Review of Chainsaw Man
Did Chainsaw Man live up to its hype? That seems to be the golden question this season. (Very extremely mild spoilers below, to the point where I'm not sure if they would be considered spoilers) TL;DR- No, but if you go into the show expecting something that it is not you will be heavily disappointed. Longer Answer: It seemed as if no matter what Chainsaw Man did it would not be able to live up to its hype. Its combination of big industry names on the staff, the fact that it would be animated by MAPPA, the enormous amounts of praise from the fans of the manga,and the 3 years of time between the series being announced and airing meant that every anime fan and their mothers were constantly being told from all angles about how GREAT Chainsaw Man is.
And with hype comes unrealistic expectations. I feel like many came into the anime expecting the next great battle shounen. If you want to watch a battle shounen, watch Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen. While the story follows that of many battle shounen: fighting numerous bad guys with the overarching goal being to defeat the SUPER bad guy (here it is the Gun Devil), the "main point" of Chainsaw Man isn't the battles.
That isn't to say the battles aren't good. However, in my opinion they are the weakest aspect of the anime. You won't be seeing any elaborate strategies or spirit bombs. Compared to battle shounen, there is not a whole lot of "battling" here. Nevertheless, while the CGI is slightly jarring at times, this is one of the best anime I've seen at incorporating hand drawn, CGI, and rotoscoping animation into its fight scenes, probably only half a step behind Houseki no Kuni (and that is a compliment).
No. Where Chainsaw Man thrives most is off the battlefield. The visual direction is absolutely stunning. It feels like a maturation of the dark style of Jujutsu Kaisen with a better color palette, lighting, and cinematography. The camera perfectly transitions between closeups to accentuate facial expressions and body movements and further panouts to focus more on the interactions between characters. Combined with the aforementioned color design and lighting and the fantastic voice acting, this show absolutely grabbed me by my neck and completely held my attention for each of its incredible episodes.
Whether its Makima manipulating Denji, Himeno drunk seducing Denji, Aki having dinner with Himeno, or any scene from this anime, each frame just OOZES with so much personality. It's no reason why so many people on the internet are entranced by Makima. The show is just THAT good at putting the audience into the same headspace as Denji, even if most of us are aware of her dubious intentions.
This is more impressive when considering how little ACTUALLY happens. I'm anime-only but from what I've heard Season 1 of Chainsaw Man only adapts around 1/3 of the part 1 source material. I feel the love of the cast for this show as every scene is given the respect it deserves. And without an excessive amount of plot or battles to get into the way, the show can focus on its fantastic characters and themes.
Without getting too much into spoilers, the central question of Chainsaw Man is "Why do we live?". Most of the characters have their own answers to this question, which forms the basis for many of their personalities. Some motivations include vengeance, coercion, bloodlust, and duty. And at the center of all of these serious and grave motives we have our main character Denji. What is his motive? Man just wants to live a comfortable life and to touch some breasts. The absurdist nature of his motivation contrasted with the other character naturally brings rise to many of the character conflicts and adds an extra layer of nihilism/existentialistic dread to the story which is a nice touch.
So after all that discussion, should you watch Chainsaw Man? If you're looking for cool fights and a standard battle shounen, you're in for an above average, but not mind-blowing experience. However, if you're looking for a slow burning character-driven drama with fantastic atmosphere, themes, personalities pushed to an 11/10 with plot elements which push the characters to their absolute limits, this is THE must-watch anime for 2022. It's funny, horrifying, heartwarming, and chilling, all handled with an extremely controlled and mature touch. For me at least, Chainsaw Man exceeded all of my expectations.