just get thrown into the meat grinder after a few chapters anyway.
Let's talk about a selected few characters in more detail.
Kobeni was a throwaway character. I think she is supposed to be cute and a bit hopeless, maybe even a bit of a comedic relief. For me, she just appeared to be irritating and laughable, especially in the hotel arc.
Now, Denji, the star of the whole ordeal. Well, he is terribly written. His main motivation was always inspired by sex, that's it. To be fair, Denji is a hormone-driven teenager, which is also probably the target audience. Thankfully, he realized at one point that sex alone might not be the greatest goal ever.
As the main character, he just had nothing going on for him that would make me like or even just tolerate him. No personality whatsoever, though, at least the author tried to introduce more character depth for Denji in the last few chapters with the help of Power but that just felt rushed and forced.
Talking about Power, what's the point of her character? What did she bring to the table besides acting as a wish fulfiller for Denji? She got my interest at first because she showed a bit more depth but that was scrapped real fast and she turned into another useless side character.
Last but not least, Makima. I already mentioned the whole barking shtick but it was just so tiresome. Her seeing Denji as nothing more than a dog got tiring real quick. Besides that, I don't have any strong feelings or opinions about her. I mainly was confused. I don't understand her motivation, it makes no sense to me, and her power level was way too high compared to everyone else. Her ruthlessness was the one trait that kept her somewhat interesting.

Art
Most of the art is below average. Nothing stood out in a major way and it sometimes felt like flipping through a sketchbook. I don't need perfect and polished art on every page but give it at least some sort of uniqueness or "spice". Some fighting panels were drawn with a solid style, but those were used only once every blue moon.
Although, I actually give credit to the author for the devil designs. Most of them were pretty solid and didn't get repetitive.

Overall opinion
I can't mention anything positive about this manga, therefore I'll keep this part short. I don't get the massive hype around CSM. It's not the worst manga I've ever read, but it disappoints in so many areas. The writing is subpar and the art is, for the most part, uninspired.
Still, I'll check out the anime because it is made by MAPPA. The CSM anime will probably be like a Michael Bay movie. Solid visuals while everything else is a dumpster fire.

*This is a spoiler free review*

Let's start with the story/worldbuilding:
While I did find the world they were in interesting at first the author doesn't really tell you anything about how it ended up that way other a few comments here or there slipped in waaay too late into the manga. I was able to piece it together simply, for newer readers it may have been confusing.

Characters:
I don't like Denji. That's it honestly. It's not because he is a pervert, I don't care too much about perverted characters. But it would have been better if he were just a pervert. A character that lets himself be ... taken advantage of like a dog, and that constantly risks himself just for the cheap goal of being able to touch women doesn't entertain me.

The only characters I actually like is Aki and that's because he was the only relatable character. I don't even care for character relatability most of the time but it was only this character that genuinely made me crack a smile or laugh whenever he did something stupid. He feels more grounded and fleshed out than Denji which makes it easier to like him.

Power is okay. She reminds me of a rabid dog only there to please the simp community. It feels as though she gets weaker and weaker throughout the story and is only there as plot point for Denji. So much so, in fact, that she isn't even her own character anymore. How does the author makes his own character feel OOC? I don't know how he did it but that is what Power felt like to me.

Makima. I never got the hype around her. I liked her design but she never felt like a character. She felt like the shadow of a character instead. As if she wasn't quite ready to leave the drawing board. She is the personification of life hacks and it starts getting annoying later in the story

Art: It's good. The sketchiness kind of reminds me of Jujutsu. Though, there are some scenes where it is hard to tell who is who due to similar faces but it's not too bad, so that's about it. I liked the art.

Overall thoughts and extra's:

The women in this show. Either they are kickass and sexy/raunchy or not as sexually appealing and useless. There is no in between. The fact that there was an actual orgy of girls and nobody in the comments complained but once we got a small speck of tension between Angel and Aki people were quick to get homophobic in the comments really showed me just exactly who this manga appeals to.

Kobeni: I don't hate her. She is pathetic but she didn't have much of a choice so I can spare her my annoyance.

I just wish that the plot brought itself together quicker. It took over 30 chapter for it to really start moving and even the fights in this manga have quite a repetitive nature.

*minor spoiler*

Denji kind of feels like a major Gary Sue with how he just never dies. The fights become repetitive because of this and they never excite me or make me hold my breath.

*spoiler end*

All in all. The show is severely overhyped.

I've heard of this manga series a good few times by Joey (The Anime Man) and also, people who like No Guns Life. At first it was a pretty good start because we got to explore how our main character, Denji got around to being a chainsaw dude in the first place. I really liked his attitude of being laid back and always saying funny remarks with some of the characters. I did considerably get a few chuckles out of the comedy sides of things involved in this manga. I mean , this manga isn't THAT terrible but I think the boob jokes were rather ... childish and pretty much boring. As well, I felt the other characters weren't really taken seriously with character development.

One minute they are there and next, they are gone. It's pretty much worse as the GOT last episode with killing potential characters who needed more screen time.....

