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Oct 25, 2022
Chainsaw Man is a PERFECT adaptation and anyone who says otherwise is frankly wrong.
For some background, I have read the manga several times and left my own review of that already, so I don't want to say much about the story, characters, and all that but rather how directors Makoto Nakazono and Ryū Nakayama alongside an incredibly talented team have adapted that story into a wholly fresh, yet incredibly faithful work of art.
I want to address what has thus far proven to be the most controversial part of this adaptation: the animation. Let me make myself perfectly clear as someone who was doubtful that the
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anime could even possibly deliver on the manga's exceptionally high standards: the animation is some of the absolute best anime has to offer. Even with shows such as Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, or Jujutsu Kaisen that feature incredible animation, you can always find shortcuts if you know what to look for. Stuff such as character designs with little detail, comedic moments with even simpler designs and stilted movement, still shots with dynamic camera angles to hide the lack of actual motion, or using effects to make up for rather unremarkable character movement (Demon Slayer). So it feels unreal to say Chainsaw Man features animation on the same level as these shows and then some without taking any of those shortcuts.
There is RARELY a shot where something isn't moving and we're talking actual sakuga shots making up most of the series. While limited animation is still used (this is just a must for TV animation of any kind), rather than feeling like the animators had to use the sakuga shots economically, it feels like they had the room to only use limited animation where it best fits the scene. Scenes like Denji eating udon noodles, cutting down a tree, or engaging in banter with one of the side characters are still animated with the same level of care as the best fight of the season in any other anime. Animation production and consistency like this hasn't been seen since Cowboy Bebop.
And those fights are truly something to behold. Even short encounters like Aki and Denji duking it out in an alleyway or the half second duel between Denji and Power (probably one of the most stunning sequences in the anime thus far) are animated beautifully and the animators really let loose in the longer encounters.
THE CGI IS AMAZING, OKAY! I'm willing to say it like it is. The 3D animation in Chainsaw Man's fights is truly remarkable and not even just by the standards of anime CGI. I hear a lot of people try to defend the CGI by saying "well they had to use CGI" and while I somewhat agree (I don't think the talking scenes would have animation this premium if CGI didn't lighten the load just a little bit), the use of CGI in Chainsaw Man really feels to me like MAPPA knows they have an incredibly talented team of CGI animators (which they absolutely do) and that team really just wanted to show off their skills. The use of stellar 2D animation to assist the 3D then makes every fight feel like a dance in blissful harmony while each partner subtly tries to outdo and one-up the other. More so than any other anime I've ever seen, you can really feel the passion in each of Chainsaw Man's fights and get the feeling of insanely talented artists just having a blast creating each sequence while using Chainsaw Man as a framework.
The music is also delightful. I've never seen Chainsaw Man as a series that would fit a metal soundtrack, but rather something more industrial. While I do kind of wish that the anime's out would aim for just a little bit more of a grimy, gritty soundscape, Kensuke Ushio's work has always been incredible and I think everyone who's seen the Chainsaw Man anime more or less agrees on this.
Now for the unsung hero of any adaptation, the script. Writing an adaptation is incredibly difficult and basically anything and everything can go wrong. It takes an extremely talented writer to effectively adapt a comic script for TV and among those writers, Hiroshi Seko (Mob Psycho 100's first season) is at the very top. Just like with Mob, Seko rewrites and remixes the source material to give each episode a complete arc and sense of purpose. I know some people want to nitpick and whine about the removal of the Muscle Devil fight, but that fight really was nothing special and introduces nothing new in terms of world building and themes that the first Fiend fight doesn't. Episode 2 in general is such a stellar example of writing an adaptation, fitting way more manga into a single episode than I think anyone expected while never feeling rushed, bloated, or like the episode didn't end on a satisfying note.
In conclusion, I am floored by this adaptation of Chainsaw Man and I feel like anyone who genuinely appreciates the art of anime and all the steps and hard work that go into any anime would feel the same. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who want to just hate on Chainsaw Man just to hate and others who allowed their opinions and expectations of Chainsaw Man to be formed by hype and social media rather than meeting the series on its own terms and letting the series naturally show off what makes it so special, leading to disappointment. If you feel let down by Chainsaw Man's anime and don't feel it lived up to the hype, that's okay. I hope that maybe something I said here gave you more of an appreciation for this amazing anime and I'd strongly recommend the manga if you haven't read and really want to see why so many people (who actually read the manga) talk so positively about Chainsaw Man. If you're just here to hate on the popular thing because it's popular and never wanted to give the series a fair shot though, no one thinks you're cool or edgy because you fight against the popular opinion and shame people for enjoying things. It's okay to have opinions that don't follow the norm (god knows I have a shit ton), but try to form those opinions naturally on your own based on your own experiences instead of immediately showing off your hate boner just for some clout. That's all I have to say.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 14, 2022
Chainsaw Man is BRUTALLY Underrated (and here’s why)
So I wanted to write this for a variety of reasons. The Chainsaw Man anime is hotly anticipated by manga readers and curious anime fans who want to be in the know, and the manga recently continued just as strong as ever with the dawn of Part 2.
