Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge

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Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge is a romance, action, comedy manga that tells a deep story revolving around the lives of Yamamoto Yousuke and Yukisaki Eri.

The story is short, filling only 8 chapters, each about 45 pages long. However, despite this, it manages to tell a deep, emotional tale about two high school students. 2nd year Yamamoto is seemingly a slacker who is bored with life, but in fact, faces deep mental troubles, caused by his friend's death and his low self-esteem. 1st year Yukisaki at first appears to be an outgoing girl, but much is hidden beneath the surface. As the story progresses, each character ... struggles with his or her own problems, while at the same time, faces each other and the mysterious Chainsaw Man who appears every day at night.

The story imparts many deep, serious themes through the thoughts of Yamamoto and as he interacts with Yukisaki. Most revolve around the idea of an ephemeral and short life. But no fear, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge won't leave you going emo about how your life will end in a few decades. It also shows the bright side of living as well.

Despite the general seriousness, many small comedy scenes left me laughing, so there wasn't any heavy atmosphere as I was reading Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge. Such scenes include Yamamoto's ecchi, visualized thoughts and Yukisada's well aimed kicks at Yamamoto when she's irritated.

The art was drawn very well in defined lines; there isn't any type of smearing, except for some parts in the background. What's noticeable is the way the mangaka draw the male characters when they are surprised: they open their mouth wide, their faces elongate, and you can see each of their teeth individually. It made the characters look somewhat ugly, but you gotta admire the mangaka's detailed attention to teeth :P

Overall, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge is highly recommended. The story was serious and touching, yet well-placed comedy scenes prevent the mood from being too heavy. A nice epilogue would be nice, but don't get me wrong, the ending's very conclusive and satisfying.

This manga suffers from a disease called, "B.T.S" (Bad Title Syndrome) or as it's more commonly known, "I can't come up with anything so I use random words in the manga as it's title," syndrome. To be fair not only manga do this, but it was just fitting in this case.
Random title aside, this one proved to be a very nice read topped with a great ending.

A boy, a girl, and a guy trying to kill her...nothing calls for romance more than imminent death.

Yousuke Yamamoto’s life is boring. Nothing is the same after his friend dies in a motorcycle accident. He goes to school, studies, ... and his routine leaves him with an emptiness nothing seems to fill. He needs a purpose. Going home one cold winter day he sees a girl in a school uniform sitting on the floor, literally freezing her ass off. When he tries to make conversation with her, she starts talking like a crazy person about him running away before he dies. Seconds later, a man with a chainsaw appears, and Yousuke watches mesmerized as the beautiful girl fights the man until he disappears.

As he watches her fight, mesmerized, he knows-this is what he needs in his life, this will make it worthwhile. Her. If she’s in his life, it’ll no longer seem boring or meaningless. He’ll help her fight him.
Her name is Eri Yukisaki and as luck would have it, she doesn’t want his help.

Without giving spoilers:
The story line is actually very simple to understand, it's as easy as it is complex. The life that both of them are living is an easy one to relate to. Unfortunately, we've all experienced the mind dulling that is monotony. Their decisions and actions as the story unfolds give hints as to what angle the manga is going. When it gets there it is done effortlessly and smoothly.
Even if the summary doesn’t dwell on the mystery surrounding the "evil chainsaw man", or even this review, the manga is about life and all the bad things that happen that we can’t control but wish we could.

I can understand what made Yousuke cling to Eri. At first, his role reminded me a little of Takaki (5 Centimeters Per Second), he went through life with a sort of longing and a defeated way about him. As if the vacuum that life can be sucked all the happiness or hope away from him, with no plan to return it anytime soon. And although Eri didn’t always show it, since the story is told in Yousuke’s perspective, she is easy to understand and her pain was almost palpable through the story.

The characters are few; four main ones to the story actually. But it doesn’t need any more than that. Even though some people might say that this manga should or could have been longer, I don’t agree.
Why extend a good thing when it served its purpose with it’s current length?

Yousuke Yamamoto (whose name I keep saying as a robot in my head, I don't know why) and Eri, separately, wouldn’t be as dynamic as together. They both add to each others lives. Yousuke is your typical high school boy. If typical includes bad grades in school and getting sporadic fantasies about Eri. All in all he’s a pretty lonely guy. He lives with his friend, and until he met Eri, his life went by in a blur.