The fighting scenes were rather a hit/miss like I was pretty underwhelmed by them. Normally if I'm reading fight scenes on any manga I read, I always cheer on the people involved in the fight. Unfortunately not with the MC here which is a pity. Ah well, at least I gave it a long shot for 46 chapters and realised it ain't for me chief!

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS***

Disclaimer "I might get some hate for this"
I heard it alot that Chainsaw man is the best new generation shounen
Was excited? Yeah but in the end
Seriously...
I cant emphasize enough on how flawed that statement was...
It feels as though that the author wanted to show that he could write something different and "adult" when in reality it feels like a story written by a 12 year old with a pathetic attempt to break "common shounen tropes"
Hilariously it does fall into that and i would address that later
CSM is ridiculously dumb and not in a good way(dumb series do end up being ... entertaining in alot of cases)

Synopsis is there so not going to bother with that..
What makes CSM literally horrendous apart from the fandom is the storyline itself. And that's where the cliches start as well. Devils? yeah they exist. Devil slaying organisations? Yeah they exist. OP unkillable main character fused with an all powerful being? Yeah .. SO what is different or unique about it? Literally the fact that the MC is a pervert who is motivated by female anatomy and wants to live a normal life? Ah no, done a lot of times and the execution done in this was one was particularly bland
The plot twist which you could see from a mile? Or was it the chaotic atmosphere which was created to kill characters we know nothing about for emotional impact? Or to show that this manga isn't afraid to kill characters when the main characters are literally unkillable one way or another?
I don't get what the writer was trying to pull by killing every character of the organisation with little intros...With an exception of 2. Because frankly its even worse then killing no characters at all..
Its like this A new character is introduced, then an action scene..turns out its too powerful and then they die. Rinse and repeat..

And whats the formula to defeat the big bads?
Dont think..you just need to be crazy..Why? because dumb people don't have fear
Lets just forget that the big bad of the series manipulated and got this far because that character could think but still idiots are>>>
Incredible....Honestly Its laughable on how dumb the story is.

Considering its also praised by how Denji wants to live a normal life of a teenager lets address that as well.
He doesn't have a home, nor a family, nor education...Perfectly normal things a teenager would love to have
but once he gets a bit better, what does he want? Nothing normal except fondling some boobs??? And lets just forget the fact that he has literally no concern of the fact that he could be killed and was put in a very dangerous situation? Even the family subplot is ridiculous because it seemed too forced.
Its FAAAAAAR from normal or relatable. Even in the end considering he got some braincells, the changes are far from significant apart from him feeling some value on being the "chainsaw" man since he is still the same..
The adult jokes in short are this "puking on each other" and "not cleaning your toilet" after taking a dump...

Now the main problem aren't the tropes or cliches since no story is devoid of those, but it depends on how u utilize them.. the word tropes has become synonymous with "bland" which is entirely wrong since tropes by definition means things specific to a genre so even though they might be repetitive, the execution can make a tropy series a great one...
However in case of CSM considering it is praised for how different it is made me mention all that stuff.. And the reason why its thought to be different is particularly due to the fact that, the tropes are utilized so poorly that it feels as though, its not a trope at all..and in some cases its just a reverse card..
Cliches can be bad but an underutilized trope is even worse..Especially when a writer fails at either deconstructing it or does not utilize it to a satisfactory extent..
And CSM is the biggest offender of this
Did i mention the pacing yet which can make you forget about all the characters with no personality getting killed? As you might have guessed..the manga kinda competes in a sprint race to prove how fast it is...

The only great part about this whole manga are the last 20 chapters because they actually had some development but that to was ruined by the execution...
If nothing else CSM can give u a good laugh on how ridiculously horrendous it is..

If you read this far, thankyou and have a great day

Story:

Begins with the most generic and stupid moment when devil decides to /for the sake of spoilers lets say/ help MC because he want's to see more of MC dreams (aka wants to see MC achieve his goals/dreams). And what does MC does after that? He decides to make his goal to touch a female. Seriously?

Art:

Character art is meh. Devil art is good. Battle scenes are also drawn pretty good.

Character:

Terrible and unlikeable characters fill this manga. Let's start from MC who is a simp for any type of physical contact with female and would do anything for it. Not only that he is overly ... edgy and lacks any positive/likeable traits. Next we have Power who is as edgy as they come. Her personality can be summarized with "What!? You want to kill me!? No, I'll kill you, idiot! Blood, blood, blood."

Enjoyment:

The only enjoyment you can get from this are the battles, which are pleasent to look at and are pretty interesting.

Overall:

Pretty overrated manga with a bunch of over the top edgy characters, poor excuse for a plot and dope fights.

After a series of 10's, I decided the public deserves a review by someone who is over the age of 14.

Story (3/10)
The beautiful thing about this manga is that the 95% of it can be explained in the following paragraph.

Me main character. Me like boobs. Me use chainsaw to kill demons. Vroom Vroom. Me have other friends who help me kill demons.

That's it. The ending throws an expected twist that really added nothing to the story, which is a shame considering the Gun Demon and Hell Arc are 1000 times better than that ending.

Art (8/10)
I'd say it was really good. Couple of panels were ... really messy, it was hard to tell what was what. But other than that, important moments are done well.

