Tatsuki Fujimoto’s action and horror manga “Chainsaw Man” has just released its first animated episode on October 11.
It will air weekly episodes every Tuesday on Crunchyroll, a popular streaming site for anime. The series will cover the beginning of part one, “The Public Safety Arc”, which is just under 100 chapters in its entirety.
To say the anime adaptation of this popular manga has been long awaited would be an understatement. Fans first heard the news of “Chainsaw Man” becoming an anime in December of 2020, and updates were scarce following the initial announcement. After almost two years and only one trailer to go off of, news on production began to come out in late August of 2022.
“Chainsaw Man” tells the story of Denji, who hunts devils with a demon dog named Pochita in an effort to pay back the enormous debt his father left him with.
Every devil’s power is dependent on how scared a person is of what the devil represents. For example, a tomato devil wouldn’t be as powerful as a spider devil, and a spider devil wouldn’t be as strong as a gun devil.
When Denji is left to die by his father’s debt collectors, Pochita, the chainsaw devil, sacrifices himself. This turns Denji into a human devil hybrid with the ability to turn various parts of himself into chainsaws.
The story begins after this, when a devil hunting agency takes Denji in and gives him the option to either work for them or be hunted like other devils.
After the conclusion of “The Public Safety Arc”, “Chainsaw Man” went on a hiatus. Similar to the anime, little to no news was released about when the manga would resume. That was until June of 2022, when part two, “The School Arc,” was announced to be released on July 13 of the same year.
Updates for part two are being released every Wednesday, and fans are beyond thrilled. But with the new release came a confession from Fujimoto that he was afraid how fans would react with where he was headed in part two.
After the conclusion of part one, fans went crazy coming up with complex theories for how part two would go, creating insanely in-depth character analyses, and essentially tearing the manga apart in an effort to uncover overlooked information while waiting for any news on the anime or manga.
Even now in part two, though Denji has only been present in two chapters, people are flocking to the internet to read into his every move and word. Which again, is not that much material considering he hasn’t played that big of a part in the “School Arc” so far.
Although media comprehension is an important skill to have when consuming any form of media, Fujimoto recognized the effects of reading too much into particular pieces and creating expectations that would not necessarily be satisfied. In a one-shot manga recently published by Fujimoto titled “Just Listen to the Song”, he expresses this concern.
“Just Listen to the Song” follows a nameless boy who wrote a song to confess his feelings for the girl he liked and posted it online. The song goes viral because everyone sees something different in it.
Some see ghosts, others claim it’s a political message, some say the meaning changes if you play it backwards, and so on.
Everyone derives a different meaning from the song, crowning the boy a genius for constructing such a complex work of art, and starts clamoring for more. He decided to release a second song telling everyone to “Just Listen to the Song”, and his fans completely lost interest.
The release of this one-shot was ironically met with the same reaction “Chainsaw Man” was, fans dissected every panel of it looking for a hidden meaning.
The meaning is simple, though, Fujimoto wants people to enjoy “Chainsaw Man” for what it is, not search for hidden nuances and complexities that even he didn’t take into account. Basically, it was a message to his fans to chill out, even though the plea fell on deaf ears.
“Chainsaw Man” is an amazing series and you can see how talented Fujimoto is through both his art and his storytelling. So yes, “Chainsaw Man” deserves all of the hype it is getting right now, and all of the attention it will continue to get as more anime episodes and manga chapters are released. However, as it gains more and more popularity, it’s important to not let the true essence of it get away.
At its core, “Chainsaw Man” is not particularly deep. That’s not to say it’s without its allegory—with action scenes that place emphasis on good vs. evil, there are always parallels that can be drawn to how justice is carried out in our society.
At its core, though, “Chainsaw Man” is just an action series with dark themes, dark humor, and amazing art. There are ways to appreciate it for what it is without making it into something that it’s not.