However, the biggest reason personally for this is that the response to this series is baffling to me. I’ve never seen a series with this much hype, this much conversation, and this much praise thrown at it to still be almost criminally underrated. I hope talking about the series in depth
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like this will convince new readers to take the plunge, maybe convince people who bounced off to pick it back up, or to help existing fans further appreciate a manga they enjoy.
If you want a quick answer as to whether or not Chainsaw Man is worth reading, that answer is yes. It may not be for you, but you absolutely must try it out. The plot is incredibly well structured (however unfortunately explaining what makes the plot brilliant would spoil its biggest surprises) and the characters at its core are some of the best and most fleshed out in manga despite only a 97-chapter run.
Now for the in depth analysis
*Tatsuki Fujimoto*
Tatsuki Fujimoto is one of the greatest mangaka ever. He’s one of those artists with such an elaborate grasp on the fundamentals of his medium that the more you learn about how manga works on a technical level and learn to read cinematic language and shorthand, the more the skill of his craft can blow you away. Fujimoto twists and contorts standard manga making fundamentals to create distinct new ideas for page layouts as effective as they are inventive. His body of work is already one to reckon with and I can see him being a mangaka in the future to which all other mangaka are judged. If you have any interest in comics or manga or visual storytelling and specially a curiosity about the actual craft of making a story within this medium, all of Fujimoto’s work is essential reading (Look Back is especially special).
*Tatsuki Fujimoto and Cinema*
A common point brought up when discussing Fujimoto and his work is his obvious love of cinema. Usually this point is only discussed as far as “some of his panels feel kinda cinematic” or “there’s some movie references here and there”. I’m here to tell you it goes much deeper than this.
Fujmoto is extremely fluent in the language of cinema and his use of that language to elevate his manga is nothing short of transcendental. Panels will use a variety of shots and angles pulled out of a filmmaker’s arsenal and fundamentally understands what the style of shot says about the scene he’s portraying. Fujimoto makes brilliant use of wide shot landscapes, dutch angles, and close up shots. Each chapter is also paced like an episode of a prestige TV drama. In just 19 pages each chapter, Fujimoto consistently manages to tell a complete story that also seamlessly feeds into the overarching narrative to the point where you often don’t realize just how self contained some chapters really are. A highlight for me as well was how Fujimoto cleverly places the Chainsaw Man title as well as that chapter’s title. This is done to give each chapter, even when launching off directly from the previous, a sense of a cold open where things are ramping up and the panel where the chapter’s title is revealed gives the reader a sense of “Okay. Now things are really getting rolling.” It’s a feeling hard to describe coming from a pacing technique that few creators in any medium truly utilize. The only thing I personally think that comes close to this remarkable sense of episodic pacing within an overarching series is Breaking Bad.
One of the most important tells of Fujimoto’s cinematic influences, however, is his use of body language. A LOT of manga don’t put much effort into dialogue scenes. Some can be paced better than others, but normally the focus is purely on what’s being said and what’s physically going on in the scene is often nothing more than two characters sitting down and talking to each other. Fujimoto’s dialogue scenes, in contrast, are exciting and hugely dynamic. I implore you to research body language fundamentals, especially the concept of power positions, and then notice how in most scenes between Makima and Denji, Makima is standing over Denji and breaks his guard consistently by kneeling down to his level physically. This gives every conversation an air of wit and drama. Not to mention the use of body language as metaphor. There’s a page layout in chapter 1 where Makima hugs Denji after his first transformation into Chainsaw Man and the warmth of her embrace causes Denji’s Chainsaw exterior to literally melt away into the frail and broken kid Denji is. Then you can revisit that panel after finishing the manga and begin to fully understand the depth’s of Fujimoto’s use of body language as literal metaphor and dramatic irony. Most manga conversations consist of static images of the characters amongst panels almost filled entirely with text. Fujimoto’s dialogue feels like it’s being spoken by actual people as Fujimoto blocks and directs them as a director would for actors in a film.