Character (1/10)
Easily the worst part of it. As I said, main guy likes tits and sweets, and that's the end of his depth. Supporting cast was done weak and shallow. Makima is a poor mans Aizen. And I mean, really poor mans.

Overall (5/10)
This manga is essentially the same as Kimetsu no Yaiba. Are you 14, is this your first manga, and do you think tits, blood and characters screaming and transforming is the coolest thing ever? You'll like it. No? Then you won't.

Vague spoilers will be mentioned
Chainsaw man is a huge waste of time. Had it been written by someone who can write I feel it would have potential. The plot is messy, inconsistent, and confusing and most characters have no real purpose.

The story:
Even if it makes an attempt to deviate from the norm, Chainsaw Man is just another run of the mill “beat em up” shounen manga. It’s very clear that the story was there to accompany the fight scenes and not the other way around. It comes off as lazy, thoughtless, and messy. There were attempts at plot twists and foreshadowing, but almost none ... had much, if any at all, impact on the story, making them ultimately pointless. Had the story been properly thought out, maybe it could have gone somewhere and been an interesting manga. The pacing is inconsistent, flipping between being too fast or too slow, and the plot leads nowhere. Fujimoto tries to shoehorn “symbolic” moments in during random scenes to feel like he was writing something deep and important, but they never made sense and didn’t add anything to the story for the reader to interpret. Things that should have been answered were left unanswered, which I am assuming because the answer was overlooked and forgotten about. Fujimoto also handles characters and their deaths extremely poorly. Apart from the few main characters, almost every other character introduced will die in the following chapters after their introduction. Their deaths don’t leave much impact on the readers even when you can tell they were intended to because there just was not enough time to begin to like the characters. The story was riddled with tons of plot holes that also give an unsatisfying story. The ending of the story (or at least the “arc”) was also extremely underwhelming, confusing, and disappointing. I will not spoil the ending, but don’t go in expecting much. Overall, you can tell that Chainsaw Man was written because some guy wanted to draw gore and fight scenes and was forced to add a story to it.

The Characters:
Most characters in csm are unlikable, boring, or just annoying. There were few I cared about at all, which is saying something because I tend to like most characters from series I get into. They are all riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions which can get annoying because of how often they appear in the story. Denji tries too hard to divert from the typical shounen protag, but he winds up just being a different protag cliche. We’ve all seen too many perverted teen boy characters whose only goals are to have sex or something of the likes. Most characters weren’t able to get proper development because they just died soon after they were introduced. After about the midpoint of the series characters began getting crammed into the story with motives that come out of nowhere and don’t make sense and then all of a sudden, they’re main characters that we should care about. Ultimately almost every character is not there to be their own character, but instead to progress Denji’s story in some way or another.

The art:
I can see the idea Fujimoto had for the art, but because of how he executed it, it comes off as messy and amateur. I read a bit from one of his previous works “Fire Punch” and the art there is infinitely better than the art seen in csm. If there wasn’t a small blurb about his previous works at the start of each volume, I would have thought csm was Fujimoto’s first manga. Although the art does improve over time, the character art generally has sloppy lines and inconsistent proportions, which I think is generally a bad look. I will say he is pretty amazing at drawing backgrounds, but with the clash between how he draws backgrounds with clash between how he draws characters makes the characters seem very out of place. They do not merge well at all which makes his bg skills feel wasted. Onto the devil designs, they are either trying too hard to be unsettling or they are way too simple. Every human who has the ability to turn into a devil will usually just have their head and arms as their devil’s weapon’s name, which gets boring after you’ve seen it ten times. On the other hand, the regular devil designs usually wind up also looking extremely similar, but they try to be disturbing and way too over detailed. I think the art had potential, but Fujimoto fell through with the execution.

I think it can be enjoyed casually, but all in all, Chainsaw Man is a mediocre story that tired too hard to deviate from the norm, carried entirely by the hype surrounding it (which to this day I’m still confused on how it got that hype in the first place). Don’t waste your time on Chainsaw Man, read Dorohedoro instead, this was just a rip off of it anyway. RIP ANGEL🙏

This isn’t directly related to the story but I would like to mention you can tell pretty clearly that Fujimoto has a vomit fetish and he enjoys drawing it in detail. He only does it a few times but it’s generally just off putting and was almost always unnecessary to the story. You can argue he’s doing it for shock value, but it’s overdone and off putting. I tried to give him that benefit of the doubt, but he just kept putting it into the story. This part is a spoiler but near the end of the series Makima mentions that in the csm universe World War 2 and Nazis don’t exist because the chainsaw devil ate them (when he eats something its existence is erased entirely including memories of others). This just left a bad taste in my mouth because it comes off as holocaust denier ideology. You can claim he mentioned it so that the readers could relate to the scene but there are plenty of tragedies to mention so it just comes off as extremely odd to me that he picked nazis and WW2. Neither affect the story much, but they are something to keep in mind.

"Just because you're unique doesn't mean, you're good" MEME 2020

When I first started Anime, I always wondered what it would be like if a Chuunibyou wrote a manga. At the time, I didn't realize it would come out as travesty as Chain-Freaking Saw Puke-Man.

