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What a wild ride

All Denji wants to do is live a happy life with a girl he likes. Instead, Denji kills devils for a living in order to pay back crushing debts to the Yakuza. Using his pet devil Pochita, he does anything he can to earn some cash.
When he outlives his usefulness however the yakuza kill him.
However, Pochita merges with Denji's dead body and transforms him into the Chainsaw Devil- able to turn any part of body into chainsaw blades in order to rip enemies to shreds.
Shortly after his rebirth he catches the eye of the Public Safety Bureau, offering him a job to ... work as a devil hunter or simply killing him. Having no better recourse, Denji leaps at the chance to serve his cute new boss, Miss Makima.

Denji joins a new team filled with other strange and mysterious human and fiend devil hunters and ends up living with Aki, a responsible stick in the mud loyal to Miss Makima, and Power, the blood devil who hates humans and showers.
Denji doesn't think too hard about what he's made to do, reveling in all of the experiences he was never able to make back in his old life. Instead he charges recklessly ahead killing all devils that stand in the PSB's way- gaining some notoriety for his power in the process. Lost to Denji is the mysterious motivations held by the people holding his leash- with everyone who questions this murky process being set aside. As the consequences mount, even Denji has to wonder if there's something to all this that he's missing.

Ultimately, Denji has to question the powers leading him lest he loses everything he's ever cared about. This is the conflict central to Denji's character, and important in the grand scheme of things. Yet they make up only a thread in a collection of other narratives and messages- from all the other characters with stronger inner conflicts, to the ones with trauma, to the ones with completely alien desires, to the ones just like Denji wanting to live a simple life.
So many arcs unwind in cruel and tragic fashion, leaving the audience feeling cold and empty. Yet it plows forward ceaselessly, not caring for your tears and demanding you hurt further- twisting the knife the more you care.
I'm usually ill-disposed to such negative and harsh narratives, as their soul-sucking effect feels so much more like a ploy to hook the reader with cheap tricks. While Chainsaw Man is not immune to such critique, it never feels like just a trick. Every death forces you to focus on that pain, so that you can't push it aside. You have to brace yourself for the impact in order to see what is truly going on, or you too risk losing everything and everyone you care for.

All of this illustrates the great emotional gravity Chainsaw Man holds, but it does not do justice to the sheer insanity and creativity Tatsuki Fujimoto brings to this work.
A series as absurd as Chainsaw Man fit with a protagonist wielding chainsaws with his fucking head couldn't resonate without a twisted mind and gifted hands, and Fujimoto does not disappoint in this department.
Chainsaw Man is fit to burst with every conceivable brain-blast for strange powers, oddball characters, and whatever other fetish came to mind while creating this work.
This is the exact type of manga to spawn best girl debates because its packed to the brim with total bombshells and nearly all of them are fucking insane.
Every notable character has memorable design, and their character sticks in the readers' mind long after they've been introduced.

In spite of its bleak messaging and harrowing subject matter, Chainsaw Man is a damn blast to read.
All of the character interactions feel fresh and interesting and the humor touches a nice groove that somehow makes you forget about the horrible events going on around you. Whether it's Denji being a horny dumbass, or Power lying through her fucking teeth and trying to play it off casually, or Kobeni freaking out about e v e r y t h i n g, you're never too far from an ill-timed chuckle.
When you're not depressed crying, or laughing at a fucking idiot, you're caught off guard by Fujimoto's insanity brought to life through CSM's strange friends and foes and their powers.

The action is backed by brutal edge, fascinating material, and the skill necessary to bring it to life- allowing the panels to speak for themselves and paint a moving picture in the readers' mind. Indeed it seems like it was made with room for motion to realize Fujimoto's vision- almost destined for an anime adaptation to elevate his work. Hopefully the coming adaptation properly manages these expectations.
Chainsaw Man was not completely perfect. It's bleak tone did occasionally dip low enough to tug at the tension keeping me invested. Certain fights also wrap in such fashion that the aftermath feels hollow in a non-productive manner, taking me away from an otherwise engaging performance.
But Chainsaw Man did not need to be perfect, its flaws speak to a vision that should engender a level of awe, and perhaps envy, in being able to fully realize its creator's intent. Whether this is actually true to Fujimoto himself, it nevertheless stirred a yearning in me to match his level of drive and vision.