*Horror Manga*
I’m gonna open this segment with an extremely controversial statement. I don’t think Junji Ito is all that great.
Don’t get me wrong. He’s an incredible artist and works are plenty unsettling, but to me, that’s kind of all they are. Ito certainly has the drawing chops to create nightmarish visions, but his writing lacks when it comes to giving those visions life and vital context to truly make them tangible and powerful. I genuinely think Ito would be best as the artist half of an artist-writer mangaka duo. Uzumaki has plenty of horrific imagery rendered in shocking detail, and while there is an immediate, visceral fear of seeing those images, his work never had much power to me when it comes to lodging themselves into your brain and refusing to leave as the feeling of creepiness and isolation puts its hooks deeper and deeper into the darkest parts of your brain. This is why Tatsuki Fujimoto is maybe the best horror mangaka ever.
The prime example of Fujimoto’s approach to horror is the Darkness Devil. Within Chainsaw Man, every devil is given a name and their power is proportional to the fear that name invokes. The Darkness Devil by that logic would be one of the most powerful and the fight with it is wild. The imagery preceding the devil’s appearance is incredible. Of course, there’s the panel with the praying astronauts lined up, split into two. There’s also the frog and ribbit before the first attack. Not only is this imagery extremely fun and creative, but it speaks to just how powerful the Darkness Devil is. Fear of darkness stems from a fear of what could be in that darkness. And since so much fear of darkness is often intangible and inexplicable, the darkness devil’s attacks are by extension just as bizarre and unknowable. You don’t know what could be in the darkness, which means theoretically anything COULD be and something as innocent as a ribbit from a single frog could be the trigger to something horrible.
I think this scene more than anything illustrates how on the whole, Fujimoto’s horror is all-encompassing when it comes to what horror has been and what it can be. He writes at the start of every issue how he loves horror movies and it’s clear he’s that rare creator that really gets the medium on a deeper level. He has the same grasp of Robert Eggers’ artsy existential horror as he does on Sam Raimi’s campy, bloody fun brand of horror. As a result, Chainsaw Man is one of those few works of horror that feel truly definitive. For every scene of truly chilling horror that speaks to something deeper and human, there’s a fun Sharknado reference in one of the fights.
*Themes in Chainsaw Man*
Chainsaw Man is a wacky, fun shonen battle manga but the further you read, the further you see how much this manga wears its heart on its sleeve. Especially with the recent release of Just Listen to the Song with Fujimoto writing and Oto Toda doing the art, I feel like Fujimoto puts a lot more of himself into his work than his work would like to let you think. I don’t want to discuss the actual themes in depth too much since there’s so many other sources for that and this essay is already getting absurdly long. Rather I wanted to mostly reassure anyone who looks at the talk around this series and sees only the wacky violence and Makima simps that this manga really does have a lot of meat on its bones.
Chainsaw Man indeed has a lot to say about people, the society we live in, and often can be bitingly political (the willingness of America to pull out the Gun Devil cannot be accidental). Fujimoto’s one-shots usually capture more personal themes but Chainsaw Man’s scope allows Fujimoto to explore issues on a societal level without sacrificing that personal growth. Denji is one of the most fascinating and brilliantly written shonen protagonists in the history of manga. I wouldn’t be surprised if Part 1 was initially planned to be the entire story of Chainsaw Man, but Fujimoto wanted to explore Denji within new settings and with new responsibilities. I can’t wait to see what Denji brings out within a high school setting.
This is a manga that hits deep emotional cores and uses themes of emotion itself to give each of its more timely messages a timeless, universal weight. This is a manga as much about human fear of control and the illusion of free will as much as it is about tying that fear into the twisted nature of modern bureaucracy or abusive relationships. This is a manga about what it means to fulfill ones dreams and what happens when you shoot far too low and achieve those dreams with little effort with no idea what comes next. For those who are caught up with the manga, I cannot wait to see what Part 2 does with Nayuta and her relationship with Denji (she’s barely in Part 1 and she’s already one of the best and most endearing characters imo).
*Conclusion*
If this overly long rant that I am foolishly referring to as an essay hasn’t given it away already, I really love this manga. This was the manga that got me into manga alongside the not-quite-as-brilliant-but-still-amazing Spy x Family. I have read it multiple times since I first binged the whole thing a year ago and have thought about it and sat on its many messages and storytelling techniques for all this time. I don’t think this manga gets the appreciation it deserves and even if you disagree with all I said, I hope just reading this will help you find something else you appreciate about this series.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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