When you have read too many manga and want to copy them with no writing skills you get this. Berserk's Ugly monsters with eclipse, Tokyo Ghoul CCG, Promised Neverland devils ripped off Character designs you have got all that here. The one thing you don't have is proper WRITING.

Story: Most generic story ever ripped off. Plot follows "I hate 'Insert your super ... power', but I'm secretly part of them." genre. There is no real power system, world building and stakes here at all. You don't really know what are the stakes for killing Devil, Human and devil hunter. People are introduced 2-3 chapters before only to die out of nowhere. The mangaka is such a lame writer, he can't string two pages together let alone whole manga. TOEFL & IELTS checks Cohesion and Lexical resource of essay. This mangaka would get 0 score out of it. Plot is so predictable you know you will get a backstory for a character 1 page before he dies. Just ABYSMAL.

Characters: Our main character is Poor-man's BAKUGO. We have Third rated ZERO-TWO, RIZE's failed science experiment, Oops I mean't REZE and a Card board called Makima. Which has such an expressionless spot face, it would put my neighbor's Granny to shame Aki was the only good character which you could feel for.

Art: Art was Garbage, The mangaka can't draw facial expressions at all. The max he can draw are 2-3 expressions. Good, bad, happiness, Death whatever the scenario, Expressions are SPOT, Tongue out sweating, Smile. WTH, is wrong with this mangaka and the weird shaped tongues.


This manga is all hype and no substance. This manga feels like written by a MAL user who have read too many stories. I bet even some MAL users can write better cohesive story than this. Also, I feel so apologetic to SNK after reading this. I was so spoiled of good writing despite having some flaws in the ending was such a great fable. But CFSPM made me realize this. SORRY ISAYAMA for slating you.

(TLDR review at the bottom, as always, thanks in advance for reading)
(Major edit at the bottom lol)

If you told me to describe Chainsaw Man in one word I would grab the nearest megaphone and microphone, place the megaphone in between my mouth and the microphone, switch both devices on, and start screaming,
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Yes. There the word 'madness' or 'chaos' doesn't even fit. The sound does a better job of explaining it. Chainsaw Man is mostly made up of death metal screaming moments and having not read anything close to this other than watching Dorohedoro and maybe reading some of Berserk, Attack on Titan, Akame ga Kill ... if you count those. I can say that Chainsaw Man is one story you won't forget. This isn't your average Shounen Jump manga.


Narrative:
As mentioned before, Chainsaw Man is the embodiment of death metal screaming, though, I guess I am stretching it a little too far, it isn't entirely like that, there is a calm nature when it is needed.

At the start, the pacing makes this somewhat weird to get at first glance. You see, the story begins with what happens to be this disheartening atmosphere Denji emits off, he is living the lowest point in his life but when he makes a contract to become the Chainsaw Man, things get crazy, and things only get crazier from then on. This aspect of the story is the good thing about Chainsaw Man, you know things are crazy, and indeed will get crazier, but the constant gaining of knowledge to new information still makes you think about what else could get more insane than what just happened. Read it out for yourself. See what you will find out about this world in which, on the surface is chaotic, but further down the line is just… dark, and deep too. You see, the story isn't just madness, the story also offers how the current world operates, with various devil users from all over the world trying to take Denji for their own uses, what uses exactly? They range quite a bit. But I feel like with the use of different devil users around the world having the same objective of getting Denji, there is a strange tie to politics, conspiracies and countries trying to become the absolute superpower. It is a nice add-on to the story which enforces the original atmosphere of the chaotic world the story has. People will do anything for power and stand on top of others. It's a crazy story, but there has been some thinking done on top of this hell of a world to bring out what is the worst people can do. The true madness awaiting beneath the surface.

Getting into the fundamentals, something to touch on is plot poison. Usually, plot poison destroys what writers try to convey because they are a flimsy way of emphasising a situation, I don't really recall a time when it has worked so effectively. With Chainsaw Man, however, the excessive amounts of deaths could be viewed as general plot poison if it weren't for the three reasons of:
1. The world is borderline hell
2. People don't die in the story for the sake of some dramatic way to go out, or for the sake of making things look scary
3. Most deaths are unnamed background characters, of course, serving no relevance.

To be fair, I haven't actually seen a ton of stories with plot poison. But from what I have seen it is mostly used in a way to make the story look more dramatic when it is used in the action genre. With the horror genre, it is made to create terror to some atmosphere. Though even so Chainsaw Man is straight to the point with such an action. When death happens, it isn't used as a way to make everything look dramatic or scary, as I have said, this is madness, no bumpy road to get to what it wants to convey. Straight to the point, full stop. I must say such a technique really gives the story its ground to stand on. Even with thousands of irrelevant characters that get totally wiped off the face of the world within seconds, it may do feel as if the story has become more dramatic, or terrifying, or, well, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH. Though I feel as if it were like a signature blessed specifically for a story of its kind. You could argue that method would be a cheap way of emphasising the mood Chainsaw Man wishes to bring and to be honest, I would agree... to an extent. Having a vast amount of deaths in a world full of chaos is obviously going to make the setting look cataclysmic, but concurrently, it isn't like killing off every single importance character is going to bring for a better story anyway, not that there is excessive plot armour to be mentioned in the story anyway. It is disheartening, but that is what the story aims to be amidst the frantic hell of a world.

