Chainsaw Man First Impressions

“These guys had plenty already, so why’d they want even more? Am I the same?”

So this is another installment in the long running series, “Kora hasn’t read manga consistently in years, so he had no idea what he was in for with this premiere.” I know, that’s a pithy title, right? I’ve been hearing muttering about a Chainsaw Man adaptation for years now, but if you asked me what it was about, I wouldn’t be able to describe anything beyond the cover art. Now that I’ve watched the first episode, I’m still not entirely clear on what it’s about, but given the premiere is centered squarely on our lead, and less on world-building, that’s an understandable and not altogether problematic position to be in. Ultimately, Chainsaw Man’s opening episode was a wild ride, with a compelling lead in the driver’s seat. I won’t deny that I found the lack of world-building to be distracting, but I can see why this was the most anticipated show of the season.

The show follows Denji, a man who inherited his father’s debt to the yakuza and has spent years gradually paying it off by killing devils. He does so with the aid of a dog-like chainsaw devil whom he met on the day of his father’s funeral and named Pochita. This first episode never strays from Denji, so it’s unclear if the existence of devils is common knowledge or if hunting them is an ordinary occupation. Even setting aside the debt, Denji isn’t a particularly fortuitous anime protagonist. He rarely eats anything aside from plain bread, lives in a shack in the woods, has sold off some of his body parts, and even appears to be terminally ill. This would have the potential to come off as trying too hard to make viewers empathize with the character, but the show balances that by having Denji maintain modest aspirations. He never expresses an interest in revenge against the yakuza who are exploiting him, instead just wanting to experience basic comforts. I’ve seen series with similar premises and issues, but Chainsaw Man is a step above its competition. When I say the hot new show of the season blends the weirdness of Engage Kiss and Gleipnir, but strips that combination of most of its defects, I mean that in an extremely positive way.

This is the first MAPPA project I’ve watched since Jujutsu Kaisen’s first season, and it’s a hell of a way to check back in with the studio. The episode is visually stunning, and the audio even more so. If I were to pick studios that I felt could be trusted to integrate computer generated imagery into traditional animation without disrupting the immersion, MAPPA would easily make the short list. There is plenty of CG in this episode, but I never felt it was to the detriment of the presentation. As someone who hasn’t regularly kept up with Weekly Shonen Jump’s offerings in ages, it has been striking to observe their evolution via their anime adaptations. I noted this previously with series like The Promised Neverland and Jujutsu Kaisen, but Chainsaw Man has the distinction of being the bloodiest Jump adaptation I can recall seeing. I’m curious whether the original work was even gorier, because traditionally Jump adaptations tend to scale down the gruesome elements of their source material. The ED’s audio has been released, but wasn’t featured in this episode. Technically, MAPPA released it with a music video, but given the animation was taken entirely from this episode, those probably aren’t the visuals they’ll be going with. We do get to see the OP, however, and it is as insane and stylish as this show deserves. It’s more than a little reminiscent of the Jujutsu Kaisen openings, and that is high praise. I may even go so far as to say it surpasses those openings. I wouldn’t be surprised if they shared some of their production staff, aside from Hiyoshi Seko who is the screenwriter for both.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• The composer worked on a few of Masaaki Yuasa’s projects, including Ping Pong the Animation and Devilman Crybaby. I don’t remember his past work very well, but it appears to compliment Chainsaw Man’s stylings spectacularly.
• I alluded to last season’s Engage Kiss earlier on, and it is a little weird how the two shows serve as a distorted mirror of one another. Both have penniless male leads who forge a contract with a mysterious entity so they can battle demons, and both shows don’t bother explaining how their worlds work in the first episode. Admittedly, this comparison only serves to make Chainsaw Man look even better, because it thrives where Engage Kiss’ first episode flopped.
• I don’t know how to feel about the translation of akuma as ‘devil’. I suppose it works, but as someone who read D.Gray-man back in high school and still has a few tattered volumes of it, I think I’d prefer they just stuck with calling them akuma.
• This will probably be my last First Impressions review of the season since I’ll be out of town for a while. I was trying to be more discerning in the shows I sampled, but even so, I’m amazed that every single series I sampled was good.