(TLDR review at the bottom, as always, thanks in advance for reading) (Major edit at the bottom lol) If you told me to describe Chainsaw Man in one word I would grab the nearest megaphone and microphone, place the megaphone in between my mouth and the microphone, switch both devices on, and start screaming, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" Yes. There the word 'madness' or 'chaos' doesn't even fit. The sound does a better job of explaining it. Chainsaw Man is mostly made up of death metal screaming moments and having not read anything close to this other than watching Dorohedoro and maybe reading some of Berserk, Attack on Titan, Akame ga Killif you count those. I can say that Chainsaw Man is one story you won't forget. This isn't your average Shounen Jump manga.

Narrative:
As mentioned before, Chainsaw Man is the embodiment of death metal screaming, though, I guess I am stretching it a little too far, it isn't entirely like that, there is a calm nature when it is needed.

At the start, the pacing makes this somewhat weird to get at first glance. You see, the story begins with what happens to be this disheartening atmosphere Denji emits off, he is living the lowest point in his life but when he makes a contract to become the Chainsaw Man, things get crazy, and things only get crazier from then on. This aspect of the story is the good thing about Chainsaw Man, you know things are crazy, and indeed will get crazier, but the constant gaining of knowledge to new information still makes you think about what else could get more insane than what just happened. Read it out for yourself. See what you will find out about this world in which, on the surface is chaotic, but further down the line is just… dark, and deep too. You see, the story isn't just madness, the story also offers how the current world operates, with various devil users from all over the world trying to take Denji for their own uses, what uses exactly? They range quite a bit. But I feel like with the use of different devil users around the world having the same objective of getting Denji, there is a strange tie to politics, conspiracies and countries trying to become the absolute superpower. It is a nice add-on to the story which enforces the original atmosphere of the chaotic world the story has. People will do anything for power and stand on top of others. It's a crazy story, but there has been some thinking done on top of this hell of a world to bring out what is the worst people can do. The true madness awaiting beneath the surface.

Getting into the fundamentals, something to touch on is plot poison. Usually, plot poison destroys what writers try to convey because they are a flimsy way of emphasising a situation, I don't really recall a time when it has worked so effectively. With Chainsaw Man, however, the excessive amounts of deaths could be viewed as general plot poison if it weren't for the three reasons of:
1. The world is borderline hell
2. People don't die in the story for the sake of some dramatic way to go out, or for the sake of making things look scary
3. Most deaths are unnamed background characters, of course, serving no relevance.

To be fair, I haven't actually seen a ton of stories with plot poison. But from what I have seen it is mostly used in a way to make the story look more dramatic when it is used in the action genre. With the horror genre, it is made to create terror to some atmosphere. Though even so Chainsaw Man is straight to the point with such an action. When death happens, it isn't used as a way to make everything look dramatic or scary, as I have said, this is madness, no bumpy road to get to what it wants to convey. Straight to the point, full stop. I must say such a technique really gives the story its ground to stand on. Even with thousands of irrelevant characters that get totally wiped off the face of the world within seconds, it may do feel as if the story has become more dramatic, or terrifying, or, well, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH. Though I feel as if it were like a signature blessed specifically for a story of its kind. You could argue that method would be a cheap way of emphasising the mood Chainsaw Man wishes to bring and to be honest, I would agree... to an extent. Having a vast amount of deaths in a world full of chaos is obviously going to make the setting look cataclysmic, but concurrently, it isn't like killing off every single importance character is going to bring for a better story anyway, not that there is excessive plot armour to be mentioned in the story anyway. It is disheartening, but that is what the story aims to be amidst the frantic hell of a world.

The characters tie in well with the story, they are practically on an equal level. Denji and Power are both dumb characters, not because of story writing, but they are generally stupid people personality-wise. They do dumb things now and then and probably have the mindset of your average high schooler, but they are a good representation of how clueless they are in the face of madness they go through day in, day out. As said before, there is a strange thread of a connection with politics and conspiracies, no one is quite sure of what people are doing behind the scenes or what the final goal is for said people. With clueless, but strong characters like Denji doing nothing but trying his hardest to get an award he was allowed to have from Makima, and Power who has to stay and work for the agency or she will face death. It makes for the perfect combo for the questionable stability of the way of maintaining world order in the story. It is more or less exploitation of the unintelligent, in other words, exploitation. The same can't be said for Aki since he is actually smart, but he too is left in the dark with all the shady business that goes on behind the scenes, his life, however, is more so just depressing in that matter. He isn't silly as Denji and Power are, and has a good grasp of the things that go around him, even so, he can't do much, he is trapped in the madness that comes with his job. No one is safe in this corrupted hierarchy.

Another character to touch on is Makima, she is part of the, "Hey, what the hell does she want" questions that may come to mind when reading. Nothing about her is as clear as day about her, but further on, you begin to see what she hides from those she works with. She clearly has some beef with people, but no one takes her head on considering her ludicrous strength which bounces onto the reader in later chapters. All the while not knowing her true intentions. She is an interesting one. The kind of character you want to dive into more simply because there are too many shadows covering someone with such an important status in society. Again, going back to the conspiracies she may have on her mind to try to execute.

I won't get into spoilers, but the ending is quite disappointing. I felt as if it was pushed to go onto top speeds especially with how fast the pacing of this story is. It may leave you with an unsatisfactory taste to savour. In saying this the ending is nothing disastrous, it was just too fast which didn't allow for a proper finish as one may have liked to see with such intense build-up that has happened just before.