The characters tie in well with the story, they are practically on an equal level. Denji and Power are both dumb characters, not because of story writing, but they are generally stupid people personality-wise. They do dumb things now and then and probably have the mindset of your average high schooler, but they are a good representation of how clueless they are in the face of madness they go through day in, day out. As said before, there is a strange thread of a connection with politics and conspiracies, no one is quite sure of what people are doing behind the scenes or what the final goal is for said people. With clueless, but strong characters like Denji doing nothing but trying his hardest to get an award he was allowed to have from Makima, and Power who has to stay and work for the agency or she will face death. It makes for the perfect combo for the questionable stability of the way of maintaining world order in the story. It is more or less exploitation of the unintelligent, in other words, exploitation. The same can't be said for Aki since he is actually smart, but he too is left in the dark with all the shady business that goes on behind the scenes, his life, however, is more so just depressing in that matter. He isn't silly as Denji and Power are, and has a good grasp of the things that go around him, even so, he can't do much, he is trapped in the madness that comes with his job. No one is safe in this corrupted hierarchy.

Another character to touch on is Makima, she is part of the, "Hey, what the hell does she want" questions that may come to mind when reading. Nothing about her is as clear as day about her, but further on, you begin to see what she hides from those she works with. She clearly has some beef with people, but no one takes her head on considering her ludicrous strength which bounces onto the reader in later chapters. All the while not knowing her true intentions. She is an interesting one. The kind of character you want to dive into more simply because there are too many shadows covering someone with such an important status in society. Again, going back to the conspiracies she may have on her mind to try to execute.

I won't get into spoilers, but the ending is quite disappointing. I felt as if it was pushed to go onto top speeds especially with how fast the pacing of this story is. It may leave you with an unsatisfactory taste to savour. In saying this the ending is nothing disastrous, it was just too fast which didn't allow for a proper finish as one may have liked to see with such intense build-up that has happened just before.


Art:
The art fits well with the entire concept of Chainsaw Man, the character designs looked great with the addition of what seems to be frantically scratched detail into the design, I honestly don't know why but it's like something you would get out of Adult Swim, or Robot Chicken if I am using the correct show. Not something I've seen before, but it was a nice first interaction with art of its kind and made for a good conveyance in the chaotic nature of the story. Speaking of which, the art when there is a fight of some kind doesn't hold back with all the details relating to blood and gore it has to offer, every action moment happens in detail. Other sceneries like background spaces are pretty much the same as the characters, not exactly the most exciting detail but nothing that I would say is bad.


Enjoyment:
I personally enjoyed Chainsaw Man a lot. For a shounen with a ton of action, however, I can't exactly say it performs the best in action. Sometimes the action scenes feel like a gag fight rather than a real fight taking place. Stiff movements contribute to this, but given the world, this is set in, it is to be expected. That doesn't mean I find the action better because of where it is set, it still gets negative points for that pillar of enjoyment. Nothing bad, but nothing I would have quite wanted.

A good point to focus on though is that maybe I am being an uncultured swine, or just downright incorrect, but I feel as if Chainsaw Man really feels like something from the "Dark Age of Comics", everything about its style yells unsettling in the sense that these corrupted images of heroes pay off well with the current age. There are "good guys'' in the stories but can you really class them with your typical 60s heroes. Again, I may be completely off but I feel as if Chainsaw Man is probably one of the best things to relate to such a time period. It makes for incredible enjoyment and insight, since there is a marriage of Shounen Jump, American style comics, and just madness brought together to bring to you the Chainsaw Man you know of today. Honestly, I haven't seen a fusion of culture as good since Pop Team Epic.


Overall - 7.75 (8)



TLDR Review:
Story - 8: The story is the embodiment of crazy, and has a deep underlying goal to it. As well as being straight-up depressing at times.
Art - 8: Character designs looked a little bit scrappy in a good way. Reminded me of something from Adult Swim or Robot Chicken.
Characters - 8: The dumb characters are a good representation of the mystery in their world. Other smarter characters are still left in the dark but question what goes on.
Enjoyment - 7: Action is wack at times. Feels like something from the "Dark Age of Comics". Combination of Shounen Jump, American style comics, and just madness makes for a pleasant story.

Overall - 7.75 (8)



Well, having never read any of Fujimoto's works aside for CSM, I can say that the other popular title made by Fujimoto, "Fire Punch" is certainly something that will come under my radar. With CSM 2 coming along as well I am looking forward to what next Fujimoto has to give. Apparently, Fujimoto is known for killing off characters and depressing stories, so I might be in for a good story and sequel. Would I recommend CSM? Yep, any day of the week. Though that is assuming that you are into the madness, chao(s/tic), craz(y/ier) that story gives. Three (five) words I have used 8 + 5 + 6 times respectively (excluding the latest) throughout this review. Is it THAT MAD? Probably not. But it's still pretty mad. Go. Give it a try.

----------
Edit: 2nd March 2021, tldr at the bottom

Ok so I had just finish re-reading CSM and I thought that some points are made here aren't the best so I am just going to edit over that here.

