Review of Chainsaw Man

Upon finishing the last episode of this abomination, although I felt a hulking mass finally lift off my shoulders, my previously suppressed sense of sickness crept back up and magnified. Bile, combined with a feeling of existential dread, threatened to rise up my throat, and I thought that perhaps nihilism wasn't such a bad idea after all... We are started off with one of the worst first episodes ever created, containing one of the worst fight scenes in the history of battle shounen anime: a zombie mini-apocalypse puppeteered by a lazy “demon”, it doesn’t get lamer than that. The episode offers absolutely nothing intriguing or compellingto make the viewer curious about what’s to come, just a weak regurgitated sob story about a teenager who apparently castrated himself in an attempt to repay his crippling debt. Yet fully preserving his sex drive because that's needed for the target audience to self-insert while watching.

The male lead is a boring, uninteresting, goody-two shoes bitch who barely seems to have any self-worth or self-awareness. His naive indecisiveness over Makima’s personality not being very far off from bipolar disorder symptoms. You gotta love how she basically tells him "you have to be a slave to us your whole life otherwise we will eliminate you because we dont see you as human", and he just couldn't care less, doesn’t even spend a minute pondering his situation. For someone who started earnestly paying his father’s debt from such a young age, you would think he had some actual goals or motivations, but no.

It must seem great to all the fanboys how this show perpetuates the idea that the source of any male’s motivation is ultimately their sex drive and the sexualisation of women. Denji’s sexual frustrations and lack of goals are shoved in your face, cracking through the screen every single episode, as “jokes”, essentially 12-year-old humour. Its all extremely low effort, trite and unfunny.

Denji’s shallowness and lack of exploration are so glaringly obvious that they could blind you. Any negative implications that (arguably) existed as a result his behaviour (or worldview) are never realised or felt by him at any given point; therefore no character progression is provided. The perpetually happy, golden retriever energy in which he presents himself plainly confirms this.

To call the backstories “emotionally manipulative” would actually be a compliment in this case, since that requires a little more effort. Every obnoxiously inserted “tearjerker” in here is vapid, shallow and clichéd. The character relationships are more superficial than any anthrophobe's or solitudinarian's bond with Siri and his visual novel romantic interest. Yes, even when considering he's stuck in "his" basement 24/7.

I'm not sure if people consider this a “dark” shounen because of the sheer amount of blood splattered on screen (which barely even provides shock value since by ep 2 you’re already desensitised) or because of it’s “dark comedic genius” indirectly providing commentary on the depressive state of 21st century weeaboo hikikomori men and their uncontrollable slobbering over any piece of media that allows them to self-insert in order to wallow in their perversions…

Of course the second male lead has a crush on Makima because superficial ”romantic” rivalry is another very crucial theme for the target audience. Almost all of the 20+ year old women in this are creepy yet the viewers are meant to worship them, thinking of them as “strong women”, why? because they use their sexual appeal to manipulate others of course! We barely see them actually engage in any proper combat. The action scenes have no build up and are all devoid of any technique, logic, critical thinking or imagination. Denji simply undergoes his irresistibly hot CGI transformation to swing his chainsaws around like a schizo, because that’s every 16-year-old male’s idea of masculinity and being badass.

I had to put half of this show on 1.5x speed and then kept wondering whether I actually did because it was so bad that it felt excruciatingly slow. If you thought the pathetic resurrection shenanigans were going to stop at episode one, think again. This show possesses something much worse than plot armour, with the characters, including the antagonists continuing to come back to life in each & every fight (not counting the times when they received blood to heal).

The whole thing with the devils’ contracts is pretty questionable because I have to wonder; why would any devil agree to become a human’s slave and be locked up in some underground sewers only to get a little bite of skin once a month (or whatever else), when they can just be on the loose and devour as many plebeians as they wish? Clearly the humans here gain way more.

If none of that convinced you, then at least avoid it for the badly-integrated CGI.