Review of Chainsaw Man

Chainsaw Man is a very surprising show. While it aired at a time when I had stopped watching anime, I still heard and saw a lot about it. Unless you've been living under a rock, it's impossible not to know about Power and Makima, they're literally everywhere online, but most people seem to be lusting over those girls for all the wrong reasons. Seeing people compare CSM to Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, two animes I dropped because of how egregiously unrealistic and artificial their side characters felt, I never was very inclined to watch CSM, especially because of all the hype it got. Ithought it would be another shounen plagued by the same old tired tropes, main character syndrome and incredibly unbelievable cast of side characters, but I'm very happy to admit I was wrong.

If you've heard about it from the internet, CSM seems to boil down to over the top action scenes and a teenager fawning over a dommy mommy or two, but it's much more than that. It's visually exceptional, making full use of interesting and original shot composition, framing, angles and subjective camera. The backgrounds are absolutely beautiful, often dark, painted with washed out colors without much contrast, it gives the anime a very serious and eerie tone which totally fits its narrative. The characters' bright tones coupled with the abundance of blood and guts spilled in an over the top fashion during every fight, reminiscent of a Tarantino movie without the foot fetish scenes, create an absurdly realistic and almost phantasmagorical setting for the show. What I find fascinating about this CSM adaptation is its use of silence. While the action scenes are what people seem to focus the most on, which is completely fine, I don't think they're the highlight of the show. What stuck to me the most were those slow, meditative, comtemplative scenes. MAPPA is not afraid to let the anime's characters simply be, without forcing exposition and filling every scene with action. These slowed-down scenes contrast well with the exaggerated fighting scenes and can also serve, paired with a very good ost and sound design in general, as build-up for emotional scenes.

The way MAPPA gives time to the characters to breath offers them depth. We're not simply shown what they do, but how they do it, and that 'how' is what defines them. Why does Aki grind his own coffee beans? Why does he smoke a cigarette every morning? Why does he tie his hair up like that? Answering these question is not always easy, but it's the process of trying to understand the characters' actions that enables the viewer to feel a connection to them. Unlike most shounen's characters, the characters of CSM feel surprinsingly humane, their actions and emotions make sense. They're broken human beings, full of traumas they're trying to cope with each in their own way, they have qualities but many flaws, they're manipulative, egoistic, scared of the future, their dreams more often than not out of reach. The show respects its characters, no matter their sex, female characters don't solely exist as stepping stones for the male ones, they have their own goals, they have agency. What makes CSM especially refreshing is how Denji, while being the main character of the show, is very often not its main focus, which gives side characters room to develop. Shounen animes often seem to portray a main character propelled in a dangerous world, but most of the times, the viewer is supposed to relate to that character and to want to be in his place. I don't think that's the case with CSM, atleast for me, not once in the show did I want to exchange my place with Denji's, or any other character's. They're all going through hell on a daily basis, and this is what gives so much more weight to the domestic scenes where they just seem like normal, regular human beings enjoying life.

The very impressive visuals coupled with dramatic, often tragic characters, create a series articulated around cycles of loss, manipulation, attachment issues and parataxic distortion. Makima, the 'dommy mommy' that everyone seems to be lusting about, is a big driving force of the show, embodying its core themes. Her expert manipulation is what orchestrates most of what happens in the story, she seems to be in control of everything and everyone. Stopping at her looks and the way she makes Denji sexually interested in her would be a great disservice to how deep and interesting she is, she is truly terrifying. The focus on sexual acts will probably rebut some viewers, but it's important to note that these are not in the show for fanservice, they're part of Denji's characterization and growth, his search of a connection that he only seems to be able to actualize through basic needs; they serve a well defined purpose.

This show doesn't seem for everyone, while the actions scenes are cool and the characters are hot, the overall feeling of it all is very depressing. The characters seem to be stuck in an endless loop of violence and loss, and that cyclical nature of the narrative is highlighted by the show's very first and last scene which are almost identical. That being said, the over the top action scenes serve as a low bar of entry which enables the anime to be enjoyed by most, it's thus hard not to recommend it. The anime being only 12 episodes long is its biggest issue, but it serves as a very good introduction to its world, characters and themes.