With narrative, most of my opinion is still the same, same chaos, some conspiracies, no one what the hell is going on, but you can be sure of hell along the road of the reality of CSM.

I noticed that I explained a lot of the later parts of the story in which I say, that that is where the real grit of CSM revolves off of if you get what I mean. Earlier parts really just set the story in for what is to be, later on, it does a good job at that, you can get a good understanding of the characters introduced and why they work in this hell of a job. I won't say I give it a 9/10 because to some extent, CSM has a lot of doing stuff with no meaning attached to it until the end. For those actions with meaning, such as the different things Denji does with the girls he meets, they tend to add to his origin and how that sucked instead of his future character. The dude doesn't really change despite it, is that a bad thing? I wouldn't say so. But it sure would be nice to see something from him that wasn't too static, something out of character whilst concurrently not.

With Art, I gave it an 8/10 because I was a weekly viewer towards the end of the manga (~80 chapters in or so was the latest). The quality of art for sure felt as if it had decreased over the course of the manga. Not a lot, but slightly. Looking back, there are some incredibly good moments that need to be spoken about. Most of the manga has incredibly good art. I had most of the newer chapters affect my score for the category. I was in and out of this manga, only sticking around until the aforementioned ~80 chapters in.
Art: 8 --> 9

With the enjoyment factor, I mean, if I went and reread this, it obviously means that I liked this a lot. Though I would recommend that anyone reading this also do the same as I have as towards the end of the manga (from International Assassasins arc onwards) things do get incredibly confusing with new characters joining, reveals of everyone's true motives and intents, and devils, fiends, humans doing things we had no clarification about beforehand. On that note, my brain having a hard time comprehending that, I still have to comprehend it some more, but it isn't as bad as before, though I have quite a few questions now too in exchange, that was the reason why I lowered enjoyment factor. Things get confusing, very quickly. Idk why I didn't mention that prior to this edit. I'm going to add that despite a hard time in understanding the story, in which I was close to giving this an 8/10 for enjoyment—still a very good score—I do have to admit that this is very funny to read too, the humour seems like what I proposed before this edit, i.e. the American style. I am not sure how the hell this ran on Shounen Jump, but it did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Enjoyment: 7 --> 9


TLDR: Reread Chainsaw Man when you can.

Overall - 8.5 (9)

I sure hope I haven't messed anything up.

I really don't even know where to start with this as I've never felt compelled to write a review until now.

I've been told for months that Chainsaw Man was the next "big thing" so I figured hey why not read it, I've never felt so mislead in my entire life.

Story -
I actually love the idea of the story, but it's executed extremely poorly.

The story is generic and moves at a snails pace for the most part, there are random spurts where the pace just flings you through as if you're going through a time skip but you aren't. The last 20 or so ... chapters fly by at light speed trying to wrap everything up and none of it makes sense, it felt incredibly rushed.

Characters -
Most of the characters are forgettable, or unlikeable, they have absolutely zero character development throughout the entire series. (unless you count the MC not mentioning boobs for quite a few chapters development)

I personally really liked the main big bad, but the rushed "story" and lack of real reasons for the plot really killed them at the end, which is a shame.

Art -
It's alright, didn't dislike it.

Overall it's fan service with no plot, very few interesting characters, fight scenes that all look the same, topped off with characters puking being the only thing I can even remember at this point because it happens more than anything else.

Do yourself a favor, and spend your time doing anything but reading this.

Those series have an amazing build up and are incredibly interesting to read all the way up to roughly chapter 82. Before that point the manga kept getting crazier, more fun, and there was hint of more coming....

And in chapter 82 the author pretty much took everything he has been painstakingly building for such long time, threw it into a blender and then flushed down the toilet, and gave the reader a cheap plot device. It is difficult to explain the issue without spoilers, but if I were to summarize it it would be series building up for a long time for something amazing, and ... then instead of that something amazing we get a dud. "Sorry, I couldn't think of anything better, so here, a lollipop". That's the feeling.

For me that was a major disappointment, to the point of being infuriating. Because the series before that turning point were heading into 9/10 or 8/10 territory. But then the author destroyed it all, and it became an incomprehensible mess since those chapters.

It is said, that the author is also responsible for Fire Punch which apparently had similar issue - a decent buildup turning into a mess.

So....

5/10 story, 4/10 art, 4/10 character, 5/10 enjoyment, 4/10 overall.

Story. Amazing before that turning point I mentioned, with nice moments, fun and believable (although crazy) characters, and an incomprehensible, but underwhelming mess afterwards. There's some interesting world building there, and scenes between characters are nice, but closer to the end(?) it all deteriorates. It is (was?) quite dark and with an unusual setup and unusual world, especially its supernatural aspect.

Art: 4/10.
The author can certainly draw monstrocities, but has a lot of difficulty making characters with different faces. The style is unusual (not the currently popular triangular face), and there are a lot of adults, but very often upon seeing a background character you may end up wondering which character is that. They're very identical.

Characters: 4/10.
Quite interesting in beginning, deteriorate past turning point I mentioned. Early on the manga has couple of very nice moments of inter-character communication, which are portrayed well. There are some that are adorable, fun or just plan interesting. Past the turning point, it is just mess without characterization.