Eri is pretty mysterious until the last half of the manga. All we know is: her skirt needs to be longer- because she keeps flashing the chainsaw man and Yousuke, and that she can fight better than most guys. Or at least better than the lead guy of this story. She’s not annoying at all and actually has a serious demeanor.

The art was average. Although I compare the character to other manga, the art is by no way similar. It had its cringing pages: where the characters don’t look appealing, and more on the ugly side. But that effect is not lasting and it’s overall good. Even the chainsaw man was drawn to look like fear and death and it was not sloppy. The panty shots did get old, seeing that it was almost in every four pages. Fan service is everywhere, so can’t really knock it. Well, actually I can, but I understand why the mangaka felt the need to draw her panties on fighting scenes, since no skirt stays in place throughout a battle against a chainsaw wielding man(like I would know), but in other scenes, really unnecessary (not including Yousuke’s fantasies, those are ok).

The story could have actually done without the romance side--I can’t believe I just said that O_o.
It was just such a sweet take on life and feelings that even without the "love" factor it would have still kept it's kick. The romance felt a little pushed on Eri, and even though I know how they felt, it was never really explained throughout that they both saw each other that way. Meaning at the beginning, part of me felt that it was her tsundere side not showing affection.
That being said, the romance isn't forced by any means and there is no gushiness. It has action (chainsaw man) and also some mystery.

It’s short but it does the job.. Ha! I’m sure that’s a pickup line somewhere.

At the end it left me wondering, "If your sadness were to take human form, which form would it take?"

I generally go out of my way to find psychological manga and anime. I just love how thought provoking and mysterious they are. Unfortunately for Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge, that is about the only thing this manga did right. Hard to follow action scenes, strange facial expressions for the guys, unnecessary fanservice, and one of the worst male protagonists I have ever seen all work together to take away from the dramatic and thought provoking plot of this short manga.

Story - 6/10

This is actually the best part of the manga (at least later on). The story begins as our main protagonist, Yousuke, is walking through ... the streets late at night in the middle of winter. He comes across a girl (named Eri) wearing a school uniform and freezing. After pondering what to do, he tries to help her get out of the cold, but she refuses. She says she is waiting for someone. That someone happens to be the Chainsaw Man, a mysterious, tall man with a chainsaw who is the Eri's rival. Yousuke tries to help Eri fight the Chainsaw Man but ends up just getting in the way. After the fight ends and no one wins, Yousuke decides he wants to help Eri fight the Chainsaw Man because he has never felt more alive in his boring life. So Yousuke keeps coming to Eri every day and ends up forcing himself on her as her driver to wherever the Chainsaw Man will appear. From there, they slowly begin to grow closer despite Yousuke's uselessness, terrible attitiude, and the fact that Eri often roundhouse kicks him for being a moron who speaks before he thinks.

Art - 5/10

The art of Eri is actually amazing, but that's kind of to be expected in ecchi manga. Still, the fanservice is a little stupid at times, namely the fact that despite it being the middle of winter, usually snowing, and they are fighting late at night, Eri. Always. Wears. A. Skirt. Aside from the fanserivce, the art also suffers whenever the men in the manga are drawn with awkwardly wide-open mouths. It just makes them look stupid even when they are talking normally. The action scenes are also a little hard to follow, but Eri is drawn really well in them almost all the time.

Character - 2/10

Definitely the worst part of this manga. Yousuke is just painful to watch. He's socially awkward (but thinks he isn't), insults Eri for crying, tripping, etc, and really is only trying to help Eri for himself at first even though 95% of the time he just gets in the way and makes things worse. I'll admit he does improve a little over the course of the eight chapters, but I still don't like him even in the end.

Eri isn't as bad, but she suffers from being generic. She's your badass fighter-girl who wears a skimpy outfit and freaks out a lot when Yousuke gets too close. She has better development than Yousuke, but again, it doesn't help enough.

The few minor characters (Noto and Watanabe) are kind of strange and barely have any relevance in the story. Noto especially gets one very awkwardly placed backstory which makes him seem like a brazen idiot when he was originally portrayed as a depressed friend who may or may not have committed suicide.

Enjoyment - 4/10

The main thing I really hated about this manga was Yousuke. Despite having a fairly good ending, I just could not come to like him at all. There are plenty of ecchi, action, and psychological manga that are much better than this one, and there are a lot (like Sundome for ecchi and psychological) which have a poor protagonist at first but through character development turn them into a likeable character. I would recommend skipping this one.