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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Rent | 10 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:4558#1552] |
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Chainsaw Man is a series I’ll admit isn’t my typical cup of tea considering my murky interest nowadays with many shounen titles. Well known for its gory violence and dark humor, the series is set in a world where devils are capable of gaining power depending on the amount of fear humans have toward specific objects or concepts. Living in debt to the yakuza, a young man named Denji works as a Devil Hunter to pay off said debt using his chainsaw devil companion, Pochita, as his weapon. However when the yakuza attempt to make him into a sacrifice as part of a contract with a devil, Denji makes his own contract with Pochita to become a human-devil hybrid known as Chainsaw Man to slay them. Approached by a government-ran devil hunting agency called the Public Safety Division, their leader Makima persuades him to join their ranks and combat devil threats. On the surface, I’ll admit the premise of Chainsaw Man had me assuming it was aiming to be a dark and gritty action series relishing in its gory violence and the merciless actions of the various devils affecting the populace. Instead, the series is shown to have a bit more meat to its story with how its tone and setting are established. With humans and devils having a parasitic-like relationship between humans relying on contracts with them for some sort of purpose and devils feeding on the fear humans give off of their existence to become more powerful, this is reflected in how bleak and hopeless humanity’s existence in this world is through the members of the Public Safety Division. Each have different perceptions of their roles within the agency between those unaccustomed to fighting devils becoming a nervous mess breaking from the pressure and the more seasoned agents being so emotionally exhausted from losing those close to them that they become emotionally hardened or focus on some sort of quest of revenge as a means to continue mentally functioning within their line of work. These elements also carry over to how they shape Denji’s character throughout Chainsaw Man in a more believable way with the “idiot hero” character type used in a decent number of shounen titles. Being orphaned, stuck in debt, little social experience, and lacking a formal education due to his circumstances, the boy’s brash and simple character is more a result of these rough circumstances instead of just sticking the character type onto the lead character. These subversive elements also carry over into Denji’s desire for sexual gratification through his thoughts of Makima and finding out things are not as he would perceive when getting what he desires. On the visual side, Chainsaw Man is easily one of the more visually impressive titles I’ve seen for this year. Character designs have a good amount of visual detail and are on the more believable side as far as how they are drawn, something that appears to be deliberate from the show’s creators to give the series a realistic feel. The action scenes make for the visual highlight of the series with devil-on-devil or human-on-devil combat as they offer fluid movement and retain the manga’s intense and gory violence. The series highlight for me as far as action goes would probably be Denji’s final battle with the Katana Man in the final episode of the series. The only low point I have with the visuals is that a number of the devil designs are a bit on the generic side with their grotesque appearances. If there’s a major issue with Chainsaw Man, it largely comes from the fact that the series is adapted from ongoing source material. The series drops hints regarding a few characters having more going on with them beneath the surface, particularly with Makima’s actions and behavior. But these developments get further explored beyond the first five volumes of the manga series that the Chainsaw Man anime adapts and at least as of the time I write this review, news of a second anime season has yet to be announced. In short, I can see where the hype for Chainsaw Man comes in with depicting the conflict between humans and devils, as well as subverting some of the typical cliches of the shounen “idiot hero” with Denji’s character. This kind of series isn’t my cup of tea as far as what it offers up for humor and storytelling. But still as far as dark and violent action titles go, I’d at least recommend sampling the series if you like dabbling into those sorts of anime. Last updated Friday, December 30 2022. Created Friday, December 30 2022. | ||||||||
| Rent |
 Stretch
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[series:4558#628] | ||||||
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(Rent+ or Buy) (All episodes watched): This seemed fairly formulaic at first but I was enjoying it by the end of episode one. It did a good job of introducing Denji and making the case that we sympathize with him. He is trapped in crushing debt that he did nothing to deserve, has pretty much given up all hope of ever having a girlfriend, and fears he may have the same congenital disease as killed his mother. There is no explanation of what exactly 'Devils' are, or how they came about, but that didn't bother me once I got into Denji's story. Visuals are very good. It looks like Denji will be recruited by a special government Devil hunting outfit (again, formulaic), but apparently they won't treat him much better than the Yakuza did. I found that I cared about him and hope things will work out for the best for him, and thus strongly want to continue watching. One thing I didn't get was the comment that as Chainsaw Man, Denji is neither a human nor a Devil; so, what is he? In episode two Denji is introduced to the government Devil fighting organization where he'll be working. We get sort of mixed signals regarding whether this will be good for him or not; his superior, Makita (IIRC) is contemptuous of him, and he gets punched by the agent he'll be living with. Sometimes Denji fights back and sometimes he just takes it, because