Art:
The art fits well with the entire concept of Chainsaw Man, the character designs looked great with the addition of what seems to be frantically scratched detail into the design, I honestly don't know why but it's like something you would get out of Adult Swim, or Robot Chicken if I am using the correct show. Not something I've seen before, but it was a nice first interaction with art of its kind and made for a good conveyance in the chaotic nature of the story. Speaking of which, the art when there is a fight of some kind doesn't hold back with all the details relating to blood and gore it has to offer, every action moment happens in detail. Other sceneries like background spaces are pretty much the same as the characters, not exactly the most exciting detail but nothing that I would say is bad.

Enjoyment:
I personally enjoyed Chainsaw Man a lot. For a shounen with a ton of action, however, I can't exactly say it performs the best in action. Sometimes the action scenes feel like a gag fight rather than a real fight taking place. Stiff movements contribute to this, but given the world, this is set in, it is to be expected. That doesn't mean I find the action better because of where it is set, it still gets negative points for that pillar of enjoyment. Nothing bad, but nothing I would have quite wanted.

A good point to focus on though is that maybe I am being an uncultured swine, or just downright incorrect, but I feel as if Chainsaw Man really feels like something from the "Dark Age of Comics", everything about its style yells unsettling in the sense that these corrupted images of heroes pay off well with the current age. There are "good guys'' in the stories but can you really class them with your typical 60s heroes. Again, I may be completely off but I feel as if Chainsaw Man is probably one of the best things to relate to such a time period. It makes for incredible enjoyment and insight, since there is a marriage of Shounen Jump, American style comics, and just madness brought together to bring to you the Chainsaw Man you know of today. Honestly, I haven't seen a fusion of culture as good since Pop Team Epic.

Overall - 7.75 (8)

TLDR Review:
Story - 8: The story is the embodiment of crazy, and has a deep underlying goal to it. As well as being straight-up depressing at times.
Art - 8: Character designs looked a little bit scrappy in a good way. Reminded me of something from Adult Swim or Robot Chicken.
Characters - 8: The dumb characters are a good representation of the mystery in their world. Other smarter characters are still left in the dark but question what goes on.
Enjoyment - 7: Action is wack at times. Feels like something from the "Dark Age of Comics". Combination of Shounen Jump, American style comics, and just madness makes for a pleasant story.

Overall - 7.75 (8)

Well, having never read any of Fujimoto's works aside for CSM, I can say that the other popular title made by Fujimoto, "Fire Punch" is certainly something that will come under my radar. With CSM 2 coming along as well I am looking forward to what next Fujimoto has to give. Apparently, Fujimoto is known for killing off characters and depressing stories, so I might be in for a good story and sequel. Would I recommend CSM? Yep, any day of the week. Though that is assuming that you are into the madness, chao(s/tic), craz(y/ier) that story gives. Three (five) words I have used 8 + 5 + 6 times respectively (excluding the latest) throughout this review. Is it THAT MAD? Probably not. But it's still pretty mad. Go. Give it a try.

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Edit: 2nd March 2021, tldr at the bottom

Ok so I had just finish re-reading CSM and I thought that some points are made here aren't the best so I am just going to edit over that here.

With narrative, most of my opinion is still the same, same chaos, some conspiracies, no one what the hell is going on, but you can be sure of hell along the road of the reality of CSM.

I noticed that I explained a lot of the later parts of the story in which I say, that that is where the real grit of CSM revolves off of if you get what I mean. Earlier parts really just set the story in for what is to be, later on, it does a good job at that, you can get a good understanding of the characters introduced and why they work in this hell of a job. I won't say I give it a 9/10 because to some extent, CSM has a lot of doing stuff with no meaning attached to it until the end. For those actions with meaning, such as the different things Denji does with the girls he meets, they tend to add to his origin and how that sucked instead of his future character. The dude doesn't really change despite it, is that a bad thing? I wouldn't say so. But it sure would be nice to see something from him that wasn't too static, something out of character whilst concurrently not.

With Art, I gave it an 8/10 because I was a weekly viewer towards the end of the manga (~80 chapters in or so was the latest). The quality of art for sure felt as if it had decreased over the course of the manga. Not a lot, but slightly. Looking back, there are some incredibly good moments that need to be spoken about. Most of the manga has incredibly good art. I had most of the newer chapters affect my score for the category. I was in and out of this manga, only sticking around until the aforementioned ~80 chapters in.
Art: 8 --> 9

With the enjoyment factor, I mean, if I went and reread this, it obviously means that I liked this a lot. Though I would recommend that anyone reading this also do the same as I have as towards the end of the manga (from International Assassasins arc onwards) things do get incredibly confusing with new characters joining, reveals of everyone's true motives and intents, and devils, fiends, humans doing things we had no clarification about beforehand. On that note, my brain having a hard time comprehending that, I still have to comprehend it some more, but it isn't as bad as before, though I have quite a few questions now too in exchange, that was the reason why I lowered enjoyment factor. Things get confusing, very quickly. Idk why I didn't mention that prior to this edit. I'm going to add that despite a hard time in understanding the story, in which I was close to giving this an 8/10 for enjoyment—still a very good score—I do have to admit that this is very funny to read too, the humour seems like what I proposed before this edit, i.e. the American style. I am not sure how the hell this ran on Shounen Jump, but it did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Enjoyment: 7 --> 9

TLDR: Reread Chainsaw Man when you can.

Overall - 8.5 (9)

I sure hope I haven't messed anything up.