Enjoyment: 5/10.
To be specific - 8/10 before chapter 82, and something like 2/10..4/10 afterwards when it turns into a mess.

Overall: 4/10.
Given the screwup in storyline, the work overall is subpar and I can't recommend it. A decent idea would be to read first 81 chapters and stop, but you'll be definitely be tempted to see what lies ahead, only to discover mess and a major letdown. At least that's how it works for me.

Currently I'm reading it out of morbid curiosity waiting for it to finish. And I still mourn the wasted potential this work once held.

It is a very mediocre series that i think is mainly ruined by the hype people have been feeding into it these past few years.

Story 4/10: Its a very generic story that has been done before with very slight variations on what has been done a million times with a very predictable twist in regards to the antagonist.

Art 7/10: The art was very good in terms of composition and detail however what keeps this from being any higher is that as a series focused on battles the fights are very lackluster as the power system is so basic especially in regards to the main character ... who just slashes things till they stop moving, its just not engaging in the slightest when compared to for example hunter x hunter, FMA, Naruto, etc. where the fights are more fluid and tactics exist outside punching harder.

Characters 3/10: The characters are i think the weakest part of the series as a whole, the main character is praised by many by being different but hes probably the weakest character outside of the boring self insert characters in generic battle shounen. His motivation of interacting with women is so one note and played for laughs so many times its boring, its obvious when they try to pretend to subvert expectations by making it seem like he is being altruistic but end up being for his one and only goal it is so predictable it just lacks all comedic value as they were obviously going for that gag over and over. Also there are characters in the series that are killed off with so little development, people praise it for being subversive however with little to no development with some sudden deaths how can i care for these copy paste characters who seem to be tailor made so hard to be subversive of tropes they go full circle and end up oddly generic.

Enjoyment 4/10: The only reason i kept reading was all the hype and i figured i was missing something or haven't reached the good part yet till i reached the very end and i never got the slightest view of anything anyone was praising. I can see the anime improving at the very least the issue with the fights as Mappa can make some really good fight scenes with fluid animations but overall i felt like my time reading this manga was wasted and should have read anything else.

Overall 5/10: It wasn't bad overall but it was so boring i would have preferred reading a straight out bad manga over this or one that was actually good. It is so forgettable im mainly writing this as my first review as a way to organize my thoughts as otherwise i might just forget this series exists otherwise and keep this as a cautionary tale to ignore over hyping in the future.

oh my god what a waste of time, if im being quiet honest.i started this manga out with high hopes after hearing raving reviews and seeing that MAPPA would be making the anime adaptation. Im left with a feeling of annoyance, emptiness and what was the point of spending all that time on it?

story: 6
to be fair i started to read it and really get into it because i thought the idea of chainsaw man was quiet interesting. honestly it was captivating. but slowly and surly there were just more and more plot holes that kept reoccuring. it just started to feel really lazy, ... which is sad because the idea of it was really cool if im being honest.

Art 7
honestly asides from the lack of creativity for faces i do have to say there were some amazingly in depth panels and character disigns for the demons were also quiet enjoyable. so despite everything else i would have to give credit where credit is due. the fighting panels were so graphically detailed, if you don't care about plot, or lack thereof, or likeable characters then i would definitely suggest this manga

characters 4
theres so much that i have problems with that it literally pained me to the point of writting a review. Don't get me wrong the main character, wow annoying as all hell, but isnt that the typical case for action mangas? the main character being op and annoying for no reason whatsoever? and dont get me wrong i thought it was quirky to make his main goal to be just enjoying his life and getting a girlfriend but holy fuck was there any character development other than him not wanting to sleep with power?? honestly looking back on it what characters actually contributed anything to the plot and character development other than to serve as fan service, be killed in a gory fashion? like i legitimately cannot explain a singular thing that happened at all durong this manga except for the fact there are demons and he becomes friends with one and merges to become CHAINSAW MAN. like i had such high hopes for this manga but the lack of plot, the unexplained plot holes, the lack of character depth and development just left me with a sour taste in my mouth and annoyed. it honestly felt as if the author gave up halfway after getting too much input and being forced to go a certain direction with the plot that he didnt agree with so he just gave up completely. And dont get me wrong not every manga has to have 500 chapters, or whatever but story telling goes a long way. I had problems with demon slayer beign so short and what i felt, rushed, but in comparison to this, it was a peice of artwork, so majestically written and the story so well told it didnt matter that we didnt get every single detail. But in chainsaw man , this was the downfall. Like if youre gunna hint at the fact that hes some all powerful demon then freaking explain it??? don't just pretend it never happened and that life is peachy keen since he defeated some other demon that had no explanation for existing other than "awww boohoo, sad".

honestly read it for the gore and a few funny quips here and there, but immature and seriously lacking in story telling and basically everything else

With less than 1,000 members and only one other review at the time of posting this, I thought I should write this so that more people will hopefully read it. This is my first review by the way!

Story - 8
The story is pretty simple so far, but that is not a bad thing! It's a shounen jump manga so fight scenes are frequent and there are comedic elements as well. What sets this manga apart though is the characters and the monsters. I'll elaborate on the characters in the "Character" section, but the monsters are really great. Because of the premise, there are pretty much ... endless possibilities for the bad guys in this manga. There are only 9 chapters out so far, and the story is still in the set-up phase, but I'm very excited to see where it goes.

