Review of Chainsaw Man

What does it mean to truly enjoy the very basic things in life that we take for granted? That is the question Chainsaw Man seeks to answer. After being a hit ma game for its 11 volume run, then going on hiatus as it migrated over to a new publisher, Chainsaw Man became one of the most hot topic manga out there. Between its film references, cinematic paneling, art quality, and crazy narrative, fans became hyped when Mappa announced it would make an anime adaptation. Thank goodness they did! The anime has an interesting background. Typically, there is a production committee that is comprised ofupper management individuals in the animation studio, and other people of different companies coming together to create an animated product. This is where the budget, staff, marketing, release window, etc is all decided then relayed to the staff and animators with the director and producer being the upper chain in command and liaisons. Chainsaw Man with MAPPA however, had no production committee. The management of MAPPA took this as a pure passion project and wanted it's new members to tackle it as they felt that new, young energy was the best fit for the production of Chainsaw Man. Additionally, this was funded from their own money.
Did they deliver?
YES.
With the directorial debut of Ryū Nakayama as well as THE ENTIRE TEAM having their anime debut, these young folks went hard with the production quality and narrative to bring this anime to life. Understandably, they cut a few scenes out but they werent detrimental to the overall story and character development. Personally, it miffed me a little that Denji's union anthem was cut but I feel this was a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" decision made by the team. The anime industry has its pitfalls of insane crunch on the staff and animators and the manga-ka Tatsuki Fujimoto made that abundantly clear with Denji's union anthems.
Continuing on, the anime manages to tell the narrative in a cinematic and stylistic flair that Chainsaw Man is known for. Personally, I feel the colors could have been more saturated to fully drive the animal's presentation home. At the same time, the anime achieves a hybridization of 2D and 3D animation. The first episode is a banger introduction while clearly having bren the test bed of how the team should approach their hybridization animation techniques because episode 2 onward ended up being seamless and you would have to pause and rewind to see where the anime uses its 3D animation.
This stylistic quality manages to tell the story in a way that can be seen from independent and art house films. At times the anime felt like films such as Drive, Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs, just to name a few. Denji's arc going from a human who can barely do the things we take from granted to being able to do those things and feeling empty and wanted to do more is the foundational drive of the narrative. At first, it is off putting with Denji being the way he is, but that is the whole point. If you were someone in that position who is impoverished and barely making anything to get by and squatting in a shack with barely an education on being a person, you would probably feel similar to Denji. As he grows, so does the world around him and us viewers manage to see that through his perspective. Devils run amock and devil hunters are the folks who do the dirty work of taking out devils who threaten society. Not all devils are bad, and there are those who partake in the dirty work and sometimes even creating pacts with humans. What will you sacrifice to work with them? What will you give up and what will you gain by doing so? This is what makes Chainsaw Man so compelling where it asks these thought provoking questions which is what most mainstream, fan servicey, moe anime fails to do by barely having substance and gloss. Chainsaw Man is a masterpiece of an anime in 2023 in addition to being a masterpiece of a manga series. Give this a watch and make the judgement for yourself. You will not be disappointed either way.