even being treated indifferently is an infinite improvement in comparison to his previous life. And he harbors fantasies of romance with Makita. The new characters seemed fairly colorful and interesting to me. Many shows have secret government bureaus that fight weird monsters of some sort, but in most the characters rely on sheer coolness and toughness without having much of a personality at all, which I find boring. Here the main characters tend to have faults and weaknesses, which makes it easier to relate to them. It seems as if some effort is being put into developing the plot and the characters of this anime. The fight scenes are pretty cool, too. In episode three Denji finds himself up against a bizarre Devil shaped like a vampire bat. Whereas in many shows I would have been left thinking that there was no way the tactics used by the protagonist would have worked in real life, here they seemed fairly plausible. Plausible, that is, if you have three chainsaws attached to your body. I pray this won't turn out to be a fight-of-the-week show, where the only question is 'which Devil do we take out this week?'. So far the signs are encouraging--characters continue to develop and the fights don't take up too much time. Denji is refreshingly simple minded; his ultimate goal is not to destroy all Devils so much as it is to cop a feel with a hot girl now and then. This makes him more convincing and maybe even more likable, I thought. He is easy to manipulate, as Makita has noticed. Not every hero is a strong-willed person with unblemished morals. In fact, as we see in episode six, some are truly jerks with little or no concern for anyone other than themselves. It seems that when recruiting Devil Hunters, you have to take what you can get. That's sort of refreshing; it would be tiresome if every character was morally exemplary in one way or another. Anyway, the team gets caught in a bizarre trap in episode six and must find a way out of it. The thought occured to me that Denji hasn't really made all that much use of his signature capability for a good while, but he definitely does in episode seven. I forget exactly why, but he pays a price for each time he employs his chainsaws. Afterwards the team holds a drinking party to celebrate their escape and soothe some differences, like members trying to kill each other when it seemed that all was lost. Again, I like the way that a good deal of time and effort is put into developing interesting and believable personalities for the characters; otherwise it would be hard to care if they win or lose, and thereby live or die. These people are far from perfect, which makes them more likable and easier to sympathize with, I think. And they have romantic ambitions which don't go nearly as smoothly as they do for most anime heroes and heroines. Also, visuals, like backgrounds and character designs, are unusually good. And the plot is anything but generic. Episode eight left me dumbfounded because all sorts of things which experience tells us shouldn't happen in a show about a team of heroes fighting a supernatural threat do. Basically, a number of seemingly important characters abruptly get killed. The message seems to be that Devil hunting is a very serious business which had better not be taken lightly, because Devils can be quite deadly. And the main conflict--the final boss, so to speak--has been identified, so there's reason to believe this won't just be a fight-of-the-week show. Episode nine clarifies things--sort of. One problem with shows that involve supernatural entities (like devils) is that all rules are off and all sorts of things that would normally be impossible become possible. Like Makita, who was apparently shot stone dead in episode eight but is somehow alive again in episode nine. Was this person revived by a friendly devil? Was the person who was killed actually some sort of double? Is the person dead but has been replaced by a devil that looks the same? There's no way to be sure. Nevertheless, the mystery is handled in a clever manner so that rather than becoming frustrated and losing interest I still want to find out just what is going on. Another interesting event in the episode is that Denji gets an unlikely savior. I like it when modest characters play some part rather than a few heroic ones determining everything; that's how it is in real life. Denji and Power are assigned a new 'trainer' who has an unconventional technique. I was uncomfortable with this; somehow it was hard to take this person seriously--he seems too good to be true. Where has he been up until now? Denji is critically important--the Devils are after him for some reason--yet he is trained in a manner that is so brutal that he might easily decide to defect--does that make sense?. It just seems like the old more power stereotype, i.e, the answer to any problem is to just train harder and get stronger than anyone else. The 4th Division is quickly reformed and along with a number of 'Fiends' working for some branch of the government it is soon back in action. It is confusing how many different agencies and criminal organizations are involved here; I can't keep track of them all. Aki makes a deal with the incarcerated 'Future Devil' which gives him the power to predict enemy actions and be two steps ahead of them. An arc which began with a devil-ish plot to strike directly at the devil fighters and wipe them out at a stroke ends with episode twelve. Needless to say the plot did not succeed, but the story as a whole is clearly nowhere near completion. For one thing, the infamous 'Gun Devil' has yet to appear. For another, it was kind of confusing. Why did Aki's opponent basically give up just when it had the upper hand? Why is Denji's 'heart' so valuable? Where did Devils come from and is there really any way to annihilate them? I wish I knew. So, a story which has a gritty, sometimes ugly (and thereby realistic) tone, with colorful (and sometimes ugly) characters, which was fun to watch. But I can't help worrying that when season two comes around in three months or so, I'll have little idea what's going on. Last updated Sunday, January 01 2023. Created Sunday, October 16 2022. | ||||||||
