Review of Chainsaw Man
Woof. So we’re going ignore the strange “people” in the community who vomit up lines such as “Chainsaw Man is overrated” or whatever helps them justify their hatred towards a very popular mainstream thing they’ve never read, watched or if they have watched the anime, lack the media literacy skills to understand what they’re watching, as well as the people who can’t tell the difference between digital and hand-drawn animation yet complain about it on Twitter, and that toxic sub-sect (emphasis on sub) of Chainsaw Man fans who feel so entitled they’d start a petition to try and get the anime remade. We’re not focusing onany of this and quite frankly you shouldn’t either because whether it’s the manga or the anime, there is nothing quite like Chainsaw Man.
Chainsaw Man is, however, not a traditional 12-episode anime. It’s a 4-hour movie with musical breaks every 20 minutes in the form of EDs. I don’t know how else to describe it. On the surface, it’s a story about a weird, gross guy who pulls a rip chord on his chest, grows chainsaws from his arms and head, and kills devil monstrosities by shredding them into bloody meat chunks with the help of his friends, serious simp and Eric Cartman with padded boobs.
In reality, it's a psychological horror, Shonen battle, work-life comedy, apocalyptic action anime with layers upon layers of endless, show-don’t-tell storytelling nuance that the anime hasn’t even scratched the surface of in its first season alone. Starvation, homelessness, debt-slavery, poverty, survivors guilt, gun violence, terrorism, global power struggles, the pain that comes from being kicked in the balls, capitalism, the price of vengeance, what it means to be human, the anxiety you get when you think you may never touch a pair of titties before you die, any theme, no subject matter is off limits to Chainsaw Man’s narrative and it’s all woven together in beautiful gore and misery, and expressed through a genuinely creative fear-based power system.
It's clear just from watching that the team at Mappa not only loves Chainsaw Man but understands the source material and its movie influences. I rarely go into OP’s and ED’s in my reviews, but Jesus Christ, the amount of effort and attention to detail the team put into them, cramming references from famous movies and references to manga spoilers which anime-only viewers would never catch on to, is awe-inspiring. That’s in the OP alone. Every episode has a different ED accompanied by a different track by a diverse list of artists and genres. It’s insane. I’ve never seen so much effort and talent poured into one season of an anime before.
And the actual show? As I said, it’s more like a movie than a season of anime. I love the way the anime emulates camera angle work and editing styles of movies greats. There's a lot of Sam Raimi influence which I appreciate, but what gets me is how fluid the art and animation are. There is rarely ever a moment where something isn’t moving on the screen in a convincingly weighty way. Shadows are complex and move realistically, devils look grotesque like they’re straight out of an old B horror movie that used practical effects. There are scenes of characters just eating breakfast, putting on clothes, or stumbling into their apartments drunk off their tits where the animators just flex for no reason and they’re always jaw-dropping to watch. The biggest “controversy” of course is the 3D-CG and digital animation leveraged to make the adaptation work, but this is Mappa we’re talking about. Their 3D department has been getting better and better if you’ve been keeping up with their projects, and Chainsaw Man feels like the current result of their accumulated experiences. The way the 3D is composited and blended into scenes so seemly that it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between hand-drawn and digital animation. The evidence is, everyone on Twitter complains about it. Honestly, the 3D is so good that if you’re one of those people who refuses to watch the show or think it’s bad because of it, you kinda look like a bratty dickhead.
The only downside I can see to this adaptation is that it’s only adapted one-third of the story (part 1). If you’re an anime-only watcher, I can understand why you wouldn’t understand the generational genius that is Chainsaw Man because you’ve only experienced a part of it. With the second season (and best girl) teased at the end yet still unconfirmed as of the time of writing, unless you read the manga (WHICH YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD FROM THE BEGINNING BY THE WAY) you may never become an enlightened one.
The manga of Chainsaw Man is a work that transcends genius. I’m not joking when I say that. I don't believe in talent as a concept, I believe that anyone can do anything if they put in the time and effort to hone their skills instead of for example, using an a.i that steals from other artists, but I am genuinely sad that I lack the talent and mind of Tatsuki Fujimoto when it comes to creating horror both physical and existential, and stories that both see you in an unnerving way, yet are surprisingly funny and wholesome. The anime adaptation manages to chapter these things marvellously, and I hope the team at Mappa haven't been grounded down into a fine paste from production schedules so we can get a second season.
10/10 Practically Perfect.