It was a painful ride, but one that I was overwhelmingly glad to go through. There's no other manga that's quite life Chainsaw Man and I don't know if there ever could be. All I can do is wait for Part 2 until Fujimoto is ready and the coming anime adaptation of Part 1.

Milf Isekai Online

This one disappointed me.
Not because I had high hopes to begin with, I thought it'd be a cute lil thing in the midst of a crowded Summer season, but because it had been enjoyable enough that I originally had it as a 7. Then it dropped to a 6. Then eventually, 5.

So, some background information may be helpful in this case for those that are unaware of the author's background. The original light novel is written by Pochi, a doujin artist, known for some fucking quality 'ara ara' material which feature a heavy dosage of shotacon X onee-san pairings in her works. This ... explains why the character designs are all super cute, even if some of the color design (Porta mostly but Wise also to some extent) can sometimes be clumsily put together. This also explains why this story features a milf as one of its primary characters and why there are plenty of ecchi scenes involving said milf. So, that should mean we're in for an ecchi-filled parody of the generic isekai that have become so prevalent as of late, right? Well, yes and no.

The biggest issue with the show is that it just doesn't know what it wants to be. At the start of the show that certainly seems to be the case, as there's plenty of ecchi to be found and the tongue-in-cheek attitude of Masato provides enough comedic edge to provide a little more substance for the audience. This carries largely throughout the show and what kept me enjoying the show as much as I did for as long as I did, and still acts as a saving grace of the show now. Mamako (the milf) also acts somewhat nicely as a foil by one-shotting any enemy they come across and dispersing tension. Her super positive and genial aura just leaves a nice warm feeling in general. The show doesn't grow beyond this point though and instead falls back on this foil to an annoying extent. In fact, it falls back on that foil more and more and the parody aspect less and less as the show goes on. That warm feeling provided by Mamako's kindness eventually becomes cloying because of the show's propagandist turn; in this case to encourage the largely otaku-viewer base to love their mothers more. Now, I don't have a problem with sliding in these messages into your story, as this has become quite common as of late with many romantic comedies sprouting up that focus on certain sects of women and subliminally encourages readers to pursue similar types of relationship. I also don't have an issue with putting in the message that your mother loves you and you should love your mother and so on and so forth. But in a story where the comedy and world building is clearly intended to poke fun, being as heavy handed as the show gets becomes draining. This might not be such a problem if the message had some nuance or included some exceptions to the rule, and yet the show falls short once again. Such is the case when they face other bad mothers, mothers who are legitimately cruel and abusive, and the show still takes this annoyingly innocent approach to fixing it.

"Just love your kid!" "Show your kid kindness!" "Listen to your kids wishes!"
"Aaagh, ok sure"
C'mon now.

The tone they present the message also becomes rather patronizing by the end.
Mamako was always involving herself in Masato's quest but it felt more organic in the beginning when it wasn't being overused as much. There was also a nice dynamic between her and Masato because of their fun clash of personalities. Towards the end Mamako (and their later band of other mothers (why)) ends up doing pretty much anything of consequence, which I feel really undercuts the message the show could be sending. Instead of dialing it back as the quest goes and letting her son make important decisions and face consequence, nothing feels of consequence because Mamako can just magically wave her hand and everything will be okay.

The last episode presented a telling question and really determined my point total in the end. Amante, the last villain they face, acuses Mamako of robbing Masato of the chance to be a hero on his own thrilling journey, having a romance, or anything else that might be worthwhile on a quest of your own. If the show had acknowledged this point seriously or if Masato had indicated a greater level of agreement, then I would've been inclined to give the show another point. Instead Masato gives this weak-sauce reply that sort of gives credence to that idea but only in the most surface level way possible. His rebuttal also doesn't offer much in the way of substantive push back so you just kind of think to yourself, "what's the point?"
At least Masato answered for himself though. If Mamako had done that too then I would've dropped the show down to a 4.

What sucks is I can't really recommend the show because I still don't know what audience the show's trying to reach. I doubt mothers are eager to watch because of all the ecchi and I doubt average otaku are eager to watch because it gets away from the ecchi and the comedy becomes rote as the show goes on. Despite the largely negative tone of this review I don't think that it's a bad show necessarily and I would encourage people to check it out if they thought it would interest them.

This is my first review here so any feedback would be appreciated. :)