Art - 8

Some people may not like the art style, but I love it. The more simplistic design allows the creative powers/monsters do be clearly drawn. You'll see early on what I'm talking about, and when Denji does use his powers, the art gets slightly more detailed and defined, and it looks really good. This manga is pretty much never visually boring, while still being easy to follow.

Characters - 9

Denji (the MC) is certainly unique for a shounen jump manga. He doesn't have any superficial ideals or an idol or hero he looks up to, but that didn't stop me from liking or caring about him. Not a jab at MHA or Naruto btw, but it's nice to see something different. The characters are great across the board, and blends some standard shounen tropes with a bit more realism. Like a lot of shounen protagonists, Denji has an unfortunate backstory, but it is addressed in a realistic manner that isn't superficial or character defining. He is completely his own person, and his character does not rely on him having a tough childhood or being poor. I initially thought that Power would be a nami clone of some sort, but this is quickly subverted as well.

Enjoyment - 9

I wish this had more chapters I could read. This manga is lots of fun to consume, and it has a perfect mix of realistic characters, great action scenes, and true originality. I can't wait to read more as it comes out!

Final score - 9

RATING: 6/10

even after completion, i still don’t know if chainsaw man deserves the hype it’s currently receiving. there were certainly parts i enjoyed, others i was baffled by, more that i was rolling my eyes at. for all the talk about interesting characters, i only found two or three compelling enough to root for.

TLDR: the bad aspects of chainsaw man far outnumber the good, but the good aspects outWEIGH the bad. at least that seems to be the consensus, reading these reviews.

when i first started reading csm, i dropped it by chapter 6 because i was tired of denji’s inner monologue about boobs. eventually i ... picked it back up and pushed through to the end.

bad news: the haruki murakami levels of creepy objectification of women don’t get better until, like, chapter 70. i’d probably be willing to look past this aspect if only one or two girls used their sexuality in a quote-unquote “empowering” way, but its EVERY GIRL WE MEET, each of whom gets a total of ONE personality trait. it almost made me quit for a second time around chapter 42, but i decided to keep reading, even if it was to hate-read. the whole “offering a romantic or sexual act for a favor” schtick dies out eventually, but it still left a horrid taste in my mouth. the first half of chainsaw man is a mess. aside from the art, it’s close to garbage imho.

the real, gritty plot of chainsaw man kicks in around halfway through, and it doesn’t stop until the finish line. the latter half of csm is undoubtedly the main reason people rave about it. it’s filled with twists, lots of new characters, and, of course, gore. the art is great and consistent throughout. though the character design isn’t my personal favorite, the devils are visually engaging. i have a hard time following fight sequences in general, so i don’t know how much my opinion on them weighs: in chainsaw man, they’re at least detailed, never seem unfinished/sloppy, and fun to look at.

personally, the story leaves much to be desired. it feels like it’s meandering for the longest time. characters get into lots of fights, but those fights, and their consequences, rarely reveal anything of substance about them. the power system and power scaling aren’t explained all that well, and it was hard to grasp exactly how strong every character is. i barely understood the bare bones of denji’s motivation and was left extremely confused by the antagonist’s endgame by the end. the character moments in the second half were, imo, the strongest parts of manga, mainly because they involve the only characters you manage to form some sort of attachment to beyond “he’s annoying” or “she’s cool”. despite the presence of those moments, however, i was still left feeling like i didn’t know the characters enough.

in the end, the question is: do chainsaw man’s great art, handful of decent emotional story beats, and interesting final players trump its static characters, lack of moral axiom in the end, and portrayal of female characters comparable to MHA? if you’re willing to trudge through 50-60 chapters of the latter to get to the former, then go ahead and read chainsaw man. if not, don’t worry about being in on the hype train for this manga.

I don't know why so many people like this manga, maybe cause I'm kinda new to manga and am not really used to reading so not a lot gets through to me, but I seriously don't like this. I liked the start of it and how it was set up from the start as a not so typical shounen. Denji has been shown to lose a lot and sell his organs to get out of debt. But by the middle of the manga, it turned into Denji going up against much stronger opponents than him and then him just not wanting to die and overpowering ... bad guys much stronger than him. I was lead to believe that Denji is strong but can die from the hotel something arc. He almost did die, at least to me, but lucked out and defeated a bad guy that LITERALLY CAN NOT DIE.

I also found myself multiple times looking through the wiki just to keep up with the story. When the 3 brother assassins from America killed the 3 guys whose names i can't remember, one of them used a devil to shapeshift into him. This confused the fuck out of me cause the 3 guys they killed were so nonexistent that i forgot about them and thought that one of the brothers just looked like him and imitated him. The characters are also so forgetful, that I only remembered like 3 of them. The manga also doesn't need you to care about them because every side character gets killed, but it doesn't show any emotions. I read through the chapters and just didn't feel anything when someone died, I just tried to remember them.

I still don't know a lot about the actual story even after reading the wiki. Idk that's about it.